Five Myths About the Afghanistan Escalation

As President Obama readies a plan to send more troops to Afghanistan, there's been a vigorous debate on the progressive side among those who wish to see more U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan and those who don't. On the one hand, we have a White House website that says explicitly:

Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on the greatest threat to our security -- the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalize Afghanistan's economic development.

On the other, we have a very vocal and growing grass-roots movement of bloggers, journalists, and activists who believe that this is a dangerous advance in the wrong direction.

At bottom, this sort of debate is always good. By hashing out our issues publicly, we can find common ground and, ultimately, settle on a proposed solution or way forward as a coherent and effective team. But what we don't need is a "bloody" conflict between allied groups over foreign policy just as the Obama administration is getting started. Personally, I believe that in order to move forward at all in Afghanistan, it's going to take more troops. The organization for which I work, VoteVets.org, is also of that view. But that doesn't mean we don't respect the views and concerns of our friends and allies who see things differently. That said, at this point, I think it's important to articulate and dispel some of the myths I've seen which concern the proposed build-up of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

If we're going to make progress, we have to get past hyperbole (on both sides of the debate), and better articulate our views., For many of us who support sending more troops to Afghanistan, we feel like there's simply a lot of misinformation going around on what support for an "escalation" in Afghanistan really means. And, perhaps since many of us are just trying to keep up with the bold moves the Obama administration has made in just days, we haven't taken the time to clearly and thoughtfully address each of these points.

Myth #1: Those who support additional troops believe military force is the primary solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.

Quite the contrary. If America wants to see failure on a massive scale, it can get behind a primarily military solution. The only people I know who support a largely military solution in Afghanistan are my undereducated friends (and I'm sure we all know at least one) who want to "bomb the ragheads back into the Stone Age." Pretty much everyone else who supports the escalation sees additional troops as only one ingredient--albeit an important one--in terms of clawing our way out of this looming disaster. To this point, President Obama's Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, had this to say on Tuesday:

Moving away from the Bush administration's expansive rhetoric about creating an Afghan democracy, Gates mused that the U.S. needed to set "modest, realistic goals" in Afghanistan, making clear that he sees "no purely military solution" for the insurgency, preferring a "fully integrated civil-military strategy."

A White House official backed that up on Wednesday by saying that the "new U.S. policy that will have a 'significant non-military component.'"

And, of course, this is the only realistic way to go. The aspects that will win this effort in the long term are economic development, educational infrastructure, civil infrastructure (like roads, electricity, and clean water), and a transition in farming from opium to something else. But regardless, none of this will ever be accomplished in Afghanistan unless someone can secure the population. Because you can't accomplish any of those non-military acts in the middle of a raging Taliban insurgency, or in the event of a pull-out, a civil war. And that's why sufficient military force has a role to play in fixing this situation.

Myth #2: This escalation in Afghanistan is just like the unquestioning drive toward war in Iraq.

Many progressives see a comparable situation to that in which the drive to war in Iraq was crammed down the throats of the American public by the presidential administration and a fawning media. Looking back, many progressives feel as though they didn't do enough to halt that reckless path to war. Not wanting to get burned again, they're pulling out all the stops to prevent it from happening again. Having been on the receiving end of Bush's Brilliant Plan myself, I can certainly appreciate the effort. But after email conversations with many on the progressive Left over the past couple of weeks, I can't help but get the feeling that many who oppose the escalation aren't adequately distinguishing between these two dissimilar situations.

The fact is, the run-up to the war in Iraq was nothing like the current push to add troops in Afghanistan. Without delving too deeply into the tactical and strategic military aspects of both, it's clear to everyone now that the Bush administration pushed for war in Iraq based on the calculations and machinations of people who literally had no idea what they were talking about: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and Frederick Kagan to name a few. None of these individuals had any combat experience at all--either conventional or unconventional. And they had little, if any, formal schooling in, or understanding of, the societies they sought to affect.

But, the Obama administration has taken a different tack. The people guiding the Afghanistan effort are, believe it or not, actual subject matter experts. The administration isn't just relying on the advice of political cronies. Instead, they're using a mix of competent academic and military thinkers who have extensive experience in not only the region, but also in the field of counterinsurgency.

At the top of the Defense Department, we have Robert Gates. In contrast to Donald Rumsfeld--who epitomized the dangers of the military-industrial complex--Gates is a career civil servant who spent 26 years in the CIA and on the National Security Council. His new Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is Michele Flournoy, the former co-founder of the influential Center for a New American Security (CNAS)--a think tank known for its focus on counterinsurgency. When speaking to this very topic in 2007, Flournoy wrote:

Military power is necessary but not sufficient to deal with 21st century challenges; complex problems demand solutions that integrate all of the instruments of our national power.

