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Debating Afghanistan
On the one hand, I am really glad the Obama Administration is debating a wide variety of alternatives in Afghanistan. While most of us were operating under the assumption that the administration would stick to the policy it articulated in March (.pdf), and some have been understandably confused by the pause for reflection, the McChrystal report and the Afghan elections fiasco should be enough for one to take a step back and question the assumptions that informed the planning in February and March. Again, I am no strategist, but what I know about strategic planning is that you start with a list of assumptions, and should any of those assumptions turn out to be wrong at some point, you need to go back and revise your plan.
On the other hand, both Tom Ricks and Andrew Sullivan highlighted this excerpt from a George Packer profile of Amb. Richard Holbrooke:
[Y]ou want open airing of views and opinions and suggestions upward, but once the policy's decided you want rigorous, disciplined implementation of it. And very often in the government the exact opposite happens. People sit in a room, they don't air their real differences, a false and sloppy consensus papers over those underlying differences, and they go back to their offices and continue to work at cross purposes, even actively undermining each other.
When the president decides on his strategy for Afghanistan (for real this time), he's going to make a lot of people unhappy. He might, if he decides to resource a counterinsurgency strategy and back a request for more troops, make his base and his own vice president upset. If he decides to consolidate gains in Afghanistan, downsize the footprint, and conduct a counter-terror campaign focused on Pakistan, meanwhile, he's going to make Republicans and the military leadership unhappy. The latter believe that only a properly resourced counterinsurgency strategy will succeed in Afghanistan. But their job is to give their best military advice and to then leave the political decision up to the president, who should and will weigh a number of other factors into his decision. But again, once a decision has been made, everyone -- from the vice president to the military leadership (to 31-year old counterinsurgency bloggers?) -- needs to get onboard. Despite this report from Nancy, I get the sense that the military leadership will have an easier time executing the president's policy if their advice is ignored than the vice-president will if he doesnt get his way.
As for me, I pledge to be patriotically icorrigible no matter what happens.
"I get the sense that the
"I get the sense that the military leadership will have an easier time executing the president's policy if their advice is ignored than the vice-president will if he doesnt get his way."
All due respect to our soldiers given, but I would like to know from where this sense emanates. It seems a rather gilded vision of civil-military relations and deference on the part of the military to its civilian overseers. I've been awed and dismayed at the recent leak of the McChrystal strategic assessment, and wonder how much it was intended to "tie" the President's hands. Assuming those were the circumstances and motivations of the leak, it hardly instills within me confidence in implementation of the President's policy. The comparison between deference on the part of the Vice President versus that on the part of the military seems irrelevant. The Vice President really cannot implement policy. The military is a large institution that can shirk, footdrag and otherwise non-overtly challenge and subvert the President's policy or policies.
I was Visitor 3:52 AM. ADTS
I was Visitor 3:52 AM.
ADTS
The VP has been handed the
The VP has been handed the Iraq and Afghanistan portfolios by the president. He has also spoken quite candidly about how it has taken some getting used to, after 30+ years as his own man in the Senate, being a subordinate again. I wonder if this is a little like deciding on an energy policy focusing on alternate fuels and then asking the oil industry to implement it.AM: Boker Tov. Your closing
AM:
Boker Tov.
Your closing analogy is a good one. Perhaps I am unduly wedded to my earlier position, but I offer the following.
First, shall I recite John Nance Garner on the role of the VP?
Granted, Garner may have given humorous hyperbole, and Biden might (or very well might not) be the most powerful Vice President in history. But again, how much power does Biden have in policy implementation, even if he has been handed the Iraq and Afghanistan portfolios? I'm reminded of the FDR quote that telling (ordering?) the Navy to do something is like punching a feather pillow.
I could recite the bureaucratic politics literature to you, but you've already read it. Principals find it hard to monitor and obtain compliance from agents. There are a lot of agents and only one principal, and of those agents, Biden is quite possibly the most easy to monitor. Do you really think that Obama would stand for overt or covert subversion of his intent by Biden?
