Afghanistan:— What to Do?

Per John McCreary:

U.S. forces will be out of Afghanistan by 2017, the White House announced today, Reuters reported. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it is important for people to understand that "our time there will be limited." U.S. President Barack Obama is preparing to explain to the U.S. public next week his reasoning for expanding the war effort.

OK, so now we have an end-date. It is convenient in that it definitely falls into the time of the next Administration (or the one after next).

Thus, we have a signal that the Obama Administration is going to commit to continue the war in Afghanistan, but we don't know if there were be more forces, and if so, how many.

Let's review the bidding here.

Why are we in Afghanistan?  Unlike what some have suggested, this is not a rerun of Viet-nam.  We went to Afghanistan because that was were Osama bin Laden was and that was from where he was running his terrorist group, al Qaeda.  The American People wanted action after the 9/11 attacks.

In Viet-nam we moved in because the French had to pull out.  It was about the world Communist threat.  We had just recently stopping fighting in Korea (1950 to 1953) and we were building up our forces in Europe.  We were into collective defense. In early 1954 we signed the treated that created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), to help fight the spread of Communism.  But, whatever this defensive bulwark against Communism, US soil was not being directly attacked.

9/11 was definitely different.  The President laid down some firm lines for Afghanistan and the Afghan government, seeing things in their own light, elected to ignore the President.  The result was Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, conducted by the US and the British.♠

The Viet-nam analogy doesn't work here.  It might work for Iraq, but that is a different question.

Why should we continue to be in Afghanistan?  This is the harder question.  There are several issues that should attract us to staying in Afghanistan:

1. The first is the Pakistani nuclear capability.  The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is not sealed, but rather amorphous.  Terrorists groups glide back and forth across it.  The Pakistani ISI, their version of the CIA, has had close relations with the Taliban.  Frankly, the instability and potential instability should give us all pause.  Bringing an end to the ongoing insurgency, or at least tamping it down, would go a long toward making us safer in the near to mid-term.
2. There is India and the fact that that nation, which should be a close ally of the United States, is dealing with its own terrorist threats, both internal and external.  Helping Pakistan deal with terrorism is helping India deal with terrorism.
3. There is China, which has its own Islamic terrorism threat on its western border.  We would not wish to see China try to solve its internal problems by expanding into Afghanistan.  Remember Tibet?  Remember the Uygurs (or Uigurs) we picked up in Afghanistan and moved to Gitmo and didn't know what to do with?

As someone point out:

To be coldly calculating, I would suggest that an even more profound mistake would be for policymakers to assume 1) Managing affairs in Afghanistan really should matter to us; and, 2) Afghanistan should matter to us.

Yes, the idea of young women being warned off from going to school by having acid thrown in their face is disgusting to me, but unless we are willing to sit on the Afghan people for another generation, we are not going to change that.

Here is one authority:

I agree with but go further than X in decrying our continued involvement in Afghanistan.  We really blew it when nation-building became a priority, particularly for the military. In addition to placing the military outside its Peter Principal level, it advertises the US' naïveté stemming from not understanding the culture. There's a country in the real estate sense but no Afghan nation outside a 20km radius of major cities/villages. And after eight years we've more than worn out our welcome because damn little has been accomplished in terms the people truly value. And they've come to see us as an occupying force albeit less malevolent than the Soviets. I hear this from most all Afghans and Pashtun families I visit toned down a bit because I'm their 'Mailmastia guest'.

But, if we are going to pull out, we will need more troops.  As one expert, with little interest in staying, put it:

If we awaken to realize we have no vested interests in Afghanistan and begin to look objectively at our extrication, we need to examine what in '02-'03 was termed 'demonstration effect'.  That is, how to partially mitigate the impact of our departure by hitting the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban organization sufficiently hard to establish a deterrence effect that leaves the message that great hurt will befall any who threaten us or the Afghan people.  Note that I'm addressing disentanglement from Afghanistan and not abandoning our pursuit of OBL and AQ and related organizations including Islamic Salvation Foundation, Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places, World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

And remember, when you say Taliban you should be saying which Taliban group.  And this is not a solution that decreases casualties, but probably increases them, on both sides.

This theory points toward what we should be interested in.

What is it that we desire to see in Afghanistan?  A reasonably friendly modestly empowered government that hunts the more extreme elements of the Taliban more actively than our Pakistani allies do might be one definition of a desirable outcome.  How can we exercise the resources we have available to put that possibility in motion?

My own conclusion is that the President should pick a strategy (and it is the President's to pick, and not DoD or the Theater Commander—which has been our way for over 200 years) which looks to propping up the Afghan Government, which isn't perfect, but hasn't done anything egregious, such as destroying Buddhist monuments or executing people in soccer stadiums.  In addition we need to work to stem the movement of arms, drugs and bad guys across the border and continue to go after al Qaeda and those Taliban that we find to be real problems.  We should focus on securing the cities and eschew trying to bring the 20th Century to the whole of Afghanistan.  There would be nation building to the extent of working with the government, but realizing that what we are looking for is not model democracy, but "good enough" government—say something that is somewhat better than Puritan Massachusetts in terms of services and rights for minorities.♥

My strategy would involve a lot more emphasis on our Department of State and its Agency for International Development.  And other Cabinet Departments.  It is time to stop throwing some more money at DoD and everyone else going out for a long lunch.

Yes, the President should increase the US troop level.  The British are upping their force and so should we.  A thing to remember when we hear the term "US and NATO troops" is that a lot of those "NATO" troops are US troops fighting under a NATO appointed command structure.  The total NATO force is 71,030 and of that 34,800 are from the US.

This article describes some of the kind of things we should be doing—facilitating the process (and providing development money).  And this quote, while directed toward the Arabs during World War I, describes how we should be acting in Afghanistan:

Do not try to do too much with your own hands.  Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly.  It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.
- T.E. Lawrence, Twenty Seven Articles, Article 15

And the rest of the quotation:

Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.

I do leave you with this thought by William Rees-Mogg:  "War on the cheap is always a rotten policy."

Being specific, I am for us continuing our efforts and for the US to increase troop levels, but with an eye to getting out if we find that things have turned sour.  We should not, however, try to do this on the cheap, but we should include civilians agencies of the US Government much more in this effort.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  There IS a "Special Relationship".
♥  Things like electricity and schools and health care, things that weren't available in Massachusetts 350 years ago and still aren't available in Afghanistan today, in many regions.