Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

José María Robles Fraga
From now on ISAF and Enduring Freedom will have the goal not only
of eliminating enemies but also of defending and protecting the population
under threat. This would entail a new, different war requiring different rules
of combat in which air strikes would be limited and, as a result, soldiers
would be at greater risk as their firepower would be diminished in an
attempt to cause fewer civilian causalities and other collateral damage.
Although it is logical to assume that the map of the areas to be protected
and the population centres left to their fate will be kept secret, it seems
likely that efforts will be centred on Kabul and the most heavily populated
cities and on securing the axis of communications—the ring road that
connects its cities and the highways that ensure trade and supplies to
the population and logistic networks of ISAF from the neighbouring countries.
In all likelihood throughout 2009 and 2010, in addition to the 30,000
more soldiers announced by the White House, we will see an adjustable
and variable combination of more US combat and support troops and a
considerable rise in the number of instructors and advisors for the Afghan
national army and policy, both from the US and from the other members
of ISAF.
The first consequence of this increase in the number of US soldiers will
be even greater US hegemony in Afghanistan and consequently a smaller
relative weight of the other partners and allies, which will presumably
follow suit by assigning more soldiers to ISAF.
This military superiority on the ground would make it possible to consider
operations and options for which it has so far been difficult to enlist
the support or involvement of some European countries, to extend even
further the radius of its actions in areas threatened by the insurgency in the
north and west and, in the rest, implement the counterinsurgency tactics
to be announced by Washington—which incidentally comes fairly close to
what some European allies proposed, at least in theory.
As the strategic review was accompanied during summer and autumn
2009 by an increase in attacks on the expat community in Kabul, US plans
for this «civilian surge» appear to have been dashed, at least temporarily.
Therefore what would remain of this strategy, almost as the main trump
card, would be a different counterinsurgency policy which, following military
reinforcements, would enable the territory to be better secured and
make it possible to reverse a situation that seems to be getting out of
hand.
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