Novos amigos, novas traições

Novos amigos e novas traições[i]

A Rússia entrará na OTAN. A questão é o que a Rússia leva em troca? Os países ocidentais parecem dispostos a permitir a hegemonia russa em sua área de influência, mas o que é a “área de influência russa”? Em termos simples, isto abrange os territórios da ex-União Soviética, mas estendendo sua política a Europa Oriental e Cáucaso, por exemplo, isto significaria um retrocesso para a democracia.

Os Estados Unidos precisam de apoio russo para combater a insurgência no Afeganistão, onde se situam aliados da Al Qaeda com a possibilidade de uso do território da Ásia Central para escoamento de tropas, combustível e mantimentos, bem como apoio técnico e treinamento russo para tropas aliadas afegãs. Como nada é de graça, as tendências autocráticas da política russa se farão cada vez mais presentes nos países da região sem o contrapeso ocidental. No entanto, dizer que “a détente com o governo russo é uma das principais tragédias do governo Obama” é muito simples, qual seria a alternativa razoável, uma política isolacionista como a de seu antecessor, GWB? Não há um mundo ideal a seguir, mas o ótimo ou razoável dentro da conjuntura que se faz presente.

Sem dúvida que o apoio russo às medidas mais duras contra o governo iraniano é um bom sinal dessa nova aliança, cuja integração à OTAN parece selar e, que a vitória Republicana nas últimas eleições sobre os Democratas parece ameaçar através da revisão do acordo de desarmamento (START) entre as duas potências. Apesar disto, esta vitória do governo Obama em se aliar ao Kremlin não deveria ser menosprezada. O próprio “guarda-chuvas da OTAN” na Europa Oriental, Polônia e República Tcheca elaborado no governo Bush foi redesenhado contra o Irã, inclusive com navios de guerra americanos estacionados no Mediterrâneo. Obviamente, as recentes insinuações ocidentais de apoio à Geórgia ou à Ucrânia serão deixadas de lado por tempo indeterminado, o que também significa suas possibilidades de autonomia e avanço democráticos.

Se por um lado esta perspectiva de deixar as ambições russas de lado e focalizar inimigos mais imediatos como o Irã se consolidam, nuvens negras se formam no horizonte sobre a China e a Índia, outros rivais regionais asiáticos que poderão colocar em cheque a solidez da aliança americana e russa dentro da OTAN se reagirem contra um novo expansionismo russo. No entanto, a história nos mostra que alianças entre estados democráticos e autocráticos não têm tido sucesso prolongado... Para a União Européia, por exemplo, as “revoluções coloridas” em países como a Geórgia e a Ucrânia significam também sua segurança econômica através de rotas de gás natural que lhes fornecem alternativa energética. A questão subjacente a boa estratégia de pressionar o Irã e forças insurgentes no Afeganistão é o que fazer com os sistemas políticos da periferia russa. Ignorar estes processos democráticos permitindo o avanço autoritário poderá significar uma fatura muito cara a ser paga num futuro não tão distante.

---

[i] Adaptado de Claudia Mancini, Russia’s expanding influence. Opportunity or threat?, 19 de novembro de 2010.

Corrupção e resistência no Afeganistão

Após oito anos de guerra das tropas estrangeiras contra o Taleban, um afegão que foi a um prédio do governo para conseguir um certificado de casamento descobriu que teria de pagar US$ 2.000 [cerca de R$ 3.400] pelo documento. Não era uma taxa --inviável diante da renda per capita de US$ 800 [...]

Afeganistão fica em 2º lugar em ranking dos países mais corruptos

Assim como o governo de Hamid Karzai não consegue um pacto com o Talebã também não é eficaz no combate à corrupção por uma simples razão: a base social do país é formada por um mosaico tribal, no qual o estado de direito ainda é um projeto em curso. Não se trata de eximir os culpados por desvios de recursos públicos ou improbidade administrativa, mas que a regularidade e funcionamento de instituições financeiras do mundo ocidental desenvolvido não serve mesmo de parâmetro para um país que ainda está em conflito e não portava uma estrutura estatal digna deste nome. 

A maioria dos afegãos que vive em áreas urbanas (para não dizer das rurais) não conta com o apoio financeiro do maior banco privado do país em seu cotidiano. Seu colapso financeiro - suas contas foram congeladas - não apresenta a magnitude que teriam em um membro do BRIC, por exemplo.

Se não existe um consenso político sequer sobre a segurança do país entre partes interessadas, menos ainda na lisura financeira do país. O problema estratégico que decorre é que se os EUA planejam uma retirada do país (quando em junho, a OTAN afirmava ser necessário 400.000 soldados para manter a paz), o controle à corrupção se torna um verdadeiro luxo. "Tolerar a corrupção" significa, infelizmente, por mais paradoxal que pareça, traçar um amplo acordo com lideranças regionais contra um mal maior, o Talebã. 

Não se trata de discutir só o que deve ser feito, mas também de acatar a realidade para, pelo menos, costurar um acordo político entre diversas facções tal como no Iraque.

