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First Strike Heralds Longer Campaign
September 7, 2001
Summary
U.S.-led military strikes against Afghanistan have begun. The first day's attacks will be followed by a multi-day follow-on campaign. While it likely would have been ideal for the strikes to happen later, a number of factors forced the United States to take action now.
Analysis
The United States launched its counter-offensive in the Afghan Theater of Operations Oct. 7. As expected, it was an air attack, which is the standard opening to any American war plan. The strikes appear to have comprised a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and an assault on Taliban command, control and communications facilities. The goal of this attack was to destroy enemy anti-air capabilities and to shatter -- or at least degrade -- Taliban communications.
The relative weakness of Taliban anti-air and communications facilities has a positive and negative side. On the positive side, they represent minimal threat to the attackers and are fairly unsophisticated. But that also makes them fairly difficult to defeat them with absolute certainty.
During the previous night, U.S. drones and possibly aircraft were in the skies over Afghan cities, and were being fired upon heavily. This gave the United States an opportunity to map out Afghan air defenses. However, since many of those air defenses are radar-guided ZSU-22 and ZSU-23 guns from the Soviet era, they can move around quickly.
This means that the first day's attacks will be followed by a multi-day follow-on campaign. The first attacks appear to have been carried out by air, sea and submarine-launched cruise missiles, clearly targeting fixed infrastructure. The second phase of the attack will be the more difficult mission by "wild weasel" aircraft to identify radar-emitting weapons and destroy them. The best that can be expected is to degrade their ability, as their complete elimination is likely impossible.
No one, not even the most enthusiastic air force planner, believes that this war can be won by air power alone. Therefore, the purpose of these attacks must be considered carefully. The Afghans on all sides are primarily a light infantry force supported by artillery and some armor. The infantry is the key to their capabilities, and it is the infantry that is most impervious to air operations and least dependent on centralized command and control. This classic opening raises the question of why this attack has taken place right now.
The primary goal of the war appears to be the destruction of the Taliban regime by proxy: arming and supporting anti-Taliban forces so that they might overwhelm the ruling militia. This process will take months. Contact must be made with anti-Taliban elements outside the area of the opposition Northern Alliance. Political accommodations must be arranged. Weapons and supplies have to be delivered. This is not something that can be achieved in a month.
At the same time, the key to recruiting these forces is to give them a sense that not only is victory possible, but that the United States is prepared to directly challenge the Taliban. Memories in Afghanistan are long, and the Afghans recall fully the manner in which the United States supported anti-Soviet forces without exposing themselves to risk. The opposition, particularly those outside the framework of the Northern Alliance, must see the United States publicly taking actions and incurring risks.
It would have been in many ways better if these strikes were taken several months from now, until the anti-Taliban coalition inside of Afghanistan matured and was better supplied. However, that was politically impossible. Action had to be taken within the next month or two if U.S. credibility was to be maintained.
With Ramadan and winter in Afghanistan both approaching in mid-November, it became a question of holding the offensive until next spring, or acting now. Given that weather forecasts over Afghanistan showed clear weather for the rest of this week, and given that several weeks of air operations were necessary if the attack was to be effective, it followed that the United States had to act now, even if the ground operations were not fully in place for coordination.
The one place in which air and ground operations could mesh is in the area of the Northern Alliance. We assume that one of the missions of the strategic bombers -- the B-1s, B-2s and B-52s operating from Diego Garcia and the United States -- is to attack the front line installations of the Taliban north of Kabul. Artillery and troop concentrations, command bunkers and logistics support bases are the likely targets. They should open a line of attack from Northern Alliance strongholds to Kabul.
However, the fall of Kabul is not the key. Even the fall of Kandahar is not critical. What is critical is disrupting the ability of Taliban fighters to deploy over the countryside. The more strategic the bombardment in the cities, the greater the incentive and opportunity for the Taliban to disperse over the countryside, and the more complex and difficult the operations to destroy their armed forces will become.
The aerial bombardment opened the war, and is in many ways the easiest part of the campaign. Unless the bombardments so unnerved the Taliban and emboldened their opponents that their cohesiveness is shattered, the standard American opening -- so effective in the past -- can be the prelude for a long drawn out war.
A simultaneous ground assault by a broad coalition of Taliban enemies, coupled with the U.S. air campaign, would have been ideal. We expect the Northern Alliance to be effective, but it is not clear that the rest of the country was sufficiently prepped for the operation.
In a sense it was a question of the chicken versus the egg. The chicken, a commitment by the Taliban opposition to fight under U.S. guidance, and the egg, belief in Washington's genuine commitment, forced an early air assault. We now await the Taliban's response.
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(c) 2001 Stratfor, Inc.
Dan
First Strike Heralds Longer Campaign . . .