Coalition of the Unwilling: Afghan edition

Thursday, at Duck of Minerva, I blogged "Coalition of the Unwilling: Final Edition?" The post noted the U.S. withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq and pointed out my many posts here over the years on the disintegration of the Iraq "coalition of the willing."

The post also briefly notes that the Afghan war is becoming increasingly unpopular among the American public. Over 60% of those surveyed by CNN oppose the war. Can the U.S. sustain its participation in an unpopular war? Would it want to do that?

Likewise, European publics have long been unenthusiastic about the war. Earlier this year, the Human Security Report Monitor posted a story with this headline: "Dutch Divided on Afghanistan Mission."

That turned out to be important as this past week the Netherlands broke with the Afghan coalition and withdrew its combat troops. Of the 145,000 foreign troops serving in-country, just under 100K are U.S. Thus, any collapse of the coalition would be significant.


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UK: No longer willing

For years, I've been documenting the collapse of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. Soon, Britain will no longer have troops in Iraq. The BBC reports:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that almost all British troops should leave Iraq by the middle of next year, with a few hundred possibly remaining to train Iraqi security forces.

Previously it had been suggested that troops could start leaving in January.

However, the BBC has learned that the process is likely to begin in March - six years after the US-led invasion.

Of course, Britain's withdrawal is different from earlier defections in the coalition. Conditions on the ground in Iraq are apparently much-improved and the UK is mulling over the diversion of its troops to Afghanistan. Thus, the UK can claim "mission accomplished" and demonstrate its willingness to help the US in the war on terror.

Note also that in 2007 PM Gordon Brown announced the withdrawal of half of British troops.


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Does Afghanistan need a surge?

US journalists frequently report that "the surge" dramatically reduced violence in Iraq. Unfortunately, even as violence has declined in Iraq, it has increased significantly in Afghanistan.

The past two months, in fact, more troops have died in Afghanistan than in Iraq. This report is from yesterday's AP story:

Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a grim milestone capping a run of headline-grabbing insurgent attacks that analysts say underscore the Taliban's growing strength.

Militant attacks are up 40% over 2007, reportedly and are apparently becoming more sophisticated in a number of ways. The US just had its deadliest month in Iraq since the war started in 2001.

"I think possibly we've reached a turning point," said Mustafa Alani, the director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. "Insurgents now are more active, more organized, and the political environment, whether in Pakistan or Afghanistan, favors insurgent activities."

Critics charge that the coalition lacks a strategy for victory in Afghanistan:

Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at NYU, said the Paris conference shows a strong international commitment to Afghanistan, but he said there is still no strategy for longterm success.

"Let's focus on the essentials: creating a secure environment for Afghanistan and Pakistan to address their problems and for the international community to eliminate al-Qaida's safe haven," Rubin said. "We haven't been getting there, and we are not getting closer, pledges or no pledges."

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have launched new attacks in their border area, so the violence in the region continues to escalate.


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Australia: no longer willing

By a landslide, Australia elected a new PM last week and he was sworn in today.

Kevin Rudd's first official act was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Perhaps I'll say more about that some other time.

By mid-year 2008, Rudd promises to withdraw all of Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq. Australia has 1500 total troops in Iraq. Some of the other troops will stay to protect the Aussie embassy.

This announced exodus follows Britain's announced draw down made by Gordon Brown in October. Click along the link trail and you can read about the slowly disappearing coalition of the willing.

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Coalition: less and less willing

October 9, William Kole of AP reported about the continued unraveling of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. PM Gordon Brown announced that the UK is withdrawing most of its remaining forces from Iraq:

At its height, in the months after Saddam Hussein was toppled, the multinational force numbered about 300,000 soldiers from 38 countries - 250,000 from the United States, about 40,000 from Britain and the rest ranging from 2,000 Australians to 70 Albanians.

By January of this year, though, the combined non-U.S. contingent had dwindled to just over 14,000. As of Tuesday, it stood at 20 nations and roughly 11,400 soldiers.

It's in for more unraveling: Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that Britain will halve its remaining force of 5,000 next spring, and another official said there were no guarantees any British troops would remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2008.

Denmark pulled out most of its forced in August. Latvia and Lithuania left over the summer.

Georgia has announced, like the UK, a major reduction in its force presence -- from 2000 now to 300 next summer.

I've frequently noted the withering away of the coalition.


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Iraq: more cracks in the coalition

While I've often noted the withdrawal of nation-states from the so-called "coalition of the willing," this post is about Republican Senators who are now expressing much stronger frustration with the Iraq war. Senator Voinovich of Ohio, for example, recently called for gradual troop withdrawal.

However, this post focuses on the views of Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), a widely respected foreign policy voice. On June 25, Lugar delivered a speech on the Senate floor that has received a fair amount of press coverage. These sentences were in his opening paragraph:

In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current “surge” strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate.

If you read the speech, it is quite clear that Lugar has not joined the anti-war movement. He does not call for rapid withdrawal. However, he is quite skeptical about "the surge" and wants the U.S. to pursue an alternative plan that would require fewer troops:

I believe that we do have viable options that could strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities. But seizing these opportunities will require the President to downsize the U.S. military’s role in Iraq and place much more emphasis on diplomatic and economic options. It will also require members of Congress to be receptive to overtures by the President to construct a new policy outside the binary choice of surge versus withdrawal.

Lugar foresees continuing sectarian factionalism in Iraq, a stressed US military and a domestic debate that is likely to become increasingly partisan as 2008 elections approach.