The Meaning of Marjah

Join STRATFOR's free email list and you'll get STRATFOR's FREE Intelligence in your inbox each week.

February 16, 2010 | 2119 GMT

By Kamran Bokhari, Peter Zeihan and Nathan Hughes

On Feb. 13, some 6,000 U.S. Marines, soldiers and Afghan National Army (ANA) troops launched a sustained assault on the town of Marjah in Helmand province. Until this latest offensive, the U.S. and NATO effort in Afghanistan had been constrained by other considerations, most notably Iraq. Western forces viewed the Afghan conflict as a matter of holding the line or pursuing targets of opportunity. But now, armed with larger forces and a new strategy, the war — the real war — has begun. The most recent offensive — dubbed Operation Moshtarak (“Moshtarak” is Dari for “together”) — is the largest joint U.S.-NATO-Afghan operation in history. It also is the first major offensive conducted by the first units deployed as part of the surge of 30,000 troops promised by U.S. President Barack Obama.

RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGE

• The War in Afghanistan

The United States originally entered Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. In those days of fear and fury, American goals could be simply stated: A non-state actor — al Qaeda — had attacked the American homeland and needed to be destroyed. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan at the invitation of a near-state actor — the Taliban, which at the time were Afghanistan’s de facto governing force. Since the Taliban were unwilling to hand al Qaeda over, the United States attacked. By the end of the year, al Qaeda had relocated to neighboring Pakistan and the Taliban retreated into the arid, mountainous countryside in their southern heartland and began waging a guerrilla conflict. In time, American attention became split between searching for al Qaeda and clashing with the Taliban over control of Afghanistan.

But from the earliest days following 9/11, the White House was eyeing Iraq, and with the Taliban having largely declined combat in the initial invasion, the path seemed clear. The U.S. military and diplomatic focus was shifted, and as the years wore on, the conflict absorbed more and more U.S. troops, even as other issues — a resurgent Russia and a defiant Iran — began to demand American attention. All of this and more consumed American bandwidth, and the Afghan conflict melted into the background. The United States maintained its Afghan force in what could accurately be described as a holding action as the bulk of its forces operated elsewhere. That has more or less been the state of affairs for eight years.

That has changed with the series of offensive operations that most recently culminated at Marjah.

Why Marjah? The key is the geography of Afghanistan and the nature of the conflict itself. Most of Afghanistan is custom-made for a guerrilla war. Much of the country is mountainous, encouraging local identities and militias, as well as complicating the task of any foreign military force. The country’s aridity discourages dense population centers, making it very easy for irregular combatants to melt into the countryside. Afghanistan lacks navigable rivers or ports, drastically reducing the region’s likelihood of developing commerce. No commerce to tax means fewer resources to fund a meaningful government or military and encourages the smuggling of every good imaginable — and that smuggling provides the perfect funding for guerrillas.

Rooting out insurgents is no simple task. It requires three things:

1. Massively superior numbers so that occupiers can limit the zones to which the insurgents have easy access.
2. The support of the locals in order to limit the places that the guerillas can disappear into.
3. Superior intelligence so that the fight can be consistently taken to the insurgents rather than vice versa.

Without those three things — and American-led forces in Afghanistan lack all three — the insurgents can simply take the fight to the occupiers, retreat to rearm and regroup and return again shortly thereafter.

But the insurgents hardly hold all the cards. Guerrilla forces are by their very nature irregular. Their capacity to organize and strike is quite limited, and while they can turn a region into a hellish morass for an opponent, they have great difficulty holding territory — particularly territory that a regular force chooses to contest. Should they mass into a force that could achieve a major battlefield victory, a regular force — which is by definition better-funded, -trained, -organized and -armed — will almost always smash the irregulars. As such, the default guerrilla tactic is to attrit and harass the occupier into giving up and going home. The guerrillas always decline combat in the face of a superior military force only to come back and fight at a time and place of their choosing. Time is always on the guerrilla’s side if the regular force is not a local one.

But while the guerrillas don’t require basing locations that are as large or as formalized as those required by regular forces, they are still bound by basic economics. They need resources — money, men and weapons — to operate. The larger these locations are, the better economies of scale they can achieve and the more effectively they can fight their war.

Marjah is perhaps the quintessential example of a good location from which to base. It is in a region sympathetic to the Taliban; Helmand province is part of the Taliban’s heartland. Marjah is very close to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, the religious center of the local brand of Islam, the birthplace of the Taliban, and due to the presence of American forces, an excellent target. Helmand alone produces more heroin than any country on the planet, and Marjah is at the center of that trade. By some estimates, this center alone supplies the Taliban with a monthly income of $200,000. And it is defensible: The farmland is crisscrossed with irrigation canals and dotted with mud-brick compounds — and, given time to prepare, a veritable plague of IEDs.

Simply put, regardless of the Taliban’s strategic or tactical goals, Marjah is a critical node in their operations.

