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Wow, that's brilliant. Don't be surprised if later today a military helicopter whisks you away to Washington so you can brief the NSC and the President. Brilliant plan.
Just get some CIA in there, kill bin Laden, then get out.
Wow, that's brilliant. Don't be surprised if later today a military helicopter whisks you away to Washington so you can brief the NSC and the President. Brilliant plan.
It's arguably better than keeping tens of thousands of troops there indefinitely to support a government Afghans hate.
You're quick to swing the axe, doobs, but I notice you didn't stretch your neck out to give your own opinion. Cat got your tongue? Or are you content to be a self-appointed fly-swatter?
OK, well, I'm sorry for being harsh . . . but don't you think we've already sent the CIA and special forces into Afghanistan and Pakistan to hunt bin Laden? So he didn't really "stretch his neck out" either. [EDIT: I now realize that you didn't say this; you were just jumping to someone else's defense.]
If you want my opinion, then here it is: capturing or killing Osama bin Laden is not all that important to our national security or to the stability of Afghanistan. It is far more important that we have friendly governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and India, because our ability to act in South Asia is of vital importance to our national security.
So I think we are generally doing the right thing by maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan and cultivating strong cooperative relationships with important actors, like Karzai. How to actually achieve that objective is another matter. We may need to increase our troop presence to fight a resurgent Taliban. We may need to employ different counterinsurgency tactics, as conditions warrant. But what we don't need to do is withdraw our forces and let Karzai fend for himself. Capturing bin Laden will be an empty victory if Afghanistan suc bs to civil war and the Taliban reasserts itself.
My hope is that Obama understands the importance of productive American engagement in South Asia. The region is armed to its teeth as it is; the removal of American security guarantees could be catastrophic. We need to: play the role of responsible peace broker; provide a credible deterrent to military aggression; encourage further economic and political relations among South Asian countries; be able to respond quickly and decisively to terrorist attack or to increased nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan . . . all of this necessitates (1) a significant American military presence in the region, (2) the development of a large and capable American intelligence network in the region, and (3) an American commitment to strategic partners in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. If Obama understands the importance of all three--and if he doesn't sacrifice any of them to focus solely on catching bin Laden--then I have high hopes for his administration's South Asia policy.
Last edited by doobs; 12-22-2008 at 01:03 PM.
Interesting. To focus on OBL now would be taking our eye off the ball. The objective you're stressing is regional stability. IMO the weakness of this argument is the assumption that our presence does not create instability, but it is an interesting argument.
This may happen even with us there. Karzai himself cedes to the possibility of making a deal with the Taliban and bringing them into the government and our own Generals have said this may be unavoidable. Why do you think they say so? Is it possible the military objective you describe is not acheivable at the current level of force? The Taliban has de facto control of much of the country already, and are encircling Kabul.
Your stance on removal is henny-pennyish[strike that, Chicken Little-ish] and if we whack the hornet's nest in Pakistan once too many times, it is imaginable that our continued presence could conceivably cause the regional conflagration you fear.
You say South Asia is vital to our national interests but you do not identify the interests at stake. Would you mind clarifying just what justifies a generation long comittment of American blood and treasure in the region? What are we fighting for? Regional stability in an neighborhood that has always been dangerous and unstable?
The rest of your security laundry list assumes our physical presence is necessary to manage security and that it is our job to do so. It's possible you're right, but as stated it's more pe io principii. Do you really think, now that we are staring a deflationary spiral in the face, and crushing debt as far as the eye can see, that we can still afford to be the world's policeman? Or that the world still wants us to fulfill this role, after eight years of screwing it up? At any rate, the necessity of long term occupation has been merely asserted here, rather than supported.
As to your third requisite, the clash of interests of the India and Pakistan should give us pause about appearing too close to either one. If one of them thinks we are too cozy with the historic enemy we could endanger our troops, and our strategic aims. It's sometimes easier to be an honest broker from afar, than too close in. Our regional participation may vitiate our perceived impartiality.
