Russian troops in Afghanistan?
 

This is starting to sound like one of my less than believable ideas for a campaign.

Russia has one of the world's worst heroin problems, coupled to a declining demographic and their own problems with Islamic militants in the eastern republics.

They're trying to get NATO to be more aggressive against opium production. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's heroin, and Russians (2% of the Russian population) soak up 70% of the Afghan crop.

Oddly enough, it might not be too far in the future where the majority of troops in Afghanistan are US, UK and Russian.

I doubt we'll ever get serious about stopping poppy production in Afghanistan. There's too much liquid capital represented by the heroin trade (skywards of $100 billion--in cash) for a capitalist country to take effective action. I find it hard to believe that in a country like Afghanistan poppy fields cannot be found easily from the air. Equally, if we meant business we could find a poppy pathogen or design one. The fact that we have been in the country for almost a decade and have done nothing effective should tell even the casual onlooker that Washington isn't going to get involved in any meaningful way.

Webstral

Too dangerous as that would risk wiping out all opium production, illicit and medicinal alike. Pharmacological opiates are still widely in use and are very effective.

In fact, it's a major industry where I live. I have a licence to enter opium fields for my work.

I wonder how NATO would handle it if Russia tasked a few divisions purely to destroy poppy harvests?

Its funny you should mention that because I had Tasmania in mind when I wrote my post.

I only have to drive 5-10 minutes from home to see poppy fields. Used to work for one of the companies buying the crops and processing it into the various chemicals.

Security in and around the factory is exceptionally tight, the further along the processing line you go, the tighter it gets.
However, out in the fields there's not much protecting them beyond a few strands of barbed wire (just a typical farm fence), signs every so often saying don't cross, and the odd inspection...

If that's all the security in existance in a developed country such as Australia, what can we really expect to see in Afganistan?

Rubber blight hasn't made it to Southeast Asia yet. If wiping out illegal poppies was a priority, some blend of prevention and rationalization would occur. Nevertheless, if a pathogen is a risk to friendly poppies, then an application of a defoliant in the right places ought to do the trick.

Webstral

Once in a while, action is taken to destroy one field of poppy or another.
But in Afghanistan you need the owner of the field to be present there before burning the field. So they leave one soldier watching the field and to wait for him.

One can imagine the efectiveness of this system :rolleyes:

Apparently nearly 50% of the world's medicinal opiate needs are meet by Tasmanian poppy production.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2008/s2493541.htm

Which means in the twilight war, with opiate needs sky rocketing, that supply isn't going to be available.

And my claim to fame is I was responsible for printing the labels for about 80% of that production. :S
Only after transportation networks fail. Until then there's likely to be a boom.

And this explains that.:D:p