British resolve?

The Times leader is taking Obama to task for "dithering" over Afghanistan, contrasting his lack of action unfavourably with sentiments expressed by David Miliband, recently highlighted in a New York Times op-ed.

While Obama havers, torn between the Biden-inspired "counter-terrorism" approach and McChrystal's brave new world of "counter-insurgency", there is no such irresolution from the British foreign secretary. When asked if the mission needed substantially more troops, Miliband said, "What I think that you can see from the prime minister's strategy is that we believe in serious counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency is a counterterrorist strategy."

Fortified by these words, The Times is suggesting that the US president must show at least as much resolve as his British allies, although it cannot mean this literally. While the British commitment is to 500 extra troops, McChrystal is demanding another 40,000 – a slightly different proposition.

Miliband's "resolve", in fact, may be more a question of fools rushing in. Even more to the point, in the context of a solid phalanx of media pressure demanding more "boots on the ground", backed by ranks of politicised ex-generals, deploying another battlegroup was the easy option – a relatively cheap way of stilling the incessant clatter, taking a politically embarrassing issue off the front pages.

On the other hand, while the strategic focus has shifted to Pakistan, it is secretary Hillary Clinton who is in Islamabad, pledging an extra $243 million in aid, and seeking to stiffen the Pakistani government's resolve in the battle against the Taleban.

Yet, while a US secretary of state is trying to broker deals in a former British dominion, where the Raj once held sway, Miliband's latest contribution is to suggest that we walk away from formulating our own foreign policy, and throw in our lot with the European Union, his idea being "to take a lead in developing a strong European foreign policy".

Thus, while The New York Times applauds Miliband for being "candid", wishing for the same from Obama, the difference is between a powerless emissary, who can comment freely on issues for which he bears no responsibility, and an executive of a nation that exerts real power, and has to step up to the plate with real commitments to back any decisions made. Talk, as they say, is cheap – and you don't get much cheaper than Miliband's contribution.

Perversely, just as the British government had thought the issue "parked", we are seeing the glimmerings of a change in the political wind, this side of the pond. Veteran commentator on Pakistani and Afghan affairs, Christian Lamb, writes in The Spectator this week, declaring "more troops will just mean more targets". Then, in The Financial Times, even the great sage Max Hastings, is going "wobbly", questioning whether it is "sensible for the west to continue pushing military chips on to the table if each spin of the roulette wheel obstinately delivers a zero."

Gradually, it seems, wiser heads are drawing back from the strategic wisdom enunciated by the likes of The Sun, and beginning to think about the broader issues – perhaps starting a debate which has been notably absent in the UK.

Nowhere is this more welcome than in Pakistan itself, where the Daily Times is arguing for a "regional approach to Afghanistan", invoking a grouping almost unknown in the West, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This, says the paper, is "steadily becoming an important factor of emerging architecture of security, economy, culture, people-to-people contacts and cooperation in Asia".

A key player here is China, with which Pakistan has good relations, and which is exerting increasing influence in Afghanistan. But the paper also highlights the tension between Pakistan and India, pointing out that resolution of differences between these nations is an important part of the overall solution. The SCO, it believes, could be an important player in bringing the parties together.

Clearly, the EU is waking up to the potential of the SCO – or is being warned that it must take an interest - with a commentator last year noting that it offered "opportunities for positive cooperation". Previously, the Centre for European Reform made its pitch, noting multiple (and largely unsuccessful) EU initiatives in the area.

And therein lies the hidden cost of our membership of the European Union, and this government's determination to cede our policy-making responsibilities to Brussels. While we are a major player in Afghanistan – more so than any other European nation – news of contacts between David Miliband and this grouping on behalf of HMG is hard to find. On the wider diplomatic front, already we seem no longer to have a voice.

Thus, the initiative goes to, and stays with, the United States, our vassal status in the European Union robbing us of our voice and our initiative, leaving Mr Miliband to mouth inane platitudes to the New York Times, which the paper mistakes for "resolve".

Miliband's only "resolve" however, is to ensure that the once mighty Great Britain ends up with less power and influence than the independent state of Afghanistan, where we are singularly failing to make a mark.

COMMENT THREAD

On the streets of England?

There is an interesting analysis by Jeremy Page in The Times, on the Kabul attack on the UN hostel.

Page thinks the Haqqani Network is the most likely culprit, and the operation certainly seems to have their fingerprints. This, of course, is the organisation based in Miranshah, in North Waziristan, slated as "good Taleban" by the Pakistanis (a ridiculous description), meaning that their efforts are focused on Afghanistan rather than on creating mayhem in Pakistan.

What Page notes, though, is that the attackers in Kabul used similar tactics to their Pakistani counterparts, apparently disguising today's attackers with police uniforms, and using a combination of gunmen and suicide bombers. This points to a closer association between the "Afghan" and the "Pakistani" Taleban than rhetoric would have it.

This is precisely what we were asserting in our earlier piece, suggesting that the distinction was more apparent than real – a convenient artefact, which enable the Pakistani Army to go hunting Taleban in South Waziristan, leaving the northern agency untouched for the time being.

Interestingly, after writing yesterday that experts were suggesting that the operation in South Waziristan was too thinly resourced to achieve any lasting effect and, therefore, that it was "aiming to fail", we picked up and agency piece today, rehearsing the same issue.

It cites Sameer Lalwani, author of a new report for the New America Foundation, who says there are not enough Pakistani troops to challenge the extremists and building up such a strong force would require huge efforts. His estimate is that anything between 370,000 and 430,000 troops would be needed to take on the tribes and carry out an effective counterinsurgency operation in the region.

Yet The Christian Science Monitor quotes Lalwani, as saying "The most Pakistan could free up from its border with India would be 152,000 more. Cobbling together a force of the needed size would take two to five years." Thus, the growing suspicion is that the Pakistani action is largely "cosmetic".

With the massive bombing in Peshawar (pictured), on top of the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Max Fisher over at AtlanticWire blog pulls together a compendium of commentary from the region. One commentator puts the case for the fighting in the tribal areas spilling over into the rest of Pakistan, leading to a full-scale civil war and the demise of Pakistan as a state.

The instability in Pakistan, and the scale of the violence, somewhat relegates Afghanistan to the level of a second-order problem, but it raises the interesting question as to whether our attempts at "nation building" in Afghanistan are actually responsible for triggering the even bigger problem in Pakistan, where we could be witnessing the collapse of a nation.

From a domestic (UK) point of view, the growing instability in Pakistan has massive implications. Already under strain from Moslem immigration, much of it from Pakistan, with a growing and highly voluble fundamentalist faction, civil war – or something approaching it – this could trigger another wave of immigration, which would be hard to contain. Current EU rules would prevent us from excluding members of extended families, which collectively could number hundreds of thousands.

And, with regional passions high, we could see the various factions fight out their battles on British turf, the violence spilling over into the streets of England. Kabul and Peshawar may seem distant but this is the "global village" in practice, with faraway events, and policies of which we take little notice, coming back to haunt us in unpleasant and dangerous ways.