Just as importantly, the Obama administration has shown an immediate willingness to listen to those who've learned first-hand the capabilities and limitations of military power in counterinsurgency operations on the ground. Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Paul Eaton, who has led both the Army's Infantry School and the establishment of the Iraqi Armed Forces in 2004, recently said, "We never had enough of anything in Afghanistan"--shortly before meeting with the president in the White House last week. Craig Mullaney (a Rhodes Scholar) and Nate Fick, who both led troops during counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and later authored memoirs about their experiences, have both served on the Obama transition team. In fact, just this month, Fick, along with his CNAS colleague--Iraq veteran and counterinsurgency luminary John Nagl--wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that in "the past five years, the fight in Afghanistan has been hobbled by strategic drift, conflicting tactics, and too few troops." While Nagl and Fick are arguing for more troops in Afghanistan, they're by no means asserting that such a move is the be-all, end-all. They note:

Nearly three quarters of the population is illiterate. The country has 50 percent more land than Iraq, but a fifth of the paved roads. Security is crucial, but it is development--enabled by responsible governance--that will secure a lasting peace.

Remember, these are military leaders--one a soldier and one a marine--to whom the administration is listening. And they're arguing that the military aspect of the mission is only one part. So this isn't a matter of "the military versus the State Department," or "the military versus the Left." This is, in fact, a long overdue shift in which the U.S. government and the military itself have finally come to grips with the fact that these aren't problems that can be solved by the military alone.

In sum, the team advising President Obama is a far cry from the "Gang Who Couldn't Govern Straight" which advised President Bush during the full-court press for war with Iraq. And while I'm not suggesting that anyone trust their government uncritically, I would ask that people give this team a little more credit and little more leeway in formulating foreign policy than the last team.

Myth #3: Those who support an escalation in Afghanistan aren't concerned with civilian casualties.

If the U.S. and NATO ultimately fail in Afghanistan, much of the blame could rightfully be placed on the many disastrous instances in which coalition forces have killed civilians. It's the one thing that carries the potential to unite the Afghan population in opposition to our presence. But by adding troops in Afghanistan, we can mitigate this, namely through less reliance on air strikes and through better intelligence gleaned from citizens who aren't living in abject fear of the Taliban.

Using air strikes frequently is a horrible counterinsurgency strategy and the military--including Secretary Gates--knows it. Only a Douglas Feith-type would propose "winning" an insurgency through air power. That's one of the reasons commanders are begging for more troops on the ground.

Calling in air strikes is what you do when you feel severely threatened and don't have enough troops on the ground to take care of an insurgency the right way. Save for carpet bombing or a nuclear payload, air power is essentially futile unless you have troops on the ground in close proximity to the projected strike. That's because troops on the ground can correctly identify and assess the target, call it in, and perform a sensitive site exploitation on the ground after the fact in order to determine what the strike achieved--if anything. If you can't do that, you're throwing punches in the dark--and unnecessarily killing civilians. Unfortunately, outnumbered ground commanders will continue to rely on air power until their ranks are bolstered.

From a counterinsurgency standpoint, killing civilians will very quickly lead to the deaths of your own troops. It galvanizes societies and turns them against you. Thus more troops should result in better intelligence, fewer air strikes, and fewer mistaken raids. And this is especially important if you're already struggling to earn the trust of these communities. . .which leads to the next myth.

Myth #4: The Afghan people don't want us in their country.

Trust me: You'll know when they don't want us in their country. To this day, the vast majority of Afghans truly prefer U.S. forces over the Taliban. What they don't like, however, is our overwhelming failure to make progress after our initial gains in 2001 and 2002. If they hated us in general, the Afghans would've kicked out our meager force of 30,000 troops years ago. What they hate is when we tell them that we're going to run off the Taliban and fix their country--and then we don't. What they hate is when we offer them incentives to side with us against the Taliban, and then, when the Taliban return to their villages, we leave them hung out to dry. What they hate is when we are forced to rely on air power--resulting in unnecessary civilian casualties--because we don't have enough ground troops.

This degradation of support from the Afghan people is evident in annual polling. According to ABC News, in 2005, 68 percent of Afghans viewed the U.S. presence positively. In 2006, that number had fallen to 57 percent. And by the end of 2007, only 42 percent of Afghans viewed U.S. forces positively. We can only assume the numbers were better prior to 2005 and that they're far worse now.