Containment and black ops would appear to ways to manage the problem that do not require a generational investment in Afghanistan, the "graveyard of Empires." Total withdrawal and defeat are not the only alternatives to the present regional policy. Pretending they are is not only intellectually dishonest, but unwise. Any viable measures consistent with our aims should not be precluded from consideration beforehand.
Last edited by Winehole23; 12-22-2008 at 10:01 PM.
Closer.
Insurgencies generally take about a decade or so.
We have made some small progress in terms of building up the government in Kabul, but have not committed the resources necessary to really do the job effectively, as I stated previously.
Dammit. My lunch hour is over. :/
Ah well. Laters.
Whenever you have time, I'd be interested in your take on doobs' take. He says OBL is no longer significant for the national interest, but thinks our presence in Afghanistan is geostrategically justified.
Last edited by Winehole23; 12-22-2008 at 02:22 PM.
You may think my argument makes assumptions, but so does the opposing argument. To think that we can withdraw militarily from Afghanistan, and that no regional instability would ensue, assumes that we're causing regional instability, and that the countries are inclined towards peacefulness. That's a huge assumption, unsupported by the region's history. You would almost have to believe that Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan are all willing to play nice and be peaceful, responsible countries on their own. I prefer to rely on the lessons of history--lessons of military security in general, and of our experiences in South Asia in particular.
[By the way, our interests in the region are pretty much self-evident. India is a large country with a growing economy, and a trading partner. It also has nuclear weapons. Pakistan is a large Muslim country with nuclear weapons and problems with Muslim extremism. Afghanistan is a poor, historically unstable country that was home to bin Laden and his terrorist network. Need I say more?]
Like nature, international politics abhors a vacuum. For instance, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was made possible, in large part, by the United States and the Soviet Union substantially withdrawing from the Middle East in the late 1980s. Or take present-day Iraq. When the insurgency was stronger and American forces were failing to restore security, there was a security vacuum created by the violence . . . which was promptly filled by Iran.
Why do you think North Korea has not mounted a large-scale invasion of South Korea? Don't you think maybe it has something to do with thousands of American troops stationed in South Korea? Why do you think the Soviet Union never mounted a large-scale, land invasion of Europe? Europe was very weak after World War II, and ripe for the taking. But, by joining NATO and basing thousands of American troops in Europe, we made a strong commitment to European independence and security. Surely you would agree that an American military presence helped to keep Europe free and make its economic and political integration possible?
Anyway, you said so yourself that the Taliban is re-energized and is taking control of large parts of Afghanistan. So do you really think that withdrawing American troops from the region will enable Karzai to fight off the Taliban? Or do you think that our withdrawal will leave Karzai powerless and unable to stop the Taliban's advance on Kabul? Actually, I have a better question: do you think it's even in our interest to fight the Taliban, or do you think it's OK for the Taliban to take over again? Do you really think the combination of killing bin Laden and leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban will solve anything?
With respect to our military presence, this is what I think we're achieving: (1) increasing the stability of Karzai's government (we could do a lot better in this regard); (2) fighting and killing some of the main supporters of Muslim terrorism in South Asia, the Taliban; (3) being in close proximity to Pakistan and Iran, thereby signaling our willingness and ability to intervene in their affairs; (4) disrupting al Qaeda by keeping its senior leadership on the run and, for the most part, out of contact with their foot soldiers; and (5) making a partner out of Afghanistan, thereby enhancing our ability to broker a sustainable peace in the region.
You can disagree all you want, and say my argument makes assumptions. Well, get used to it. That's what foreign policy requires. You have to make educated assumptions about how a policy will serve your interests based on historical examples and an understanding of human nature.
It depends on the conditions of the withdrawal. I see no reason to assume that withdrawal would be inconsistent with armistice, treaty or a strategy of containment plus black ops.
I think so. I did not claim the region was bereft of US interests, but I doubt any of the interests you have named are vital US interests, such as require us to go to war or invade foreign lands.
