Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Good observations and questions from Marc Lynch.
I find the strategic rationale for escalating the war in Afghanistan extremely thin, and the mismatch between avowed aims and available resources frighteningly wide. What are the strategic reasons for expanding the commitment in Afghanistan? Why should the US be committing to a project of armed state building now, in 2009?
How about you, yourself, answer these questions?
Abu(s), et. al.
Could the answer to the above questions -- as noted in my comment at "Day Three" below -- be concern with Russia and China?
Or could the answer be to the above questions be better understood under the title of "opening," wherein, the United States, much as it did in Japan in the 19th Century, has determined that it must "open up" and "transform" certain nations so that greater economic activity and greater economic growth may be achieved.
Could the DoD and the DoS be being primed for this type of mission?
Crossposted from FP.
"I think the main problem with both your take on this and Exums debate so far is that it has become an either/or debate: Either the US goes for remaking Afghan into Xanadu, OR we just as well might get the fck out. Ive been exchanging mails with some folks actually doing the work in Afghanistan under the new momentuum, and a lot of the issue now is that the ANA is *finally* having its own veteran cadres, who are (now) being introduced to pop-centric COIN ideas instead of kinetic orientation. That means that the McChrystal initiative is much more about empowering the locals while maintaining support more than it is building utopia. As far as I understand it.
So the question should be: Is it cost effective to "surge" for the next two years in order to hopefully achieve a somewhat stable Afghan capable of fighting Taleban both on the hearts and minds front as well as the battlefield? Is it possible to spend two years educating buerocrats and combatting the worst of corruption as well as achieving limited military goals? Or should we just cut and run as fast as we can? Thats a whole different framework of thought."
Fnord, right on. 91% of Afghans have an unfavorable view of the Taliban. The Taliban also happen to be the enemy of the US, and most of the world. Why would you not help the Afghans fight them? Shouldn't how to help the Afghans fight them be the question?
I think the Afghans will need $250 billion in grants over the next 20 years from the international community.
Perhaps Abu Muqawama could start a discussion on how quickly ISAF can transition to advisers, trainers, and special forces; as well as what is the meaning of "advisers." My view is that 1 ISAF advisory bde should be super embed into each ANA Corps and the 111st Kabul capital division. Similar embedding for ANCOP and other ANP. Fight the war through the ANA and ANP. Perhaps complete the transition to super embedded forces, trainers and special forces within two years. Gradually draw down the "advisers" over many years. {start embedding 1 ISAF advisory battalion per ANA Corps versus an advisory bde, and so forth. }
What would the costs of such a strategy be? What are the benefits?
"Mind not made up? "
Certainly seemed pretty made up at the CNAS conference panel vs Bacevich.
@ Anand
I think the Afghans will need $250 billion in grants over the next 20 years from the international community.
Where do you get this number $250 billion over 20 years. At that rate it'll cost us $12.5 billion a year. But we are already spending $60+ billion a year. So to get to your number we'd have to significantly draw down. Which everyone says will make any kind of nation building impossible.
You have to make up your mind. You are either for the COIN nation-building operation. In which case your number should be more like $1.2 trillion over 20 years ($60bill * 20). Or you are against the COIN nation-building operation, which may cost us $250 billion if we pull out in 4 years.
Visitor at 12:02 PM's comment regarding an American strategy to "open" and "transform" various nations -- so that greater economic activity and great economic growth might be achieved -- deserves greater consideration.
As he notes, the Department of Defense has a major ongoing ininitiave to adopt enhanced irregular warfare capabilities [hard power] tailored for use in the Third World; and the Department of State has a major ongoing initiative to adopt enhanced diplomatic and aid tools [soft power] also tailored for use in the Third World.
These two new "carrot and stick" initiatives do seem to be designed to be used -- in tandem -- to accomplish a broad and seemingly important strategic goal of "opening up" "backward," "recalcitrant" or "poorly designed" nations and transforming them such that they might better service the old and new market nations and better service the expanding global economy.
This, I believe, is the reason why we should not expect that nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan will be left to their own devices once their militaries have been brought up to par. This (security) will be seen as having only accomplished half the job. The other half of the job is to make these nations better servants (or partners, if you wish to look it that way) to the world-market.
This possibly more correct characterization of America's new strategy may help address the "holes" that we find in many/most other arguments and explanations, and answer Abu Aardvark's question of: "Why would the US be commiting to a project of armed state-building now, in 2009?"
Why? Because now, with the United States the sole superpower -- and China, Russia and India having been converted to market ideas and disciplines -- the Third World is the only thing that stands in the way of significantly greater economic activity and growth. In fact, the success of the capitalist experiment in China, Russia and India directly, and the continued success of the United States indirectly, is thought, by some, to depend on this transformation of the Third World. (Or so the argument for intervention goes.)
NZ commits its SAS for 18 months but starts to withdraw its PRT. I would have thought that goes against the current flow.
http://tinyurl.com/nfjkfy
some strange spin over the last weeks. the SAS will not be going out on joint patrols with the Afghan Army as that would be too dangerous. Instead it will be doing its usually special forces stuff, as that's safer?
Gringo, I just mean grants to Afghanistan, not the cost of ISAF operations, which would be additional expenditures.
