Center for a New American Security

I find this resignation

I find this resignation almost inscrutable. This guy signed up according to DeYoung "late last year" after a "fresh administration" promised a "new strategy" -- namely, expanded war. They're taking their time in articulating it (or else they're revisiting it -- however you prefer to characterize it), but I don't quite see how some strategic patience is not in order from officers military and strategic alike is not a minimal expectation when the same is being asked of military families and taxpayers. And this is coming from someone who is plenty skeptical of our chances and consequently of escalation. Let no one compare this resignation to the hero who resigned in the run-up to Iraq.

Hmmmm. I too, don't know

Hmmmm. I too, don't know what to make of that resignation letter. I need to re-read it to get a better handle on the points made, to be honest. There is a lot - a lot- there. I do, however, disagree with one point made by the author (and boy, is it a hard letter to read! That kind of discouragement is very, very hard to read and acknowledge):

The war is not the main reason for our economic troubles and we are not mortgaging our future to it. That would be our future entitlements.....we simply cannot go on spending, domestically, as we have been. It is unsustainable. I, however, have little hope that either party will restrain itself. They often don't even really know what it is that they are passing: they just want a "deal" to present to the voters by next election.

Are you changing your mind on the feasibility of the project? I had thought Triage seemed reasonable given the strategic objectives lined out, but we are now changing the strategy? To what? I write this every other day on this blog, but, seriously, I've given up trying to understand the administration and its strategic goals writ large (like, the whole world and stuff.) God bless and good luck is all I have to say.....

Gulliver, Lots of people

Gulliver,

Lots of people have made the same astute point you have (and I see it not infrequently in the comments section at SWJ), but there are only so many civilians with the needed expertise willing to go into an area without security. I don't know where they will come from; I was surprised to hear one of our former medical students was serving in Afghanistan! It's like the war everyone talks about online, but I rarely hear about it in day to day 'water-cooler' conversation. Strange and I have no idea what my anecdote means, if anything at all.....

We have no expectation of a

We have no expectation of a capable and reliable host government in Afghanistan; no expectation of reliable allies who are willing and/or able to take up their proper share of the burden; no civilian surge force to do the transformational work required; inadequate military forces properly trained, organized and equiped for this type of job; and insufficient public support -- both in the United States and elsewhere in the so-called "international community" -- to provide for this mission.

Add to this (1) the very questionable strategic value of this intervention in Afghanistan, (2) the fact (as Mr. Hoh confirms) that is WE who are destabilizing not only Afghanistan and but also Pakistan today and (3) that the required fix to the problem (should we decide to go down this road anyway) will take at least several decades and expenditure of enormous and untold amounts of blood, treasure and political capital.

Finally, understand that such an effort, even if undertaken, may not achieve the desired results but may, instead, lead to greater destabilization in the region.

Time to reconsider?

Metrics that should

Metrics that should matter:
U.S. military says (another) 8 American troops were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.
10:26 AM EDT Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Gulliver, In addressing

Gulliver,

In addressing your (very good) observations re: USAID, I think it is essential to point out that much of USAID was short-sightedly outsourced/privatized during the 80's, '90s and '00s. If I recall correctly, USAID had something like 12,000 Federal employees in 1970. By 2006, this number shrank to less than 2,500. USAID is on a hiring binge lately, but there is only so much that can be done quickly after 30 years of neglect.

USAID has essentially become an organization to pass aid money along to contractors like Chemonics. It's a terribly inefficiant and expensive way to do the business of giovernment. These should be federal positions just like they were in the past.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15288

Okay, Gulliver, I lied about

Okay, Gulliver, I lied about the later stuff....

Here's this comment at SWJ by MikeF. Interesting, no?

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/theres-no-substitute-for-troop/...

"2. He has been effective despite the lack of security. It seems so paradoxical, but he found a way to do it. Seriously, we have a middle-aged, white American running around one of the most anti-American places in the world with impunity. "

Maybe it's 'cause he's just one guy, which is not terribly disruptive, but instead, a kind of local curiosity? Also, not affiliated with anyone? I dunno.

MikeD: "I find this

MikeD: "I find this resignation almost inscrutable".

