In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

conflict worth engaging in. Some members felt they could make up for their lack of support in Baghdad by committing to Kabul.

Contrary to some arguments, most NATO governments understood that this would involve deploying some soldiers to conduct counterinsurgency operations, not just peacekeeping. Canadian Colonel S. J. Bowes, who headed a Canadian civil and military reconstruction team, went on record in 2005 saying that his country would use the same rules of engagement used by American forces. “In Canada, it’s clear that this is not a peacekeeping mission,” he remarked. “We understand that there is an active insurgency.”³³ As 5,000 British troops were preparing to deploy to Helmand Province in 2005, British Defense Secretary John Reid stated: “The Taliban are still active in the area. So are the drug traffickers. We must be prepared to support—even defend—the provincial reconstruction team.” When asked by a journalist whether British troops would be placed in danger, Reid bluntly replied: “Yes, it is going to be [dangerous] and that is why we should be so proud of our servicemen and women.”³⁴ Several months before the official handoff of operations in Afghanistan’s south from the United States to NATO, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer argued that “people have to realize that there are spoilers, that roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices can be put along a road.”³⁵

In July 2006, NATO formally expanded its mission to the south, thus completing Stage 3 of its initial plan. British General David Richards assumed command of what became known as ISAF IX. The expansion involved the deployment of 12,000 NATO soldiers to six southern provinces: Helmand, Kandahar, Nimroz, Oruzgan, Zabol, and Day Kundi. The largest contingent in this force was British, which included 3,600 soldiers based in Helmand Province. Canada also deployed a fairly large contingent. By a close vote in the Canadian Parliament in May 2006, the government designated 2,300 troops for Afghanistan, most of whom were sent to Kandahar Province. The debate in the Dutch Parliament was also contentious, but after initial opposition, the government chose to assign between 1,400 and 1,700 troops for duty in NATO’s Stage 3. Most went to Oruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan. The principal town was Tarin Kowt, with a population of 10,000 on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River.

By 2007, international forces in Afghanistan were divided into five Regional Commands (RCs): Regional Command Capital headquartered in Kabul, Regional Command North in Mazar-e-Sharif, Regional Command West in Herat, Regional Command South in Kandahar, and Regional Command East in Bagram.

NATO’s Paradox

With NATO forces trying to cover most of Afghanistan, the organization soon found itself underresourced. NATO leaders had approved the operational plan for Afghanistan, but they deployed forces outside of Kabul without forcing member nations to fulfill their materiel requirements. They were short staffed, and the soldiers lacked maneuver battalions and aircraft—especially attack helicopters, dedicated fixed-wing close air support, and heavy- and medium-utility helicopters. “Yet NATO pushed ahead.³⁶ Suddenly, NATO found itself in the position of fighting its first foreign war without the resources to win. The shortfalls became increasingly problematic as the levels of violence rose in 2006 and 2007.

In 2007, NATO was still at least 3,000 troops short of its manpower goal in Regional Command South, and its ability to sustain force levels and capabilities over the longer term was tenuous. As NATO General Richards argued in testimony before the British House of Commons, the number of troops was his most significant concern: “Simply being able to move [NATO] troops from the North to the South would not have been a solution to me at all because we have got just about the right number of troops in the North to contain the situation there, which is broadly stable…. What I was really after was…an increase in the overall number of troops.”³⁷ There were roughly 47,000 troops in Afghanistan in mid-2007: approximately 36,000 were under NATO command and 11,000 were under U.S. command through Operation Enduring Freedom. There were also a handful of Special Operations units under U.S. command—teams from Canada, United Kingdom, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Italy, and Jordan.³⁸

