I'm not that sure it is important.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
... SWED's question, "what is our strategic endstate in Afghanistan?" is critically important.
I am quite sure we are not yet in a position to provide an answer not least because there are too many other players involved.
Quote:
Relatively speaking, if our goal is to defeat the Taliban, that is a lot easier than attempting to reform Afghanistan's social, political and economic structure.
Relatively speaking, that's correct -- that doesn't mean that either is achievable by us -- or that either needs to be achieved at all.
Quote:
If our goal is to establish a stable (relative to what)...
Relative to world and regional norms; that's all you can get -- there will no western liberal democracy there.
Quote:
... nation where democracy and capitialism can self-sustain, that implies a couple of things that we really should debate seriously:
1. Do you have to create a stable democracy and market economy to defeat the enemy? (If I recall the Islamists won a couple of free elections in recent years, because they promised to put the nation under Sharia law, Algeria being one example. I think we're too quick to correlate buzz phrases wtih endstates, and we assume the book "The End of History" is fact versus opinion.)
Define defeat. There's not going to be any defeat in Afghanistan, of us or them (whoever they are); hopefully an acceptable outcome will be achieved; that's all you'll ever get in any COIN operation. There may be much trumpeting and foolishness on either or both sides about wins, losses, etc but it'll just be noise, the reality will be no defeats -- or victories in the classic sense.
Quote:
2. Assuming we're going to pursue this, are we prepared to go the distance to achieve this? In the long run is this very expensive investment (effort, time, money, manpower) in our national interests? You can make the argument that rebuilding Germany and Japan definitely supported our long term strategic interests, but is there a parallel to Afghanistan?
Probably not but I don't think that will affect many decisions.
Quote:
3. Strategic endstates imply using all the elements of DIME. Once we defeat the Taliban (assuming we take away his safehaven in Pakistan), then what? Do we have a feasible plan for "transformation"? Will it get funded and supported on both sides of the aisle? Will be able to garner and sustain critical international support?
I again cite Korea and Viet Nam as harbingers of the lack of such a strategic end state... :D
Important point and one that is missed by all too many.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eden
One of the problems in Afghanistan is that we are not fighting a single insurgency; we are struggling against several insurgencies and numerous criminal organizations and the remnants of old regional kleptocracies struggling to regain their influence. In other words, not one war but many inthe same geographical space.
The same thing was / is true in Iraq (and elsewhere) -- those cussed Easterners just will not fight nice tidy western wars. A part of our problem outside European war is our lack of understanding of the psyche of our opponents; that coupled with our impatience to get the job done and just fix things so we can move on to the next challenge has not stood us in good stead in a number of places over the last 60 or so years.
Quote:
...By the end of my last tour, I had come to the conclusion that there is no Taliban master plan in Afghanistan, only ceaseless and disorganized activity. How do you counter a formless enemy? How do you formulate a strategy for multiple wars aganst disparate foes?
There are only two options; you outfight him at his own game -- which we can do but will not due to the casualties of all types thus incurred -- or you can do what we're doing and play whack a mole. It's inefficient but it does work; it just requires patience and stamina.
The value of an End State
I think I was the first who proposed an answer to the question this thread posed. Whether it is the stated end state or a proposed end state matters little for my purposes. As a reminder, this is what was proposed (more or less) back in 2002...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hacksaw
A legitimate government - one recognized as such by its citizens
Adequate security forces - to preclud ungoverned areas that could host terrorist staging activities
an economic system not reliant upon narcotic production
Stable enough to resist adventurist actions of its neighbors
"In other words, doesn't have to smell like roses, but it can't smell like a pile of $hit either" -
end state (more or less) proposed to CENTCOM CDR o/a May 02
I've been following the thread since and I'm somewhat surprised the turn that it has made. It seems unless I'm mistaken, that the collective wisdom of the council is "do we need, or can we know" the end state.
WHAT!!!!!
An end state provides the word picture for the commander's intent... It gives ultimate purpose and direction to all activity -- or should. If we are unable or unwilling to pose an end state for fear that we will need to adjust that end state should conditions change, than shame on us and everyone who put someone in harm's way. Stealing a phrase from another recent thread -- Fuzzy or Fraud, I go with Fraud!!!
Maybe I missed something along the way in this thread, but I think we collectively somehow allowed ourselves to get into group think mode.
Wilf are you out there??? If COIN/IW is war, and war is war, exactly how do you conduct it without an idea on how it ends????
