Does Afghanistan have enough combat troops to secure the country? Can Afghanistan be fixed merely by adding troops to conduct humanitarian missions? The Washington Post‘s William M. Arkin says yes to both questions. In an article titled “Afghanistan: America Wrong, Europe Right,” he argues the “hesitant Europeans” are right in withholding combat forces in Afghanistan, because more reconstruction is needed, not more troops. Arkin sums up his argument in a brief paragraph:
Arkin’s belief that combat troops are not needed in Afghanistan displays a woeful ignorance about the situation on the ground. Several of the arguments used by those opposed to the Iraq war to criticize the Bush administration and the military strategy there actually apply much better to Afghanistan. The primary criticism that applies here is force strength: there are too few troops on the ground to hold territory after it has been liberated from the Taliban, particularly in the south. Combat troops, and not provincial reconstruction teams, are needed to help hold ground to allow the PRTs do their work. I embedded with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in June of 2006 during the massive operation call Mountain Thrust, which was designed to clear Taliban forces from their strongholds in Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Helmand provinces. These operations were successful in killing over a thousand Taliban fighters and driving them from their redoubts, but only temporarily. There were not enough Afghan, Canadian, British, U.S., Dutch, and Danish forces to consolidate the successes. NATO and Afghan forces were forced to fight over the same territory during 2007. If Arkin believes more reconstruction troops and less trigger pullers are needed, does he believe the NATO allies such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, who have failed to deploy to the hot regions in the east, southeast, and south, would happily deploy non-combat troops into these dangerous regions? These countries are reluctant to deploy more troops in the north, let alone take on a more risky mission in the south. Arkin’s view contradicts everything learned over the past seven years of fighting small wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Security has to come first, then reconstruction. One other note, Arkin wrongly lumps all of the NATO force under the “European” umbrella, thus making this a USA vs. Europe issue. It isn’t. Arkin fails to note that several NATO allies have also called for an increase in combat forces. The deputy commander of the Canadian battle group called for a doubling of combat forces in Kandahar just last weekend. The Canadian and Dutch governments have been under enormous political pressure from their citizens as these countries have shouldered an inordinate amount of the fighting while larger allies shun combat for cushy peacekeeping gigs in the north.
