A Little History.
The “War in Afghanistan” is not the terminology the US
military used to describe its operation in Afghanistan. Its occupation is still referred to as
OEF. There are two military operations
in Afghanistan fighting for control over the country. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is a United States combat
operation involving some coalition partners and currently operating primarily
in the eastern and southern parts of the country along the Pakistan border.
Approximately 30,000 U.S. troops have been in OEF until the recent installation
of 15,000. The second
operation is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which
was established by the UN Security Council at the end of December 2001 to
secure Kabul and the surrounding areas.
NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003. By January 12, 2009, ISAF had
around 55,100 troops from 41 countries, with NATO members providing the core of
the force. The United States has approximately 23,300 troops in ISAF.
During the first invasion, the U.S. and the UK led the aerial bombing campaign, with ground forces supplied primarily by the Afghan Northern Alliance. In 2002, American, British and Canadian infantry were committed, along with special forces from several allied nations including Australia. Later, NATO troops were added.
The initial attack removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have since regained some strength. The war has been less successful in achieving the goal of restricting al-Qaeda's movement than anticipated. Since 2006, Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production, and a fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul. The war has been unsuccessful in its primary officially stated purpose of capturing Osama bin Laden, while tensions have grown between the USA and Pakistan due to incidents of coalition troops crossing the Pakistan border while pursuing Taliban fighters.
Analytically, the
merits of the Afghan war turn on three questions: What is really at stake? What
will it cost to pursue those stakes? And what is the likelihood that the
pursuit will succeed?
Rationale for US Troops in Afghanistan:
1.
To prevent
Afghanistan from ever again becoming a haven for terrorism against the United
States
2. To prevent Afghanistan’s chaos from destabilizing its neighbors, particularly Pakistan
STAKES
Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Al-Qaeda is no longer
based in Afghanistan – In 2002 it fled to Pakistan’s Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA).
It appears highly
unlikely the Taliban could secure a major portion of Afghan territory. The probability is about the same as
al-Qaeda finding sanctuary in weak states such as Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti,
Eritrea, and the Sudan, to parts of Latin America
U.S. interest is to
prevent chaos in Afghanistan from destabilizing Pakistan. Pakistan is a more dangerous prospective
state sanctuary for al-Qaeda. The
likelihood of government collapse in Pakistan enabling the establishment of
such a sanctuary approximates that in Afghanistan, at least in the medium to
long term.
Pakistan is at war
with internal Islamist insurgents allied to al-Qaeda, which is going
poorly. At risk is the success of
Pakistani insurgency collapsing the state or toppling the civilian
government. Nuclear weapons falling
into al-Qaeda’s hands would rise sharply.
Pakistani state
collapse is a danger over which the United States has only limited
influence. The United States is too
unpopular with the Pakistani public to have any meaningful prospect of
deploying major ground forces there to assist the government in
counterinsurgency.
U.S. aid is
routinely diverted from countering Islamist insurgents or even support for
Islamist groups seen by Pakistani authorities as potential allies against
India. Aid with demanding condition
Pakistan cannot fulfill would generate government ill will.
Failure in
Afghanistan would make the problem in Pakistan much harder.
The Taliban are a transnational Pashtun
movement closely associated with other Pakistani insurgents.
Its threat is in
rough proportion to the regime’s inherent weaknesses
If the Taliban
regained control of the Afghan state, their ability to use the state’s
resources to destabilize the secular government in Pakistan would increase the
risk of state collapse there.
U.S. primary
interest in Afghanistan is: to prevent Taliban aggravating Pakistan’s internal
problems and increasing a risk of al-Qaeda’s return.
Vast resources for
the US or multinationals. –
Counterinsurgency success based on 1 soldier to 50 civilians. In Afghanistan it requires 650,000 soldiers
and police. If any significant fraction
of this total must be American or NATO-based, the requisite resources would be
huge in relation to total force availability.
A small number of
highly motivated insurgents with simple weapons, good operations security, and
even limited mobility can undermine security over a large area.
