Unanswered Questions on COIN in Afghanistan

I just got done listening to the President's speech on Afghanistan this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get what I was looking for out of it.

To me, the big questions on Afghanistan are (1) What are our strategic goals in the Afghanistan conflict and (2) what strategy will we use to achieve those goals, and (3) why is this strategy superior to our other alternatives? What I got out of the speech did more or less answer (1) and (2), but the answer to (2) was lacking and (3) was non-existent.

The President does seem to think that preventing another attack is the primary strategic goal, and I think that's appropriately narrow. In theory, we could go for a "integrating the gap" goal as well, although that's probably too ambitious at this time. But, that leads us to the deficiency in the second answer. A COIN strategy will be pursued--much like in Iraq--perhaps too much like Iraq. But a COIN strategy is very likely above and beyond the level of commitment necessary to achieve the stated strategic goal, and is more in line with a grander objectives of bringing Afghanistan into the community of nations and improving regional stability--objectives which are not on the table.

I would like to hear from the President (or the Pentagon) why alternative approaches wouldn't be better. Why is it vital to our security interests that Afghanistan's current government retain power (or perhaps it would be better to say, gain control of the "nation")? Sure, we don't want the country to become a haven for terrorists again. But it's not like the "nation" of Afghanistan (without our help) will have the military might necessary to keep us out. So where is the "safe haven?" We can have ISR assets there at any time, operators on the ground at any time, bomb a training camp at any time, arrest suspected terrorists at any time, etc. etc. Obviously, from a legal perspective, that wouldn't involve treating Afghanistan as a co-equal Westphalian nation-state--which makes perfect sense, because it is not.

Hence the problem with a COIN strategy. Missing completely from the President's speech was any statement suggesting any consideration of the differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has been a relatively stable united nation-state with a well-developed national government and an educated middle-class. Success of COIN in Iraq comes largely from providing security to allow the political process to run its course so that the new government can do its job. Afghanistan is entirely different. It isn't a nation-state at all, but a collection of tribes, none of whom care about the non existent "nation" of Afghanistan. There very little civil society or government institutions to build on. A COIN strategy in Afghanistan isn't just about providing security, it is attempting to fundamentally transform the Afghan society in an incredibly radical way. It is an enormous task that is going to take an incredibly long time to achieve, assuming that it can be achieved at all.

And for the President to insist that we can achieve this, with short-term timetables about creating a domestic security force, like Iraq, and benchmarks for political progress, like Iraq, just seems disingenuous. There is no way an Iraq-style surge is going to work as well in Afghanistan. So what we have here is a strategy that is going to require a massive, open-ended, long term commitment, but we are obviously not committed to the level of effort it's going to take.

This administration needs to take a long look at what we need to accomplish, what we can accomplish, and what we're willing to accomplish, and fit our strategy to those parameters. Funny, but I thought that's what we were supposed to be doing with our review of the Afghanistan strategy.

Pakistan and the Bush Doctrine

"The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.

We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

President George W. Bush, 9/11/01

This morning, NYT reportedthat although we will notify Pakistan about any future border crossing by our troops, we will not ask for permission. Pakistan is, quite predictably, pissed off about that. I don't think they have much room to talk though. It's not exactly a secret that the Taliban is running a government in exile from the border regions. And Pakistan isn't exerting much control in those areas, leaving them semi autonomous. If they want to claim sovereignty, shouldn't they be exercising it? If all they are going to do is refuse us access, what's the difference between what they are doing now and that the Taliban/Afghanistan did with respect to Al Queda in 2001?

Unfortunately, I don't think the question is this simple, because there is more going on here than the routing of the Taliban insurgency. Pakistan itself is on a major precipice right now. And in transitioning from being run by a dictator to a true democracy, they have an opportunity to do for themselves through the political process what we did for Iraq with our military. The next year could decide whether Pakistan becomes a modern, moderate Muslim democracy, or goes the way of Iran--except that they already have nuclear weapons. The future of Pakistan is far more important than capturing Bin Laden or finishing off the Taliban. For this reason, I don't think incensing the Pakistani populace against us is a good move right now.

It's lose-lose either way. If we sit back and rely on negotiations--which we have been doing--not much is going to change. The Taliban insurgency will continue, and it isn't at all clear that an Afghan "surge" would be successful, because "The Surge" was simply providing Iraq with the troops necessary to carry out the Petraeus strategy. I doubt that this strategy--including such operations as clearing and holding insurgent safe havens--can be successful in an battlefield where the biggest safe haven of all is politically off-limits. So, maintaining cooperation with Pakistan, short of a diplomatic miracle, means a longer war in Afghanistan, complete with the military and civilian casualties, expenditures, and wear-and-tear on our equipment that comes with that.

But for the time being, I think a longer war in Afghanistan is worth a good chance at a bloodless "victory" in Pakistan, and is favorable to dealing with than two Iran's.