The American Strategy

Though operations have approached Marjah in the past, it has not been something NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ever has tried to hold. The British, Canadian and Danish troops holding the line in the country’s restive south had their hands full enough. Despite Marjah’s importance to the Taliban, ISAF forces were too few to engage the Taliban everywhere (and they remain as such). But American priorities started changing about two years ago. The surge of forces into Iraq changed the position of many a player in the country. Those changes allowed a reshaping of the Iraq conflict that laid the groundwork for the current “stability” and American withdrawal. At the same time, the Taliban began to resurge in a big way. Since then the Bush and then Obama administrations inched toward applying a similar strategy to Afghanistan, a strategy that focuses less on battlefield success and more on altering the parameters of the country itself.

As the Obama administration’s strategy has begun to take shape, it has started thinking about endgames. A decades-long occupation and pacification of Afghanistan is simply not in the cards. A withdrawal is, but only a withdrawal where the security free-for-all that allowed al Qaeda to thrive will not return. And this is where Marjah comes in.

Denying the Taliban control of poppy farming communities like Marjah and the key population centers along the Helmand River Valley — and areas like them around the country — is the first goal of the American strategy. The fewer key population centers the Taliban can count on, the more dispersed — and militarily inefficient — their forces will be. This will hardly destroy the Taliban, but destruction isn’t the goal. The Taliban are not simply a militant Islamist force. At times they are a flag of convenience for businessmen or thugs; they can even be, simply, the least-bad alternative for villagers desperate for basic security and civil services. In many parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban are not only pervasive but also the sole option for governance and civil authority.

So destruction of what is in essence part of the local cultural and political fabric is not an American goal. Instead, the goal is to prevent the Taliban from mounting large-scale operations that could overwhelm any particular location. Remember, the Americans do not wish to pacify Afghanistan; the Americans wish to leave Afghanistan in a form that will not cause the United States severe problems down the road. In effect, achieving the first goal simply aims to shape the ground for a shot at achieving the second.

That second goal is to establish a domestic authority that can stand up to the Taliban in the long run. Most of the surge of forces into Afghanistan is not designed to battle the Taliban now but to secure the population and train the Afghan security forces to battle the Taliban later. To do this, the Taliban must be weak enough in a formal military sense to be unable to launch massive or coordinated attacks. Capturing key population centers along the Helmand River Valley is the first step in a strategy designed to create the breathing room necessary to create a replacement force, preferably a replacement force that provides Afghans with a viable alternative to the Taliban.

That is no small task. In recent years, in places where the official government has been corrupt, inept or defunct, the Taliban have in many cases stepped in to provide basic governance and civil authority. And this is why even the Americans are publicly flirting with holding talks with certain factions of the Taliban in hopes that at least some of the fighters can be dissuaded from battling the Americans (assisting with the first goal) and perhaps even joining the nascent Afghan government (assisting with the second).

The bottom line is that this battle does not mark the turning of the tide of the war. Instead, it is part of the application of a new strategy that accurately takes into account Afghanistan’s geography and all the weaknesses and challenges that geography poses. Marjah marks the first time the United States has applied a plan not to hold the line, but actually to reshape the country. We are not saying that the strategy will bear fruit. Afghanistan is a corrupt mess populated by citizens who are far more comfortable thinking and acting locally and tribally than nationally. In such a place indigenous guerrillas will always hold the advantage. No one has ever attempted this sort of national restructuring in Afghanistan, and the Americans are attempting to do so in a short period on a shoestring budget.

At the time of this writing, this first step appears to be going well for American-NATO-Afghan forces. Casualties have been light and most of Marjah already has been secured. But do not read this as a massive battlefield success. The assault required weeks of obvious preparation, and very few Taliban fighters chose to remain and contest the territory against the more numerous and better armed attackers. The American challenge lies not so much in assaulting or capturing Marjah but in continuing to deny it to the Taliban. If the Americans cannot actually hold places like Marjah, then they are simply engaging in an exhausting and reactive strategy of chasing a dispersed and mobile target.

A “government-in-a-box” of civilian administrators is already poised to move into Marjah to step into the vacuum left by the Taliban. We obviously have major doubts about how effective this box government can be at building up civil authority in a town that has been governed by the Taliban for most of the last decade. Yet what happens in Marjah and places like it in the coming months will be the foundation upon which the success or failure of this effort will be built. But assessing that process is simply impossible, because the only measure that matters cannot be judged until the Afghans are left to themselves.

Tell STRATFOR What You Think For Publication Not For Publication

Read What Others Think Reader Comments

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence at the beginning or end of the report, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR:

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100216_meaning_marjah

Obama's Plan and the Key Battleground

Join STRATFOR's free email list and you'll get STRATFOR's FREE Intelligence in your inbox each week.

December 2, 2009 | 1155 GMT

By George Friedman

U.S. President Barack Obama announced the broad structure of his Afghanistan strategy in a speech at West Point on Tuesday evening. The strategy had three core elements. First, he intends to maintain pressure on al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani border and in other regions of the world. Second, he intends to blunt the Taliban offensive by sending an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, along with an unspecified number of NATO troops he hopes will join them. Third, he will use the space created by the counteroffensive against the Taliban and the resulting security in some regions of Afghanistan to train and build Afghan military forces and civilian structures to assume responsibility after the United States withdraws. Obama added that the U.S. withdrawal will begin in July 2011, but provided neither information on the magnitude of the withdrawal nor the date when the withdrawal would conclude. He made it clear that these will depend on the situation on the ground, adding that the U.S. commitment is finite.

RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGE

• Obama’s Afghanistan Challenge

In understanding this strategy, we must begin with an obvious but unstated point: The extra forces that will be deployed to Afghanistan are not expected to defeat the Taliban. Instead, their mission is to reverse the momentum of previous years and to create the circumstances under which an Afghan force can take over the mission. The U.S. presence is therefore a stopgap measure, not the ultimate solution.

The ultimate solution is training an Afghan force to engage the Taliban over the long haul, undermining support for the Taliban, and dealing with al Qaeda forces along the Pakistani border and in the rest of Afghanistan. If the United States withdraws all of its forces as Obama intends, the Afghan military would have to assume all of these missions. Therefore, we must consider the condition of the Afghan military to evaluate the strategy’s viability.

Afghanistan vs. Vietnam

Obama went to great pains to distinguish Afghanistan from Vietnam, and there are indeed many differences. The core strategy adopted by Richard Nixon (not Lyndon Johnson) in Vietnam, called “Vietnamization,” saw U.S. forces working to blunt and disrupt the main North Vietnamese forces while the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) would be trained, motivated and deployed to replace U.S. forces to be systematically withdrawn from Vietnam. The equivalent of the Afghan surge was the U.S. attack on North Vietnamese Army (NVA) bases in Cambodia and offensives in northern South Vietnam designed to disrupt NVA command and control and logistics and forestall a major offensive by the NVA. Troops were in fact removed in parallel with the Cambodian offensives.

Nixon faced two points Obama now faces. First, the United States could not provide security for South Vietnam indefinitely. Second, the South Vietnamese would have to provide security for themselves. The role of the United States was to create the conditions under which the ARVN would become an effective fighting force; the impending U.S. withdrawal was intended to increase the pressure on the Vietnamese government to reform and on the ARVN to fight.

Many have argued that the core weakness of the strategy was that the ARVN was not motivated to fight. This was certainly true in some cases, but the idea that the South Vietnamese were generally sympathetic to the Communists is untrue. Some were, but many weren’t, as shown by the minimal refugee movement into NVA-held territory or into North Vietnam itself contrasted with the substantial refugee movement into U.S./ARVN-held territory and away from NVA forces. The patterns of refugee movement are, we think, highly indicative of true sentiment.

Certainly, there were mixed sentiments, but the failure of the ARVN was not primarily due to hostility or even lack of motivation. Instead, it was due to a problem that must be addressed and overcome if the Afghanistation war is to succeed. That problem is understanding the role that Communist sympathizers and agents played in the formation of the ARVN.

By the time the ARVN expanded — and for that matter from its very foundation — the North Vietnamese intelligence services had created a systematic program for inserting operatives and recruiting sympathizers at every level of the ARVN, from senior staff and command positions down to the squad level. The exploitation of these assets was not random nor merely intended to undermine moral. Instead, it provided the NVA with strategic, operational and tactical intelligence on ARVN operations, and when ARVN and U.S. forces operated together, on U.S. efforts as well.

In any insurgency, the key for insurgent victory is avoiding battles on the enemy’s terms and initiating combat only on the insurgents’ terms. The NVA was a light infantry force. The ARVN — and the U.S. Army on which it was modeled — was a much heavier, combined-arms force. In any encounter between the NVA and its enemies the NVA would lose unless the encounter was at the time and place of the NVA’s choosing. ARVN and U.S. forces had a tremendous advantage in firepower and sheer weight. But they had a significant weakness: The weight they bought to bear meant they were less agile. The NVA had a tremendous weakness. Caught by surprise, it would be defeated. And it had a great advantage: Its intelligence network inside the ARVN generally kept it from being surprised. It also revealed weakness in its enemies’ deployment, allowing it to initiate successful offensives.

All war is about intelligence, but nowhere is this truer than in counterinsurgency and guerrilla war, where invisibility to the enemy and maintaining the initiative in all engagements is key. Only clear intelligence on the enemy’s capability gives this initiative to an insurgent, and only denying intelligence to the enemy — or knowing what the enemy knows and intends — preserves the insurgent force.

The construction of an Afghan military is an obvious opportunity for Taliban operatives and sympathizers to be inserted into the force. As in Vietnam, such operatives and sympathizers are not readily distinguishable from loyal soldiers; ideology is not something easy to discern. With these operatives in place, the Taliban will know of and avoid Afghan army forces and will identify Afghan army weaknesses. Knowing that the Americans are withdrawing as the NVA did in Vietnam means the rational strategy of the Taliban is to reduce operational tempo, allow the withdrawal to proceed, and then take advantage of superior intelligence and the ability to disrupt the Afghan forces internally to launch the Taliban offensives.

