By Request: Afghanistan

Strasmangelo Jones asks:

Here's a request. What, exactly, is the US plan for Afghanistan? What would "success" in Afghanistan even look like, and how would America get there?

This is, indeed, the question we need to be asking. The fact that the original mission in Afghanistan, to whip the Taliban and uproot al-Qaeda, didn't quite work and then we went and invaded Iraq and stopped paying attention for several years has left us with a mission in Afghanistan that seems very unclear. When you hear things like our commander in Afghanistan saying we need 400,000 troops you begin to think that the mission he has in mind isn't the appropriate one. Whatever it is you need 400,000 troops to do is something we're going to have to get by without doing, since we're not sending 400,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, it seems to me that the "Anbar Awakening" model in which we took some guys who'd been fighting us, and gave them money to kill al-Qaeda irreconciliables instead, would have a lot of promise in Afghanistan. I think the big problem with the past two years worth of our policy in Iraq hasn't been that it "doesn't work" but that we don't have any reasonable policy objectives and are getting bogged down in a senseless quest for bases, "influence," and a vague sense of victory. Afghanistan seems like a more promising venue for clearer, more limited objectives -- no southern factions playing host to al-Qaeda and the de jure government strong enough to remain the de facto government in the Kabul area.

Stabilizing the whole country would be great, and I'd be happy to send more troops to Afghanistan to do so (especially because I think doing so would bring forth increased involvement from our international partners) since as best I can tell most segments of the Afghan population don't have a real problem with foreign troops being there. But if it's really true that we would need to send 400,000 soldiers over there to accomplish a nationwide stabilization mission then it makes sense to re-redefine our objectives in a more limited way.

But consider that all somewhat provisional, as I'm not really up to speed on the situation and promise to look into it.

Comments

"I'd be happy to send more troops to Afghanistan"

I'd be happy to send you. Make a man of you yet.

Posted by gcochran | June 19, 2008 2:52 PM

Here is an interesting column about the same topic from the FT:

A war that needs a definition of victory
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f1e95aee-389b-11dd-8aed-0000779fd2ac.html

Posted by David | June 19, 2008 3:01 PM

Not sure why Strasmangelo Jones gets credit for a request I've made repeatedly...

Even so, it's a decent start, and thanks. I do think, though, that in view of the breezy assertions you've made on this subject in the past, your readers have a right to look forward to a more-developed argument on this from you.

Posted by Ryan | June 19, 2008 3:04 PM

For the record, there were supposed to be 'mock petulance' tags around the first sentence of my prior comment. Lest ye think I actually care about the credit.

Posted by Ryan | June 19, 2008 3:30 PM

The "Anbar Awakening" model is basically what we did to defeat the Taliban in 2001, except the Northern Alliance types weren't fighting us before we did it. The corruption you keep reading about is also probably the main thing keeping the regional leaders, warlords, or whomever playing the game in Kabul, even as it drives a wedge between that regime and the people outside the patronage networks it creates.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | June 19, 2008 3:35 PM

"I'd be happy to send more troops to Afghanistan"

I'd be happy to send you. Make a man of you yet.

Posted by gcochran | June 19, 2008 4:01 PM

as best I can tell most segments of the Afghan population don't have a real problem with foreign troops being there
===
I worked in Afghanistan for a while. I asked one of my Afghan colleagues how he felt about us internationals. He said, "if you are here as guests to help, I welcome you. If you are here to stay, get the hell out."

The lighter touch - like, oh, not planning for 50+ permanent bases while giving no-bid contracts to US oil companies - does seem to go over a bit better.

Posted by hubcap | June 19, 2008 4:02 PM

Trying to prevent Afghans from growing the plants they want to grow does a lot to increase the power and influence of the Taliban. Glad we have our priorities in order! The depressing thing about it is that the chances of either major party candidate addressing this intelligently aproximates zero.

Posted by Will Allen | June 19, 2008 4:04 PM

What Brian Ulrich said: "You can't buy an Afghan, but you can rent one for a while."

When the border between southeast Afghanistan and the FATA is meaningless in practical terms, then Pakistan's part of the problem.

Returning Afghanistan to the kind of post-Soviet, pre-Taliban state (civil war) isn't an option. And the best way to unite the various Afghan ethnic and regional factions, at least in recent history, is to serve as an enemy occupying power with a puppet government.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 19, 2008 4:07 PM

Anbar Awakening was getting the minority group to recognize that its survival depends on foreign support, and then becoming that foriegn supporter.

As Brian said, that was Afghanistan 2001.

Posted by Ikram | June 19, 2008 4:11 PM

Security...stablization...those are nothing but republican talking points. Afganistan is basically a country that has been in a state of war or between wars for at least the last 30 years. The afgans need more than heavily armed foreign troops with air support to build a functioning country.

Posted by jerri | June 19, 2008 4:13 PM

I don't think the Anbar model would work particularly well in the current Afghanistan. Though it is roughly analogous to the Northern Alliance/2001 strategy, much of the current violence in Afghanistan is focused in the Pushtun south. It is much more difficult to co-opt local Pushtun powerbrokers in Kandahar when the insurgents coming across the border from Pakistan are their cousins.