The reason is simple: It's math. We just don't have enough troops to keep in their good graces. John Nagl--who literally helped write the book on counterinsurgency--explains in the New York Times why that is and how more troops will help:

The essence of success is counterinsurgency, which requires boots on the ground, and plenty of them --20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1,000 people, or some 600,000 for all of Afghanistan, a country larger and more populous than Iraq. The additional 30,000 American forces on tap for deployment to Afghanistan over the next year are sorely needed, but obviously insufficient to protect all 30 million people in the country.

However, insurgencies are not defeated by foreign forces. They are defeated by the security services of the afflicted nation. Thus the long-term answer to the Taliban's insurgency has to be a much expanded Afghan National Army. Currently 70,000 and projected to grow to 135,000, the Afghan army is the most respected institution in that troubled country. It may need to reach 250,000, and be supported by a similarly sized police force, to provide the security that will cause the Taliban to wither. Building such an Afghan Army will be a long-term effort that will require American equipment and advisers for many years, but since the Afghans can field about 70 troops for the cost of one deployed American soldier, there is no faster, cheaper or better way to win.

Most Afghans still despise the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Afghan people are going to ally themselves with the side they see as winning. It's an understandable survival mechanism for them. This is why many jumped at the opportunity to work with us in the beginning--and it's also why so many have now turned back to the Taliban. Because we have so few troops in the country, we're not able to support and protect those Afghans who side with us.

So this means, of course, that the Afghans don't inherently hold us in disdain. But if we're going to win back their support, then we need to show them that we can protect them from the Taliban--something that will clearly take more troops--both U.S. and Afghan.

Myth #5: The Obama administration has set its Afghanistan policy in stone.

Unlike the ideologically-driven Bush administration, this administration isn't stupid. And they've given every indication that they intend to be a learning organization. By that, I mean that if someone can come up with a better solution, they seem as though they're going to listen. As White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reiterated on Wednesday:

"(There) is a review of our policy in Afghanistan. That policy ... review continues in order to ensure our success in that region, but that policy review is not yet completed," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said during a media briefing, as he tried to clarify what he said officials "believed was erroneous reporting" by The New York Times. The newspaper had reported a shift in emphasis to fighting insurgents rather than development.

"The president has long believed that, whether it's in Iraq or in Afghanistan ... that there's not simply a military solution to that problem, that only through long-term and sustainable development can we ever hope to turn around what's going on there," Gibbs said.

As one who supports adding troops and resources in Afghanistan, I'm comfortable with this. I have more faith in the decision-making ability of this crew over the last.

The bottom line is that we currently have no strategic or operational depth in Afghanistan. And while I don't have all the answers, I do know that nothing happens unless we get the flexibility to operate that comes with having more troops on the ground.

Also available at VetVoice

Comments

[AsiaScoop]

Neat arguments, but they miss an essential point: Pakistan. Pakistan is the root cause of what has come to be widely accepted as Terrorism in the post-9/11 world, and which the West largely saw as Militancy or wars for Self-Determination before the chickens came home to roost. Remember: Pakistan created the Taliban, and still supports it actively, albeit covertly. Unless Pakistan is neutralized or won over, by military and other means, Afghanistan will continue to be a running sore. So it's astonishing that Mr. Friedman does not even mention the "P" word once in his otherwise "well-sourced" blog.

[Furby]

Canada's been in there since 2002. Lost over 100 troops, 4 of them to "friendly" American fire. Why doesn't the U.S. ask them what they think. They have far more experience in that country and have garnered considerably more goodwill from the locals than the American can ever hope for. In fact, since U.S. has entered Afghanistan, Canadian casualties have risen.

[dshwa]

An impressive article. It changed my view, I am still sceptical that a surge in Afghanistan will work, but I am no longer convinced it won't.

[kapo]

The Afghan strategy is primarily aimed at distracting attention from Iraq. Iraq can be won for American interests, but not on Bush administration terms. Some nasty business is about to go down there as the country sorts itself out and Obama doesnt want to be associated with it. He wants it to be clear that Afghanistan is his war. Of course America cannot win the Afghan war, but can be decisive in determining the outcome and has both the will and the resources to do so, unlike the case with Iraq. The Republicans are already declaring an Iraq victory and probably are now outlining their speeches of condemnation for what is the logical outcome there. Politrics, politics, politics.

