I have been meaning to write on Afghanistan for a while and today’s column by David Brooks has finally prompted me to write it. Brooks’ argument is simple. All the military experts are sure we can do this, but they are not sure that President Obama has the the resolve to do it.
They do not think it will be easy or quick. But they do have a bedrock conviction that the Taliban can be stymied and that the governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be strengthened. But they do not know if Obama shares this gut conviction or possesses any gut conviction on this subject at all.
The experts I spoke with describe a vacuum at the heart of the war effort — a determination vacuum. And if these experts do not know the state of President Obama’s resolve, neither do the Afghan villagers. They are now hedging their bets, refusing to inform on Taliban force movements because they are aware that these Taliban fighters would be their masters if the U.S. withdraws. Nor does President Hamid Karzai know. He’s cutting deals with the Afghan warlords he would need if NATO leaves his country.
Nor do the Pakistanis or the Iranians or the Russians know. They are maintaining ties with the Taliban elements that would represent their interests in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.
The determination vacuum affects the debate in this country, too. Every argument about troop levels is really a proxy argument for whether the U.S. should stay or go. The administration is so divided because the fundamental issue of commitment has not been settled.
The commanders may indeed have the convictions, as no doubt the commanders of the past eight years have, and the Soviet commanders before them, and indeed the British commanders before them. The latest US strategy is remarkably similar to the one that the Soviets settled on–protecting the major urban populations–and this is no accident. The major urban population are going to have the least affinity with the Taleban’s religious authoritarianism, and this goal should be more strategically manageable than securing every one of Afghanistan’s 647,000 square kilometres.
Things look quite different from a rural perspective, though. Consider this account of David Rhode while being held captive by the Taleban.
TWO deafening explosions shook the walls of the compound where the Taliban held us hostage. My guards and I dived to the floor as chunks of dirt hurtled through the window.
“Dawood?” one guard shouted, saying my name in Arabic. “Dawood?”
“I’m O.K.,” I replied in Pashto. “I’m O.K.”
The plastic sheeting covering the window hung in tatters. Debris covered the floor. Somewhere outside, a woman wailed. I wondered if Tahir Luddin and Asad Mangal, the two Afghans who had been kidnapped with me, were alive. A guard grabbed his rifle and ordered me to follow him outside.
“Go!” he shouted, his voice shaking with fury. “Go!”
Our nightmare had come to pass.
Their nightmare had come to pass because the roving drone strikes terrorising the Afghan countryside had come to the village and the villagers may become so enraged as to destroy even their valuable asset in the captive David Rhode. Some observers may have taken this as a sign of the usefulness of the Drones in harassing the Taleban but it equally illustrates their complete futility, as they must increase the resolve of the population to see off the invaders and their quisling enablers in the cities. And they can still wreak havoc in the cities as the recent deadly assault on the UN compound illustrates.
Scott Ritter has fierce article on this futility just up at TruthDig.
Thus the solution itself becomes the problem, thereby creating a never-ending circular conflict which has the United States expending more and more resources to resolve a situation that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, and everything to do with crafting a politically viable salve for what is in essence a massive self-inflicted wound. It is the proverbial dog chasing after its own tail, a frustrating experience made even more so by the fact that any massive commitment of troops brings with it the fatal attachment of national pride, individual hubris and, worst of all, the scourge of domestic American politics, so that by the time this dog bites its tail, it will be so blinded by artificialities that rather than recognize its mistake, it will instead proceed to consume itself. In the case of Afghanistan, our consumption will be measured in the lives of American servicemen and women, national treasure, national honor, and, of course the lives of countless Afghan dead and wounded.
It is for this reason that another ex-Marine, Matthew Hoh resigned in protest, the first American official in Afghanistan known to do so, seeing the US effort as a futile intervention in a 35-year old civil war. Christopher Buckley explains why he thinks this is significant and why he should be listened to.
