AFGHANISTAN - THE CHOICE FOR DES BROWNE

14-08-2007

Every politician promoted to the Ministry of Defence finds it disconcerting to have the services of a personal Military Adviser. These highly experienced serving officers whisper in the ear of the new-kid minister about all aspects of military conduct - from how to take a salute to how you invade a country.

In those early hours of solitude, when the world sleeps and defence ministers plough through red boxes crammed with situation reports, departmental briefings and parliamentary questions, I would often find at the bottom of my paperwork, a handwritten list of suggested reading matter. My Military Adviser, a Captain in the Navy, was fulfilling his duty to broaden my understanding of the Services.

No self respecting Military Adviser would allow a minister to avoid reading Peter Hopkirk's "The Great Game".

For almost a Century, the two most powerful Nations on the planet - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia engaged in a power struggle that was fought along the isolated passes and barren deserts of Central Asia. His chronicle of this time was instructive.

There is no more chilling passage in his book than the description of the British Retreat from Kabul in 1842. His story tells of a remorselessly unforgiving terrain dominated by merciless and lawless brigands. 16,000 soldiers and civilians were slaughtered on their retreat through the Khyber Pass, leaving only the wounded Dr Brydon - The Messenger of Death, as he was to become known - to tell his story to the world.

Thankfully today, UN Forces are not led by the gout-afflicted General Elphinstone, who will go down in history as one of our most incompetent military leaders. But it is unwise for a politician not to know their history.

Des Browne knows his history but still felt able to say yesterday:

"The British can over face the Taliban in any circumstances, we can over match them rather, we can face them down and we can drive them out of communities."

He can say this because we have a massive military advantage over our opponents that previous forces did not. Droids, helicopters, lasers; you name it UN Forces have got them.

But unlike General Elphinstone, we also have a Department for International Development.

This is why Browne, a wise and analytical man, went on to say:

"The challenge is then to be able to build those communities, local government, their links to the provincial government and to the central government in such a way that that is sustained."

Let there be no doubt that we are nation building in Afghanistan. Roads, schools, hospitals and agriculture that isn't reliant on the narco-economy. This is just the beginning.

To change a country that has known three decades of terror and lost 2 million of it's own people in it's fight for freedom is a demanding and long-term task.

The goals of success for the UK are clear. Afghanistan became the petri dish of the world on which terror cells multiplied and spread. Remove the infrastructure and the planet will literally be a safer place.

But the price of failure is also apparent. A Military Adviser also ensures that a description into the circumstances of the death of every single member of the Services is placed in that last red box of the day - the one you read just before you go to sleep at night.

Guest Stirrer editor - Tom Watson MP