Afstan: Bye bye ISAF Regional Command South as US takes control

One could almost see something like this coming, see bolded bits at following links--one divisional HQ under the US Marines and one under the US Army:

A restructure of the rotating command has been ordered to account for the change in troop numbers from Nato forces.

US forces are set to take over the dominant role in southern Afghanistan from the British under plans for a wholesale rebuilding of the region’s command structure.

The Times learnt that the existing arrangement for Regional Command South, an area the size of England and Wales, is to be abandoned after the arrival of about 21,000 US troops in the south last year with another 18,000 to 20,000 due this year.

The command — which switches annually between Britain, the Netherlands and Canada with a permanent American deputy commander — will be replaced by two division sized commands [emphasis added] of about 30,000 servicemen each in the southeast [under the Army, maybe Kandahar and Zabul, plus Uruzgan if the Dutch do give up in 2010 their combat role and are replaced by Americans] and southwest [under the Marines, maybe Helmand plus Farah province, now in RC West, where the US already has a significant presence--"Marines [are] spread out at combat outposts spanning from Golestan in Farah province..." and also has the Provincial Reconstruction team, see map here].

Nick Carter, the British Major General, is the regional commander at present. He will stay in the post until the autumn, when the new structure will be in place.

There is debate within the Ministry of Defence over whether to push for a rotating command in what will become Regional Command Southwest, an area of operations that will include British forces in Helmand. Britain’s Task Force Helmand will by then be 10,000 strong alongside 20,000 US Marines. It is acknowledged, however, that the balance of new troop numbers will need a reworking of the leadership. “The US Marines hardly take orders from the US Army, let alone a British command structure,” one source told The Times. “So the overall structure ... is a work in progress.”...

To promote freedom of movement and, commanders hope, the economy, Task Force Stryker, a mobile US brigade, will establish control of the ring road through southern Afghanistan. It has been the scene of daily Taleban attacks by insurgents, local criminals and the Afghan police force...

One wonders if our media will notice what's going on. By the way Task Force Stryker is the US Army's 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, now mainly at Kandahar. Looks like it will be given a broader area of operations once US forces at Kandahar are reinforced this spring with the 2nd BCT of the 101st Airborne Division (see end of this post).

As for roads, from a December 2009 post:

...
U.S. Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez outlined Tuesday how the surge would unfold, in the most specific terms since President Barack Obama authorized early this month the dispatch of 30,000 extra American troops to Afghanistan. Asked how he would measure success a year from now, he said the crucial marker would be opening up insurgent-infested roads between Afghanistan's agricultural heartland in Helmand province and the Pakistan border ["Afstan: Roads, dear boy, roads", map of the main "ring road" at end of this post]...

Update: Some cynicism at Milnet.ca, plus an earlier post:

Je grösser die Stäbe, desto schlecter die Führung