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Well, if you whine as much as I did yesterday...
September 3, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 2:31pm | 56 Comments
Now, see, I found that
Now, see, I found that helpful, but I'm starting to think I might be a little thick about this stuff (I whined at Mudville Gazette about the same thing). I really did not understand timelines like a policy set up in March, from promises made during the last campaign, and then the time it takes to implement said promises. Also, I didn't understand things like what a strategic review is and what it is supposed to.
It must be very frustrating to some of you who are immersed in all this stuff to say the same things over, and over, and over again.
*I find that with my own students and residents. As a younger attending, I used to become frustrated that I was repeating myself, but I finally (hey, I said I was thick) realized that something happened in all that repetition. I think it's called education.
"That construction of
"That construction of government capacity -- call it nation-building if you like -- is essential to the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by U.S. commanders during the last year and embraced by President Obama in March. " WAPO
The focus here at AM is predominately slanted toward the debate on tactics and increasingly strategy) with a military focus, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what brought me here and kept me interested.
But the quote from WAPO highlights something that I think is as equally valid as the military engagement in Afghanistan. The desperate need for more civilians and military staff directed toward the non military tasks of good governance and the design of decent structural formations of civic institutions.
As Gates said, the key is to increase the numbers of Afghans who want to US and allies to be there, increase the numbers that see that the aim is to improve the lot of Afghans, not simply kill bad guys, because you can do that from off shore and with JSOC.
.
The big problem with what
The big problem with what Gates said, David, is that over the last four years more and more Afghans have become UNHAPPY with the U.S. presence in their country. We used to be really overwhelmingly popular, now it's either a slim majority or a plurality depending on the poll. Clearly, something in our current way of doing things isn't working, because we're liked less and less.
The idea of bringing more civilians into the mix is a good one, but it suffers the same problem simply throwing more troops at the problem does: usage. If the current—that is, early 2009—military strategy is wrong (I think it is, though it is s-l-o-w-l-y changing), then throwing more troops at a wrong strategy would be a bad idea. Despite a lot of hifalutin' talk about COIN, there's just not much COIN happening out there at the moment. So if we're talking COIN but doing something else, more troops won't address that.
Similarly, all this talk about civilians sounds nice, until you realize the people advocating their use—from McChrystal on down—have no idea how they're used, what their limitations are, or what their capabilities are. We're eight months into the Obama administration and we still have no head of USAID, for starters. Our lead aid and development agency has been leaderless while the military clamors for more aid and development workers to flood the country. As for the rest, how do they do "governance" work? Have the PRTs been effective at hectoring their governors into making the right decisions, or do some luck out by having good governors? Is there a transition plan in place to wean PRT-reliant provinces toward self-rule? Is it even realistic to expect State or USAID to operate in an inherently insecure environment, and do their own rules of security allow it to happen?
There are probably answers to at least some of these questions, but you don't hear them in these discussions. I think it's because most of the people talking about them don't come from an aid, NGO, or civilian background. To them, civilians are the clouds in powerpoint presentations -- black boxes you place somewhere and assume will do the purpose you assign them. But really, the thinking on that entire side of the equation is woefully underdeveloped.
More specifically, it's been drowned out by all the military guys dominating the conversation. If COIN is primarily political and not military, there sure aren't many non-military people having input into the strategic discussion about it.
The large/small footprint
The large/small footprint inshore/outshore perspectives are interesting from an operational perspective in-theater, but the big political, hence strategic, question in the US is the patience and perceptions of the American electorate.
That would be the far right, the soft center, and the far left.
The far right will not be satisfied until we have initiated a pre-emptive nuclear war against Gog (France) and Magog (Russia) on behalf of Israel, Christ, or ... whatever. Sadly, a great deal of the US Government is still pretending that this was not the rationale for invading Iraq, that the whole of the bi-partisan establishment in Washington went along with it, and that they still pretends it never happend. So, they seek to appease the right and cover their own cowardly asses rather than even engaging, much less defeating the far-right, or holding anybody to account for anything:
"Move On!", as they say on both coasts.
The far left confuses whether the US can or should succeed in Afghanistan or ... anywhere. They are utopian isolationists. But, they are not really different from most of the ruling -- chicken-hawk (neo-liberal) or just cringing liberal -- elites that live off funds borrowed and blood expended abroad with no cost or bother to themselves. Neither of these pro- or anti-war positions cost anything to those as smugly hold them, but they disgust the class that actually bears the human and economic cost of indemnifying our unpatriiotic wealthy and credentialed "support the troops!" elites for their blunders and follies:
"Hold Harmless!" as they say in Washingon.