Neither me nor LnGrrrR were recommending one.
I do agree. But Europe and Korea wanted us there. Our occupation of Afghanistan is less, uh, consensual, and the foreign threat to the country isn't comparable. Nor is Afghanistan as important to us as Korea or Western Europe were at the end of WWII IMO. But I do think that reasonable people can disagree about this.
An interesting question. Much turns on the semantics of the word "Taliban". There are a lot of Afghans who do not want to go back to the status quo ante, but hate Karzai and foreign occupation, and have become fighters. Pretending they all carry water for OBL and Mullah Omar is simplistic. It is possible large numbers of so-called Taliban can be peeled away from Al Qaeda and Mullah Omar, if they are given a political stake in their own country.
In addition, any armistice involving the Taliban might include provisions for Allied enforcement, or be subject to US containment. There is no reason to assume US withdrawal leaves Afghanistan subject to chaos. Is this the case in Iraq?
At some point, Iraq and Aghanistan will have to take responsibility for their own messes. The sooner the better, IMO.
You think Wilsonian intervention is justified and conduces to the political ends; I think the political ends do not rise to the level of being vital to the country, and that the military lever will tend to produce more resistance than agreement over time in Afghanistan. History shows the latter to be the case, too.
True enough. We stand and fall on opinion here. I appreciate the seriousness of your reply to me, even if we disagree about the details, doobs.
It is neither persuasive nor plain IMHO that: the stability of Afghanistan is a vital US interest; that US boots on the ground in Afghanistan is the only viable means to secure this interest; that using any other means would bring about chaos.
This war is optional, not necessary. I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie before. I don't like the way it turns out for us.
It's time to stop acting tough, and start getting smart on terror. Our current GWOT is counterproductive and costly in the extreme. It raises terrorists to a level of historical significance they do not deserve, gives them hands on training they would not otherwise have, and makes us, in the words of Michael Scheuer, "Al Qaeda's indispensible ally."
Last edited by Winehole23; 12-22-2008 at 10:11 PM.
Putting the focus on something broadly agreed to in the thread so far: that we lack enough troops in theatre to get the job done.
According to the ISAF chief, current counterinsurgency doctrine requires 400,000 troops in Afganistan. We're 260,000 troops short. There are ~150,000 troops in Iraq. According to an NYT article today, SecDef Gates estimates the rump of US support in Iraq will be in the range of "several tens of thousands." At best, around 100,000 additional US troops will be available for duty in Afghanistan.
It would appear the resources necessary to wage the counterinsurgency aren't there, absent conscription or increased NATO participation. I can see how a surge might produce temporary advantages that would allow us, as in Iraq, to draw down significantly and hand over responsibility to local authorities. But without the necessary troops, prospects don't look good for the long term.
Your conclusion that we're closer is a contradiction, unless you think counterinsurgency is an egg timer. If we haven't committed necessary resources to do it right, does the clock still run? And when it goes ding, will we have won?
One other thing. Weren't we closer to taking out Al Qaeda for good in 2003 than we are now? I appreciate how sanguine you are about our eventual success, RG, but your optimistic brio appears to have colored your judgment about facts. Al Qaeda is rejuvenated according to our own intel. Before we invaded Iraq, they were weak and on the run.
Last edited by Winehole23; 12-22-2008 at 10:04 PM.
Ta-da! *takes a bow*
Obviously there's much more than that, but in essence, that should be the plan. Behead (figuratively!) the leader of al Qaeda to send a message, and then let the CIA/FBI do what it does. I don't think we need long-term military occupation of Afghanistan anymore than we did Iraq.
Then again, I'm an isolationist.
Also, to comment on the above discussion:
I tend to side with Winehole, in the idea that military intervention is a very blunt tool to use in international relations. I echo the words of Washington when he said we should try to maintain neutrality with foreign countries. Additionally, our presence there does not guarantee that instability will not occur anyways.
Tell me, if another country deemed American 'unstable' and supported whichever government that they thought was best with military, how would your local populace think of them? Most people are never truly comfortable with foreign military around, I find.
