Going Deep in Afghanistan

Fred Kaplan points out that what Robert Gates is asking the Europeans to do in Afghanistan won't really make a big difference. What's needed, instead, is something much larger:

What is needed now goes well beyond Germany's reticence, goes well beyond NATO. What's needed is a full-blown initiative—military, economic, diplomatic—involving all the nations of the region. It requires imagination, tireless negotiations, heaps of money (in part to pay for other countries' troops, since we have so few to spare), and some unpleasant deal-making with some otherwise unpleasant nations.

I think this re-enforces what I was saying earlier about Afghanistan. On the one hand, it's not possible to imagine a global effort of this scale succeeding without stepped-up American involvement. And on the other hand, it's not possible to imagine Europeans committing in this way to Afghanistan unless the United States is committing itself as well. If we want the Europeans to treat this as a major priority, in other words, we need to act like it's a major priority rather than as if the idea is for Europe to hold our coat in Central Asia so we can keep throwing more resources into Iraq.

Speaking of which, I recommended Fred Kaplan's book Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power back when I read it, rather than now when it's available in stores. Always a mistake. Kaplan is vital reading, as you can perhaps tell from my constant quoting of his Slate columns, and the book is no less vital. At this point, basically everyone can see that the Bush foreign policy has been a disaster. But what's still not well-understood is why it's been such a disaster. The book demonstrates that it's much more than a matter of Bush "blundering" or some such rather -- rather, as Kaplan lays out, Bush's policies have been driven by ideas that seemed right but are, in fact, wrong. Importantly, as Kaplan's recounting makes clear, the ideas, though wrong, tend to be at least somewhat plausible, raising the danger that the ideas themselves will continue to live in some form beyond Bush's presidency.

(Of course, my book, Heads in the Sand is also good.)

Comments

while we're busy praising kaplan's excellence on matters of national security, let us also note that he is (with gary giddins and bob blumenthal both having moved on to other things) probably the best working jazz critic in the country. his jazz blog is here:

http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/

Posted by howard | February 11, 2008 2:33 PM

Afghanistan is a perennial 4th world country. Plans to make it a viable third or second world country are pointless. Negotiations with neighboring countries won't do anything about the Taliban/Al Qaeda's safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

That said, the current military situation isn't so bad: At a relatively low cost in Western lives, we're running a roach motel for a continual stream of AQ/Taliban types. Better they go to their jihadist deaths in the wastelands of Afghanistan than look for action around these parts.

The one policy change that would help welcome would be for us to buy up substantially all of Afghanistan's poppy crop. That would deny AQ and the Taliban the money they make as middlemen and, unlike spraying the poppy fields, this won't alienate ordinary Afghans.

"let us also note that he is (with gary giddins and bob blumenthal both having moved on to other things) probably the best working jazz critic in the country."

You mean that there's no black man in America who can write well enough to be the top Jazz critic, and they have to rely on Jew? Sounds a little condescending and racist to me.

Posted by Juan | February 11, 2008 3:04 PM

Juan, talk about condescending and racist, the notion that only a "black man" could be the best jazz critic in the country certainly fits the bill.

in the real world, jazz is no longer rooted in the african-american experience as it once was and jazz criticism - from roger dodge to fred kaplan - has largely been a domain of white men.

this isn't to say that AB Spellman's limited body of criticism isn't brilliant, that when you want to understand swing music you don't turn to the work of Albert Murray, that Stanley Crouch can't get to the heart of the matter as quickly as anyone, that Quincy Trope doesn't know his shit, but none of them is an active, regularly working jazz critic.

it is also entirely possible that some of the other critics that i read are african-american and i just don't know, but if i thought one of them was day in, day out "better" than kaplan, i would have said so.

Posted by howard | February 11, 2008 3:25 PM

"but none of them is an active, regularly working jazz critic."

So the Jew works harder at it than the black critics, and that's why he's the best?

Posted by Juan | February 11, 2008 3:29 PM

Long-view historians will point out how the US fucked over NATO in the 2000s.