That leaves a soft center which has to wonder, whether we are over-extended abroad when the Army has to guard the contractors, who guard the paper-shufflers who protect the economic interests of their financial patrons ... because there are simply not enough of Smedley Butler's or Al Gray's Marines to do the dirty work of our obsolete, bloated Army, Navy, Air Force, and State Department establishment:
"Tenured!"
So, here's the big question: How do we win in Afganistan or ... anywhere by projecting the dysfunctions of our own decrepit government, economy, and society into failed states with plenty of problems of their own?
Hell, the question is not even asked, much less answered in polite circles.
@JRB, "So, here's the big
@JRB,
"So, here's the big question: How do we win in Afganistan or ... anywhere by projecting the dysfunctions of our own decrepit government, economy, and society into failed states with plenty of problems of their own?"
Oh shit. The Green Zone....
I really don't think our society at large is that decrepit, I think our elites and govt are. Our economy could right itself quite nicely on it's own, if the govt would stop trying to manage it when they can't manage most of their own departments, and if our elites would stop stealing and looting from it. That would require they be thrown down.
Andrew: In a short
Andrew:
In a short paragraph, perhaps no more than six or seven sentences, would you please state your sense of American strategy (not tactical and operational principles and methods) in Afghanistan today?
thank you
gian
Fun fact: Mark Ames at
Fun fact: Mark Ames at exiled points out that there are now more americans in Afghanistan than the russians deployed way back...
http://exiledonline.com/afghanistan-syndrome-there-are-more-americans-fi...
This one from
This one from Strategypage.com is also pretty interesting, on the new war on the drug trade...
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20090904.aspx
"In a short paragraph,
"In a short paragraph, perhaps no more than six or seven sentences, would you please state your sense of American strategy (not tactical and operational principles and methods) in Afghanistan today?"
What is this, an essay contest for Gentile's amusement?
Oh sweet Jesus, you want to
Oh sweet Jesus, you want to bring Max Boot and Michael O'Hanlon to the table? Why not drag in Michael Gearson's WaPo op-ed too? It's just as pollyannish. Suggestion, you should have stopped with the Politico video.
From "The Best and the Brightest":
[June 1965, White House meeting on the war - GEN Wheeler says if they escalated to 750,000 men for about 6-7 years, they could win.]
[Clark Clifford, intel advisory board]: "The way I understand it, we're talking about a figure of seven hundred and fifty thousand troops and a war that will go on for five or six years and I'd like to ask General Wheeler a question."
The president immediately interrupted him: "No one's using a figure like that."
Clifford turned to Wheeler, and Wheeler nodded his head and said, yes, he had indeed used a figure like that.
Johnson, irritated, said it was ridiculous. No one envisioned a figure like that.
At which point Clifford asked to continue and said, "Even if it is the figure and it works, my question is, What then?"
Wheeler looked a little puzzled. "I don't understand the question."
So Clifford repeated it: If we won, after all that time, with all that investment, "what do we do? Are we still involved? Do we have to stay there?"
And Wheeler answered yes, we would have to keep a major force there, for perhaps as long as twenty or thirty years. Whereupon the conversation again went in different directions and the question of the figure was dropped.
------------
Adding more men and staying longer isn't going to fix Afghanistan. It didn't fix Vietnam, and if you don't see the parallels, well, that can't be helped. You need a strategy that will work, and this government, this culture, isn't going to let you win. Figure it out.
No not at all an "essay
No not at all an "essay contest;" instead I am deeply serious about wanting to know what our strategy in Afghanistan is.
My question was an honest one with no cleverness or trickery or implied points involved.
I simply would like to hear from one of the leading experts and advocates for our current way in Afghanistan what our strategy is, that is all.
thanks
gian
Jason, Props for quoting the
Jason,
Props for quoting the Best and the Brighest, probably one of the most important works that the pro-WAR COIN crowd should be reading right now.
....And Jason, excellent use
....And Jason, excellent use of an extracted historical primary source to make a most important point about strategy. Your use of the minutes of that 1965 meeting gets at exactly why the United States lost in Vietnam: STRATEGY, and NOT flawed counterinsurgency tactics and operations.
gian
Okay, who exactly is
Okay, who exactly is pro-war, again? No one with an ounce of heart or brain, I wager.
Again, this might be because I'm totally thick, but I thought that we (US and our allies and everyone) are in a tough situation in Afghanistan, already, some of the initiative has been lost, no choice is particularly appealing, and NO ONE really knows what the future holds. There are costs to staying in blood and treasure, but surely there are costs to leaving (Harvard MESH has a post up about how some jihadis DID follow the Russians home, and thanks to 8 years of practice, some are pretty good, pretty tough, and pretty hardened. Anyone no more about that point and the Central stans? Will have to put up the link, later, I thought it was an interesting post).
