'No Silver Bullet' to Turning the Tide in Afghanistan
Journalist: T.J. Holmes
Original Post: 'No Silver Bullet' to Turning the Tide in Afghanistan
Type: Interview
February 10, 2010 — T.J. HOLMES: We now want to take a closer look at one of the biggest fights ever in Afghanistan, U.S. and Afghan troops surrounding the Taliban stronghold of Marjah. It's the first offensive since President Obama agreed to send another 30,000 Americans to the front lines.
Here to help us break it down, two experts on Afghanistan. From Washington, Andrew Exum, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was on General McChrystal's review team and is now with the Center for New American Security in D.C., and then Mark Moyar, professor of national security affairs at the Marine Corps University. He just returned from training U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
Gentlemen, great to have you both here. I will start by posing this question to both of you. Let's start with you, Mr. Moyer, just this offensive in the first place for Americans who have been watching this fight from afar who don't know where Marjah is, never heard of it in some ways possibly even -- put this in perspective for them why this is such a big deal.
PROF. MARK MOYAR, NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY: Marjah is in Helmand province where they've made a major push in the past year with the marines. It is the last major enemy holdout, and it is serving as a sanctuary so it is allowing them to stage military attacks, build IEDs.
And it is I think militarily imperative and also psychologically imperative that we remove this sanctuary area, make it harder for the insurgents to operate. It's much harder for them if they don't have that sanctuary area now so they can still move into sanctuaries in other places like Pakistan, but we're going to work on those as well.But this is really a big thorn in our side and one that we're clearly going to address in the near future.
HOLMES: Andrew, I'll let you pick up on some of those points as well, but also explain: why now? We're going after it now, why haven't we gone after it before now?
ANDREW EXUM, FELLOW, Center For A New American Security: Unfortunately, when you look at our force to population ratios in Helmand and throughout Afghanistan really, we're not matched up to a degree where we can secure every place all the time.
However, the marines have had a lot of security gains in Helmand province over the past year, and so now it makes sense to go after Marjah at this time because we have had some gains elsewhere through that Helmand river valley.
HOLMES: And Andrew, is it fair to say this could be a game- changer? There are going to be plenty of steps -- there were plenty we've made before this, there will be plenty to be made after. But could this, which we all believe is going to be a victory for the NATO forces, is this going to be some kind of a turning point and could be a game-changer in this whole war?
EXUM: No, it's not. You're not going to -- in Afghanistan, unfortunately, there's no silver bullet, right. There's no one thing that we're going to do that's going to turn the tide.
What you're going to see in Afghanistan is very steady, very unglamorous offensives whereby we're moving in and trying to secure the population, to buy the Afghan government some time and space to build up key institutions.
No one thing is going to be a game-changer. There is no silver bullet in Afghanistan. This is the long, hard slog of counterinsurgency, unfortunately.
But so far the marines in Helmand province have done very well over the past year since they've been deployed there.
HOLMES: Mark, do you agree with that? Really not going to be much after game-changer, could help but it will still be a long, ugly process. So if we win this, then what?
MOYAR: That's right, it is going to be a long process. These types of wars aren't going to be decided by a single battle, and we're going to have to hold this area, even bigger than going in and clearing it out is going to be what we do afterwards, because we have gone in and cleared that area several times before but we haven't had a good follow-on plan, we haven't had robust security forces, and the enemy has come back.
And I think one thing that could be significant coming out of this will be the amount of damage to the civilian population. That's a big question mark right now and something a lot people are concerned about. We don't know yet whether the enemy is going to stand and fight. We don't know how many civilians will be there. So in terms of public relations, it could be a significant event.
HOLMES: It is going to be more than just a military win or military fight for the U.S. and other NATO forces. Gentlemen, I appreciate both of you being here. We hope to certainly get you back. We've been told this thing is imminent even though we don't know exactly when it is happening. But again, it's one of the worst kept secrets there in Afghanistan.
MALVEAUX: Gentlemen, thank you both, appreciate you're expertise. You all have a good one.
Topic(s): Regional Security Challenges, Terrorism, Irregular Warfare and Crime, Development and Diplomacy, U.S. Military Forces & Operations, U.S. National Security and Defense Policy
Project(s): Afghanistan and Pakistan
People: Dr. Andrew M. Exum
