Winning the War in Afghanistan

[omarali50]

It used to be a functioning country. It could have become one again, but it needed a smarter colonial power and a weaker opponent to do that.....the irony is that ISI's great victory will probably harm Pakistan more than anyone else. I think GHQ will shoot itself in the neck by winning and would have done better to "lose"..

[Steve the Planner]

Right, but my question was not Can Afghanistan be fixed.

Given that the international aid compression and lack of food assistance is only going to make things more unstable in the next three years, what of the things we are doing could be improved to leave something valuable out of this mess?

[Fuchs]

The fun really begins when you begin to think about the withdrawal shock.
Afghanistan has has a transfer-based economy for a decade. The end of the ridiculously large hard cash influx will be 'tough'.

It will probably destroy the cash economy, leaving mostly the subsistence economy and grey markets.
The 2000's will be economically a lost decade, even without all the war effects.

[omarali50]

I think things can be done to mitigate the aftermath, even now.

[Steve the Planner]

There is enough cash rolling around (maybe in Dubai) for certain folks to buy their own pieces of the country. But what will they get in return? Back to warlords and regional fiefdoms (or was it ever anything different?).

I think that we underestimate how quickly things can unravel once the path is set.

It has been remarkable to me that, so far, US planned withdrawals have gone so relatively smoothly. I don't see the same context in Afghanistan.

[JMA]

It was never possible. I've been saying that since early 2002 when what we wanted (not necessarily needed) to do there was effectively completed. We should not have decided to stay because once we did we locked ourselves in to a no-win situation.

Winning wars?

To me Afghanistan had more of a "mission accomplished" or "objectives achieved" feel to it. The "war" was won when the Taliban government collapsed and the leadership made a run for Pakistan.

The mission creep to "nation building" can be understood given the momentum that had built up since 2002. Not accepted... but understood.

Again I refer to the Principles of War and the first one on the British list being - The selection and maintenance of the aim and the US equivalent being - Objective – Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective.

My question is that when the politicians feel the need to "revise and develop" the mission/objective why there is no howl of protest from the generals?

It appears that at a certain point in their careers the generals reach a point in their development where they roll-over and play submissive to the politicians. What a waste of all that training and experience.

[Fuchs]

Let's look at the context:

1999, air power 'wins' the Kosovo conflict all on its own.
U.S. Army panics over its lack of "relevance" and hyper-speed "deployability" of anything heavier than a soft truck.
Russian mechanised paras embarrass the U.S.Army even further by being quicker in the occupation race.
U.S.Army gets to occupy Kosovo as a consolation prize.

2001, air power in cooperation with few dozen spec ops 'win' the war in Afghanistan, Marines are at least quick enough to deploy a regiment-sized force to Kandahar in time.
U.S.Army gets to occupy Afghanistan as a consolation prize.


It wasn't exactly the most obvious choice to reject even the consolation prize when your institution is still panicked about proving its 'relevance' in order to maintain its budget share.

The decisions were furthermore most likely made quicker than the leaders were able to catch up with info and historical experiences about comparable conflicts.

[Bob's World]

JMA - Who rolled over for who? (or whom, never did get that rule straight)

I see politicians rolling over to military assessments and positions on a a problem they have framed as a war to be won all the time.

Even now, as Lt Gen Allen steps up to follow Petreaus he caveats that he is ok with the President's scheduled reductions of troops unless he feels that he is not meeting his military objectives... Guess what general, not your job.

This all goes back to us mis-defining particular theaters of our operations to punish and dispute AQ in an effort to make America safer from terrorist attacks as separate and distinct "wars" to be won or lost. They aren't.

The problem is the emphasis on location over war as a helpful start. For example WWII:

We had The War in the Pacific, and The War in Europe; or The War against Japan, and The War against Germany; but no one ever made the ridiculous case that we were fighting dozens of wars all over the world, we were fighting "the war."

Same with The War on terrorism (or against AQ, whatever). Locations are far more moot in an effort to defeat a non-state organization than they ever were in a war to defeat specific states, yet we fixate more than ever on the locations we fight rather than on the problem we are seeking to resolve.