At this point, is it so terribly unreasonable to follow TRIAGE, in all the posts that AM has already mentioned in the past, which everyone here CAN RECITE IN THEIR SLEEP by now?
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but this is just spinning wheels, a bit, at this point, isn't it? No one knows. That's what I got from all this furious debate. No one knows the answers with complete surety. So, someone has to make a decision, plot a course, stick with it for a bit, and see what happens. And, likely, it will be awful, but no alternative seems very good. What can we do at this point? I don't understand any of this!
The US lost not because of
The US lost not because of strategy - the troops managed to WIN EVERY BATTLE! We lost because of Washington D.C. Show me another time when one side won every war, but still lost the war. It's never been done. That's what happens when politicians run the war. We were never meant to win the war.
Counterinsurgency meanwhile - although it had the best in the business carrying it out - did not succeed. If we relied on your precious COIN to win VN, we would still be there today, and the casualties would be millions more for the Vietnamese and hundreds of thousands for us. Great way to fight a war, no?
Is "Duke" another pseudonum
Is "Duke" another pseudonum for Johnny Rico?
(To be fair, he seems much less clever.)
"Were the United States to
"Were the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan, there is good reason to believe that the surrounding countries will again face violent insurgencies. This is not to predict a domino effect of toppled governments. States waging counter-insurgency campaigns can compensate for the lack of professionalism of their security forces by applying coercion and repression more widely. Uzbekistan’s security forces in particular are known for their mercilessness, and it is possible that Uzbekistan and the other states could contain their insurgencies by continuing to employ draconian measures. But it is, however, to predict that the misery index in countries bordering Afghanistan will go up. True, some might argue, the United States would not be paying that cost directly, Central Asians would be, and therefore it is not a U.S. national interest. But in that case we should at least be honest about it, and not ignore it in an effort to salve our collective conscience." Harvard MESH
from this
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2009/08/false-comfort-on-afghanistan/ (too lazy to link properly)
Okay, people who actually know stuff, what do you think of that point? Is it reasonable?
I also want to say Joshua
I also want to say Joshua Foust makes a good point, above, about civilians. How do you go about getting civilians to help out? Look, I'll just be blunt, even if I were in the situation to help (my kind of doctoring is no good, and I have MS - which is the real stickler) I'm not sure how to feel about all of you and the requests for civilian help. I've never done anything like that, I'm confused, when I talk to the vets and guys/gals in the military around my little corner of hospital-stan, they tell me to wait until things 'cool down'. Seriously, this is what they say to me, and they have relatives over there, or have had. So, you know?
My dear friends, this is a longer issue than this conflict. With an all-volunteer military, how do you recruit civilians you need, in a timely fashion, in a useful way? We are different, we just are. (Okay, I should delete the we, I'm speaking for me).
If we consider that point
If we consider that point number one is that Afghanistan is a primitive, proud and militant society,
Point number two being that, to meet our objective (Taliban and Al Qaeda cannot come back), Afghanistan must be transformed into something that it presently is not (to wit: into the beginnings of a more modern society) ,
And point number three being that, in order to do this, Pakistan's primitive, proud and militant societal sectors must also be defeated and transformed,
only then can we get a true understanding of the real scope of this job, what the costs of the project really might be and how long it will actually take (decades) to complete this mission.
Defeating the Taliban and strengthening and stabilizing the Afgan government, police and military is not the proper understanding of the job description of our task. This is only the very beginning.
The real job is nation / state building and "societal transformation" -- not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan; this is the real and true job description of what we are being asked to undertake.
And none of this can be achieved -- to any adequate and sustainable degree -- in 18 to 24 months.
Based on this understanding, is transforming Afghanistan and Pakistan into something that it presently is not (a decades long commitment) a job that we could and should sign up for?
Add my voice to the choir.
Add my voice to the choir. I, too, would be interested in any answer Colonel Gentile might get. I also applaud Jason for the great catch out of the "Best and Brightest," which I know he's now reading. Unfortunately, this excerpt is by no means the only thing out of Halberstam's work that applies today. IMO, if anyone espousing expansion of the ugly, growing uglier, effort in Afghanistan hasn't read this important work, they're not worth listening to.
@ Behrman. Great post. You highlight one thing that's been troubling me for years now. How in the world can the U.S. reasonably expect to rescue "failed nations" in the face of a growing body of evidence that we're the big kahuna of all failed nations? Every American institution is failing by every measure, yet we persist in ignoring our own decline in favor of continuing to be the Nosy Nelly of the world.