Maintain neutrality and let each side work it out. If the region goes to crap... well I'm sorry, that sucks. If India/Pakistan/Afghanistan want help, let them ask the international community. We shouldn't always be the first to respond, just because we can.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...gsork&refer=us
Obama’s Afghan Troop-Surge Plan May Prove Too Much, Too Late
By Ken Fireman
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sending more U.S. forces to Afghanistan is an idea whose time has come. The question is whether the time when it could work has already gone.
President-elect Barack Obama, departing President George W. Bush and holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates have backed a plan to send 20,000 or more troops next year. Those forces must confront an increasingly entrenched Taliban enemy and a population grown hostile to foreign troops after seven years of U.S.-led warfare.
“We may have missed the golden moment there,” said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official who has long advocated an increased U.S. focus on Afghanistan.The tension between the short-run need for more muscle to thwart the Taliban and the long-term trap of becoming the latest in a long line of foreign intruders bogged down in Afghanistan forms the core of the dilemma confronting Obama.
The new U.S. troops will likely be used to strike hard at Taliban insurgents and attempt to halt their momentum, said retired Army General Jack Keane, who helped plan a similar U.S. buildup in Iraq two years ago.
In a parallel effort, the Afghan National Army will be rapidly expanded and trained to secure the areas cleared of insurgents, Keane said. U.S. and Afghan forces will also seek to recruit local tribes to the anti-Taliban campaign, said Seth Jones, an analyst for the policy-research organization RAND Corp. and a Defense Department consultant.
Quick Results
Jones said the buildup must show results quickly, given declining Afghan support for foreign troops on their soil. “The clock is ticking right now,” he said.
And some experts say sending more U.S. forces could prove counterproductive, making it harder for President Hamid Karzai’s wobbly government to defeat a resurgent Taliban by increasing the perception that the government is dependent on outsiders for survival.
“In the end, insurgencies are not won or lost by foreign troops,” said Christine Fair, an analyst in the Arlington, Virginia, office of RAND who worked in Afghanistan for the United Nations.
The Afghanistan surge eventually may almost double the U.S. military personnel in the country. The reinforcements Bush sent to Iraq last year amounted to about a 20 percent boost in a force more than four times bigger.
Karzai, Casualties
Karzai has urged the U.S. to consult with Afghan officials on how the additional troops are used and to limit civilian casualties during operations. He made those points in a Dec. 22 meeting in Kabul with Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Associated Press reported.
Military officials and observers don’t dispute the limits of the planned U.S. buildup. Keane said it “is enough to make a difference, but it’s not big enough to win. We will begin to change momentum, but we won’t win unless we grow the Afghan army.”And Gates has raised a caution flag, even as he has approved adding one combat and one aviation brigade and “conceptually” endorsed a request from commanders to send three more combat brigades next year.
During a trip to the region earlier this month, Gates said no decision has been made about the duration of the buildup. He said it would be unwise to exceed the planned U.S. reinforcements.
Gates’s Concern
“I would be very concerned about a substantially bigger U.S. presence than that,” he said on Dec. 14. “The Soviets were there with 120,000 troops and lost because they didn’t have the support of the Afghan people. At a certain point, we get such a big footprint, we begin to look like an occupier.”
During the presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly called for sending more troops to cope with insurgent attacks that have risen to their highest level since the Taliban -- an Islamist militia known for its harsh treatment of women -- was ousted from power by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. The country’s farm economy also has shifted toward soaring production of opium.
There are currently about 31,000 U.S. troops and another 31,000 from other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Afghanistan, according to Pentagon and NATO data.
Vikram Singh, a former Defense Department official, said he found during a recent trip to Afghanistan a “profound sense of disappointment” among U.S. and NATO forces about the resurgence of the Taliban and the limited opportunities for countering it at current troop levels.
