Egads! Another War Without a Strategy
Until the U.S. hit on the Surge strategy, the war in Iraq was just one bad trip after another. Now, as I noted here the other day, there is a damning calm in Mesopotamia – damning because it is likely a calm before yet another storm since that window of opportunity the Surge provided for the Baghdad government to get the national house in order is slamming shut.
The Al-Maliki government, of course, has blown the huge opportunity the Surge represented. And now, reverting to form, there is no U.S. post-Surge strategy as regional warlords and militias grab power right, left and center.
Nevertheless, this “calm” has had the effect of taking Iraq off of the radar screens of those few engaged Americans and the TV screens of all Americans, which leaves the war in Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO troops continue to take a half a step forward and one step back six years on because of the absence of a viable current strategy there, as well.
The recipe for undoing the early successes in Afghanistan, which supposedly included routing the Taliban, has several ingredients:
* The U.S. never delivered on claims that it would pour zillions of greenbacks into Afghanistan for reconstruction. The reality is that Washington has been downright stingy compared to similar nation-building efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia, to cite two examples. (Irony Alert: The U.S. had made the same claim in 1989 but failed to deliver after the Soviets were sent packing when Bush père was president.)
* The biggest reason that Washington never delivered this time was that it became distracted and then consumed by the Iraq war. No more than 26,000 American troops have been committed to Afghanistan at any given time, while there are six times as many in Iraq. The NATO contingent in Afghanistan totals about 28,000.
* There has been a concommitant diversion of counterterrorism experts and other resources from Afghanistan to Iraq.
* As in Iraq, training up Afghan army and police forces has been painfully slow.
* The Taliban are more resilient than the U.S. has given them credit for. They weren’t decimated. They merely slipped over the pourous border with Pakistan, then back again, and are raising bloody hell at every opportunity.
* Pakistan, supposedly the U.S.’s staunchest regional ally in the fight again terrorism, has done more harm than good by coddling the Taliban and allowing Al Qaeda a safe haven in the mountainous border region with Afghanistan.
* And that reliable evergreen: Afghanistan is ungovernable.
More U.S. troops have long been seen as the cure for what ails the Afghan mission, but those troops have been slogging away in Iraq. Barnett Rubin observes that while more troops might help, “they will just fail more quickly and more messily” if the mission isn’t right.
The big problem, Rubin argues:
“[I]s the lack of a coherent regional strategy, especially toward Pakistan and Iran, and the failure from the very beginning to invest adequately in governance and development and in any aspect of security but the Afghan National Army. All of these resulted from decisions taken by the Bush administration in 2001-2002, not from our European allies.”
The solution being posited among the U.S. and those erstwhile European allies is appointing a high-level coordinator.
But Rubin lets the air out of that balloon straight away:
“Such coordination is badly needed. But calling someone a high level coordinator does not enable him to produce high-level coordination. . . . Unless the coordinator presides over a pooled international budget for Afghanistan, including security sector reform, development aid, and counter-narcotics, he will just become another agency that needs to be coordinated. Inevitably, he will be tempted to spend his time hectoring the Afghan government rather than coordinating the international actors.”
The key words here are “pooled international budget.” That seems to me to be an oxymoron since the U.S. and various European countries have taken a piecemeal approach and are likely to continue to do so, the U.S. especially as Iraq remains a huge distraction.
10 Responses to “Egads! Another War Without a Strategy”
While reading http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/afghans it occurred to me that one of the biggest stories that no one reports is how the ever changing personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan affect the ability to adapt any strategy. Sarah Chayes wrote about having to submit the same data over and over because there was always someone new in charge of Afghanistan development.
One question to answer is how any government can make long term plans when the personnel turn over at such a high rate. Does anyone really believe that in some future Obama or Clinton Administration that the same turnover of personnel will not occur?
SD:
An excellent point that I will hone to a finer edge: It takes about as long as a 15-month combat tour to be completely up to speed on how to face down insurgents. It takes an insurgent far less time to adapt to the new trooper.
Shaun,
Just not the military has the experience problem. The diplomates, the political types, the civil servants trying to to rebuilding projects, development projects, etc are only there for a year or less. Everyone has to learn how the things work and get over their preconceived notions.
Also, being there for short periods of time means that no political appointee will take a long term view since why do something that the next guy is going to receive the credit.
An example would be the U.S. military has been in Korea for 50 years but only on one year tours. One year tours makes everyone conservative since there is not enough time to make major changes. About all that can be done in one year is to reorganize the wiring diagram and redo the procedures manual.
I think the plan has always been…..give them the means to work it out for themselves. The problem for both these governments is that “Freedom” is a bizarre and abstract thing that holds little meaning.
It is precisely why Russia is reverting back to communism. No one alive knows what freedom is all about.
It is why I was opposed to going into Iraq in the first place. Not that I dont believe in Freedom or want them to have it. THEY DONT WANT IT. ITS FOREIGN TO THEM.