Truth be told, a clear-eyed assessment makes a pretty easy case that AFPAK region is no more or less important than a dozen other such regions in terms of its value/importance to the problem we face. One can also make the case that the harder one pounds at this problem in a particular location the worse one makes it.

AQ conducts UW and leverages the grievances of others to recruit individuals and organizations to support their larger goals as well. How many Pashtuns had grievances of such a nature against the US prior to our decision to go into Afghanistan?? Not many I suspect, equally I suspect that is not true today. Most of these recruits to AQ came from places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya and Egypt. When one mentally frees themselves from the specific locations where we went to fight one can begin to focus on the locations where the problems of US relations with other state governments and populaces that drive this threat actually exist.

Arab Spring is 10 times more important to getting to success for reducing the threat of terrorist attacks against the US than ANYTHING we are doing in Afghanistan.

But this is not something for the military to figure out, plan and lead. This is all about foreign policy. The military is a 1000 lb tail wagging a 40 lb dog, I fear. We need to break this cycle. Soon.

[Steve the Planner]

Bob:

Well, said, but with one caveat.

The US has no effective diplomatics structure to address these problems which, essentially, are not problems of diplomacy.

They are largely problems of internal and sub-national governance, civil society, and the effectiveness of services to the people to support on-going betterment.

This is long-term, internally based civil advancement stuff. Neither military, nor diplomatic.

What role, if any, should the DoD or DoS play?

[Bob's World]

Steve,

Don't go back to the locations where the problems manifest, one must focus on where the policy radiates out from.

We must get over the idea that we have a duty or a right, or even that it is premised in any kind of rational logic, to go out and force people all over the world to stop complaining and acting-out in response to US policy as it manifests around the world.

Look, we have interests, and some of those interests are truly vital and we must act to preserve and support those interests. The problem of "global terrorism" directed at the United States, and wide-spread insurgency directed at many of the non western governments where we have long-standing alliances is a CRYSTAL CLEAR metric that the Ways and Means we have been employing to pursue those Ends are in need for an extreme make-over. Instead we send the military to force those old Ways and Means down the throat of those who dare to complain.

We are the United States of America. We are better than this. We are smarter than this. Right? I hope so. We are not living up to our own hype though. Not at all. We are acting very much like regimes that we have looked at with disdain for their dark methods. We are learning that it is not so easy to remain a leader.

Perhaps it is time to stop trying to lead those with no desire to be led, and instead focus on being an example.

I think we would raise holy hell if any other country dared to follow our current example in a manner that challenged our interests. Time for a hard look in the mirror.

When I read our National Security Strategy I shake my head in wonder and dismay. I agree with much of the description of the environment (much of which was crafted by guys like myself and "Mr. Y" Puck Mykleby in a little skunk works on the fringe of the USSOCOM campus, and then injected into the NSS by a persistent little "UW" campaign by Puck); but when I read the conclusion about our goals and interests, I can only exclaim "WTF???!"

We talk about forming and leading a new world order

We talk about our interests being to protect the US, our citizens, and our allies and partners. (Ok, so we are willing to go to war if any of these partners are attacked? Did anyone do the math on that???)

We talk about US values as being "Universal" and and our dedication to getting everyone in this new world order that we are leading to submit to those beliefs ( I had to check the cover to see if I had picked up a copy on Mein Kamph or the Communist Manifesto by mistake). Historic experts on US policy warn wisely against excessive promotion of US fundamentalism, we should listen.

We talk about "enduring" interests. (and then list a bunch of new interests). Look, yes, we need some consistency in our interests, but they must also be tailored to the needs and resources of the nation for the era they guide us through. Off the top of my head the US has gone through several broad, but distinct eras where we had distinctly different interests. From the 1770s to 1820s we were just focused on forming a survivable nation (Washington's example and farewell address were guides). From the 1820s to 1900 it was all about establishing a coast to coast nation (guided by the Monroe Doctrine and protected in effect by the British Navy). Our interests expanded during an era of US Imperialism, and again during the Cold war. But what now? Is this the time to expand our interests yet again?? I think not.

