When you are wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut out what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to you God like a soldier.

That was Rudyard Kipling's tribute to Afghanistan, a barren moonscape of a land at the "crossroads of the world," and to its proud and savage people. Conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. and by Genghis Khan in the 13th century A.D., Afghanistan in the Victorean era served as a buffer between Imperial Russia and the British raj. The Afghans accepted it all, but they exacted a bloody price. In January, 1842, after an adventure in Afghanistan, the British ordered the withdrawal of 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers from Kabul. A week later, the sole survivor of the march, a field surgeon named Brydon, staggered into Jalalabad on the way to the Khyber Pass. What sorrow the world felt for the impoverished Afghans when a Soviet force of 50,000 troops seized control of their land in 1980. What sorrow the world felt for the humiliated Russians when they retreated with their 20,000 dead a decade later. And thus it is little wonder that for generations, the Hindus of India prayed for deliverance from "the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan."

Today, the target of the Afghan's anger is the the United States, equipped with laser-guided missiles and satellites that can detect a man's hand from outer space. The rebel tribesman, with peasant cunning and sheer audacity, have every intention of teaching the same lesson they taught the British and the Russians:   That it is easier to march into Afghanistan than it is to march out of it. However, much of the top US officer corp won their spurs in Viet Nam, where they learned at high cost the dangers of over-confidence. It is safe to say that Viet Nam and the Russian experience will not be models for the impending war. The Afghan war is going to follow a different approach to victory than that was followed in Desert Storm, which emphasized saturation bombing, infantry mass and static lines of deployment, and heavy mobile armor.  The principles of war may parallel those articulated by China's Chairman Mao Zedong in "The Ten Major Principles of Military Operations." (Beijing Review, March 24, 1978, p.8.)

The following is speculation, and does not necessarily reflect coalition policy.

1.  Attack weak points of enemy forces first, then stronger ones. The Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and Arabian Sea will be militarized. From the aircraft carriers and also from airfields in Baluchistan, the first phase of the war will begin. Aerial missions will knock out all strategic installations and achieve air superiority. Massive bombing will eradicate Scud-B missile sites around Kabul, along the Khyber Pass, and along the borders. Radar defense systems, airfields, barracks, police headquarters, utilities, communication centers, and terrorist bases will be carpet bombed. Initally, there will be a demonstration attack of Taliban regional headquarters of an armored car park, using cruise missiles, followed by a much longer campaign. Most likely, that campaign will be mounted in the northern part of the country controlled by the Northern Alliance, a collection of groups opposed to the Taliban. The target of these attacks will be the airfields at Taloqan Mazar-e Sharif, Bamian, Baglam, and Jaalabad and Talaban army bases at Konduz and Kabul.

2.  Start small. Start rural. Conceptually, Afganistan will be treated as an enemy garrison, rather than territory to be conquered and occupied. Victory is predicated, not on the conquest of Kabul, but control of the countryside. The bulk of the war will be in the four southern provinces-- Kandahar, Helmand, Herat, and Uruggun-- where the Taliban leadership and Bin Laden will try to hide. Robot planes will draw out Afghan military positions, and will be answered with precision strikes.

3.  Be forces oriented. At some point, land troops will be needed, again, not to occupy Afghanistan, but to engage, root out, and then re-deploy. The allies may try to capture an airfield and use it as a bridgehead for attacks into the interior, possibly at Bamian, as an attempt to split the country.

4.  Concentrate and achieve local superiority. Annhilate the enemy. In this war without borders, it will not be assumed that the enemy is only in Afghanistan. The global dragnet for terrorists will continue, with a sea change in thinking on laws concerning preemptive assasination, domestic wire-tapping, profiling, and deportation. All intelligence will fall under military auspicies, with considerable assistance from the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Bandits and spies will submit to the rules of military discipline.

5.  Throughly plan and prepare. The planning for this offensive will match the meticulous planning required to destroy the World Trade Center Staging areas, staffing, and fuel needs to be positioned before Noble Eagle commences. The military will need to hire hundreds of Pushtu speakers, the language of the Pathans and of the Taliban, who come from southern Afghanistan. Finally, considerable propaganda efforts will be required throughout the Middle East and the United States to reinforce the notion in the first case that the war is not against Islam but against the enemies of Islam.

6.  Make a total commitment. The goal must be the de-legitimization and the elimination of the Taliban and unconditional victory. Anything less will open the door for future terrorism. Terrorism can only be destroyed by eliminating not merely the weapons of terror and the men behind that terror, but the ideology of fanaticism itself, espcially among organizations that have demonstrated global reach. The use of tactical nuclear weapons is off the table, as it would cause regional instability and perhaps the overthrow of the Parkistan government and will also open the door for other countries to use atomic weaponry to advance their military objectives.

7.  Stay mobile, but attack enemy positions. Military set pieces will not be employed. No attempt will be made to occupy the capital and other cities and villages. Rather, extreme mobility using largely special operations forces and helicopters protected by fighter bombers, such as the Jaguar and the F-111, will be emphasized. Tactics perfected for the SAS under British General Templer in Malaya during the early 1950s will be employed in isolating terrorists from their base of support while simultanously introducing social reforms that can erode the mystic appeal of religious radicalism.

8.  Attack weak points of cities first, then stronger ones. Radio and TV stations, party headquarters, and ministries will disappear in the first strike.

9.  The enemy is our source of supplies. We should interpret Mao's dictim, not in the material sense, but in the psychological sense. China, Russia, and Pakistan will mobilize their troops to prevent Taliban incursions into their own country and the possible millions of refugees who are fleeing for their lives. The allies can exploit this fear and turn it into hate against the Taliban. Recruitment and funding of Afghans who know the geography and culture and can go after the Talibans in the ravines and valleys of the mountains and desert terrain will be a key part of the coalition strategy. The pressure the refugees them selves can put in bringing this war to an end will require appropriate the propaganda and disinformation techniques that poison internal morale.

10. Rest between exertions, but allow no respite. Bombing strikes should be made in relentless intervals, day and night, to allow rescue and then attack, rescue and then attack, until there is a wearing down of the populace.

The end game will probably be the installation of a temporary military dictatorship under UN supervision with occupying troops from other nominally Islamic countries, such as Turkey, Malaysia, and Parkistan, with civil administration under Northern Alliance control.