Eleven years ago this week, on Oct. 7, 2001, our forces began a long fight against Al Qaeda. They also embarked on a mission to help the people of Afghanistan defend their country and determine their destiny. Every nation represented at this table has sacrificed for that cause over the past decade. We in the United States have lost 2,000 of our precious sons and daughters, nations of this coalition have lost hundreds, and the Afghans have lost thousands. We must pledge that our fallen shall not have died in vain. Rather, with our shared goal so close at hand, we must realize the noble purpose to which they dedicated their last full measure. That will take patience, courage, and commitment…in the face of a resilient enemy…and in the face of those who may try to criticize or divide us.
The fact is that we have made significant progress in Afghanistan. Last month, U.S. and ISAF forces concluded the surge of forces to the fight. For the United States, sending an additional 33,000 men and women to war was no easy decision. But it was the right one. It was the courageous one. And it has made a decisive difference.
As a result, the Taliban could not regain lost ground in 2011 and lost still more in 2012. Compared to a year ago, more Afghans are secure, and conflict is farther away from population centers. Coalition casualties have decreased by 30 percent from last year, a trend that emerged months before we fully recovered surge forces. At the same time, the number of Afghan security forces has grown to about 350,000, and that larger force has maintained recruitment and retention. Those forces have taken the lead for complex operations and they are suffering far more casualties than coalition forces -- a further sign of Afghans’ willingness to sacrifice for their own future. Fighting together, ISAF and Afghan forces have delivered serious blows to the enemy and have brought about a turning point in the campaign.
When conditions supported recovering surge forces, we brought them home, but there are 68,000 Americans are still fighting alongside their coalition and Afghan partners. We are also bringing mountains of equipment home from theater -- a huge logistical challenge. The unsung heroes of this chapter in the war are the planners, the logisticians, the drivers, the pilots, and the support team who are carrying out such a daunting task.
With the surge complete, we’ve reached a critical moment for this Alliance and for this war. Let me mention three keys to our future success: first, strong coalition partnership with Afghan forces; second, effective response to insider attacks; and third, careful evolution of the campaign, including key leadership changes I’d like to share with you.
Strong Coalition Partnership with Afghan Forces
First, strong coalition partnership with Afghan forces. We’ve invested a great deal in helping to develop Afghan security forces. Now we must do everything we can to help them successfully transition and take the lead for security throughout all of Afghanistan as planned next year.
The Security Force Assistance Team model is a game-changing approach to fielding an effective fighting force, according to commanders on the ground. We must build the capabilities of Afghan Army and police, and ensure they have the embedded trainers and mentors needed to assist them as they take security lead. I urge each of your nations to help eliminate the shortfall of 58 Security Force Assistance Teams by the November Force Generation Conference. The U.S. has filled a disproportionate number of these teams in recent years, and I ask for your help to fill the gap.
We must also review the force generation process as we work to fill requirements for trainers and advisors. The recurring six-month force generation cycle generates uncertainty in our plans and relationships. It is time to consider developing longer-term relationships between ISAF members and Afghan training institutions and field units to reduce that uncertainty and to enhance our training relationships.
Effective Response to Insider Attacks
Second, we must have an effective response to insider attacks. Insider attacks are a tragic part of every war. In this war, they are occurring with greater frequency than in the past, and they’ve attracted more media attention in recent months. Whatever motivates these attacks, the enemy intends to use them to undermine mutual trust and cohesion, driving a wedge between us and our Afghan partners. We can only deny the enemy its objective by countering these attacks with all of our strength -- and fortifying our resolve with the signs of our progress. General Allen just briefed what we are doing alongside our Afghan partners to diminish and defeat this threat, including:
-- Enhanced training, both pre-deployment and in the field, that emphasizes cultural awareness, counter-intelligence techniques, vigilance, and real-time information sharing;
-- Adaptive levels of partnering based on continuous reviews of threat information;
-- Expansion of vetting and counter-intelligence operations, by our own and by our Afghan partners;
- “Constant emphasis on effective use of “Guardian Angels” and other protective measures to deter attackers and to ensure the ability to respond quickly when an attack begins; and
-- Continuous efforts to analyze attack patterns in order to develop even stronger methods of prevention.
I believe that we can and will counter this threat with these efforts and with the full partnership of Minister of Defense Mohammedi and Minister of Interior Patang. Fellow Ministers, what tests us -- what tests this Alliance -- is not the problem of insider attacks. What tests us is how we respond to them. Still deeper partnerships, still deeper integration, those are the responses that will frustrate the enemy’s designs to capitalize on this problem.
