Including the Marines, there are 17,522 allied troops in southern Afghanistan, including British, Dutch, Canadians, Danes, Estonians, Australians, Romanians and representatives of nine other nations, according to the high command.
These coalition military forces are assembled under the banner of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), commanded by U.S. Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, headquartered in Kabul with an international staff.
Beneath McNeill are five regional commands and numerous national military commands. Henderson's Marine battalion and its parent task force, the 24th MEU, officially are under the command of ISAF and McNeill. But they are assigned to work in conjunction with the regional command here and other coalition forces.
Coordination on long-term strategy is complex, staff officers here said, because the commanders and staffs at each level regularly rotate. Regional command south here, for instance, changes every nine months between British, Canadian and Dutch officers.
With one proposed operation temporarily blocked, Henderson told his planners to consider a scaled-back option.
"I think it's a stretch, but let's look at it," he said, adding glumly, "as the sound of desperation seeps into my voice."
The regional command here, RC-South, declined to comment on any command issues. In Kabul, Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, a senior spokesman for the ISAF, said the Marines "answer to" ISAF but are under the "tactical control" of RC-South. He said ISAF was satisfied that this is the best arrangement to "coordinate and synchronize" combat operations.
In case of a disagreement, McNeill would make the final decision, said Branco, a Portuguese officer.
The problems are magnified when Afghan government officials at the national and provincial level weigh in with their own judgments. The result, some say, is that the counterinsurgency campaign, which is inherently difficult enough, suffers from the lack of a clear vision and strategy.
"We don't understand where we are going here," said Lt. Col. Brian Mennes, commander of Task Force Fury, a battalion of paratroopers just leaving Kandahar after 15 months of counterinsurgency operations here. "We desperately want to see a strategy in front of us," he said in an interview.
NATO's only previous experience with coalition combat came almost a decade ago with the air war against Serbia. Afghanistan is the first time the alliance has attempted to coordinate ground combat among forces that often don't speak the same language or use the same radio frequencies.
