The Trouble Up North Posted by Michael Cohen

If one wants further evidence of how misguided the current focus of US military efforts in southern and eastern Afghanistan has become, today's NYT piece about the worsening security situation in Baghlan province is a good place to start:

Almost unnoticed, this strategic northern province is slipping away from government control. Baghlan Province contains two of the crucial north-south routes inAfghanistan. As night falls on this provincial capital, the city turns dark and silent. The Taliban have decreed that the cellphone signals go down at night so the main cellphone companies switch off the signals from dusk to dawn.

Men with guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers guard illegal checkpoints just north of the capital, waiting for convoys of trucks or other lucrative prey. Shootings erupt almost every day across the province. Deprived of jobs and local government services, people here are turning to Taliban courts for speedy justice and drifting toward those who will pay them — either local strongmen or the Taliban.

In the New Republic, Anna Badkhen tells a similar tale of Taliban encroachment in Afghanistan's northern provinces. The story line here is one that we've been seeing for several months. As the US devotes more energy and resources to a losing battle in the south and east the security situation in previously stable (ish) parts of the country is beginning to suffer. As Badkhen notes, the US is spending six times more capita in Helmand province than in the northern Takhar province. 

Yet, with a withdrawal deadline looming, a population sympathetic to the Taliban, a security situation that undermines any development efforts and the lack of any real government influence on the ground, there is little possibility that the US efforts in Helmand will produce any sort of dramatic pay-off. Quite simply, continued US engagement in areas where there is virtually no hope of the ANSF taking over any time soon is just an example of throwing good money after bad. 

But in the north, more aid and improved security would almost certainly bring tangible results. The Times mentions that the in recent weeks the 10th Mountain division was moved to Baghlan, which is a step in the right direction. As I've written here recently the US efforts in Afghanistan seem to be moving toward an exit strategy-focused approach (i.e. from winning to getting out). But to really shift the mission it means shifting the regional orientation of US troops. 

Improving security in places like Baghlan or Kunduz - and improving aid delivery - is a good way to start. Calling off military operations in Kandahar would definitely be another.

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