The Belgravia Dispatch: Cordesman, Heisbourg, Etc.

December 31, 2006

Cordesman, Heisbourg, Etc.

I think one great problem is can we, at this point, really strengthen the Iraqi army? I mean, Tom Ricks of the Post says that out of 121 army battalions there are 10 effective. I would put it at 20 to 30. It certainly isn’t anything like the reports of the units in the lead that are in the press. There was a time where a combination of the best army units and the U.S. could control Baghdad and limit the Mahdi army. I don’t know if that’s still possible. It will not be possible with the police. The fact is the police are going to take at least three to four years to build, and Baghdad is as much of a problem as the countryside. It is a very uncertain issue now. We are – because we deny there is a civil conflict, we have failed to come to grips with it, General Chiarelli pointed out quite, I thought, well. Part of the problem too is you’ve got to solve the economic dimensions. There have to be jobs. There have to be alternatives to civil violence. You have to find ways of limiting this problem of ethnic and sectarian cleansing. Let me put it in terms I think every American can understand. Suppose you had to abandon your house tomorrow without selling it, and most of the things in it. Suppose you worked near where you live and by being forced away from your home, you had to give up your business or your job, and you then had to find a relative or a friend or someplace to go with no capital and no savings. That’s what’s happening in large parts of Baghdad and Iraq. And if we turn this over to the government without adequate constraints and controls, what we are doing is licensing the Shi’ites to try to dominate Baghdad. That will not be peaceful. It will lead to a much more intense civil conflict. And we need to be honest and face these issues.

The Battle for Baghdad will, in large part, ultimately be about whether the U.S. can stave off attempts to Shi'a-ize the entire city, one suspects. In this, the U.S. will have to hope against hope that the impulses of men like those who executed Saddam over the weekend can be moderated, via better security, jobs programs, reconstruction, and the emergence of a more 'moderate' Shi'a politics. Is this even possible, surge or no surge? I don't pretend to know, but let's at least agree that Cordesman is likely correct that allowing the Shi'a to overtake all of Baghdad will only lead to an intensification of the large-scale sectarian violence underway. For anyone in the Administration entertaining the absurd 80% solution, this should be food for thought, one would think.

NB: The link is actually mostly about Afghanistan, and it makes for troubling reading. Cordesman appears particularly disdainful of what he calls "stand-aside forces" in Afghanistan, of which more at the link. The deeper question is whether NATO core member states view 'out of area' peacemaking missions as vital to their national interests. I suspect many of them don't, which explains some of the lackadaisical (at best) efforts underway in theater. For example, see this bit where Cordesman lets loose, in this instance, about the German (non)-role:

Q: Just to understand, why do you classify what the Germans are doing in the north as standing aside? It’s –
MR. CORDESMAN: Because they are not actively involved. What are they
doing?

Q: They are keeping security in the north.

MR. CORDESMAN: They’re sitting there in bases. Keeping security is roughly the same as having a bunch of high school kids as theater ushers waiting in the lobby because there isn’t any problem when people are watching the movie. That’s not doing something. They failed dismally in dealing with their responsibility for the police
training. They aren’t providing significant levels of aid relative to the requirement, and the issue is the requirement, not the amount of money. You can always make the money seem impressive if you don’t bother with the requirement. So unless the German government can demonstrate that it’s actually doing something useful rather than committing troops to doing nothing, it would be, shall we say, somewhat ingenuous to go on with the arguments. And it is not exactly as if Germany, Spain and France are not hearing criticism from allies other than the United States.

Q: I have a follow up to that. Daniel Scheschkewitz, Deutsche Welle, Germany’s
international broadcaster. Mr. Cordesman, would you say the lack of sufficient police training is due to a lack of competence among the German troops, a lack of will, or just –

MR. CORDESMAN: Well, first, they’re not doing it anymore. Second, it wasn’t done by the German troops. Third, what they did was they trained people to be German policemen, and the problem is that they did it at a very limited scale with formal training facilities. They didn’t get involved in the problems of governance or what is happening
in the field. This is not Germany. You need paramilitary forces. You need to worry about what happens after people leave the training period. I went through pay, facilities, and equipment. So essentially what you had is a program which was never tailored to the country and where you wasted three years. But it wasn’t the German military that did it.

