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When the Only Reasonably Easy Thing to Achieve in Afghanistan is Getting Yourself Killed
Andrew Sullivan highlights the crux of Justin Logan's defense of the Afghanistan Study Group:
I cannot find evidence that either Foust or Exum recognizes strategic thought. Both appear to believe that they are engaging in it by picking nits with various aspects of the report’s analysis, but none of their critiques of the smaller claims does anything to knock down the report’s conclusion: that America has limited interests in Afghanistan; that those interests are actually reasonably easy to achieve; and that our current efforts there are at best wasteful and at worst counterproductive.
First off, I am not sure when, exactly, I pushed Justin's mother down a flight of stairs, but I must have done it, because man, Justin seriously doesn't like me. That having been said, I think he is certainly correct when he argues that the United States has limited interests in Afghanistan and that our efforts thus far have been, in some cases at least, wasteful and even counterproductive. (I think Justin and I would probably be in agreement, for example, concerning the effects of the massive amount of aid and development money that has flowed into Afghanistan since 2001.)
Where I think Justin and the rest of the ASG get things wrong is when he says that our interests are "reasonably easy to achieve." This gets back to the main point I made in (constructively, I thought) criticizing the ASG: the lack of actual knowledge of Afghanistan and the current environment there within the ASG contributes to a drastic underestimation of the difficulty we would have securing our interests through their proposed strategy. (They might also, as one friend pointed out, similarly overestimate the costs of the status quo.) So again, I applaud the efforts of the ASG, but they would have perhaps been better off drafting this guy or this guy -- neither of them "counterinsurgency enthusiasts," as Steven Walt has taken to calling me -- into their team to help them sort through how they might operationalize an alternative strategy in a way that makes sense in Afghanistan's local context.
I don't think Justin considers me very intelligent, and, heh, he's probably right. But my limited cognitive capacity has paradoxically given me enough epistemological humility to know when I don't know something and need to ask for help. Every paper I write for CNAS on Afghanistan, for example, is sent out to people who might not agree with me but know more about Afghanistan than I do. Even the smartest kids in class, with the grandest theories about how the world is supposed to work on paper, need to check their work against subject matter and area experts. Not doing that results in the anguish with which Christian Bleuer, another Afghanistan expert who isn't a fan of the current strategy, greeted the ASG report.
Finally, regarding whether or not I understand strategy, allow me to quote someone who most certainly does understand strategy:
Strategy is very difficult for many reasons, one of which is that it is neither a question of politics nor fighting power, but rather the conversion of military effort into political reward.
War is the continuation of politics by other means, and all politics is local. (Tip O'Clausewitz said that.) And for the reasons outlined by Josh, Christian and others, I just don't think the ASG managed to explain how it would convert military effort into political reward in a way that makes sense in the context of Afghanistan. I suggest the gang at the ASG should not take the criticism so personally and should instead think about how they can do things better the next time around.
Perhaps you should take your
Perhaps you should take your own advise---don't take criticism by the ASG gang so personally.
Questioning your authority should not be confused with personal hostility.
If you're being criticized
If you're being criticized by Steve Walt, then you're almost certainly right. He is, at best, famous for being famous. Nothing he has written would get him a job today--certainly not the job he has. And he only got that job by being ordained by the presiding high realists of the period, for what was in fact a very simplistic and frankly facile argument.
Visitor 9:56 I'm assuming
Visitor 9:56
I'm assuming you're referring to "Origin." I'll concede that once presented, balance-of-threat theory is intuitive, but sometimes it's hard to scrape ideas that ultimately seem intuitive from the dreck which surrounds the concept originally. The question is, or should be, was there a superior explanation of alliance formation and behavior before "Origin," and has there been a superior explanation of alliance formation and behavior since "Origin?"
ADTS
The first sentence in Mr.
The first sentence in Mr. Logan's piece in The National Interest described Mr. Foust's and Mr. Exum's comments on the ASG's report as "shrill", "hysterical" "attacks". I read both Mr. Foust's and Mr. Exum's comments and there was nothing shrill or hysterical about them. They were both well argued, strong criticisms of the report. There was nothing remotely shrill or hysterical about them, unless disagreeing constitutes shrill hysteria.