A guy I know who's pretty astute in economic and social trends thinks the U.S. will collapse by about 2020. He notes that government and every other institution will be totally discredited by then, which means there will no longer be any reason for the American people to pay heed to them. Frighteningly, I find this sort of talk more and more credible. Stupid wars run by a totally out-of-touch government tend to do that.
Just a small (and
Just a small (and essentially non-substantive) quibble with this part:
States waging counter-insurgency campaigns can compensate for the lack of professionalism of their security forces by applying coercion and repression more widely. Uzbekistan’s security forces in particular are known for their mercilessness, and it is possible that Uzbekistan and the other states could contain their insurgencies by continuing to employ draconian measures.
Kalyvas has argued against the "medievalization" thesis that contends that an army is more brutal the more "irregular" (which is to say untrained, "guerilla-esque," or lacking in professionalism) it is. What exactly is it that we're meant to believe the Uzbek forces would be "compensating" for? That low conventional effectiveness can be mitigated by high brutality against civilians?
(Sorry for the tangent.) Having said that, this is exactly correct:
But it is, however, to predict that the misery index in countries bordering Afghanistan will go up. True, some might argue, the United States would not be paying that cost directly, Central Asians would be, and therefore it is not a U.S. national interest. But in that case we should at least be honest about it, and not ignore it in an effort to salve our collective conscience."
It is certain that Afghan lives will get worse if the U.S. disengages (and I say this as a proponent, basically, of disengagement). Fine, let's be honest about it, but let's still make a clear-eyed decision.
Ill repost a part of a
Ill repost a part of a comment from downthread:
"3) I have yet to see any "anti-war"/"Cut n Run" proponents detailing any evac plans. How long time would it take for the US to abandon the area, if the decision was made today? How would the various NGOs be evaced? How would you deal with the subsequent refugee problem swarming into Pakistan, so fueling the already existing unrest in the northern areas? In other words, how would such a plan be carried out? How would it play out politically if the president were to go on television and tell the Afghans all them promises were unfortunately no longer valid, so sorry?"
Add to that, I would like to see someone thinking about the future of NATO as a consequence of what is being decided these days. What will the consequences be of a forced withdrawal from a US pov. and a European? Will it mean the anglo-saxon axis vs. China, w. Russia like a mafya-state juggling between? Iran? How does a withdrawal affect that sit? Or the offensive approach, how does this affect the same elements mentioned above? Since its after all what has been decided upon, to the boos of the gallery? (A McChrystal-Bachevich duel would be awesome....)
Madhu: By "civilians", I
Madhu: By "civilians", I think a lot of people think mart contracting instead of the fckn rip-offs so many of them are today. BTW, how many really got punished for the multi-billion rip off that was the Bremer admin? Biggest bank-heist in the world. How do you upgrade Blackwater?
On Max Boot "Losing wars is
On Max Boot "Losing wars is a bad thing. It is especially bad if you are a superpower that depends on an aura of invincibility to keep rogue elements at bay." This is terrible! Again the unapologetic security speech act. Invoking the existential threat to the Mothership protected by the the invisible "aura of invincibility". Unbelievable! Any de-militarization would lead to, without the slightest doubt:
"to defeat with consequences at least as serious. The Taliban would expand their control, probably seizing Kandahar, the principal city of the south. Then they would besiege Herat, Kabul and other urban centers."
There is no space for politics-its win or loose, in or out. Hence all eyes are on the McCrystal Strategy report. The scholar soldeirs will deliver victory by protecting the Afghans and turning the cities into havens of peace and development, just like Iraq.This will happen by employing the magical 'Oil-spot' strategy, or the earlier favorite-the Ink Blot. Except there are very few citites in Afghanistan to protect and draw behind the invisible sheild of invinciblity. You would be relegating swathes of territory and masses of Afghans to be ruled by the Taliban any way.
To Foust: this is precisely where the PRTs fit in the new narrative. The DoD is demanding major chunk of development aid to be chaneled thru the PRTs rather than USAID. Out of the total 26 PRTs operating in AFG, US military runs 12 of them to this date. According to Malkasian and Meyerle " Provincial reconstruction Teams: How do we know they work" while other non US run PRTs such as the British in Helmand have 30 civilian working in different
sections-the US PRTs have usually 1 or at the most 2 development/USAID personnel on the team. The report concludes that although there is no evidence that thaving a PRT in troubled districts reduced violence, yet curiously does not prevent the authors from advocating the case of the PRTs and insisting that the expected development aid must be channeled thru them.