What made matters worse was the refusal of most NATO countries to become involved in combat operations. Indeed, the most significant split involved not whether to go into Afghanistan but what to do there. Some allies, including Germany, vehemently opposed expanding NATO’s role to include riskier combat missions. Germany’s defense minister, Peter Struck, had argued at NATO defense meetings in Berlin in September 2005 that merging NATO’s peacekeeping mission with the American combat operation in Afghanistan would fundamentally change NATO’s role and “would make the situation for our soldiers doubly dangerous and worsen the current climate in Afghanistan.” Furthermore, he acknowledged that “NATO is not equipped for counterterrorism operations” and “that is not what it is supposed to do.”³⁹

In November 2006, at NATO’s summit in Riga, Latvia, tensions over national caveats had become acute. France, Germany, Spain, and Italy remained reluctant to send their troops to southern Afghanistan. These four nations said they would send help to trouble zones outside their areas only in emergencies. But it was unclear whether and when these commanders would have to request permission from their civilian governments to do so. Countries agreeing to ease the restrictions on deployment against the Taliban insurgency included the Netherlands, Romania, and smaller nations such as Slovenia and Luxembourg.

U.S. commanders referred to the refusal to become involved in combat operations as “national caveats,” which were triggered by at least two concerns. First, several NATO countries had a different philosophy about how to operate in Afghanistan and how to conduct counterinsurgency operations. They were particularly adamant that development and reconstruction efforts were the recipe for success and convinced that combat operations were likely to alienate the Afghan population, especially if they led to civilian casualties. Second, political leaders were reluctant to deploy their forces into violent areas because of low domestic support for combat operations.

A British House of Commons investigation discovered: “In Madrid, we were told by politicians and academics that while Spanish public opinion supported troops working on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, it would not support a war-fighting role. In Berlin, we were told about the constitutional restrictions on Germany’s military operating abroad.”⁴⁰ In a German Marshall Fund poll in 2007, for example, 75 percent of Germans, 70 percent of Italians, and 72 percent of Spanish did not support the deployment of their troops for combat operations in Afghanistan.⁴¹ “Our domestic political situation certainly restricts our activities,” noted German General Markus Kneip in 2006, commander of NATO forces in Regional Command North.⁴²

The result was that countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey held restrictive views of the NATO mission and repeatedly balked at providing troops for counterinsurgency operations in the south. Their hesitation created two tiers within NATO: those involved in ground combat (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands) and those who were not (everyone else). To be clear, those countries involved in combat also participated in reconstruction efforts. The two were not mutually exclusive.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld spoke for a number of Americans, frustrated by NATO’s inaction, when he likened the situation to “having a basketball team, and they practice and practice and practice for six months. When it comes to game time, one or two say, ‘We’re not going to play.’”⁴³ But the Americans weren’t the only ones upset; the two-tiered structure also created significant friction among other nations. Several British and Canadian military and diplomatic officials I interviewed became increasingly frustrated. “The national caveats are a source of extraordinary tension within NATO,” noted Canadian Ambassador David Sproule.⁴⁴

Germany, which had been reluctant to commit troops in the first place, was frequently singled out as an egregious violator. The German Parliament did not allow the Bundeswehr—the German armed forces—to take part in combat operations against the Taliban in the south and east, except in emergencies. Indeed, German political leaders were extremely risk averse in Afghanistan. On my repeated trips to visit German troops in Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif, I noted several restrictions. German forces were generally prohibited from participating in offensive military operations. In addition, German forces initially were permitted to patrol in armored vehicles only during the day; some patrols were limited by the Bundeswehr regulation that military ambulances had to accompany all German patrols outside of Kunduz; and PRT commanders were usually unwilling to have their troops patrol in areas that were not secure. In response to a deteriorating security environment in the north in 2006 and 2007, the German reaction was often to establish more defensive measures, such as limiting the scope and range of patrols. This caused frustration among conventional German soldiers. It also angered some German Special Forces, who complained that they were not allowed to fight against terrorist and insurgent groups, for which they had been trained.⁴⁵

Others questioned the German military’s ability to conduct sustained counterinsurgency operations. German army units, such as mechanized infantry and airborne brigades, had extensive experience in peacekeeping. But they lacked sufficient trained personnel, combat equipment, and supporting communications and intelligence gear