Madhu: "I too, don't know what to make of that resignation letter."

Matthew Hoh struck me as an honest and thoughtful American citizen who is following his conscience. His actions are commendable and I think he puts forth his reasons for leaving very plainly in his letter.

I wish more people had his courage. Not only does this man have the courage to act on his seriously and studiously formed convictions partially gained from actually living with the people of Zabul, he has the crisp writing skills to very plainly state his reasons for resigning. I greatly admire his honesty and his actions.

Andrew, after reading Hoh's letter of resignation , I do not see the brutal conditions of Zabul as being an influence on his decision. Rather I see our policies in Afghanistan as the reasons for his resignation. I am not so sure that "All [the subsistence living, the "pre-biblical' conditions"] of this is worth keeping in mind" when reading Matthew Hoh's letter. I believe his own words are strong enough to stand on their own.

I was struck by the breeziness of your post. Somehow I find it disturbing to picture you blithely flying off in your helicopter leaving the earnest young intelligence officer on the ground in "pre-biblical" Zabul province. He is left there to pave the way to implement in Zabul what you say is ".....population-centric counterinsurgency difficult if not impossible". Made "difficult if not impossible" by the isolation, remoteness and widely dispersed population. If counterinsurgency is "almost impossible" then why are we attempting it in such a remote area? How much time did you spend there? Two hours?

Your comment, "It's all subsistence agriculture, and making matters worse is the fact that the U.S./NATO mission in the province is underesourced and thus dedicated almost entirely toward keeping Route 1 open" also struck me as a blatantly oblivious western centric comment. Are the people of Zabul asking for help and for our resources? Did you see the Zabul US/NATO mission data on a powerpoint back in Kabul or DC?

I even question how illiteracy is measured in Zabul. You say it is "around 11% -- 1% for women." Measuring literacy should include the living oral traditions that are so prevalent in Afghanistan. I appeal to your East Tennesse roots. Aren't there people in ET who choose the rural "underesourced life"?

The hubris of our belief that counterinsurgency will cure the western defined ills of a society is astounding.

Any chance you can post the

Any chance you can post the powerpoint presentation?

That was a tough letter to

That was a tough letter to read. I have never been confident that there were any realistic and/or strategically meaningful goals in Afghanistan. Regaining stability in Iraq was both feasible and of great strategic importance to the US and the world in general. Iraq had a middle class, a regionally top notch higher education system, generally developed infrastructure, a generally shared sense of nationhood, formerly effective if brutal and undemocratic civil institutions, and last but certainly not least a fairly mature economy with a significant wealth of natural resources. Afghanistan has none of that. A nation has never been built from the ground up as we are now attempting to do. Furthermore, Afghanistan is not exactly fertile ground for such an experiment. And even if we were to succeed, the only utility of this experiment that I can see would be in its application to every other failed state. As no one that I am aware of seriously expects us to replicate this experience, I have to assume that there is no strategic utility in our efforts in Afghanistan regardless of our mission's success or failure. Achieving stability there does little to deter a transnational group that can operate in any lawless land and has little actual need for a geographic home at any rate.

If deterrence was our mission it was accomplished when we removed the Taliban years ago. Why we stayed I am not sure. As our current costs and forecasts of future costs continue to rise, the questions of our mission's purpose, the utility of achieving that purpose, and the horrible cost that mission entails are rapidly becoming indictments of our effort. Those questions have been left unanswered and largely unasked for far too long.

"with implications for

"with implications for Pakistan and India and all the Stans north of there."

Raul, the biggest implication it would have is upon Iran. That's why Iran has pretty much been sitting on the sidelines. All that US expenditure in blood and resources is quite a convenience to the government of Iran. You think a small group of Baloch terrorists are trouble? For decades, Iran provided humanitarian care to millions of Afghan refugees from Pastun militants, inside its own borders (Pakistan and especially India were not the least so adversely affected). Now that the ISAF are consumed with this problem, Iran's interests are pretty much addressed, without any need of its own effort and expenditure.

If asked, could Iran potentially provide a big boost to the ISAF effort? You bet! But then again, how would you ever successfully run this past your Zionist foreign policy handlers?