Posted by ottoman | June 19, 2008 4:22 PM

What Ottoman says is true. The sorts of tribal leaders who were a key in Anbar are, along the Durand Line, most likely to be giving lip service to Pashtun nationalism, which has been something promoted by Karzai's government as an alternative to the religious ideology of the Taliban and its fellow travellers. However, it simply hasn't worked that well as a comprehensive strategy - they don't have the amount of influence they used to.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | June 19, 2008 4:46 PM

"More troops? Where am to get them? Does he expect me to make them?"--Napoleon to Marshal Ney's messenger, June 18, 1815

Posted by rea | June 19, 2008 5:00 PM

I think the 400,000 troops number may well be one of those rhetorical devices for the general making the estimate to say it can't be done, without getting a reputation in the military for being overly negative and pessimistic. Any organization with a so-called "can do" attitude strongly discourages it's members from ever saying sometging is impossible, difficult, or cannot be done, whereas claiming it can be done but simply asking for resources you know won't be devoted to the task is always perfectly legitimate.

Posted by Atchimedes | June 19, 2008 6:06 PM

The reason for invading Afghanistan was to deny Al Qaeda a nation-state platform. Mission accomplished.

Making Afghanistan, a state traditionally competing with Bangladesh and Congo for the bottom in most measurable categories of national competence EU-ready was never part of the deal.

"Allies", virtually all of whom agreed enthusiastically with the idea of regime change in Afghanistan, should put their troops where their mouths were. In the case of most "allies", that will require a decades-long re-engineering of their national budgets in order to have actual troops. Let's not hold our breath.

The single most effective measure to assist Afghanistan would be the de-criminalization of drugs. Attempting to shift blame for drug abuse from users in rich countries to subsistence farmers in the Third World has been a catastrophe for our allies and interests.

Posted by robert powell | June 19, 2008 6:08 PM

a state traditionally competing with Bangladesh and Congo for the bottom in most measurable categories of national competence

'Traditionally'? Afghanistan, 1976-1978.

Afghanistan is a state traditionally dicked about as part of the Great Game, and all that's changed is the players. Bobbitt is, of course, a fool and a charlatan with a pomegranate up his ass, and such chortling about 'mission accomplished' is sadly reminiscent of how the US treated Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 19, 2008 7:05 PM

This was a terrible post. I'm a big admirer of Yglesias, but he is deeply, deeply confused on this issue. He's honest to enough to admit he's not really up to speed on the issue, but that's a serious problem in his line of work.

What the hell is fighting the Taliban supposed to accomplish? The Taliban is an authentic Afghan movement which happens to espouse some ideas most Americans find apalling. Fair enough, but that doesn't mean the US should spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to "whip" the Taliban.

Means and ends, people. How is this different from the vague talk of "victory" the GOP talks about vis a vis Iraq?

Posted by Francisco The Man | June 19, 2008 8:38 PM

Well, well, Matt finally makes something along the lines of a substantive post on Afghanistan. So I don't have to bug him too much to answer any questions on that!

Unfortunately, he reveals cluelessness.

Let's parse this in detail:

"Meanwhile, it seems to me that the "Anbar Awakening" model in which we took some guys who'd been fighting us, and gave them money to kill al-Qaeda irreconciliables instead, would have a lot of promise in Afghanistan."

Totally wrong. The Sunnis in Iraq were happy to turn on foreigners from outside the country as well as fanatics in their own country who joined them. There's nothing comparable in Afghanistan. Nobody is "foreign" there.

While there are a bunch of warlords who competed with the Taliban for control of the country, this is more akin to the Sunni vs Shia aspect in Iraq - but NOTE: WITHOUT the religious divide, for the most part - than anything else. Both are native to the country.

It's basically a question of competing gangs.

And the gangs we supported in Afghanistan are just as nasty if not more so than the Taliban. If you think you're going to get a "stable pro-Western government" that won't harbor Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group from that gang, you're mistaken.

"I think the big problem with the past two years worth of our policy in Iraq hasn't been that it "doesn't work" but that we don't have any reasonable policy objectives and are getting bogged down in a senseless quest for bases, "influence," and a vague sense of victory."

While you're right that there are no reasonable policy objectives, it IS also a question of "it doesn't work". The military strategy and tactics used were directly the cause of US failure to stabilize Iraq, on top of the clear indications that the US had every intention of installing a puppet government and then staying there forever. The only reason this isn't being done in Afghanistan is that there is no oil.

What there is in Afghanistan is the potential for an oil pipeline - and heroin.

Robert Powell actually gets this right. Decriminalizing drugs, especially heroin, would knock the bottom out of the Afghan poppy market. Tough for the farmers, but there it is. They existed before heroin was a big deal in the West and they can get along without us later.

Karzai worked for an oil company, Matt. What part of that didn't you understand?

