Air power seen as pivotal factor in Afghan conflict

11/04/2001

By ED TIMMS / The Dallas Morning News

The outcome appeared certain.

Fractious and poorly armed Afghans opposed a world superpower that could field overwhelming air strength, state-of-the-art technology, and elite commandos.

But after nearly a decade of frustration and failure, the former Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. A painful lesson in unconventional warfare cost the lives of roughly 15,000 Soviet soldiers and littered the Afghan countryside with the charred wreckage of downed helicopters and airplanes.

Now it's the United States' turn to face off against Afghan troops as it fights an unprecedented war against terrorism. Once again, a superpower confronts a guerrilla force. And so far, the United States has relied heavily on air power and clandestine missions conducted by special-operations units to battle the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The experiences of the former Soviet Union give some military experts pause. The U.S. military has better weapons and training, and the benefit of lessons learned from Soviet failures. But will it be enough? What does it take to win? And how much can air power accomplish?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently declared "measurable progress" in achieving the initial goals in Afghanistan that he outlined after the air war started on Oct. 7. Those included making it more difficult for terrorists to use Afghanistan as a base of operation and reducing the Taliban's military strength. He also warned that the new war on terrorism "is a task that's going to take time."

Nearly four weeks after airstrikes began, U.S. aircraft fly over Afghanistan with relative impunity, at least at high altitudes. Many of the early airstrikes neutralized the Taliban's modest fleet of fighter jets, airfields, anti-aircraft artillery and missiles, and radar installations.

More recently, the air attacks appear more focused on Taliban troops and weaponry deployed against the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

Mr. Rumsfeld has acknowledged that U.S. troops are in northern Afghanistan "assisting with targeting and providing the very kind of specific information which is helping with the air effort." Those troops, he said, are helping the air campaign against the front-line Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

Limiting civilian casualties continues to be a high priority, especially as the United States tries to retain the moral high ground and the support of Muslim allies in the region.

What's the impact?

Some military experts conclude that the Taliban's ability to confront U.S. or Northern Alliance forces in a conventional battle has been diminished. But the opposing teams may be playing two different games on the same field. While the U.S. advances the ball for the touchdown – hitting targets that would be more of a threat in a conventional battle – the Taliban and al-Qaeda may be more inclined to play a lethal variation of hide-and-seek.

"We can assume that they're going to start off trying to fight us the way they fought the Russians, particularly when it comes to anti-aircraft and anti-helicopter operations," said Daniel Goure, a former director of the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Competitiveness.

Philip E. Coyle III, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information and a former assistant defense secretary, indicated that the military equipment possessed by the Taliban and al-Qaeda isn't so much the problem.

"It's their tactics – the way they're dug in, and figuring out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys," he said.

Soviets dispatched

At the outset, Soviet leaders hoped that the military forces of the new regime primarily would deal with the resistance. Soviet troops were to assume a supportive role, protecting infrastructure such as cities and roads, providing intelligence and, when needed, artillery and air support.

That limited involvement expanded with time; at its peak, the Soviet presence in Afghanistan included more than 100,000 troops.

Soviet leaders increasingly turned to air power as a way to overcome the difficulties of ground operations in Afghanistan's rugged terrain, to focus firepower on small and elusive mujahedeen units, and to thereby limit casualties.

Satellites helped find the mujahedeen. The Soviets employed laser-guided bombs and cluster bombs. As they became more deeply mired, more drastic measures were adopted.

Outgunned in a conventional battle, the mujahedeen often operated in small units that used the terrain to their advantage. They excelled at ambushes and hit-and-run attacks.

Soviet tactics also evolved and were not ineffective. Helicopter assaults often caught the mujahedeen off-guard.

A wild card

Instead of flying high, Soviet helicopters increasingly flew near to the ground to avoid being targeted by Stingers. But there were perils in that as well: At lower altitudes, helicopters were vulnerable to small-arms fire.

In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew.

A different battle

While fighting the Soviets, the mujahedeen could rely on Pakistan as a source of supplies and as a sanctuary from Soviet attack.

In the current conflict, Pakistan is an ambivalent ally of the United States, and other countries in the region are unlikely to offer much assistance.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda probably have only a limited number of Stingers and other shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and the prospects for getting more are remote.

"This is a case where, when these guys fire their Stingers, that's all they've got," said Dr. Goure, now an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Virginia. "They're not going to get the kind of resupply that we gave the mujahedeen, which means that it's a different kind of battle or environment than the one the Russians faced."

Still, the threat to U.S. aircraft has not been eliminated.

Dr. Larry Wortzel, a retired Army colonel and former director of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, speculated that helicopter operations have been curtailed so far because there are still Stingers in Afghanistan. "That's one thing we learned: Stay away ... from man-portable surface-to-air missiles," said Dr. Wortzel, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation. "They're deadly."

Another advantage for the United States is that its aircraft are more advanced, as are the countermeasures designed to foil efforts to shoot them down.

Dr. Wortzel cautioned, however, that the United States' limited presence on the ground in Afghanistan means that such weapons still aren't being used as effectively as they could be.

For example, some U.S. surveillance aircraft can detect a column of moving vehicles with their sensors but may not be able to determine whether they are military or civilian traffic.

"It could be a refugee convoy, or it could be a column of tanks," said Dr. Wortzel. "If you have people on the ground, they can tell you what it is."

A potent ground force, whether it consists of U.S. units or a better-trained and better-equipped Northern Alliance, also makes it harder for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to disperse their troops and equipment to avoid destruction from the air.

'Hammer and anvil'

A threat on the ground, he said, forces an enemy to "concentrate" troops and equipment or risk being overrun. That concentration then presents aircraft with better targets. "Air power is the hammer," said Dr. Pape, who has taught U.S. pilots at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

For now, Dr. Pape said, "the Northern Alliance is so weak that it's not much of an 'anvil.' It's not actually forcing much in the way of a concentration."

Some military experts advocate using the winter to transform anti-Taliban opposition groups in Afghanistan into more of a military threat. Others see U.S. ground forces playing more of a role.

Dr. Goure said the United States may need to deploy "significant ground forces in Afghanistan next spring."

"It would be deadly to try to do graduated escalation, to do the 'Vietnam thing,' " he said. "The lesson here is you don't put 5,000 Marines on the ground and hope like hell that's enough to dissuade the other guy."