Anyway, Daniel Davies talked about this recently:

Surely you would have thought that, prior to any discussion of "what should we do?" there would need to be an assessment of "what can we do?" - or, at the very least, that anyone making the case that we need to do more with our army is under some sort of implied duty to explain how this is going to be achieved. Because it isn't obvious.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 11, 2008 3:30 PM

Deal-making with the French and Germans needn't be as unpleasant as Kaplan suggests.

This is just silly. It isn't possible to imagine the effort succeeding unless the US leads the way. And if the US leads the way, then no one else will do anything, because why should they? We've seen this movie before.

Posted by Thomas | February 11, 2008 3:31 PM

"I think this re-enforces what I was saying earlier about Afghanistan. On the one hand, it's not possible to imagine a global effort of this scale succeeding without stepped-up American involvement."

In fact it is not at all possible to imagine such an effort with or without "stepped-up American involvement". The window of opportunity of doing something constructive in Afghanistan and the broader region is now over all that's left is the slow bleed. It is unfortunate, but it is time to leave Afghanistan, regroup if possible around a sane, less ambitious foreign policy. Pull in the hegemonic, imperial goals. Give the Emerald City to the Iraqis. Promote peace and justice. Yeah. I know. Fat chance.

Posted by della Rovere | February 11, 2008 3:45 PM

"Promote peace and justice."

How, specifically?

Posted by Harry | February 11, 2008 3:48 PM

It still boils down to the point that Bush opted for a set of policy options -- war on two fronts -- that he was unwilling to provide the resources to achieve.

No one can deny that a major factor in the protracted war in Afghanistan and Iraq is that Bush tried to fight them on the cheap.

We might still be fighting, but if we had had enough boots on the ground to provide security in the first place the insurrection would have been massively smaller.

Posted by spencer | February 11, 2008 3:48 PM

juan, it's evident that you're an ass who doesn't know what he's talking about, but for the sake of the innocent bystanders:

AB Spellman wrote his brilliant Four Lives in the Bebop Business (under a different title originally, but i can't recall it) in 1960; he's been at the NEA since 1975, where he's done many great things for jazz (he is a key person in the Jazz Masters program), but he isn't an active critic.

Albert Murray, whom i had the lucky opportunity to meet and interact with several times, doesn't even regard himself as a "jazz" critic but rather as a "cultural" critic. Murray basically doesn't much care for anything after bebop, he doesn't write "reviews," and he's in ill-health and basically hasn't written anything in quite a while, although Stomping the Blues remains a formative text (and while we're talking about Murray, we should also mention that his lifelong friend Ralph Ellison wrote a handful of exquisite essays about jazz that have been collected, but he too wasn't a regular jazz critic).

Stanley Crouch primarily writes about politics in his daily news column (he hasn't regularly written about jazz since he left the village voice a number of years back after an unfortunate incident where he put a fellow writer - an african-american, if you insist upon knowing, Juan - in a chokehold due to a disagreement about some critical point).

Quincy Troupe loves jazz, but he's a writer, a poet, and a professor, and simply doesn't spend that much time on jazz as such.

exactly why you think any of this means that i'm accusing Spellman, Murray, Crouch, and Troupe of not toiling sufficiently in the low-paid vineyards of jazz criticism (i bet, for instance, that Troupe made more on his Miles co-written autobiography than Kaplan makes in several years of jazz writing for slate and stereo review) is, i suspect, something for you and your psychotherapist to work out.

after, that is, you explain to us why a leading jazz critic has to be a "man" and why you think being "jewish" enters into this at all.

Posted by howard | February 11, 2008 3:53 PM

As I wrote in the earlier thread, when the majority of the Islamic terrorists come from a country with a US-friendly regime since decades back (namely, Saudi Arabia), then it's time to start thinking.

As for transforming Afghanistan, colonianism is so dead. Especially in a Muslim country.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 11, 2008 3:57 PM

Actually, the Taliban weren't a problem for anyone outside of Afghanistan. It was Al Qaeda that was. And they come from... And they are in...