I believe this is a time to pull back from the expanded interests and controlling approaches of the Cold War, not expand to an even more expansive US-led world order.

I think we find wisdom in the words of our past leaders. Now is a time to refocus on how we adjust ourselves to better function in the world that is coming to exist around us, not to double down our efforts to force others to submit to a US-centric world as we choose to define it.

Obviously this goes far beyond "winning in Afghanistan," but perhaps that helps point out how silly it is that we are so consumed by how to win in Afghanistan, when we are so negligent of the much larger framework that makes our efforts in Afghanistan or anywhere else make sense.

Bob

[ganulv]

Same with The War on terrorism (or against AQ, whatever). Locations are far more moot in an effort to defeat a non-state organization than they ever were in a war to defeat specific states, yet we fixate more than ever on the locations we fight rather than on the problem we are seeking to resolve.

We are the United States of America. We are better than this. We are smarter than this. Right? I hope so.

but if the War on Drugs is any indication—and given that our policy seems very much focused on fighting it in places rather than as a problem it seems to be a perfect analogy if not homology—then no we aren’t.

[Steve the Planner]

New World Order????

Bob:

Right. What struck me were the supposed (but nebulous) values discourses.

What exactly are the US values to be emulated?

Our historical "values" which I believe much of the myth is built around is a supremacy of technology, economy, managerial and manufacturing pre-eminence, unlimited resources, and, as the Big Dog, the ability to make things happen (by whatever means necessary) to accomplish our will and interests (diplomatic, commercial, etc..), even where those interests may not have, in the long run, been wise or well thought through.

While I have ultimate faith that the US is, and will return to being a guiding light for many things advancing human civilization, there is no straight-line path---we screw up, we correct, we learn and adapt---eventually, I am concerned that our "leadership" is really in neutral (some would say reverse) at this juncture.

Wrapping a lot of this crap into a nebulous flag does nothing to change the fact that our leadership role is only imperiled by the "us" and "our" future which we are currently in gridlock over.

Relentless demographic and economic changes continue to change the "us" of the US, and the world in which our effective leadership can be applied.

The 'gift' our forefathers and founding documents provided is the mechanism to change and adapt, and that process is continuous.

Personally, I believe we and "they" are in such profound change at the moment that what makes sense today is merely reactive---stop blatantly bad things from happening where there is imminent and actual peril to our safety and interests.

In that context, I am very unsurprised about the shift of leadership at CIA/DoD, and the probability that our tools for external responses have shifted beyond a military one to one of more effective threat-based intelligence and highly targeted strikes. This is just not rocket science.

The question, as we shift gears, is How to manage the transition?

[slapout9]

We talk about our interests being to protect the US, our citizens, and our allies and partners. (Ok, so we are willing to go to war if any of these partners are attacked? Did anyone do the math on that???)

Yep, we do not have budget deficit, we just never collected from all the other countries we have been carrying for all these years. It's time to start collecting!! Here is the big Washington con game Social Security,Medicare,etc. are SEPARATE SELF FUNDED TRUST FUNDS, they don't even get voted on. They are self funded and they have nothing to do with the current budget deficit!!!!!!!!, practically all of the budget deficit is shortfalls due to tax cuts,corporate welfare,funding to states and the big whomper stomper is the military, because of all the black budgets and off balance sheet budgets some people say that 50% of every tax dollar goes to to the military The world owes us a bunch of money and they better start paying up. Just to let you know my opinion on this matter Happy Independence day!

[JMA]

Yep, we do not have budget deficit, we just never collected from all the other countries we have been carrying for all these years. It's time to start collecting!!

Well if it is a "service" of a commercial nature then surely the customer must have some say on what service is being received and the quality thereof?

Do you really think the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese and the Brits would be prepared to pay for a service they have increasingly less say in the conduct of?