I have not read the ASG report. After having read Mr. Logan's reaction to criticism I am not likely to. He used words and phrases divorced from reality to describe his critics; words divorced from reality but words that probably have been shown by focus groups to go over well with the media. If he engages in that kind of action I'm not likely to trust anything much he has to say or put much stock in anything he has worked on.
So, was the Dylan resonance
So, was the Dylan resonance here--"War is the continuation of politics by other means, and all politics is local. (Tip O'Clausewitz said that.)"--intentional? Either way, brilliant. Not as brilliant as the title of the post, however.
Ah, when eggheads collide
Ah, when eggheads collide ;-)
Seriously, I would be much more interested in hearing a strategic discussion that discusses prefferable and possible end-states of said strategies. Is a Guatemala style death-squad rule of Afghanistans cities, while the countryside reverts to autonomy a desired endstate? Then by all means the thing is to go all in behind the Karzai cleptocracy and the drone strikes. Is this a plan that will reduce the anger in the umma towards the US, and so serve the long term strategies of counteracting the AQ/extremists within the umma? No. Will it prove once more that the US has nohonour, and that US allies are expendable unless they speak perfect english and have a large bankaccount out of country? Most propably. Will a lot of people who put their trust in the west be killed? Good chances. Honesty about possible consequences of action is a lesson to be drawn fromRumsfelds "If you build it they will come" approach to foreign policy.
The same goes back at you, Andrew, and to Foust as well. What are the cost estimates of the current COIN project? What are the logistical possibilities and problems? What is the desired endstate, and what is the time-line? Given the 2011 date, what is it realistic to achieve? I dont see much about consequences and longterm thinking in either camp these days. I think that may be a deficiency in lobby/think thank democracy: the "playas" become stuck to their positions, and in fact become salesmen, hiding their products flaws and accentuating its salespoints. For those of us watching in shock and awe as the AEI and the zio-cons gear up for attackingIran, this is obvious. For you guys inside the cool-aid belt, maybe not so much.
ADTS: Yes, to both. See the
ADTS:
Yes, to both. See the work of Glenn Snyder (1984), Brett Ashley Leeds, Robert Powell.
@fnord Why talk about
@fnord
Why talk about envisioned endstates at this point? The U.S. is on its way to a swift demonstration that what was its best approximation of an all-in option is basically without efficacy. I think the range of possible endstates is rapidly converging, and we can just start describing the extreme possibilities among *likely actual* outcomes (which won't be all that divergent) and some of the the intermediate ones, select the least worst, and work backwards to policy by deduction.
Dr Walt's inclusion on the
Dr Walt's inclusion on the ASG is as instantly suspect as a the risible tome d'jank "Taming American Power"
Sorry, that was dumbly
Sorry, that was dumbly worded. All endstates are envisioned. Why talk about *desired*, as opposed to possible, or indeed likely, ones at this point, since the latter two are pretty quickly converging together, and diverging from most people's versions of the former now, was the question I meant to pose.
The key in Justin Logan's
The key in Justin Logan's post was his notion that American goals in Afghanistan are "easy to achieve". That's where I think critics have taken the most issue and that's where critics think having Afghanistan-specific experts might have made a difference.
Where does this Logan get
Where does this Logan get off? Herr Doktor-Professor Exum frequently turns to the keenest strategic minds of our generation and thus any other for insight, Andrew Sullivan and Joe Klein!
With such a foundation of knowledge not only all warfighting and geostrategerieee but politics, economics, the nature of humanity, and indeed the full science of the cosmos at his fingertips, what gall it takes to doubt Herr Doktror-Professor Exum's assertions! They are science itself, from the Word of Klein and Sullivan!
Praise Science!
When you claim, as Exum has,
When you claim, as Exum has, that Anne Marie Slaugther and Robert Kaplan are the great living American foreign policy strategists, real students of the subject (those outside the beltway mutual ass kiss society) are going to be appalled. When you dismiss people's opinion because it is outside the foreign policy mainstream, as Exum has, disregarding the value of actual scholars and helping to prevent their ideas getting from the recognition they deserve, you are going to piss off people that refuse to live under the same intellectual constraints that you do. When you attack people because of their scholarly identity (as realists) and because they failed to consult your coindista homies, as Exum does, creating an ad hominem smokescreen, you are bound to irritate people that would like arguments evaluated by their merits rather than their identity. And when, like Exum, you support the indefinite extension of two out of two counterinsurgencies campaigns underway and work for an organization that wants a lot more of those wars, you should not be suprised to be called counterinsurgency enthusiast by those that dislike dumb wars.
