Long Term Goals for Afghanistan and Their Near Term Implications

The Afghanistan debate often focuses, understandably, on near-term concerns. Sound policies in the near term, however, require a longer term vision to guide them. And for now, several key components of a long term vision for Afghanistan are absent or underdeveloped. What would success look like? What does the United States require to secure our central interests there? What relationship do we want with Afghanistan or its region after 2014, and what role will that require us to play then -- or now?

I argue below that core American interests in Afghanistan are real but narrow, and center on the security requirements of denying Afghan territory to terrorists as a base for attacking us or destabilizing Afghanistan's neighbors. These limited interests can be realized via a range of possible Afghan end states -- we need not hold out for the highly ambitious political and economic development aims that the United States adopted in 2001. While desirable, these are not strictly necessary to meet our core requirements. But we cannot settle for just anything. There are limits on the acceptable that exclude outcomes such as partition or anarchy, and this limits the viability of approaches such as a counter-terrorism (CT) strategy that would leave us unable to prevent a collapse of the current government. And it is hard to see any feasible, acceptable, Afghan political outcome that could function without sustained American and other international engagement. In the longer term, that engagement need not be primarily military (though some U.S. military presence ought not to be excluded as a possible means to the end of Afghan stability). But financial and technical assistance is likely to be needed on a sustained basis if Afghanistan is not again to suffer the fate that befell it the last time the West disengaged. To realize U.S. interests will require a long term relationship with Afghanistan that accepts the need for continued assistance, albeit at levels far below today's, in the service not just of a better life for Afghans, but of a safer future for Americans.

This longer term vision implies a number of near-term requirements. Among the more important of these is a clear strategy for governance reform; meaningful, measurable progress before 2014 in restraining government predation; and a negotiated agreement with the GIRoA that provides concrete reassurance that our allies will not be abandoned to their fate even as the United States draws down.

To develop this argument I first identify and prioritize America's underlying interests in Afghanistan. I then discuss what these imply for acceptable end states there, and what this in turn implies for the required American role to sustain a stable Afghanistan that can meet our interests in the longer term. I then turn to some consequences of this long-term analysis for several near-term policy issues -- especially the utility of permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan as a part of a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the GIRoA, the attractiveness of substituting a counter-terrorism (CT) strategy for today's counterinsurgency (COIN) approach in light of bin Laden's death, the attractiveness of negotiated settlement as a means of achieving an acceptable end state, and the appropriate sequencing and prioritization of security improvement and governance reform.

Long Term Goals for Afghanistan and Their Near Term Implications - Prepared statement by Stephen Biddle.