Careful Campaign Evolution and Key Leadership Changes
Third, the evolution of the campaign and key leadership changes. A key challenge ISAF faces over the next two years is to plan and resource for the mid-2013 milestone and for the end of transition in December 2014. We must meet that challenge together. Here are the new realities we will see in the coming year:
-- We will operate from fewer bases;
-- The net flow of material will turn outbound from Afghanistan;
-- U.S. enabler support for ISAF partners will continue but the scope of support will change as transition proceeds and as we jointly reduce our forces;
-- As Afghan forces assume full responsibility, ISAF forces will continue stepping back.
While we have yet to determine the necessary size and composition of the force that will remain in Afghanistan after 2014, NATO’s presence should be steadfast and effective. We must follow through on the commitments made by our political leaders at the Chicago Summit, including implementation of the Lisbon framework.
A clear signal of U.S. commitment to this Alliance and to the mission in Afghanistan is the quality of our NATO ISAF leadership team. General Allen has commanded ISAF through a crucial period, and his outstanding leadership has put the campaign on a path to success.
He oversaw the war at the height of its combat strength and he oversaw the surge recovery. Under his leadership, ISAF has put relentless pressure on the enemy and built up Afghan security forces, which are now demonstrating their readiness to take the security lead.
As he completes his tour of duty, I am pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General Allen to succeed Admiral Jim Stavridis as Commander, U.S. European Command, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
General Allen is well known to all of you, and if confirmed his experience as COMISAF will be instrumental in his broader role and in leading NATO’s oversight of the mission in Afghanistan.
President Obama will nominate General Joseph Dunford, United States Marine Corps, to succeed General Allen as Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and Commander, ISAF. General Dunford currently serves as the Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, and he is an exceptionally gifted strategic leader. He is combat-tested. He believes in ISAF and if confirmed will be an extraordinary leader of it.
Lastly, let me take this opportunity to thank Admiral Stavridis for his service. I have trusted his wise counsel and I’ve depended on his ability to sustain our military and political relationships in Brussels and across this region. Jim will be here until the spring, so we’ll have much more to say about his leadership and service in the coming months.
I thank my fellow ministers for your continued support and consultations with these great leaders, and I am confident that this new NATO ISAF leadership team will carry forward the momentum we’ve achieved together.
All of us need to leave this meeting with the same talking points that reflect reality and unity:
1. We are succeeding in implementing the campaign plan agreed to in Chicago;
2. Whatever tactics the enemy throws at us -- IEDs, insider attacks, car bombs -- we will not allow those tactics to divide us from our Afghan partners or divert us from our mission.
3. "In Together -- Out Together”: ISAF will complete our mission to help Afghanistan secure and govern itself.
We, the defense leaders of this historic Alliance, preserve a legacy of mutual determination and sacrifice in the face of danger and difficulty. By uniting our powers to finish the long fight in Afghanistan, we will honor that legacy and pass it intact to future generations in the North Atlantic area and beyond.
We’ve come too far, we’ve fought too many battles, we’ve spilled too much blood, not to finish the job.”
A cutback on NATO military operations alongside Afghan forces in response to a surge of insider attacks that have left more than 50 foreign troops dead is a "temporary" response to current threats, a coalition spokesman said on Tuesday.
"To be honest, we see this as a temporary and prudent response to current threat levels from the U.S. film and insider attacks," said Colonel Tom Collins, a senior spokesman for NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.
"Isaf may be confident that its revised security strategy is finally working, but the insurgent threat will not be removed by force alone," he said in the report, seen by The Independent on Sunday. "The Taliban will not enter into a meaningful dialogue if there is no feasible political strategy within which they can participate... An alternative solution [offers] a less centralised political structure that better reflects the ethnic make-up of the country, the already established economic hubs and the regional interest of the Taliban, who might then be encouraged towards a political settlement."
The plan divides Afghanistan into eight zones, based around the "economic hubs" of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Jalalabad, Khost and Bamyan. The areas would be administered by a council representing different ethnic groups and overseen by one or more foreign countries. Mr Ellwood also claims that creating a post of prime minister, with many of the "disproportionate" powers currently held by the President, would help allay concerns over the man who has been in charge of the country for almost eight years.
But Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said: "Splitting the country into such regions will result in the empowerment of what we have started calling 'local (or regional) power brokers' and what was known as 'warlords' before, whose misrule between 1992 and 1996 caused the rise of the Taliban in the first place."
So without commenting on Dunford’s military competence, we can still ask one quite obvious question:
Why is General Dunford being nominated as the COMISAF when, as the story concedes (in paragraph seven), “Gen. Dunford has served in Iraq but has never served a tour of duty in Afghanistan.”
