Professionals Talk About Logistics

Springbored's Springboard notes this AP article that highlights the dangers of increasing US force presence in Afghanistan - the massive supplies going to our well-equipped forces are a lucrative target:

"Suspected Taliban fighters hijacked trucks carrying Humvees and other supplies for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday after a brazen attack near the Khyber Pass that underscored the militants' grip across key mountain strongholds.

The assault highlighted the vulnerability of a vital supply route for the 65,000 U.S. and NATO forces battling a resurgent Taliban in landlocked Afghanistan. A significant amount of supplies for the Western forces go through Pakistan.

This isn't the first time that Taliban forces have raided US-bound supplies through Pakistan. Here's a story from June 2008:

Four U.S. helicopter engines worth more than $13 million have been stolen while they were being trucked from Afghanistan to a port in Pakistan to be shipped home, the U.S. military said.
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It was not known if the shipment went missing on the Afghan side of the border or in Pakistan, Sergeant Mark Swart said on Thursday.

"We don't have the information on exactly where it disappeared. We just know that it did not get to the port," he said.

Reuters had a little more detail on the November hijacking.

The trucks were seized at four places along a 35 km (20 mile) stretch of the road, said a senior government administrator in the Khyber region.

"About 60 masked gunmen popped up on the road and took away the trucks with their drivers. Not a single shot was fired anywhere," the official, Bakhtiar Mohmand, told Reuters.

Mohmand said the trucks were not carrying weapons or ammunition but he was not sure what goods they were taking.

He said he believed militants loyal to Pashtun Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud were responsible.

Like Springbored says, this is going to get worse as our troop presence in Afghanistan increases. Maybe some of those UAVs in Iraq could be moved over to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions...

Comments

[Adrian]

I like the new site design.

How would you compare the logistical straw through Pakistan with the straw from Kuwait to Baghdad that was getting attacked (less so now I guess)?

[J.]

That's a good question. I think it was easier, given the heavy troop presence in Kuwait and Iraq, to monitor the convoys. I remember that there was some concern that, if the Brits pulled out of Basra, convoys going from Kuwait to Baghdad could be ambushed by al Qaeda (or Iraqi criminals) operating out of Basra. But also, when there is five times the personnel and money in Iraq as compared to Afghanistan, I would expect that the challenges of convoy security in Iraq are a lot less than that in Afghanistan.

[James]

At least Kuwait was a stable base. The NATO effort is currently dependent to an uncomfortable degree on Pakistani supply routes, which gives the Pakistani government some leverage in its disputes with the US. There really is no other viable option; flying supplies in by air may be feasible right now, but it isn't really practical.

If the Afghanistan effort grows in the way Obama has promised, "uncomfortable" will become "alarming" and "leverage" will become "veto power" because at that point air supply will go from "impractical" to "impossible."

Frankly, I think we've shot our bolt in Afghanistan as much as Iraq. If our client is unable to muster enough popular support to hang on after seven years of pork-barrel spending and active suppression of his opposition on the part of his patrons, then he probably won't ever be viable.