There
has been too much focus on troop numbers. Debating whether to send 20,000
troops to Afghanistan,
or 40,000, or to bring some home, misses the point entirely: The key is
deciding the strategy and then
determining what resources will be needed to support that strategy. The U.S. could deploy five million soldiers to Afghanistan,
but they will fail if the end goal is not clearly defined, if they are not
trained to support the strategy necessary to reach that goal, and if the
numerous government agencies taking part in the mission are not unified in how
to reach it. That, unfortunately, is the current state of affairs.
The
two main strategies being bandied about now -- counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism -- are quite distinct, both in terms of the end goal, and how
you go about reaching it. One is about state building, the other about
containing a problem. What won't work is trying to split the two strategies
down the middle.
I
support the idea of a properly resourced COIN strategy, but I am pessimistic
about the chances of success in Afghanistan
unless certain key factors start changing.
One. The military effort must be
supported by an intensive diplomatic effort to ease regional tensions that
contribute, in a variety of ways, to violence, corruption and instability
inside Afghanistan.
These include the India/Pakistan divide and the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Obama could set an example
for India and Pakistan by
sitting down with Iranian leaders.
Two. Washington must clean up its own house
before it can expect the Afghans and Pakistanis to weed out corruption. That
means not keeping alleged drug
smugglers on the CIA payroll. It means not allowing U.S. contractors to
skim off huge percentages of the contracts they win by subcontracting
(depending on whom you ask, somewhere between 40 and
90
percent of the aid US taxpayers send to Afghanistan never reaches the
Afghan people). It means stopping contracts with firms who pay off the
insurgents for protection (Coalition troops, working with local communities,
should protect projects that the communities themselves have requested).
Three. Define how the various factions
of the enemy, as well as corrupt state actors, victimize the local population,
and start protecting them against those activities. Across the battle space,
insurgents engage in drug smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, banditry, and the
central victims are the villagers who live in the places they operate. U.S. officials
(and the Taliban) claim the insurgents get money from donations, but last time
I checked, it's not called a donation when someone has got a gun to your head.
I am fairly sure the Marines currently deployed to Helmand did not join the
Marines because they wanted to be a policeman in Helmand,
but there are basic law enforcement strategies that could help them clean up
the communities where they are deployed, where factions of the Taliban behave
more like criminal gangs than a military force.
I'm
not suggesting any of this will be simple, and it won't happen fast. But
eventually Obama -- or someone else -- is going to have to get serious about
cleaning up this region.
Agree with most of your comments but am curious how we will bring "centralized government" to one of the most decentralized places on the planet?
Unless we want to make Pres Karzai the mayor of Kabul and have untold thousands of American Soldiers as his Praetorain Guard, I would suggest we go to the real power brokers in Afghanistan, the clan / tribal leaders, and do what you suggest.
Unfortunately, we have to deal with the central government but, ala Iraq, we should focus our efforts at the grass roots level. Much more effort needs to be made in unifying our IGOs and NGOs and getting them moving in the same direction and more importantly, on the same team. I realize this will be like herding cats and it won't be be easy, but it's got to be done.
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