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 11, 2008 4:05 PM

FYI, Howard, when someone writes:

So the Jew works harder at it than the black critics, and that's why he's the best?

that someone isn't interested in debate, he's trying to push your buttons (a.k.a. "trolling") and any response you might dignify him with is just going to draw more of the same bullsh*t. To engage is to lose.

Posted by James Gary | February 11, 2008 4:10 PM

Obviously there are other reasons for the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations, naked Imperial reasons. I think Matthew should deal with those, rather than the cover reasons. Helping the Afghans is a cover reason. Helping the Iraqis is also a cover reason, as you can see with those who support indefinite occupation: they don't care how many Iraqis who die, and they don't care what the living Iraqis think.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 11, 2008 4:26 PM

Hmm, Mr. Kaplan, I think not. The Pushtun (in the guise of the Taliban, but really, the same as always) will win for no other reason than they have won every single war ever (EVER) fought in Afghanistan. Doesn't matter how long it takes, they will win.

And what's more, the Pushtun cultures reveres fighting. Why should they ever want to become peaceful service economy workers like the rest of the world?

Posted by Greg | February 11, 2008 4:34 PM

matt, you should consider more forcefully selling your own book.

FOR EXAMPLE YOU SAID
Speaking of which, I recommended Fred Kaplan's book Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power back when I read it, rather than now when it's available in stores.

YOU SHOULD SAY
I recommended Fred Kaplan's book Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power back when I read it, AND THESE IDEAS HAVE BEEN EXAMINED IN MORE DETAIL IN MY BOOK "Heads in the Sand"

ALL CAPS WOULD REALLY MAKE THE POINT!

BTW, BOTH GOOD BOOKS

Posted by jvoe | February 11, 2008 4:37 PM

it may be that a go-big, go-long" strategy would work in Afghanistan, but it is fantasy to think that that will come about. the Europeans don't have the military capability to help much for long, and if they did they for certes don't have the political will. (and in fairness, it may be a hopeless cause for now.) all the while the US is breaking its ground forces with Iraq and its consequences. America should be planning for how to deal with the continued chaos of the warlord-narco-state that is Afghanistan instead of trying grand schemes to stop what it cannot control. trying to remake middle eastern cultures from the west is a misguided and often destructive cause.

Posted by john | February 11, 2008 4:38 PM

"As for transforming Afghanistan, colonianism is so dead."

As if "colonialism" is an accurate description of what we are doing there.

Posted by Juan | February 11, 2008 4:50 PM

Another of the "ideas that, though wrong, tend to be at least somewhat plausible" is the one expressed with dogged determination and persistent ignorance by Matt and others, that all that's missing in the effort to make Afghanistan EU-ready is "more American commitment". It is to laugh.

The US has spent more blood and treasure in Afghanistan than all the other "allies" combined. This was the one EVERYONE agreed on, including Chirac and Schroeder, so it's a pretty good measure of what's available in the way of burden sharing. And things would not be measurably improved by moving an armored division from Mosul to Kandahar--ask the Soviets.

Most nations in the world have neither the interest nor the ability to do things like stabilize Afghanistan. Maybe none do. In any case, many of the people crying crocodile tears about the populations in such places were nowhere to be found when Afghanistan was in the grips of a Khmer Rouge-like reign of terror; or when the Ba'athist regime in Iraq was killing hundreds of thousands in wars of aggression (many tens of thousands of them with nerve gas), and the UN sanctions killed about a million more innocent Iraqis, half of them children. Dutch and German chemical companies supplied the materials, ex-Warsaw Pact nations supplied vast amounts of conventional arms, more of which would certainly have been bought with the billions on the way from the Total/Fina/Elf deal signed in 2002 in spite of the sanctions. We not only have to clean up the mess but take sanctimonious abuse from the bleachers.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 11, 2008 5:02 PM

As if "colonialism" is an accurate description of what we are doing there.

Well, it seems to me to be spreading culture by force at this point. And the American base is at an oil pipeline, as far as I remember. Of course, that could be a coincidence, although I don't believe that.