I am in no way shape or form in favor of the Iraq war. But I am in favor of making things right. We owe them that. Showing the middle east that we actually do care about their health and well being is an important diplomatic step in a direction that will hopefully spawn individuals to dare challenge Islamic terrorism and its philosophy.
THEY will defeat terrorism. Not the United States.
I was talking with a political journalist friend from the UK at the weekend. He has many contacts within both the Labour and Conservative parties and their take on the present state of US Diplomacy is interesting. Its twofold:
1.
For our enemies, there has never been a better time. The Bush administration is considered so incompetent and so busy avoiding accountability with its own people that literally anything seems possible. While Bush busies his people with stopping the courts from looking at the telecom industry and warantless eavesdropping, Russia is selling nuclear fuel to Iran. While ‘torturegate’ progresses and the Justice department fights tooth and nail to keep the destruction of the tapes away from the White House, Turkey makes nice with Syria, Iran and Jordon in the hopes that together they can see out the destruction of the burgeoning new Kurdistan state in Northern Iraq. While enormous amounts of political energy is spent preventing Judges from knowing who has visited the White House, why seven United States Attorneys were dismissed mid term, who was involved in formulating the administrations energy policy, what happened to the billions of tax payers money sent to Iraq etc, etc… , Pakistan goes boom, North Korea gloats, the Taliban re-group and Al Qaeda continue to go from strength to strength.
2.
For our allies, just endless difficulties, mounting embarrassment, and the unanswered question: Where have all the smart Americans gone?
Bottom line? Military power is simply no match for brain power and, as the above shows, our enemies are running rings around us.
For our allies, just endless difficulties, mounting embarrassment, and the unanswered question: Where have all the smart Americans gone?
The buck stops at the presidents desk. I cannot wait for this man to be gone. However. All that you posted is the left/Democrats insatiable urge to make Bush pay for not including them in the spoils of war.
Make no mistake about the current state of Affairs. While Bush might not have been the brightest bulb in the White House he has had to fight three wars. Iraq, Afghanistan and Antiwar/Democrats mad for power.
From a neutral perspective. And I really think I am neutral having voted for Kerry and Gore and Clinton twice. A democrat for 30 years recently turned Republican I think I am fairly neutral on this.
I think that This has been one of the most powerful abuses of power BY BOTH sides in history. John Dean screaming antiwar comments. Harry Reid declaring the war lost. On and on it has snowballed into the absolute worst moment in American History. What is going on now is serious finger pointing and somehow the Dems are able to not quite have as big a finger pointed at them as is Bush and the Republicans.
To Wit. Where have all the smart Americans gone? The problem is that the succession of career diplomats carefully grooming themselves for the job are gone. Replaced with Barack Obamas and former first ladies who think they have what it takes to run a complex nation in an insane world.
Things will only get worse unless we vote into office someone like Bill Richardson who has the credentials to put extensive experience and knowledge to use in the White house. Rudi, Barack, Hillary, Huckabee…..they are just pandering to their self indulgent massive egos to have power and have it NOW.
OH and one last thing to contemplate. Bill Clinton and Hillary were Dividers. Just as is Bush.
Bush was elected on the promise to be a uniter and not a divider. There was even rampant speculation he might name a democrat or two for his cabinet. To his credit he did keep Tenet in the CIA. A Clinton Appointee.
Once Barak and Clinton is elected the divisiveness will once again take hold. They are polarizing figures. Someone like Richardson is not. I happen to like Hunter Duncan in the Republican fold. But until a president is elected in which he trully unites by putting Republicans and democrats of a moderate vein into offices and rules by consensus which will never happen because we all know the PARTY runs the candidate.
Obama says the right things but in the end he will be more divisive then any other candidate because he will be run by the DNC. If he is not run by them then he will have Carters type of presidency. A president with values who tried to bypass congress and go to the people which netted him three wars as Bush is facing. A war with the GOP, the DNC and IRAN.
What happened SBS? Did Somebody Else hit you over the head with a 4×4 or something? ‘Cause, really, only someone with a persistent ringing in their ears could equate legitimate questioning of a crazy war with the war itself.
If not more so, given that so much opposition to Bush is irrational and pathological (diseased).
Opposition to the Clintons never was grasped or understood by people well to the left of the US public. (These people failed to see the 1994 election results coming, or realize why they happened, for example.) The opposition to the Clintons was similar to opposition to something tried for a while on ABC’s Monday night football broadcasts. A comedian was added to the play-by-play announcers. There was a large amount of resentment at and loathing of this “info-tainment” gimmick that never was understood by many others, who had no idea what the fuss was all about. The same is true for the Clintons. To this day there are people totally unable (and at times, able but totally unwilling) to understand why so many in this country found them so offensive. In place of understanding they have often substituted fiction and worse.
Given the 2006 election results, I suspect you have more company than you may believe, and that the Dems’ likely error in the next eleven months of the campaign for the White House will be over-confidence (or its cousin, complacency).
Hillary Clinton is polarizing and repellent but the public has gotten used to her in Washington in a more moderate behavior than we were treated to earlier, and I believe the public is going to give her a break this coming election year, and will value her competence over the current President’s ineptitude.