Afghanistan

Thursday

Alex Massie

Mars and Venus Revisited

Bruce Bartlett offers this chart (via Andrew) demonstrating that the United States is the only NATO country basically to have maintained it’s Cold War defence spending. Indeed, the US accounts for roughly 43% of global defence spending. Bartlett is not the only conservative who thinks domestic fiscal concerns – to say nothing of foreign policy matters – mean this kind of spending is unsustainable in the longer-term. No wonder Bob Gates lambasted european allies last week for their failure to spend more on defence (and especially on equipment). It’s a little unfortunate that Washington has consistently opposed the development of any independent european defence capability (though the wisdom and feasibility

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Gates’ flawed valedictory

Robert Gates may be one of the best defence secretaries the United States has had in modern times. But in slamming European allies, like he did in Brussels on Friday, he was wrong. I have since long upbraided Europeans for under-investment in defence capabilities and making the wrong kind of investments. And defence expert Tomas Valasek published a fine pamphlet a few weeks ago, showing how European governments could do more for less, including by cooperating better. But they chose not to. This is not only foolish — as we live in an uncertain world where the ability to defend territory, trade, principles and people is paramount — but it

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Retreating from Kabul

Britain’s former envoy to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, has written an op-ed about NATO’s coming withdrawal from Afghanistan in this morning’s Times (£). The unspoken analysis is that: having failed to defeat the Taliban unconditionally in battle, it will be hard to secure peace and stability. Like Matt Cavanagh, who wrote an extensive report on the situation in Afghanistan for Coffee House last week, Cowper-Coles says that NATO is split between ‘shooters’, who perpetually ask for one more ‘big push’, and politicians, who are seeking negotiated settlement and military drawdown. Cowper-Coles gives a diplomatic angle, arguing that NATO must first prove it is serious about peace if the Taliban are to

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Preparing for a post-Gaddafi Libya

The Libya intervention has been in operation for a few months and the rebels have been making gains, most recently in Yafran. But progress remains slow and perhaps it is time to look again at how the lessons of Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan might have a bearing on Libya. The first lesson is simple: assume the worst. If you think that a regime will collapse quickly, plan for it to last a long time. If you expect a peaceful transition, plan for a violent one. And if you hope that unarmed monitors will be enough once hostilities are over, prepare for a well-armed peacekeeping force to be deployed. Optimistic predictions

Thursday

Matt Cavanagh

Where we are in Afghanistan

I wrote back in November that as we approached the July deadline when President Obama promised to start drawing down troops from Afghanistan, the tensions between politicians and military would re-emerge, as “the military ask for more time to get it right, and Obama tries to hold them to the deal he thought he made in late 2009”. This is now coming to pass, in London as well as Washington. I also argued that having some sort of public timetable for the troop drawdown was a reasonable solution, perhaps the only solution, to the politicians’ problem of balancing conflicting messages to different audiences in Afghanistan and at home. But the

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The coalition’s 2015 problem

The generals and the politicians are at odds with each other. This much has been clear since the run-up to last year’s Defence Review, but it finds a particularly clear expression in the Telegraph’s interview with Lt Gen James Bucknall today. Britain’s most senior commander in Afghanistan may not say, in terms, that we should avoid a timetable for withdrawal from the country — but he skirts awfully close to it. “It is of utmost importance that we stay the course, that we stay as long as it takes to finish our job,” he says, only a fortnight after David Cameron announced that 450 troops will be pulled out of

Wednesday

James Forsyth

A good day for Cameron

Today is one of those days when David Cameron gets full political benefit from being Prime Minister. He is basking in the president of the United States’ reflected glory. The papers this morning are full of him playing table tennis with Barack Obama and tonight’s news bulletins will lead on their joint press conference at lunchtime. As Cameron stands next to Obama, he’ll look both a statesman and a centrist. It’ll be hard for Labour to attack Cameron as an extremist on deficit reduction when he keeps stressing how he and Obama agree on a sensible level and pace to get their budgets heading back into balance. There are, obviously,

Tuesday

David Blackburn

An especially businesslike relationship

The ash cloud nearly claimed its first victim last night: Barack Obama had to leave Ireland early in order to fly to Britain. The Palace’s insistence on protocol has been upset and the President’s entourage has been advised not to risk the tap water; other than that, all is well. However, the visit has set sceptical tongues wagging. Some diplomats wonder why the President is here. Afghanistan, the Middle East, joint national security and the world economy are on the agenda, but there is no unifying theme to discussions. Some ideologues fear that the eternal bond between Britain and America is relaxing into a union of convenience. On the other

Monday

Daniel Korski

The ISI chief must be sacked

The US-Pakistani relationship has always been fraught, but it is particularly fractious right now. It is highly likely that the US will conduct more Abbottabad-type raids following the killing of Osama Bin Laden. According to sources in the US government, several locations were under surveillance alongside Bin Laden’s compound. And that was before the CIA snatched the “motherlode” of information from the Bin Laden raid, which will give hundreds of new leads. People like Ayman al Zawahiri, Abu Yahya al Libi, and Saif al Adel will be sleeping a little less soundly these days. Regrettably, the Pakistani government has done little to prepare its population for the likelihood of new

Sunday

Matt Cavanagh

How to fix the National Security Council

The National Security Council was a sound idea. But it has disappointed, both inside and outside Whitehall. The Ministry of Defence has complained that it “failed to give strategic direction”. Among previous supporters in the media, Con Coughlin has commented sourly that “all it has achieved so far is the replacement of Blair’s much-derided ‘sofa government’ with a new, back-of-the-envelope approach”. James Kirkup was even driven to ask “What exactly is the point of it?” Where did things go wrong? First, it seems that more effort went into spinning it to the media — it was a ‘War Cabinet’ to Sun readers, an end to ‘sofa government’ to those disaffected