[ThePeacemakers]

"And, of course, this is the only realistic way to go. The aspects that will win this effort in the long term are economic development, educational infrastructure, civil infrastructure (like roads, electricity, and clean water), and a transition in farming from opium to something else."

- With what money??? And the US can't even rebuild New Orleans and you're talking about US rebuilding Afghanistan? Russia and England need to be in on this rebuilding as well if it's to be done at all.

"Most Afghans still despise the Taliban."

- And why should they trust the US when the US empowered the Taliban to begin with to defeat the Soviets? And again, alot of the damage to the country was done by the Soviets and the British Empire.
They need to put into the kitty if ANY rebuilding is to be done.

[jhamm1]

"Using air strikes frequently is a horrible counterinsurgency strategy and the military--including Secretary Gates--knows it. Only a Douglas Feith-type would propose "winning" an insurgency through air power."

I couldn't agree more, as collatoral damage almost by default goes hand in hand with what some like to refer to as "targetted airstrikes", supposedly geared at individuals.

Thank you for that informative article, although I choose to remain skeptical, merely electing to provide cautious support for our forthcoming strategy in Afghanistan, and not without reservations. It's pleasing to hear that among the pentagon's goals will consist of a more practical approach to establishing a legitimate foundation from which the Afghans can themselves form a stable government without the zealous attempts at nation building by the bush administraion toward literally reshaping every aspect of one's political structure in our own image.

[degenerate1991]

The problem with escalating the war in Afghanistan is that we have nothing to gain. Even if we miraculously manage to "win" the war in Afghanistan, we accomplish nothing. It foolish to attempt to completely remake Afghan society at the point of a gun, and it has never worked for the various armies who have attempted it. The "war on terror" is a waste of lives and money, and will never work. After 9/11, we would have been better off doing nothing and letting the court of world opinion make its judgment. We made the Taliban, why should we now destroy it. We cannot afford such neoconservative niceties as nation building any more than we can afford the war in Iraq.

[jrb35]

"After 9/11, we would have been better off doing nothing and letting the court of world opinion make its judgment."

Yeah, because appeasement has worked so well in the past. Not since WWII have we had a clear need to take military action in defense of our country. Had we followed your advice, AQ would be stronger than ever with a safe base of operations (much safer than western Pakistan) and their network wouldn't have been degraded to the level that it is. Great plan.

[dshwa]

Not taking millitary action is not appeasement. Due to our actions in response to 9/11, Afghanistan is no better off today than in 2001, Pakistan has become more destabilized, and terrorist recruitment is higher. AQ could have been just as easily weakened through a co-ordinated economic and intelligence/police effort worldwide at a fraction of the cost of two wars, both economic cost and cost to America's standing in the world.

And don't bother with the standard "We haven't been attacked since 9/11" defense. AQ is just as strong as ever and recruitment is up, Pakistan is on the verge of collapse into a pro-islamist government, Afghanistan is falling back into the hands of the Taliban, our military is severely overstretched and the army potentially at the breaking point, our economy is collapsing, all thanks in part to our response to 9/11. We haven't been attacked because 9/11 was a smashing success from Bin Laden's perspective. We played right into his hands, so there hasn't been the need for a second attack.

[AliMB]

I agree with the main tenets and central conclusion of this article i.e. the efficacy of sending more troops to Afghanistan, but de rigueur of a Huffington Post piece, the articles takes such a politicized view to make the final product both hackneyed and asinine (foretold given that that the author is a member of a politicized Veteran'a Organization). The author argues that ideological Bush administration officials failed in Iraq and Afghanistan (essentially inferring that they are political cronies, unlike Obama'a team), but then goes on to praise a Republican and Bush-ally i.e. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Part of the reason Secretary Gates is staying on in the Obama Administration is because of the indisputable success he had as a Bush cabinet member. The article also forgot to mention General David Petraeus (maybe one of the greatest officers in modern American history), who was selected and supported by President Bush despite vehement Democratic opposition to the General's plan throughout 2007. I clearly remember a VoteVets ad that used the General’s comment during a congressional hearing for a political attack. This article also disparages Frederick Kagan for his "machinations" vis-à-vis the run-up to the Iraq war, but conveniently leaves out that Mr. Kagan was one of the academic forefathers of the "Surge" concept. Much of this sagacious strategy (COIN tactics, empowering tribes, etc.) will probably be carried over to Afghanistan, obviously with copious alterations considering the different dynamics.