Protracted
counterinsurgency operations are hard to sustain.
Loss of civilian and military lives
Length of time to win – 10 to 15 years
Appropriations for military bases. As of January 2009, the U.S. had begun work on $1.6 billion of new, permanent military installations, one at Kandahar, another at Zabul, a province now largely controlled by the Taliban and criminal gangs.
Regardless of
outcome, limited economic and political development in Afghanistan because of
geography and the corrupt Tarzai government.
The Taliban enjoys a
cross-border sanctuary in the FATA that the Pakistani government seems
unwilling or unable to eliminate. Success in Afghanistan will not eliminate the
sanctuaries in FATA.
The Taliban enjoys
freedom of movement, access to the population and financial support from a
thriving drug trade which, to date, counterinsurgency has done little to
combat.
Conflicts between
what the Afghanistan government seeks and the US belief that the aid we are
providing (military, material and financial) is to help the host government
defend all its citizens’ well being.
The Taliban are not
unified. Contrast them with the Viet Cong of 1964: a force in which a common
ideology bound the leadership together and linked it to its fighters. They are not a political entity and
membership is small. They are an
ideology and which has little appeal to most Afghans.
The NATO command
structure is divided, but the Taliban face difficulties as severe. One or more component factions of the
Taliban might decide to align with the government. This makes it difficult for the Taliban to mount large-scale,
coordinated offensives of the kind needed to conquer a defended city.
Taliban faces
difficulties extending its influence beyond southern and eastern
Afghanistan. Pushtuns make up less than
45 percent of Afghanistan’s population overall and comprise a very small group
of the population in the north and west, where the Taliban have very little
popular following.
Even with more than
50,000 Western troops in its defense, the Karzai government has proven unable
to contain Taliban influence and prevent insurgents from expanding their
presence. Yet our presence supports
this government as it remains the legitimate governing structure of
Afghanistan.
Potential for a
nuclear-armed al-Qaeda should not be exaggerated. For a U.S. withdrawal to lead to that result would require a
networked chain of multiple events: a Taliban restoration in Kabul, a collapse
of secular government in Islamabad, and a loss of control over the Pakistani
nuclear arsenal. None of these events are
certain and the compound probability of all of them happening is inherently
lower than the odds of any one step alone.
Potential for a
nuclear-armed al-Qaeda should not be exaggerated. For a U.S. withdrawal to lead to that result would require a
networked chain of multiple events: a Taliban restoration in Kabul, a collapse
of secular government in Islamabad, and a loss of control over the Pakistani
nuclear arsenal. None of these events
are certain and the compound probability of all of them happening is inherently
lower than the odds of any one step alone.
The odds of U.S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan yielding an al-Qaeda nuclear weapon next door in
Pakistan may be relatively low
Regardless of US aid
or increased troop strength, only the Afghans can create a legitimate
government, only the Pakistanis can shut down the safe havens in the FATA. We
can influence Afghanistan and Pakistan to a much greater degree than we have so
far, but we cannot guarantee reform ourselves.
Increased resistance by some Afghanis to the construction of these military installations.
Negative reactions of major allies in that area of the world on US military buildup. Increased terrorist attacks in other countries believed to be the result of increased fighting in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
Although most Americans supported the war, most people in the world oppose the war. In a 47-nation June 2007 survey of global public opinion, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found considerable opposition to U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan. Only in 4 out of the 47 countries surveyed was there a majority that favored keeping foreign troops
Taking all these
factors into account, advocates for withdrawal from Afghanistan certainly have
a case. The stakes are not limitless, the costs of pursuing them are high, and
there is no guarantee that even a high-cost counterinsurgency effort in
Afghanistan will succeed. But success is possible all the same, given our
strengths and our opponents’ limitations. And failure could have potentially
serious consequences for U.S. security.