Korea may be a different story but then again why not try to bill China for the costs as they could bring that whole stand-off to an end in an instant if they wanted to?

Then if the US had the martial will they could start to collect protection money from the likes of Taiwan, Vietnam, Georgia etc etc who really have a problem and will surely be willing to pay big money for protection?

Oh yes and happy Independence Day for the 4th.

[slapout9]

Well if it is a "service" of a commercial nature then surely the customer must have some say on what service is being received and the quality thereof?

Do you really think the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese and the Brits would be prepared to pay for a service they have increasingly less say in the conduct of?

Korea may be a different story but then again why not try to bill China for the costs as they could bring that whole stand-off to an end in an instant if they wanted to?

Then if the US had the martial will they could start to collect protection money from the likes of Taiwan, Vietnam, Georgia etc etc who really have a problem and will surely be willing to pay big money for protection?

Oh yes and happy Independence Day for the 4th.

Ok some folks will get a rebate

[Bob's World]

Ok some folks will get a rebate

Way to take my strategic rant down a Slap-centric rabbit hole!

[Steve the Planner]

Is this Iraq/Afghanistan rebate thing one of those online phishing scams?

[JMA]

What exactly are the US values to be emulated?

The basics.

Fundamental freedoms and human rights.

When last did you read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and realise what is taken for granted in the US and yearned for across much of the earth?

Ever paused to think about in how many countries the local equivalent of this could lead to the "disappearance" of the cartoonist?

[Bob's World]

I prefer US "principles" (Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, self-determination of governance, all men created equal, etc)

I find any program of US values (any of the above principles with a current USA 2011 judgment applied to it) to be a bit offensive to push onto others (gay marriage, democracy, senseless entitlements for people who sit at home and produce nothing to society, health care for all with no revenue to resource, etc).

But yes, human rights are indeed important. I find in my research that people everywhere expect "legitimacy" of government (one they recognize as having the right to govern them); respect/dignity (all segments of the populace treated equitably regardless of race, religion, creed, etc); Justice (how the populace feels about the rule of law as it is applied to them); and hope (having trusted, certain and legal means IAW the respective culture to affect/shape government). These, I find, when absent, are the drivers of insurgency.

We need to take a big humility pill and back off on the rhetoric a bit. (Oh, and all of the drivers of insurgency described above are present in spades in Afghanistan; unless one is attached through patronage to the Northern Alliance and Mr. Karzai.)

[JMA]

I prefer US "principles" (Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, self-determination of governance, all men created equal, etc)

Bob, you (Americans) don't get to choose what the people of the world wish to emulate (from what they hear or understand happens in the US).

I grew in up parts of Africa where democracy became a buzz word. Few if any knew what democracy was other than a change in their current circumstances (that they were told by western do-gooders would be good for them). Sadly for most if not all the crisis of expectation was not satisfied and they moved from the frying pan into the fire (and the older people remember that they were delivered into evil by these western-gooders - while the youth see America as Hollywood and KFC and a place where you can call the president an ass or worse). Where the daily routine involves grinding poverty and fear of the regimes thugs such terms as "Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, self-determination of governance, all men created equal" are meaningless. Life is cheap, liberty is non-existent, pursuit of happiness is limited to sex, self determination of government - what?, all men created equal -you are joking right?

In countries that have never known freedom I suggest that these rights and ideals get couched in simple locally understandable language. For example in a brutal dictatorship where the secret police "lift" people at 3 o'clock in the morning the message would be understood if it were stated as "no more three o'clock knocks on the door".

I suggest that the US credits certainly the third world with enough intelligence to realise while the US turns a blind eye to the goings on in China, Saudi Arabia etc etc the message whatever it is will not be taken seriously... the aid money will be accepted (even demanded) but the message will be ignored.

In the case of Afghanistan do we really known what they want and yearn for? And how does that differ from what the US wants? At one stage long ago I thought that all the US wanted was to prevent Afghanistan allowing AQ to use the country as a safe haven and springboard for attacks on the US?