BRUSSELS, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Has NATO, the world's most powerful military alliance that saw off the Soviet threat and brought two Balkan wars to an end, bitten off more than it can chew in trying to pacify lawless Afghanistan? Despite strenuous denials from alliance chiefs, a growing number of military experts believe the bloc is sleepwalking to disaster in the mountains of the Hindu Kush.
"It was always a gamble to make Afghanistan the symbol of a reinvigorated Atlantic alliance," writes Michael Clarke, professor of defense studies at King's College, London, in a recent issue of Time Magazine. "The country is far from the immediate interests of most European states. Over the last 150 years, soldiers from many nations have left their bones on its bleak mountainsides. It probably achieved its greatest unity under the Taliban's Islamo-fascism. Narcotics remain the lifeblood of the economy, and warlordism rules everywhere outside Kabul."
This grim picture of Afghanistan over four years after the United States military swept the Taliban from power is confirmed by the European Union's special envoy to Kabul, Francesc Vendrell. Speaking to reporters last month, the senior diplomat said the political situation in the country was still shaky while the Taliban insurgency continued in the south, that 100,000 people were linked to illegal armed groups, that corruption was still rife and that the police force -- 90 percent of whom are illiterate -- is in urgent need of reform. "Drug trafficking and armed groups have the potential to undo all we have achieved in Afghanistan," he told journalists.
The security situation in the country is also worsening by the day. The Independent newspaper, in a Feb. 14 article entitled "Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone," describes it thus: "Suicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage ... This is not Iraq but Afghanistan." Cataloging the recent surge of killings that had struck the war-torn state, the paper pointed out that the insurgency in Afghanistan had, for first time ever, claimed more lives in the previous seven days than the one in Iraq.
It is into this theater of violence that NATO troops will enter over the coming months. The 26-member alliance has already been running the International Security Assistance Force since 2003. But in December, foreign ministers took the loaded decision to fan out to the unstable south of the country, where al-Qaida and Taliban forces are increasingly active. The move will boost the number of NATO soldiers from 9,000 to 15,000 and bring alliance troops into the direct firing range of insurgents. "By the end of this year, ISAF's footprint will cover 75 percent of the country whose security is, at best, precarious and, by most accounts, rapidly deteriorating," believes Clarke.
No wonder the Dutch parliament had such doubts about sending an extra 1,200 troops to the hazardous Uruzgan province in south central Afghanistan. The deployment was eventually approved earlier this month, but in the face of widespread opposition from the public and the Liberal D66 party, a member of the governing coalition. "This mission is doomed to fail," D66 spokesman Andor Admiraal told United Press International. "It is a reconstruction mission in a war zone and we don't think that will work."
The Dutch, and some military experts, are worried about the blurred division of duties between the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom -- which is hunting down al-Qaida operatives in the south -- and the European-dominated ISAF, which aims to bring stability and help with reconstruction in the same conflict zone. The fear is that both will become targets of the insurgents and that NATO will become sucked into a long, mountain war that was the Soviet Union's undoing over two decades ago.
The British government has no such qualms -- the first batch of 5,700 troops arrived this week -- but senior military figures are deeply concerned about fighting a war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Independent reports that Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the British army, has written to Lt. Gen. David Richards, the future head of NATO forces in Kabul, asking if he has enough troops to cope with the spiraling conflict.
'No,' would seem the most likely answer. NATO has 16,000 troops in Kosovo -- a statelet less than one third the size of Belgium that has not been at war for seven years -- and, at present, only 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan -- a country the size of Texas.
Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defense staff who now heads the Special Air Service, said: "The British Army is already dangerously overstretched and maintaining a force even of this size over the years will be difficult." Patrick Mercer, defense spokesman for the opposition Conservative party and a former infantry commander, is also uneasy about trying to bring peace and stability to Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. "History has shown that going to war on two fronts always courts disaster."
NATO officials acknowledge the dangers of the Afghan mission, but say the alternative -- the country becoming, once again, a training ground for international terrorists -- is much worse. "This mission NATO is embarking on carries risks," said Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer before the Dutch parliament vote. "But what is NATO for? If you have an integrated command structure like NATO you cannot possibly say, 'Sorry, we don't go because it is too dangerous.'"
Defense analyst Clarke and the NATO chief agree on one thing: The long-term future of the alliance depends on how it handles its first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area. But the Kings College professor does not share De Hoop Scheffer's conviction that the Afghan mission is a NATO "success story" that is bound to lead to a new dawn for the war-ravaged country. "What started as a clever political sidestep to allow the Europeans to make up with Washington without going to Iraq now seems a lot less clever. It may end up doing more harm than good -- and leave the alliance looking, once again, for a viable reason to exist."