as a civilian working on
as a civilian working on both usaid and state dept. projects, i have to say that josh is spot on. while there are a large number of civillians on the ground committed to the mission, we face daunting institutional obstacles that josh only hints at. the fact that there's no head of USAID in place is just one. the predatory mendacity of the afghan government is another, as is the lack of coordination between the different national development agencies, parts/projects of the state dept/USAID, NGOs, branches of the UN, branches of the EU (EC, OSCE, EU proper, etc), parts of ISAF, and the coalition forces. this lack of coordination stems from the fact that there is not a coherent strategy in place which everyone has agreed to. there should be one page that everybody's on.
the really tragic thing is, this strategy exists!! it's called the ANDS - the Afghan National Development Strategy, and it's awesome. i mean comprehensive, and well-researched, and carefully-budgeted, and developed via close cooperation between the afghan government and international community, and just awesome. ok, it has some issues related to the relationship between local and central government, and doesn't address CIMIC at all - but who cares! it's a brilliant freakin' start, and *vastly* better then the current incoherence. anybody who doesn't have a sense of what it is and how it came to be has no business being involved in stabilizing afghanistan.
seriously, this shit is important.... and not-invented-here syndrome is killing us. we know how to do local-governance-focused community development - NSP (the national solidarity program) worked gangbusters. we know how to focus and employ international-civilian development resources - ANDS lays it all out brilliantly. those two programs cover the most important bases, and represent a vast amount of untapped institutional memory.
however, they weren't invented here, so nobody even mentions em anymore. we need to pay attention to the history of the international community's efforts in afghanistan *since 2001*! we tried some things that worked, and then stopped doing them!! it's all well and good to study the russians, or the shah, or even earlier, but wtf - we need to make sure our peeps know what's happened in the last 8 years, because believe me, a lot has been tried. some has worked, some has failed, but our peeps on the ground need to know about... and it's been forgotten.
I'm with Gian on this -- I
I'm with Gian on this -- I would like to know what our strategy is, from Abu Muq or, indeed, from anyone.
as a civilian working on
as a civilian working on both usaid and state dept. projects, i have to say that josh is spot on. while there are a large number of civillians on the ground committed to the mission, we face daunting institutional obstacles that josh only hints at. the fact that there's no head of USAID in place is just one. the predatory mendacity of the afghan government is another, as is the lack of coordination between the different national development agencies, parts/projects of the state dept/USAID, NGOs, branches of the UN, branches of the EU (EC, OSCE, EU proper, etc), parts of ISAF, and the coalition forces. this lack of coordination stems from the fact that there is not a coherent strategy in place which everyone has agreed to. there should be one page that everybody's on.
the really tragic thing is, this strategy exists!! it's called the ANDS - the Afghan National Development Strategy, and it's awesome. i mean comprehensive, and well-researched, and carefully-budgeted, and developed via close cooperation between the afghan government and international community, and just awesome. ok, it has some issues related to the relationship between local and central government, and doesn't address CIMIC at all - but who cares! it's a brilliant freakin' start, and *vastly* better then the current incoherence. anybody who doesn't have a sense of what it is and how it came to be has no business being involved in stabilizing afghanistan.
seriously, this shit is important.... and not-invented-here syndrome is killing us. we know how to do local-governance-focused community development - NSP (the national solidarity program) worked gangbusters. we know how to focus and employ international-civilian development resources - ANDS lays it all out brilliantly. those two programs cover the most important bases, and represent a vast amount of untapped institutional memory.
however, they weren't invented here (by this team (kai i'm lookin at you!!)), so nobody even mentions em anymore. we need to pay attention to the history of the international community's efforts in afghanistan *since 2001*! we tried some things that worked, and then stopped doing them!! it's all well and good to study the russians, or the shah, or even earlier, but wtf - we need to make sure our peeps know what's happened in the last 8 years, because believe me, a lot has been tried. some has worked, some has failed, but our peeps on the ground need to know about... and it's been forgotten.
"visitor" 10 40 was me.
"visitor" 10 40 was me. sorry.
Sayke: Is it available
Sayke: Is it available online in an easy to explain website? IO, sir.
visitor/publius/berman - if
visitor/publius/berman -
if afghans had any faith in their government, they would not be fighting. that's the crux of it. karzai's a smooth criminal, and has used our support to set himself up with a junta, which nobody expects to last... and who wants to back the wrong horse? afghans are not opposed to good governance at all, but they're resolutely opposed to what they've got now... in part because they expect the US to leave and take karzai with em. this shouldn't be surprising. you would be too.
the trick is ensuring good governance. that's it. and anyone who considers the US ill-governed needs to get out more - we're incredibly lucky to, in general, have competent and hard-working bureaucrats in the public service. people take that for granted very easily, but they have no idea how fortunate they are.
"I also applaud Jason for
"I also applaud Jason for the great catch out of the "Best and Brightest," which I know he's now reading. Unfortunately, this excerpt is by no means the only thing out of Halberstam's work that applies today. IMO, if anyone espousing expansion of the ugly, growing uglier, effort in Afghanistan hasn't read this important work, they're not worth listening to."
