What Is Our Strategic Endstate in Afghanistan?

[SWJED]

?

[Entropy]

You've identified the fundamental problem with our intervention in Afghanistan.

[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

[Ron Humphrey]

?What Is Our Strategic Endstate in Afghanistan?

You've identified the fundamental problem with our intervention in Afghanistan.

The ones who WILL ultimately decide that probably aren't getting a whole lot of input into that particular discussion.

[Rank amateur]

If you keep asking these kind of questions, my presence here will serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

What it was: to remove the Taliban from government, which was obviously insufficient.

What our objective is now: to disrupt Al Qaeda, which arguably we are being somewhat successful at it, but there are still many problems and that objective does not include an end state.

What it should be: more or less what Hacksaw said, but in order to achieve that will need significantly more troops and it will need to deny the Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan. (Dropping a few bombs, and launching a few raids won't do it; that's just makes it easier for the Taliban to gain support amongst Pakistani tribes.)

[Eden]

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

Uhhh...looks like we'll need to invade Pakistan, too.

I would propose:

A place run by sons-a-bitches who don't like the Taliban and are in it strictly for the dough.

Not that it matters, since NATO is running the show now. Any government supported as legitimate by Afghanis would not pass muster with the Europeans.

[wm]

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 think that the third goal may well be a bridge too far. Suppose we throw that one out and recognize that the area we now call Aghanistan has had a long history of surviving by means of an economy based on subsistance agriculture/herding and banditry/law breaking of one sort or another.

The concern in point 2 is different, I submit. It has nothing to do with the amount of security forces (as "adequate" seems to imply) available. Rather it has to do with the will of those running the country to act in a way that we in the US (and the rest of NATO since ISAF is now in Afghanistan) want them to act. Pakistan has the means to handle the NWFP/FATA problem but not the desire. I suggest the Taleban were in a similar situation when they held sway in Kabul. I doubt our continued occupation of the country will change the national Afghan will (if there even is such a thing) in this area.

The need for Point 1 is a mystery to me. Did the Afghans have such a thing before we got there? Have they ever had such a thing?
I am also unclear why we need Afghanistan to be stable enough to resist adventurous takeover attempts by its neighbors (condition 4). As far as I can tell, these positions are a holdover from the England vs. Russia Great Game "### for tat" mentality which is now being re-enacted between the US and Russia with such things as NATO naval exercises in the Black Sea being countered by joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises in the Caribbean.

[Hacksaw]

Caveat first... the stated end state was more or less articulated to CENTCOM leadership in May '02 in response to a question in a briefing, but let me take some of these on...

What is the alternative to a legitimate government described as such by recognized as legitimate by its citizens? I didn't specify form - our sensibilities would prefer a mini-me democracy, but I agree that isn't in the cards... the government does need to be legitimate in order to avoid creating large swaths of ungoverned areas from which terrorists of all sorts of ilk can take refuge and plan future attacks. This seems self-evident, but if it needed stating so be it.

Why did you limit the term adequate to mean only quantity of security forces? Isn't adequacy in any situation a function of quality and quantity. Not sure why you would assume that a million man army unwilling to security its own territory would be deemed "adequate" because its large...

Something other than a narco-economy is tough but not a bridge too far? I'll note I didn't say poppy cultivation reduced to zero, I simply said it can't dominate economic activity, otherwise it prejudices all other activities to the point of irrelevance. Of course this means something other than a military solution -- imagine that..

As for able to resist military adventurism - this is important. The vestigages of the old grand game is that in some cases it is best to create instability in the neighboring nation to mitigate it as a threat, or to create instability on a rival's border to create another challenge for the rival. In any case Iran, Pakistan, India, and Russia all have a history of doing so -- ungoverned areas, failed state etc etc...

Now I'm not wedded to these by any stretch. To be honest I had to stretch to remember them in paraphrased form, but I don't think they are nearly as far off as you. You might ask why we chose to declare war on the Taliban, but once in these aren't so bad...

Now as for Pakistan and their ability but unwillingness to do something in the FATA, that is debatable and is really a US centric view. Could/should/would we like them to do more? Yep Is it necessarily feasible for them to do a lot more -- room for disagreement.

