BREAKING: Russia cuts off major supply route for U.S., NATO in Afghanistan

Attack on a NATO convoy in the Khyber Pass, June 2014. (Image: EPA, Gullamullah Habibi via NY Daily News)

Well, this is bad.  This is a real, no-kidding move against U.S. and NATO interests, one that could significantly increase the peril to our forces in Afghanistan.  It creates the potential for things to go south very quickly for NATO troops.

That, in turn, increases the likelihood of divisions within NATO over the alliance’s Afghanistan commitment.  The divisions could well affect NATO’s posture on the political conflict with Russia.  And assuming the Obama administration is passive and ineffective in the face of this latest move by Moscow, the alliance will find an existential crisis – at least the beginnings of one – inescapable.

The basic story is that the U.S. and NATO have relied throughout the Afghan operation on supply routes that run through both Pakistan and the former-Soviet republics of Central Asia.  In 2008, the route called the Northern Distribution Network, or NDN, was consolidated, with a portion of it running through the territory of Russia.  Russia has benefited from transit fees, along with the Central Asian ‘Stans, and has been content to hold in reserve the pocket veto she possesses by agreeing to let our supplies flow through her transportation network.

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U.S. in Afghanistan: Of course we negotiate with terrorists

In a sign of the surreality into which we have descended under the Obama administration, the media have been reporting with a straight face that the U.S. will shortly begin talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, and that President Obama calls the agreement for the talks an “important first step toward reconciliation.”

To recap: in October 2001, U.S. forces entered Afghanistan to depose the terrorist Taliban regime, which had given the 9/11 attackers some of their most important support.  From that day to this, the Taliban have not changed their stripes.  They are still terrorists.  They intimidate and murder Afghan and Pakistani civilians, in their quest to retain a brutal control over territory in both nations.  They regularly attack U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.  Their interest in “reconciliation” is exactly what it has been since 2001: an interest in regaining control of Afghanistan, ideally without having to meet NATO forces in battle.

The announcement of talks with the Taliban coincided with a rocket attack by the Taliban on the U.S. air base at Bagram, in which four of our servicemen were killed.  The Taliban promptly