Research Paper 98: Not only “Containerspotting” –
NATO’s Redeployment from Landlocked Afghanistan, by Heidi Reisinger.
If getting into Afghanistan was difficult, getting out will be even harder. On 31 December 2014, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the largest military mission of NATO, will be history and ISAF troops will be leaving. With them will go all their equipment: from weapon systems and armoured vehicles to chairs, kitchens and fitness centres used by more than 100,000 troops and approximately the same amount of civilian personnel. This is a gigantic project. The issue here is about infrastructure and equipment that has to be taken care of in the ballpark of a city the size of Geneva. It represents the biggest multi-national military logistical challenge in modern history. Millions of tons of materiel have to be de-militarized, dismantled, handed over, sold, scrapped, recycled, donated to the Afghans and/or third nations, or transferred home.
The latest Research Paper from the NATO Defense College examines (1) why it is so hard to wrap things up in Afghanistan, (2) what the Alliance has been doing so far to meet this challenge, and (3) why the future of NATO as a credible expeditionary political-military Alliance hangs in the balance as ISAF redeployment is not only “containerspotting”.
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