What do you think is going on there?

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 11, 2008 5:05 PM

We not only have to clean up the mess but take sanctimonious abuse from the bleachers.

Actually this is about you asking us to clean up your mess, because you are bloody incompetent.

Of course, my book, Heads in the Sand is also good.

Please, please stop it, it's another 2 months, I hate this "coming soon" stuff. We all know it's coming out and we'll all buy it, promise, but unless you provide us with some exclusive excerpts (how's that for a clever marketing idea?) what's the point?

Posted by novakant | February 11, 2008 5:23 PM

shorter robert powell: i miss the good old days of fall, 2002, and spring, 2003, when any old blithering idiocy was regarded as "serious" as long as you assured us that there has never been a dictator as awful as saddam.

PS. you do remember, robert, don't you, that we supported saddam in his "war of aggression" against iran? i'm sure you do....

Posted by howard | February 11, 2008 5:33 PM

From Kaplan's piece:

"However, he also said that a counterinsurgency campaign, along the lines of U.S. doctrine, would require more than 400,000 NATO and Afghan troops."

In other words, like I said in another of Matt's idiotic posts on Afghanistan, if you transplanted all of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq to Afghanistan, you still wouldn't have enough troops to win. All you would do is transform Afghanistan into Iraq.

This general is basically telling people: It's impossible.

Because he knows: Where the hell are you going to get 400,000 troops - even including the Afghans which he admits amount to no more than 80,000 of questionable effectiveness?

And Kaplan's "initiative" amounts to what? "Nation building" - which has not been successful anywhere anytime, least of all in Afghanistan.

Like I said earlier, who wants to pour $100-200 billion a year, half a million troops, and hundreds of thousands of NGO workers into Afghanistan for a period of twenty years or more to transform this Third World country into a successful state?

How many people do you want to kill - or fundamentally transform from their present identity - to accomplish this? Can you kill most of the warlords and Pashtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and NOT have their children hate you for the next generation or two?

And which Third World country do you start on next? How many decades - or centuries - do you want to spend on these projects?

Is it a good idea in terms of the desired outcome? Sure.

Is it doable?

No.

So Kaplan's "initiative" is just "and a pony".

And this is why Obama's foreign policy is bullshit - because he wants to "finish the fight in Afghanistan", then "crack down on Al Qaeda in Pakistan".

HOW, please, Senator?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 11, 2008 8:04 PM

"Well, it seems to me to be spreading culture by force at this point."

What culture are we spreading in Afghanistan? Islamic culture? We are giving Afghans money and resources to rebuild their own culture, such as it is.

"What do you think is going on there?"

We deposed a benighted, clerical-fascist government (The Taliban) that stoned heretics and destroyed the cultural legacy of the Buddhist minority, gave the Afghans the opportunity to freely elect their own leaders, in UN authorized and monitored elections, and poured billions of dollars of aid to turn a 4th world hell hole into a developing country.

Posted by Juan | February 12, 2008 12:53 AM

No, Juan, the Taliban is simply the Pushtun. In fact, the Taliban actually *moderated* Pashtunwali - the code by which Pushtun live.

We replaced the Pushtun with their Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara enemies - even if we put a Pushtun in charge of the place.

Because of our criminal negligence and disregard for the country's history and circumstances, we allowed the world opium trade to center on Afghanistan. This occurred because we never gave the peasants, who make up the vast bulk of the population, a better alternative.

Furthermore, we periodically engage in anti-drug campaigns to burn farmers' crops. When we do this, the villagers turn to the only ones who will help them - the Taliban. Instead of simply buying their crop and burning it, we idiotically try to destroy it without any compensation and then expect the Afghans to love us.

No, the only thing that surprises me is that we haven't lost more.

Posted by Greg | February 12, 2008 1:19 AM

We deposed a benighted, clerical-fascist government (The Taliban) that stoned heretics and destroyed the cultural legacy of the Buddhist minority, gave the Afghans the opportunity to freely elect their own leaders, in UN authorized and monitored elections, and poured billions of dollars of aid to turn a 4th world hell hole into a developing country.

