IN the months leading up to President Barack Obama's pivotal West Point speech last December, in which he announced a troop surge of 30,000 US forces for Afghanistan, the Americans held a long, painful, semi-public review of their strategy in that country.
A lot of senior Australian military visited Washington in that period. As a close ally of the US, Canberra wanted to be involved in the discussions. We wanted an input into the strategy, right? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper.
We wanted input into one thing very specifically. Our military brass had a single overriding communications objective: whatever you Americans decide, you must under no circumstances publicly ask Australia for any more troops in Afghanistan.
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Australian support for US strategy in Afghanistan had, then more than ever, a very strong dose of the whatever ideology about it. Whatever Washington thought was fine by us. If it increased its troop numbers, we would support that. If it kept the troop level steady or even reduced it, we'd support that too.
The administration did as asked by the Rudd government. No public request for more Australian troops was made. Nor has a request been made in private.
But the real strength of our commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have bled America mightily over the past decade, is evident in the fact that more Australians were killed in the government's insulation program than serving in the Iraq war.
To the Rudd government's credit, it did increase the notional number of Australian troops in Afghanistan last April by 450, from 1100 to 1550. But the number actually physically in Afghanistan at any one time is difficult to know. A lot of allied countries keep their notional figure of committed troops unchanged but take a fair number of them out of Afghanistan to avoid risk. When the Americans need special help on some particular occasion they can silently fill their ranks up again without alerting their domestic electorates to any change.
The Rudd government's increase in Afghanistan followed its withdrawal of troops from Iraq. It is sadly true that they basically weren't doing anything. Special forces aside, they weren't fighting.
The US-led offensive on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, and Obama's forthcoming visit here aid sober reflection on the inherent dishonesty of Australia's commitment in Afghanistan, and to ask if there isn't a better way.
This is not remotely to criticise the performance of our magnificent troops on the ground. However, our performance in Afghanistan shows how we have slipped from being a genuinely serious nation militarily, and our apparent inability to engage in serious military activity.
Our soldiers have done some magnificent and important things in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In Iraq, at the start of the campaign to get rid of Saddam Hussein, the SAS was active in western Iraq and captured the al-Asad air base.
In Afghanistan, the SAS played a critical role in helping the Americans avoid a big mess in Operation Anaconda. Since then our special forces have been active in hunting down the Taliban and other Australian troops are training and mentoring a very small number of Afghan troops.
One of our problems is that government policy restricts actual fighting overwhelmingly to the special forces. Another is that we have decided not to make a contribution which could have any strategic impact.
Major-General Jim Molan, the only Australian general to have had operational leadership experience in any of the wars of the past decade, has argued that we should deploy 6000 soldiers into Afghanistan and take over the leadership of Oruzgan province when the Dutch leave shortly.
It tells you something about the Defence Department that when the previous defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, asked some of the mandarins whether he should seek out Molan for a conversation, they said no. It is entirely to Fitzgibbon's credit that he ignored their advice. But the mandarins certainly didn't want an experienced soldier who uniquely cared about the coalition winning in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had the operational experience to understand if this was possible or not, talking directly to the minister.
Molan's suggestion is not that we could deploy 6000 troops straight away. But he has argued that we could deploy another battalion straight away and build up to 6000 troops. That would enable us to take the lead in Oruzgan, something the government has determined not to do under any circumstances. If we did do that the US has assured us they would give us every assistance. One way of doing this would be to increase our deployments from six to 12 months. It's a tough call. But the military is a tough instrument. If you are going to use it, it's better to use it convincingly and with effect.
The real reason the US got into such trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan was that it didn't commit enough troops early enough.
It is very early days in the Marjah offensive, but it is reasonable to suggest that the confluxion of events right now means that there is, perhaps for the first time, a path ahead to possible success in Afghanistan. This is the argument made by US commander General Stanley McChrystal, and by the Australian chief of the Defence Force, Angus Houston.
As Molan has argued, it's partly a question of numbers. Classical counter-insurgency strategy holds that you need a security force of 20 for every 1000 population. Iraq got broad stability when it got sufficient numbers of troops. It still has 130,000 American troops and now has more than half a million Iraqis in uniform.
McChrystal plans to build up Afghan numbers in a similar way. He plans to take the Afghan National Army from 90,000 to 134,000 in one year rather than two. His long-term target for the Afghan army is 240,000 and for the Afghan police 160,000. By the end of 2010 there will be, roughly, 140,000 international troops, 134,000 Afghan army and 100,000 Afghan police, giving a total of nearly 350,000 troops. After three years or so, if the international soldiers stay, there could be well over half a million troops.
This is not mass numbers for a war of attrition as the US tried in the early years of Vietnam. This is instead a plan for large numbers to engage in McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy, which involves a four step process: shape, clear, hold and build.
It is the hold and build part of the strategy which has always proved so difficult.
This is where the battle for Marjah is critical, both in itself and for what it portends. Marjah was the Taliban stronghold and operations centre. It was also key in the drugs trade. Taking it back from the Taliban is crucial in itself and as part of a long term process to normalise all of Helmand.
But it is crucial in two other ways. The Afghan army has to demonstrate that it can work effectively, that it can fight the Taliban and behave with discipline. It will do this with coalition troops helping it. Eventually it will need to do it alone. The other critical aspect is setting up an effective arm of the Afghan government in Marjah and affecting people's lives in a positive way.
McChrystal understands that he is fighting a four-block war -- conventional warfare, peace keeping, emergency aid and, critically, information operations. McChrystal has to show some good news from Afghanistan to the American public, and to the Afghan public. He understands how critical perceptions are to all counter-insurgent operations.
At the same time, there is a greater sign of Pakistani willingness to act against the Afghan Taliban than ever before. Put it all together, and notwithstanding the countless negatives this article has not listed (the need to reform the Afghan police, long-term doubts about Pakistan, etc), the chances for success are better now than ever before.
Rudd, like John Howard before him, claims this is a battle of intense importance to Australian security, a battle worth risking Australian lives over. He also claims to lead a significant middle power (witness our position as one of the G20 nations) and to lead possibly the US's closest ally after Britain. Certainly all calculations that Australians at the highest levels make about our own security are dependent on the US military being willing to shed its blood, to fight and die, in the interests of Australian security.
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