MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[Bob's World]

It seems to me that it is entirely possible that neither side can win: that the international community cannot defeat the insurgency or build a stable, functional, Afghan government that can assure security and exercise effective control over large parts of the country, while the Taliban cannot (given both their ethnic and sectarian opponents, as well as rivals within the Pashtun community) capture Kabul as they did in September 1996.

I think I've made this point before, the real risk—from an Afghan perspective---is that this become the prolonged reality. The international community slowly disengages from a COIN fight is can't win, but throws enough money and guns at the ANA/ANP, the ex-Northern Alliance, southern warlords, and others (including Iranian support to Hazara militias) to stalemate the Taliban. The Taliban, on the other hand, consolidate practical control over parts of the country, while fighting a continued civil war.

The depressing model here is Lebanon, 1975-90. Everyone (Israel, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the PLO, Iran, etc.) simply threw resources at local clients in such a way to prevent their opponents from 'winning."

And perspectives drive priorities, which in turn shape the nature of engagement.

When one defines 'victory' what perspective, exactly, are they assessing that from? Even in politics we describe these things in terms of one particular candidate or party "winning" and the other "losing." What of the populace? How did the populace fare? Did the people win or lose or really have no change in their lives from the perceived victory or loss?

This goes to what I have described as "Government-Centric engagement" (where one commits themselves or their country to the preservation of a particular government or even form of government over some other); or "Threat-Centric engagement" (where one commits themselves or their country to the defeat of some particular threat) with little regard to the impact on the very populace that is either governed by that government you seek to sustain (or take down, for that matter); or from which the threat one is hard-set to defeat emanates from.

I believe we see a bit of both of this in Afghanistan. We can say we are conducting "Population-Centric COIN", but that is really describing TACTICs, not the strategic/operational focus. At the strategic/operational level we simply cannot seem to wean ourselves from making our priority the preservation of some form or particular man in government; or from the defeat of some particular threat.

This is the phenomenon that I attempted to address in the two papers that I published regarding what I termed "Populace-centric engagement." (Thread and links on SWJ). Suggesting that in the emerging information age with vastly empowered populaces and corresponding evolving perspectives on "sovereignty" that now, more than ever, it might be far more effective to worry less about preserving or defeating governments; or defeating "threats" in the pursuit of national interests; but to instead focus on designing engagement that builds relationships with the very populaces of the world as well.

In reality this in simplest terms is a shift of priority. We state that the Defeat of the Taliban is NOT our priority in Afghanistan. We state that the preservation of the Karzai Government is NOT our priority in Afghanistan. We state instead, that enabling stability, good governance, and a positive relationship with the PEOPLE of Afghanistan is our priority.

This puts Mr. Karzai on notice that we are not here to protect, preserve or even support HIM. He is expendable. He must lead, follow, or get out of the way.

This prevents us from painting ourselves into an "exit strategy-less" corner that makes "defeat" of some particular threat the measure of success, when in fact, that threat may well hold a portion of the answer.

This prevents us from designing a scheme of engagement that may appear to make headway in preserving governmental stability in a country, or in quelling threats to that government, but does so on the backs of the very populace that government is supposed to support. I believe far too much of our Cold War and post-Cold War engagement in the Middle East in particular falls into this category. And I believe it is this very form of engagement that forms the existential threat to the U.S.; not the governments or threats that draw so much of our attention currently.