When I see this type of stuff now and again, I'm reminded of Francois Heisbourg's cautionary notes in the FT back in November:

In itself, this reduction of Nato’s place in the overall scheme of strategic affairs should not be a big concern for those who live and work beyond the confines of the Nato bureaucracy. After all, Nato is immensely and uniquely useful in fostering interoperability between the military forces of its members, which is key to forming effective coalitions of forces. In a world in which the mission determines the coalition, this ability is more important than ever. Similarly, Nato remains key in ensuring that the partner states of eastern Europe press on with reform of their security sectors.
Unfortunately, Nato is not sticking to its core competencies. In a quest to carve a greater role for itself and demonstrate global relevance, the alliance is running the risk of overreaching itself in strategic and political terms, with potentially dangerous consequences. In the run-up to Riga, there has been much talk of a “Nato-bis”, or second version, of a privileged partnership between Nato and hopefully like-minded states in the Asia-Pacific region such as Japan and Australia. The wisdom of this is questionable, to put it mildly, given its potential for needless friction with a rising China. The push for a Nato-bis is probably not intended to foster a “west against the rest” alignment in east Asia; but that could be its inadvertent effect. Nato should not be acting like a solution in search of a problem.

In the military sphere, there is a similar element of disregard for the consequences of Nato’s decision to broaden the scope of its presence in Afghanistan and to extend its war aims. These now go well beyond the initial intention immediately after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks of toppling the Taliban from government and of going after al-Qaeda leaders and operatives.

Nato’s aims of state-building and reconstruction are noble and ambitious; but Afghanistan is a country larger than Iraq, with a history of impatience vis-à-vis the presence of even well-intentioned foreigners. Even if Nato’s members come up with all the soldiers and kit they have promised, it is unlikely that the alliance can fulfil its goals, with only about one-third of the manpower deployed by the Soviet Union in the same country a quarter of a century ago. The Soviets had a no-less ambitious agenda of social and economic modernisation and failed – not just because the Red Army tended to behave less well than Nato’s soldiers.

The leaders assembled in Riga would render Nato and the west a signal service if they were to steer clear of premature and ill-thought-out entanglements in east Asia and if they were to lower the scope of the alliance’s ambitions in Afghanistan – while actually giving their soldiers there the wherewithal to fulfil a more realistic mission.

Now that we actually have a Secretary of Defense in place less worried about his own reputation and bureaucratic standing, or hell-bent on absurdly calling Iraq and Afghanistan successes, but rather hugely more seized of the grave and detiorating situation in both countries--one hopes a better strategic overlay will be brought to bear towards analyzing, not only the grevious errors committed to date in Iraq (and increasingly Afghanistan, given lack of requisite resources and sustained focus), but also the future of alliance structures like NATO that are undergoing a period of real flux and uncertainty.

Posted by Gregory at December 31, 2006 11:22 PM

Comments

I'm not qualified to voice an educated opinion, because I only know about the situation in Afghanistan via various news sources, but 1-2 remarks should be in order.

First of all, the whole "Germany failed to train police forces" part reeks very much like a sham. If _that_ were seriously an issue, there should be security problems in the German-controlled sectors, or other tangible problems arising out of this alleged neglect. However, there are none. The German-controlled sectors in the north are secure, at least compared to those in the US/GB/Canada-controlled south.

