The snow is coming down pretty heavy now; we’ve been very lucky up until today.  The famed and brutal Afghan winter has held off and it’s been balmy and warm.   Winter has decided to arrive full blast blanketing everything.  Since I got up this morning at 0600 it’s dropped about three inches.

The blanket of snow covering the Afghan landscape makes everything look smooth and peaceful.  A calm pond you decide to dive into head first only to find out there are stumps and rocks waiting just beneath the placid surface.  Okra colored terrain replaced by gentle whiteness, but it still out there lurking and waiting for the return of the violence that it holds.  

Snow is good.  It means it’s coming down hard in the mountains making the roads and trails impassable.  A natural demilitarized zone established by Mother Nature as if to say alright boys enough for now; rest.  Our enemy is forced back into Pakistan no rockets or ambushes; he’s back there trying to stay warm and wondering when he’ll get the next chance to come at us.  We sit here and ponder the same thing.  Prize fighters sent to their corners waiting for the next round to commence.

The roads and trails are key here, corridors of mobility controlled by no one.  Control is defined by who’s sitting there at the time.  They’re key and we need more of them.  Not because they will make it easier to get at our foes, but because what they bring with them.

Insurgents are deathly afraid of improved roads, as they bring progress, commerce and a link to the rest of Afghanistan.   This summer the Taliban made a strong push to destroy pieces of the ring road.  The ring road is what it sounds like; a road that rings Afghanistan.  Built by the Soviets to improve their ability to move and conduct logistical resupply, it was completed by US Army Engineers.  Outside the major metro areas it’s the only paved road.

The Taliban’s offensive against the road was a miserable failure for them.  Not because they didn’t destroy many parts of it, they did, but because the populace questioned why they were attacking it.  Attacking the ring road impacts US, NATO and ANA forces very little.  We have helicopters and aircraft to resupply and get around.  The Afghans living here don’t have these; so impinging on the ring road affects them greatly.  The question they were starting to ask, “Why are you destroying that which helps us”.  The Taliban had no answer.

Outside of the ring road calling something a road here is being very generous.  Usually they’re semi- visible scrapes in the ground, pitted with rocks, stumps and very often IEDs.  The team has broken leaf springs, tie rods, axles and many other suspension parts on the RG-31 armored vehicles that we drive.  After one such incident I thought about using our Irridium sat phone to call AAA, give them my membership number and current grid location and see if they’d come get us.  I can see it now.

“Hello, thanks for calling AAA”  the bright cheerful voice says

“Hi, here’s my membership number and I’m on ROUTE DEATH about 4 klicks south of Spetzgar Ridge.”  I say.  Yes, ROUTE DEATH is really the name of a road here.

“You’re what”? The voice isn’t as bright or cheerful and a perplexed overtone has replaced them.

“Yeah, I’m in Afghanistan and the tie rod on my vehicle is snapped and I wanted to know if you could send a tow truck”?  I say deadpan

“Sir, did you say Afghanistan; is this some kind of joke”?  The operator is now annoyed and ready to hang up.

“No don’t hang up, yeah I’m in Afghanistan and I need someone to come and tow the vehicle, it weighs about 12 tons so you’re probably going to need to send a heavy wrecker.” 

“We don’t operate in Afghanistan”, they reply now very annoyed with me.

“But my card says anytime and anywhere” I read from the back of the card.

“Yes, that means in the US and Canada” they don’t finish with you stupid moron due to their superior customer service training.

“OK thanks it was worth a try, have a great day”!  I hit the end button and return to trying to figure out how to get my vehicle out of here.

My little daydream highlights the issue here, there are very few consistently passable roads.  Right now it’s easier to drive to Pakistan to get goods and services than

Currently, US commanders are evaluated on the number and success of combat missions they execute. Why not by the feet of paved road they built?  Those roads would bring with them commerce and begin to separate the population from the radicalized areas.   We’ve already seen that the Taliban’s efforts in attacking these types of road have paid negative dividends.  If we put in more all it can do is help the population.

A tertiary effect of building roads would be the reduction of attacks on ANA and US personnel.  Many of the attacks that occur here are motivated by money.  The globalization of outsourcing has expanded even to the Taliban. 

They offer a local $100 to launch a rocket or plant an IED.  He doesn’t particularly care about the ideology just that he gets the money.  There are videotapes proving this; I’ve actually seen some of them.  If we’re now paying him to build roads, the need for the money is alleviated.   Plus, it’s his road so when somebody blows it up (i.e. Taliban) they get pissed off about it and then do something to prevent it in the future.

The primary economic driver in this area is the sale of firewood.  A high speed road out of here; toward the interior allows said wood seller to move more product and make more money.  Adam Smith’s rules on supply, demand and revenue work the same here as in the rest of the world economy.  People will act in their own self interest; protecting the road and the commerce that it represents.

Separating the populace from the insurgents doesn’t have to be in the form of JDAMs and Apache Attack Helicopters.  Ownership of a road project works just as well.   Maybe we send three brigades of engineers here to build the main roads and then contract to Afghans the building of branches to their towns?  It’s a thought and I don’t suppose that it’ll hurt anything.  The ANA and ANP help secure them building local stability; it’s a cascading effect from there.

Now, to conclude I’m in no way saying that this would stop our kinetic operations.  It would just reshape them.  When the ANA and ANP attack the Taliban it’s in defense of the road network created by and for the populace; instead of nebulous ideals that few here seem to understand.  Understanding of those ideals will come later.  Right now I’d be happy for just the population just to understand that the government protects the road that brings them money and progress.