Really? Ten years in Afghanistan, and almost three years after the President’s West Point speech, and we can’t find a commander who has served in Afghanistan before? Is the cupboard really that empty? As one who made the Iraq to Afghanistan transition, I can assure you that it’s neither simple, nor easy. Afghanistan is exponentially more complex—and harder.
As the Taliban ramped up its attacks in eastern Afghanistan’s Wardak province this spring, the Afghan soldiers here came to a painful conclusion: They were not ready to take on the fight alone. But it was too late — the Americans were not coming back.
The transition of Combat Outpost Conlon to Afghan control — marked by a flag-raising ceremony and a visit from top U.S. military brass — was an early milestone in the NATO drawdown that will continue through 2014.
But Afghan officials worry that the problems plaguing Conlon could be replicated across the country as the U.S. military hands over authority, leaving 200,000 Afghan soldiers without the equipment or wherewithal to defeat a resilient enemy.
“The Americans left too early, and they left without giving us what we need,” said Lt. Col. Hamidullah Kohdamany, the battalion commander.
U.S. officials say that after years of depending on Americans for tactical and logistical support, Afghan soldiers often struggle to adapt to a sudden surge in responsibility.
“They’ve just never had to rely on their own leaders. They’ve always had the Americans for a backstop,” said Lt. Col. Clint Cox, the head of the U.S. military advisory team that oversees Afghan units in Wardak province. “It’s going to take some time. It’s just like with children — sometimes it takes a hard lesson for them to learn.”
About halfway between Kabul and Kunduz lies the Salang Pass. NATO trucks have no option but to drive through this tunnel, but, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet, it is a deathtrap. Built in 1964 by the Soviets, it was designed to handle 1,000 vehicles a day. During the recent closure of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, some 10,000 tried to jostle their way through every 24 hours. Some get stalled for days. Carbon monoxide, and gas fumes, fill the air; if one of the fuel trucks were to blow, the others would all go with it. Exactly that happened in 1982, and, reportedly, some 900 Russians and Afghans were killed.
As if fumes and fire weren't enough, the tunnel is also plagued by water and ice. The ceiling and walls were never completed, so they leak. As winter snows come, the tunnel becomes one gigantic mud bath, opening onto a cliff-side ice rink on the other side. Given the extreme weather conditions and the fact that the road carries about four times the weight that a highway is supposed to withstand, it is unlikely that any pavement that Turkey or the United States or any of its allies could lay would last. The patching that ISAF did in 2010 is already long gone. Even so, ISAF is discussing repaving at least part of the road, at the cost of more than $60 million.
The first trucks supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan crossed the border from Pakistan on Thursday after Islamabad ended a seven-month blockade.
Pakistan closed overland routes for NATO convoys into its war-torn neighbour after a botched US air raid in November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at a border post, plunging ties between the "war on terror" allies to a new low.
Following a bitter seven-month standoff, Islamabad agreed to reopen the routes on Tuesday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said sorry for the air strike deaths.
Three trucks loaded with mineral water were cleared to enter Afghanistan from the Chaman border post in Pakistan's remote province of Baluchistan on Thursday, Chaman district customs official Abdul Razaq Imran told AFP.
Turkey said on Sunday Syria had shot down its military aircraft in international airspace on Friday without warning and declared it would formally consult its NATO allies on a reaction.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking some 48 hours after the jet was shot down near both countries' sea borders, told state broadcaster TRT the plane had been clearly marked as Turkish and dismissed Syria's earlier statement it had not known the plane belonged to Turkey.
He said the downed jet was unarmed and had been on a solo mission to test domestic radar systems and that the flight had no connection to the crisis in neighboring Syria.
"Our plane was shot at a distance of 13 sea miles from Syria's border in international airspace," Davutoglu said.
"According to the radar images, our plane lost contact with headquarters after it was hit and because the pilot lost control, it crashed into Syrian waters after making abnormal movements," he said.
"Throughout this entire period no warning was made to our plane."
Where there's a war—or a potential war—there's a game. But not a great game when it comes to these humanitarian-military interventions. There's not much challenge in a Libya game where Gaddafi's legions could be whipped by five Teletubbies in a clown car, or a Kosovo title where the Serbian player's goal is to hide from NATO bombs. These regimes tend to be tigers against fighting unarmed civilians and lambs when real armies show up for a rumble. But Syria may be different. It has 500,000 regular and reserve troops, 5000 tanks, and experience fighting the Israelis on and off for 60 years. Knowing that the most they can expect from the Sunni Muslim rebels is being dragged through the streets while their adoring populace spits on their corpses (or maybe a war crimes trial in the Hague) is a powerful incentive for Assad and the ruling Alawite minority to fight to the end. An arsenal of the latest Russian anti-tank and ant-aircraft missiles gives them ample means to do so.