Saturday

Alex Massie

Redefining the war

There are more than 100,000 American and Allied troops in Afghanistan. That is, there are more than 1,000 troops for every suspected al-Qa’eda ‘operative’. Not for the first time in Afghanistan means, ways and ends appear to be out of kilter. There are more Nato troops than are needed to combat al-Qa’eda but not enough to build a proper, ordinary country. No wonder Afghanistan has become a grimly expensive halfway house — neither wholly occupied, nor treated with a light touch. Tim Bird and Alex Marshall’s brisk, broad survey of the war is drily un- impressed by American strategy. It is sub- titled ‘How the West Lost its Way’, and

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

After bin Laden

In this week’s Spectator, on sale today, we have an outstanding lineup on bin Laden’s death and its aftermath. I thought CoffeeHousers may be interested a preview of what’s in this week’s mag. Our lead feature is written by Christina Lamb of the Sunday Times: she has been writing about Pakistan for 24 years and is now based in Washington — so is ideally qualified to write about the changing relationship between the two countries. Bin Laden’s urban lair fits a trend, she says: other jihadis have been found in similar urban compounds near the Pakistan military. The country is playing a double game, she says. Dana Rohrbacher, a Republican

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Stray Thoughts on the Execution of Osama bin Laden

Just as it’s difficult for death penalty opponents to be too upset by the verdicts of the Nuremberg tribunal, so it is hard to be upset by the assassination (let us not be coy) of Osama bin Laden. Nevertheless, it seems increasingly probable that al-Qaeda’s titular leader was executed “after” a firefight not, rather tellingly, “during” a firefight. Capturing him was never an option. It’s easy to understand why this “clean” end was preferable to capturing bin Laden with all the awkward questions about interrogation and trials and due process and torture and everything else that would have followed. Too much trouble. For everyone. That too is part of George

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Pakistan responds

The covers of our newspapers are emblazoned with Bin Laden this morning — but it is an article in a US newspaper that really catches the eye. Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, has written an op-ed for the Washington Post that defends his country’s role in the struggle against Al-Qaeda. It’s a defence that has four components. 1) Sympathy: “Pakistan … joins the other targets of al-Qaeda in our satisfaction that the source of the greatest evil of the new millennium has been silenced.” 2) Credit-sharing: “We in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day.” 3) Defiance: “Pakistan has

Monday

James Forsyth

What the death of Bin Laden means for Af-Pak policy

The political and strategic implications of Osama Bin Laden’s death are legion. One of the biggest impacts of this operation could well be that it speeds up the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Obama has long been keen to start bringing US troops home in large numbers. But a withdrawal from Afghanistan with Bin Laden not dealt with could have been portrayed as humiliating by Obama’s political opponents. Now, that Bin Laden is dead, it is much easier for Obama to scale down the US operation there, arguing that the central base of al Qaeda’s operations have now moved out of the country. The embarrassment for Pakistan of where Bin Laden

Peter Hoskin

A map that raises questions

Here’s a map that I’ve put together of the area where Bin Laden was discovered and killed. The red point is his suspected residence, the blue and green points are Pakistani military centres. You can, of course, zoom in, out and around the image, as well as click on the points for captions: View A map that raises questions in a larger map

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A triumph for America that raises questions about Pakistan

The killing of Osama Bin Laden is one of the clearest victories in the war on terror since the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001. It is a major triumph for American intelligence. Bin Laden’s death does not mark the end of the war on terror. But it does close a chapter and demonstrate that the United States has the willingness and the determination to keep up a manhunt for a decade. Perhaps, the biggest question it raises is about Pakistan. Bin Laden was found not in the lawless, border regions of Pakistan but living in a mansion right in the heart of the country in Abbottabad.

Peter Hoskin

Osama Bin Laden is dead

The manhunt is over, as is the man. After almost a decade since 11 September 2001, a decade of the Afghan conflict, Osama Bin Laden is dead. The Al Qaeda leader was shot by US forces, not in a dusty cave complex in the mountains, but at a large house north of Islamabad. Announcing the news last night, Barack Obama called it, “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.” It will surely be remembered as the most significant achievement of his Presidency, too. Let’s remember, though, that Bin Laden was not Islamist terror, just as Islamist terror is not Bin Laden. The fundamentalists

Sunday

Daniel Korski

A model for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

With the newspapers still full of Royal Wedding pictures, I thought I’d draw CoffeeHousers’ attention to something remarkable: a visit by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark (pictured, left, at Westminster Abbey last Friday) to Helmand Province. That’s right, the 71-year old Danish monarch visited the her country’s troops in late March this year, accompanied by the defence minister. Crown Prince Fredrik persuaded her mother to visit the troops after his own previous trip to the region. In this YouTube clip recorded in Helmand, Queen Margrethe talks to the camera (sorry, it is in Danish) about her experiences in the war-torn province. She pays tribute to the two British soldiers who

Thursday

James Forsyth

Obama’s military reshuffle

President Obamna’s nomination of  General Petraeus to run the CIA will have a huge knock on effect on the US military. Petraeus will have to resign his commission to take on the post which means that his work trying to transform the US army into a force comfortable trying to deal with counter-insurgency will have to come to an end. One also can’t help but suspect that the Obama administration will be glad to avoid a public tussle with Petraeus over the schedule for withdrawal by moving him out of theatre. Of the other moves in Obama’s shake up of his national security team, one worth paying particular attention to