Rome,
Italy. 27 October. In 1963 when Sir Alec
Douglas-Home briefly became British Prime Minister his predecessor Harold
Macmillan said: “Let me give you one piece of advice, young man. As long as you don’t invade Afghanistan you’ll
probably do fine”. Yesterday in Afghanistan
in a low-key ceremony the Americans handed Britain’s Camp Bastion over to
Afghan forces marking the end of US and UK-led combat operations in Helmand
Province the crucible of a thirteen year counterinsurgency campaign. At the peak of operations Joint Operating Base
Bastion supported some 14,000 troops and acted as the hub for over 100 forward
operating bases or FOBs. Bastion still
boasts a 2.2 mile (3.5km) long runway and a 20 mile (32kms) long
perimeter. What are the lessons and what
indeed does Afghanistan say about the nature of future conflict?
At
the political and strategic levels the campaign suffered from a lack of a consistent
political strategy worthy of the name.
Indeed, political leaders in Washington, London and across the coalition
too often imposed politics on a strategic campaign and simply lacked the strategic
patience to get an uncertain and unclear job done. There was also at times an appallingly low
level of strategic unity of effort and purpose between the NATO allies in
particular which manifested itself in the form or national caveats with too
many European governments trying to do the least possible.
At
the military-strategic and operational levels for much of the campaign American
and British military chiefs (in particular) failed to realise the sheer level
of investment – political, forces and resources- needed to transform governance,
justice, the Afghan economy and society.
Too often “can do” bore no relation to “must do”. Sadly, it was a military philosophy
necessarily reinforced by the incompetence of both the EU and UN missions.
US
forces dubbed their British counterparts “The Borrowers” at one point because
British personnel were simply not supplied by London with sufficient kit given
the scale of the mission over time, space and distance. Equally, for all the frustrations the Americans
had with their British counterparts the four English-speaking powers – US, UK,
Canada and Australia – were the core of operations where it really mattered in
southern and eastern Afghanistan.
This
group now forms an operational hub for future coalitions and the basis for an
informal Anglosphere. In no way wishing
to disrespect the many very brave men and women of other nations who gave their
lives on this campaign with the very partial exception of the French and a
couple of others trust in the political reliability of continental European
allies to be present at the point of contact with danger is now very low in
both Washington and London.
However,
the paradox of Afghanistan is precisely that such trust needs to be rebuilt.
That is why September’s NATO Wales Summit was indeed important because it
implied three forms of future conflict the tackling of which all reinforce the
lessons from the Afghanistan campaign. Specifically,
the vital need for strategic unity of effort and purpose as hybrid warfare drives
the shape and scope of the future multinational force.
Strategic ambiguous warfare:
Russia’s use of ambiguous warfare in Ukraine confirms the need for a
twenty-first century NATO concept of collective nuclear and conventional
deterrence that includes strategic reassurance and a layered, modernised
collective defence that must in turn include advanced deployable forces,
missile defence and cyber-defence. Such
a defence would also suggest the need to revisit the old Cold War REFORGER
concept whereby US reinforcements are flown in from Continental North America
to assist Europeans acting as effective first responders.
Super-insurgencies:
The campaign against Islamic State in
the Middle East suggests a new form of super-insurgency that will in and of
itself demand forces able to operate at distance as part of a sustained,
sustainable super counter-insurgency strategy.
Super-insurgencies will operate in the spaces between the emerging great
power blocs in the kind of ungoverned spaces which Islamic State is exploiting.
This is particularly the case in the Middle East where the entire
Sykes-Picot state structure is facing collapse and which is contiguous to
Europe. Combating such
super-insurgencies in extremely complicated political environments will also require
a clear understanding that strategy is designed first and foremost to support
the Middle Eastern state in its battle with the anti-state and thereafter to
shape the interests and choices of those states.
Strategic humanitarianism: As the Ebola crisis has so tragically
demonstrated the twenty-first century West acts in pursuit of a complex mix of
values and interests which merge desired strategic outcomes with humanitarian
imperatives. That in turn imposes on Western
armed forces the need to work effectively not just across government but with
civilian branches of foreign governments, international institutions such as
the UN and EU. It also suggests the need
for an efficient and effective method of engagement with different and
differing non-governmental communities across international civil society if
influence and effect is to be generated - the Comprehensive Approach.
US
Lt General H.R. McMaster was once asked why the US military won the 2003 Iraq
War but lost the peace. “There was
nothing to join up to”, he said. Therefore,
the future force must not only better join up the six domains of twenty-first
century warfare: air, sea, land, cyber, space and knowledge. It must also be better joined up with other
like-minded forces and indeed across government and the wider international
community. In short, joining up strategy,
purpose, effort, force and resource is NATO’s twenty-first century mission.
As
for Afghanistan it is true that the campaign has not achieved the unrealistic
goals set for it at the 2001 Bonn Conference.
And, it is certainly true that without the continuing commitment of the
US to back-stop Afghan forces out to 2024 Kabul could lose control again of
vast swathes of territory, particularly the Pushtu heartlands that bestride
the AfPak border. However, hindsight is
a wonderful thing. Back in November 2001
the US-led coalition was right to deny Al Qaeda the ungoverned space that was
Afghanistan from which to launch attacks on the West post-911. And, lumpy though it undoubtedly is progress
in re-building a form of civil society has been made in Afghanistan and
continued efforts MUST be supported both in Afghanistan and regionally.
Therefore,
far from turning political backs on Afghanistan which politicians in Europe did
some time ago now is the moment to systematically and scientifically consider
its many lessons.
Julian
Lindley-French