COMMENT THREAD

Unravelling the unknowable

The current offensive Pakistani offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area can be reported on many different levels, the simplest being that projected by some analysts as "the mother of all regional conflicts".

However, it has been said of Irish politics, that if you think you understand what is going on, you haven't been listening. If anybody thinks they know what is going on in this region, they need a very powerful hearing aid.

Our "take" is over on Defence of the Realm.

Leaving it a bit late

It is the New York Times that is now telling us that Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan. The process includes considering a plan advocated by vice president Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out al Qaeda there and in Pakistan.

This amounts to a "wholesale reconsideration" of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago, helpfully summarised by Newsweek. That strategy involved defeating the insurgents, preventing Al Qaeda from re-establishing a sanctuary and working to set up a democratic and effective government.

Crucially, it also involved training Afghan forces to take over from US troops and coaxing the international community to give more help. There was also an added element, focusing on Pakistan - "assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunities for the people of Pakistan."

In pursuit of the Afghan end of what became known as the AFPAK strategy, Obama agreed to despatch an additional 17,000 troops to the theatre and then another 4,000 to help train Afghan security forces. And it was that strategy which Gen McChrystal took as his brief, working to produce his "assessment" of how it should be implemented.

What has actually confused the issue is that McChrystal writes extensively about needing a new strategy. In fact, the strategy had already been determined. What he has offered is a "significant change in ... the way we think and operate."

As we know, the essence of this "significant change" is defined as "take, hold and build", the first step having been achieved in part with the 17,000 extra troops. But now the coalition forces have taken more territory, McChrystal finds – as he always would – that he needs more troops to hold it. The figure of 30-40,000 has been mentioned.

Now – or so it would seem – Obama is having to confront the inevitable consequence of a strategy defined last March, which effectively rubber-stamped what Bush had put in place, and is now having second thoughts. Thus do we learn that Obama met with his top advisers on 13 September to "begin chewing over the problem", only to find no consensus – in fact, quite the reverse. "There are a lot of competing views," said one official.

Major factors which have prompted the second thoughts, though, are deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and McChrystal's own report. However, there is view that Obama might just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to additional troops.

This notwithstanding, the debate seems to have polarised into two separate camps, on the one hand a counterinsurgency strategy – on which basis McChrystal has been working - and, on the other, a focus on counterterrorism. The latter is not dissimilar to that advocated by George F. Will known as "offshore balancing" which, as the New York Times observes, "would turn the administration's current theory on its head'.

Given that in May, Gen David D McKiernan was replaced by Gen McChrystal, who was empowered to carry out the "new" strategy, McChrystal can perhaps feel aggrieved by now having his assessment second-guessed at this late stage, after so much effort and energy has gone into responding to the original brief and the strategy has been partially implemented.

The "game changer" though appears to have been the Afghan presidential election, which has undermined the administration's confidence that it had a reliable partner in Karzai. As Bruce O. Riedel – the man who led the AFPAK strategy review – observes, "A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That's in doubt now."

Obama, says the NYT, now has to reconcile past statements and policy with his current situation. And, says former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, "The longer you wait, the harder it will be to reverse it." In fact, Obama has left it a bit late now to question the very basis on which McChrystal was working, when strategy issues should have been settled from the outset – as indeed they appeared to have been.

COMMENT THREAD

In the melting pot

The video records a conference organised by the Cato Institute on the general theme of whether the US should withdraw militarily from Afghanistan. In a number of taut, well-presented speeches, the arguments were powerfully put, giving much food for thought.

Unfortunately, Cato has not produced a transcript, but they do have a blog which adds some interesting comments. And the theme set by Cato is very much mirrored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It argues that the growing influence of fanatical Taleban-style groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan has thrown into doubt the value of an expanding war effort, setting out its stall for a reduced military presence.

There now seems to be emerging a clear divide between the foreign policy establishments on both sides of the Atlantic, and the military, the latter represented by US Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who is arguing for more troops and resources.

He is clearly supported by the British military establishment, with Bob Ainsworth speaking for them, rejecting "the proposition [that] a reduced military presence will lead to less Taleban success." Actually, that is not the issue. The strategic threat – which was used to legitimise out intervention – is al Qaeda and not the Taleban. The latter is regarded as a localised problem and, as the conflict develops, increasingly difficult to separate from Pashtun nationalism.

When it comes to al Qaeda, current strategic appreciations suggest that this is no longer a significant issue in Afghanistan and, when it comes to the use of military force, it was never the case that successes against this shadowy, decentralised group have been achieved by massed military might.

We are devoting our resources to fighting the wrong enemy, so the argument goes. Preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for those who would conduct external terrorist activity does not require a massive "nation-building" exercise in that country.

The drag of Afghanistan, however, was very much on the mind of Ainsworth, who delivered a long speech yesterday to the Centre for Defence Studies and the War Studies Department at King's College. In it, he referred to the forthcoming defence review, pointing up the need to "consider carefully how to apply military force in pursuit of national security."

Noting the obvious, that there are competing demands on the public purse, he went on to say that we will need to be better at spending the money we have, and more rigorous in prioritising what we spend it on. That much was picked up by The Daily Telegraph which also reported Ainsworth's observation that there did not seem to be much public appetite for increased defence spending.

He was, he said, looking for "a serious and wide-ranging national defence debate," inviting the Conservatives and the Liberals Democrats to take part, arguing that defence of the nation should always come before party politics. "We have to be able to reach beyond our political differences and put the interests of the country first," he said.

That is unlikely to happen though, and nor does it look as if we are going to get a serious debate. After Osborne's intervention yesterday he is now accused in The Times of "posturing" on defence cuts. Even a Tory frontbencher was driven to complain that Osborne had been "amateurish". It is very hard to disagree. With virtually every aspect of defence in the melting pot, we need more serious input than what he had to offer.

COMMENT THREAD

The bigger picture

The claque of foreign correspondent rallying to the support of Stephen Farrell over his kidnap and rescue in Afghanistan are fulsome in their praise of him – and each other. Many of them have written books displaying their prowess all with the benefit of "being there", offering their pearls of wisdom and expertise.

To a man (and woman) though, they all seem to make a mistake common to purveyors of their trade. As journalists, they share the belief that grasp of a tiny piece of the story – seen from their own limited perspectives – necessarily qualify them to hold forth on the bigger picture, and to draw conclusions from them.

What they are doing, most often, is confusing the process of reporting – writing up a coherent story on the basis of facts they have gathered – with analysis: gathering facts from diverse sources, assessing their relative merits and reliability, assembling them and, drawing conclusions and, where possible, extrapolating possible outcomes.

Although the processes seem similar, they are not. Reporters usually come to the story with a pre-conceived notion of what they want to write, and then collect "facts" to stand up the story and to illustrate it. The narrative is invariably worked out in advance.