Rural Rule
In many rural areas of the country, the Taliban has begun acting as a de facto government thanks to “a combination of support, intimidation, fear and the belief that the government cannot win,” he said.
The planned U.S. buildup will add between 20,000 and 30,000 troops during the next year, according to Mullen.
The new forces will be divided between three southern provinces that form the heart of the current Taliban insurgency and two others near the capital of Kabul where attacks have increased in recent months.
Even with the planned buildup, U.S. and NATO forces won’t be large enough by themselves to fulfill the primary goal of any effective counter-insurgency campaign, which is protecting the population, military experts say.
Bigger Country
In Iraq, they note, the U.S. had more than 150,000 troops at the height of last year’s surge. And Afghanistan has 16 percent more people than Iraq, 48 percent more territory and a far more challenging military environment because of its varied terrain and lack of roads.
“We don’t have enough troops to create security on the ground in Afghanistan, and the Afghan army is not big enough,” said retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, one of the principal authors of the service’s counter-insurgency manual.
The Afghan government has endorsed a plan to double the size of its army to 134,000 over five years. Even that will be too small to meet its needs, said Keane and other experts; he said a force of at least 250,000 should be the goal.
The good news, Keane said, is that recent experience in Iraq demonstrates that an indigenous army can be rapidly upgraded in both size and quality when sufficient resources are provided.
Another lesson from Iraq that may be transferable to Afghanistan, Jones said, is the utility of drawing in local tribal ins utions to oppose the insurgents. That is true even through Afghanistan’s tribal structure is more complex and ethnically varied, he said.
And doing this successfully offers a way to avoid the stigma of being perceived as a foreign intruder, he said.
“If American forces operate unilaterally, they will be viewed increasingly as foreign occupiers,” Jones said. “If they’re able to leverage local ins utions, local concerns will be lessened.”
Popularity isn't prudence. The same myopia, unreflectiveness and Panglossian flair that got us into Iraq sustains our present course in Afghanistan IMO.
Most of the country is already lost to the Taliban. We don't have the troops to turn this around. The sooner we face this the better.
The sad thing is, if we nuked every square foot in that god forsaken country until it was just one big mountain of glass, there would be no more opium. So I'm at a total loss when trying to think of a solution :sad
I would agree on both points.
OBL has been removed as anything other than a figurehead.
Better for us not to actually kill him, but let him die of something unglorious like kidney failure.
Hmm. Perhaps some clarification is in order.
The ed way Iraq was run for the first 3 or 4 years has put Al Qaeda in a stronger position today than they were in 2003.
BUT
We collectively, and that includes the military have learned a lot, and that counts for a great deal in terms of making our efforts more effective.
I think we have a long row to hoe in Afghanistan, and it will be a VERY difficult task to put together the country that the Russians ed up.
Therein lies the solution. We MUST build up the central government's ability to control areas of the country.
We MUST build up physical and social infrastructure that makes a difference.
This isn't rocket science, but does require a lot of "soft" skills and power in addition to raw firepower.
Trigger pullers are necessary, but not sufficient. The most important component of the military build up will be the trainers that can create new, capable Afghan military and police units. This must be coordinated with improved access to water, trade, education, and a semi-functioning legal system.
CIA is giving the Afghan warlords, who run their own govts independent of Karzai and practice polygamy, Viagra. A couple of warlords apparently have now become US allies (as if these guys couldn't afford Viagra).
In Iraq, the military bought the Sunnis with arms and $300/month, peace-for-money.
In Afganistan, it's hard- s-for-peace.
Gotta love the CIA, always good for a barrel of laughs.
Indeed, it will. It will be a very expensive and very lengthy, if not also a very risky mission to keep enough of the country to preserve Karzai in power, while training all his troops and rebuilding Afghanistan's infrastructure, public health, education and legal system.
I wonder if Americans don't deserve better infrastructure, public health and education first. I also wonder whether holding Afghanistan and building it to our liking over the next few decades is:
a. doable;
b. affordable;
c. wise or prudent;
d. conducive to our strategic ends;
e. the only strategy so conducive.