I would show you a spreadsheet on how the grants to Afghans is arrived at. There are a couple of different projections that are based on alternative assumptions:
Over 20 years, I think the ANSF will need:
ANAAC: $45 billion (there is a detailed model that generates this number: assumes 40 transport fixed wing, 72 turbroprop light attack, 14 light attack supersonic fighters with light multirole capability, 48 fixed wing ISR (some might be drones), 126 rotary wing aircraft of various kinds, $380 million in annual expenses to maintain command & control and other shared infrastructure not related to individual aircraft; about 18,000 people in all)
ANA - ANAAC: $45 billion (assumes 180,000 ANA excluding ANAAC, of which 120,000 are subordinate to the ANA 5 Corps HQs; $12,500 per ANA soldier)
ANP: $13 billion (Assumes 130,000 ANP at $5,000 per police person per year)
ANSF total: $103 billion
Education ministry will need: $60 billion (inclusive of CAPEX and operations costs)
Roads, bridges, rails, electricity CAPEX: $87 billion
Balance of medium term CAPEX and operations costs for civilian GIRoA to be funded by $50 billion in loans borrowed by the GIRoA.
To balance the GIRoA budget without annual foreign grants, I think they will need $250/year in per capita tax revenue 20 years from now. To achieve this, the "white" Afghan economy would have to grow a real 7% per capita per year over 20 years and collect 16% of GDP in tax revenue in 2030.
In other words, Afghanistan has to become a prosperous middle income nation to ever hope to balance its budget. Either this, or the ANA, ANP, education, transportation and electricity budgets will need to be cut back dramatically. One of these two outcomes is NECESSARY to "win" in Afghanistan.
So how does what I have described above play out?:
As the United States moves to transform the Third World -- (through smart power initiatives) -- such that it might better service the global economy,
the types of conflicts we see today in Afghanistan and Iraq (regime change, ethnic conflict, tribal conflict and religious conflict) become more likely.
The United States will us "carrots and sticks" to install market-friendly governments in appropriate Third World nations.
After the United States has its market-friendly government in place, it will defend its interests.
Anyone who would seek to overthrow a market-friendly government -- or who tend to disrupt, delay or deny a market-friendly transformation --these individuals and/or groups will be put down.
This includes any Third World government installed by the United States that fails to honor its obligations to quickly and efficiently transform its nation to meet world market needs generally and to meet United States needs specifically.
Thus, ineffective transformation regimes, and ethnic, tribal and religious obstacles -- any or all of which might get in the way of an efficient market-friendly transformation -- all of these must be overcome.
Herein, irregular warfare and COIN fighters find their calling. This is why IR and COIN are, and will be, the coin-of-the-realm in the 21st Century.
Or so the explanation goes.
'There is no refuge, no place to go to deal with your grief'
In the first ever unauthorised dispatch from an officer on the frontline, one young Captain offers a brutally honest account of life in Afghanistan, revealing the pain of losing comrades, the frustration at the lack of equipment, and the sense that the conflict seems unending and, at times, unwinnable
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/there-is-no-refuge-no-place...
I see your point Anand that this would be just a grants program to not include the cost of military expenditures. But that still doesn't remove the fact that additional expenditures will have to go along with the $250 billion.
But even that doesn't matter because $250 billion of development assistance to ONE country is absurd and will likely never happen nor receive widespread international support. As it is, the US gives about 1/5 of the OECD total of about $100 billion in foreign aid a year. This money is then divided up over 100 or 150+ countries.
I'm no expert on development assistance but giving grants of $250 billion to one country doesn't make sense.
This website says we gave about $80 billion in grants to Israel over roughly a 30 year period. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to...
Even that is an absurd amount but nowhere near as close to what you are proposing for Afghanistan.
"Fnord, right on. 91% of Afghans have an unfavorable view of the Taliban. The Taliban also happen to be the enemy of the US, and most of the world. Why would you not help the Afghans fight them? Shouldn't how to help the Afghans fight them be the question?"
Indeed. But I don't think Marc Lynch cares much about what Afghans think. He would have been sanguine to see the Muslim Brotherhood take over the Egyptian state by force.
One of things that continually bemuses me about analysis like Marc's is the argument that Al Qaeda doesn't need a "safe haven" in a nation state? If that is the case, why have AlQ and the Taleban taken over the northern provinces of Pakistan? Why were they approaching Islamabad back in April? Why are they fighting to retake Afghanistan, province by province?
If the 2001 status quo was returned and the Taleban were still the Afghanistan government today, Al Qaeda training camps and all - what would be the situation? Is it more or less likely you Americans would be seeing more suicide attacks on your US embassies and warships as occurred in the 90s? Would there have been more attacks on the your mainland?
I would give Marc et al more credence if they more honestly argued that the US has no business or interest in being involved in any way in any of these countries. That is, the Ron Paul argument that the US has no national interests in the Korean peninsular, the Middle East, Europe or in fact anywhere beyond its own borders. At least isolationism avoids hypocrisy.
gringo lost, please suggest your strategy for how Afghanistan can win with less money.
Keep in mind that Afghanistan is facing an insurgency backed by parts of the Pakistani security apparatus. If Pakistan were transformed, Afghansitan could win with a lot less money.
If the Taliban don't have support, why are they winning?
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