[AliMB]

Part II

Astonishingly, however, the "Surge" is never even mentioned in this article. That is to be expected, given that VoteVets made the embarrassing decision to oppose the policy and stuck with this position even when there was evidence that the strategy was working. I think it is a fair conjecture that today almost any objective military officer will concede the Surge has been a spectacular success, and that the ability for the President to "responsibly" (to quote our VP) transfer troops to the Afghani Theater, combined with other factors such as the "Awakening", is a direct consequence of this strategy's success. The Marine Corps, for example, may be heading over to Afghanistan in mass now that their AO (a once volatile Sunni province) has become relatively pacified.

The author makes a good argument of why to support an escalation (note that he uses the word "escalation" and not "surge") but if you want a fair non-partisan analysis on military affairs, I would suggest getting your information from somewhere else.

[dshwa]

I disagree that any objective millitary officer would call the surge a success. The surge succeeded not because of the troops, but because we bribed the Sunni tribal leaders into joining us against Al Quada instead of fighting us, and because Iran told Al Sadr to reign in his millitants. Those things would have happened independant of any troop surge.

[AliMB]

With all respect: are you an objective military officer? Again, you infer the common fallacious conjecture that that the surge was simply adding numbers i.e. the surge strategy is a 'numbers' strategy (hence, the fallacy of using the word "surge"). The "Surge" was more about a change in COIN tactics (because just adding 30,000 troops to a country of over 27 million people will do nothing); that was the 'real' Petraeus surge. Working with indigenous forces (bribing tribal leaders) is part of this COIN strategy. Al-Sadr agreed to cease-fire in part because he was being squeezed by the implementation of the "Surge" in the Baghdad area. Any successful counterinsurgency is contingent on other non-military factors. The success we will witness Saturday was dependent on a variety factors. If not for other factors, the surge would have failed. But if not for the surge, there is little objective evidence to show that Iraq would have been stabilized to allow for free and fair provincial elections. Hence your post is false. Also, if you do not believe that adding 30,000 troops can help change the dynamics in a counterinsurgency, then you probably have no interest with an "escalation" in Afghanistan (remember, we're not using the word "surge" so as to remind us that Iraq is the wrong war). That was my central criticism of this article; the failure to acknowledge the success of the surge but calling for a similar plan in Afghanistan in such a politicized manner.

[RoseMerry]

No. Bring them home. We were lied into going. The real enemy lives among us. They have leaders in Dallas and the Woodlands. Down with the Bush Crime Family!

[William1950]

I respect the organization votevets.. your analysis makes sense here...

[keefer]

Bush screwed this thing up when he didn't finish the job. I don't think the U.S. is going to get a "do over " just because Obama is president. Putting more troops into that country is throwing good money after bad. The Taliban is not a formidable military force and we don't really need more troops and hardware to defeat them. The Afghans don't want more troops and our allies don't think that would solve anything. Obama lost me on this when he continued Bush's policy of bombing Pakistani villages with predator missiles. I don't know what the solution is but, so far the military has done nothing but turn Afghans into holy warriors and threaten to destabilize nuclear Pakistan. A failed Pakistani state is a lot scarier than the Taliban or even Al Qaeda.

[egal]

Thank you for the deeper analyis. It gets frustrating when thoe few strident people who know nothing about war and nothing about the situation in Afghanistan insist that sending more troops is the wrong answer--yet cannot give any reason for thi belief or support for its premise. Providing a military, political, and cultural overview in response to their ignorance changes nothing, but maybe your elucidation will correct the pat insistence that sending more troops is inherently bad no matter the time, place, threat, and specific situation.

It's only worthwhile having differences between allies if all viewpoints start with understanding the situation on the ground and move to develop goals and policies based on this knowledge, not on gut feelings or pat dismissal of unpleasant prospects that serve a practical and often vital need.

[JonathanMoulin]

Educate the women. Teach them self defence and give them guns.
We helped create this problem and we have to do the right thing to help fix it.

[LiberalBuzz]

Sorry but for the simple way the Taliban treat their people and women especially we should use overwhelming force and do our best to destroy the Taliban since we're there to begin with, we just need better troop strength. It's a shame people rarely see the videos shown about life under the Taliban or just plain under any of the violent religious leaders. Female suicide is at record numbers..

All those people saying just get out and let them decide what to do have no idea of what life under the Taliban was like. NO, now that we ARE there, we should indeed protect those who are weakest from those who would murder them by the thousands.

THERE is a country that would indeed welcome us if we keep the Taliban and other highly violent peoples from destroying their country.