Strangely enough, there is a computer wargame on a Western invasion of Syria. Released in 2007, Combat Mission: Shock Force was the next generation of Combat Mission, the 1999 tactical World War II game. Some gamers were incredulous that the battlefield has shifted from French villages and the Russian steppe to Syria. Because, c'mon, like NATO is really going to invade Syria? It takes a dictator who bombards his own cities to make life imitate art.
CMSF postulates a NATO invasion force (your choice of a U.S. Army Stryker brigade, U.S. Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and various forces from Britain, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands) versus a hodgepodge of Syrian forces ranging from elite Republican Guards and commandos to ill-trained irregulars. The scenario is regime change in response to Syrian support for terrorism, but that's just window-dressing for a highly-detailed, turn-based tactical wargame best enjoyed by the sort of people who are into discovering the optimum tactical formation for a mechanized infantry battalion assaulting a fortified village. The game sports an impressive amount of order-of-battle research and modeling—or at least plausible estimates—of the effectiveness of modern weapons. Those expecting an American blitzkrieg like Desert Storm will discover that Russian anti-tank missiles—the ones that punched holes in advanced Israeli Merkava tanks in the 2006 Lebanon war—will do very bad things to a lightly armored Stryker troop carrier. For all the talk of boots on the ground, the NATO forces are strong on high-tech vehicles but short on the infantry needed to clear RPG-armed defenders from villages and trenches. Add in stiff penalties for taking NATO casualties, or for NATO inflicting collateral damage on civilian targets, then getting rid of Assad is no cakewalk if his army decides to fight.
World leaders weary of war will tackle Afghanistan's post-conflict future — from funding for security forces to upcoming elections — when the NATO summit opens Sunday.
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will huddle on the sidelines of the summit or an hour-long meeting. Their talks are expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.
Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, paving the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.
Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.
Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the U.S. applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out in protest of what he claimed was an impossible level of corruption.
Protesters gathering in Chicago for the NATO summit were gearing up for their largest demonstration Sunday, when thousands are expected to march from a downtown park to the lakeside convention center where President Barack Obama and dozens of other world leaders will meet.
Several hundred demonstrators wound through the city's streets for hours Saturday, testing police who used bicycles to barricade off streets and horseback officers to coax them in different directions. Increasingly tense clashes between protesters and police resulted in 18 arrests, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said.
Most of Saturday's demonstrations remained relatively small and peaceful, including one march to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff. But a later march stretched for hours as protesters zigzagged back and forth through downtown, some decrying terrorism-related charges leveled against three young men earlier in the day.
Organizers pledged a larger crowd when protesters from the Occupy movement will join forces with an anti-war coalition to mark the opening day of the summit later Sunday.
"We want the world to focus on NATO — they're not important and have no mandate anymore," said Micah Philbrook, an Occupy Chicago spokesman, who criticized the large police presence Saturday. "They're pushing us around and not letting anyone get out of the protest even if they want. They're very aggressive."
A leading human rights organisation has urged Nato to investigate fully the deaths of civilians in air strikes in Libya last year.
Human Rights Watch believes Nato air strikes killed at least 72 civilians and says the organisation needs to bear responsibility where appropriate.
"We're calling for prompt, credible and thorough investigations," HRW's Fred Abrahams told BBC News.
Nato insists it took unprecedented care to minimise civilian casualties.
It argues that it cannot take responsibility because it has had no presence on the ground to confirm the deaths.
Aircraft from the US, the UK and France conducted most of the 9,658 strike sorties last year, targeting forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.
The United States and its NATO allies are readying plans to pull away from the front lines in Afghanistan next year as President Barack Obama and fellow leaders try to show that the unpopular war is ending.
Top military and diplomatic officials from the U.S. and NATO allies met Wednesday to finalize the combat handover program and a strategy for world support to the weak Afghan government and fledgling military after 2014.
At the same time, the nations that have prosecuted a war against a Taliban-led insurgency are reassuring nervous Afghans they will not be left to fend for themselves. The competing messages aimed at different audiences are both challenged by current events in Afghanistan, where insurgents staged an impressive, coordinated attack last weekend that struck at the heart of the U.S.-backed government and international enclave in Kabul while Taliban leaders boycott peace talks the U.S. sees as the key to a safe exit.
A man in an Afghan army uniform shot and killed two British soldiers Monday inside a NATO base in southern Afghanistan, officials said.