The Western solution is not to prevent Taliban sympathizers from penetrating the Afghan army. Rather, the solution is penetrating the Taliban. In Vietnam, the United States used signals intelligence extensively. The NVA came to understand this and minimized radio communications, accepting inefficient central command and control in return for operational security. The solution to this problem lay in placing South Vietnamese into the NVA. There were many cases in which this worked, but on balance, the NVA had a huge advantage in the length of time it had spent penetrating the ARVN versus U.S. and ARVN counteractions. The intelligence war on the whole went to the North Vietnamese. The United States won almost all engagements, but the NVA made certain that it avoided most engagements until it was ready.

In the case of Afghanistan, the United States has far more sophisticated intelligence-gathering tools than it did in Vietnam. Nevertheless, the basic principle remains: An intelligence tool can be understood, taken into account and evaded. By contrast, deep penetration on multiple levels by human intelligence cannot be avoided.

Pakistan’s Role

Obama mentioned Pakistan’s critical role. Clearly, he understands the lessons of Vietnam regarding sanctuary, and so he made it clear that he expects Pakistan to engage and destroy Taliban forces on its territory and to deny Afghan Taliban supplies, replacements and refuge. He cited the Swat and South Waziristanoffensives as examples of the Pakistanis’ growing effectiveness. While this is a significant piece of his strategy, the Pakistanis must play another role with regard to intelligence.

The heart of Obama’s strategy lies not in the surge, but rather in turning the war over to the Afghans. As in Vietnam, any simplistic model of loyalties doesn’t work. There are Afghans sufficiently motivated to form the core of an effective army. As in Vietnam, the problem is that this army will contain large numbers of Taliban sympathizers; there is no way to prevent this. The Taliban is not stupid: It has and will continue to move its people into as many key positions as possible.

The challenge lies in leveling the playing field by inserting operatives into the Taliban. Since the Afghan intelligence services are inherently insecure, they can’t carry out such missions. American personnel bring technical intelligence to bear, but that does not compensate for human intelligence. The only entity that could conceivably penetrate the Taliban and remain secure is the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This would give the Americans and Afghans knowledge of Taliban plans and deployments. This would diminish the ability of the Taliban to evade attacks, and although penetrated as well, the Afghan army would enjoy a chance ARVN never had.

But only the ISI could do this, and thinking of the ISI as secure is hard to do from a historical point of view. The ISI worked closely with the Taliban during the Afghan civil war that brought it to power and afterwards, and the ISI had many Taliban sympathizers. The ISI underwent significant purging and restructuring to eliminate these elements over recent years, but no one knows how successful these efforts were.

The ISI remains the center of gravity of the entire problem. If the war is about creating an Afghan army, and if we accept that the Taliban will penetrate this army heavily no matter what, then the only counter is to penetrate the Taliban equally. Without that, Obama’s entire strategy fails as Nixon’s did.

In his talk, Obama quite properly avoided discussing the intelligence aspect of the war. He clearly cannot ignore the problem we have laid out, but neither can he simply count on the ISI. He does not need the entire ISI for this mission, however. He needs a carved out portion — compartmentalized and invisible to the greatest possible extent — to recruit and insert operatives into the Taliban and to create and manage communication networks so as to render the Taliban transparent. Given Taliban successes of late, it isn’t clear whether he has this intelligence capability. Either way, we would have to assume that some Pakistani solution to the Taliban intelligence issue has been discussed (and such a solution must be Pakistani for ethnic and linguistic reasons).

Every war has its center of gravity, and Obama has made clear that the center of gravity of this war will be the Afghan military’s ability to replace the Americans in a very few years. If that is the center of gravity, and if maintaining security against Taliban penetration is impossible, then the single most important enabler to Obama’s strategy would seem to be the ability to make the Taliban transparent.

Therefore, Pakistan is important not only as the Cambodia of this war, the place where insurgents go to regroup and resupply, but also as a key element of the solution to the intelligence war. It is all about Pakistan. And that makes Obama’s plan difficult to execute. It is far easier to write these words than to execute a plan based on them. But to the extent Obama is serious about the Afghan army taking over, he and his team have had to think about how to do this.

Tell STRATFOR What You Think

For Publication in Letters to STRATFOR

Not For Publication

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence at the beginning or end of the report, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR:

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

O peão polonês

Dia 16 de julho, o presidente russo e a chanceler alemã se encontraram em Munique para discutir planos de desenvolvimento de infra-estrutura entre os dois países. Para uma Europa sedenta por combustíveis russos, que chegam a quase 50% no caso da Alemanha é mais do que mera questão econômica, é segurança nacional mesmo. Mas, entre as necessidades de demanda e oferta de um e de outro há a Europa Central, particularmente a Polônia que já foi campo de invasões e teatro de operações antes e durante a Guerra Fria. Atualmente, o coringa polonês reside no sistema de mísseis balísticos a serem instalados, o "guarda-chuvas da OTAN".

A Alemanha tem sido o pêndulo da política externa dos países na Europa Central, como aliada estável e leal dos EUA na região. Mas, os movimentos russos após o avanço da OTAN (interferência na Ucrânia, ataque à Geórgia etc.) trouxeram complicadores, como a possibilidade do governo de Angela Merkel sofrer algum tipo de pressão do russo Dmitri Medvedev para ir contra à instalação de mísseis balísticos na Polônia.

