There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by "spin" or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems...
Andrew Exum responds at Abu Muqawama.
These past few weeks have brought a fresh torrent of bad news from Afghanistan: a governor in a key district assassinated, U.S. and allied operations in flux, Afghan leadership in question. Policy-makers in Washington and allied capitols are wondering if the U.S. and allied counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan can succeed. These are reasonable concerns. Tony Cordesman, one of the U.S. defense analysts who has advised the command in Afghanistan, wrote today that "There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by 'spin' or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems"...
Michael Cohen responds to Cordesman and Exum at Democracy Arsenal.
As regular readers of DA are well aware I have been beating the drums on the incoherence of our Afghanistan policy for more than a year - well for the first time in a long while I have some company and from two individuals whose voices should wake people up. Both Tony Cordesman and Andrew Exum served on General McChrystal's strategic review team that last year recommended a pop-centric COIN strategy for Afghanistan. Both are now having second thoughts...
Max Boot responds to Exum at Contentions.
... I agree with him that the political will to prevail appears to be waning. But I think it's bizarre that he treats "political will" as a fixed, exogenous factor like the weather or the terrain. Hurricane Katrina did not make impossible the success of the surge in Iraq; so too the BP oil spill does not make impossible the success of the ongoing surge in Afghanistan. The question is whether President Obama will have the will to see this through as President Bush did in the face of much greater public opposition...
Spencer Ackerman responds to Exum at Attackerman.
Andrew Exum writes a very valuable post hinging off the Tony Cordesman piece that I cited earlier, and the point of both posts is to test the tensile strength of the assumptions behind the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. As a meta-point, it amuses me when critics accuse counterinsurgents of dogmatism or closed-mindedness. Ex is —to subject himself to rather thorough self-criticism, as have many others in counterinsurgent circles - particularly around CNAS - who recognize that their course of action involves the escalation of a war. As far as I've concerned, from the perspective of intellectual honesty and intellectual rigor, they've acquitted themselves well. Personally, I would find arguments for de-escalation in Afghanistan more persuasive if they dealt similarly with an assessment of the risks they entail and why those risks ultimately better advance the national interest...
What say you?
Comments
We will do what we have done before. That's just the way the politics of the situation end up. It's a policy of lure and abandonment to satisfy whatever the needs and perceptions are here at the home front.
On March 1, 1985 I was in the company of photojournalist Kurt Lohbeck and a man named Abdul Haq, a.k.a., "The Lion of Afghanistan." Lobeck had brought Haq to D.C. to meet President Reagan. It was a memorable event for me in meeting all three of these fine gentlemen before a dinner at the NCPAC.
Haq was executed by the Taliban after 9/11 when he returned to Afghanistan to help raise an insurrection. Lure & abandonment.
Given that President Obama has given the impression to the entire planet that we will begin to reduce our commitment to Afghanistan during 2011, no strategy could have succeeded. Add in the re-evaluations of experts such as Exum and other progressives who actually helped shape this failing strategy will further paralyze by analysis our efforts in the short time remaining before the draw down begins. Afghanistan under Obama is looking like Vietnam under Johnson. With one large exception. Vietnam never made killing millions of Americans its national policy after 1973. The AQ winners in Afghanistan will, the moment they take Kabul.
While I appreciate the authors' honesty, I still wish that they could have had this realism last year when the President was asking their opinions. Nothing has really changed. That would have saved me a lot of heartburn and harsh words.
I would encourage each author to conduct further study into FID, USSF, and the case studies of the Phillipines and Colombia. Robert Haddick recently offered an excellent piece on the military aspect of Plan Colombia. For further reference, contact any of the faculty of NPS's DA dept, COL Joe Felter running the COIN center in A'stan, or SWJ's own COL Dave Maxwell.
There is a third COA other than COIN or CT. It's cheaper, requires less manpower, and has a better chance of success. Quality over Quantity.
Omar,
With such a plan I suggest the United States find and support allies beyond Karzai and the Kabul region. Whether it is supporting tribes like Jim Gant advocates or something akin to it; we will want to find allies we can support who do not want a Taliban/AlQueda/Pakistan influence. I think there is much to be said about balance of power between the regions of Afghanistan. Also it gives the United States more options, not for abuse, but to support allies that desire freedom, and then peace.
