The Washington Post describes a change of strategy in mid-campaign. “Obama’s public remarks on Afghanistan indicate that he has begun to rethink the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago, even as his generals have embraced it”. There are two issues in this respect worth considering. The first is whether the initial strategy the President “set in motion six months ago” was flawed to start with; the second is whether any of the new strategies he is considering will fare any better. After all, if the President was wrong once, he can be wrong twice, assuming he was wrong the first time. The Post wrote:
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s grim assessment of the Afghanistan war has opened a divide between the military, which is pushing for an early decision to send more troops, and civilian policymakers who are increasingly doubtful of an escalating nation-building effort.
Senior military officials emphasized Monday that McChrystal’s conclusion that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” without an urgent infusion of troops has been endorsed by the uniformed leadership. That includes Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command and architect of the troop “surge” strategy widely seen as helping U.S. forces turn the corner in Iraq.
AdvertisementBut before any decision is made, some of President Obama’s civilian advisers have proposed looking at other, less costly options to address his primary goal of preventing al-Qaeda from reestablishing itself in Afghanistan. Those options include a redirection of U.S. efforts — away from protecting the Afghan population and building the Afghan state and toward persuading the Taliban to stop fighting — as well as an escalation of targeted attacks against al-Qaeda itself in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Obama’s public remarks on Afghanistan indicate that he has begun to rethink the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago, even as his generals have embraced it. The equation on the ground has changed markedly since his March announcement, with attacks by Taliban fighters showing greater sophistication, U.S. casualties rising, and the chances increasing that Afghanistan will be left with an illegitimate government after widespread fraud in recent presidential elections.
But was the initial strategy flawed?
Readers who have followed the Belmont Club will recall that two problems have haunted the Afghan strategy from the first: logistics and the Pakistani sanctuary. Afghanistan is landlocked and is surrounded almost entirely by less than friendly country. The one “ally” bordering it is Pakistan. The NATO forces are supplied largely through Pakistani ports. One way to describe the Obama strategy is to say it consisted of three “mores”: 1) more troops; 2) more diplomacy; 3) more nation-building and aid. Obama’s new strategy, at least from the Washington Post article quoted above probably consists of either fewer or the same number of troops, more diplomacy — negotiations with the Taliban — and more strikes in Pakistan. Let’s see how President Obama’s initial strategy intended to address these problems. Here are verbatim quotes from the President’s strategy speech quoted by the Council for Foreign Relations in March 2009.
“Good morning. Today, I am announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review that I ordered as soon as I took office. … To achieve our goals, we need a stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy. To focus on the greatest threat to our people, America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. To enhance the military, governance, and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have to marshal international support. And to defeat an enemy that heeds no borders or laws of war, we must recognize the fundamental connection between the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan – which is why I’ve appointed Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to serve as Special Representative for both countries, and to work closely with General David Petraeus to integrate our civilian and military efforts. …
Let me start by addressing the way forward in Pakistan … I am calling upon Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by John Kerry and Richard Lugar that authorizes $1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years – resources that will build schools, roads, and hospitals, and strengthen Pakistan’s democracy. I’m also calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Maria Cantwell, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Hoekstra that creates opportunity zones in the border region to develop the economy and bring hope to places plagued by violence. And we will ask our friends and allies to do their part – including at the donors conference in Tokyo next month. … That is why we will launch a standing, trilateral dialogue among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. For three years, our commanders have been clear about the resources they need for training. Those resources have been denied because of the war in Iraq. Now, that will change. The additional troops that we deployed have already increased our training capacity. …
To advance security, opportunity, and justice – not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces – we need agricultural specialists and educators; engineers and lawyers. That is how we can help the Afghan government serve its people, and develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs. That is why I am ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground. And that is why we must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United Nations and international aid organizations – an effort that Secretary Clinton will carry forward next week in the Hague. …
There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. That is why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government, and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province. As their ranks dwindle, an enemy that has nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and repression must be further isolated. And we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans – including women and girls. …
From our partners and NATO allies, we seek not simply troops, but rather clearly defined capabilities: supporting the Afghan elections, training Afghan Security Forces, and a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people. For the United Nations, we seek greater progress for its mandate to coordinate international action and assistance, and to strengthen Afghan institutions. And finally, together with the United Nations, we will forge a new Contact Group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region – our NATO allies and other partners, but also the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran; Russia, India and China.
