Afstan: Polish help for Canadians

You read about the increased Polish commitment here over a month ago. It's now confirmed that Polish forces will be of some small--but direct help--for us:

Poland is putting two of the eight helicopters it is sending to Afghanistan "at the disposal of Canada," the country’s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, disclosed Sunday in an interview with Maclean’s.

The pledge goes some way toward meeting the conditions Prime Minister Stephen Harper has placed on extending Canada’s military mission in Kandahar province beyond February 2009. Harper accepted the recommendations of an independent panel chaired by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, which argued that Canadian soldiers should stay in Kandahar on two conditions–that they are joined by another battle group of about 1,000 soldiers and that they secure the use of helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Poland is also sending 400 soldiers to Afghanistan to join the approximately 1,200 already in the country. Sikorski said they will operate "more or less" where most Polish soldiers are currently deployed, in the southeast of the country, bordering Pakistan, but added: “I can’t talk about the details of our deployment plan, but there will be more scope for Polish-Canadian cooperation.” He confirmed that Polish special forces are already operating in Kandahar and work closely with Canadians there [emphasis added]...

Sikorski agrees with John Manley’s assessment that Afghanistan is NATO’s most important test. He is clearly frustrated with members of the alliance who refuse to "get their act together and send more troops." He’s also critical of the caveats some NATO countries place on how their soldiers can be used. Sikorski, who was previously Poland’s defence minister, says that when Poland commanded a multinational division in Iraq, the biggest challenge confronting his commanders in the field was "juggling of the various national rules of engagement that the soldiers were hamstrung by."

He sees the same obstacles today in Afghanistan. "We have to standardize the rules of engagement during NATO missions, and we should also devise ways of fairly sharing the risks so that there is no premium on free riding."

The stakes in Afghanistan are high, Sikorski believes. Failure would destroy NATO's credibility, and once that’s gone, the organization would no longer be useful. "Half the deterrent power of any alliance is credibility, is the assumption in the minds of its potential enemies that if NATO goes to war, NATO wins," he says. "So yes, we have to win. And I define victory not in military terms, but in terms of provinces and districts under firm, democratic Afghan government control."

But Sikorski is optimistic. It’s not going to be easy, he says, and it won’t be quick. He stresses that military force is only part of the answer. Political and economic efforts are also necessary. But ultimately, he believes, NATO will be successful in Afghanistan. In the meantime, he says, the world is watching Canada with admiration. And Polish help is "just over the horizon."