Time for Australia to man-up in Afghanistan

Australia as a nation should make the decision to man-up and become a mature and responsible partner in the ISF in Afghanistan. It would help raise up our homeland as a nation in the international community as well as in the hearts and minds of the Australian people. As a good start to this I believe we should apply what Lieutenant-General Barno calls the Five Pillars of the ISF”S Counter-Insurgency plan for Afghanistan.

These principles being,
 Defeat terrorism and deny sanctuary.
 Enable the Afghan security structure.
 Sustain area ownership.
 Enable reconstruction and good governance.
 Engage regional states.

To actively participate in the arena of defeating terrorism and deny sanctuary we need to get serious and pull our socks up about participating with the ISF in pursuing Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants both in Afghanistan and their support network in Australia.

To do this we should increase the size of ADF forces to be at least 5000 troops. We should an auxiliary of educators to educate both the ADF forces as well as the local population with whom we are trying to work with in cross Afghan-Australian culture, politics and history through the utilisation of formal, informal and incidental pedagogical techniques.

As an aid to this campaign Austria police forces at both a federal and state level should take seriously the clear and present danger that is posed to our society by Taliban and Al-Qaeda associates in our own community who utilise insurgent techniques and are gaining control over our suburbs.
To help increase Afghanistan’s security structures against the insurgents Australia should be reforming its approach to both tis civilian and military commitments. We should undertake as a nation to reform our approach form seeing Afghanistan as we want to see it to looking at Afghanistan as it is. To do this we should discontinue the use of the Untied States Institute of Peace’s ‘Orange Revolution Model’ as found in Peter Ackerman & Jack Duval’s ‘A Force More Powerful’ book and training course.

To complement this we should continue our retraining and rehabilitation of formerly Soviet trained Mujahedeen e-Khalqi militias into the Afghan National Army but include in this training the latest counter-insurgency from a western perspective, so that these COIN principles can slowly inculcate and replace their Soviet model of COIN which has at its core a policy of liquidation of community leaders and their replacement by government appointed political officers in total control of local civil, civic and military functions.

The application of a single approach combining both Australian military and civilian approaches is essential if we are to make a serious attempt at helping the Afghani people gain ownership of local problems and develop local solutions to these.

Australia should continue our support of political parties that promote a nationalistic and democratic approach to parliamentary democracy with our European partners so that they can be ready to remove the corrupt Islamic and undemocratic forces now in control of the Afghanistan’s political institutions after the withdrawal of the ISF.
Australia should also help the coalition efforts in Afghanistan by taking a greater r stake in owning the Oruzgon Provence for the ISF COIN effort. To do this Australia would need to increase the size of the ADF forces deployed in this theatre to at least 5000 troops and to around the same number of professional civilians participating in such tasks as education, health and reconstruction to enable good governance.

The enabling of reconstruction and good governance was the factor which won the COIN war in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. Obama’s proposed ‘civilian surge’ is a task in which Australia should commit itself too. This will need political support of the Australian people and a campaign similar to those surrounding the launches of the GST and the Terrorist Hotline should launched with detailed information and distributed to the Australian people free of charge.

Australia through its diplomatic and cultural assets should engage Afghanistan’s regional community to be included in these efforts is also essential to success. Australia as a member of the Indian Ocean Community has better and closer ties with many key regional states such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Australia with its political, economic and cultural ties to these three countries could help bring these states into being part of the solution and not part of the problem.

The political will of the Australian Government to become a real partner in the ISF coalition is sadly lacking. The talking of a mature and grown-up approach to participating in the ISF mission in Afghanistan would see us stop kicking the football on the sideline like a ball boy and a man and get our heads in the game and put our bodies on the line.

The adoption of such an approach as I have stated here today would truly help us become the nation we see ourselves as, but would help us become the nation we truly want to be.

A Concerned Patriotic Australian Citizen Studying at the Strategic Defence Studies Centre ANU Canberra