Although Pakistan has re-opened its border, nearly a hundred NATO supply trucks have been destroyed.The incredible vulnerability of our overextended Afghan supply lines demonstrated by these attacks strongly suggests that this war will end in the same kind of stalemate that occurred in Korea 60 years ago. We will not be able to "win" this war any more than we could in Korea or Viet Nam.
Although the Viet Nam parallel is frequently invoked by war critics and routinely rejected by war apologists, the parallels with the Korean War are perhaps even more striking. (The best analysis of what went wrong in Korea is David Halberstam's final book, The Coldest Winter.)
In June 1950, North Korea invaded the South and quickly crushed the Spouth Korean armies and drove the few American troops into a narrow pocket of land at Pusan. MacArthur, still commanding US force sin Japan and Korea ever since winning the Pacific War five years earlier directed a risky amphibious invasion at Inchon, near Seoul, and drove the North Koreans back north by October, 1950. At this point the war resembled the Gulf War: aggression defeated and old border restored.
But as winter approached, MacArthur in his arrogance pushed back North Korean invaders nearly to the Chinese border - while ignoring Chinese threats and his own overextended supply lines. Then, the Chinese surged over the Yalu and attacked cold, hungry and ammunition-short US troops. Three years and 33,000 American (and maybe a million Korean and Chinese) dead later, Eisenhower signed the truce that formalized the stalemate that remains today.
If Pakistan chooses to let the Taliban again attack the long line of trucks leading from Karachi to Kabul this winter, our forces in Afghanistan will find themselves just as cold, hungry and short on ammunition as the Marines did at the Choisin Reservoir in December 1950
The political and military dynamic in Afghanistan also has similarities to that of the Korean War period.
1- MacArthur, like Petraeus, appeared politically untouchable as the general who won the war in the Pacific. And MacArthur routinely ignored orders from home and expanded the war beyond what the President and the Joint Chiefs suggested to him.
2- Truman, like Obama, faced growing rightwing frenzy at home, led by the likes of Joe McCarthy and Dick Nixon. And he did not want to look "soft on communism," as they used to say.
3- The "Communist menace", like terrorism today, was seen as monolithic and bent on destroying the US. The Russians had detonated an atom bomb in 1949, and this had much the same effect on public fears as the actual attacks of 9/11/01.
4- The South Koreans, like our Afghan allies, collapsed quickly and left Americans to fight pretty much alone. The North Koreans, like the Taliban, were much more formidable and had strong cross-border support from China and Soviet Russia.
5- The UN, like NATO today, was supposed to make the war seem like an allied effort, but then as now, the other nations in the coalition provided a small fraction of the military effort. (Too few Americans recognize the sacrifices made by our Canadian allies in Afghanistan, just as we forget the sacrifices of our Turkish allies in Korea)
If the Afghan-Korea parallel holds true, my prediction is that Obama will eventually have to fire Petraeus and in turn face a firestorm of disapproval.
Why will Obama have to fire Petraeus? Because he is effectively beyond civilian control, and although he seems sane enough for now, it's clear that he can do whatever he sees fit. And it is dangerous for a democracy to place such trust in any military leader.
Petraeus, using his own best military judgment, may be trying to provoke Pakistan into actions that will justify a US cross-border incursion in force.(vs. going beyond current drone and special forces incursions) What other explanation is there for the recent helicopter attacks on Pakistani border guards, which led to the border closings? Either Petraeus has lost control of his troops or he authorized the attacks. And his proven competence suggests the latter.
Sending US forces into Pakistan makes a certain military sense, since Pakistan harbors the people we are fighting and (according to the material from wikileaks) even directs some of the forces attacking us in Afghanistan. But the end result is apt to be similar to what happened in Korea: isolated equipment-laden American troops cut off and destroyed by lightly armed opponents, US retaliation with massive fire power and more deaths, a stalemate, and a truce negotiated by some future Republican president.