Live well and row

[wm]

Uhhh...looks like we'll need to invade Pakistan, too.

I would propose:

A place run by sons-a-bitches who don't like the Taliban and are in it strictly for the dough.

Not that it matters, since NATO is running the show now. Any government supported as legitimate by Afghanis would not pass muster with the Europeans.

Actually, I think we have a major violation of the principle of war Unity of command. We seem to have two different agendas running: the NATO one and the US one. Perhaps we cannot clearly identify a strategic endstate because of that fact.

[Hacksaw]

This should help...

General David D. McKiernan, United States Army, for reappointment to the rank of general and assignment as Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan. He is currently serving as Commander, International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan.


The dual hat puts him in charge of all forces... still doesn't fully address the myriad of problems - specifically national caveats - but its a start

[Eden]

It should help in many ways, though I suspect that for all practical purposes McKiernan had a great deal of influence over US forces in Afghanistan before being dual-hatted. Problem is, ISAF is an operational level headquarters. They don't get to pick strategy or end-state.

And to clarify a point about legitimacy. The type of government that most Afghans would consider legitimate - a very weak center that can nevertheless be used as a counterweight to the tribe upstream - is not the type of government that can prevent exploitation of ungoverned spaces. Therefore, to meet our strategic ends, we must foist on the Afghans a type of governance that is foreign to them. This is the disconnect. Its not impossible, but boy is it a long-term project (cf British in India)

[Hacksaw]

Weak center, while not the most effective in negating large swaths of ungoverned can still work, especially with tech help from big brother. If the stated policy is we won't allow terrorists to openly use our land as a place to plan and launch attacks... and the strong outside agree (both incentive and coersive reasons) you can deny terrorists freedom of maneuver - probably a lot better than you can in a society like our own. Tribe/Warlord/Elder/Mayor/Governor whatever and people just have to be OK with a little domestic head cracking of outsiders bringing bad attention.

Again, don't think these are mutually exclusive.

[William F. Owen]

What Is Our Strategic Endstate in Afghanistan?

Why do you have to decide on one now? Seriously, where has it ever been written that policies should be defined by "objectives," rather than "activities." If someone has biased everything towards "objectives" then it would seem to be a flawed idea, looking at history and human nature.

The "objectives" say "when we have done X, we will have won." - and you may not have.

Activities allow you to keep doing something in relation to some measure of success (reduction in violence, reduction in drugs production), and to exploit opportunities as and when they arise. Success is being better off. If it's not worth the price, then give up.

In combat you have to win, but when you do security, you have to maintain it, until it's not needed.

Strategy and it's related areas, are like washing, hunting for food, farming or maintaining fitness. It's not a sports event. You have to keep doing it, or decide to give up. Just like fitness training, some measure of success helps, but you can't keep getting fitter. You have to have a job and a life besides. Hope that analogy isn't a step too far.

[Bill Moore]

Seriously, where has it ever been written that policies should be defined by "objectives," rather than "activities." If someone has biased everything towards "objectives" then it would seem to be a flawed idea, looking at history and human nature.

The "objectives" say "when we have done X, we will have won." - and you may not have.

Policy is not defined by objectives, but doctrinally we use objectives for military planning, which supports policy, so there is a correlation, at least to the M in DIME.

The post-Vietnam War doctrine, the so called Powell doctrine was to restrict the use of the military to operations where we could use overwhelming force to obtain clear militarily acheivable objectives(really a request for a policy to limit the use of the military to specific types of operations). The pleas for no more quagmires, so operations (where conventional forces were used) started looking more pristine like Grenada, Just Cause, and Desert Storm. Clear objectives that were achievable with over whelming force.

Yet in the shadows during the Cold War the USG continued activities on a regular long term basis in the pursuit of policy. For example, the use of Special Forces to support host nations fight communism was known, but it was a low visibility activity and not overly politically sensitive. There is a big difference politically between deploying a hand full of Special Forces Soldiers to help a host nation battle a communist insurgency and deploying a battalion or larger of conventional forces to fight.

