Rumors have circulated for months in Washington that the US commanders in Afghanistan want more troops and would be sending a formal request to the President. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is supposedly sitting on such a request until later in the year. Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones are said to have expressed doubts about a further troop escalation. It is likely that President Obama will soon face a decision whether to increase US forces in Afghanistan above the 70,000 he has already authorized. When he does, what questions should he ask, what decision criteria should he use?
Before we suggest a way of thinking about this decision: As government officials in the 1990s,we advocated US military intervention in Afghanistan and advised candidate Obama on the need for increased US resources and troops for Afghanistan in 2008. Specifically, we recommended and Senator Obama proposed adding two brigades, about 8000 personnel. Since then, President Obama has authorized over 30,000 additional troops.
This is not, however, a numbers game. There is no precisely right or wrong number of US forces that should be in Afghanistan. Some number will be needed for several years. The issue is whether we are pursuing a strategy that defines our goals and tailors our means to them. Thus far, none of our publicly articulated goals seem to reflect what we are actually doing. Depending upon what you think our goals are, we are either doing too much or too little. If our goal is to deny al Qaeda a safe haven in which it can prepare and plan attacks, it might be possible to achieve that outcome with a much smaller US effort. US Special Forces, tactical aircraft, and drones based in and around the capital of Kabul could target and eliminate the terrorists. A nation building effort would not be necessary for such a counterterrorism strategy.
Yet this is what administration officials have proposed: a counter-insurgency program, creation of a national government, a national army, a democratic process, an economy not based on narcotics. If our goal is foster a strong central government, then we are knowingly pursuing something essentially at odds with Afghan history. A strong Afghan national army would mean doubling the number of trained Afghan military personnel that the US is now struggling to field. According to metrics developed by Gen. David Petraeus, a counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan would require 1.3 million troops for a decade. That is five times the size of US, NATO, and Afghan government forces today. No one thinks this is feasible and we are not attempting to do so. A classic counter-insurgency strategy therefore is not in the cards.
Apart from the question of strategy, how long can we sustain a deployment of 75,000 troops, the funding, and the public's casualty tolerance If the US presence in Iraq is cut by two-thirds over the next year, the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan would be about 125,000, more than President Bush deployed. To support that number, a force twice as large would be constantly either preparing to deploy or recovering. Thus, half of US ground forces would be committed to Iraq and Afghanistan for the indefinite future, while Afghanistan emerges as the largest recipient of US foreign aid. An effort of this size enjoys domestic support if the public thinks we're going to win and Congress, the White House and the pundits line up behind the policy. These conditions are already fading. The Administration would be wise to consider a glide path to lower casualties and reduced spending over several years.
In the short term we should continue to attack Taliban and al Qaeda commanders, while offering security to more Afghans. The goal would be to induce Pushtuns in the south and east to disengage from terrorists or violent opponents of the Afghan or Pakistani governments. The Pushtuns must believe that backsliding would cost them financially and militarily. Some US forces would needed as the hammer to enforce these deals for the foreseeable future, but not on the scale required for a nationwide counter-insurgency.
The Obama Administration may not want to say publicly that it is pursuing such a strategy, wanting instead to convince Afghans of all stripes that we are willing to keep a large presence indefinitely. The truth is, however, that we cannot. In deciding whether to accede to requests for more troops, the President should prepare the ground now for an approach that meshes the threat to US security, prospects for success and a sustainable level of funding.
Have you folks noticed that the people pushing for war are all Chinking Hawks
The important point is that we need a Strategy. We need the for the American people to know what it is, albeit in bold strokes, and we need to execute it.
Ariel Silverstone
ArielSilverstone.com
We have one interest in Afghanistan and one interest only, revenge on Alqaida.
Hanging in to make sure Osama bin Laden is killed might be justified on this basis. We do not know he has not been killed; we have no definite knowledge of where he might be. My personal theory is that after a close call in Tora Bora, he decided to shave and move to Europe where he is now tooling around in his Corvette, picking up women, and visiting the family doctors for regular dialysis. After all, he and his 40+ sibs are among the world's richest people.
So, we are reduced to a pointless vengeance that mostly provokes Muslim goofs and radicals. We ought to pull out just to conserve our military powers. Lingering on in this ever more trivial pursuit only teaches our enemies the better how to hurt us while doing serious hurt to ourselves.
