Mil-Tech

283 Bases, 170,000 Pieces of Equipment, 140,000 Troops and an Army of Military Contractors

With last week’s announced escalation of the war in Afghanistan, including an Iraq-like “surge” replete with 4,000 more U.S. troops and a sizable increase in private contractors, President Barack Obama blew the lid off of any lingering perceptions that he somehow represents a significant change in how the U.S. conducts its foreign policy.

In the meantime, more reports have emerged that bolster suspicions that Obama’s Iraq policy is but a downsized version of Bush’s and that a total withdrawal of U.S. forces is not on the horizon.

In a dramatic understatement, the GAO notes that the U.S. “has an extensive basing footprint in Iraq. … Closing or handing over U.S. installations in Iraq will be time consuming and costly.” With no fewer than 283 such installations throughout Iraq — 51 large bases and 232 smaller bases — the Obama administration has not said how it will approach this formidable task.

This is no minor detail. “According to U.S. Army officials, experience has shown that it takes one to two months to close the smallest platoon — or company — size installations, which contain between 16 and 200 combat soldiers or Marines.”

However, the U.S. “has never closed large, complex installations — such as Balad Air Force Base, which contains about 24,000 inhabitants and has matured over five years. U.S. Army officials estimate it could take longer than 18 months to close a base of that size.” Obama should explain clearly how he intends to dismantle these bases or to what forces he is going to give control over them.

It is very hard to imagine that the U.S. will simply walk away from large bases it spent years building. So, will they be turned over to Iraq? If so, to whom? What guarantee is there that they would not be used as operating bases for death squads? Will some be destroyed? What about the environmental impact?

In addition to the bases, the GAO reveals that, as of of March 2008, “the United States had in place about 170,000 pieces of equipment worth about $16.5 billion that would need to be removed from Iraq.” Erik Leaver, a senior analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies, says,”An example of a tough question: What to do with MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles]?”

“The MRAPs are so heavy, transport back to the U.S., plus the rehab charges may make it cost-effective to actually destroy them,” says Leaver. “Plus, if you need to move 120,000 soldiers in a rapid time frame, do you even have the space to bring them back if you take the MRAPs?”

Then there are the facilities in Iraq currently being run by U.S. contractors. According to the GAO, Defense Contract Management Agency officials estimate “there is at least $3.5 billion worth of contractor-managed government-owned property in Iraq.”

Air Force Blocking the Troop Tube

Last week, we discovered that a bunch of military bases — especially Air Force bases — were blocking TroopTube, the Pentagon’s YouTube knock-off. Today, we learned that the digital blockades were part of a larger, Air Force-wide decision to cut off access to the military’s taxpayer-funded, security-scrubbed, low-bandwidth-optimized video sharing site.

“The Air Force must balance network security requirements with competing requests for wide-ranging access to a vast array of public internet services for our Airmen. Air Force-wide policy restricts access to categories of sites that are generally not mission related, and put adverse performance demands on our networks. As a result of this general policy, access to Troop Tube is blocked at Air Force bases,” service spokesman Major David Small e-mails Danger Room.

Some Air Force bases may still have access through different configurations and local commander approval. Additionally, Airmen operating on non-AF networks, like the Pentagon, may have access to Troop Tube. While there is some perceived inconvenience with this Air Force restriction, the general policy helps ensure our networks remain safe and perform optimally. We recognize, however, the importance and usefulness of the Troop Tube web site and are doing everything we can to ensure our Airmen have access. Currently, our Airmen can access Troop Tube through various base locations that provide access to the Internet, such as some Airmen and Family Readiness Centers, libraries, and other morale, welfare, and recreation facilities. Additionally, our Airmen can access this site from their home computers. Due to a recent request to access this site for mission needs, we are re-evaluating access to Troop Tube specifically. This evaluation will assess the site’s security posture and impact to the AF mission and network performance.

Telecommunications in Afghanistan

On the surface, Afghanistan’s nascent telecommunications sector could be considered a success: Four providers have invested more than US$1 billion in building a mobile phone network in one of the world’s poorest countries. It wasn’t so long ago that Afghans would have to travel to neighboring Pakistan to make an international call.

The Afghan government under former President Burhanuddin Rabbani focused on building a telecom network for the war-ravaged nation in the mid-1990s. “The situation in Afghanistan had become so bad,” says Ehsan Bayat, founder of Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC), the country’s first mobile phone provider, “that someone had sold the ‘93′ country code to a porn company.” The nation was able to regain its country code, and the government installed a few hundred lines and small public calling shops.

While the Taliban’s takeover of the government in 1996 and ensuing U.S. sanctions halted Bayat’s plans of creating a mobile phone network, the idea was quickly revived after 9/11, following the ouster of the regime. But a major obstacle remained: finding companies willing to work in Afghanistan. “We had a design to build a GSM network, and companies like Ericsson and Siemens that were working in Pakistan just were not interested in Afghanistan,” Bayat says. Eventually, Bayat found a company from which to buy machinery. In 2002, AWCC was able to set up a satellite system with Worldcom in Guam.

Afghanistan’s mobile phone industry has since exploded from no users in 2002 to five million to date. When first introduced to the market, a SIM card and handset were priced at nearly US$300. Today, a SIM card goes for US$1 and handsets are available for as little as US$10. The number of users is expected to reach 10 million within the next two years. Users spend an average of US$12 a month.

Building a communications system in a country with battered infrastructure comes with heavy costs. Each of the four mobile phone operators that now hold government GSM licenses made initial investments of up to US$300 million. AWCC, majority-owned by the U.S.-based Telephone Systems International, received the first such license in 2002. The government took a 20% stake in AWCC and signed a 15-year contract with the company. In less than a year, AWCC had signed up 50,000 mobile phone users, surprising even its initial investors.

More on India Knowledge@Wharton