Last week, the New York Times reported that the post-2014 mission in Afghanistan is expanding, at least for US forces. The move ‘ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year’. Of the 12,000 troops expected to remain in Afghanistan as part of the international coalition next year, approximately 9,800 will be Americans. Since the article’s publication, the Department of Defense has denied allegations that the Afghanistan mission has changed or that the combat role for international forces is extending into 2015.

So what’s happened? A few weeks ago, President Obama signed an order clarifying authorities that US military commanders will have after the end of the ISAF combat mission this month. Those authorities allow ‘American forces to carry out missions against Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government… [T]he new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions’. The Pentagon helpfully added that US troops may provide field-level support for Afghan security forces. Read more

Australia is leaving the Afghanistan war well before the war is over. This is one of the Vietnam echoes in our experience of Afghanistan. Both were coalition wars fought by Australia with a central focus on securing the alliance with the US.

As with Vietnam, so with Afghanistan; Australia departs a disastrous war without any damage to the alliance. Indeed, this time Australia withdraws with far fewer doubts about the alliance than last time. After Vietnam, Australia had to rethink its defence doctrine based on the new reality that never again could it expect US ‘boots on the ground’ in Southeast Asia. Australia’s grand self-defence rethink after Vietnam was driven by that ‘no-more-GIs’ understanding.

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On Monday, seven weeks after Australia’s federal election, the new Prime Minister and the new Opposition leader stood together in Afghanistan to declare the end to Australia’s longest war. The message from Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten was of a job nobly performed. There was no claim of victory after 12 years of military effort, and the mission-well-done language was marked by its hesitancy. Duty had been done, the troops were told, and at that point the rhetoric meter started to falter.

PM Abbott captured both the tone and the balance with his opening words at the ‘recognition ceremony’ at Tarin Kowt: ‘Australia’s longest war is ending, not with victory, not with defeat, but with, we hope, an Afghanistan that’s better for our presence here’.  The contribution from Bill Shorten amounted to a heartfelt ‘me, too’, otherwise rendered as staunch bipartisan support. Read more

Against the backdrop of the recent culture debates within the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the Australian Army Journal recently sought submissions for an upcoming ‘special culture edition’. The decision to focus an entire edition of the journal on cultural issues is not only timely; it is welcome for a variety of reasons.

The culture edition should take a significant step towards addressing the dearth of research on a number of military and culture related topics in the Australian context. In terms of my own area of interest—cross cultural awareness training—the comparatively large volume of material being produced by American academics and military personnel on this topic carries with it a raft of useful lessons for Australia. But as previously recognised (PDF) within the Australian Army Journal, Australia must develop approaches to cross cultural awareness that are appropriate to our own circumstances and are based on deep reflection on our own experiences. Apart from the works of David Kilcullen and a handful of others, few Australian produced reports devote more than a few paragraphs to the discussion of cross cultural awareness. Nevertheless, most recognise its value as a capability that is integral to Australia’s conflict and HADR operations overseas. Read more

The Afghanistan mission has largely dropped off the political radar screen, but the public verdict seems clear: we’ll fail in our overall objective of leaving behind a stable country after 2014. Worse, Australian soldiers may have died in vain. However, I think there’s a case to be made that we still have a good chance to succeed, provided we get the next phase in the transition period right.

Our key objective isn’t to turn Afghanistan into a ‘Switzerland of west Asia’. Instead, it’s to prevent the country from ever again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism and a source of instability in South Asia. That means keeping the Taliban at arm’s length once the bulk of Western forces leave, to prevent them from regaining control over large parts of the country.

To do that, we first have to acknowledge some ‘Afghan realities’. The first is that our efforts at Western-style governance in Kabul have failed. The Karzai government has not only failed to develop into a viable political institution but has even actively opposed greater accountability and empowerment of other branches of government. As well, a heavily centralised government in Kabul will have minimal influence in the provinces in the coming years. Instead, the political structure of Afghanistan will be more than that of a loose Federation, so there’ll be local Afghan solutions for both governance and security, especially across the Pashtun area, the Taliban’s traditional stronghold. The Taliban will be a central political force in the southern parts and there will be a re-emergence of traditional forms of law and order that the west wouldn’t necessarily endorse. Read more