O governo americano de Barack Hussein Obama tem adotado uma tática de espera, pois se depende da aliança russa para transferência de tropas ao Afeganistão como uma de suas opções, não pode simplesmente jogar no lixo todo apoio que tiveram da Alemanha que, inclusive, mantém tropas no país asiático.

Quem fica na expectativa são os países da Europa Central, ex-comunistas que conhecem bem o tacão russo e do que Moscou é capaz. Turbulência no front dos peões em que Washington e Moscou jogam.

As rotas de caça ao Talebã

O Talebã persiste atacando ferrovias afegãs, o que forçou o uso de rotas alternativas pelos EUA ao norte. Adicionalmente, acordos têm sido feitos com a Geórgia e países como Azerbaidjão, Cazaquistão e Uzbequistão. Além destas rotas no Cáucaso e na Ásia Central a partir da Europa, o Paquistão também é avaliado como possível rota, mas a tarefa de enviar alimentos, combustível e munição às tropas da Otan por este país têm sido difícil. ¾ da carga dos EUA e Europa vão até Karachi para depois prosseguir rumo ao Afeganistão. A menor rota por terra é paquistanesa. De Karachi, a maior cidade paquistanesa partem duas rotas:

1. Por Chaman, no sudoeste, na região de Kandahar;
2. Por Torkham, no noroeste, na passagem de Khyber.

Ainda há a facilidade política, pois se trata de um governo apenas, ao passo que as alternativas envolvem a costura com vários. Apesar da instabilidade atual, o Paquistão mostrou-se um importante aliado desde a campanha do Afeganistão em 2001. O fator energético também pesa: as refinarias paquistanesas abastecem as forças da Otan em operação na região, ao passo que o combustível de Baku no Azerbaidjão tem que passar pelo Cáspio e pelo Turcomenistão. Estas, por sua vez, se tornam mais importantes na medida em que as tropas da Otan se encontram mais afastadas da fronteira paquistanesa.

Até 2007, não se viu revoltas insufladas pelo Talebã no Paquistão. Mas, a ambigüidade do apoio de Musharraf, quem estendia uma mão para Washington e outra aos fundamentalistas deve ter forçado sua queda. A opção, consequentemente, é diminuir esta dependência logística. E isto, evidentemente, encarece a operação que precisa passar pelos portos da Geórgia e pelos europeus no Mar Negro. Dali prosseguem por ferrovias até o Azerbaidjão no Cáspio e depois até o Turcomenistão para então seguir por estrada ou até o Cazaquistão e Uzbequistão para a área ocupada.

Como se não bastasse a enorme dificuldade logística adicional, ainda há a possível interferência da Rússia nas operações. A Rússia trava uma queda de braço com as forças da Otan e os russos deverão exigir algo para garantir sua segurança regional. Após a invasão da Geórgia, a Rússia já insinuou, sutilmente, mas insinuou sobre a viabilidade das rotas utilizadas pela Otan em direção ao Afeganistão. E os governos uzbeque e turcomeno ainda são muito ligados a Moscou e, igualmente receosos da interferência americana na região. Uma alternativa pouco provável seria traçar um acordo com o Irã, rival do Talebã, mas nem tanto ao ponto de favorecer os interesses de Washington no Afeganistão.

O que significa a vitória?

Áreas jihadistas no Afeganistão e fronteira paquistanesa.

Se o sentido de ‘sucesso’ puder ser relativizado, então a "derrota americana" em suas recentes operações no Afeganistão e no Iraque não são o que parecem. Depois do ataque ao Afeganistão, a Aliança do Norte retomou áreas que estavam sob domínio talebã, embora se diga que esta esteja “ganhando terreno” agora. E a idéia que temos de ‘domínio’ não se aplica ao Afeganistão. Mesmo quando os Talebãs não tinham sido derrubados, sua perpetuação dependia de acordos com líderes tribais. Por exemplo: o esporte nacional (pólo com um crânio inimigo) não fora abolido, apesar da determinação da política moral talebã. Se insistissem nisto, as tribos se revoltariam. Trata-se de um “domínio relativo”, ceder para ganhar.

Agora, me diga: se relativizamos para entender o que ocorre com estes grupos e situações, por que nos soa estranho fazer o mesmo com os ‘imperialistas’? Por que vitórias parciais e avanços de terreno não são compreendidos como ‘sucesso’ no cômputo final?

Não será por que:

1) Superestimamos o poder imperial?
2) Ou lhe cobramos maior eficácia? (Porque ainda o superestimamos...)
3) Ou porque não toleramos a idéia de que, ao final das contas, ganhem mais uma vez?

O que temos no fundo é uma análise assimétrica para quem julgamos. Para uma Talebã somos misericordiosos no cálculo de suas investidas. Qualquer ação, por mais pífia ou performática que seja rende exageros na conclusão; já para os EUA, mesmo que dominem a maior parte do Afeganistão (construindo rotas de abastecimento, instalando acampamentos, impondo lideranças aliadas, influenciando em governos vizinhos como o do Paquistão etc.), tudo parece ‘pouco’ por que não é tudo!

