Afghanistan: German Forces Face a Strategic Challenge in Early 2009

As Germany enters an election year, the government is again coming under pressure to revise the mandate covering the Bundeswehr's operations under the auspices of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

A move proposed by President Hamid Karzai's administration in Afghanistan to carry out an administrative reorganization is the source of the new round of debate in Berlin. Under the proposal, the Gormach District of Afghanistan, an area with a considerable Taliban presence, would be transferred to Faryab Province from Badghis Province. At present, Spanish and Italian troops have responsibility for patrolling the volatile district. Under the new arrangement, that responsibility would shift primarily to German forces.

The Afghan parliament has yet to endorse the proposed change. Even so, Bernd Siebert, a defense expert for the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), announced that there would be a need to revisit the German mandate, if Germany's theater of operations were enlarged.

Siebert's CDU seems to be alone, however, in pushing for new discussions about the mandate. The Social Democratic Party's defense expert, Rainer Arnold, as well as representatives of opposition parties, have questioned the need for another mandate debate.

Beyond the question about the mandate, the coming months are shaping up as important, as far as the German presence in Afghanistan goes. According to a recent report in Der Spiegel magazine, German special forces will reportedly participate in a winter offensive again Islamic insurgents in the Ghormach District.

Public support for Germany's military mission in Afghanistan has long been seen as tenuous. Thus, any setback in a potential Ghormach offensive, or significant casualties, could have considerable impact on the German government's commitment to Afghanistan. At present, the German public appears to be supportive of the military mission in Afghanistan. One poll released earlier in December by the Socio-Scientific Institute of the Bundeswehr (SOWI) showed roughly 75 percent of Germans supported the mission. However, previous opinion polls indicated that the German public wanted to scale back the mission, or even totally withdraw German troops from Afghanistan.

A spying scandal is complicating the maneuvering surrounding the German troop mandate. The German Intelligence Service, or BND, recently admitted to having monitored at least 2.000 telephone calls, emails and faxes from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (Anso) between 2005-08. The Anso office is led by a the relief organization German Agro Action. According to the BND, the surveillance was undertaken with the aim to deter potential terrorist attacks. A juicy aspect in the scandal is the fact that the chairwoman of the German Agro Action is the wife of the federal republic's interior minister.

More broadly speaking, German strategic planners are striving to come up with a way to respond to changes in Afghanistan's strategic landscape, specifically the intensification of the insurgency. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The dilemma was summarized by one participant at an early December discussion sponsored by the Berlin-based Federal College for Security Studies as "how not to burn one's fingers in Afghanistan."

Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the highest ranking general of the Bundeswehr, stressed in his address that the security situation in Northern Afghanistan was worse than he could have imagined two years ago. He also indicated that he was skeptical about the chances that an increase in foreign forces in Afghanistan would turn the tide against the insurgents. "It's unfortunate, when after careful consideration the result is always to call for more soldiers," the general said. "I would appreciate deeper discussions on the quality of our commitment and not so much on the quantity. We need to talk about recon- and communication measures; about how to explain the coming elections to the Afghan people; and how to further improve primary health care."

Schneiderhan also indicated a willingness to engage moderate Taliban elements."Not all Taliban are terrorists. Not all local community leaders are warlords. At first, they are people with a lot of influence," he said. "We can only dance with the girls who are present at the party."

Editor's Note: Jan-Thilo Klimisch is a freelance reporter based in Berlin.