View From Canberra: The Afghanistan question | ADM Nov 2010

Perhaps by the time this column appears, the great parliamentary debate on Afghanistan will have started and perhaps concluded.

It’s difficult to imagine this much anticipated event will actually add anything to public knowledge beyond that which could be obtained by any reasonably interested observer with an internet connection.

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

The debate will allow those for and against Australian involvement in Afghanistan to vent their views, perhaps dragging some members of the public with them.

There will be heat and just maybe a little bit of light.

Ahead of this, Prime Minister Julia Gillard made her first prime ministerial trip into Afghanistan in late September.

That coincided with discussion in Australia on the adequacy of support available to troops, prompted by release of an email from a soldier involved in a firefight on August 24 in which Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney was shot dead.

The unnamed soldier suggested the level of artillery and other support was far less than it should have been, prompting articles from commentators such as retired Major General Jim Molan pointing to the need to deploy more troops and resources to even have a shot at success in Oruzgan Province.

Unsurprisingly, the Opposition, in the form of defence spokesman David Johnston, took the side of Our Boys, calling for more resources including artillery, attack helicopters and tanks and 360 more soldiers to run them.

So is that now coalition policy?

It seems even the coalition isn't sure?

A spokesman for Opposition leader Tony Abbott said he supported Senator Johnston's remarks but offered no further comment.

In a speech to the Lowy Institute in late April, Abbott raised the prospect of a coalition government doing more in Afghanistan.

“If satisfied that the role made strategic sense and was compatible with our other military commitments, the coalition government would be prepared to consider doing more,” he said.

“Doing more would be a sign Australia was serious about its overseas responsibilities.”

But he didn't push that line during the election campaign and hasn't since.

Maybe he will during the great parliamentary debate.

The official line is that Australia's current commitment of 1,550 troops is about right for the task of training the 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army and that existing resources are sufficient for the job.

“If you asked every commander would you like more, he'd always like more.

“But I think what we've got, our capabilities, are right for the task we have,” noted Lieutenant General Mark Evans, commander of joint operations.

However any soldier grovelling in the Afghan dust, bullets whipping close overhead, is apt to take the view that no level of support, up to and including tactical nukes, is too much.

This is an issue which resonates with the public and may already have achieved the critical mass needed to prompt action.

Gillard noted that she would act on the advice of defence on such matters.

So Defence head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston need only say the word and more stuff will be dispatched, although that's unlikely to include tanks.

During her travels Gillard scored two hits against the opposition.

Hit one occurred when it transpired she had invited Abbott to tag along with her to Afghanistan.

He explained away his rejection of that offer on grounds that he didn't want to be too jetlagged for his main event, attending the UK Conservative Party conference.

Coming from the action man who campaigned non-stop for the final 36 hours of the election, this was pretty poor and was seen as a slap to the soldiers.

He speedily apologised.

Of course what he really meant to say was that he was plannong on making his own trip to Afghanistan and didn't want to be playing second fiddle to the PM.

Gillard's second hit came at the expense of Johnston when she declared that everyone in Afghanistan from generals down to foot soldiers was laughing out loud at his tank suggestion.

“You may as well send them a submarine,” she said.

But on this one, she's not on nearly so solid ground because two fellow coalition members, Canada and Denmark, have both deployed Leopard tanks while Germany and the Netherlands have deployed tracked artillery.

Their operational experience indicates that Afghanistan certainly isn't uniquely unsuited to tank operations.

On the face of it, Vietnam was, yet Australian Centurions proved highly useful in supporting infantry attacks on strong defensive positions, saving dozens of lives.

There appear to be two principal problems with tanks in Afghanistan.

In a war for Afghan hearts and minds, they might be deemed inappropriately intimidating.

Then there's no way to get a tank to Afghanistan other than by air.

An Abrams will fit on a C-17 or an Antonov-124 but any deployment would necessarily be limited to perhaps half a dozen.

Tanks aside, what support is available to Australian troops in contact?

The answer is quite a lot and includes coalition fast jets, attack and transport helicopters, armed drones and artillery.

From our own assets, Australia can contribute a pair of Chinook transport helicopters, some 81-mm mortars, surveillance drones and armoured vehicles, particularly the ASLAV with its 25-mm chain gun.

