The Redhunter

The U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan receive 70 percent of their supplies overland from Karachi, Pakistan's port city of 15 million, now the world's most vulnerable lifeline.

More than 350 trucks and oil tankers transit the Khyber Pass each day where Afghan drivers take over from Pakistanis. Earlier in December, Taliban guerrillas firebombed more than 200 trucks and Humvees in a gigantic parking lot. The battle for the allied supply line was joined.

Up and until now, Pakistani militant attacks against the convoys were kept secret, e.g., 42 oil tankers destroyed in one day last spring. Now they take place between Peshawar, the capital of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) next to the Khyber tribal agency, and the Khyber Pass itself, normally less than an hour by car. U.N. workers are pulling out of Peshawar, described by The News, a Pakistani daily, as "a city under siege" and "the kidnapping capital of the world."

Increasingly brazen, some Taliban commanders now bypass the need to attack convoys protected by private security guards by charging tolls to let them through safely into Afghanistan.

The London Times' Tom Coghlan discovered some convoys got through roadblocks with a Taliban commander in the lead vehicle after paying $1,000 per truck, which is then added to NATO and U.S. bills.

All food, fuel and equipment for 70,000 foreign soldiers come by road from Karachi. Some 30,000 more U.S. troops are due in before summer, for a total of 65,000 Americans, bringing the total of foreign troops to about 100,000. They will all depend on the world's most vulnerable lifeline.

The United States is looking for alternative supply routes from the Georgian Black Sea port Poti through former Soviet republics. This presupposes a new quid pro quo between the Kremlin and President-elect Barack Obama. Given the Soviet Union's 1989 defeat in Afghanistan, and what it sees as U.S. marauding in its former "near abroad," the price may be too high.

What led to de Borchgrave's concern was the increasingly percarious situation inside of Pakistan. The U.S. has been sending our Predator drones over Pakistan, and firing on insurgent bases and terrorist leaders. No matter how careful one is in war, it is inevitable that civilians are killed. When they are it is exploited by jihadist sympathizers, many of whom hold prominent office in the Pakistani government and military. All of this leads to anti-American sentiment. Worst case, the government is taken over by a hard-line Islamist element which puts a stop to U.S. supply routes through their country.

If this happens we're looking forward to a Stalingrad on our hands. Anyone who brazenly says we should "shoot our way through" Pakistan is being silly.

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The flip side is that if we restrict our operations to Afghanistan, we grant the enemy a safe haven. Of course, it is a prime element of counterinsurgency warfare not to allow your enemy a sanctuary. Our commanders are therefore faced with a difficult decision; attack inside Pakistan and risk a backlash that could have dire consequences, or grant the enemy a sanctuary and lose the war that way.

Knowing all this, our commanders have been looking for alternate supply routes. This Dec 30 story in the International Herald Tribune describes the effort to find a route through the northern 'stans:

The plan to open new paths through Central Asia reflects an American-led effort to seek out a more reliable alternative to the route from Pakistan through the strategic Khyber Pass, which was closed by Pakistani security forces on Tuesday as they launched an offensive against militants in the region.

The militants have shown they can threaten shipments through the pass into Afghanistan, burning cargo trucks and American Humvees over recent weeks. More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and allied forces in Afghanistan now flow through Pakistan.

But the new arrangements could leave the United States more reliant on cooperation from authoritarian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have poor records when it comes to democracy and human rights.

So although it makes strategic sense to look to these countries for transit rights, using them opens us to the criticism that we're doing business with human rights abusers and looking the other way at their nefarious deeds. Of course, this is just the criticism we get over our relationship with Pakistan, but adding to it never helps.

Ever at it, just yesterday Arnaud de Borchgrave had another piece in the Washington Times updates us with the latest:

Elevated to the rank of "Major non-NATO Ally" by President Bush (43), Pakistan is now deemed too dangerous for the hundreds of U.S. and NATO supply trucks that keep allied forces fighting against Taliban in Afghanistan.

In the latest attack against the NATO lifeline, 11 trucks and 13 containers were demolished outside Peshawar, near the northern end of the 600-mile route from the port of Karachi to the Khyber Pass. This followed the attack and collapse of a key bridge near the Khyber Pass, which backed up some 1,000 trucks all the way back to Karachi. Normally, some 600 supply trucks a day cross the border into Afghanistan....

On any given day, there are 3 million gallons of fuel on Pakistani roads destined for allied forces in Afghanistan. In some cases, Taliban extracted payments of $1,000 per vehicle at the point of a gun. Helicopter engines valued at $13 million were also hijacked. Taliban fighters gave Pakistani drivers certificates guaranteeing their trucks were requisitioned, not stolen

That's not good. Not having another source I have no perspective, and de Borchgrave does tend to always see the bad side of things. But that too, is valuable, as it provides a sort of "red team" alternative view.

As de Borchgrave points out later in the article, for all the promise of the northern 'stans, relying on them creates it's own set of problems. One, they're not terribly accessible themselves, which means we spend a lot of time and money just getting to Afghanistan. Second, they're right by Russia, who if annoyed with us over something could shut down our supply routes and there would be little we could do to stop them.

There are no easy solutions for Afghanistan, something our new president will soon find out. I wish him well, and hope that he has the fortitude to do what it takes as long as it takes there. In a future piece I'll examine the "long war" concept and why it is foolish to think we can win there in just a few years.