So, How Much Did Petraeus' Mistake Hurt NATO Supplies?

By Steve Hynd

It's inconceivable that last week's cross-border incursions in to Pakistan by US helicopters - in which three Pakistani frontier guards were killed by American gunfire - could have been authorised anywhere but at the highest levels of NATO command in the region. Specifically, General David Petraeus would have had to green-light crossing the border.

Did he not get the memo from 2008, the last time such incursions caused five closures of supply routes through Pakistan in as many months as well as Pakistani threats to shoot down any further copters across the border, or did he just not care at the time? Did he not undrestand, as most anyone who watches the region does, that while drones flying from Pakistani bases may be one thing, manned incursions across the border that kill Pakistanis in uniform are quite another? As analyst Amil Khan, aka Londonistani, wrote on Friday:

The hostility of the Pakistani public to U.S. actions in the region is obvious. However, any Pakistani government, whether civilian or military, will have to cooperate with the United States while managing public anger towards its benefactor. This increases the chances of both governments being pushed into secret, backroom deals that are less open to scrutiny and more likely to compound difficulties when they are uncovered. It also pushes the Pakistani authorities into a corner where they are forced to undertake face-saving actions such as the suspension of the NATO supply lines.

Public opinion also matters when it comes to the army. In London a few months ago, I heard Anatol Lieven of Kings College answer a question about the likely outcomes of increased ISAF incursions into Pakistani territory by saying, "Two things are likely to happen; the Pakistani army's rank and file may decide to sit on their rifles and disobey orders. Or, they may walk away with their weapons and decide to fight the intruders themselves."

My conversations with young, lower-ranking military personnel suggest that Dr. Lieven is probably right. Young officers feel the country's political leaders have given away the independence they have sworn to protect and tarnished the national pride their institution is supposed to embody. Under these circumstances, a military government would feel the same pressure - perhaps even more keenly. As imperfect as the U.S.-Pakistani military relationship is, a fracture in Pakistan's army serves no one, and repeats dark murmurings about the United States' ultimate plans to dismember Pakistan.

Military action is achieving little in this conflict. And although it might provide useful measures for justifying the conflict to war-weary publics and legislators, the ill thought-out use of violence is counter productive.

If the Saintly general didn't care before, he certainly cares now. Petraeus ended up calling General Kayani of Pakistan to apologise personally. Twenty seven tankers of fuel went up in smoke in what Pakistani authorities were said to have described as "just an indication of what could happen if Pakistan were to stop providing security to the convoys." Hundreds of further tankers and container trucks are sitting by the roadside still, vulnerable, as the closure of the Torkham border crossing continues. Pakistan is now saying, post Petraeus' apology, that the crossing will reopen as soon as public anger dies down. However, even once Torkham re-opens I think we can expect a series of closures over the next few months - just as in 2008/09 - as the Pakistani military first "accidentally" looks the other way so that militants can attack convoys, then closes the crossings for "security reasons" as they pretend to "hunt" those same militants.

With reportedly about 50% of non-lethal supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan coming through just two crossings from Pakistan - and all of that via the port of Karachi - potential for disruption of NATO logistics is pretty high. (The 80% you will see in some press reports is outdated by a year and more.) The so-called Northern Distribution Network (NDN), handles 30% of all supply traffic and another 20% by air. However, the monthly average of non-fuel supplies through Pakistan is still 4,200 containers, compared with 1,457 by the NDN, and the bulk of the fuel delivered via the North is aviation gas rather than diesel and gasoline for ground vehicles and generators. The NDN is also far slower and far more costly.

Recently, supply traffic through Pakistan had been reduced by up to 80% by floodwaters which had only just abated enough for full traffic to resume. Now it has been halted again, even if temporarily. Although NATO officials keep saying that all of this hasn't hurt operational effectiveness, NATO only keeps a maximum of 30 days logistic reserve in its vast storage facilities inside Afghanistan - a modern army eats up fuel and supplies like a black hole. Those reserves must have been seriously impacted at the very time the offensive in the Kandahar region - the key offensive of the US military's COIN strategy - hits full swing.

It seems that either NATO is in serious danger of hitting a supply "wall" or it is hanging on only by moving supplies through the NDN - at somewhere between three and five times the cost, which taxpayers must pay. Shortages must eventually hit operational effectiveness, if not in Kandahar then in other regions which are less important. And the Pakistani populace and military have a whole new set of reasons to be pissed at the ongoing occupation in the country next door.

All because Petraeus got cocky and forgot or ignored what happened in 2008. Still, I've yet to see anything in the mainstream media that questions the Teflon General's judgement in precipitating this course of events.