That means that the US has a narrow window in 2007 to come up with a bipartisan plan for Iraq that would focus on vital interests. His argument is grounded in realism (he approvingly mentions Henry Kissinger's views on Iraq). Lugar:

The risk for decision-makers is that after a long struggle in Iraq, accompanied by a contentious political process at home, we begin to see Iraq as a set piece -- as an end in itself, distinct from the broader interests that we meant to protect. We risk becoming fixated on artificial notions of achieving victory or avoiding defeat, when these ill-defined concepts have little relevance to our operations in Iraq. What is important is not the precise configuration of the Iraqi government or the achievement of specific benchmarks, but rather how Iraq impacts our geostrategic situation in the Middle East and beyond.

The U.S., says Lugar, cannot rest its Middle East policy on building a "stable, democratic, pluralist society in Iraq."

Lugar's sober assessment focuses on top priorities: preventing Iraq from becoming a terror safe haven, preventing Iraqi sectarian violence from sparking regional war, preventing Iranian domination of the region, and limiting the loss of U.S. credibility.

Lugar would lean heaving on the Iraq Study Group as a starting point, but notes that he would downsize and re-deploy US forces to more sustainable positions -- like Kuwait or other states, Kurdish territory, or non-urban areas of Iraq. The force remaining in Iraq would be "residual." Lugar would even downsize the large new American embassy in Iraq. Though he does not say it, such a move would send a strong anti-imperial signal throughout the world.

This changed strategy would take more than six months to accomplish and would necessarily be accompanied by a diplomatic offensive on many fronts. Note that Lugar has been calling for more diplomacy for at least 3 years. The Arab-Israeli conflict receives some attention near the end of Lugar's address, as does the need to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.

Let's hope the White House is listening.


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Japan: unwilling; US next?

Japan has announced that its troops are leaving Iraq. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced this decision just days before he visited President Bush -- and Graceland.

Japan has thus joined a long list of countries no longer willing to participate in the coalition of the willing. Italy announced something similar in May. Just follow my old links and you can find posts about Spain, the Ukraine, Honduras, the Philippines, etc.

According to news reports that have been much-discussed in the past week or so, the US may be in the "cut and run" crowd by the fall elections.



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Filed as: Iraq coalition

Italy: unwilling and angry

The BBC has some excerpts from Romano Prodi's first speech to the Italian Senate as Prime Minister.

"We consider the war and occupation in Iraq a grave error that hasn't solved - but has complicated - the problem of security," Mr Prodi said.

"It is therefore the government's intention to propose to parliament the withdrawal of our troops, even if we are proud of the display of professional ability, courage and humanity they have been giving."

Remember when George W. Bush called for a crusade against the terrorists? Apparently, Prodi does:

He added that most importantly, the international community should not be "indulgent to suggestions of fundamentalism of the opposing strain, which preach crusades and indiscriminately advocate clashes of civilisations."

This may be the first I've posted on the disintegration of the "coalition of the willing" since January 2006, when I previously noted Italy's announcement that it would be out by the end of 2006. It's not clear that Prodi will hasten the Italian withdrawal.

I also noted Ukraine's withdrawal at an earlier date, as well as Poland's. That latter post also discusses the "unwilling" support of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Thailand.

A still older post discussed the withdrawal of the Philippines, Honduras, and Spain.


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Filed as: Prodi Iraq

Another one bites the dust

The so-called "coalition of the willing" in Iraq continues to lose membership.

The latest casualty is Poland, which announced its forthcoming withdrawal today. From Reuters:

Poland's government decided on Tuesday to withdraw its troops from Iraq at the end of 2005, making official an earlier proposal, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said.

"At the time of the expiry of the Security Council's mandate -- meaning at the end of 2005 -- the operations of the Polish stabilization mission should be finished," Szmajdzinski told a news conference after a cabinet meeting...."We are carrying out an exit strategy from Iraq."

Poland, which has 1700 troops stationed in Iraq, has suffered 17 deaths.

Last month, I think I forgot to note that Italy too is pulling its troops out of Iraq. As reported by the BBC, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says that the 3000 Italian troops will be home by September.

The Dutch left in mid-March.

I've reported previously about previous similar decisions by the Philippines, Spain, Honduras, and the Ukraine.

All told, 11 states have already pulled out of Iraq and 5 or 6 more have announced their intentions to leave ASAP. As reported by The Times of London, Thailand, Hungary, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, New Zealand and Norway have also taken out all their troops (most number in the low hundreds).

The original coalition had 30 to 35 participating states, though the White House used to list nearly 50 countries, including Afghanistan and some states without real militaries, like Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, and the Solomon Islands.

Ukraine: No Longer Willing

Another state member of the "coalition of the willing" has decided to withdraw its troops from Iraq. This time, it is the Ukraine. Today's Post has the story:

The government of Ukraine, acting a day after an explosion killed eight of its soldiers in Iraq, announced Monday that it would withdraw its 1,650-member force by the middle of 2005.

Two recent events may have spurred this action, which had been expected.

One, 8 Ukrainian soldiers were killed Monday, which nearly doubled the state's casualties in the war.

Two, Ukraine is getting a new President. He may be more pro-western than his predecessor, but this apparently signals some tension with US policy in the war on terror.

Previously, I've noted some other states who withdrew from the coalition.

Coalition of the Willing

The Philippines has withdrawn its last troops from Iraq and is apparently no longer part of the President's "coalition of the willing."

Spain left months ago, as did Honduras. Poland's prime minister announced this weekend that the Polish deployment will decrease by half very soon.

What about Britain? Isn't the UK a solid contributing member of the coalition?

Consider this your stat of the day:

Halliburton has 15,000 workers in Iraq and Kuwait, 4,000 more than the number of British soldiers deployed there.

At least the U.S. still has some friends with global reach.