Omar, that sounds like a reasonable plan, minus the green card thing, and minus the blank check (assuming you implied this).
If there are Afghans who want to leave Afghanistan because they want the freedoms we enjoy in the United States of America, then they should form their own country or Afghan province with the support of the United States.
I think the Afghan allies we give aid to should be required to disclose their budget and have accountability of how it is used. It is the money of the people of the United States and our government must be accountable on how it is ultimately being spent. Alternatively Afghan allies could broker a deal with us, and in such case would not have to disclose how it was spent.
I saw in a dream that Obama did the honorable thing and decided to do the following:
Tell allies in Afghanistan that we are planning to pull out. Can you please meet with General McChrystal and try to figure out how best to arrange things in the aftermath? We will help in the transition and will continue to pay X amount and deploy Y aerial support if that is what you want. If you think you have a fighting chance with help from India or China or Russia, go ahead and ask. We will help with that too. In fact, we will also make sure our "allies" in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia dont try to take advantage of our defeat by restarting their own proxy wars in Afghanistan. And those who want to run, the green cards are at the embassy.
But this is a dream. The reality looks like it will be one almighty mess.
Of course, since the US and NATO will NOT be the biggest losers in that mess, realpolitik may dictate that Obama lie and bluff and try to make it look good for a couple of years, then declare victory, hand out Afghan campaign medals. get re-elected? Take care of important stuff. Sure, some good men may die during this prolonged coverup, but so will some bad men. What is that line in Philip Roth's book where some general proposes to gas protesters in the Washington Mall but hesitates because while the gas will kill a lot of innocents, if the gas spreads, it may also kill some guilty people (it being Washington).
Anyway, what are a few thousand dead between friends?
Well, President Obama has not helped by indicating we are pulling out and then not sending the most troops he could. Next, the State Department and USAID are absolutely failing in the civilian uplift but refuse to recognize this and continue doing what they know, which is inadequate for the task at hand. The administration still does not follow its own criticisms of the Bush Administration and actually follow the Army's doctrine of how many troops we need there and their advocates, CNAS, et al, are unable to tell the emperor he has no clothes because they are beholden to the administration. The generals are only focusing on 80 key terrain districts because they have to ration the war due to not having enough troops. I only wish Obama had given as passionate a speech about Afghanistan as he did yesterday about the oil spill.
Ok, I'll start off by saying that Max Boot has fallen entirely off the strategic deep end. <i>"We [should] stay as long as necessary to defeat the cruel evil of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and associated extremists."</i>?? Is he channeling Westmoreland in 1968?
Secondly, I think the last paragraph of Cordesman's article is total bull (even considering he's an entrenched COINdinista), but the rest of it makes near-perfect sense. This isn't a military problem in want of a military solution, and never has been...at least since 2002. Afghanistan needs an Afghan political solution that works for Afghans, however it may look.... if it means patronage networks, things that look nominally corrupt in Western eyes, letting Karzai co-opt warlords, and 'power-politics' Afghan style, than that should work for us as long as it provides an acceptable level of security and economic stability to the Afghans. Clear-hold-build as defined by a NATO campaign plan according to linear security, governance, and development lines of operation isn't the answer. Security first, then governance and development? How about our focus of effort being governance implemented <i>in whatever way Karzai needs</i> to assume the mantle of local legitimacy, co-opt illicit trade and economy, and provide a locally/provincially-defined rule-of-law mechanism? We're so focused on clearing and holding as a prelude to everything else (and the cycle of violence says that we'll rarely 'hold' the way we think we will), that we rarely have enough time to get to the 2nd and 3rd LOOs with any enduring effect.
I'd finally add the opinion that stabilizing and securing Pakistan, as a reason for staying in *this* war (as the President did in his West Point speech of last year), is also BS. To quote from Cordesman: <i>"A hardlineï¼Å'Deobandi-dominated Pakistan would be a serious strategic threat to the US and its friends and allies..."</i> The past 30 years hasn't shown us by now that Pakistan and its ISI aren't already a strategic threat to the US? When has ours and their national interests ever coincided? No amount of US military or financial aid will buy....I mean, change that.