Matthew Hoh's letter of

Matthew Hoh's letter of resignation reiterates - from a boots-on-the-ground perspective - many of the points that Andrew Bacevich has been arguing, most recently in 'The Limits of Power'. That Hoh and Bacevich (both ex-military officers with a strong sense of history and personal records of "duty, honor, country" like Andrew Exum) have come to similar conclusions should give pause to the proponents of the Afghanistan surge.

This excellent post by

This excellent post by gadstian on the Washington Post's website needs to be reposted so newcomers can read it:

gadstian wrote:
I am very disturbed by the journalistic standards of this [the Washington Post] article and strongly encourage Washington Post readers to contact the paper directly.

First, I am currently serving in a PRT in Iraq. I trained with Matt in northern Virginia in April of this past year before we both moved on to our respective assignments. Matt is a smart young man who has honorably served his country, but by no means was or is he an expert on counterinsurgency, Afghan tribal culture, or U.S. strategic policy.

Second-- this article is riddled with inaccuracies to an extent that almost shocks me, and really makes me question its intent and veracity, coming as it does at a critical time in the debate over Afghan policy.

Matt Hoh is NOT a Foreign Service Officer. This basic fact, central to the article and its headline, is wrong, despite the wording in his letter.

Matt is a "3161" State Department employee, a special category of temporary appointments brought on for 12 month assignments in certain areas of expertise-- engineering, ag, business, rule of law, etc. Some may sign on for a second 12-month tour.

This is a very different thing than being an FSO-- a commissioned, career diplomat who is a generalist and is appointed not as a result of an online job application and single interview (sometimes over the phone), but after a series of competitive oral, written, and physical exams.

Referring to Matt as a "U.S. Official" is about as accurate as referring to a postal employee as a U.S. official.

I am not trying to denigrate 3161s or postal employees! But this article gets such basic facts wrong about Matt that I am astounded, and either bespeaks very poor journalism or, worse, an article produced primarily to push a specific political agenda and that knowingly uses false facts to give a certain impression.

There are hundreds, perhaps over 1000, 3161s in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many, many of them are ex-military (having done multiple tours in Iraq and/or Afghanistan), and have also faced combat, death, etc., just like Matt bravely did. In my own PRT, we are rocketed frequently, have small arms fire, IEDs, etc., hit our movement teams, you name it.

My point is that as compelling as Matt's story sounds to civilians, it is a fairly typical story here in theater, and by no means gives one any special insight.

There are so many people here with the same experience--or much more experience--that would passionately disagree with Matt's assessment.

Maybe Matt is right; maybe not. But to present his memo and resignation as a significant event of a "U.S. official" with special insight is, with all due respect to Matt, patently absurd. He is a de facto contractor that was on the ground in his PRT about 4 months! On that, one assesses strategic counterinsurgency??

And I absolutely guarantee the only reason Matt warranted an audience with Holbrooke and sudden offers of a Kabul job on the Embassy's front office was that the State Department was well aware of plans to go very public at a critical time-- plans for articles like this splashed over front pages, offers from detractors of Afghan policy to meet and speak, etc. I don't know Matt well and will not impugn his motivations, I believe he is no doubt sincere. But there is nothing special about him that's not special about hundreds of others still in theater, and I cannot believe that he has simply stumbled into the current publicity without discussions with many people about how to use this situation for maximum effect.

I wish Matt luck, and don't doubt that he will do well, with a career jump-started by the current affair. Again, maybe he's right.

But I challenge the Washington Post to explain what I note above-- How and why do you assert Matt is a Foreign Service Officer? Did you not confirm that with him, or did he present himself as such? How did he come to your attention? Why did you not interview other 3161s or FSOs with different views? And, finally, WHY does someone on the ground for a few months warrant such front page coverage?

Salman e Farsi, you are

Salman e Farsi, you are speaking to the choir when you write: "If asked, could Iran potentially provide a big boost to the ISAF effort? You bet! But then again, how would you ever successfully run this past your Zionist foreign policy handlers?"

I think Obama has been trying to do just this since last November, but the Iranian election got in the way. My hope would be that Iran could be persuaded to give the Afghans:
-billions of dollars in grants
-thousands of civilian advisors (that are under UNAMA)
-thousands of trainers for CSTC-A/NTM-A

This would go a long way to boosting the morale of the Afghans, and increasing their confidence in long term success.