The analyst, however, comes from the opposite direction. When the process is done properly, there is neither narrative nor a pre-conceived idea. Instead, the facts are collected, sifted, weighed up, assembled and reviewed, from which the narrative emerges. As its best, it is a journey of discovery, with the conclusions sometimes coming as a surprise, even to their authors.

The often unrecognised difference leads to some of the underlying tensions between the "claque" who claim greater authority from their experiences of "being there" - even if they so often can only claim to have seen a small snapshot and very often do not understand the importance of what they have seen, or how it fits into the bigger picture – and the more distant observers who have a wider range of data with which to work and benefit from the detachment that only time and distance can bring.

In some respects, "being there" is a handicap to an analyst. The impressions and power of individual events overwhelm the observers, distorting their perceptions and obscuring less prominent issues that may, in fact, have greater importance. And even then, no one can "be there" in the sense that they are everywhere. They may be in the country but many events happen at a different place and time, when the "on-the-spot" observer can be tens or even hundreds of miles away.

All this serves as a weighty prelude to today's lead item in the Booker column, where Booker – without having left his study in Somerset - can pronounce with authority on events in distant Afghanistan and conclude that our intervention there is doomed.

To come to that conclusion, Booker has assembled diverse sources of information – almost none of which have been gleaned from the UK claque of foreign correspondents. These serve to illustrate a theme we have rehearsed on the blog and DOTR – that the Taleban derive much of their funding not from the oft-quoted sources, but from British and other Western taxpayers. And not only are we in large part paying for the Taleban to kill our troops, our aid programme even supplies much of the material used to make the explosives used to kill them.

A little vignette of this system, writes Booker, is the sad story of the Kajaki dam in northern Helmand. A year ago the MoD was crowing over the success of British troops in ensuring the safe delivery of a new US turbine to this Russian-built hydro-electric power station.

More than 2,000 troops were involved in the operation, and we still guard the plant as it generates its pitifully small amount of electricity (16 megawatts). But – and this we learnt from Michael Yon and other sources (even the reviled Associated Press) - the power lines and sub-stations which feed it to several towns are controlled by the Taleban, who then charge money to customers for allowing the juice to reach them.

This has been discussed and analysed on diverse blogs but, while the MSM has offered derring-do accounts of operations in the Kajaki area, none of our ranks of gifted correspondents have seen fit to highlight what is in fact a major scandal.

And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal. Embattled British troops, in a scarcely defensible outpost in Kajaki, are fighting and dying to protect an asset which provides financial resources to the enemy they are fighting.

That alone, though, is but one strand of the "bigger picture" that Booker examines. A far larger source of Taleban income, he writes, are the protection rackets by which they siphon off a significant part of the billions of dollars we and other Western countries pour into Afghanistan to keep troops supplied and to provide new infrastructure, such as schools and roads, under a multiplicity of aid programmes.

Much of the thousands of tons of supplies needed each month by our forces, for instance, is trucked up from Pakistan by private firms contracted to the MoD. But the price we pay is inflated by as much as 20 percent to include protection money paid by contractors to the Taleban to ensure that convoys are not attacked en route.

This has been rehearsed by local sources, not least here, with sums mentioned of up to £350 for each supply truck, to allow safe passage.

Although occasionally mentioned in passing by our ranks of gifted correspondents, none have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal.

And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal. In order to supply British troops, at the end of a long and fragile logistics train, the British government is paying huge sums to the enemy which our troops are fighting, just so that they will allow through the supplies which our troops need to survive.

Then, from the US Time magazine, Booker picks up the detail of how reconstruction money is skimmed off to pay the Taleban not to destroy projects, thus funding the bombs and weapons that are used to kill British troops. He quotes Maj-Gen Michael Flynn, a senior intelligence officer with ISAF, saying there is now "more money going into the pockets of local leaders (of the insurgency) from [these] criminal activities than there is from narcotics".

And while this information was freely published in a US magazine, of our ranks of gifted correspondents, none have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal. And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal.

Then Booker picks up the fact that US and UK aid agencies are supplying thousands of tons of free fertiliser to Afghan famers, the very material which the Taleban are using to make bombs with which to kill British soldiers. Yet this information comes not from our ranks of gifted correspondents, none of whom have ever sought to make a big issue of what is in fact a major scandal.

And any which way you put it, this is a major scandal, that British and US taxpayers are subsidising the materials used by the Taleban to kill and maim our troops.

Furthermore, having not reported any of the items in isolation – with any degree of emphasis (or at all) – none of our ranks of gifted correspondents have put these disparate issues together – the essence of analysis. But, if you do, we find that the Taleban is drawing healthy amounts of finance from electricity, from our supply chain and from the reconstruction programme, topped up with free supplies of material that they can use for their bombs.

But it does not stop there. Much has been made of the opium control programme but Booker picks up on the scarce-reported fact that the price (and availability) of opium is linked to the price of wheat. When the price of wheat is high, opium production falls off, which means that British interests are best served by keeping the price of wheat high.

But, with an unerring instinct for doing the wrong things, our government is using our money to give free wheat seed to Afghan farmers, the effect of which will be to drive down the price of wheat and thus increase opium production.

The one consolation – and it is a poor one – is that this makes very little difference to the finances of local insurgents (although the high-level Taleban do benefit). They levy "taxes" on whatever crops the farmers grow, whether it is wheat or opium – a process facilitated by the British Army which spends so much of its time and resource on aimless patrolling and next to no resource on targeting the extortion rackets.

Putting all that together is part of the process of analysis. You don't have to "be there", to do it – and its is interesting that none of those brilliant reporters who have so famously been there, and thus pronounce their superiority, have thought to do this simple exercise.

Yet it is the analysis which allows the conclusions, and which gives them their authority. Finance is the lifeblood of any insurgency and, to crack it, you have to deal with the source. Further, there are few better ways of winning the "hearts and minds" of the local population than to bear down on extortion rackets. On the other hand, failure to do so will weaken any counter-insurgency effort.

Thus, as long as the British and other western taxpayers are being forced to subsidise the Taleban to kill and maim British soldiers, and supply them the materials to make their bombs, and then to undermine the opium control programme, our intervention in Afghanistan is indeed doomed. And the more money we throw at the problem, the worse it will get.

It would thus be so refreshing if our journalistic claque could crawl out of their comfort zone and look at the bigger picture. They need to stop bleating about needing "more resources" in Afghanistan. We are already giving the Taleban far too much money. We should not be agitating to give them more.

COMMENT THREAD

The EU say "yes"

As the witness accounts continue to pour in from diverse sources all attesting to the sham of the Afghan election, in leaps the European Union Election Observation Mission (EUEOM) to declare the holding of elections "a victory for the Afghan people".

"These were the first Afghan-led elections, and the process seems at this stage to have been largely positive," the EUEOM statement said. Philippe Morillon, a former French general heading the EU mission, then insisted that they were "fair". "Generally what we have observed was considered by our observers with our methodology good and fair," he added.

This, of course, is part of an organisation which believes that a "no" response to a referendum on the constitutional Lisbon treaty is simply a signal to have another referendum, making sure the people get it "right" the next time round, as it is seeking to do in Ireland in just over a month's time.