But by July, Bob Woodward was reporting trouble brewing in the policy councils. Basically the generals wanted more troops and more Afghan force generation. Even then the President had already made up his mind. The President’s carried the message: more economic development.
National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict. The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, “My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops. This will not be won by the military alone,” Jones said in an interview during his trip. “We tried that for six years.” He also said: “The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed.”
The question of the force level for Afghanistan, however, is not settled and will probably be hotly debated over the next year. One senior military officer said privately that the United States would have to deploy a force of more than 100,000 to execute the counterinsurgency strategy of holding areas and towns after clearing out the Taliban insurgents. That is at least 32,000 more than the 68,000 currently authorized.
“We don’t need more U.S. forces,” [Marine General] Nicholson finally told Jones. “We need more Afghan forces.” It is a complaint Jones heard repeatedly. Jones and other officials said Afghanistan, and particularly its president, Hamid Karzai, have not mobilized sufficiently for their own war. Karzai has said Afghanistan is making a major effort in the war and is increasing its own forces as fast as possible In an interview, Nicholson said that in the six months he has been building Camp Leatherneck and brought 9,000 Marines to the base, not a single additional member of the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) has been assigned to assist him. He said he needed “Afghanistan security forces — all flavors,” including soldiers, police, border patrol and other specialists
Re-reading the President’s March speech, one notices no mention of fears of an illegitimate election. Similarly, the “opportunity zones” and grand diplomatic maneuvers, the dispatch of Secretary Clinton to the Hague and the efforts of Richard Holdbrooke, so grandly announced on that occasion, have disappeared with nary a whimper. Despite the promise to provide resources for training, the Marines can find “not a single additional member” of the ANA assigned to them. And the Taliban whose ranks were doomed to “dwindle” are now suddenly Obama’s new partners for peace. Something has gone wrong, and perhaps it isn’t just the lack of 32,000 more troops. There can be no question that if the current strategy has failed, some gear within Barack Obama’s “comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” has jumped the tracks. But what exactly? The answer to this question is crucial. Obama’s strategy stood on three legs: military, diplomatic and political. Which of these has failed? That question is especially relevant to evaluating the new strategies he is now considering. You can jump from the frying pan into the fire.
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If history is any guide, here are some predictions for the Afghanistan debacle:
1. A few more years of US troops toiling & dying in a far-away wasteland, without clearly defined military or political objectives.
2. Our government’s unwillingness to bring total war to the battlefield.
3. Our inability to address the enemy as they duck & maneuver into neighboring states, and hide in plain sight among indigenous peoples.
4. A “transition period” in which the US will place all hopes for success onto the shoulders of a blossoming -yet utterly incapable- military / government; which we will certainly cut off from all financial, logistical, & military aid.
5. The Left will be credited & praised for having the courage and foresight to reverse course.
6. A-stan will descend back into darkness; all of our blood spilled & treasure spent with be for nothing.
Talk about your lousy summer re-runs.
That means that lots and lots of soldiers on the ground will bleed and die.
It seems to me that 0bama is just searching for a way to lose.
Dont’ forget — mass casualty attacks on the US killing millions, making 9/11 look like a picnic, followed by Obama surrendering like Vichy France.
So, I love the last paragraph of the WaPo article:
From this, I gather that these “civilian officials” believe/hope that
a. there are some nice Taliban we can co-opt;
b. we don’t need to defeat the Taliban to keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan;
c. it is a better idea to launch attacks inside of nuclear neighbor Pakistan (pronounced, BTW, pock-e-stahn); and
d. there are “amenable” Taliban who will figure out that we’re the good guys, and work with us; and
e. besides, we may not even really know who these Taliban dudes are.