But the reality is not everything is automatically available the instant it's called for, or even at all, for a whole range of reasons.

Someone else's contact might be judged as higher priority.

For reasons of deconfliction, artillery and mortars can't fire indiscriminately where helicopters are operating.

Although tempting, rules of engagement mean troops can no longer simply call in an air strike on any hostile residential compound.

Some public discussion of this issue seemed to display a misunderstanding of the coalition nature of the conflict, with suggestions that extra Australian artillery or attack helicopters would be there for the exclusive or primary use of Australian troops.

The government could do that but it would mean imposing the type of restrictive caveats it has routinely and strongly criticised when applied by other nations, particularly the Europeans.

Again the reality is that this kit would be used for coalition as well as Australian tasks.

Even on that basis, defence could easily make the case for deployment of some towed 155-mm artillery to enhance force protection, especially as Australian and Afghan troops move back into hostile areas such as the Tangi Valley where Lance Corporal MacKinney was killed.

The government could hardly object.

It must follow that future joint Australian, US and Afghan operations will be into such disputed areas.

One significant project involves construction of a sealed road from Tarin Kowt to Chora through the Baluchi Valley, now about one third constructed.

That will allow far easier movement of people, produce, government officials and of course security forces.

That's now approaching the most difficult region, with the Taliban expected to object violently.

For one thing, insurgents find it much harder to lay IEDs in bitumen roads.

On Australian operational maps of maps, this area is bright red and is colourfully described by one Australian commander as a shithole.

Other areas meriting the same description include parts of the Mirabad and Sorkh Lez where two Australian sappers and an explosives sniffer dog died in an IED blast in June.

This underlines the complexity and diversity of this campaign with some areas such as Deh Rawood described as permissive, with security reasonable by Afghan standards and good development prospects, while as little as a kilometre up the road, Australian troops and the Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers under their mentorship can be certain of a fight.

Australia's war in Afghanistan has evolved.

From reconstruction, the focus moved to reconstruction and training and is now wholly focused on training of the ANA 4th Brigade.

On the office wall of Mentoring Task Force 1 commander Lieutenant Colonel Mark Jennings is the large print reminder: “It's the ANA Stupid.”

Lieutenant General Evans tells the soldiers: “Don't leave home without an Afghan.”

“The Afghans must not only be with us but they must be leading the activity.

“That requires a certain subtlety,” he said.

No-one disputes that the Afghan soldiery are brave and steadfast under fire and the ANA is able to mount platoon, company and even battalion level operations, with one or two companies in the field, without too much difficulty.

But Australia's commanders are under no illusions about the shortcomings.

Evans says the new 4th Brigade commander Major General Zafar Khan had acknowledged a shortfall in his officers' capacity to plan and conduct operations.

“That is where he would like a lot of our effort to be.

“So we are going to focus on exactly that – their capacity to plan, execute and sustain operations in an Afghan way,” he said.

“There is nothing wrong with the fighting quality of the Afghan soldier.

“The weakness lies in the sustainment.”

Australia's Middle East commander Major General John Cantwell: “Give them a rifle, show them the enemy and they have at them.

“But they are not too good at logistics, intelligence, personnel management and communications.

“All these other things that make for joined up military operations, they don't understand and that's where we come in.”

Cantwell notes that the ANA incur significant losses.

“They are not a sophisticated military forces.

“They tend to make mistakes, they make them repeatedly and it costs them lives or limbs.”

In one recent incident, Australians repeatedly advised their ANA counterparts against driving down the same road at the same time each day to collect their dinner.

A number died in the all too predictable IED blast.

The ANA is not immune from that scourge of Afghan society, corruption, with a some 4th Brigade soldiers found to be drawing pay across a number of battalions.

One persistent criticism of the ANA is that the soldiery is mostly illiterate and that career management almost wholly focuses on officers.

Australia's commanders concur with the oft-stated two to four year estimate for getting the 4th Brigade up to the stage where it can progressively take responsibility for security in Oruzgan.

All see room for optimism.

“The government of Afghanistan for all of its manifest and obvious failings is slowly moving forward,” Cantwell says.

“It is not going to be like the government of Australia, it's an Afghan government built a round tribal loyalties, familial loyalties.

“It's corrupt, it's inefficient, it suffers from bureaucrats who are illiterate but slowly, slowly we are seeing progress.