by Eric Martin
There are a couple of recent items on Afghanistan worth checking out. First, Anthony Cordesman penned a pessimistic report about our chances at achieving some sort of victory in Afghanistan (at least as measured against the unrealistic criteria for success that we have been operating under). It's worth a read. Speaking of definitions of victory, Bernard Finel makes an intriguing argument:
All of which gets to a simple point: the surge in Afghanistan has worked out as well as anyone could reasonably hope. This is what success looks like. Accept it and understand the limitations on what we can accomplish.
The idea that responsive “government in a box” would be established quickly in clear areas, or that Afghan security forces would be able to backfill American forces to provide durable security, or that the Afghans (particularly Pashtuns) would spontaneously coalesce against the insurgency… that was all fantasy world stuff.
Forgot about good government. Forget about electricity in Kandahar. Forget especially about fantasies about mineral wealth...[T]he fact is that our biggest problem in developing a coherent Afghan strategy is the continued influence of people who have no interest in reality and are instead wedded to trying implement ahistorical and strategically incoherent concepts about how to defeat insurgencies.
But I digress. Jason Sigger weighs in on the Cordesman piece, as does Spencer Ackerman and Michael Cohen. I'd echo J-Sig's frustration with Cordesman's unwillingness to come to the obvious conclusion that his analysis walks him right to the edge of: it is well past time to de-escalate, big time, pare back our goals and, eventually, disengage. This is the same exasperation I felt with David Kilcullen's book about counterinsurgency doctrine - Kilcullen does a fine job of laying out the enormous difficulties of COIN campaigns, points out how costly and draining our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are, argues that containment would be a better model of counterterrorism, acknowledges the fact that our current strategy plays into Bin Laden's hands, yet, on the other hand, thinks we should keep on keeping on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Cordesman piece also touched off a re-evaluation of sorts from Andrew Exum regarding his take on our Afghanistan policy, and perhaps even the efficacy of COIN in general. He offers a list of prior assumptions that informed policy decisions, and analyzes each with the benefit of recent history as a feedback loop. One item in particular caught my eye:
"What we do is what matters".** Mostly false. I think we drew some false lessons out of the Baghdad security operations of 2007, thinking it was what we did that caused the dramatic drop in violence that allowed for a political process to take place and allows us to consider the Surge to have been a success. As I have pointed out several times here on the blog, there was a lot of stuff going on in Iraq in 2007 – a Jaysh al-Mahdi ceasefire, the effects of a brutal civil war, the Sahwa, etc. U.S. military operations most certainly had an effect on levels of violence, but correctly portioning out causal responsibility for the drop in violence among all those factors is impossible. One lesson from the Surge, though, might have been that in order for us to be successful in Afghanistan, a lot of stuff outside U.S. and allied military operations was going to have to go right. Another lesson might have been that conditions might change on the ground without us having the ability to accurately explain why. Regardless, in Afghanistan, it is always worth remembering that we are waging a war on behalf of a host nation. What the leaders of that host nation do or fail to do matters more than what we do or fail to do.
I agree with the general jist of what Exum is saying here, but wanted to focus on his definition of "success" with respect to the Surge. Exum considers the Surge a success because it, and the crucial extenuating developments he lists, created space for the political process to gain momentum and possibly lead to an accord sufficient to stop the fighting.
However, that accord has not been hammered out, hundreds of Iraqis are still dying in political violence each month, there are serious tensions between Iraq's various ethnic and sectarian communities and, due to this, Iraq ranks as the least peaceful country on Earth (edging out Afghanistan and Somalia, which is no small feat).
Which is to highlight the point that not only was the additional influx of soldiers oversold in terms of bringing about the reduction of violence in Iraq (from extra horrific to merely horrific), but even the eventual payoff that the Surge was supposed to deliver was greatly exaggerated. Using Exum's criteria, a successful Surge would create space for political progress that could wind down a conflict, but as is often the case, the conflict exists because there is no easy political solution - thus the "space" is likely to be of little use.
As I said at the time that the Surge was being sold to the public, the "political space as savior" argument inverted the essential dynamic driving events. Namely, the Iraqi groups weren't fighting because there wasn't a lull in the fighting long enough to reach a grand political accord, but rather there wasn't a lull in the fighting because the various factions could not agree as to the parameters of that same accord (including the presence of US troops).
Oh well. At least we haven't gone up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Yet.
Posted by: Hogan | June 17, 2010 at 05:12 PM
The center is not holding...the Empire crumples at the edges, and the inevitable decline and rot begins its acceleration.
That our "hope and change" president appears so utterly clueless in this regard should not come as either a surprise or a disappointment.
Posted by: bobbyp | June 17, 2010 at 09:20 PM
At least we haven't gone up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Next President of the United States: Don Corleone.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 18, 2010 at 03:24 AM
Hey, I have an idea. Could the US not somehow get the Chinese to invade Afghanistan while the US withdraws. In that case China could suffer the Soviet fate while the US would survive (barely) as a superpower instead. The mineral wealth should be big enough a bait. For a trifecta, Iran should be persuaded to go in as China's ally. ;-)
Posted by: Hartmut | June 18, 2010 at 05:03 AM
As far as I can see, there is only one action which the US could take which would have a substantial impact on our prospects in Afghanistan. If we were to legalize the poor Afghans' only economic crop, rather than persistently trying to destroy it (on top of everything else), we might have a prayer of convincing the population to show some support for our other goals. Especially since the Taliban, until we arrived, were equally negative on the subject.
Unfortunately, the chances of our legalizing opiates any time soon are effectively nil. (And yes, I do know that we are party to various treaties on the subject. But mostly they were written at our behest, so if we indicated a change in policy, I think they would collapse.) Which means that our chances of victory, defined almost any way, are equally poor.
Posted by: wj | June 18, 2010 at 10:49 AM
"At least we haven't gone up against a Sicilian when death is on the line."
Inconceivable!
Posted by: Marty | June 18, 2010 at 01:58 PM
And a happy Friday to you, Marty.
Posted by: Hogan | June 18, 2010 at 02:37 PM
And happy Father's Day to everyone who is or has a father. May the gratitude and appreciation be widespread and pleasant.
Fathers si, patriarchs no.
Posted by: Hogan | June 19, 2010 at 09:23 PM