In fact, THIS is the real source of the problem. The US-led forces in the south are entangled in more and more fighting and demand that the Germans assist and relieve them there. Germany however (along with other NATO allies) refuse to have their mandate changed. A major part of the German forces there are still under German national command and not part of the NATO chain - the American axis demands to change that. Also, the scope of the German mandate has been protecting the north, NOT running combat missions in the south. Since giving in to this would be extremely unpopular in Germany, chancellor Merkel has refused to have this happen. And in return, what we see here is a propaganda blitz by the American axis.

To sum it up, we have no alleged German neglect we're dealing with here. This is horsedung. What we have is German unwillingness to be drawn into the live-fire zones in the south. Keep in mind that Germany has a conscription army, NOT professional forces. The soldiers stationed in the north aren't professionals, they're voluntaries. As a compromise, Germany will probably offer air force units (Tornado units for reconnaissance et al), but should Merkel indeed agree to send German conscripts on combat missions in the Afghanistan south, she's likely to see her government coalition shatter.

Posted by: Mentar at January 1, 2007 01:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

"First of all, the whole "Germany failed to train police forces" part reeks very much like a sham. If _that_ were seriously an issue, there should be security problems in the German-controlled sectors, or other tangible problems arising out of this alleged neglect. However, there are none. The German-controlled sectors in the north are secure, at least compared to those in the US/GB/Canada-controlled south."

Sorry, this simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny (nor does the notion that police training efforts have succeeded, as is common knowledge to anyone who has studied the Afghanistan effort in depth) - you erroneously assume that stability in German dominated areas must indicate specifically German success. In reality the reason the German areas are largely stable is because they are Tajik and Uzbek strongholds that are the heartlands of support for the current government. In contrast, the areas controlled by the Americans, British, Canadians, Dutch, etc are a) overwhelmingly Pasthun and b) abut the main geographical crossing points from Pakistan. The German assignment is the equivalent of being deployed in the middle of Iraqi Kurdistan - there are few problems because the locals, their leaders and their indigenous armed forces are overwhelmingly in favour of the foreign presence anyway. The idea that there isn't trouble in the German sectors because the Germans have succeeded where others have failed is complete rubbish. The Germans are deployed where they are precisely because it's inherently quiet and the Germans won't fight.

"To sum it up, we have no alleged German neglect we're dealing with here. This is horsedung. What we have is German unwillingness to be drawn into the live-fire zones in the south."

The EU has stated that Afghanistan is key to European Security. The mission has UN backing. EU states have been pushing to take a leadership role through NATO. And yet, once again, when it comes to the crunch key EU states persistently refuse to do any of the heavy lifting and instead sit by and spout self-righteous platitudes while the much maligned Americans and British (and Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders and Dutch) do the fighting and the dying. The reality is that on the ground we face an insurgency. The insurgency has to be met with a coherent, holistic counterinsurgency campaign. This is not a salad bar or a buffet in which members of the coalition should be able to demand equal influence and then simply opt out of whatever parts of the campaign they find inconvenient. The idea that different aspects of the conflict can simply be compartmentalised and opted out of if they run the risk of getting dirty hands is barmy. This is the real world and the German approach is fundamentally unserious. George Bush may be an idiot, but this particular brand of "multilateralism" stinks as well.

It's undoubtedly true that the structural makeup of the German armed forces makes deployment in combat a matter of controversy - as does the coalition nature of German governments. However, one might argue that a country that apparently considers itself due a place at the top table and consideration for a permenant seat on the UN Security Council ought to either make the painful decisions necessary to make itself more useful or keep quiet. As things stand it's pretty much the equivalent of someone who has signed up to climb Everest and who halfway up starts bleating about the fact that the rest of the team can't expect him to go to the top because he has asthma. I suppose on a military level it's like if the Americans came into WW2 and then limited their contribution to "guarding Canada". And then claimed that they were doing brilliantly well because Nazi paratroops hadn't seized Toronto.

I've gone on about the Germans at excessive length here, simply because the defence was mounted in a specifically German context* - the reality is the the criticisims of Germany can be equally well applied to a number of coalition partners and the disillusionment and annoyance at this is not confined to Anglo-American quarters.