"Afghanistan seems like a more promising venue for clearer, more limited objectives -- no southern factions playing host to al-Qaeda and the de jure government strong enough to remain the de facto government in the Kabul area.:

It was irrelevant that the Taliban allowed Al Qaeda to operate from Afghanistan - and it was definitely not sufficient reason to overthrow them.

You also beg the question of how the US or NATO is going to be ABLE to ESTABLISH a de jure government in Kabul which is recognized as legitimate and not under the control of drug warlords or the Pashtun.

This is precisely the same problem in Iraq. You can have either a bunch of nationalists who hate the US or you can have a bunch of Shia who work for Iran. Take your choice. Or better yet, don't make a choice - get out and deal with any problems caused by these conditions in other ways.

"Stabilizing the whole country would be great, and I'd be happy to send more troops to Afghanistan to do so (especially because I think doing so would bring forth increased involvement from our international partners) since as best I can tell most segments of the Afghan population don't have a real problem with foreign troops being there."

You're quite wrong.

POLL: Afghans’ Criticism of U.S. Efforts Rises; In the Southwest, Taliban Support Grows
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/story?id=3931809

Money Quotes:

Overall, 42 percent of Afghans rate U.S. efforts in Afghanistan positively, down steeply from 68 percent in 2005, and 57 percent last year. For the first time, this national ABC News/BBC/ARD survey finds that more than half of Afghans disapprove of U.S. efforts.

And criticism of the United States is largely focused on its performance, not its presence. Seventy-one percent of Afghans support the United States' presence in Afghanistan -- and where the U.S. is seen as strongest, its approval ratings peak.

"But if it's really true that we would need to send 400,000 soldiers over there to accomplish a nationwide stabilization mission then it makes sense to re-redefine our objectives in a more limited way."

We do not and should not have ANY objectives in Afghanistan. That country is utterly irrelevant to any rational US national security needs. And Al Qaeda, whether it is established in Afghanistan, Pakistan or both countries, is also not a significant national security issue that requires massive military response in either country.

"But consider that all somewhat provisional, as I'm not really up to speed on the situation and promise to look into it."

Nice to see you acknowledging your limitations, a la Dirty Harry. If you'd read the emails I send you every night about Afghanistan from Asia Times, you'd know a lot more about it. You might also want to talk to Barnett Rubin about it.

Center on International Cooperation
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/cic/

Barnett R. Rubin is a regular contributor to Informed Comment: Global Affairs. ICGA is a group blog by academics covering international politics and foreign affairs. It is especially concerned with Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Israel/Palestine and other countries where local political movements or governments pose special foreign policy challenges to Washington. The authors of this blog know their regions well and are now using their expertise to address current events for the wider public.

http://icga.blogspot.com/

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 19, 2008 9:07 PM

Quoth rea:

"More troops? Where am to get them? Does he expect me to make them?"--Napoleon to Marshal Ney's messenger, June 18, 1815

Well, Saruman did.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | June 19, 2008 10:20 PM

It's nice of pseudo-nc to post the pretty pictures by another Powell. Is this supposed to be a refutation of statistics on, for example, Afghanistan's literacy and infant mortality rates, nutrition, life expectancy, average income, etc? Or should we just not the usual classy, data-free ad hominems and scroll past as usual?

Afghanistan has been a hostile, primitive, and war-like state that's resisted foreign intrusions, for the most part successfully, since at least the time of Alexander the Great.

Again, our goal in Afghanistan is what, exactly?

Posted by robert powell | June 20, 2008 7:00 AM

"Meanwhile, it seems to me that the 'Anbar Awakening' model in which we took some guys who'd been fighting us, and gave them money to kill al-Qaeda irreconciliables instead, would have a lot of promise in Afghanistan" -- I think the problems in Afghanistan arise from precisely the fact that the Anbar Awakening model was deployed and sustained through several years. If and when the US stops playing patron to the tribal leaders/warlords, they will find patrons amongst--oh, let us make a very unlikely guess--Saudi millionaires. (A significant number of Taliban were former Mujahideen who switched to Taliban once the US funds dried up; RE: Jalaluddin Haqani.) And we will have more of the same.

One important point: you can't really discuss strategy in Afghanistan without meaningfully addressing Pakistan (and by implication India).

Posted by Rude Person | June 20, 2008 10:09 AM

pseudonymous in nc:

Bobbitt is, of course, a fool and a charlatan with a pomegranate up his ass

Why the repeated references to "Robert Powell" as "Bobbitt"?

I know what I want the answer to be. It's just that it would be too good to be true.

Posted by 23456 | June 20, 2008 10:12 AM

My guess is that it's either a reference to the famously dick-less guy of popular tv fame; or a misspelling of "Babbit".

In any case, frat house boffery (complete with relentless anal imagery) can, with enough beer, be a substitute for informed comment in some quarters.

Posted by robert powell | June 20, 2008 1:06 PM

And intellectually dishonest propagandizing can also be a substitute for informed comment - in your quarters (unless you're posting from work - then it's in your cubicle.)

However, you are correct about Afghanistan and the War on Drugs. (Congratulations!) That's a total waste of time.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 20, 2008 5:29 PM