Gary Anderson, Washington Times: Fighting season in Afghanistan
What the Afghan army needs is an adequate air force
When an explosion rocked Kabul in late May, attention again was drawn to the state of the Afghan security forces. Spring ushers in the fighting season, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) has been losing ground; this is particularly true of the Pakistan border areas where the Pashtun tribal culture is strongest; it was the cradle of the Taliban and remains Taliban’s primary sanctuary. While the urban terror of the Kabul blast remains primarily a police responsibility, the army’s struggles remain a mystery to many Americans who wonder why the American trained ANA has trouble taking and holding ground against a poorly equipped non-state actor such as the Taliban after 15 years of American mentoring. The answer is logistics, or lack of it. We have failed to build a self-sustaining Afghan army.
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