Wild Wild West Style Logistics

The Challenge of Logistics in the Wild Wild West

I received an e-mail late last night about an attack in Pakistan. Apparently a truck yard outside Peshawar was attacked and a number of fuel trucks set ablaze. This is a yard used for the fuel we are tracking for Afghanistan. It’s a fair bet we lost a day’s supply of Pakistani jet fuel. This is the most challenging war we have fought since Korea for logistics challenges. In the past months Pakistan has become a significant concern. We are not in Pakistan in force. We rely on the Pakistani military for in-country security. Bad guys figured out they can more easily attack our supply chain over there rather than risk a large scale attack in Afghanistan. I suppose it’s positive on the one hand because it shows the Bad Guys are less inclined to attack here.

Pakistan’s stability is a concern. They have a very long running war with India over Kashmir. They have never held political control of the tribal areas. Most Americans don’t understand the relationship Pakistan has with these areas. The tribal regions are referred to as semi autonomous because they exist much like Indian Reservations do in America. They fall under Pakistan for foreign policy but not for internal governance. Add to these issues the presence of a growing Taliban in country and things get very dicey. The amusing thing (black humor here) is that the Taliban was allegedly created with the help and guidance of the ISI, Pakistani intelligence. Funny how these things come home to roost.

It’s good to see overtures being made to Iran. If they begin allowing supplies to cross their territory it accomplished two key things. First, it opens dialog with Iran. We need dialog with them. You can’t resolve differences if you don’t talk! Second, it takes a great deal of logistics pressure off Pakistan. If Pakistan becomes one of three logistics routes the Bad Guys have much less impact when they hit us. It also allows us to be much more stringent with Pakistan. To be fair Pakistan still views India as their #1 threat. We’d make significant progress is we tried to diffuse that long standing issue.

Other than that there is always the question of when the Salang pass will be taken down for maintenance. This is the only feasible route from the north into the Kabul plain. For the past several years the Afghans have told us they are shutting down the tunnel for maintenance. At this point everyone treats it like the boy who cried wolf. I worry that when they do shut it down no one will be prepared.

Funny thing, wars in Afghanistan. They have always hinged on logistics. You would have thought we’d have thought this through better and pushed to improve the roads, bridges and passes before now. What the hell, we’ve only been here 7 ½ years. So much for superior US ingenuity and planning! It’s high time we cut the crap and made some improvements to the infrastructure here. It helps us, it helps the Afghans, it will shorten our time here! It’s well past time to start doing it right!