Hey Mr. X, Can you give us

Hey Mr. X,

Can you give us your best guess as to what percentage of Afghanistan is like Zabul province in that "The people of Zabul are isolated, remote, and enjoy no known natural resources...[and] The population is spread out over the province, too, making population-centric counterinsurgency difficult if not impossible." I think most Americans would support protecting Afghanistan's major cities, and it seems the Administration is moving that way too: NYT says it will adopt "A strategy of protecting major Afghan population centers [which] would be “McChrystal for the city, Biden for the country,” as one administration official put it.

But why would we even try COIN in some of the fringe places? Do we think the people there will travel long distances to fight us elsewhere in country? At least some experts believe them to be more parochial and merely exercised at the prospect of foreign infringement on their villages. And even if some portion of them do decide to be marauding bands of trouble makers, is that reason to go heavy footprint on their lands and (presumably) fight a much larger share of them? Will losing Zabul type areas mean we are unable to get sufficient intel to continue the superb hot streak we've been on this summer/fall with drone strikes in Waziristan? Would you say that there is some reason we cannot hold the major cities if we cede Zabul province? "Ghost Wars" Steve Coll says the Russian puppet Najibullah held those cities for more than 3 years post-Soviet withdrawal, and we will have tens of thousands of US and ISAF troops in country to help for the foreseeable future.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/09/legitimacy-and-t...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/09/gorbachev-was-ri...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/09/ink-spots.html

"[D]uring the late nineteen-eighties, faced with a dilemma similar to that facing the United States, the Soviets tried to “Afghan-ize” their occupation, much as the U.S. proposes to do now. The built up Afghan forces, put them in the lead in combat, supplied them with sophisticated weapons, and, ultimately, decided to withdraw. This strategy actually worked reasonably well for a while, although the government only controlled the major cities, never the countryside."

Different article...
"the Kabul government, run by President Najibullah, a former secret police chief who became a politically adept strongman, controlled an archipelago of Afghan cities. These included Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Khost, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, and a number of smaller provincial capitals, each of which was ringed by layered defenses, with Afghan forces increasingly in the lead. The insurgents they faced—the U.S.-backed Islamist rebels then known as the mujaheddin, some of whom, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqanni clan, are still in the field, now under the Taliban banner and fighting the United States—controlled virtually all of the mountains and countryside. In fortress Kabul, Soviet civilian advisers shuttled among ministries and apartment compounds deep in the center of the ringed defenses, secure from kidnapping. Their client Afghan forces also tried to secure the main roads between the cities, but this proved difficult. At best the uniformed Afghan Army could move down some roads in daylight some of the time without being attacked or ambushed. Even securing roads between exurban airports and city centers proved to be a struggle. The only way government officials could move reliably between their island cities was by air; the mujaheddin began to acquire Stinger anti-aircraft missiles late in 1986, however, so even that method was not foolproof...

Behind the defenses ringing the government’s city islands, however, large numbers of Afghans lived in relative security. In Kabul, particularly, before 1992, although there were periodic rocket attacks launched from outside the city’s defense perimeter, security generally prevailed, enhanced by the surveillance and brutal interrogations of a Soviet-style police state. Many thousands of Afghan women in Eastern Block skirts and heels commuted each day to jobs in the swollen federal ministries. There were many girls in high school and at university. There was poverty; wages were unreliable; inflation raged; food supplies were sometimes sporadic. And yet compared to the violence and repression that would soon follow the Soviet collapse—a terrible civil war followed by the triumph of the Taliban—it was a period of relative calm for many city dwellers."

"I respect your opinion on

"I respect your opinion on domestic spending, but where were all these fiscal hawks while Bush was running up the deficit to $1.3 Trillion /year...."

Respect point on where were fiscal Hawks (following the Repub President who wasn't).

When did Bush run up a 1.3 trillion deficit? I seem to recall he peaked at 500 Billion, and that was with TARP.

Interesting post

Interesting post dude....blogs are always helpful in one way or the other. Thanks for giving out information. It’s really nice and mean full.
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