Options for Afghanistan

Every now and then, Ralph Peters manages to outline a sane argument about national security issues. Usually this is when he's writing for a reputable newspaper such as USA Today instead of the New York Post. This one, in yesterday's USA Today, is pretty good.

Instead of floundering in search of a strategy, we should consider removing the bulk, if not all, of our forces. The alternative is to hope blindly, waste more lives and resources, and, in the worst case, see our vulnerable supply route through Pakistan cut, forcing upon our troops the most ignominious retreat since Korea in 1950 (a massive air evacuation this time around, leaving a wealth of military gear).

Ranked from best to worst, here are our four basic options going forward:

• Best. Instead of increasing the U.S. military "footprint," reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a "mother ship" at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.

Stop pretending Afghanistan's a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium. Kill the fanatics.

• Good. Leave entirely. Strike terrorist targets from over the horizon and launch punitive raids when necessary. Instead of facing another Vietnam ourselves, let Afghanistan become a Vietnam for Iran and Pakistan. Rebuild our military at home, renewing our strategic capabilities.

• Poor. Continue to muddle through as is, accepting that achieving any meaningful change in Afghanistan is a generational commitment. Surge troops for specific missions, but not permanently.

• Worst. Augment our forces endlessly and increase aid in the absence of a strategy. Lie to ourselves that good things might just happen. Let U.S. troops and Afghans continue to die for empty rhetoric, while Pakistan decays into a vast terrorist refuge.

I have to say, it's hard to argue against him. I understand why President Obama decided to send 17,000 troops into Afghanistan - without these added forces, there is no chance that our troops currently in Afghanistan can halt, and at hopefully stabilize, the deteriorating situation there. Meanwhile, he can lead the development of a new strategy. The question will remain - now what? Continue to send in thousands of American troops for the next decade, hope that NATO forces decide to show up, and spend billions of dollars on Afghanistan infrastructure projects that include new mansions for the Afghani government officials?

I just don't see a winning strategy here. We have insecure and few main logistics routes, amazingly difficult terrain, a very corrupt government, shaky NATO allies, ever-growing poppy fields, and a safe haven in Pakistan for al Qaeda and Taliban forces. Arguing that we need to stay and "fix" Afghanistan to become as stable as Switzerland is not going to work. Maintaining a small, elite force that focuses on counterinsurgency and training missions while the Afghan government develops its security forces might work better.

Comments

[Sven Ortmann]

The "Best" option is pretty much what I expected would/should happen in late 2001.

So maybe they should let me write op-eds - they wouldn't trail behind by seven years.

[James]

The problem is that giving up on creating a Western-style, liberal-democratic centralized government is unthinkable to the elites that form policy in the NATO countries. Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" claim has been mercilessly mocked but its central argument remains an article of faith for the people that run international institutions and Western governments. Capitalism, omnipresent government, and democracy (in that order) form the best possible society and "everyone knows it." Anyone who suggests otherwise is fundamentally evil. Not mistaken, mind you, but Evil.

Giving up on Afghanistan would mean denying their own faith. For liberal interventionists and American triumphalists alike, acknowledging that there is any part of the world outside of their power is the same as handing the planet over the Chinese and hoping they won't be too hard on us. It is, of course, quite possible to have faith in your beliefs without forcing them on others at gunpoint, but that would be the hallmark of a balanced, realistic worldview that is difficult to find among the ruling classes these days.

[BGG]

Off Topic, sorry, but this is hilarious:
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090225_7136.php

[Deus Ex]

The Captain's Journal brought up a great point: any allies we have accrued thus far would be slaughtered if we pulled our forces massively back into one huge FOB. The huge FOB would steal the initiative from us, while making us an easy target for rockets, raids, etc., while providing absolutely no incentive to stay. A huge FOB would offer next to nothing in terms of long or short term results. There are a myriad of problems with what Peters says. However, his idea of leaving completely isn't too bad. We let the Taliban and the rest of the assholes build a semblance of an infrastructure, and when they raise their collective heads too high we come in hard and lop them off. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it is a point that should be deeply considered.

So, in summation, I disagree with both you and Peters on a select few points.

[Andy]

Maybe it's just me, but I would think the best option in the case of an unrealistic strategy is to adjust the strategy, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And maybe Peters should google Elphy Bey before deciding to hole us up in Fortress Bagram after stiffing the locals of monetary and political support. Should we somehow survive that, maybe he can explain how we're going to get the intel for these punitive strikes he apparently loves so much.

[J.]

I think - not knowing Ralph very well - what he's recommending isn't a "massive" FOB but rather a low-key military force that uses UAVs and Afghani/Pakistani intel to hit select targets and to tilt the odds to the government's favor when the Taliban gathers in large numbers. It's not crazy - others have suggested this course of action. Key is using specially trained troops, not Marines who blast away at civilians.

[Belphagor1527]

Those are our only options? Really? Sorry but I think James is on to something and Ralph and Co. are refusing to consider all the alternatives. Yes, Afghanistan isn't a nation state and isn't likely to become one but is that all we can do?

I'm still not convinced that we can't look at trying to break up the country into regional power centers. You could support the more stable and/or friendly areas while trying to quarantine the biggest problem areas in the Southeast. Perhaps this is totally unworkable but c'mon, this 'Capitalist liberal democracy or bust' standard we're setting seems a bit weird and self limiting. And if the 'good' option is just leaving and pretending that Afghanistan doesn't exist what the heck would we have to lose?

[Parthicus]

The Best and Good options don't work. In either case, Afghanistan degenerates into a failed state, chaos reigns, and terrorists & warlords run amok. If we started with the best option, our forward airbase would turn into a Dien Bien Phu, isolated in a sea of enemies. Thus, we would be forced to withdraw and strike over the horizon, the "good option".

The problem with the good option is that there are not X number of terrorists that can be killed by over the horizon forces. Every over the horizon strike may kill some terrorists, but will also kill some civilians. For each civilian killed we have a few more terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Also, we have another Al-Jazeera news story reporting 50 civilians killed for each actual civilian killed. Furthermore, we have Arab media everywhere reporting a jihadist victory in forcing the defeat of the U.S., resulting in increased prestige and recruiting propaganda for jihadists. Our goal should be to decrease the number of enemies we have after each operation: using "targeted strikes" based on unreliable warlord allies is going to create more enemies than friends (this is a paraphrase of something petraeus said). Iraq has already shown that it's not about killing terrorists. It's about killing them, preventing new ones from being made, and most importantly, denying them safe haven without the civilian population through hearts and minds and security operations. A terrorist without a haven among the civilians is like a U.S. infantryman without logistics, air support, oil, and GPS.

Also, these "allies" that we have in Afghanistan are nothing more than petty drug warlords. We use one metastatic cancer to fight another metastatic cancer. Ultimately one of them comes back to stab us in the back (we funded the Saudis Wahhabists, the Taliban, and the Pakistanis, with "allies" like these, who needs enemies?)

There are really only two options. Pulling out, the Best option, or the good option are all really part of the "defeat option". Defeat means that The Taliban and al-qaeda have free reign in Afghanistan and hide among the sea of fearful and hopeless Afghans, making us utterly unable to target them.

The other option is victory. Victory is through the long and difficult road of nation building. Building economic institutions, governance, and agriculture to defeat corruption and poppy production. Building the army as an institution to defeat the warlords and more importantly to give the people confidence against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Finally, building up Afghanistan as a successful state, able to resist Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

The Vietnam analogy is not legitimate because our failure in Vietnam did not cause it to become a global purveyor of terrorism (as our failure in Afghanistan would) Furthermore, our failure in Vietnam was due to our failure of a proper counterinsurgency program through successful nation building (for an example of this see Iraq).

As for why kinetic operations without nation building fail: read the defense of Jisr Al-Doreaa

http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/jisaldoreaa.pdf

-Parthicus

[Sven Ortmann]

"because our failure in Vietnam did not cause it to become a global purveyor of terrorism (as our failure in Afghanistan would)"

prove it

[Parthicus]

it's already been proved. We abandoned Afghanistan after the cold war ---> Taliban + Al-Qaeda --> 9/11.

We abandon Afghanistan now, it goes back to what it was. Is there any doubt that our abandonment of Afghanistan would result in the return of the Taliban or something similar to the Taliban? I highly doubt the ability of drones and small SOF detachments to prevent the domination of Afghanistan by elements unfriendly to our interests. Iraq has already shown that kinetic operations alone do not accomplish our objectives.

-Parthicus

[Sven Ortmann]

Nope, that's no evidence.

The Taliban aren't the only Asian power in Afghanistan. There are some warlords who had several years to prepare their forces plus the mayor of Kabul with his police and army.
They might have learned a lesson from the past success of the Taliban and they might receive much more material, intelligence and possibly even air support than they did in the 90's.
The Taliban were rooted when they faced lesser forces plus a few hundred specops troops and airmen in 2001, why should they prevail against such opposition now?
We're merely fighting their civil war against the Taliban for the warlords while they hoard weapons, ammo and recruit new fighters for their personal armies.

The 9/11 terrorists received most of their training and did most of their preparations in Europe and the USA itself, the role of Afghanistan was quite marginal.
The USA would probably be safer from a 2nd 9/11 if it closed all pilot schools in Florida than by participating in a Central Asian civil/tribal war.

AQ celebrities sit well in Pakistan, some have apparently even new-founded families there. There's little reason to expect that they'll move to Afghanistan.

It's also a questionable assumption that Afghanistan has any relevance to AQ as a base. They have their cells in about 80 countries of the world and their celebrities are apparently fine in Pakistan - so why should they need Afghanistan, what benefits would they get from Afghanistan?
They wouldn't re-open large training camps anyway - there would always be the threat of covert/aerial attacks, so they wouldn't return to the old infrastructure.

Look at the past terror acts; few of the AQ operatives received any meaningful training in Afghanistan, most of the AQ 'terror camp' graduates were obviously AQ shock troops - Afghan civil war mercenaries who were never meant to attack us.
You get the necessary information for a terror act in the USA or Europe easier by Bittorrent than from sitting in a hut in Central Asia (and getting suspicious stamps into your passport in the process).

It's conventional wisdom that a withdrawal from Afghanistan would mean a return of the Taliban and an increase in AQ's capabilities, but that are merely assumptions.
They're obvious and require little imagination and no scrutiny, but they're nevertheless quite questionable.

We're waging war based on mere assumptions.

[Parthicus]

You're logic is impeccable.

1. AQ has Pakistan so now they don't need Afghanistan.
2. AQ can launch operations from anywhere in the world, thus Afghanistan is unimportant in the greater scheme of things
3. The Taliban will be occupied with a civil war against the warlords, who shouldn't lose as long as we're supporting them.

All of these facts are indeed true. My "imagination" is based on years of studying the outcomes of other wars and the outcomes of our policies. Here is what I see time and time again: the U.S. has an opportunity to apply decisive force to achieve victory, stability, and a lasting prosperity that builds strong and grateful allies. Time and time again, due to stinginess, political expediency, and shortsightedness, we do not and instead leave disillusioned former allies and metastatic enemies in our wake. Thus do we fail to be the last best hope for mankind, and in our stinginess, we simply create more trouble for ourselves.

In regards to fact #1, we cannot allow nuclear Pakistan to become a haven for the Taliban and AQ, which means we must remove the jihadists from both countries. Pushing them back and forth from one country to the other is a zero sum game.

In regards to fact #2, terrorist attacks may indeed be planned and carried out from anywhere in the world. However, safe haven in a country is how movements, insurgencies, and eventually armies are built. Terrorists are but the tip of the spear, supported by suppliers, supported by financiers, supported by sympathetic citizens, educated by madrasas, etc etc. We must strike at the heart of the problem, not just at the tip of the spear. To do that, we must deny the terrorists support everywhere they seek it.

In regards to #3: Indeed, we "beat" them in 2002 with airstrikes and a coalition of warlords. Those warlords are a pack of snakes. Without boots on the ground to enforce our interests, these warlords will simply take our money and use our predator strikes for their own interests. We will make many enemies fighting a long drawn out civil war with air strikes. In the end, we will be left either with a chaotic no man's land that will be seen as a defeat or a decisive Taliban victory over us as we talk ourselves into withdrawing even our drones (Iraq has already shown us that kinetic operations alone do not win.) If we resolve to bind ourselves to the Afghan people, burn our boats behind us, and set out to build a nation or die trying, we will achieve a decisive victory against the jihadists.

Even if you are correct and Afghanistan itself does not become a global purveyor of terrorism, our withdrawal will be a propaganda victory for jihad.

As for waging war based on mere assumptions: The fog of war blinds us, foresight is never 20/20, and thus, all decisions in war are made based on assumptions. No one can tell where the next terrorist attack will come from, no one can tell the consequences of continuing the fight in Afghanistan or withdrawing from Afghanistan. We can judge, assume, rationalize, study, and argue all we want, but the most important quality in war is resolve. Resolve wins every time.

-Parthicus

[Sven Ortmann]

Different opinions are often based on different sets of considered factors and facts.
I could discuss this stuff for hours and wouldn't exhaust all factors that I'm aware of.
I write on my blog to writ once about stuff instead of doing the same hundreds of times, feel free to visit it.

Just a short summary:
It's extremely questionable whether the USA can defeat the Taliban inside of Pakistan, it might very well be a better choice to let that internal conflict cool down and to avoid anything that weakens the Pakistani state/government (like the revelations about UAV strikes).
Involvement in Pakistan is complex, and not even remotely guaranteed to be productive.

The Taliban were/are no threat to CONUS anyway, they're just the guys who weren't willing to extort OBL immediately - due to his lie of innocence and the Pashtun hospitality custom.
It has been usual to make peace with much, much more serious threats in the past and live along.

The Iranian theocracy - another thing that makes Americans freak out easily - is till no threat for CONUS, despite being bullied, attacked, threatened and hyped-up by the USA for about 30 years. The Taliban in Afghanistan would be in an even lesser position to become a real threat.

The war in Afghanistan is (for us) a war of choice, not a war of necessity. Many have lied about this and hyped the threat up to World War scale, but it's really just us meddling in very distant people's affairs without being credibly threatened.

[Parthicus]

I agree with you on Iran, indeed with have bullied and threatened that nation state for little reason. And now they're building nuclear weapons because of our past shortsightedness. That does not change the fact that we should prevent them from achieving nuclear weapons capability. Iran is actually a separate regional issue from the poorly named "War on Terror", so I would prefer not to address it here.

As for Pakistan, I also agree that it is extremely questionable whether we can defeat them, and I also realize the complexity of the problem. I strongly disagree with the policy of using drone strikes because it simply creates more enemies than it kills. And finally, I agree with you that the Taliban and Iran are no threat to CONUS. There are almost no direct threats to CONUS, in our entire history only the Soviet nuclear weapons and the colonial British were a direct threat to CONUS (even Hitler probably wasn't)

Thus, I agree with all your rational considerations, I simply do not agree with your conclusion that this is a war of choice and not of necessity. I would probably be one of those people that supposedly "lie and hype up this threat to World War scale".

When you leave an invasive metastatic cancer alone, it spreads. Radical Islamism is very similar to Nazism, fascism, and communism, it is a political ideology that spreads and consumes freedom everywhere it goes. Sure, it will not threaten CONUS, but it will decimate Israel, Europe, and any potential allies we can find in the muslim world. If we leave it alone, it will simply get larger and larger until we have to confront at a later date (yes, I am fully aware of the complexities of Islam and that it is not a single unified monolithic entity.) Failing to apply ourselves in Afghanistan is similar to ignoring Weimar Germany.

Do you not believe that radical Islamism is a credible threat to western democracy in the same vein as nazism and communism?

-Parthicus

[Sven Ortmann]

I never believed in the Domino theory.

Besides; the Taliban would be even less important to 90% of the Muslims in the world than they are today if we wouldn't lift them into the news all the time.

There were only two attempts to stop Bolshevism (relatively) early: The fruitless interventions in the Russian Civil War and later Hitler's Operation Barbarossa.
Neither was successful, and we lived along the USSR/WP and could have been quite relaxed about that if we hadn't believed our own propaganda about their aggressiveness and their propaganda about their strength.

Radical Islam isn't nearly as advanced as the WP, it has zero appeal to non-islamic countries and almost all islamic countries are too backward to hurt us much. A complete substitution of the Persian Gulf's oil in our economies would cost the West (much) less than the Iraq War.

By the way; Hitler would most likely have risen to power even if Mussolini would have been smashed in the mid-20's. You don't kill ideologies by killing troops and holding ground.

[J.]

Well this has been an interesting discussion. I certainly have little to add to it, other than to perhaps rebut this one point by Parthicus:

"Do you not believe that radical Islamism is a credible threat to western democracy in the same vein as nazism and communism?"

Absolutely not. You might, might find some parallels in political doctrine or speeches between radical Islamics and fascism. But that's where the similarity ends. You're suggesting that the Taliban could develop a world-class military with state-of-the-art equipment and expand their bases throughout the Middle East, and then that Europe would be "helpless" to counterattack.

Nope. Don't buy it. They're minor league players. And here's the irony, that Pres Bush had the Taliban leaders in his Oval Office before 9/11. I forget if that was before or after they destroyed the Buddha statues.

[Parthicus]

1. World Class military and state-of-the-art equipment.

These two factors are not as decisive as they once were. Various factors such as the UN and laws of war prevent the decisive application of these to achieve victory. Globalization, information technology, and cyberwarfare/propaganda are the new tools of war. Even our advanced UAVs and smart bombs are only supplemental weapons to counterinsurgency and heart/minds operations. The taliban/islamists do not need to develop a world class military to win. They simply leverage their propaganda machine and chip away at our pluralistic democracies and our freedoms b/c of our respect for multiculturalism.

2. Islamism compared to Communism/fascism as a threat

You brought up a good point earlier that Communism was really not a threat to the U.S., which is actually true. They had a first class military industrial complex, but were deterred from using it. Ultimately, they lost the war of heart and minds and failed to leverage globalization to their advantage as the west did. Thus, a first class military industrial complex is useless against another first class military industrial complex (probably b/c of the fear of nuclear escalation).

I would argue that Islamism uses information technologies and heart/minds operations to spread its message to a much larger audience than the Nazis or the Soviets ever achieved. They cannot be targeted by a military industrial complex because they are an insurgency. Furthermore, Islamism uses religion as a shield b/c western democracies are very unwilling to fight a religion (b/c of our religious tolerance principles). Islamism's ability to leverage our tolerant tendencies and information technology is what makes it dangerous. They are also better at spreading their ideology than we are at spreading ours.

This had indeed been an interesting discussion.

-Parthicus

[Sven Ortmann]

"Globalization, information technology, and cyberwarfare/propaganda are the new tools of war."

...or of policy. Yet, none of these threatens our sovereignty seriously.
No boots on the ground = no power over us.
A mere rival isn't the same as a first grade threat.
The Madrassa-trained (repetitive training) lower class Taliban aren't exactly good material for cyberwar anyway.
The Islamist cyberwarriors (if there are really any to speak of) could not be defeated by a military action in Central and South Asia - so their 'threat' cannot justify our involvement in Afghanistan's and Pakistan's internal conflicts.

"Ultimately, they lost the war of heart and minds and failed to leverage globalization to their advantage as the west did."

Actually, they were stupid enough to stay half-mobilized with huge military expenses for decades without real need and ruined their economy due to insufficient investments and by directing their researcher and engineers at military innovation only.
Wait, this reminds me of some other superpower...

"I would argue that Islamism uses information technologies and heart/minds operations to spread its message to a much larger audience than the Nazis or the Soviets ever achieved."

They have absolutely no appeal beyond Muslim populations, and are thus more limited than fascism (there were hundreds of Fascist parties world-wide who got mostly crushed in 1939-1941, and dozens of states were unofficially fascist to some degree till the early 80's).
Bolshevism succeeded in almost all industrialized countries to at least establish relevant parties and dominated most decolonization movements of the 50's to 70's.
Bolshevism had varying successes in Christian, Animist, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucianism and Muslim countries - more than the Islamists could ever have.

"They are also better at spreading their ideology than we are at spreading ours."

This is an old misconception that many Americans seem to have. They consider the vast effects of Western soft power as natural and don't take it into account, only seeing their inability to become influential in the Muslim world.
In fact, AQ is not even convincing the Sunni Muslim world, there's rather a ongoing political/cultural/religious conflict in Muslim countries between radicals and moderates/progressives.
AQ propaganda fails entirely outside of the Muslim world.

This in the sum means that WE are much more effective and successful through the media than they are.
I mean, what do you expect? We issue some statements to the press and six billion people agree?
There are some limits to power and influence. It would be megalomaniac to expect that we infidels could influence an alien religion's internal discussions decisively while being at a conflict with one of their factions.

"They cannot be targeted by a military industrial complex because they are an insurgency."
And they will be limited to this status because they will become an easy target once they take over any state.
Pakistan will die if it falls to the Taliban, it will die within thirty minutes. U.S., British, likely French and Indian and possibly also Russian nukes would end its history.