By contrast, the military can, as noted, shirk in a fashion that is, at minimum, difficult to reveal. It is a complex institution with its own language and culture (again, you know the literature), and at the risk of appearing unduly paranoid of the military-industrial complex (or at least the first half of it), it (the military, that is) can create rationales for whatever it chooses to do.
Moreover, there is the issue of deference. I cannot imagine the fact that Obama has never served fails to constrain his ability to work with (dare I say command) the military. This dynamic may play itself out in complex ways. But that it impacts civil-military relations, I scarcely doubt.
ADTS
AM: Boker Tov. Your closing
AM:
Boker Tov.
Your closing analogy is a good one. Perhaps I am unduly wedded to my earlier position, but I offer the following.
First, shall I recite John Nance Garner on the role of the VP?
Granted, Garner may have given humorous hyperbole, and Biden might (or very well might not) be the most powerful Vice President in history. But again, how much power does Biden have in policy implementation, even if he has been handed the Iraq and Afghanistan portfolios? I'm reminded of the FDR quote that telling (ordering?) the Navy to do something is like punching a feather pillow.
I could recite the bureaucratic politics literature to you, but you've already read it. Principals find it hard to monitor and obtain compliance from agents. There are a lot of agents and only one principal, and of those agents, Biden is quite possibly the most easy to monitor. Do you really think that Obama would stand for overt or covert subversion of his intent by Biden?
By contrast, the military can, as noted, shirk in a fashion that is, at minimum, difficult to reveal. It is a complex institution with its own language and culture (again, you know the literature), and at the risk of appearing unduly paranoid of the military-industrial complex (or at least the first half of it), it (the military, that is) can create rationales for whatever it chooses to do.
Moreover, there is the issue of deference. I cannot imagine the fact that Obama has never served fails to constrain his ability to work with (dare I say command) the military. This dynamic may play itself out in complex ways. But that it impacts civil-military relations, I scarcely doubt.
ADTS
Let me get this right. The
Let me get this right. The President of the United States declares a war a "necessity" for US national interests, sacks his commanding general, appoints another and orders a strategic assessment. The said general provides the assessment and publicly tells the President the necessary war will fail unless more troops are committed.
The president then rejects the assessment from his chosen general and chooses "failure"?
This seems a very bizarre scenario but I suppose anything is possible in Washington?
The VPs political role is to
The VPs political role is to help keep the President's party on Capitol Hill in line. I don't mean to speak for AM, but I believe he's suggesting if--after Biden publicly expressed concerns/frustrations/outright contempt for any expansion in Afghanistan--President Obama indeed implements all or part of McCrystal's plan, VP Biden will be respectfully told "go to the Hill and get our people on board." The VPs role on Capitol Hill is a vital political one and Biden isn't well known for staying on script.
So will McKiernan get his
So will McKiernan get his job back? Or at least an official apology if Obama shifts from COIN to CT? Wasn't the guy fired because he didn't "get" COIN?
McKiernan deserves an
McKiernan deserves an apology, for sure, for the ugly way in which he was dismissed.McChrystal should be fired
McChrystal should be fired for allowing/ encouraging/ preventing the disclosure of a proposal that should have been for his chain of command only. Not only will his sacking be a lesson for future military stars but it will save us wasting the next 12-18 months realizing we are stuck in the middle of a civil war between two highly unsavoury clusters of gangs. His COIN plan can't work because there is and will be no legitimate Afghan government for decades and the US public will tire of the entire mess very quickly - especially when US casualties go up as McChrystal expects.
Civilian control of the US military and reigning in the military-security-development-industrial complex are far more important than Afghanistan. Generals who make their disagreements with their civilian superiors public should be sacked. This attempt to tie Obama's hands should be punished quickly.
AM, Thats not what I meant
AM,
Thats not what I meant when I said Mckiernan might deserve an apology. The COIN industry has been singing the praise of McChrystal and pushing the arguement that COIN is the solution in Afghanistan. McKiernan was supposedly fired because he "didn't get" this new war of war that you're so enthusiatic about, and was replaced by the guy who "got it."