The naivete and ignorance is breathtaking. Delusion as a policy preference.
However, it is further evidence of the First Law of Obama Policy (FLOP):
Finally, what will the President do if McChrystal resigns in protest? Will Petraeus and Jones follow suit? Is this the military equivalent of “Going Galt”?
Like I said, the President is over his head. He’s like a software salesman. What’s the difference between a software salesman and a used-car salesman?
The used-car salesman knows when he’s lying to you.
L3
“Obama’s strategy stood on three legs: military, diplomatic and political. Which of these has failed?”
It is not the military leg – nothing is deadlier and unbeatable in the field. So it must be either the “smart” diplomacy leg (at least as smart as the V.P.) or the “nuanced” political leg (as nuanced as the twists and turns on talking to the Taliban) or maybe both.
This Aussie piece covers various aspects of the afghan war from a pov similiar to those suggested above. It also mentions some dangers associated with drone warfare that I have not seen before.
Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
~ William Tecumseh Sherman
I’m still staggered by this, from the Grauniad:
Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.
…
The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”
“These are the president’s weapons”??? Abolish the nuclear arsenal altogether??? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Teh Won has nothing more urgent to do than bring teh funny to David Letterman:
By the time Barack Obama came on stage to the taping of the “Late Show” on Monday, host David Letterman had offered up 10 reasons why in the world the president had agreed to do it.
Among Letterman’s theories: Obama said yes without thinking about it, or as Letterman put it, “Like Bush did with Iraq.”
But Obama had other ideas. It turns out he was listening when Letterman had bantered with a woman in the audience who brought — yes — a potato in the shape of a heart to the show.
Obama told Letterman: “The main reason I’m here? I want to see that heart-shaped potato.”
The woman tossed the potato to Letterman.
She agreed to let Obama keep it. Said the president: “This is remarkable.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/22/obama-tells-letterman-actually-black-election/?test=latestnews
Well, when every rogue regime around the globe has nukes, he can still cherish his heart-shaped potato.
Mission Creep is a huge problem…
I’m staggered when I read Yon’s accounts…
Pershing showed the way.
On present trends all is lost: Sun Tsu — in as much as we don’t know ourselves nor our enemy.
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Educating girls — talk about inflaming local passions and mission creep. It’s totally block-headed to even get into that equation. When the male children can’t be provided an education it is folly to provide even one day for girls. Any such attempt enrages the locals and animates the Pashtun. end result: they blow up their daughters and nieces!
Co-locating our bases with ANY tribe: utter folly. To do so is to TAKE SIDES in a McCoy vs Hatfield multi-generational rage. Yep, the Brits did just exactly that. Now it’s a wonderment as to why the locals aim their muzzles at the Brits.
There are TWO Talibans: invading Paki Pashtun who kill business and their Afghani cousins — and local Afghani Pashtun who’ve been pimped out to set mines against the ISAF. ( Intentionally Strung-out Anglo-spheric Forces )
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To repeat: the proven solution is so ‘one-hundred years ago.’ Revisit Pershing & Co.
Go with a non-partisan fort and trading post solution: The trading post is an essential aspect of reforming attitudes towards commerce and acceptance… the acceptance of tomorrow.
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Items as prosaic as blankets and looms, seed and positive displacement well pumps, direct TV via solar-electric are the strategic goods.
Have you ever tried winning an argument with your wife?
Hence pots and pans, metal forks and knives, soap and plates, drinking glasses… these are the trade goods which must be at the vanguard of social relations.
We give them to our friends — so that they may give them to their wives and sisters.
How is it that we, with all our material advantages… fail to use them in the day to day politics of influence?
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We constantly show up with our helicopter based warfare — yet can’t even provide evidences of our material superiority evidenced in the need of day to day good living.
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When the Puritans traded with the Native Americans at least they could impress the locals with something that they could do that was extraordinary and helpful.
We show up in a funnel of dust… and provide, commercially, NOTHING!
We’re all talk and no sheep.
