The True Narcissists

I composed this to respond to Abu’s question:

Is the war in Afghanistan in the interests of the United States and its allies? If so, at what point do the resources we are expending become too high a cost to bear? What are the strategic limitations of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and operations? And if the war is not in the interests of the United States and its allies, what are U.S. and allied interests in Central Asia – and how do you propose to secure them?

My response:

The war in Afghanistan is necessary to destroy the remaining al Qaeda targets in the FATA region of Pakistan.  This was the main purpose for invading Afghanistan and should remain our first priority.  By engaging the Taliban elements, who support al Qaeda, we apply pressure to the movement that continues in its desire to spread its vision of an Islamist society.  Our current strategic thinking is that the presence of the Taliban in any region outside the FATA is unacceptable to the security of the US because of their connection to al Qaeda.  If the US can make modest gains in stabilizing a systematic governing cycle of loose federalism in Afghanistan and pacifying support for the Taliban in the population then succeeding in our goal of denying a safe haven to terrorists improves dramatically.

But is all this really necessary?  What if we negotiated the surrendering of al Qaeda leadership with the Taliban?

This should take us back to the immediate post 9-11 months when we could have offered a little more to the Taliban than the choice of open and humiliating capitulation or complete destruction.  During this time we viewed the Taliban as brutal oppressors that stood against all our Western ideals.  To the US the Taliban established exactly the kind of society bin Laden sought to establish, and delivering freedom seemed like a glorious two-for-one.

Now, that we are faced with the price tag of this freedom nine years later the taste in our mouths is becoming unpalatable.  It seems that we now face more problems in Afghanistan than we did during October 2001.  The survival of bin Laden and Zawahiri, a flourishing drug trade, Taliban clashes with the Pakistani government, and the poor performance of centralized leadership in Kabul are all now our problems.  The strategic logic of our current COIN policy says that we must keep pushing deeper into the society in order to stabilize so that we can turn control over to trusted Afghan allies that will preserve the status quo we establish.

This is so because we believe that any incarnation of the Taliban in Afghanistan is simply not an option.  If this is the ultimate goal then the US must be ready for at least a fifteen year military commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid over the next twenty five.  I place such high numbers because I see true political change as the function of generational replacement than, say, purchased inducements.

That being said, I am afraid that Bacevich is right in that there is a cheaper way of accomplishing this; one that does not seek to dramatically alter the political society of Afghanistan.  This requires our purchasing the support of the local leaders and dealing harshly with those who harbor elements of al Qaeda.  The role of the US military in Afghanistan would be one of training and supplying Afghan allies, regulating misfits and disturbances, providing local security for development, reducing the opium trade, and staging for attacks against al Qaeda.

This plan does away with notions of establishing our dreams for a westernized Afghan state by accepting the brutality of the Afghan political culture, accepting the patriarchal nature of Afghan society, and perhaps accepting the reality of the Taliban’s existence as a force with political resonance in Afghan society.  This will require acting with a cold precision about what we must do to achieve denying al Qaeda a foothold in Afghanistan.

It has been a busy few months since i last picked up the keyboard, and (true to form) i return with for an analysis of the upcoming ‘Obama Doctrine’ for Afghanistan.

Somewhat leaked by Reuters this week was an article that highlights the recent shift in the US strategy towards Afghanistan.  Overall, the big picture for the conception of this strategy is based on the concept of “narrowing.”  There is a marked deviation from the rhetorical and ideological foundation of the Bush Administration vision for Iraq, Afghanistan and the essential assumptions about foreign policy.  What may be said in general is that the new strategy will “lower expectations” to the unattainable goals of the heavily rhetorisized Bush policy.  Lofty notions of setting people free all over the world through the power of democracy sounds nice, but the realization of such a goal in eight short years, by force if necessary, is practically unreasonable.

So it is thus that the president will provide some “reality” to the situation and intends to talk soberly about what is available to accomplish in Afghanistan.  By the end we may find that the Afghanistan we leave behind will simply be “free enough.”