If the arguement is we started without an idea of how it ends in either IZ or AFG - agreed. If we think we ought to continue to muddle along until an idea of how it ends emerges - you be on the wrong side of that discussion
Live well and row
I think my original answer has some validity:
Quote:
You've identified the fundamental problem with our intervention in Afghanistan.
We're not even in agreement over whether we can have an endstate, much less what it could or should be.
Maybe it's better to examine our priorities instead. What are they in Afghanistan? Instead of an endstate, I think we need to reexamine our fundamental purpose for being there.
But returning to "endstates" briefly, we've already had a few of them. Here's my very abbreviated history of Afghanistan:
Our first end state, going back to the mid-1990's, was the end of an AQ safehaven in Afghanistan. When you look at the history it becomes clear the US didn't have much interest in Afghanistan in general, or the Taliban in particular, except for its associating with and harboring of AQ. The goal of eliminating the AQ safehaven was basically accomplished by the spring of 2002
Once the Taliban and AQ were initially defeated, the goal changed and became all about preventing the return of a safehaven for AQ - that became our "new" endstate. Since the Taliban were still allied with AQ, our goal included preventing their return as well. We've pursued this goal since.
At some point in the past year or two a consensus has grown that our desired endstate of an enduring Afghanistan hostile to AQ and its associates cannot be acheived without also eliminating the safehaven in Pakistan, which the Pakistanis are unable and, in some cases, unwilling to do. So now our political leadership and potential future leadership seem to be advocating for and acting on that growing consensus.
So we are, in a sense, at a crossroads, because eliminating the safehaven in Pakistan is not nearly the same as eliminating it in Afghanistan for a host of reasons I won't go into here, but which should be apparent to anyone with any knowledge of south Asia.
What has stayed consistent, though, at the root of everything, is AQ and the threat it poses to the US. We can and do and should debate on what policy and amount of blood and treasure should meet that threat, but I think it's fair to say that our "endstate" is ultimately about AQ. So far, the importance of AQ in our policy and desired end states has remained preeminent.
What I suspect will happen is that at some point that calculus will change, maybe when UBL and AAZ are killed/captured, for example, and when that happens all the supporting goals and polices and "endstates" will change too. This gets back to what I was talking about before in mentioning "priorities." If AQ goes away as a priority, then those goals and policies may fall like a house of cards without that foundation unless something else replaces it. We shall see.
which helps me get to my point... mostly
Entropy
Just because a group of knuckleheads (is that ad hominem) on a public website can't come to consensus over -- whether we can have an endstate, much less what it could or should be -- does not mean we shoud eschew this time honored method of describing the "conditions that define the achievement of the Commander's Objectives" Joint Definitions JP 3-0 and 1-02...
This doesn't change whether we are speaking in terms of Commander-in-Chief or BCT CDR Objectives... What differs is scope and available ways/means.
Not sure why you insist on priorities (from a military perspective I'd equate that with logical lines of Operation), to my way of thinking this is out of logical sequence.
All the way up and down the chain of command we need to be able to describe the conditions that define success... When the commander isn't sure his staff or subordinates develop a proposed end state and dialogue until each share the same vision/intent.
I must be the hanging chad because I don't see we couldn't wouldn't shouldn't do this.
and if in fact AQ is the center piece of describing those conditions, then I think the following is broad enough to allow individual initiative and account for changing conditions, as well as guide priorities/logical lines of operation...
A legitimate government - one recognized as such by its citizens
Adequate security forces - to preclud ungoverned areas that could host terrorist staging activities
an economic system not reliant upon narcotic production
Stable enough to resist adventurist actions of its neighbors
"In other words, doesn't have to smell like roses, but it can't smell like a pile of $hit either"
The dead horse is now butchered, fried and served hot....
Hence we shall whip it again tomorrow
Doctrine is good, dogma is not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hacksaw
...does not mean we shoud eschew this time honored method of describing the "conditions that define the achievement of the Commander's Objectives" Joint Definitions JP 3-0 and 1-02...
This doesn't change whether we are speaking in terms of Commander-in-Chief or BCT CDR Objectives... What differs is scope and available ways/means.
It does change if the Commander in Chief says "Don't bother me with that, I want X and Y, period and you are not to do Z." Militarily, you're right on track -- the problem is that the effort is only partly military, it's mostly political, like it or not.