Economic Warfare 101

Paul Rogers, writing at openDemocracy, looks at the growing trend of global economic warfare, and especially how that is affecting the Afghan war, which is now entering its eighth year. Time flies.

The American way of war requires a huge amount of supplies, especially fuel. It's estimated that 90% of those supplies in Afghanistan goes through Karachi, Pakistan. It then travels by truck, mostly, to Kabul and Kandahar.

Taliban attacks on this transport in Afghanistan and the border regions are getting more effective, while it is said that al-Qaida is setting up cells to strike in Karachi. Karachi is a huge, chaotic city, perfect for urban guerrilla warfare.

The latest consensus, held by such military geniuses as Barack Obama, that the US needs to up its troop presence by at least 10,000 in Afghanistan to avoid the continuing degredation of the military situation. That would only make the supply problem more difficult. Russia had offered to allow non-military supplies (fuel!) to cross its territory, the events in Georgia seem to rule that out. The lifeline from Karachi is vital, so it is a huge exploitable weakness. If al-Qaida really has any operational capability (something I'm not convinced of), it might start there.