But, in lending its voice of approval to the charade – where the "people" are crying out for the world to take notice of their fake election - the EU is simply joining the chorus of voices from the international "community", governments and institutions such as Nato which have invested far too much in the process to allow it to fail.

Thus, when by any normal measure the election should be declared void, in the fullness of time, Karzai or some other malleable puppet will be found to have garnered enough votes him to be installed in the dung heap of the presidential palace in Kabul, guarded by phalanxes of stern-faced CIA agents.

The "community" will roll over and declare the result "valid" – allowing some mild reservations to be expressed about "irregularities", which will be judged not sufficiently grave as to have affected the result - and the charade will continue on to its pre-ordained conclusion.

Some clues as to the real agenda are given in an interesting article in the Asia Times, which discusses the "seven steps to peace" in Afghanistan, the first step being to "engage the Taleban and bring them into the mainstream political process."

Actually, this article sees this as the first step of the process but, while there may be a seven-stage process, we have already seen two of them rolled out. The first was the sham "surge", orchestrated by Obama with the maximum of publicity – of which Operation Panther's Claw was part - in a showy but wholly ineffective and ultimately futile attempt to "pacify" the country ahead of the presidential elections which were held on Thursday.

The second step was the high profile decision to build up the Afghani security forces – army and police – except that this is as much a sham as was the surge. Numbers may be increased – although only nominally, never matching the desertion rate – but the forces will never be properly equipped, trained or organised.

For one, the last thing the Western powers – and indeed the puppet government in Kabul – want is a powerful, effective army that can, on the lines of Pakistan, form a separate power base for ambitious generals, and challenge the status quo.

Then, there is always a fear that the Kabul government might break away and use the army to further its territorial squabbles, fighting neighbouring Pakistan – as it has done even in the recent past – rather than the Taleban. Crucially, also, no one wants an army that is actually capable of taking on and defeating the next government of Afghanistan – the Taleban.

The third step was, of course, to allow the elections to proceed, then to declare a "success" come what may, with the installation of a puppet president, preparatory to the next step, which is already in its opening stages – mounting high-level negotiations with the Taleban.

In this fourth step, attempts will be made to prevail upon the Taleban to adopt a more "moderate" face, ridding itself of its obvious "hard liners", who must be either sidelined, retired or murdered. The services of the CIA and its armed UAVs, or the special forces, may be offered to help remove any obstacles to "peace".

Thus re-branded, the Taleban will be invited to join – in fact, take over – the government in Kabul, fortified by generous bribes masquerading as international aid. Part of the deal will be an agreement that the Taleban should scale back its attacks on coalition forces and the more obvious outrages such as suicide bombing, sufficient to give the appearance of normality.

Step five will then involve coalition forces ceasing aggressive operations, handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan forces who, with an unofficial cease-fire in place, will appear to be coping.

Foreign troops will progressively retreat to their bases and assume the passive and largely ineffective role of training the Afghan security forces – those that have not already deserted to the Taleban. Large numbers of coalition forces, including British and US troops, can then be withdrawn, leaving token forces and a strong air force presence, as a deterrent to a premature Taleban take-over.

The sixth step probably brings us to the next presidential elections, in five years time, when the rebranded Taleban will be allowed to win the elections and take overt power.

The Western powers will pay them another shed-load of money and implement the seventh and final step - declaring a victory for "democracy" and an all but complete withdrawal. That will leave the Taleban free to take its country back into the Stone Age of Islamic fundamentalism, unmolested as long as it is not too blatant in running its terrorist training camps.

The success of these seven steps will, of course, rely on us being able to bribe the Pashtuns and their staying bribed – something which is difficult to achieve. But with the glittering prize of a nation on offer, with a multi-billion dowry and a promise of more to come, the "moderates" may be prevailed upon to slaughter their own hard-liners and play ball.

Failing that, we are in for a torrid time. We have neither the will nor the capability effectively to prosecute the war and install a stable, democratic state. Neither has the United States, nor any of our coalition partners.

Initially, there was probably a belief that we could prevail, but as the stalemate took hold, the realisation dawned that the war was unwinnable – at least, at the piece the Western powers were prepared to pay.

Thus, the name of the game is to devise an exit strategy, dressed up as a victory, which will hold long enough for no one to notice – or care – that it was a defeat. Here, having already practiced in Iraq, the British are ahead of the game and, no doubt, we are acquainting the Americans with our skills at "repositioning".

In the meantime, the military must hold the line, dying in sufficient numbers to make the whole process look credible, without losing so many that it will force a precipitate departure - keeping the population distracted with its tales of derring do, its parades and its funerals.

When the whole shebang is over, the Army can go back to playing with its toys without getting them bent, the RAF will not have to let grubby little brown jobs into its wokkas without them wiping their feet first, and the admirals can take turns driving their new (and only) boat, while listening to their iPods. The service chiefs can then resume planning their pretend army (which they never really stopped doing) to fight their future wars, freed from the inconvenience of an enemy which does not play by the rules.

Our masters may then dream of their bright, shiny European Rapid Reaction Force, garlanded with rings of stars and, this time, they may succeed. The EU may well get the last laugh, when it say "yes".

Pic: Elmar Brok MEP, then Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the EU Parliament, and Abdullah Abdullah, then Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, signing the EU-Afghanistan Partnership Treaty in Strasbourg, 16 November 2005.

COMMENT THREAD

Thought for the day

I actually laughed. Now I must go and mow the lawn ... haven't done it for three weeks, then I'll get down to some serious blogging.

Meanwhile, they're thinking about a new Taliban chief in Pakistan. Rantburg considers the options.

On a sombre note, Tom Newton Dunn reports on the Jackal deaths. "Three hero Paras killed in Afghanistan were in a lightly-armoured Jackal vehicle" – while the Ridgebacks gather dust.

Quite.

COMMENT THREAD

A certain weariness

With the newspapers still full of news and comment on Afghanistan, no-one can now complain that it is the "forgotten war" any more. That we now have a "debate" though has not proved an unalloyed blessing – we are still in "more heat than light" territory.

It is to Matthew Parris, therefore, that we turn for an alternative view, specifically to his column in The Times.

Something of a curate's egg writer (good in parts), he retains the capacity to surprise - as he does today, having established a reputation as a convinced "outer" - telling us that, "Our forces will have to stay in Afghanistan. But Britain must resist being sucked deeper and deeper into this disaster."

Parris takes the view that it is time to stop striking poses over Afghanistan. Effectively, he says, the politicians are perfectly right to act as a check on the generals' ambitions – there are too many examples in history where giving the military its head has led to disaster. And, in any case, to hand them a blank cheque, "forgets that military chiefs are humans, not gods, and will always ask for more." Thus, he writes:

No extra troops. No extra money. Less for Whitehall-directed aid projects and more for smaller, independent charities. A clipping of Nato/Isaf’s ever-multiplying wings. No wild talk about gender equality and human rights. A scaling-down of ambitions for state-building and democracy. This is the sober new direction. There is no possibility of our hopes for a new Afghan dispensation taking shape, but no reason why the existing dispensation, intelligently propped, should collapse.

