Afghanistan is about as remote a country from the U.S. that one could find. That's always caused me to be a little skittish at the thought of putting too many American troops there. Supplying them means we have to rely on Pakistan, the Stans, Turkey and Russia, which is hardly a comforting thought.
The nightmare scenario, even though it isn't that likely, has always been the fear of American troops having to stage a repeat of Xenophon's Anabisis to get out of there if things went pear-shaped.
Thinking of the high cost of supplying U.S. troops in Afghanistan brought to mind high maintenance women as the Hot Stratfor Babe for the article. Needless to say, considering the fact I generally draw from actresses or models, I was facing an embarrassment of riches to choose from.
In the end, after much research and soul searching, I settled on Katherine Heigl. I never saw her show Grey's Anatomy, but I remember that a flap surrounded her time on the show because of her self-promotion, high salary demands and out of control diva antics. So for that she gets the honor of being this article's high maintenance Hot Stratfor Babe.
OBAMA'S AFGHANISTAN PLAN AND THE REALITIES OF WITHDRAWAL
By Nathan Hughes, June 23, 2011
U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the initial phase of the drawdown appears limited, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of removing their forces from Afghanistan. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes.
The Logistical Challenge
Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. This isolation has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year).
These forces appear considerably lighter than those in Iraq because Afghanistan's rough terrain often demands dismounted foot patrols. Heavy main battle tanks and self-propelled howitzers are thus few and far between, though not entirely absent. Afghanistan even required a new, lighter and more agile version of the hulking mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle known as the M-ATV (for "all-terrain vehicle").
Based solely on the activity on the ground in Afghanistan today, one would think the United States and its allies were preparing for a permanent presence, not the imminent beginning of a long-scheduled drawdown (a perception the United States and its allies have in some cases used to their advantage to reach political arrangements with locals). An 11,500-foot all-weather concrete and asphalt runway and an air traffic control tower were completed this February at Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion in Helmand province. Another more than 9,000-foot runway was finished at Shindand Air Field in Herat province last December. [continues after jump]