If abandoned to its
fate the Karzai government would almost surely fare much worse. Nor would an
orphaned Karzai regime be in any position to negotiate a compromise settlement
that could deny the Taliban full control. With outright victory in their grasp,
it is hard to see why the Taliban would settle for anything less than a
complete restoration.
Taliban restoration
could restore to al-Qaeda a sanctuary for attacking the United States.
A Taliban
restoration would provide Pashtun militants and their allies in Pakistan a
massive launching pad for efforts to destabilize the regime in Islamabad.
Pakistani insurgents
might topple the Pakistan’s government, which raises the specter of Pakistani
nuclear weapons falling into al-Qaeda’s hands in Pakistan.
A U.S. withdrawal
would increase all the probabilities at each stage for a potential
nuclear-armed al-Qaeda, and the consequences for U.S. security if the chain did
play itself out could be severe.
Counterinsurgency
strategies in the new Army-Marine manual are the product of a nearly
unprecedented degree of internal debate, external vetting, historical analysis
and assessment of recent experience.
Their application will vet far more success than has been the case historically.
Because of Afghans
opposition to the return of Taliban rule, the US enjoys a strong presumption in
favor of the government, as long as that government provides at least basic
services competently. The presence of US
troops offers Afghans the security of preventing this possibility.
*********
Barack Obama’s
presidential campaign promised to de-emphasize Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan.
At the time, his Afghan hawkishness drew little opposition. The dovish wing of
the Democratic Party feared they might hand John McCain the presidency if they
undermined support for their nominee. Republicans saw the Iraq war and the
Afghan war as important on the merits and also as Republican political
legacies, discouraging opposition to either war.
Today the political
landscape is different. The Obama Administration put its stamp on Afghanistan
policy by boosting troop levels and contrasting this approach with Bush’s
COIN-lite methods there. But by putting his seal on the current strategy, Obama
has freed Republicans to criticize the conduct of a war that will now be waged
with a distinctively Democratic strategy and led by a new commanding general.
At the same time, some left-leaning Democrats, increasingly frustrated with the
Administration’s centrism on other issues, see escalation in Afghanistan as a
further demotion of the progressive agenda they expected Obama to push forward.
Meanwhile, the
American public, which has focused mostly on Iraq for the past six years, has
begun to rediscover Afghanistan—and it is uncomfortable with what it sees. A
March 17, 2009 USA Today/Gallup poll, for example, found that 42 percent of
those polled believed it was a mistake for the United States to send troops to Afghanistan,
up from 30 percent in February and just 6 percent in January 2002. The
percentage of those saying the war is going well dropped to 38 percent in March
from 44 percent just two months earlier.6
For now, the public
still supports both the war and the Obama Administration’s approach to it: A
February 20–22 Gallup poll found 65 percent of respondents favoring the
President’s decision to send an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan,
with only 17 percent favoring a total withdrawal. But that support is fragile.
Indeed, a nascent Afghan antiwar movement is already visible, and it includes
both Democrats and Republicans. It is small now, but if history is any guide,
it will grow as losses do, which they surely will. Even a successful counterinsurgency
campaign looks bad in the early going. Classical COIN trades higher losses
early on for lower casualties later, which will make the coming year in
Afghanistan a hard one, regardless of the strategy’s ultimate merits. Many of
the announced reinforcements will be used to clear areas now held by the
Taliban and hold them against counterattack, both of which will increase
near-term casualty rates. As the U.S. troop count increases, so will the
violence, and many will associate the former with the latter. Expect the calls
for withdrawal to grow apace with the body count.
The coming
Afghanistan debate is unlikely to get as vitriolic as the one over in Iraq in
2006–07. That affair erupted from a potent mix of partisanship and anger at
perceived deceit, and so is unlikely to recur. But the political problems the
new antiwar movement will pose for Obama could actually be harder to overcome
than those the Iraq opposition posed for Bush. After all, Bush was able to
circle the wagons, rally his base, and push an unpopular position through
Congress by holding the Republican Party together, thereby forcing
congressional Democrats to either unite behind a different approach to Iraq or
acquiesce in Republican policies. Democrats chose the latter, giving President
Bush the freedom to conduct the war as he wished.