Apart from the philosophical goals of this problem Obama has placed specific emphasis on preventing terrorist organizations from operating efficiently from Afghanistan or Pakistan.  To accomplish this Obama is recommitting America to developing the economy of Afghanistan through a localized strategy to improve human security.  Not only increasing the troop levels (a step already taken in February this year), but also training more indigenous capability to share the load.  With all of this in place it appears that Obama has decided to make Afghanistan his priority in his first term.  It is an ambitious challenge for the politician often chided during the campaign as naive and inexperienced, we should all hope then, that he is a fast learner.

I will be posting on all relevant details as the new strategy is revealed over the next week…i promise.

It may appear premature to bring this subject up in only part two of the study, but it must be clear what exactly are the intentions of our actions for Afghanistan in a global strategy.  To be clear, what does “victory” look like in Afghanistan?  Ideally, the complete destruction of al-Qaeda through its support system, the Taliban.  The terrorist group formed the basis for the US invasion of Afghanistan; had the Taliban surrendered to US pressure and allowed the capture of Bin Laden we could have left the Taliban alone.  However, since the invasion has occurred the US now faces the reality of how Afghanistan and the War on Terror has progressed.  One of the lessons of 9/11 is supposed to be that the US can no longer afford to isolate nations and allow the lawlessness that permits our enemies to operate effectively.  The complications of the war in Iraq and the power gained by Taliban forces in Pakistan has developed into a geopolitical storm looming on the horizon with Afghanistan signaling the wind change.  In the course of finding what victory means in Afghanistan we shall have to examine several perspectives on how that victory is to be achieved.

How do we win?

During the campaign Obama emphasized the conflict in Afghanistan as being overlooked due to the situation in Iraq.  Further, he expressed that invading Iraq was based on a poor conception of how the War on Terror should be fought.  Yet, what Obama is faced with is essentially a nation-building situation in Afghanistan with similar parallels to the Iraqi situation (complex ethnic divisions, an intrusive and penetrating enemy to the east).  While there are broader similarities between Iraq and Afghanistan the internal dynamics and specific elements of the political equation are much different.  The incoming Obama Administration must come to terms with deciding upon what victory means in the war in Afghanistan because this will directly influence the way in which that victory is achieved.

Let’s get philosophical…

There appears to be two conceptions for the way to win in Afghanistan.  The first looks at the conflict as a battle between competing conceptions of freedom; in essence, a cultural battle of belief systems where victory means the assimilation of the Afghan people into the modern Western-style international structure.  The Taliban represent the antithesis of the liberal (philosophical, not leftist) conception of political existence, whose presence undermines the legitimacy of the US efforts to establish democracy in Afghanistan.  In this understanding victory requires the transformation of Afghan society into a replica of a western state where the people accept the legitimacy of the western model of freedom and dry up the support for the Islamic theocratic interpretation along the Taliban model.  This represents the ultimate in the “hearts and minds” or “soft power” victory for the US; the long term solution for stability that defeats al-Qaeda is the construction of a new and liberal Afghanistan.

Opposing this liberal paradigm is a view that stresses the military angle of the conflict, and rejects the notion that victory must be achieved through societal change.  Rather, we should engage the Afghan society along its own cultural terms and reject the notion that victory ultimately lies in our ability to win the people over to a western style of governance.  For this view, Michael Scheuer holds as a focused proponent.  We may label this as a “tribal” strategy because the focus is on perceiving the US strategy as a competitor in the domestic struggle for Afghan power.  Winning in Afghanistan requires the local leaders and communities identifying their long term interests with those of the US effort in removing the Taliban.  Accomplishing this requires a long term commitment in both the size and scope of military operations and the integration of the power of the US and Afghan forces.  Each victory by these forces increases the power and prestige of the US cause and emphasizes the perception that the right decision is for domestic leaders to side with the most powerful.  Thus, victory is the long term destruction of the Taliban’s base of support through a systematic socio-militaristic strategy where the US succeeds by empowering anti-Taliban leaders.

What we leave behind…

These two conceptions of victory for Afghanistan reflect two distinct conceptions of what we should be achieving, and what kind of Afghanistan we will eventually leave.  In the liberal view the US will seek to create a western style of society that will lead and influence the War on Terror as a cultural model of freedom for the other nations facing Islamic Extremism.  In the “tribal” model the US will leave behind an Afghanistan that resembles the historical traditions of the society that will stand as an example of US determination to defeat Islamic extremism.