I second Publius here. Anyone who has not read The Best And The Brightest simply isn't worth listening to when it comes to debate over Afghanistan.
fnord
fnord -
http://www.ands.gov.af/ands/ands_docs/index.asp is a good place to start. ask yourself - have you ever heard the ANDS mentioned in public discussion? quite a few people in vitally important management positions in-country haven't heard of it, or NSP, or a bunch of other things that should be *really* freakin' basic, so i can't help wondering whether holbrooke has.
incidentally, the head of UNAMA (the UN mission there) is a jackass who likes to hang out in nice hotels at capitol cities, and has no idea wtf he's doing on the ground. damn we could have used ashdown...
"The MOPH has recently
"The MOPH has recently finalized a National
Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy to
monitor and evaluate progress in
implementation of the Health and Nutrition
Sector Strategy. The National Monitoring and
Evaluation Strategy like the Health and
Nutrition Sector Strategy, is focused on results
defined by the Afghanistan High Level..."
From the health section of ANDS - interesting. Still, sayke, that sounds like a lot of words, talk, promises,.....is this just that I don't understand governmental/bureaucratic speak? What does all of that mean?
Also, I should hope a
Also, I should hope a monitoring and evaluation strategy should monitor and evaluate......hilarious
MOPH is the ministry of
MOPH is the ministry of public health, and is largely responsible for the "health and nutrition" sector of afghan government efforts. other ministries and institutions are responsible for other sectors, but everything needs monitoring and evaluation so we know whether it's working or not. so, each sector strategy is accompanied by a corresponding monitoring and evaluation strategy, and the MOPH recently finalized theirs =)
let nobody say we don't have a plan!! you honestly cannot ask for a better plan then the afghan national development strategy (ANDS). nation-building is in large part government-building, and we've done a lot of good there. some parts of the afghan government are great, and other parts are terrible. for example, the ministries of public health, finance, rural rehabilitation and development, and education are all impressively well-organized and effective, but the ministry of interior (aka the fuzz) is basically evil. however, the good parts of the gov all face a massive problem: they aren't funded.
this is partly because the vaaaaaaasssssst majority of the international community's money (>90%, according to oxfam/ACBAR, http://www.acbar.org/ACBAR%20Publications/ACBAR%20Aid%20Effectiveness%20(25%20Mar%2008).pdf) goes to the military/security sector (afghan police, army, NDS, etc), partly because the international community fears corruption (even though some parts of gov are actually quite honest and effective), partly because the international community wants to do stuff itself (even though it's way worse at it then the good parts of government), and partially because the international community wants the government to fund itself (which is an absurd thing to want during a civil war, and is a republican anti-governance/pro-market holdover).
what we need to do is actually fund the afghan government, but not just give money away for free. we should be embedding people in government at all levels, and good performance should be rewarded with bigger budgets, while corruption/incompetance should be punished by cutting budgets, firing/arresting people (the more powerful the better!), and worse. instead, the international community almost seems to view successful afghan government programs as competition: for example, the US defunded the very-successful NSP (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0712.warner.html) and started funding rather meager USAID programs that did the same things wayyyyyyy less effectively (and at far greater expense!), but hey, USAID got to be in charge of those! grrrrr...
Sayke, Dude, you bring
Sayke,
Dude, you bring heapum good info to table.
AM and ASTAN-BRAINIACS - you got any comment on Sayke's Civilian side intel?
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And Publius - dude, I have serious problems and disgust with our govt and elites these days. But if anyone is going to compare us to these countries, uh, well...I have a "American Governance Truther" petition for you to sign.
Our problems are fixable. Once we toss out the incumbents.
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GG et al- maybe he can't answer your question? Or shouldn't? I'm not certain anything more detailed beyond the broad strokes POTUS et al have detailed is necessary for public consumption. Or wise. Was Macarthur's Island hopping strategy published in the NYT? Did we publicize in 42 that we intended an amphibious invasion of Europe by 44? When FDR was asked where the Doolittle bombers came from he answered "they came from Shangra La".
Sayke: Thats good news.
Sayke: Thats good news.
I'm with Jason's 30,000
I'm with Jason's 30,000 view:
"Adding more men and staying longer isn't going to fix Afghanistan. It didn't fix Vietnam, and if you don't see the parallels, well, that can't be helped. You need a strategy that will work, and this government, this culture, isn't going to let you win. Figure it out."
@Steve/Jason, "You need a
@Steve/Jason,
"You need a strategy that will work, and this government, this culture, isn't going to let you win. Figure it out."
