NATO looks for civilians to win the peace in Afghanistan (Feature)

By Ben Nimmo Jan 25, 2010, 5:04 GMT

Brussels - NATO believes it can win the war in Afghanistan; what it wants is for other organizations to win the peace there.

When the foreign ministers of over 40 nations gather in London on Thursday, NATO is set to push them to do far more in fighting corruption and building up the Afghan economy and security forces, so that the alliance's own soldiers can, at last, come home.

'We have strengthened our military effort with significant troop increases and a refreshed approach ... We now need a stronger and more coordinated civilian effort,' NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a web broadcast ahead of the meeting.

The United Nations-mandated operation is, by far, the longest, bloodiest and most complex NATO has ever undertaken. Almost 1,600 alliance and United States soldiers have been killed in action in Afghanistan since the rout of the Taliban regime in 2001.

NATO leaders say the sacrifice is necessary to stop Afghanistan reverting to its prior role as a key centre of violent jihad.

'Yes, the costs of this operation are high, both in treasure and life, but the costs of walking away would be far far higher. Our security in Rome, London, Madrid, New York - in all our capitals depends on it,' Rasmussen said.

For almost nine years, the mission has been hampered by a lack of troops and funding, as other conflicts - notably the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 - took crucial resources elsewhere.

At successive summits and ministerial meetings, NATO commanders have had to plead with member states to come up with the soldiers they needed to carry out operations on the ground.

'Our campaign in Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and remains so today,' the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, General Stanley A McChrystal, wrote in August as he proposed a new strategy for the campaign.

McChrystal called for 40,000 more soldiers to help turn the Taliban tide. Remarkably, given ISAF's chronic problems in bringing its troop numbers up to requirements, NATO members and allies had pledged 37,000 extra by the end of the year, with Germany expected to offer more troops at the London meeting.

But McChrystal's strategy went far beyond calling for more troops, emphasizing the need for a massive boost to civilian efforts in areas such as economic development and the fight against corruption.

'Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely,' he wrote.

And with NATO's manning concerns largely allayed, attention in London is set to focus on the civilian aspects of the new strategy.

The conference will 'focus on a collective international and Afghan effort on key issues: anti-corruption, rehabilitation and reconciliation, the expansion of the Afghan security forces, and economic and social development,' Rasmussen said.

NATO officials acknowledge that, in the question of training Afghanistan's own security forces, it is the alliance which must take the lead, following a decision Wednesday to increase the maximum size of the Afghan police and army to a combined total of 305,000 men.

'NATO has to continue increasing the number of trainers and the funds devoted to supporting this increase as we go forward,' NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

Indeed, one of the alliance's key concerns in London will be to find extra money to equip and pay the expanded Afghan forces.

'I can't say that we have had a satisfactory response to our call to fully fund the sustainment and increase of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. The Secretary General will be pushing very hard on this,' Appathurai said.

But NATO officials also stress that the other key elements of the London conference - fighting corruption, economic development, and efforts to woo militant fighters back into mainstream society - are simply not the job for a military alliance.

'Eighty per cent of counter-insurgency is not military action,' one senior NATO diplomat pointed out Friday.

That leaves NATO hoping that other organizations, from the Afghan government to the UN and the European Union, will be ready to offer their peacetime skills and resources in London - so that the alliance can one day bring its wartime operations to a close.