Taking the Initiative in Afghanistan?

This has been a bit low under the radar, but al-Qaeda is trying to rebound in Afghanistan. They are licking their chops after a lengthy and solid licking in Iraq, and now their senior leadership has been threatened with a few close calls.

Even though they have independent cells that operate with relative autonomy in comparison to a modern army, Al-Qaeda still requires physical and political strongholds in order to secure and strengthen their operations in a particular region. In Iraq they were able to wreck havoc for a quite some time, by holing up unmolested in Sunni areas. They took advantage of U.S. reluctance to "disturb the peace," but that didn't last. After a slow start, U.S. forces started to destroy their sanctuaries one by one, and replaced them with newly training Iraqi security forces. Not only were they able to capture and kill as many as possible, they held physical ground and the local populations turned against them. Al-Qaeda can only find safety in Syria now.

After being ejected from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has found a relative stronghold in Western Pakistan. Intelligence has been showing that they are looking to counter-attack in Afghanistan this spring and I think our military has learned their messy lesson in Iraq. Just like with Iraq on the Euphrates, we need to find the potential rat-lines feeding into Afghanistan. Since al-Qaeda has yet to establish these routes in anywhere near their capacity of the early days of the Iraqi insurgency, we can take the the initiative now. In Iraq, we were training upwards to 200,000 new troops who could stand and hold ground along these areas, while in Afghanistan, the army is only about 35,000.

But, we have a much stronger international peacekeeping force there. The only problem is, convincing some of the leaders in these countries to go into areas that are extremely dangerous.

Well, Britian is stepping forward:

More than 3,300 British troops are to be sent to patrol and rebuild a lawless province of southern Afghanistan, the Defence Secretary announced today. A force of 850 servicepeople drawn from 39 Regiment Royal Engineers, and 42 Commando Royal Marines will be sent out first to Helmand province to build a camp for the main deployment of 3,300, which should be completed by July, John Reid said in a Commons statement.

The main body of soldiers will provide security and lead reconstruction work in the area, from their base at Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand. The force will include elements of the Headquarters of 16 Air Assault Brigade, and an airborne infantry battlegroup supported by Apache attack helicopters.

Lynx and Chinook helicopters would also be deployed in the mountainous region, where roads are scarce, along with four additional Hercules transport aircraft and armoured vehicles in a bid to "maximise our chances and minimise the dangers".

It will be Nato's first foray into the dangerous south of the country. Until now, the alliance has operated in the north and west, but the more volatile south has been patrolled by the United States outside Nato - with mixed results.

I made a chess analogy to the war here a while ago, so I'll just expand. In chess, you want to establish control over the center of the board. With control of the center, you open up more options to continue into your end-game.

So far, we have gotten to the point where we have established control of the center by displaying military superiority through Afghanistan and Iraq. Controlling the center doesn't win the match, but you are in much better position than your opponent is in to win the match. If we want to keep control of the center, the rat-lines must be permanently severed.