So if it turns out that the US is going to take up McKiernan's approach after all, after he was fired for "not getting it," then the COINdanistas, not to mention Gates and Obama, are all going to look pretty foolish. And McKiernan is going to have a major "I told you so" moment.
Speculating about the
Speculating about the positions and strengths of various factions within the US government misses the bigger point: Barak Obama is the POTUS and CINC and he may be starting to wobble. I was quite optimistic about your new president but I'm starting to suspect that he may be all talk and no trousers. Healthcare reform, global warming and Afghanistan; all started out with great speeches followed by a reluctance to engage in the costly political confrontations necessary to get any noticeable results.
"Nation building" may be anathema to large portions of the US public, but that's actually what the other 41 countries in ISAF signed up for. If Obama switches back to kinetic CT on the cheap six months after getting NATO on board for COIN things will get quite lonely for USFOR-A. But then again you won't be able to stay for long. If the insurgents are allowed to expand their control of the countryside logistics will get "challenging" -- for starters.
"Nation building" may be
"Nation building" may be anathema to large portions of the US public, but that's actually what the other 41 countries in ISAF signed up for.
Nonsense. If this is indeed what they signed up for, then how come we're doing such a piss-poor job of it?
To paraphrase the great Rod Tidwell, show me the resources. Show me the deveopment assistance and the governance mentors and the police trainers and the political will.
"The European allies support nation-building" is a fantasy that some Europeans entertain to justify caveats and resistance to combat to themselves.
Missing from your bottom
Missing from your bottom paragraph: the point that none of these considerations should drive strategy - in a perfect world, of course.
Perhaps our next president will be one who can make hard decisions, explain his reasoning to the public, and convince enough people that he's right - or at least that his ideas are worth trying.
Perhaps our current president is.
Just have to second the
Just have to second the astonishment with the conclusion the wake of the leak (and reporting that McChrystal is broaching a sudden retirement id things don't go his way -- see Ricks' blog for that) that the military leadership now in charge in Afghanistan would have less problem going along than Biden. Biden's already been overruled -- though he may ultimately prevail. But in any case, he's been deputized as an advisor (to say he's been handed the portfolio seems strong -- he didn't prevail on the policy, at least at first) -- it's not his job to go along. It is the military's job to go along. So if you are right, that's only as it should be.
@Gulliver The mission and
@Gulliver
The mission and mandate of ISAF is to provide security assistance to enable reconstruction and institution building in Afghanistan. It's lacked both the resources and the unity of effort to succeed, but that doesn't change the mission.
There's aid, assistance, trainers and will -- all in insufficient quantity. However, Europe's hardly alone in having committed sins of omission in Afghanistan.
Visitor 6:28am: Thanks -
Visitor 6:28am:
Thanks - that clarifies things.
ADTS
The people who need to be
The people who need to be empowered are the ANA. Seriously committing to training, arming and supporting the ANA is the way to go, but it doesnt look like there is any clarity about this in the US command (in fact, it increasingly looks like the US is flailing about without a strategy). Fixing Karzai's regime is the other priority. Even using less than perfect means to do so. But first you have to know what you want. I am having some doubts about this part and if those doubts are correct, that means everything else will fail. I hope to be proved wrong...
Best way to lose any
Best way to lose any civilian support is to come up with a new plan every 6 months. Maybe thats the goal of Biden and the Commander in Chief.
Wars are dynamic but Goals are not. Do we want Osama bin laden, Mullah Omar, and Al Zawahiri's or not? Give civilians those three and civilians are satisfied, does that change Jihad? No but I have not heard much from anyone that addresses a Jihad solution or Af/Pak solution that sounds doable in 20 years. This is still a 9/11 war from the civilian perspective.
Sanmon The first thing you
Sanmon
The first thing you have to do is figure out who are civillians, and who are the militants.
Maddog.45 I was speaking of
Maddog.45
I was speaking of coalition civilians. But you may be right, with even coalition civilians at home it is sometimes hard to figure out who are the militants.
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