When we deploy conventional forces America generally wants to see results, or political will tends to wane rather rapidly. Some politicians like Bill Clinton had the political skill to maintain the national and international will (barely) to stay in Bosnia and Kosovo. On the other hand, he didn't even attempt to sustain the political will to stay in Somalia. In irregular warfare the only decisive operation is sustained, long term engagement. We can do that with the other elements in DImE, but normally need to restrict long term military engagements to SOF and a few conventional enablers. By long term I mean at least five years, normally much more (use El Salvador as an example).

Using militarily obtainable objectives is an American way of fighting a war, because it allows us to define victory and show we're on the path to do so, which makes the employment of conventional military forces politically sustainable.

I'm no expert on Afghanistan, but I suspect we need to focus the conventional forces on clearing areas of Taliban maneuver elements, so they are incapable of over running combat outposts employed to protect the populace. That would set the conditions for SOF to combat advise Afghan security forces in securing the populace, promoting HN government legitimacy and clearing out the remaining insurgent underground.

I'll stand by for the Afghan experts to tell me why that won't work.

[UrsaMaior]

It would be superfluous to raise your esteemed attention but NATO <> EU or WEU (if it still exists). USA and Canada lies on the continent of America and Turkey is in Asia.

For me irrespective of the fate of Afghanistan a real endstate would be a strong and unified NATO. Sooner or later the western world (that means from California to Estonia, from Texas to Poland, and from the UK to AUS/NZ) will face serious economical, political, social and even military challanges.

I wish EU leaders would stop being such "bunnies" in military issues, and US leaders would stop seeing us as REMFs at the same time. Now that would be an endstate.

[Ken White]

...Using militarily obtainable objectives is an American way of fighting a war, because it allows us to define victory and show we're on the path to do so, which makes the employment of conventional military forces politically sustainable.

the results in Korea, Viet Nam and those likely in Afghanistan and Iraq mean that your statement, while arguably correct as worded, is an example of a nation (us) not facing the reality that the world has changed...

My greater fear is that there are some in high places in the Armed Forces who don't realize that particular change has occurred.

[Bill Moore]

Some senior leaders get, some still believe they are defending us from future Vietnams, but regardless of their position SWED's question, "what is our strategic endstate in Afghanistan?" is critically important.

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.

If our goal is to establish a stable (relative to what) 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.)

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?

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?

Someone wrote we just need to get to "good enough", but still requires determining what good enough is.

[jmm99]

in most cases.

Read Bill Moore's and Ken White's comments while sitting here thinking (trying to be a smart, lazy guy) about METT-TC as an analogy to trial work - and applying it to case strategy (the "law" is the policy part, which shapes the case strategy - which also depends on the facts).

Anyway, got to thinking about the "M" part. What is my mission in a case. I came up with:

1. to win (judge or jury verdict); or

2. to reach an acceptable settlement.

Surrender has never been an option - in cases I've taken on; or have been forced to take, for that matter.

I suspect, from other things he's said, that Ken's reference to "the results in Korea, Viet Nam and those likely in Afghanistan and Iraq" boils down to the need to consider "an acceptable settlement" - "War of 1812 Redux" ?

[Ski]

We look at DIME as being the tools to define the endstate, but they might be the wrong tools.

It might be as simple as getting the Afghan people to actually believe there is a country of Afghanista and not a kluge of tribes.

This requires a feeling of nationalism which is going to be absent as long as there Taliban, AQ, HiG, and other armed elements running around the country. The idea of allegiance to a national cause has not been developed fully.

We can talk about DIME until we are blue in the face, but until the Afghan people believe in a national cause, a national government and national unity, it's a mess. We are trying to define the problem through our lens.

[Bill Moore]

Ski I wasn't trying to use DIME to describe our endstate (though it may have read that way), I was attempting to make the argument that a realistic endstate is one we can achieve using our elements of national power.

I'm not totally sold on your argument, but let's say your correct, and since we're the ones there attempting to encourage that "transformational" change, how do "we" help the Afghan people develop and embrace the idea of nationalism? Information? Diplomacy? Economic incentives? Using the military to neutralize those who oppose it?

The problem presented is to define our desired endstate. You identified a problem that we may have to solve to get to the endstate.