As Nicholas Kristoff says, for the cost of sending a soldier to Afghanistan 20 schools could be built and Yglesias reminds us that the US alone will spend $65 billion dollars on Afganistan while the whole economy is $12.5 billion dollars, suggesting that even a crude policy of bribery would be much more effective at a fraction of the cost. Stephen Walt sum up a short article:
In short, US victory in Afghanistan won’t put an end to Al Qaeda, and getting out won’t make it more dangerous. And if the outcome in Afghanistan has little effect on the threat Al Qaeda poses, there is little reason to squander more American blood and treasure there.
General Goldstein has argued that the most useful analogies with the Vietnam war aren’t military but political, and this is surely correct. Every assertion that David Brooks makes is either dubious or explains why the underlying situation is not at all conducive to the current strategy. Where Brooks calls for resolve we can see futility. Again, it is not at all clear that the US can succeed in destroying the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and create a stable liberal democracy in Afghanistan. It is not at all clear that our policy of continuously bombing the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and supporting corrupt governments in both isn’t storing up much trouble for the future and indeed destabilising Pakistan. All the local actor can see the contours of the situation and know perfectly well that the American people are fed up with their beltway armchair generals sacrificing their sons and treasure to their vanity and are taking the money while it is going and making their preparations for the inevitable reduced American and NATO presence.
Many of David Brooks’ columns lament the ambition of Obama administration policies that burden future generations with debt while pursuing grand plans to solve pressing American problems in, for example, health care. Yet for some strange reason, when it comes to projecting American power on the other side of the world, all of this logic gets set aside.
Afghanistan
The commanders may indeed have the convictions, as no doubt the commanders of the past eight years have, and the Soviet commanders before them, and indeed the British commanders before them. The latest US strategy is remarkably similar to the one that the Soviets settled on–protecting the major urban populations–and this is no accident. The major urban population are going to have the least affinity with the Taleban’s religious authoritarianism, and this goal should be more strategically manageable than securing every one of Afghanistan’s 647,000 square kilometres.
Things look quite different from a rural perspective, though. Consider this account of David Rhode while being held captive by the Taleban.
Their nightmare had come to pass because the roving drone strikes terrorising the Afghan countryside had come to the village and the villagers may become so enraged as to destroy even their valuable asset in the captive David Rhode. Some observers may have taken this as a sign of the usefulness of the Drones in harassing the Taleban but it equally illustrates their complete futility, as they must increase the resolve of the population to see off the invaders and their quisling enablers in the cities. And they can still wreak havoc in the cities as the recent deadly assault on the UN compound illustrates.
Scott Ritter has fierce article on this futility just up at TruthDig.
It is for this reason that another ex-Marine, Matthew Hoh resigned in protest, the first American official in Afghanistan known to do so, seeing the US effort as a futile intervention in a 35-year old civil war. Christopher Buckley explains why he thinks this is significant and why he should be listened to.
As Nicholas Kristoff says, for the cost of sending a soldier to Afghanistan 20 schools could be built and Yglesias reminds us that the US alone will spend $65 billion dollars on Afganistan while the whole economy is $12.5 billion dollars, suggesting that even a crude policy of bribery would be much more effective at a fraction of the cost. Stephen Walt sum up a short article:
But in truth these arguments can be condensed into a decent Onion article: U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan.
General Goldstein has argued that the most useful analogies with the Vietnam war aren’t military but political, and this is surely correct. Every assertion that David Brooks makes is either dubious or explains why the underlying situation is not at all conducive to the current strategy. Where Brooks calls for resolve we can see futility. Again, it is not at all clear that the US can succeed in destroying the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and create a stable liberal democracy in Afghanistan. It is not at all clear that our policy of continuously bombing the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and supporting corrupt governments in both isn’t storing up much trouble for the future and indeed destabilising Pakistan. All the local actor can see the contours of the situation and know perfectly well that the American people are fed up with their beltway armchair generals sacrificing their sons and treasure to their vanity and are taking the money while it is going and making their preparations for the inevitable reduced American and NATO presence.
Many of David Brooks’ columns lament the ambition of Obama administration policies that burden future generations with debt while pursuing grand plans to solve pressing American problems in, for example, health care. Yet for some strange reason, when it comes to projecting American power on the other side of the world, all of this logic gets set aside.