It remains to be seen which side of this broad paradigm President Obama has decided upon.  The challenges facing the US in Afghanistan are great, but in determining what policy to implement in Afghanistan it is prudent to ask what kind of an Afghanistan will we end up creating.

This will be the first in a series of articles about the challenges in Afghanistan that will highlight the issues facing President Obama.  Each article will disseminate the issue and seek to provide a comprehensive understanding of how US and Afghan goals interact.  The issues will range from different elements of the challenges facing US policy makers in attempting to “win” the conflict in Afghanistan.  This first part will examine the multinational forces engaged in the fighting in Afghanistan.

Who is Running this Show?

As the situation stands now there are two separate military command structures for the US backed forces.  One is the continuation of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) that operates in the eastern and southern regions along the Afghan-Pakistan boarder led by CENTCOM commander General David Patraeus.  This force mainly consists of US military forces patrolling the region adjacent to the Taliban strongholds of Waziristan in western Pakistan and the Capitol of Kabul which is located some 100 miles from the boarder.  OEF consists mainly of establishing and maintaining security in the region so that construction and modernization of the region can progress.

The other command structure is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that is made up of a coalition of troops from US allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  Though this is an international force, about 60% of the troops involved in the ISAF are from the US and Britain.  The overall command is led by a six month rotation of generals, of whom 4-star Army General David McKiernan is now is command.  The ISAF operate in the less volatile northern, western and southern regions of Afghanistan where the majority of non-US troops are concentrated.

Next, there is the Afghan National Army (ANA) which consists of some 80,000 troops.  These are US trained army personnel under the leadership of the Afghan Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak.  The official Afghan army was almost non-existent after the US invasion of October 2001.   The US led the effort to train and equip the ANA in order to hand off the execution of ground operations in the future.  The close supervision by the US training forces leads the experts to conclude that the ANA is relatively free of the corruption and infiltration faced by the Afghan police force.  Since 2005 the size of the ANA has tripled as the US faced a resurgent Taliban.  In effect, the US policy resembles the “vietnamization” policy whereby US forces train and equip local forces to operate under the scrutiny of advisers.

As for the enemy we may roughly divide the elements into two broad groups: the Taliban and Jihadists.  The Taliban are the exiled former rulers who were removed from power by the US invasion shortly after 9/11.  The group is still believed to be led by the one-eyed Mullah Mohammad Omar, though the limitations on the sophistication of the Taliban equipment imply that strict operational control is vested within local leaders and strongholds.  The second group are the Jihadists.  This group is a litany of radical Islamist groups who have answered the call of Jihad against the occupiers of Afghanistan.  The tactics of the jihadists are focused in terrorist attacks and general harassment of the international forces.  Though these two groups mutually engage for tactical purposes it would be a fallacy to lump the two groups together.  While the two groups are most strongly linked within the philosophical similarities of the jihad it is in the long term goals of the groups where the deviation persists.

Where are we now?

Over the past four years the Taliban forces have been gaining a stronger foothold of influence in Afghanistan.  The battle against the occupiers has developed into a war of attrition with neither side signaling for a political settlement that would end hostilities.  The message of the Taliban to the US  is simple: we will still be here when you leave.  It is a disturbing prospect for the battle weary American public that any kind of true “victory” in Afghanistan is a multi-generational exercise in nation building.  Yet, this appears to be the only way for Americans to achieve the stability desired for what we perceive as a victory; namely, to prevent the lawless rule where al-Qaeda may operate without impunity.  Taking into account of the long term prospects the focus must be on the international dimension of the conflict.

Indeed, the most complicated issue facing the US is having to cope with the diverse interplay of all the combatants.  There are severe drawbacks to the fighting a multiple force operation like Afghanistan where the goals are not expressly in military terms.  The ultimate “victory” in Afghanistan is not the outright elimination of an enemy, rather, it is in creating a situation where the enemy has no divisive and destructive goals against the status quo.  Also, apart from the difficulty in coordination, there exists the real possibility of a premature abandonment of the international community before US goals can be realized.  The challenges facing President Obama will be to convince the NATO and Afghan allies to fight a conflict that is unified in its strategy and acceptance of stated objectives.  It appears that the President’s message may have to be borrowed from an unfortunate source and become:  “stay the course.”