A study on how the Soviets lost the road war in Afghanistan can help us to assess the chances of the ‘western’ occupation in Afghanistan.
30 is still a magic number around the Hindu Kush: This just in from Reuters:
International troops called in the air strike in which 30 Taliban fighters were killed after the militants attacked a convoy of foreign troops and Afghan forces in the Sarobi district of Paktika province near the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, the deputy provincial governor said.
If this did not happen directly within a village the bombing may have indeed, for a change, killed some combatants. But I can guarantee that the number 30 was picked from hot air.
It is interesting that the attack aimed a convoy. It was thereby part of the earlier discussed road war that will eventually suffocate the occupation.
The foreign troops in Afghanistan live off fuel that has to be brought into the country. The fuel transports increasingly need more protection and escorts. More escorts will require more fuel. Which requires more fuel convoys …
Guess how that spiral will end.
Here is an interesting U.S. military report written in 1995 about Convoy Escort in Guerrilla Country: The Soviet Experience:
The 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War pitted a modern, mechanized army against a strong-willed guerrilla force fighting on some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. The war soon devolved into a fight for control of the limited lines of communication–the road network which connected the cities of Afghanistan with each other and to Pakistan and the Soviet Union. The Afghan guerrillas learned to ambush supply convoys and cut the roads. The Soviet Army, whose ultimate survival depended on its ability to resupply itself, fought to regain use of the roads. During the war, the Soviets lost 11,389 trucks, 1314 armored personnel carriers, 147 tanks, 433 artillery pieces and 1138 command vehicles/radios during their fight with the mujahideen guerrillas. Many, if not most, of these losses occurred during the road war. The Afghan government and commercial contractors lost even more trucks to ambush during the war.
The report includes much original Soviet ‘lessons learned’ analysis by the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow on typical attacks on convoys (a must read for Afghanistan and/or war geeks – see the end notes for the map symbols).
The U.S. author concludes:
Too often, the Soviets tried to use fire power in the place of fire and maneuver. Soviet commanders were reluctant to dismount troops to break an ambush through close combat. The primary reason for this reluctance was that Soviet line units in Afghanistan were chronically understrength as disease, guard details and an imperfect personnel replacement system kept units at less than 66% of TO&E strength. Consequently, there were often only a few or no troops, aside from the crews, riding in the BTRs and BMPs. The Soviets lacked the available infantry to assault ambushes.
Sounds familiar?
The Soviets had some at maximum 100,000 troops in Afghanistan but there were also some 300,000 more or less reliable Afghan forces available. In total they had the 400,000 soldiers the leaving NATO commander recently said were needed in Afghanistan. They still lost the war. The ‘west’ now has some 70,000 troops in Afghanistan and the Afghan army has about 80,000 soldiers. That’s hopeless.
Two other factors make the chances for the ‘west’ to win even worse. Today’s ‘western’ troops need more fuel and ‘stuff’ per man per day than Soviet forces needed in the 1980s. Unlike those they do not have a direct line of communication to their home countries.
This war will be lost on the roads. It will take another three years and the ‘west’ will commit more forces but that will only add to targets in the road war. The only way not to lose is to retreat from Afghanistan.