Do you mean the US Govt, or the Afghan govt? Seriously.
steve/jason: adding more men
steve/jason: adding more men and staying longer fixed kosovo, and if you can't see the parallels, well, that can't be helped ;) we have a strategy that will work, and while fixing the afghan government is a big part of that, fixing afghan culture isn't necessary. however, afghan culture will over time fix itself if it's actually allowed to do so...
"Based on this
"Based on this understanding, is transforming Afghanistan and Pakistan into something that it presently is not (a decades long commitment) a job that we could and should sign up for?<"/i>
And this even assumes that, after all that effort, we will be successful. Which, in my opinion, is doubtful, considering what we're talking about - large-scale social engineering in a foreign country, and one in the worst geo-strategic position imaginable, except for maybe Mongolia. Regardless, based on history I would expect something else important coming out of right or left-field to throw our priorities into an entirely different direction in the meantime.
sayke: "the trick is
sayke: "the trick is ensuring good governance. that's it. and anyone who considers the US ill-governed needs to get out more - we're incredibly lucky to, in general, have competent and hard-working bureaucrats in the public service. people take that for granted very easily, but they have no idea how fortunate they are."
Sayke, you're preaching the choir. I'm a retired Army officer who also spent some time in civil service. I KNOW most of our working level folks are great. Unfortunately, the government for which they work is rotting before our eyes. With few exceptions, our political "leaders," who do, after all run the government, have proven to be either corrupt or so ideologically bent and party-fixated that they are of little use to the rest of us. The current Republican-Democratic divide in national and state governments is pretty much like the Shiia-Sunni divide in Arab lands. Government at all levels is proving to be of less and less use to the majority of Americans.
Elf, you got that? IMO, we are turning into a third-world nation. Foreign adventures draining the treasury, government usurpation of individual rights, enriching the few at the expense of the many, etc., etc., we're sliding, big-time. And the rest of the world knows it, thus our lack of credibility. We have no right to presume to lecture others on how to form governments or lead their lives. And it borders on criminal for us to be killing people in far-off lands whose only crimes may be that they disagree with the criminals we happen to be supporting.
Is COIN just another racket? Is it about freedom, etc., or is it about something entirely different, something we don't want to talk about? All of you who believe in it so much need to ask yourselves those questions. You also need to ask whether it's fitting for American soldiers to provide security for foreigners from their own countrymen who've got some questions that need to be answered. Should the U.S. be the sheriff in Afghanistan?
@Publius, We have governance
@Publius,
We have governance problems in the USA: 1) A totally rotted out political class. Which may lead one to question the virtue of the citizenry...but we do have rotten elites also governing many institutions. The pols can be voted out, the rest need to be tossed out as well. 2) A totally dysfunctional paradigm of law and bureaucracy that thinks every case in life can be litigated or regulated. Life is not like that, it's madness (see "The Death of Common Sense").
3) The public sector is now so overwhelming a burden - but in fact unionized, so they can blackmail the politicians into bankrupting the government- so overwhelming that between their insatiable maws and the fed up taxpayers refusing to be squeezed slowly into poverty refusing further tax increases that we are all headed towards California style deadlock and Albany style politics. 4) Same corrupt elites in government and business are now totally in bed together, united in saving themselves at the expense of the taxpayers (and the worlds creditors).
3d world nation? Yeah, we can see that coming.
Where we disagree -- is that you apparently think that we should not respond to a war against America and the West (and India as well of course) with force. In this particular case we weren't telling the Afghans anything on 9/11, they hosted mass murderers who are indeed trying to tell all mankind how to live. Your answer apparently to 9/11 and the other attacks is what? Ignore them because they don't fit your hypothesis?
Did everyone see his party
Did everyone see his party is turning on him over Astan?
Code Pink Returns!
Remember the old one about Jimmy Carter? When he got bogged down, one of his advisors told him "Your problem is you used up all your luck to get here."
strategy sentence don't
strategy sentence
don't lose, for as long as possible, at minimum cost in civilian and military lives, until something comes up that allows us to leave.
i propose a strategy haiku competition.
elf: "Where we disagree --
elf: "Where we disagree -- is that you apparently think that we should not respond to a war against America and the West (and India as well of course) with force. In this particular case we weren't telling the Afghans anything on 9/11, they hosted mass murderers who are indeed trying to tell all mankind how to live. Your answer apparently to 9/11 and the other attacks is what? Ignore them because they don't fit your hypothesis?"