Put more prosaically, we should cut our cloth according to our means, instead of getting caught up in the hysteria of the moment, pledging more and more blood and wealth, in a never-ending spiral that could drain our resources and our patience.

Injecting a practical note – where so many people, including this writer, have difficulty in defining why we are there and what we are supposed to do – the one thing about which there is clarity, in principle, is that we should be training and equipping the Afghan security forces.

At a certain level – as was the case in Iraq – they should be able to continue the fight, more or less unaided, and we can depart with honour. We are not there to win the "war" – that is for the Afghanis to do for themselves.

That said, there is a certain weariness with the way the debate is going – bogged down in ever-increasing idolatry for the Saintly Dannatt and ever more arcane discussions about how many helicopters can dance on the tip of a needle (or is it a pin?).

Squaring the circle, the one thing the British are not doing, to any great extent, is training up the Afghan Air Force, a much needed capacity that, without which, the host government has no more chance of prevailing than we do without air power.

Under the circumstances, the most logical way to resolve the current helicopter shortfall is to plan a phased withdrawal of all British helicopters from theatre. They should be replaced progressively with Mi-8 MTVs – aka Mi-17s - (pictured), forming new RAF squadrons, which could then continue operations. Other "Russian" models could also be purchased.

Into these new squadrons should gradually be absorbed Afghani aircrew, with the aircraft increasingly serviced by indigenous ground crew, until such time as the Afghanis are reliably capable of autonomous operations.

That a start could be made very quickly, in terms of obtaining machines, is evident from a recent US initiative, in obtaining a number of helicopters for the Pakistani Army.

When they arrived, Gen David Petraeus, praised the speed with which the delivery was made. "Within two or three weeks of request from them for helicopter support, we wheeled four Mi-17s just refurbished out of the back of a Colt," he said. That just goes to show what can be done when there is a will.

The US was also able to provide "training assistance" and, as an example of what it is doing for the Afghans, it is leasing aircraft to train USAF pilots, who in turn can pass down their skills.

We, of course, have our own capabilities. With five Mi-17s already operated by the RAF in Afghanistan, plus the models at Boscombe Down in the UK, we already have a cadre of trained pilots who could train many more. And there are plenty of machines available on lease, with skilled ex-military flying instructors, who would be more than happy to speed up the process.

The point of this is that it would demonstrate a very clear commitment to an exit plan, with very visible and easily measurable metrics. When the squadrons are trained and fully operational, we leave – barring technical advisors.

There is a world of difference between fighting an endless war in a foreign land, co-opting the host nation forces in the fight, and actively and clearly setting out to train the host nation to fight for its own objectives – against a declared and honourable exit strategy.

Of this, one suspects, even Matthew Parris might approve – although we suspect that the RAF might rather resent being deprived of the opportunity of obtaining some more "toys" of their own, which is what much of this helicopter spat is all about. But then at least they would not have to wear out their own fleet so, possibly, everybody should be happy.

Somehow, though, there has to be a worm in the apple. It can't be that easy.

COMMENT THREAD

Losing us the war

One worries about some of the so-called experts called upon to pronounce on various aspects of the Afghani campaign, as to whether they really know what they are talking about.

One such who gives rise to not a little concern is Professor Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, who is sternly holding forth on the objectives of the Taleban today in The Times.

He tells us, very much in line with British commanders in the field, that Taliban commanders have made Helmand their key objective, then going on to inform us that "new recruits to their units flow in from Pakistan, but they are not well trained or well led."

Undoubtedly, it is the case that many Taleban recruits are poorly trained and led, but as a sweeping statement this sits ill with the observations from Jason Burke in The Guardian. He recently reported a "new peril for British troops in Afghanistan" telling us that the Taleban "have learned modern warfare." Imagination, greater firepower and strengthening of Taliban's ideological bond, he wrote, leaves the coalition facing higher casualty rates.

More recently, we read Sean Rayment's excellent account in The Sunday Telegraph of last week's attack on soldiers of the 2nd Bn, The Rifles, killing five of their number and seriously injuring three more.

According to Rayment, the Rifles patrol first triggered an IED as they entered an alleyway inside a small hamlet. One soldier died instantly and seven others were seriously wounded. Following standard drills, the patrol withdrew to a more secure location so that the wounded could be treated. And there, waiting for them was a massive IED which detonated killing another three soldiers, one of whom had been wounded in the first blast.

Meanwhile, a group of four soldiers who had left the area to secure a helicopter landing site discovered another IED which had been laid to destroy the approaching helicopters. Without the ability to defuse the bomb, the troops had no choice but to order the helicopter to land inside their base, leading to further delays in getting aid to the wounded. One other died on the operating table after he had been airlifted to Camp Bastion. And en route to their base, two more IEDs were discovered. Fortunately neither detonated.

Rayment asserts that the Taleban has predicted the troops' movements and had laid their devices where they would have their most devastating effect – tactics which demonstrate a high degree of planning and some sophistication. But then, as Burke notes in his piece, the tactics of the coalition forces have been studied closely – and the Taleban commanders have learned from them and adjusted their tactics.

Professor Michael Clarke, therefore, does not seem to have the measure of the Taleban in his own analysis and nor would it be advisable to rely on him for his declaration that, while IEDs can be devastatingly effective even against the most heavily armoured vehicles, "they are the technique of the terrorist; not decisive and not the weapon that will win a campaign."

Would that Clarke had read today's newspapers, listened to the radio and watched television. The two bombs which caused such havoc and misery to the men of The 2nd Rifles have reverberated around the world, the effect here magnified by the intensive media publicity.

Clarke, in fact, is terribly, terribly wrong. The IED is a "war winner", not as a military weapon but as a propaganda tool, weakening the resolve of the home front and the politicians as they see the coffins, one after the other, make their final journeys from the aircraft bearing them from foreign fields.

Yet, Clarke is the "expert". It is he who gets to pontificate in The Times and, no doubt, has the ear of the powerful and the mighty. And it is the quality of analyses such as his that is going to lose us the war.

COMMENT THREAD

The home front

It is essential to stop Afghanistan becoming an "incubator for terrorism" and a launchpad for attacks on the UK and other countries says David Miliband.

The badlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan – that border area – have been used to launch terrible attacks, not just on the United States, but on Britain as well. Thus, he says, "We know that until we can ensure there is a modicum of stability and security provided by Afghan forces for their own people, we are not going to be able to be secure in our own country."

The thought is echoed by The Times which affirms that, "The campaign in Afghanistan is crucial," adding that, "It has been advanced by British servicemen of extraordinary courage and real heroism."

"The failures in the campaign have been on the home front: the British Government has been dilatory and uncertain in making the case for the war," it goes on to say. "Nor has it provided sufficient armoured vehicles for the troops already there or adequate and consistent numbers of troops on the ground to establish the security that is the foundation for building a new nation in Afghanistan."

