Coalition fragmentation

By Dave Anderson:

Italy is again questioning why they are in Afghanistan.  The cnnservative government wants  begin pulling out the reinforced brigade that is part of ISAF.  Reuters has details:

Italy wants to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan "as soon as possible" but will not take the decision unilaterally, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Thursday.

"We are all anxious and hopeful to bring our boys home as soon as possible," Berlusconi told reporters in Brussels after six Italian troops were killed by a suicide car bomber in Kabul.

"We are all convinced that it's better for everyone to leave Afghanistan soon," he said.

ISAF is a coalition whose dominant member wants to massively escalate its committment to Afghanistan without a clear strategy while most of its other members with significant military capacity are looking to reduce their exposure and costs in Afghanistan.  As I noted a week ago, this is one of the great vulnerabilities that the anti-Karzai government forces, including the Taliban, can and most likely will target next year:

The center of gravity then is the international forces that buttress of the Karzai government and provide some thin tentacles into the Pashtun heartland....

 2010 will be a good year if the Taliban is able to force the withdrawal of at least three national contingents by the start of 2011...

If there is any fungible or mobile resources in the Pashtun heartland, I would move those resources off of anti-American attacks (as the Americans will be around for at least another couple of years) and dedicate those resources to anti-British and anti-German attacks.  As Steve has pointed out, the British political establishment in all parties are looking for an out.  Abu M. notes that the German political establishment has minimal stakes in Afghanistan, especially as the original mission has drifted into a quasi-imperial COIN effort.  

Shifting additional money, weapons, fighters, trainers and other supplies to these two national sectors with the intent of causing disproportionately heavy casualties and costs over the next year would be a viable means of breaking the already thin commitments these two nations have for the Afghanistan fight.  The withdrawal of 10,000 to 15,000 UK and German troops would not be fatal, but it would be a steady drip of increased costs and increased isolation of the United States and the Karzai government.

The long term implied strategy is to have the United States should more and more of the actual costs of propping up the Karzai government untikl the US political system decides that tertiary goals are not worth trillions of dollars.  To get there, the coalition of cost splitters needs to be fragmented so all costs are borne by the US.