So, Mr. Obama satisfy the blood lust of the Right Wing and send their sons and daughters off to die. Who knows, we may get lucky this time.
The US is not in Afghanistan for blood lust or imperialistic goals. The US went into Afghanistan to defeat the powers that attacked America on 9/11/01.
How this morphed from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics, and nation building is beyond comprehension. The COIN kool-aid drinkers are running amuck. We are fielding illiterate, corrupt Army and Police forces. The “glide path” is towards a police state or dictatorship.
You're correct in indentifying the Pashtuns as the center of gravity. But your "carrot and stick" recommendations are off the mark. Not everyone in this part of the world is motivated by financial gain or fear. Is this your great plan? You haven’t said anything that hasn't been said before. I challenge you to come to A'stan and talk to those on the working level. This place is so driven from the top down it defies logic ... as we say here, "you can't make this s.hi.t up.” We need is a strategy based on what is in our national interest. No one seems to know what that is.
3 tours in Iraq and now in A'stan. When I get home this time, this will no longer be my war. I’m exhausted.
I'll refer you to the smallwarsjournal.com. They always have a lively discussion. Anything by Col Gian Gentile is spot on. Sadly, it is mostly military commentators, not any of our civilian leadership who conspicuously absent from the discussion as they are in our national strategy development. STRATFOR really gets what's going on here. Read the works of Dr. Thomas Barnett. The recent column by George Will nails it, along with the reply from retired USMC General/former Commandant Chuck Krulak. And the recent interview that CNN did with Fareed Zakaria was enlightening. To these, I say "ditto".
A'stan is not a nation. It is a bunch of nations/tribes cobbled together by its colonial past. No outside power has ever ruled here and no central government has ever survived. The best we can hope to do is contain it and use the outside "soft forces" to integrate it into the international community to make it more "connected" (to quote Thomas Barnett). Unfortunately, the U.S. military cannot do this.
I must confess that I am surprised that this president put himself in such a bad spot. Those that elected him do not support ANY war. So he is constantly up against that resistance. We simply cannot afford this war and really have no business nation building. All attention and resources need to be focused here at home.
That being said, I suspect that once troops get pulled from the ME they will once again come to American soil to do their fighting. We are the target and all we have been really doing for 8 years is keeping them busy elsewhere.
They move in.
Can we please just call it a day on the Nation building? Build our own first?
Again, I wish Obama would take in the Bush Rejects..YOU ARE THE REAL PATRIOTS who put COUNTRY before Personal Well being...
Thanks again!
http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/afghanistan-producing-more-heroin-than-ever/
I would also recommend Richard A. Clarke's book "Against All Enemies"-James Risen's book "State of War" as well.
So if the goal is to make it impossible for religious extremists to even PLAN an attack from that country, that is a ridiculously ambitious goal. You would first have to educate, employ, build infrastructure for, and guard a nation twice thr size of Iraq. Good luck with that.
Exactly how will Afghanistan pay for this huge police/military force that we want to build so that we can leave? Agriculture - licit and illicit - forms a very large slice of the country's economy. Anyone have any idea how much money we've spent on agriculture? Less than 5% of USAID money has gone directly to agriculture; this year's request is a whopping $27M. And much of what is done is contracted to private companies, so ask yourself how much is really making it where it needs to go. This in a country that only has 25% of its irrigation systems on line...that's 75% less than it had after the Soviet War and the Afghan Civil War.
Our politicians talk about weening Afghanistan from opium, but there's a perennial shortage of seeds for other crops, eg. wheat.
We'll never win the hearts and minds of hungry people by using bullets.
Before the Russians came barreling into Afghanistan in the late 1970's Afghans exported to their neighbors such fine crops as apricots, various nuts, wheat and seasonal fruits. Then poppy became the main crop because it was supported best by those fighting against the Russians. The Afghans are able to grow other crops but it must become economically feasible to do so.
Putting more money and education into agriculture is the best bang for the buck we have. And along with that is training local and national police. It gives work to local men (long time before women will be allowed to be in the police) who know their tribal areas. Enforcement and security must help farmers make the changes they need.
If the UN could help with exports this would be a useful part of my plan.
If the US increases troop numbers I hope a lot of them are knowledgeable farmers who can provide real help not just bullets.
If the US cannot get a timeline for development and then departure it create the same trap the Bush administration liven within in Iraq.