The pattern of serious-minded people begging all the important questions before the war is what got us into the Iraq jackpot. I hope we don't repeat it. Afghanistan could end up being a lot more expensive and bloody than Iraq.
Like the Russians, the English twice, the Mughal Empire, Tamerlaine, Genghis Khan, the Ghaznavids, the Turks and Alexander the Great before us, we could end up losing there.
On second thought, we should put poppy seeds into the seed vaults scattered throughout the world..THEN turn that entire mountaineous backland hole into a big sheet of glass. The only fragment of history we have on our side in terms of a war in afghanistan is that we have the ability to do this.
We have little choice but to commit ourselves to it. To do otherwise would be to cede a large chunk of territory and resources to people who are dedicated to killing us. It would also abandon some very good people to the Taliban, with whom the Taliban would likely deal very harshly.
It is very doable, given the proper level of resources, which have been, and currently are, woefully inadequate. We will be pulling out of Iraq barely in time and committing to Afghanistan. It is a race at the moment.
If we pull it off, it will provide some pretty conclusive proof to a lot of muslims that we aren't the evil imperialists that Al Qaeda says we are.
It is affordable, and has the benefit of being something that our allies can actually support and share some of the burden.
You can't really draw too much on history for this one. The Russians had an active superpower funneling tens of billions of dollars into the insurgency, and we don't. We do have to contend with the money from the poppy production, but that is something we have some experience with in Columbia and other places.
I really don't see another viable option to keeping our commitment to Afghanistan, both in terms of moral imperitive, or general geopolitical strategy.
By "people who are dedicated to killing us'' I presume you mean Al Qaeda. But it is far from clear that the Taliban take their marching orders from OBL. And the Taliban themselves are not a monolith, but draw on diverse sources of support. If they're really such bad guys, why do Karzai and Khalilzad both stress the importance of negotiating with them?
And given that Al Qaeda is already secure in Pakistan, more secure in fact, than they ever were in Afghanistan, what supports RG's assumption that they will reoccupy Afghanistan, and even further that the Taliban would allow them to sit at the levers of power?
For the sake of argument, let's grant everthing RG would have us assume. The Taliban take over, terrorize the country, and invite OBL to give orders.
Does OBL in charge of Afghanistan pose some threat to the United States, that makes an indefinite occupation and war of the country imperative? Afghanistan is weak, has few friends, and no means of projecting its power, except as a narco-state. Do we really have to accept endless war and the tab for rebuilding Afghanistan as the price for...
...wait for it
...the threat posed to the USA by Afghanistan?
At least you seem to have open eyes about this: that losing in Afghanistan is not just some dark cloud on the horizon, but a real possibility. Because the focus was elsewhere, and because adequate resources have yet to be dedicated to the mission.
If by some miracle we turn Afghanistan into a tolerant, pro-Western democracy, Afghanistan will be regarded as a US colony, its leaders as our puppets, and their imperialism thesis will be considered proven -- not refuted -- by our success.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus...0812271240.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/23/stor...2356051200.htm
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...714038,00.html -- 1,000 extra troops, 14 months. The Germans, who've failed miserably in training the Afghan Army, don't seem to see the urgency.
Public support for the mission is declining in Canada, Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands. Pleas that countries besides the US and GB contribute more to the effort seem to have fallen on sympathetic ears, but so far our allies' checkbooks have not been so tractable.
You keep saying our allies are on board for a massive projection of soft power and money into Afghanistan. Could you please link evidence for this support, RG? My own brief searches of the news do not support this view.
Famous last words.
Moral imperative? There is some moral consideration that trumps national interest and strategic advantage? I hope it does not oblige us to invade and occupy even more countries than we already have. Already our forces are stretched to the limit. Eventually, so-called moral imperatives will have to yield to prudence and do-ability.
How about containment plus black ops, as suggested upstream?
If you cannot think of alternatives to the current strategy, what that suggests to me is that you have not even considered them yet, RG.
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