Podemos dizer que “os EUA perderam” por que seu investimento de alto custo não tem trazido os benefícios esperados? Mas, alguém aqui sabe exatamente quais são estes? Já fizeram uma análise apurada e equilibrada destes?

Quanto ao Iraque, eu acho que a realidade já mostra que:

1) Ganharam a guerra;
2) Instalaram uma cúpula de aliados;
3) Estabeleceram vínculos econômicos (empresas de extração) no norte curdo;
4) Diminuíram substancialmente o número de insurgências e ataques das hostes inimigas;
5) Baixaram a virulência do apoio iraniano aos xiitas do sul (em parte devido a este benfazeja crise que reduziu a demanda por petróleo) etc. Tanto que Ahmadinejad voltou à mesa de negociações e não se posicionou favoravelmente a invasão russa na Geórgia (que pode ser um problema bem maior a Teerã).

Há maneiras e maneiras de avaliarmos “quem ganhou”. Agora, se nos basearmos em que uma crítica (e oposicionista) mídia diz, a administração Bush saiu derrotada.

Num certo sentido, a claque de Bush perdeu mesmo: nas eleições presidenciais americanas. Mas, é só uma questão de tempo para vermos que Barack Hussein Obama também ‘perderá’ ao rasgar sua retórica pacifista e responder a crises como a que foi deflagrada em Mumbai, dentre outras.

Perde a ingenuidade e vence a realidade. Neocons e críticos da guerra perderão para dar lugar ao eterno retorno do interesse de estado.

Obama e o Afeganistão

Quem achou que a mudança de administração no governo americano seria igualmente uma significativa mudança em sua política externa?

"O provável candidato democrata à Presidência dos Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, disse hoje que é necessário enviar mais tropas americanas ao Afeganistão para intensificar a luta contra a Al Qaeda e os talibãs."
Obama diz que Afeganistão precisa de mais tropas americanas, http://g1.globo.com/

Combatendo uma guerrilha rural no Oriente Médio

Eu não sabia da posição paquistanesa favorável ao Talebã. Sei que os "estudantes" (talebans) tiveram sua formação no Paquistão, mas pensei (ingenuamente) que a posição de aliado do Paquistão ajudasse a reverter a guerrilha. E no fulcro disto, o Afeganistão rural onde "democracia é uma abstração" e "deus vale mais que todo o parlamento". Claro, só de reza não vive o vivente, então a defesa da produção de ópio dá o substrato econômico necessário.

Vencer no Afeganistão implica em estratégia firme no agora convulsionado Paquistão. Complicado... Sem um programa contra-revolucionário como foi na Malásia (diferentemente do Vietnã) de apoio aos vilarejos e maior presença ali, isto não terá futuro. Apoio significa a formação de redes de informantes e simpatizantes contrários à guerrilha talebã. Como o diz Kaplan "se você viver e dormir com o povo, ele confia em você". Somente assim o governo Karzai poderá lograr um trunfo frente ao fundamentalismo islâmico na região.


July 20, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The Taliban's Silent Partner
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Stockbridge, Mass.

WHEN the American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan five years ago, pessimists warned that we would soon find ourselves in a similar situation to what Soviet forces faced in the 1980's. They were wrong — but only about the timing. The military operation was lean and lethal, and routed the Taliban government in a few weeks. But now, just two years after Hamid Karzai was elected as the country's first democratic leader, the coalition finds itself, like its Soviet predecessors, in control of major cities and towns, very weak in the villages, and besieged by a shadowy insurgency that uses Pakistan as its rear base.

Our backing of an enlightened government in Kabul should put us in a far stronger position than the Soviets in the fight to win back the hinterland. But it may not, and for a good reason: the involvement of our other ally in the region, Pakistan, in aiding the Taliban war machine is deeper than is commonly thought.

The United States and NATO will not prevail unless they can persuade Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, to help us more than he has. Unfortunately, based on what senior Afghans have explained in detail to American officials, Pakistan is now supporting the Taliban in a manner similar to the way it supported the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets two decades ago.

The Taliban has two leadership cells operating inside Pakistan, presumably with the guidance and logistical support of local authorities. Senior lieutenants to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, are ensconced in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. From there they direct military operations in the south-central Afghan provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul.

Meanwhile, one of the Taliban's savviest military commanders, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his sons operate out of Miramshah, the capital of the North Waziristan Province. From there, they run operations in Kabul and the eastern Afghan regions of Khost, Logar, Paktia and Paktika.

Mr. Haqqani, who was years ago an American ally in the anti-Soviet campaign, has also been long suspected of sheltering Osama bin Laden. He is a crusty warrior with a great deal of credibility in Afghanistan because 20 years ago, rather than sip tea with journalists like some other rebel leaders, he was laying siege to Soviet positions.

Meanwhile, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and the Bajur region, one finds various headquarters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-i-Islami Party is aligned with the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar, another former American ally, runs operations in the Afghan regions of Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman, Nangahar and Nuristan.