Logan's post was far nicer than it should have been.
I thought most of the
I thought most of the criticisms of the ASG report by people like Exum and Foust were on point. Whether they were relevant is another subject.
The ASG document fell short, it seems to me, by starting from the presumption that American objectives in Afghanistan are attainable if they are defined differently than the Obama administration now defines them, and are sought using a different approach than the administration is now using. This line of reasoning leads them to advocacy of a smaller American military commitment in Afghanistan, as well as a number of other steps.
Some of these are being undertaken now anyway, as Exum has rightly pointed out. As he and others have correctly noted, as well, the ASG did not take care to infuse its report with much direct expertise on Afghanistan or the region. This is a serious shortcoming, given what ASG purported to do. However, given what many of the members of the group actually wanted to do, it may not be relevant in any but the narrowest sense (i.e. whether the report is convincing on its own terms).
The truth is, an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, or even a much-reduced presence and lower level of operations, could produce some very bad consequences. These would primarily fall on the Afghans, though we cannot completely exclude other possibilities. Irrespective of all the arguments for and against counterinsurgency, and nation building, this reality reflects the circumstances: an American/NATO war that has been going on for almost nine years, building up as it went various forms of inertia that make most of our potential objectives less attainable now than they were in 2002, or even 2005.
What ASG members really seem to want to say is that Afghanistan represents a commitment that the United States cannot afford, perhaps not now and certainly not for another multi-year period. The failures of war policy to this point have rendered success unattainable at acceptable cost. Correct as most of their specific criticisms are, ASG critics like Exum and Foust do not come to grips with this perspective: they assume the worst case if American war policy is changed, and do not attempt to estimate the damage likely to result from continuing on our present course. Typically of writers with a background in the American military, they ignore almost completely the financial cost of the war.
ASG members, to a point, have themselves to blame for this, for putting on all sorts of academic airs about concepts like "strategy" and "energetic diplomacy" without getting their hands too dirty with the subject. However, what they really did wrong is fail to state their case directly, and to acknowledge that the consequences of pursuing the correct (from their perspective) Afghan policy may include some really appalling things -- that are nonetheless less appalling than the consequences of continuing the Obama administration current approach to the war.
I sort of feel like we've
I sort of feel like we've lost the plot. What started out as A (getting rid of Al Q in Afghanistan) is now B ( disrupt, dismantle and all that) and C (COIN) is imperative to achieving B.
Okay, all that is complicated and I get it. But what I don't get is why Pundit A is arguing B with Pundit B, while Pundit B is arguing A with Pundit A.
Um.
Yeah. I didn't get that either.
Everyone is confused : (
(The point made in the Cato link earlier about quants and Social Science makes for an interesting discussion though - well, as a layperson who doesn't really understand either. Made me think of Manzi's article in City Journal.)
This
This article:
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_social-science.html
Which I think Megan McCardle covered on her blog some time back. Not bashing, social scientists, I just don't know the subject and am skeptical - always - about everything.
This topic is away over my
This topic is away over my head. wow... Nerd alert.
Madhu (I posted in the wrong
Madhu (I posted in the wrong thread initially):
I think you're opening a gigantic can of worms here. I would suffice it to say that, in my opinion, qualitative ("small-n") social scientists - or, at least, political scientists - feel (and I use the word "feel" deliberately) tremendous pressure to justify their methodology, probably more so than their purely (because "mixed methods," which also sounds like "mixed martial arts" to me, is arguably the trend of the day) quantitative colleagues.. They fear being attacked of engaging in mere interpretivism (inductivist) as opposed to positivist (deductivist) hypothesis testing. Hence they attack quantitative social scientists where it can be attacked - e.g., quantitative social science produces spurious correlation - and defend their own work where it can be defended - e.g., the rationales for the cases they use (case selection) and methods they use (e.g., process tracing), as well as Theda Skocpol's famous (or not famous) declaration ("States and Social Revolutions") that small-n work is best when there are too many variables and non-enough cases; if you really want to get a good, and not necessarily unsympathetic critique of her perspective, read "Three Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology," in "The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences."