More on Defence of the Realm

An unwinnable war?

The Daily Mail has deployed its heavy weapon on the Afghan front today, rolling out Max Hastings to tell us, "Why Lance-Corporal Elson and our other 175 soldiers killed in an unwinnable war deserve better from this country."

L/Cpl Elson is the last but one, of seven, soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan within a week – killed by an IED. At least Hastings cuts though the cant, remarking that it is hard to find much heroic about being blown up by a mine, the fate of so many soldiers in Helmand.

IEDs, he writes, impact significantly upon morale. Most men cheerfully take their chances in firefights, where superior skills and equipment usually enable them to prevail. But it is a wretched business, to march or ride daily through the Afghan countryside, knowing that at any moment one might be blown to eternity without the smallest chance of averting fate.

Unfortunately, Hastings then repeats the corrosive manta which is so beloved of the MoD and much of the military, telling is that "No armoured vehicle is proof against mines containing up to 500lb of explosive, such as the Taliban now employ." He is actually wrong there, which is why we've put up that famous picture of the destroyed Cougar again. That is reputed to have taken a hit from a 300lb charge – and the crew walked away with very light injuries.

That is not, of course, 500lb, but the weight comparison is misleading, as the really big bombs the Taleban are using are made from agricultural fertiliser – helpfully provided by the Western aid agencies. As such, they have only about a third of the explosive force of TNT and other military explosives – of the type that hit the Cougar. Not always, but even the big bombs are survivable.

As much to the point, although some big bombs are used, they are still the exception – they are difficult to get to site, very difficult to bury and expose the emplacers to a much higher risk of detection. More typical is this example recounted by a "Gateshead soldier" Corporal Dan Henderson.

He was on a routine patrol in Helmand Province when he noticed a suspicious bump in a road frequently used by food and medical supply vehicles. And after inspecting the mound, a 20-kilo roadside bomb was discovered – "the kind which has claimed the lives of scores of our troops."

With no time to spare, Cpl Henderson and his unit sealed off the area, close to the town of Musa Qala, before calling in bomb disposal experts to destroy the device. "It was 20 kilos of homemade explosive – the sort of thing that could do some serious damage," said Henderson. "Even a heavily-armed vehicle could still be knocked a few feet in the air."

He then added: "An unarmed vehicle wouldn't stand a chance. A British convoy was due to move across the route that it happened to be on. The Taliban obviously had their own information."

Even at that level, a Viking would be ripped apart if the bomb was detonated in the right place, but a Mastiff, a Ridgeback – or any other vehicle designed on the same principles – would shrug it off. There may, nevertheless, be bombs that will defeat these protected vehicles, although none have killed anyone in a Mastiff yet.

But to argue that we should not use protected vehicles because "bigger bombs" can defeat them is akin to arguing that soldiers should not wear bullet-proof body armour because it will not defeat RPGs. Similarly, we can dispense with tanks and go to war on bicycles because even the heaviest tank can be knocked out by an anti-tank missile.

To my mind, these are the sort of issues we should be discussing – how to bring protected mobility into theatre so as to restore freedom of movement to the battlefield, not only for mounted operations but also for foot patrols.

Here, we see a link to a BBC TV report from Ian Pannell, describing how the Taleban use multiple IEDs to slow down the advance of British troops, who have to use hand-held nine detectors to clear the way before they can move into positions. This gives time for the Taleban to assemble their forces to mount an attack.


Yet, in their Bush War, the Rhodesians had the Pookie mine detection vehicle (illustrated above) – small enough and light enough to lead the way down tracks, to clear the way for advancing troops. Surely, thirty years on, it is not beyond the capability of our procurement geniuses in the MoD to come up with something similar?

The trouble is – as with the Clegg – we do not get that sort of debate. Clegg, for instance, talks about wanting more troops for the "take and hold" (aka "shake 'n' bake") strategy, without any discussion of the possibility that this might be fundamentally flawed, and can never work.

So it is with Hastings. There is a long whinge in which – in passing – he refers to Major Patrick Little, and cites his comment that, "All is not well in the British Army." But he does not develop the theme. Instead, he withdraws to his comfort zone by declaring that, "There is still supreme professionalism in the British Army, together with a cheerful willingness to accept the risks of a soldier's calling."

There is a growing climate of unrest and anger that they [the troops] are called upon to fight a costly war with inadequate resources, no Afghan gratitude and cynical indifference from the British Government, then declares the Hasting, deciding that "this Labour Government sent the British Army to fight and die in Afghanistan, and bears an absolute responsibility."

For all that, Hasting is "not one of those who favours quitting immediately." Afghanistan's collapse into anarchy could have a grave effect on Pakistan, he says. But, he avers, "the security situation is deteriorating, and those in charge are muddling. We must do Afghanistan differently or admit defeat and come home."

Yea ... alright Mr Hasting. We must do it differently. But how would you do it? Come to think of it Mr Clegg, how would you do it - apart from more European co-operation?

COMMENT THREAD

Corporate self-deception

After last week's piece, Booker returns to the subject of Afghanistan with a vengeance this week, taking on the man signing himself "Praetorian", claiming to be the Operations Officer for 3 Commando Brigade which has just returned from Helmand.

It was last week that Booker argued that "our military humiliation in Afghanistan is a scandal - and the cover-up is an even greater one," under a strap line, "The under-funded British Army is being forced to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan that it made in Iraq". Praetorian did not so much disagree as simply, in lofty style, dismiss Booker's arguments outright, stating that he did not recognise the situation that Booker described, claiming he was "out-of-date and ill-informed."

We are not at all ill-disposed to argument and discussion, although a rebuttal was denied us when The Sunday Telegraph published two lengthy comments from Praetorian but failed to post either of the comments I had placed on the site. What is not acceptable though is this lofty dismissal, claiming with the authority of rank and position and on the basis of supposed experience, a situation that simply does not accord with the facts.

Thus it was that Praetorian had it that we – the British military mission - had secured the five major population centres in Helmand and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams had "exploited this security to deliver tangible, effective and sustainable reconstruction and development." During our tour, the man added, "you could count the number of security incidents in these areas on the fingers of your hands."

That tour, as we recounted in a separate post, started on 8 October and, within days of taking over, in just one of those "major population centres" – Lashkar Gah – the Brigade was pitched into battle with major Taleban forces attempting to take over the provincial capital. With US and Canadian forces called to assist, an additional 1400 Afghani troops were also drafted in and it took ten days of continuous fighting before victory was declared.

During the rest of the tour, noted by Booker in today's piece, we were able to identify 69 further "security incidents" in just that one "major population centre", set out in another post. Not all of these were centred on the town itself and some were recorded as part of ongoing operations by the Brigade. But the detail indisputably gives the lie to the impression Praetorian sought to give – that the areas under British control were secure. The evidence shows that they are far from secure.