"We" did none of the three.

The Taliban were displaced from Kabul but still retained power bases elsewhere,

Some Afghans got to choose the mayor of Kabul from a slew of Western-approved candidates.

And billions of dollars were, and are still being poured, not into Afghanistan but the spectacularly incompetent US military patronage machine which has a budget an order of magnitude larger than the combined GDPs of Iraq and Afghanistan, and still fails so miserably that here we are on our knees begging the Europeans to step.

Posted by BP | February 12, 2008 1:25 AM

No, the only thing that surprises me is that we haven't lost more.

As I have said before, hanging a couple of dozen US generals pour encourager les autres and airdropping the entire 2008 defense budget in small-denomination bundles over Iraq and Afghanistan would in all actuality probably accomplish more than the current "strategy". A trillion dollars a year spent on defense and given the results it still astounds me that the joint chiefs have not resigned out of shame. Send the useless whingers home.

Posted by BP | February 12, 2008 1:33 AM

In the first place, we invaded Afghanistan for one reason only--to remove the nation-state platform it provided for Al Qaeda. Mission accomplished. The rest, in terms of nation-building etc. should by rights be the responsibility of all the countries that constantly shoot off their mouths about it.

Secondly, it's mildly depressing to see that so many people still reflexively support murderous fascists as long as said fascists are being confronted by the US.

The Taliban as a government was "simply the Pashtun" in the same way the Khmer Rouge were "simply the Cambodians". Ba'athist Iraq launched multiple wars of aggression and campaigns of genocide that killed literally millions of people. The liberation, in spite of indeed having "bloody incompetent" features, brought that episode to an end.

The best and latest figures from the WHO show that somewhere between 150,000 and 210,000 have been killed in the process, mostly by enemies of civilization bombing marketplaces, etc. This is tragic, but it a) needs to be put in the context of the victims of the previous regime, including the perhaps 1 million innocents killed by UN sanctions; and b) the fact that instead of continuing to languish under totalitarianism, Iraq now has at least a chance to rebuild itself.

The blame-America-first group are the same now as they were when they functioned as apologists for Stalin's collectivization of agriculture, and Hitler's efforts to "rebuild Germany".

Posted by Robert Powell | February 12, 2008 3:00 AM

In the first place, we invaded Afghanistan for one reason only--to remove the nation-state platform it provided for Al Qaeda. Mission accomplished.

No, Afghanistan was invaded for one reason only, to get bin Laden and his gang after 9/11. The Taliban just stood in the way of that. If they had given up bin Laden that would have been that. The character of the government of Afghanistan was simply not a factor in the invasion. That it was is an after-construction.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 12, 2008 5:54 AM

By the way, I think countries such as Germany should not send any more soldiers if they don't want to, even if Gates bawls at them. Don't try to compromise, that will only make it worse.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 12, 2008 6:29 AM

Mr. Larsson--

Let's not quibble over the details--we gave the Taliban the option of giving up Al Qaeda, which they may or may not have had the practical ability to do. They turned it down, meaning that their government accepted becoming synonymous with Al Qaeda. It's pretty clear that they were providing AQ with a "nation-state platform", which is a significant matter.

Would we have invaded Afghanistan if Al Qaeda wasn't there? No. But it was, and to a certain extent still is.

I think you can be certain that Germany et al "won't send any more soldiers if they don't want to", Gates yelling or not being beside the point. In any case, it's high time that most of the US troops stationed in places like Germany be withdrawn so they are available for more pressing matters than blocking a Soviet blitzkrieg through the Fulda Gap.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 12, 2008 9:37 AM

When we were attacked on 9/11, Osama bin Laden said there were three reasons for the attack: our support of Israel's occupation of Palestine, our insistance on UN sanctions in Iraq which had killed 500,000 Iraq children, and the presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia. All his grievances were legitimate as the entire Muslim world knows. Rather than invading Afghanistan, we should have endorsed the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan (now called Arab League Peace Plan) calling for Israel to end the occupation. If Israeli had not accepted it, we should have dissociated ourselves from Israel just as we did from apartheid South Africa. It's not too late.

