Struggling to justify losses in Afghanistan

On Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s report from Sangin (http://wapo.st/aOZ3Ys)*

Without the kind of troop numbers needed to secure the territory assigned them, or the resources
needed to complete civil projects under fire that the US can routinely deploy, the British army and its
militarised ‘civilian’ development advisors simply cannot hold up their end of the wider strategy in
Afghanistan.

Spread thin, over-exposed and under-protected, they suffer the casualties without even the
consolation of having delivered the civil projects that the Afghans need and – from the US
perspective - are supposed to underpin this kind of full-spectrum COIN strategy.

So excuses are made and, laced with a little Yank-bashing and Limey embarrassment, a post-facto
‘strategy’ of sorts in plucked out of the air to explain away the limited activity that is possible, and
worse the deaths and injuries that come with it.

It was the same in Basra, by the way, as is mentioned in Rajiv’s article.

The truth is that if the British government feels it has to send its troops to join these operations, it
has to provide the kind of resources they need. And since that is clearly beyond the UK’s capacity
they should keep them at home - or send them to Pakistan to work on disaster relief.

(Or perhaps... re-train and re-equip them with US kit and deploy them at platoon level, as fully
integrated parts of US army and marine brigades, under US command... if they really must send
soldiers instead of aid and investment to places like Afghanistan... But this would require a
transformation that is probably beyond both country and its armed forces.)

(* Uploaded to practice use of my Scribd account...)