BELGIUM: Britain's Miliband spells out military and political strategy for Afghanistan

Record ID: 560352

  • Title: BELGIUM: Britain's Miliband spells out military and political strategy for Afghanistan
  • Date: 28th July 2009
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JULY 27, 2009) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR NATO HEADQUARTERS WITH FLAGS CLOSE OF NATO FLAG FLYING NATO FLAGS AND NATO STAR IN FRONT OF ENTRANCE TO HEADQUARTERS
  • Embargoed: 12th August 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAD7V103LLR93QFVRBYJJZN53KD
  • Story Text: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says Afghanistan and NATO are both at a crucial moment in history.
    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he had to come to NATO's headquarters in Brussels on Monday (July 27) to deliver his country's strategy in Afghanistan because he wanted British people to understand that it was a coalition-led campaign including more than 40 countries.
    Britain is not alone, was his message to people at home who have criticised the presence of British forces in Afghanistan.
    There will be general elections in Afghanistan next month and Miliband said this was a crucial moment in the fight against Taliban insurgents, and the building of a safer region. NATO must get it right, he said.
    "I believe we are at an important point in Afghanistan's history and NATO'S work there - a testing point. The elections on the 20th of August need to be both credible and inclusive," said Miliband.
    And therefore the military campaign must continue, he said, but not without an inclusive political plan for Taliban moderates.
    "The mental models of 20th century mass warfare are clearly not fit for 21st century counterinsurgency. That is why my argument today has been about the centrality of politics. People like quoting Clauswitz that 'warfare is the continuation of politics by other means,' but in Afghanistan, we need politics to become the continuation of warfare by other means," Miliband said.
    He also said it was crucial for NATO to reassure the citizens of Afghanistan that they would not let them down by pulling out prematurely. Failure to do so will tip them into the Taliban camp, he added.
    He therefore called for a programme of "reintegration and reconciliation" for moderate Taliban, reminding his audience of President Barack Obama's own speech on the need to crush the Taliban on the one hand and bring them into the political fold on the other.
    Moderates must be given a role in local governments so as to veer them off the "path of confrontation with the government", he said.
    Miliband also said that Pakistan had entered the theatre of war because Taliban fighters were using it as a base. But he added that any region, like Swat, that had been cleared ahead of a military assault, must be quickly rebuilt in order not to lose the support of the local population.
    "The badlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan are al Qaeda's incubator of choice. They are not the only place that al Qaeda is active. But they are the incubator of choice for the most deadly threat that our citizens face. And that is why Afghanistan and its border area with Pakistan are so important and we have to be very very clear with people that this is a different kind of campaign. And it doesn't produce victory parades and armistices in the same way that other campaigns do. Its a different kind of campaign," Miliband said.
    Miliband also said the insurgents were being squeezed by military operations either side of the Durand line between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that the insurgency itself was divided. He said it was crucial to provide incentives for Afghans to support the new government and provide fighters with an alternative.
    "It is only when the cooperation, passive and active, of ordinary Afghans is removed from the insurgents that the insurgency will be fatally undermined. The squeeze on the Taliban has to come from within as well as without," Miliband said.
    Britain is locked in a major military offensive in parts of volatile Helmand province in south Afghanistan as part of "Operation Panther's Claw" alongside a major U.S. offensive launched this month.
    At least 20 British soldiers have been killed in July, taking the total death toll in the war to 189, 10 more than during the Iraq war and the worst battlefield casualties suffered by the British military since the 1980s Falklands War.
    Britain and other NATO countries are facing criticism from citizens who see no end to NATO's military campaign in Afghanistan, a growing Taliban force and the spread of insurgency to other parts of the region.
    Miliband said he wanted the British people to understand that this was not a war waged by Britain and the United States alone in the fight for supremacy, adding that this was a coalition mission engaged in fighting insurgency and building a country.
    "We are not alone. That's really why I wanted to give this speech here: to emphasise to the British people that there are 42 countries engaged in Afghanistan - on the military side - its actually 60 or 62 I think on the civilian side as well. And I don't think we do enough to explain that this word 'solidarity' does mean something. And that this is about our obligations to each other as well as about our obligations to ourselves," he said.
    "The approach of being clear that we are not trying to create a colony in Afghanistan with an endless set of commitments, but instead trying to build up Afghan institutions and Afghan capacity to defend their own country, is a critical part of this approach. This is not Britain's fourth Afghan war. This is not our attempt, again, to create a British colony in Afghanistan. We are on a different mission, a coalition mission, with at its heart the drive to build up a sustainable society in Afghanistan," Miliband added.
    In Afghanistan, Britain's International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said it wanted to talk to hardline insurgents saying those who turn away from violence should be offered a chance to become part of the political process.
    A presidential spokesman in Kabul said the government struck a ceasefire deal with Taliban insurgents in the remote province of Badghis, near Turkmenistan.
    This was the first move of its kind in the face of escalating violence as July has been the deadliest month for NATO since operations began in 2001.
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