If we are a superior society then for Heaven’s sake show it. Show it in trade goods. To Hell with high minded talk and principles. It’s not a case of were the rubber meets the road — it’s where the hoofs meet the pasture.
How about video footage of shepherds in New Zealand? How about cattle in Scotland? How about corn in Iowa? How about potatoes in Idaho?
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Pershing at least had the moxie to show the Moros what they were up against. Do we show them footage of our sand box days?
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A primer on modernity:
Apollo 11
The Military Channel ( B-52, Nimitz, SSBN )
Colorado feed lot cattle
Fun with Google Earth
Rodeo Drive shopping
LA commute
Supertankers, railroads, Grand Coulee Dam
Renton Washington assembly building
2008 Summer Olympics
Any NFL Super Bowl game
Any World Cup Soccer match
Any small arms ammunition plant in production ( AK47/AK74)
It has to be remembered that the US stuck around after Gen Franks drove out the Taliban because it was alleged by the pundits that in 80′s the Afghans were ignored, abused and left to rot after their utility against the Soviet Union was spent. GWB acted decently, told them that the US was going to make their lives better, apparently in the mistaken belief that poverty causes terrorism. Hence the schools and road building programs. But the Afghan Muslims, in particular the Pustoons were not killing infidels because of poverty but because of their religion. There is no shame in withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Americans and NATO have tried their best for a largely sullen, corrupt and ungrateful populace. The whole experience is in the nature of an experiment to see if the Muslims were amenable to a generous spirit of nation building at the expense of Western blood and treasure. The result is unequivocal, they are indeed not.
robohobo #2 “Obama is searching for a way to lose”
Yes, of course, but not just ANY way to lose.
The major consideration for Barry is to break the Army. General officers discredited, the officer corps disillusioned, and the troops demoralized. We’ve gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do. Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide. Fragging, drugs, the Weather Underground reborn. More radical Democrats elected to Congress. Church hearings. Massive budget cuts. Peace, man.
You get the idea. Barry Soetero. Born too late.
WAPO writes: “Obama’s public remarks on Afghanistan indicate that he has begun to rethink the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago. . . .”
Great. The “think method” of warfare.
Obama’s words in March sounded great. Fine rhetoric, with all of the usual cumulative sentences and alliterative rhythm. But words cannot finesse reality or fork lightning.
What changed? Perhaps Afghans are now in the “wait and see” stage that the Iraqis were in prior to the surge, waiting for the strong horse to emerge.
I don’t think anyone anywhere perceives Obama as a strong horse at this point.
As unemployment in some Western states exceeds 15%, it’s getting harder and harder to rationalize sending American tax payers’ dollars off shore to ‘win hearts and minds’ in war-torn backwaters.
I wonder if Peter Hoekstra still backs his own bill, today, in September 2009, now that we have the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.
Obama is a “bubble President.” Every assumption he and his cohorts in the legislature internalized during the nineties and ‘oughts relied on the ‘hedged’ bubble economy.
Now, where are they?
political failure > causes diplomatic failure > which will ultimately lead to military failure
not good. not good at all.
I have read Yon and he has fallen in love with the idea of bringing Afghanistan into the 21st century.
Afghanistan is ripe for a feudal society which fits its decentralized conditions. Franks used that with warlords driving out Taliban and it worked. But in order to pacify corrupt Kharzai we sat on the warlords. Kharzai ‘s writ does not even cover the capital.
Roads are needed as a basic for transportation and trade which will bring the villages into greater civilization. Alos roads are need top transport troops so it dual use.
I do agree with education but that is going farther than our mandate.
All we need is to secure basic raods and the villages so Taliban can only hit and run and not hit and stay.
We can do that with more troops or get locals to do it for us. Personally I rather use locals , they have more reason and if the conspire with the Taliban then make and example with executions against the wall.
WE need to get the locals to either fear us worse or love us more. Right now they fear the Taliban more since US is unreliable.