Booker also shows, with an account of the threat to RAF Chinooks which provide a vital support role, just how tenuous is the grip of British forces in the province, the details rehearsed in our post and also in The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

Far from offering the security to the Afghanis that Praetorian claims, the British forces have major problems of their own. We are, basically, one major incident away from a monumental domestic crisis of confidence which could castrate the military effort and lead to the termination of our participation in the ISAF operation.

Whether Praetorian is lying, or not, is moot. He certainly labours under the handicap of working for an overarching organisation, the MoD, which lies freely, an organisation which distorts, prevaricates, bullies and "spins" to the extent that, amongst those who know, it has lost any confidence or trust.

Further, within the military, fresh from its debacle in Iraq, we see a dysfunctional organisation, unable to come to terms with its own failings – or even the fact that it has failed – locked in a state of denial from which its seems unable to escape. This is an organisation that has lost more credibility that it can begin to imagine.

Most likely though, Praetorian sufferers from the very problem of which he accuses us – he is ill-informed. But there is much more to it than that, helpfully elucidated in a paper carried by Small Wars Journal reproduced from the Marine Corps Gazette.

Analysing the pressures on the military to come up with optimistic assessments of its own performance, author Bing West makes the following observations:

In sum, garbage and lies reside inside any large organisation in the form of optimistic forecasting. A healthy human mind accentuates the positive. Thus, we stress that a particular surgery has a 90 percent success rate, rather than to admit there's a 10 percent chance of dying. We hold onto our losses when the stock market goes down, because selling is an admission of failure, even when it's the rational choice.

Similarly, it's especially tough for a commander to objectively assess his own battlespace. Hence there is a need in the Afghanistan war for an independent risk assessor who can expertly calculate the rough odds of succeeding in the mission of nation building versus the size of the US force commitment.

In his paper, Bing discusses various metrics used in different conflicts to assess performance and likelihood of success, demonstrating that flawed choices, or incomplete data, can distort perceptions – either way. Praetorian, within the "bubble" that he inhabits, no doubt has his own set of metrics in which he is entirely confident, allowing him to make his assertions in the sincere belief that he is right.

However, the problem in an insurgency – certainly in the "guerrilla warfare" phases - is that incidents tend to be widely dispersed in space and time. Most areas, most of the time, will be free from violence. Furthermore, the enemy is highly adaptive, changing tactics rapidly in response to security force action, altering the tempo at will, in accordance with counterinsurgency activity.

This we have seen in Iraq and see again in Afghanistan, where the response to a failure to tackle the security forces head-on led to guerrilla tactics, relying on the ambush, the bomb and harrying indirect fire – plus the tactics of the urban guerrilla, which include extortion, murder, kidnap and intimidation within the civilian population.

Thus, the only way one can get a "feel" for which way the insurgency is going is to assess the totality of available information. And because the metrics are constantly changing, there us a need for intuition as well as hard analysis. Since so much depends on public sentiment, both here and in Afghanistan, that is as valid a tool as any.

Nevertheless, one metric alone speaks of failure. During March, the number of roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan for the first time exceeded the number in Iraq, with 361 bombing incidents recorded, compared with 343 in Iraq. That, in itself, tells you that the Taleban is active and had not lost its core strength.

On the other hand, a metric often quoted in support of claims of "success" is the "fact" that seven million school-age Afghans were this year studying in 12,600 schools across the country. When compared with about one million six years ago, this is seen as a real sign of progress.

However, it is still the case that roughly half of Afghan children - mostly girls - are still not in school. And the overall situation is extremely fragile. For instance, we are told that insurgent attacks and crime killed around 70 Afghan teachers, students and education workers over the past year, and wounded another 140. Violence linked to the insurgency also stopped 240,000 students from attending school, mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

There have also been multiple attacks on schools over the past years with scores of buildings burnt down or blown up, as well as students and teachers threatened. About 480 schools are still closed because of insecurity and, although the government reopened nearly 100 this year, keeping them – and other public facilities - open is becoming a major part of the battle.

The latest in this battle came on Friday 1 May, when the Taleban blew up a health clinic in the Lakan area of Khost province, eastern Afghanistan. Four rooms were completely destroyed. In another incident, a high school serving over 1,300 students was dynamited in Nadir Shahkot district of the same province. Seven out of 18 classrooms were destroyed. This is the third school to be destroyed in the past month in that district.

Another metric – one favoured by the media – is the death rate for coalition soldiers. Here, there is less than good news. On Friday also, five soldiers were killed – three American and two Latvians. They were attacked with small arms and RPGs at an outpost in Kunar province near the border with Pakistan. About 30 troops were stationed at the outpost and several others were wounded.

Two days before that, a German soldier was killed and nine were injured in two separate attacks in the northern Kunduz province, where the army is suffering more frequent insurgent assaults. The soldier who died was killed in a roadside ambush, with four injured. The other five were injured in a suicide bombing – but only slightly. They were in a Dingo MRAP.

German officials now admit, "It's become more difficult there [in Kunduz] than it was four years ago," and, as if to emphasise this, on Friday evening there was another roadside bomb in the same province, damaging a police vehicle. Fortunately no police were killed or wounded.

Earlier, on 18 April, a Taliban commander was killed after he led a raid on a police checkpoint in the province. Police returned fire, killing the rebel commander. In the neighbouring Baghlan province on 27 April - where it is normally peaceful - Taleban fighters stormed the Birka district headquarters and set it on fire.

That week, on the Tuesday, a British soldier was killed north east of Gereshk by an explosion, while patrolling on foot. Additionally, two civilians were killed and seven others, including five children, were wounded when a rocket hit a residential area in the Lashkar Gah district – another of those "security incidents" that isn't supposed to be happening.

These "security incidents" are breaking out with increasing frequency. Also that week the US military battled with Taleban southwest of Kabul in the strategic province of Logar - the site of a multi-billion-dollar Chinese project to develop a copper mine. Ten insurgents were killed.

Elsewhere, in the British sector of Helmand, on the same day, Afghan and US forces killed five Taleban in Nahr Surkh district. The joint force had been attacked from several compounds while on a reconnaissance patrol, and had returned fire.

Through such metrics, the impression gained is of a country on the edge. But most disturbing of all is a recent report in The Independent indicating that the flood of aid continues to be misspent. Apart from anything else, 40 percent of the international aid budget is returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries

Far from improving the lot of Afghanistan, conspicuous spending by the elites and foreign workers is increasing the disparity of wealth. And, with the rural aid programme stalled, displaced workers and refugees are pouring into the city, a dispossessed, poverty-stricken mass that is a natural recruitment ground for the Taleban. Not for nothing was Kabul referred to in a recent Channel 4 documentary variously as a "city under siege" and a "city waiting for the Taleban".

The problem is that no one seem to be able to get a grip, thus leaving the "bubble dwellers" like Praetorian mouthing their mantras and relying on their flawed metrics, convincing themselves – but few others – that they are doing a marvellous job.

In a repeat of Iraq, we can see them still doing it as the British Army packs up its bags and leaves Afghanistan for the last time, defeated again but refusing to accept it. Unable to confront the reality of the situations it has to deal with, it prefers the cosy world of make-believe where the word "defeat" has been abolished.

COMMENT THREAD

The escape from kiddies korner

So it is done. "What we are trying to do is combine the measures, militarily and civilian," says Gordon Brown in today's statement, something which gets close to joined-up government, even if it is many thousands of miles away.

With Nick Clegg reminding the House that, "Public support for the conflict is under strain", the statement trailed the publication of the document "UK policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the way forward", setting out the clearest statement yet of where we stand in this troubled corner of the world.

A mere 32-pages including the covers, the relatively modest length belies its depth. Its main claim to fame is to offer a seam-free approach to a unified policy which encompasses both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Looking for clues as to a change of direction, however, what stands out is the remarkably candid appraisal of the current status. Thus states the document:

The security situation in Afghanistan remains serious, particularly in the south and east. Insurgents are unable to defeat international forces directly, or Afghan forces where they have international support.

But the insurgents' switch to asymmetric attacks (against which international and Afghan forces can only provide the population with a certain degree of protection); their access to havens across the border in Pakistan; and the combination of poverty, lack of good governance, weak rule of law, lack of progress on reconciliation and social and economic development, and perception of widespread corruption, mean that the insurgency has not been delivered a decisive blow.

The local population therefore lacks sufficient confidence actively to back the legitimate government against the insurgency. Without an improvement in security, particularly in the south and east, sustainable progress in Afghanistan will remain difficult; and what progress there has been so far will be put at risk – as will wider regional stability, and our own national security.

But, while what few headlines we have so far seen concentrate on the temporary boost in troop levels – with 700 more to be deployed to provide security during the forthcoming presidential elections - of much more long-term importance is this little nugget buried in the strategy:

We will support the Afghan government by investing in stronger markets that will promote an entrepreneurial business culture. To assist the vast majority of Afghans who live in rural areas, we will increase our support to agriculture and rural development, including transport to market, and support for access to international markets for agricultural exports.

In particular, Helmand province, with its abundant natural resources, has the potential to be a centre of agricultural production and growth for Afghanistan. To help realise this potential, we will invest £68m over the next four years in agriculture, rural enterprise development and infrastructure.

Current projects include: a major road-building programme linking Lashkar Gah to Garmsir, Nad-e-Ali and Gereshk; the refurbishment of the Gereshk hydropower plant (as part of a wider programme to double electricity production in 2009-10); and agri-business infrastructure in Lashkar Gah (funded by the US).

This might by some be considered as coming under the category "too little, too late" but, given that these developments will be almost completely ignored by our kiddies korner media (to say nothing of the increasingly trivial korner of the political blogosphere), it is remarkable that there has been any progress here at all. Crucially, we then see this:

We will also continue to support the Afghan government to deliver basic services, such as health and education, by providing direct support to pay the salaries of teachers and other key workers. In parallel, we will build the government's capacity to collect taxes so that, over the longer term, it can begin to reduce its reliance on international support.

The first sentence is interesting. For too long, there has been money spent on rapid impact projects, building schools for the photo-opportunities they afford, only for them to remain unused or not fully exploited because the communities cannot afford to pay teachers and central government is unable to come up with the cash.

As to the last sentence, this is possibly the most important issue of all. As long as Karzai gains most of his income from international aid, his greatest concern will be keeping his foreign paymasters on-side. The welfare of his people is of secondary concern. Thus, if Afghanistan is to develop, there must be a transition from external dependence, building up a strong tax base so that the central government becomes dependent on its own population.

There is much to be said for the premise "no taxation without representation" but less is heard of the very obvious requirement that, for there to be representative government, there must be taxation. When people are taxed by government, they tend to take an interest in politics. Where there is no tax, there is no nation.

Such issues are, in fact, those which are the focus of policy-makers behind the scenes. They are grown-up issues upon which resolution will depend on whether the visible military adventure is successful. That is where the work lies, and where we must see progress, and it where our attention should be focused. Boring though it is, one crucial metric of success is how many Afghanis fill in a tax return.

That we see a strategy document addressing this is very much a start. That we are seeing recognised the vital role of agricultural development, and the road-building programme is also an improvement. We are further on than we were, and that is something.

That leaves the strategy document to make a statement of the "bleedin' obvious". The challenges facing Afghanistan and Pakistan are substantial and complex, it says. "They require a multi-stranded approach, covering security, building more effective and accountable governance, and promoting development in an often insecure environment."

Pace Nick Clegg and his observation that, "Public support for the conflict is under strain", what is also required is a better understanding by our own public of the issues involved, the priorities and the nature of progress.

On this we cannot expect any guidance from our kiddies korner media, or from our gifted MoD. But, for the grown-ups, the strategy document is directly accessible. The beauty of the internet is that we no longer have to rely on spoon-feeding from the media. We can read things for ourselves and make up our own minds. If we do not, we only have ourselves to blame.

COMMENT THREAD

A strategy in the wings

Afghanistan is not Iraq – and Gordon Brown is not Tony Blair. There was undoubtedly a concerted attempt to keep the Iraqi insurgency out of the news in the run-up to the elections, first in 2004 and then again in 2005 – a classic example of news management – but, despite our charges to the contrary, that does not appear to be the case with Afghanistan.

At a time when the whole issue of the Afghani conflict - and the spill-over into Pakistan – is especially sensitive (or would be if the kiddies korner media could lift its horizons above the prattle), the prime minister is today to make a statement on what is termed the AF/PAK strategy.

This will come after the entertainment break – aka PMQs, which will occupy the commentariat no end – following which the strategy document, produced by the Cabinet Officer rather than the MoD, will be published. On financial grounds alone, it will be of some importance. The cost of UK military operations in Afghanistan increased from £750m in 2006-07, to £1.5bn in 2007-08, and to £2.6bn in 2008-09. At the same time, development and stabilisation spending increased from £154m in 2006-07, to £166m in 2007-08, and to £207m in 2008-09.

In times of financial stringency, when public expenditure cuts are inevitable, it becomes even more important to determine whether our money is being well spent. With the massive escalation of costs in the military adventure – for what appears to be very little result – we need to know why annual spending has gone up from £1.5bn to £2.6bn in the space of one year.

We will follow the statement after PMQs and then post a detailed analysis as soon as we can, but this leaves questions hanging as to the conduct of the public information campaign so far. If we are getting open disclosure and discussion at the top level, but nothing coming up from the bottom, that seems to point to a blockage somewhere in between.

Here, the finger points to the MoD, where its anally retentive news management policy seems to be soaring to new heights (if that is the correct expression).

One can nevertheless understand the MoD's reticence to open the books. Used to demanding – and getting – a blank cheque to fund its unique brand of incompetence, fuelled by a breathtaking arrogance that has to be experienced to be believed, it must come as a rude shock that anyone has had the temerity to produce so bold a thing as a strategy – much less publish it so that the great unwashed can read it. We await the statement with interest.

(The pic shows an Afghan-Pakistan border post ... rather appropriate, we thought.)

COMMENT THREAD