Gates: Three more Brigades May Go to Afghanistan

by: Richard Allen Smith

Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 20:12:31 PM EDT

WASHINGTON - Up to three more combat brigades could be available to go to Afghanistan beginning next spring, in answer to repeated calls from commanders for more troops, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

This will more than double the size of the American contingent in Afghanistan. I must say, overall this is a good development, but it requires some realism and further analysis.  

Even Gates acknowledged that this couldn't be accomplished without extending combat tours or sending units designated for Iraq to Afghanistan.  The latter is the key.  This cannot occur without a substantial redeployment of troops from Iraq.

Second, we have to consider the lessons learned from the surge, and I don't mean that in a good way.  Violence dropped during the period designated as "the surge". Its a fact proved by statistics that we can't deny.  There is some debate as to whether this was the product of the surge itself, or the completion of ethnic cleansing.   But ultimately, regardless of the cause in the drop in fatalities, the surge has not achieved its stated goal of creating room for the growth of the Iraqi government.

The problem there is that the troop surge  lacked a comparable surge in assisting the Iraqi government in reconciling its factions and stabilizing governance.  We cannot make this same mistake in Afghanistan.  Three Brigades will go along way towards achieving success in the country.  It will help train a competent and legitimate police force and army.  It will assist in sealing the Pakistani border. It will help hold districts in the South after we have run the Taliban out of them.

But what a troop surge will not do is end the corruption of the Afghan government.  It will not legitimize municipal governments.  It will not assist poor farmers in converting their Taliban funding poppy farms into a legitimate cash crop. It will not create roads, ensure the security of the vital Kajacki Dam.  It will not end Pakistani meddling.  It will not end proxy wars being fought within Afghanistan's boarders, and it will not ensure Pakistan returns the eye that has thus far been blind to the Taliban forces in its own borders. Three more brigades of American troops is a good start, but it won't fix everything.