@elf: Find anywhere I suggested that we should not respond to attacks on us. You must have missed my backgrounder. Although I admit I don't like being shot at, I have no problem whatsoever with defending the nation or with punitive measures against those who attack us. I just want to see it done smart. Afghanistan ain't smart. Iraq wasn't smart. We as a nation ain't smart because we allow our politicians to take the easy wrong rather than the hard right. Iraq wasn't our enemy. The Taliban was once, but now isn't our enemy. The Taliban just wants to run Afghanistan and I don't care if they do, so long as they don't try to export their shit. And I suspect that, once made an offer that can't be refused, the Taliban would understand. Hiding Al Qaeda? Well, if you think about how it is on the ground over there, and about the Durand line, I submit to you that we're being intellectually dishonest when we're moving heaven and earth to address AQ sanctuaries in Afghanistan, but are powerless to do anything about them just a few miles away. Tell me, pray tell, just what is so magical and important about Afghanistan?
And, despite your hyperbole and that used by our government, there is no "war" against the U.S. There is indeed a substantial number of very nasty, very intelligent and very slippery individuals resident in a number of countries who claim to be working on behalf of their god, but who are in actuality mere criminals. They should be hunted down through joint efforts of civilized nations—a grouping that includes some nations where Islam is the predominant religion—and then subjected to whatever penalties apply wherever they are found. If they die, fine. If they survive, they should not be brought to U.S. territory, but should instead face justice wherever they were captured.
I, and a lot of folks with my background, find this pretty simple. Find 'em and neutralize 'em. Don't glamorize 'em, don't promote 'em to soldier, just neutralize 'em. And if they're just trying to take over their home turf from some other criminals from a different tribe or sect, I'm kind of inclined to say, "well, shit, why would I choose sides"? Nation building? What do I care who runs Afghanistan? I think we have the capability to ensure that whoever runs that dreadful place never again poses a threat to our nation. If we don't, it's likely because we've squandered all of our resources chasing a chimera.
I've done my hearts and mind time, in rice paddies rather than mountains. It's my considered judgment that you're not going to get there in any reasonable amount of time unless you're prepared to go Roman. Inasmuch as the U.S. won't do that, I say "Why bother"? Find another way to deal with the threat. We're not looking for that. We're just burning money, killing good troops and ruining the best ground force in the world. We're stupid.
Publius, do you think that
Publius, do you think that Haqqani does not pose a clear and present danger to the homelands of America, Europe, Russia, the Stans, India, and the Shia? What would you do about Haqqani?
Where is your evidence that the Quetta Shura Taliban is willing to renounce its association with Haqqani, the Pakistani Taliban, and AQ linked terrorist groups? Do you really think that people who believe in the mass murder of the Shia for being Kafirs wouldn't happily attack you if given the chance? Are you really neutral in the war between Haqqani and the ANSF?
You could argue that the best way to resist Haqqani is to support the ANSF versus directly fight Haqqani with US combat troops. Note that the ANSF doesn't need to defeat Haqqani and the Quetta Shura Taliban; merely engage them over the long term to distract them from attacking others. This option is also a lot cheaper in terms of American blood and treasure.
Perhaps you could break down the different "Taliban" factions, and explain which ones you believe are linked to global terrorism; and which ones you think don't have ambitions outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some "Taliban" factions clearly have an international agenda that isn't too good for you and your family Publius.
@anan: I think you might
@anan: I think you might find the op-ed page, especially Kristol's column, in today's NYT, instructive.
What do you think, you're teaching a grad course?
Publius, maybe you should
Publius, maybe you should read the article. The ANA only accepts a fraction of the Pashtu Afghans eager to join it. The ANA is far more popular, even in Helmand, than the Taliban. Why would someone think that the ANA, ANP and NDS cannot defeat the Taliban provided they get more international financing, equipping and training?
I don't support a large push into Helmand and Kandahar at this time; and would prioritize sending more ANSF to the rest of Afghanistan. One large problem is that there are far too few international advisers for the ANSF.
Anan, I read the article.
Anan, I read the article. And of course it was Kristof, not Kristol. And I think if you couple that with Friedman's column, you'll see there is growing concern about what we're trying to do, much of it from the "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" crowd. It's clear I share that concern, but when you ask me to justify my stance, I think you should bear in mind that I'm the skeptic; I don't have to prove anything. The fact is that you all are talking inside baseball, but you're not doing much to convince a lot of people that the investment is worth it. You guys talk trees; some of us look at the forest. I also think it's worth noting that the reservations aren't all being voiced by a bunch of pacifists and one-worlders; they're coming from some pretty hard-edged people who've been around the block.
If the ANA is so good and popular, why are they so ineffective? And why is their leadership so, well, you know. Get over the hurdle of the government we're propping up. I don't think you, Obama, McChrystal and Exum are anywhere near proving your case. I wish it were otherwise, but I just don't think this dog will hunt. And I've got a T-shirt, too.
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