Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
... 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.
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.
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.
... 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.
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.
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...