Posted by Courtney Squires | February 12, 2008 1:18 PM

Gideon Rachman's FT column today is worth reading: "Too soon to give up in Afghanistan". A couple of excerpts:

"...although Nato and the US have made mistakes in Afghanistan, they are also capable of learning from their errors. American counterinsurgency operations in the east of the country – which have recently focused much more on development aid – seem to be working well. This suggests that the alliance’s long-term goal of pacifying areas and then handing security over to a retrained and well financed Afghan army is far from hopeless."

"A recognition that Afghanistan is likely to be a wild, poor and tribalised country for many years to come should not obscure the fact that life has improved for ordinary Afghans since the fall of the Taliban. Millions of refugees have returned to the country. Schools and roads have been built. Kabul, which was a shell-scarred wreck and home to just 300,000 people in 2001, now has a population of close to 3m. Opinion polls in Afghanistan, for what they are worth, suggest that a large majority of Afghans wants a continued western presence."

Posted by Fred | February 12, 2008 4:05 PM

Fred: This is complete bullshit.

First of all, US "counterinsurgency" is not working and cannot work.

Second, road building is utterly irrelevant to the problems Afghanistan faces.

The fundamental problem for that country is the existence of warlords and the entire warlord society. Until you get rid of them, you cannot ameliorate the conditions of the average peasant.

And you cannot get rid of them because they ARE Afghanistan "society" just as much as all the rest of it.

It's quite hopeless unless, as I say, you want to kill far more people than we have, and pour $100-200 billion a year into reconstruction, plus half a million troops, plus hundreds of thousands of NGO workers.

And for what? To prevent Al Qaeda from coming back? To prevent the Taliban from coming back?

The Taliban are not our problem, they are the Afghan's problem.

And Al Qaeda can be dealt with a hell of a lot cheaper than the half a trillion or trillion dollar cost of entirely rebuilding a Third World country.

It's brain dead.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 12, 2008 11:59 PM

--It's not immediately obvious why "American counterinsurgency cannot work" in Afghanistan. Certainly not just because The Incredible Hack says so.

--Everyone who knows anything about Afghanistan knows how crucial roads are. There was basically one road in the whole country outside Kabul, a ring around with few connecting links. Improving this, especially the Kabul-Kandahar route, is essential to the development of the country.

--"Warlords" are not the problem. Warlords who oppose us and the Karzai government are, and most of them would lose their power overnight if we reconsidered our ridiculous "War on Drugs" policies. See British practice on this issue.

--As in the case of Iraq, it is not necessary for our interests that Afghanistan achieve some sort of civic nirvana. A reasonably functional, reasonably pro-Western central government with lots of local autonomy for the various regions and ethnic groups works fine. We don't have giant national interests in Afghanistan as we do in Iraq, but there's no reason to accept a self-administered defeat when we can certainly suceed if our expectations are reasonable.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 13, 2008 8:04 AM

--It's not immediately obvious why "American counterinsurgency cannot work" in Afghanistan. Certainly not just because The Incredible Hack says so.

--Everyone who knows anything about Afghanistan knows how crucial roads are. There was basically one road in the whole country outside Kabul, a ring around with few connecting links. Improving this, especially the Kabul-Kandahar route, is essential to the development of the country.

--"Warlords" are not the problem. Warlords who oppose us and the Karzai government are, and most of them would lose their power overnight if we reconsidered our ridiculous "War on Drugs" policies. See British practice on this issue.

--As in the case of Iraq, it is not necessary for our interests that Afghanistan achieve some sort of civic nirvana. A reasonably functional, reasonably pro-Western central government with lots of local autonomy for the various regions and ethnic groups works fine. We don't have giant national interests in Afghanistan as we do in Iraq, but there's no reason to accept a self-administered defeat when we can certainly suceed if our expectations are reasonable.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 13, 2008 8:06 AM