The attack appeared to be the latest in a string of so-called "green on blue" attacks in which Afghan security forces have turned on their international colleagues or mentors. Such attacks have become increasingly common over the past year, particularly since the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base in February.
Six U.S. soldiers were killed in apparent revenge attacks following that act, which also sparked riots that left dozens of Afghans dead. U.S. officials have said the religious materials were burned by mistake.
Details were still sketchy about Monday morning's attack. NATO said in a statement that an individual wearing an Afghan soldier's uniform turned his weapon against international troops. Coalition forces then returned fire.
"The gunman was shot and killed," said NATO spokesman Maj. Jason Waggoner. He declined to provide further details.
There have been more than 45 attacks by Afghans on NATO colleagues in Afghanistan since 2007, more than 75 percent of those in the last two years, according to Pentagon data.
He had no confidence in the ability of Kabul's security forces to maintain peace. "The Afghan police, the army, if there is an explosion or a suicide attack they can't do anything."
The central premise of Washington's strategy is to leave behind a nation stable enough to secure itself and thwart an Al-Qaeda renaissance, supported by only a small US presence, subject to agreeing a strategic pact with Kabul.
The US commander on the ground, General John Allen, told Congress last week that he thought a future 230,000-strong Afghan force, scaled down from a planned 352,000, was "the right target given what we think will be the potential enemy scenario for 2017".
The game, Naval War: Arctic Circle, is set in the Arctic in the year 2030. The world at odds over Arctic sovereignty and resources.
"You would be the admiral of the armed forces of your side of whatever conflict," said Norwegian developer Jan Haugland.
Over the internet, players would lead Russian or NATO forces in battle. The playing field is 36,000 kilometres of ice-free Arctic waters.
The game depicts real ships — one of which is HMCS Halifax.
The frigate has patrolled waters off the coast of Africa, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Royal Canadian Navy says it’s one of the most capable frigates in the world with powerful weapons and highly trained staff on board.
HMCS Halifax is the only Canadian vessel fighting the make-believe war.
The game also features fake news articles about escalating international tensions around the Arctic.
Naval War: Arctic Circle is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game where the player battles enemy naval and aerial forces for power and ultimate world domination. The game play takes place along the Norwegian and British coast, through Iceland and Greenland all the way to the North Americas and the North West Passage.
Naval War: Arctic Circle has an extensive campaign along with skirmish, LAN and on-line modes. In Arctic Circle, the factions includes the United States, the Russian federation, the Nordic countries and NATO. Ultimately, Naval War: Arctic Circle tells a story about a power struggle for control of the world’s resources and supply lines in the Polar Regions.
Perhaps in part because of the bad blood over Libya, the world body has reached no similar consensus over Syria. Rather, the opposite, with some of the harshest diplomatic language traded for years. To the United States, the vetoes were a "travesty." German ambassador Peter Wittig essentially said that Moscow and Beijing had Syrian blood on their hands.
"China and Russia will now have to assume that responsibility in the face of the international public opinion and especially in the Arab world, the Arab citizens and, of course, in face of the Syrian people," Wittig said.
Beyond the rhetoric, the vetoes had a more practical consequence. NATO officials have made it clear that the alliance cannot act, by enforcing a no-fly zone for example, without U.N. support. Writer Derek Flood, recently in Syria with elements of the Free Syrian Army, says NATO officials envision no role for the alliance in Syria this year. But they have not ruled out a "coalition of the willing" outside the NATO orbit.
Both Russia and China are wary of any international action supporting protest against authoritarian rule. And Syria has been first the Soviet Union's -- and now Russia's -- key ally in the region after Egypt 'defected' in the 1970s. As it has for decades, Russia still supplies the Syrian government with weapons. One Russian analyst, Ruslan Pukhov, told CNN: "Once the Assad regime vanishes, we have zero influence in the region."
According to Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, al-Assad has ably judged the "diplomatic red lines" to keep Moscow onside. There have been no massacres on the scale of what happened in Hama 30 years ago (when thousands were killed after a brief uprising against his father's rule) that might have forced Russia into a corner. The persistent drip of civilian casualties over almost a year has not unleashed a tide of irresistible outrage.
First, declare victory! Europe is experiencing unprecedented sustained peace. If there ever was a moment to take advantage of that climate, it is now. The risks of defense re-nationalization are next to zero and potential conventional threats far over the horizon. Meanwhile, austerity programs are incentivizing Europe to economize military spending via deeper integration -- as Britain and France commenced in 2010. The European security dilemmas that required a heavy American military presence have long been resolved. As but just one recent example, late in 2011, Polish Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski stated that: "I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity."
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