Realignment in Helmand
The Times of London reported yesterday that British forces may soon withdraw from the towns and villages in northern Helmand province that have long been the focus of UK operations in Afghanistan. According to the story, the withdrawal would include elements of the forces currently operating in Musa Qala, where British troops have struggled since 2006, with varying degrees of success, to establish security.
The potential shift is consistent with the Gen. McChrystal’s proposed strategy for Afghanistan, which calls for the concentration of forces in contested population centers. As British defense secretary Bob Ainsworth explained in the Times, “It is the people that are important, not the geography of the country.” Consequently, he noted, British “efforts have been on the main central belt between Gereshk and Lashkar Gah, and quite rightly so.” The populous Helmand River Valley, which Mr. Ainsworth describes, is indeed the center of gravity in the province, and as such it merits the brunt of ISAF’s strategic attention in Helmand.
Yet the withdrawal illustrates the resource-driven tradeoffs and resulting risks inherent in McChrystal’s strategy. Unlike the handful of remote combat outposts in Nuristan and Paktika provinces which have (rightly) been held up as examples of areas from which coalition forces can be safely withdrawn and more effectively employed elsewhere, Musa Qala and Now Zad — another northern town from which the U.S. Marines are likely to be withdrawn — represent relatively significant nodes in the enemy system in Helmand. As Jeff Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War explained in a recent report on Helmand, Now Zad is a command, control, and reset post for insurgents operating in the river valley; Musa Qala, with its population of roughly 20,000, is a key narcotics hub.
To be sure, at their current levels, British and American forces stand to have only a limited impact in either of these towns and their districts — and they could certainly be employed to greater strategic effect in the near term in the central river valley. But the departure of coalition forces from northern Helmand will no doubt come with some cost, be it in the perceptions of increased insecurity among the citizens of the Musa Qala and Now Zad districts, or in the eventual, increased challenge of pushing forces back into those districts when the times comes to expand the ink-spots created along the river valley.
The tradeoffs associated with McChrystal’s strategy would be magnified, of course, if he were to receive fewer forces than the number he has requested. As my colleague Tom Donnelly and I recently illustrated on the provincial level, McChrystal will have to be ruthlessly selective in the deployment of any additional forces he receives, prioritizing the reinforcement of strategically vital population centers at the expense of those that are only slightly less critical (Kandahar City and its environs versus the Helmand River Valley, for example). Now Zad and Musa Qala, important though they may be, may fall victim to the tactical manifestations of this trend.
Tim Sullivan is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