2. Robohobo:
The thing to rmemeber is that Obama was only using the Afghanistan war as a bludgeon against Bush, and by extension McCain, by saying that Afghanistan was the right war to fight while Iraq was the wrong war. I’m not so sure that Obama wants to outright lose in Afghanistan, now that it’s served its purpose, however, I beleive that he’s lost any interest in the fight and wants to extract himself from this with as little political damage [to himself] as possible.
4. Leo Linbeck III:
Couple this with Obama’s leftist/anti-war upbringing and it does bring a little clarity to the discrepant decisions that Wretchard brought up in previous articles.
A Century into the future…
Bracelet found in the cracked greenish glassy hard-scrabble among rubble slowly returning to swampland, along the turgid mile-wide flow of a watercourse once known as the Potomac…
“My Name is Barry. If found, please return me to the nearest Trans-national Progressivist kindergarten.”
If you travel from the West Coast of Ireland to the East Coast of Japan overland, Afghanistan is the most primitive country you see, except for only the uncivilizable jungles of SE Asia. Afghanistan is where Civilization goes to die.
If you view “people” and “education” and “employment” and “food” and such as abstract variables in social theories, Afghanistan is unimaginable.
Within a couple-few weeks of 9/11/01, the CIA won all the Hearts and Minds available, the Taliban fled Kabul on 11/12/01.
Back then, perhaps weren’t treating Afghanistan as if it were an unruly section of New Jersey, needing a little refurbishment.
Afghanistan is being hondled as an internal political issue for American consumption.
It is scandalous the way the military is being publicly, openly ignored by the elected government when our troops are at war, to the point that the commanding General might resign in protest. This is especially egregious when the war is in a hell like Afghanistan. Our enemies there fight with an inborn kamikazi zeal.
Did anyone on the Belmont Club think the new, now old, “military” strategy to “protect the population” and the concomitant tragic new ROE were a good idea when you first heard them?
Remember LBJ picking spots on a map in the White House for bombing raids to “send messages” to the North Vietnamese, while our losses on the ground exploded. The horror, the horror.
There are two issues in this respect worth considering. The first is whether the initial strategy the President “set in motion six months ago” was flawed to start with; the second is whether any of the new strategies he is considering will fare any better. After all, if the President was wrong once, he can be wrong twice, assuming he was wrong the first time.
I think that a point is being missed here. We have seen how this game is played. Some of us have lived it, some of us have studied it.
The first is whether the initial strategy the President “set in motion six months ago” was flawed to start with
THE LEADER has no flaws, makes no mistakes, is never surprised by events he had not foreseen. This is basic. If the strategy he laid out was not a stunning success, it is still by definition a success. Any failures to meet quotas and norms are the fault of “wreckers”, “saboteurs”, and “unpatriotic elements”.
the second is whether any of the new strategies he is considering will fare any better. After all, if the President was wrong once, he can be wrong twice, assuming he was wrong the first time.
See the first above. Of course, the first strategy was a success. Just ask the State Media and the National Endowment for Propaganda and Enlightenment. And the next strategy is guaranteed to also be a stunning success. Just ask them.
And while perfection is not possible for mortal men, THE LEADER is perfect, and his efforts will continue to be so if only we can suppress the “wreckers”, “saboteurs”, and “unpatriotic elements”.
The cult of personality will prevent a rational assessment of our strategy and goals in Afghanistan. One can assume that McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus are the ones who will be blamed for any embarrassing shortcomings. While we are not yet at the point where they can be tried before Peoples’ Tribunals for being Rightist Deviationists; the State Media will be blaming them, and the evil Kulaks for any problems encountered abroad and at home. And perhaps their existence will be touted as a reason that Buraq and the Party absolutely must not risk being removed from power in elections; because the situation is too critical to chance having enemies of the state win.
On a one to ten scale, the sarcasm meter is only at about a 2.
Subotai Bahadur
“Finally, what will the President do if McChrystal resigns in protest? Will Petraeus and Jones follow suit? Is this the military equivalent of “Going Galt”?”
What I hope beyond hope they do is REMEMBER THEIR OATH’S OF ENLISTMENT! ALL enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC!