No, a Deadline for Afghanistan Is Not a Mistake

I have to take issue with Spencer Ackerman's post in the Danger Room where he outlines his rationale for believing that it's a mistake for President Obama to focus on July 2011 as the beginning for withdrawing troops for Afghanistan. Worse yet, he thinks that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is right to push back on this date, on any date, for considering when to get out of Afghanistan.

The Obama administration argues that the date sends “a message of urgency” to the Afghan government to get its act together and start governing. Less clearly stated but still salient is that the war has stretched out for over nine years with minimal progress and the public is tired of waging it. Advocates for the Obama administration’s strategy don’t say that they think their approach to the war will work. They say that it’s the least-worst strategy to secure U.S. interests against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whatever that says about the administration’s intellectual honesty, it’s not a rallying cry to fight. 

Meanwhile, the administration’s opponents in the Senate today said any deadline heralding any transition to Afghan responsibility is a bad idea. Their refrain is that you don’t announce the date a war will end before you win it. And in a conventional conflict, that’s true. In a conflict that depends on the popular legitimacy of a foreign military coalition waging a really long war, and on the ability of the Afghan government to deliver prosperity and justice and essential services, it’s more complicated. 

But Sen. John McCain and company are right that the July 2011 date is problematic. Even the most stalwart defender of the administration’s decision to set the date has to concede that it hasn’t been quite the “forcing mechanism” for the Afghan government that Obama intended. Since the date was unveiled, Hamid Karzai has shown himself to be far more inclined to cut a deal with the Taliban than he has to govern. His “peace jirga” started to build a consensus for offering the Taliban peace terms. Reportedly, he and the Pakistanis are working on the contours of what the New York Times reported could amount to a “separate peace” on terms that may or may not support U.S. interests against al-Qaeda, with the Pakistanis offering to bring its quasi-proxies in the Haqqani extremist network and the Taliban in from the cold if Karzai agrees to share power.

Hey, Spencer, McCain's a tired, old man who lost a presidential campaign based on his world-view (well, that and he had a lousy running mate). Here's the thing I think he is missing. First of all, we tried being patient with the Iraqi government's slow crawl to legitimacy after its January 2005 election. Its government officials were more than glad to have all the extra guns around while they all dickered for position and power. It wasn't until the last administration started thinking, hey, we really need to sweep this up, let's do a quick "surge" and declare victory and get out, that the Iraqi government started getting serious about managing its own matters.

The same is going to happen with Afghanistan. We may not like the direction that Karzai is going with the Afghani government, but hey, that's up to him and the Afghanis who elected him. Democracies are funny things like that. At the end of the day, military operations have to key on the political strategy by which the president directs. It's not the other way around. You shouldn't make political strategic objectives subordinate to the direction or pace of military operations (at least, that's not the smart way to do it). You either ramp up military resources (defense supplementals, anyone?) or reassess your chances of victory and consider getting out.

If the president decides that US forces need to be leaving Afghanistan in 2011, whether this is in recognition that the US government doesn't have the strategic interests in Afghanistan to invest the necessary "blood and treasure" to improve the Afghani government and culture to where we think it ought to be, or if this is just simply in light of the need to "declare victory" in light of Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, that's the way it is. War is an extention of politics, period.  It's more than idealistic to believe that any amount of money, time, and US troops fed into the sausage machine that is Afghanistan is going to "solve" that country's problems in a year, ten years, or 50 years. We need a better Middle East-Central Asia regional strategy first, and we need more realistic, achievable operational goals second.

I'm not arguing that the US government should abandon Afghanistan. No, given the current level of "investment," I'm sure that the US government will be involved with Afghanistan's development for the next decade or more. But that doesn't require American troops to be involved in full combat with the Taliban insurgents, while Afghani troops figure out how to read and write English so that they can take orders from American advisors. We need a more restrained, smarter strategy for Afghanistan, and that can be developed in line with a drawdown of forces from that country in 2011.

Comments

[Ray]

Well,J, I'm relieved to read your present assessment, and agree with it,as opposed to your recent comment to leave that country and wish for the Afghans to kill Afghans.

I like the look in the above picture that the General is giving the Afghan President: it's desperately trying to hide what he knows about the man...

Also, the President of Afghanistan is hedging his bets by having signed contracts with the Chinese.

If we weren't losing lives and sustaining some very nasty casualties, it would be funny.

[FDChief]

But Ray, Jason's comment is dead on. We can't "win" jack shit in central Asia by killing central Asians. Well, we could, if we were willing (and CNN and Al Jazeera wouldn't broadcast it to the world and make us the New Nazis) to kill half the population; it worked for the Romans and the Mongols, it'd work for us. But we all know that's not going to happen.

So the answer is really to get an Afghan proxy - a real proxy, not some greedy, corrupt straphangers there to suck off Uncle Sugar's teat - and slip them the means and a little help to do the killing themselves.

Think India helping Sri Lanka kill the Tamils. Think how we helped crush the El Salvadorian rebellion.

The only way a foreign invader does rebellion suppression is the Roman way or the Mongol way. It works even now, if you can control everything on the ground - it's worked pretty well for the Russians in Chechenya. But locals have more leeway.

So to get something like an acceptable geopolitical outcome (or as close as we can, having screwed this pooch pretty thoroughly) we DO have to leave (or at least the maneuver elements do, most of the air support, and all but the most deniable training-and-advising slices) and the Afghans will have to kill (or bribe, or imprison, or coerce, or bribe) the other Afghans...

[Ray]

Well, Death will continue to walk there for a long time whoever decides policies and intrigues. As an aside: did you know that Death can't live without us?

[Ray]

PS, FDChief.
I want to get off the line and let someone else talk: I've said a lot without saying much, but I just want say that I think that the Romans were a lot more circumspect than you say. You can't run an Empire by Force alone.
Anyway, I have Roman ghosts all around me where I live. I'll say HI for you when my wife and I go to mighty (ruins) Richborough, their main Port in the South East of England, just 30 minutes down the road. I'll sit on one of the walls and share a sandwich or two with them,, but I'm sure they'll say that being dead from battle isn't all it's cut out to be.

[FDChief]

Ray: The Romans were pretty damn good at the imperial game, what with making it work for some 500 years and all. And they weren't all just crucifixions and slavery, you're right. They could bribe, seduce, coerce, and suborn.

But the bottom line for Roman foes, Roman allies, or Roman clients was the certain knowledge that if you fucked up you would get a visit from a Roman expeditionary force who would kill your men, rape your women, burn your cities, and enslave what was left. Ask the citizens of Massilia, Carthage, Jerusalem, or Alesia. Oh, wait - you can't; they were either dead or hauled off to latifunda to die the long death of slavery.

Rebellion suppression is nasty, coarse, bloody-handed murder. The "hearts and minds" stuff is bullshit; if a group of people is desperate enough to risk death in rebellion giving them good government and a few roads isn't going to change their minds. What you end up doing is conquest; Norman to Saxon, Spaniard to Basque, American to Shawnee, Sioux, and Apache.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not slagging off on the Romans. They took most of their world and gave most of it peace and stability for half a millenium. But they also understood that you can't rule people who don't (at least initially) want to be ruled by you by appealing to their better nature.

Neither can we. Se we'd best decide if we WANT to rule those people, or not. Because the ends will determine the means, and right now the two don't match.

[FDChief]

And please note that I specified "rebellion suppression". Conquest or putting down a rebellion is VERY different from ruling a passive or supine territory. The Romans didn't RUN their Empire by force alone.

But when parts of that Empire decided they didn't want to BE parts of the Empire?

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

[Sven Ortmann]

The Romans crushed the enemy army, took over the country by bribing elites or small tribes into supporting them.

Then they began Romanisation; they exported (their) civilisation (bridges, roads, cities, taxation, baths and much else). The purpose was among others to attract the young generation, especially of the elites.

Within a generation, there was usually an uprising (of war-inexperienced men) that was stomped by legions and auxiliaries. Later on, the country was typically demilitarised (except for a few Roman troops, but the populace lost competence in fighting) and peaceful.

[Vil Mirzayanov]

The Rome Empire collapsed, British,Frenche, German Empires too. The Crusade failed. Very doubtfull to win any war against the whole population of the country. This truth tasted even Napoleon. So, what Mr. Obama waiting for in Afganistan? To correct the World History?