Hopefully I've confused you more than you were before.
Best
ADTS
Justin Logan loves
Justin Logan loves balls
Exum = Ranger
Logan = ?
Exum, its game
Exum, its game over.
inshallah you will a get clue before the local afghan population rises up and attempts to kill every american soldier in afghanistan.
The battle for hearts and minds is going swimmingly:
Police fired into the air to disperse thousands of anti-American protesters in Afghanistan’s capital Wednesday, witnesses and police said, with one person killed and at least five wounded.
Demonstrators chanted “Death to America,” “Death to Christians,” and “Death to Karzai,” the latter referring to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in the biggest protests since unrest erupted last week over plans by a U.S. pastor to burn the Koran.
“There are more than 10,000 of the demonstrators and some of them are waving the Taliban flag,” police officer Mohammad Usman.
Anand Gopal tweets:
A lot of protests today, including one in Uruzgan where foreign troops killed a protestor and three in Wardak, where mob burned vehicles
This article by Nick Turse seems well-timed:
Even a cursory examination of the Wikileaks files reveals the existence of a vibrant and vocal Afghan protest movement – above and beyond recent protests against actual and proposed Koran-burning in the United States – typified by street demonstrations against various strata of the Afghan government as well as the United States and its coalition allies.
wallah, maybe the ASG could get their heads out of their asses long enough to see this is getting very, very bad?
Are we going to see Afghans mobbing american soldiers and a replay of Blackhawk Down?
How bout we mix in the Garani massacre video?
Can you say .....tinderbox of anti-american sentiment?
@Rabbit, "inshallah you will
@Rabbit,
"inshallah you will a get clue before the local afghan population rises up and attempts to kill every american soldier in afghanistan."
Which they won't Dear, there is no such monolithic Islam, outside of the minds of the International Self Loathing Left.
Certainly there's no monolithic Afghan population. BTW what are your thoughts on the Victory Mosque? Somewhere you must be crowing. May I ask if you agree with me that there will be a great Global Inshallah Allah Akhbar when the ground is broken?
POTUS and the Dhimmi Mayor had NO RIGHT to submit to Islam on our behalf. Not by Law, custom or Constitution.
They just did it, and it will not be endured.
Some other things of
Some other things of interest from AlJazeera
Part 1 & 2 are about Strategy discussion dated to 2009 leading up to the surge in Afghanistan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PupXTUn9Mo Empire - Obama and Afghanistan pt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dr4to5T04w&NR=1 Part 2
This is the Islamic view of the War on Terror.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vny5wZrPAjw&feature=channel
Think the last program gives a view as to why the State Department is working so hard on current peace talks. I see the peace talks as a Hail Mary play by the current administration. Hope it works, but considering the history of all the players it is a high risk long shot. If you accept the three pilars discussed in the video(oil, status quo, and israel) I think that we would have more control and influence by getting out of the oil business. We would have to relax some of our EPA laws to do it, but it would open a door to independence with a goal of finding a cleaner solution. Relaxing EPA regs don't even seem to be on the table these days, but it would be a fast track solution (compared to a new energy technology). There has been some discussion of linkage between energy policy and the Afghan war it is not main stream and could be.
Our troops complain that Joe Plumber is not involved in the fight then bring the fight home by not using oil products that is a fight that every US consumer can be part of . If Dubai does not like a barrel of oil priced in dollars then link oil to something that they can relate to, a bag of food.
There are a lot of ways to change the status quo (Arms sales, Food, Military Protection).
Another way to change the status quo. BUY THE AMERICAN LABEL. (Save oil while helping dig out of the economic hole we are in, consumption is one of the biggest trump cards Americans can play in the world economy and we have total control of it !!! )
@Zak, "Our troops complain
@Zak,
"Our troops complain that Joe Plumber is not involved in the fight then bring the fight home by not using oil products that is a fight that every US consumer can be part of ..."
We have more than enough oil, and coal, and everything else here to become a net energy exporter.
I don't think the troops complain much about Joe the Plumber (the common man?) not being involved in the fight.
But I could be wrong.
This topic is away over my
This topic is away over my head. wow... Nerd alert. Visitor at September 16, 2010 - 3:20am
New here? This place is total nerd bait. Even superstar blog commenter SNLII is just a glamorous and charismatic comments-section nerd. I mean that as a compliment.
@ ADTS: Bless you being so well read....
Thanks for the response to my comment which wasn't meant as any kind of insult, and yet, came off as insulting an entire discipline. I always mean to be nice, but I always come off as the exact opposite. Sigh.
Seen this post at Kings of War?
http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2010/09/andreski/
I got no clue.
Madhu: I didn't see anything
Madhu:
I didn't see anything insulting.
I just read the Kings of War post. I'm not sure how to codify its claims in any cohesive fashion by which I can respond comprehensively or coherently. So apologies if this is (and it *is,* at least to a degree) a disconnected jumble of anecdotes It reminded me of "Politics and the English Language" (Orwell) - people who use big words and jargon and long sentences should do so only when they have to.
I'm also reminded of (I think) "Discipline and Department" (Abbott), the author of which is a distinguished sociology professor, who recalled an anecdote in which either he or a colleague was given an article to review. He or the colleague said something like, "The article is fine - it meets all the usual standards - but I was bored reading it." Abbott or his colleague's question was, "Isn't (or shouldn't) being boring be sufficient to reject the article?"
I *was* struck by the negative tone of the article. (How could one not be?) I was particularly taken by his criticism of sociology. I think the article could be encapsulated by the following phrase: "physics envy" and the debates surrounding it.
I have not read, but have read about, the Perestroika movement in political science and the book about it. If you're interested, you might want to read it.
Best
ADTS
It's unconscionable that
It's unconscionable that ANYONE employed Hoh to author anything about Afghanistan. It totally demolishes any reasonable perception of balance, sobriety or reliability. What a clown.
Thank you for engaging the
Thank you for engaging the public. I am interested in Andrew's opinion regarding how long can/should the US and the coalition remain in AF, as well as, what the coalition should realistically expect to achieve in the near future. Tashakur, Mark
"inshallah you will a get
"inshallah you will a get clue before the local afghan population rises up and attempts to kill every american soldier in afghanistan."
Unlikely as a result of either the insurgency or of any political/social reaction to the US forces in Afghanistan. The insurgent's desired end state is a destabilized GIROA, giving "Joe Afghan" no real choice between supporting the Taliban vs. the soon to be departing US forces. Actively attacking US forces head on would be their least likely course of action. No nascent insurgency in its right mind would engage in direct conventional military conflict with counterinsurgent forces at this point.
"there is no such monolithic Islam, outside of the minds of the International Self Loathing Left."
Excuse me, this must be backwards day? Of *course* there is no such thing as "monolithic Islam." The only people who think so are uninformed, ill-traveled, xenophobes. Hardly examples of the so called, "self loathing left." Islam is analogous to Protestantism. There is no central leadership, essentially all you have to do to become an iman is declare yourself one. It's so decentralized it makes the Church of England look like Fascist Totalitarianism.
"BTW what are your thoughts on the Victory Mosque? Somewhere you must be crowing. May I ask if you agree with me that there will be a great Global Inshallah Allah Akhbar when the ground is broken? POTUS and the Dhimmi Mayor had NO RIGHT to submit to Islam on our behalf. Not by Law, custom or Constitution."
Well, since you asked; I assume you are hyperbolically speaking about the community center being constructed at the site of a seven year abandoned building some 2+ loooong blocks from Ground Zero? The community center with a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court, September 11 memorial, and prayer space that could accommodate 1,000–2,000 people.
It's as much a "Mosque" as an airport with a meditaion room is a "cathedral."
Out of curiosity, just exatly how do you think anyone "submit(ted) to Islam" allowing ground to be broken? Which part of the Constitution permits the POTUS to dictate what comercial enterprise goes where? What part of NY law forbids construction of community centers within two blocks of a hole in the ground? I mean, if it were indeed so "sacred" to you, perhaps you might insist we build an actual 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero rather than leaving it a hole in the ground for nine years, waiting to be sold to the highest bidder and have another *commerical* building constructed on its "sacred" soil? Or maybe you could have said something about the multitude of bars, strip clubs, off-track betting parlors, etc... all built within the *same* two block radius of your sacred hole in the ground?
Your "outrage" is suspiciously narrow and specific.
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