*In fairness, as Cordesman notes obliquely, although a lot of flak is levelled at German soldiers, in reality they are largely slaves to micro-management from Germany proper. I was speaking to a recently-retired senior NATO commander a while back and he noted that many of the German officers he served with were embarassed and resentful at the decisions being made back in Berlin, which they saw as basically emasculating them and preventing them from doing much useful.

Posted by: Anthony C at January 1, 2007 04:57 PM | Permalink to this comment

I'll go further actually, to try to put a bit more context in. As I've noted, the blame here should not be cast at the Germans alone. It's a widespread problem. In addition, the Germans - given their constitutional setup and given the impact of their national history - perhaps enjoy greater extenuating circumstances than most of the other players. However, the frustration is multiplied by the fact that they are such a large and wealthy player with such extensive manpower resources. When one considers that Germany is the third biggest economy in the world and has more men under arms (albeit, as noted, in a very different constitutional setup) than Britain and France combined, the fact that the Dutch have contributed almost as many men and have done far more with them is enormously frustrating.

Posted by: Anthony C at January 1, 2007 05:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

Anthony, I think you should relax a bit and reread what I wrote.

> The idea that there isn't trouble in the German sectors because
> the Germans have succeeded where others have failed is
> complete rubbish.

I never said or insinuated anywhere that the stability there was due to German successes, I was pointing out that the criticism of Cordesman is unconvincing because it lacks evidence. If the training of security forces was so bad, one would assume to see problems arising out of that. But there aren't. The assigned areas are not suffering from poor security forces, they are indeed (mostly) safe.

But since you raised this point, let me answer you there, too. It's undoubtedly true that the German contingent was purposely stationed in an area which was considered relatively safe. I'd like to point out that at least it STAYED safe. Maybe the generally nonaggressive and relatively low-key approach to deal with local issues wasn't so bad after all. Other formerly safe areas have degressed quite a bit more. Is there a direct connection? Certainly not. But is there no connection at all, as you seem to imply?

Let me make a honest admission which will be unpopular with the readers on this board here: I have strong doubts about the American way of "active counterinsurgency" in the Middle East. Or bluntly put: Whatever your commanders in the field are doing seems to be counterproductive, not just in Iraq but also in Afghanistan. The overall post-war track record has been abysmal. And so has been the willingness of America to listen to differing opinions. Yet you demand that the agreed-upon mission and mandate for the German contingent (peacekeeping in the north) should be changed to active combat duty, under a strategy which I consider extremely questionable? At least I'd expect Mr. Cordesman to be so honest and to make this demand openly instead of this "security forces training" nonsense.

Now we're living in a democracy, and one of the tasks of the elected leaders is to heed the famous "will of the people". Let me tell you what the German public thinks about that (and then feel free to yell at me for it): Over here, the vast majority thinks that America has utterly and completely dropped the ball in the Middle East, in virtually every way and question possible. America has successfully alienated the people down there, the terrorist threat has significantly increased, and so has the risk for Germany aswell, regardless of the fact that we've been in opposition to it all. But at least we were able to keep our own soldiers' out of harm's way for what we considered a foolish policy right from the beginning. Now America demands to change that. There's a clear intention of America to let German soldiers be entangled in offensive operations, and THIS, Anthony, is a Rubikon which should definitely not be crossed in haste. The day the Bundeswehr goes south and gets entangled in American-style "active counterinsurgency" is the day of Merkel's political suicide.

I concede to you that the push for a permanent seat in the Security Council is poorly substantiated. And I can also understand America's frustration that many NATO allies are very reluctant to follow America's call and lead. But sorry - this is the immediate result of America's actions leading up to the war, and the conduct post-war. If this comes really as a surprise to you, then you must have seriously misassessed the effect which American policies over the past 5 years had in Europe.

Posted by: Mentar at January 1, 2007 06:19 PM | Permalink to this comment