The routes are about to be tested on a scale not previously used. In 2003, two years after the "lightning victory" of October of 2001, there were 10,000 US and allied NATO troops in Afghanistan. The following year there were 12,000. At the beginning of this year there were as many as 55,000 troops serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - 23,000 US soldiers and the rest from NATO, Partnership for Peace, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and "Asian NATO" states - and 28,000 American forces attached to Operation Enduring Freedom. (The exact figures are difficult to arrive at. Some sources list 38,000 US and 32,000 NATO troops without specifying how many US servicemen are assigned to which command.)
The White House has pledged another 30,000 combat troops and an additional 4,000 trainers for this year (with more to join them in 2010 already being mentioned) and NATO offered 5,000 more at its summit three days ago. If all the numbers are accurate, there may soon be 122,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan later this year. A tenfold increase in five years.
Ongoing attacks on NATO supply lines and depots in Western Pakistan and the closing of the Kyrgyz airbase at Manas to US and NATO forces will complicate the planned Iraq-style surge in Afghanistan and against targets in Pakistan.
Om March 31 US Central Command chief General David Petraeus met at the Pentagon with the defense ministers of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to plan the logistics for his attempt to replicate the Iraq "surge" in Afghanistan, only this time with hostilities also raging in neighboring Pakistan, a country with a population almost three times that of Iraq and Afghanistan combined and with nuclear weapons.
The war theater is ever widening and the vortex is pulling in more and more regional and extra-regional actors. In addition to enmeshing the five Central Asian states, initially through transit and overflight commitments, NATO with ISAF has troops from some 45 nations serving under its command.
Never before have armed units from so many nations been deployed for a war in one country. Even Hannibal's motley contingents in the second Punic War were not as diverse nor was their composite provenance anywhere near as far-ranging.
The troops come from four continents and the Middle East. And the South Caucasus. After a visit from NATO's Caucasus and Central Asia representative Robert Simmons last June Azerbaijan announced it was doubling its troop deployment to Afghanistan. Georgia's Saakashvili recently boasted of writing US President Barack Obama to offer him more forces for the war.
"I have already stated this to General Cartwright, as before to the U.S.
political leadership. I wrote about this to President Obama and we are ready to develop our relations in this direction."
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A year earlier "Georgia had filed an application with NATO, making a
proposal to send its contingent to Afghanistan, considering that "to settle the situation in Afghanistan is one of the main issues for the whole world".
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Azerbaijan, like Georgia, is being built up as a forward operating base for action in the Caspian and into Afghanistan.
"NATO is going to ship supplies to Afghanistan via Poti-Baku-Aktau
container trains through TRACECA [Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia] corridor, Azerbaijan, said Arif Asgarov, Chairman of Azerbaijan State Railways Company."
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In less than two weeks Azerbaijan is going to host the NATO Regional Reply - 2009 eight-day command and field exercises with troops from the US, Bulgaria, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania,Turkey and Ukraine.
Yesterday it was announced that US officials would arrive in the capital of Azerbaijan and that "maritime security, the results of US assistance, as well as work done within the Caspian Security Program added to the Working Plan of Military Cooperation are to be focused on at the meeting until April 10."
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Later this month a delegation from the Pentagon's European Command will visit Azerbaijan and "will hold meetings with the leadership of Azerbaijani armed forces and will attend the Bilateral Cooperation Planning Conference" and "discuss reports on the work done within the military cooperation program and details of working plan for US-Azerbaijani military cooperation in 2009-2010."
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Azerbaijani troops are participating in the NATO Cooperative Marlin/Mako 2009 exercises starting today. The Marlin drills are maritime Command Post Exercises focused on the NATO Response Force concept; the Mako drills are planned and conducted by Joint Force Command Naples, Italy.
The combined exercise is aimed at providing "familiarisation with NATO organisation, Command and Control structures and clear understanding of NATO doctrine and to enhance the mutual interoperability between NATO and Partnership for Peace (PfP) /Mediterranean Dialogue Countries (MD) and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) nations, focusing on the NATO led operations with partners."
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