US to focus on counter-insurgency in Afghanistan
Updated
Within days, U-S President Barack Obama is expected to finalise details of a new strategy in Afghanistan, where the war has been going particularly badly.
As well as more troops -- a so-called surge -- it's expected to shift focus towards counter-insurgency and security for the population. It could also be accompanied by a request to Australia to send more troops, with Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd scheduled to meet Mr Obama in Washington this week.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Stephen Smith, Australian Foreign Minister; Joel Fitzgibbon, Australian Defence Minister; Jim Molan, Major General (rtd); Dr Benjamin MacQueen, Melbourne University, Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies
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MOTTRAM: As Kevin Rudd prepared to leave Canberra for Washington, news of a tenth Australian death in Afghanistan .. the second in just two days .. prompted Australian leaders to restate the country's interest in the war. Foreign minister Stephen Smith.
SMITH: Why are we there? We're there because we think its in our national interest, that this is the hotbed of international terrorism, Australia's been on the receiving end, we've suffered adverse consequences from that. So we think there's a responsibility to help stare that down.
MOTTRAM: And the defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon.
FITZGIBBON: Since 2000, over 100 Australian citizens have been killed in major terrorist attacks, the perpetrators of which were trained primarily in Afghanistan or the border regions of Pakistan.
MOTTRAM: In 2004, Australian Major General Jim Molan was sent to command 300-thousand coalition troops in Iraq. Now retired, he agrees Australia has legitimate interests in Afghanistan. He says as well as the self-interest the government ministers speak of, there's Australia's formal alliance with the United States, a humanitarian interest and another consideration.
MOLAN: And we do live next door to the biggest Muslim country in the world and its not hard to destabilise a country, even one as big and as solid and as great as Indonesia. I saw it in Iraq. A thousand al Qaeda through the use of excessive violence totally destabilised that country.
MOTTRAM: With its commitment to Afghanistan reaffirmed, Australia is now likely to proceed to sending more troops. But what they do is likely to change to some extent as a result of Washington's revamped strategy. Doctor Benjamin Macqueen from Melbourne University works on the impacts of US foreign policy on political transformation in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. He says the new Obama strategy will be significant.
MACQUEEN: Its a combination of the physical change of having 17-thousand more troops on the ground but a change in philosophy in terms of trying to sort of peg back to more pragmatic goals for both the military and the reconstruction efforts there. And also in terms of military strategy there's going to be a shift towards a counter-insurgency focus.
MOTTRAM: General Molan puts a premium on the larger number of troops.
MOLAN: Really we haven't done much because the level of troops in Afghanistan have been too low to do anything. Until this last commitment of American troops we only had 60-thousand foreign troops in a country of 30-million people. So really on the big scale we haven't done much. The British have done a lot of fighting in Helmand province and its been really nasty fighting. But the way this will be won is not with a focus on the enemy but with a focus on the people and this is the big change that's come out of Iraq.
MOTTRAM: And General Molan says Australia should double its numbers on the ground this year, with an extra thousand soldiers. He says to have a serious chance of winning in Oruzgan, the province where Australia forces are deployed, a total of six-thousand troops are needed.
Doctor MacQueen says a doubling of Australia's presence would be a stretch.
MACQUEEN: I can't see Obama asking and Australian accepting say a doubling of Australian ground troops to around 2000. Fourteen to fifteen hundred I think's going to be the mark.
MOTTRAM: Do you anticipate that Australia will continue to do the sorts of things that its currently doing or do you think that the Obama strategy is going to fundamentally redefine what Australia's role is as well?
MACQUEEN: Part of the shift with Obama's strategy towards this counter-insurgency policy is going to be focussed along the Afghan border and looking at longer term troop presence and the continuity of presence in those areas so there could be a segment of Australian troop force that's actually shifted slightly eastward towards the border area which is also a very dangerous, volatile area.
MOTTRAM: Can the fight to subdue the Taliban, replace the poppy with a real economy, get Afghan girls to school and tame the volatile border areas be won? Nothing is guaranteed, General Molan says, but if nothing is done, Afghanistan will be lost, he says, delivering a blow to U-S credibility, emboldening militant Islam world-wide and in particular increasing the threat to an unstable Pakistan.
MOLAN: If we're going to be in there and we're going to take casualties, we should be in there to win.
MOTTRAM: After eight years, Afghanistan is at a critical point. Barack Obama's main issue now is not whether to shift to a more sophisticated strategy, but when -- Afghan elections are due in August -- and with how many troops. Australia is preparing to do more, though its likely to proceed modestly.