These various bases inside Pakistan have assured the Taliban's survival in the years since a democratic government was established in Kabul. Having hung on, the Taliban has recently regained much of its strength — and may now be winning the war of the villages against President Karzai.

In Afghan politics, it is the rural heartland that has always been the pivotal terrain, the place from where the mujahedeen rebellion against a secularized, Marxist-influenced urban regime was ignited in 1978, almost two years before the Soviets actually invaded. Whereas Iraq is two-thirds urban, less than a quarter of Afghans live in cities.

In Afghan villages, God and tribe are more tangible than any elected parliament. And where democracy remains an abstraction, anyone who can provide security and other basic needs — by whatever means — commands respect. Since toppling the Taliban in late 2001, the coalition and Afghan leaders have concentrated too much effort on Afghan cities, many of whose inhabitants, connected as they are to the outside world, are apt to support democracy anyway. The war we are now fighting will be won or lost in the villages.

While government officials from Kabul show up in rural areas for regular visits, the Taliban are setting up permanent presences in them. They are also importing radical, Pakistan-trained clerics to preach against the Kabul authorities. While officials from the capital too often speak in platitudes, the Taliban make concrete offers to protect poppy fields from eradication.

The drug trade is a particular problem because the United States, given its domestic policies, must take a stand against it and the government in Kabul, needing to maintain an upright image with international donors, must follow suit. Thus, the Taliban is free to use our morality against both.

The Taliban even have shadow officials for small areas of Afghanistan, whose top officials live just over the border in Pakistan. Afghan villagers journey to Pakistan to seek justice for one grievance or another from these alternative figures.

The situation is tragically simple: the very people we need to kill or apprehend we can't get at, because they are in effect protected by our so-called ally, Pakistan. All we can do is win tactical battles against foot soldiers inside Afghanistan, who are easily replaced.

It isn't that President Musharraf is doing nothing. He has deployed troops along the border that have somewhat cut down on the activities of Mr. Haqqani. Moreover, many of his troops are busy quelling a separatist rebellion in the border province of Baluchistan.

But he feels himself atop a volcano of fundamentalism. He is among the last of the Westernized, British-style officers in the national army; after him come the men with the beards. The military and Pakistani society are filled with those who do not see the Taliban as a threat: it is an American problem, and one for an Afghan government toward which they feel ambivalence. So President Musharraf must walk a fine line. And he must be as devious with us as he is with any other faction.

Thus Pakistani strategy is to get the Taliban to the point where it can set up secure leadership bases in remote parts of Afghanistan and move across the border. Then Pakistan will claim that it is no longer its problem.

There are two opposing tipping points to watch out for. The first is the moment the Taliban leadership feels safe in bases inside Afghanistan and decides it can mobilize to infiltrate and eventually topple the cities. That is when Presidents Bush and Karzai lose. Mr. Karzai would need to form his own private militia, and perhaps cut a deal with Mullah Omar in order to survive.

The other tipping point is when the Taliban leaders inside Pakistan feel themselves under so much pressure from the local authorities that their energy is spent on survival rather than on running operations. That is when Messrs. Bush and Karzai win. Unfortunately, this seems less likely than the first tipping point.

We can't reverse this drift without a stronger policy toward Pakistan. I say this with extreme trepidation. President Musharraf, for all his faults, may still be the worst person to rule his country except for any other who might replace him. And yet it is necessary to hold his feet to the fire to a greater extent than we have.

Things have reached the point that it was entirely justified for the American ambassador to Islamabad, Ryan Crocker, to say this month that the exiled former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to return and run against Mr. Musharraf. As corrupt as those two leaders were, we need leverage.

IN the end, the battle for Afghanistan will be won in the villages, and the time-tested rules of counterinsurgency will apply. The two most vital goals in this case will be giving the local residents a stake in the outcome through subsidies and development projects; and providing security through the presence of coalition troops embedded with Afghan Army units. Periodic patrols don't cut it. If you live and sleep beside people, they tend to trust you. You don't win these kinds of wars operating out of big bases near the capital.

Finally, while democracy may be an abstraction in the Afghan countryside, it can be a powerful psychological tool if explained in the language of nuts-and-bolts enticements. With our help, President Karzai's rural representatives must articulate a strategy of hope and development, and contrast it with the one of interminable conflict that is all that the Taliban can ultimately offer.

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and the author of "Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/opinion/20kaplan.html?pagewanted=2

Tome conta dos teus problemas, ou nós o faremos.

http://execout.blogspot.com/2007/07/pakistan-reacts-to-us-call-for-action.html



"The U.S. message is fairly simple: Take care of the problem, or we will."


É isso aí, os EUA não podem mais se dar ao luxo de deixarem os problemas evoluírem em terrenos conflituosos como a fronteira do Paquistão com Afeganistão. (O caso indiano é mais complicado.) Onde não houver força de estado suficiente, eles têm que pressionar para valer. É melhor ser mal visto logo de cara que deixar os problema crescer para ser muito mais mal visto depois.