Obama, by contrast,
heads a Democratic Party that is already divided on the Afghan war and likely
to grow more so over time. He also faces a series of domestic crises that will
require him to spend political capital in order to win support for his
governing agenda. Republicans have shown little willingness to cooperate on
anything else, and the Administration’s new ownership of the Afghanistan war
gives the GOP another opportunity to retreat into opposition as the news from
the front gets worse. Obama could face a situation in which a bipartisan
antiwar coalition threatens the majority he will need to maintain funding for
an increasingly unpopular war. His ability to impose party discipline could be
limited by competing priorities, depending in part on how long and how deep the
economic crisis turns out to be.
These challenges
will likely get harder over time. If U.S. forces reach a positive military
turning point in the Afghan campaign soon enough, political opposition in the
United States will wither, as it mostly has with regard to Iraq since late
2007. But if the conflict proves as long and arduous as many
counterinsurgencies have, votes on many budgets over several years will be
needed to bring this war to a successful conclusion. These votes will take
place against the backdrop of mounting casualties, increasing costs and growing
pressure to restrain Federal budgets in the face of unprecedented deficits. The
result could be a slow bleeding of support as a protracted COIN campaign goes
through its inevitable darkest-before-the-dawn increase in casualties and
violence.
Even if the Afghan
war were an unambiguous necessity, the political challenge of holding a
congressional coalition together through a long period of apparent gloom would
be hard enough. But a war whose merits skirt the margin of being worthwhile
makes this harder still, especially for an Administration that seeks to be
restrained and realistic about expectations in Afghanistan. Moreover, the strongest
part of the Administration’s case for war, the link between Afghanistan and
al-Qaeda, is ultimately indirect. The link is real, but with Osama bin Laden in
Pakistan and with the strategic importance of Afghanistan lying chiefly in its
effect on its neighbor, a candid, realistic appraisal of Afghanistan’s stakes
for the United States requires both modesty and the articulation of a more
complicated causal chain than is normal in wartime appeals for U.S. public
support. This is an honest leader’s nightmare and his speechwriter’s greatest
challenge.
However, reversing
policy and disengaging would be no easier for Obama. It would be the wrong
course on the merits. Politically, it would commit the Administration to a
policy now supported by only 17 percent of the electorate. It would play into
the traditional Republican narrative of Democratic weakness on defense,
facilitate widespread if ill-founded Republican accusations of the
Administration’s leftist radicalism, and risk alienating moderate Democrats in
battleground districts whose support the President will need on other issues.
However bad the news may look if the United States fights on, withdrawal would
probably mean a Karzai collapse and a Taliban victory, an outcome that would
flood American TV screens with nightmarish imagery.
Withdrawal would
also gamble the Democratic Party’s future—not to mention the nation’s—on the
hope that the worst potential consequences of withdrawal and collapse can be
averted safely. If the United States pulls out, the Karzai government falls,
the Taliban establishes an Afghan state haven, Pakistan collapses and a
Pakistani nuclear weapon falls into bin Laden’s hands, then a decision to walk
away from Afghanistan would be seen as one of the greatest foreign policy blunders
of the modern era. Unlikely as this chain of events may be, to withdraw from
Afghanistan while success is still possible is to accept this gamble
voluntarily. It is to stake potentially enormous consequences on a decision
that need not have been taken. Therein lies the dilemma: Neither course,
staying or leaving, is politically easy or strategically safe.
The best policy,
therefore, is to defend an expensive, risky, potentially unpopular war with an
argument that is sound but ultimately indirect and a close call on the merits.
And this will need to be done by the leader of a divided party in the face of
rising antiwar sentiment and a host of competing demands, political and
financial. Barack Obama is a perhaps uniquely skilled political communicator,
and his policy for Afghanistan is the right one. But even the right policy for
Afghanistan is going to be a very hard sell indeed.