We are withdrawing from Afghanistan, too (eventually)

As our Long War continues with no end in sight, it is easy to lose perspective on the course of the war.  This brief survey illustrates one aspect of the Afghanistan Campaign.  Like Iraq, it began with fantastic success — then has slowly deteriorated as our 4GW foes evolve and their “home court” advantage works against us.  Note the links at the end to more information about the Afghanistan War.

The following results from a quick search of the Stratfor database.   My thanks to Stratfor, provider of a premier private geopoltical reporting and archive service.  They make this kind of research fast and easy.
 
Afghanistan: War ‘Over,’ But Combat To Continue (May 5, 2003)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced May 1 that “major combat activity” in Afghanistan has ended. However, the events of recent months have shown that conflict — though no longer on the scale of Operation Anaconda — is far from past. If Rumsfeld’s announcement is followed by a draw-down in combat forces and support, the United States will be left more vulnerable to attacks by Islamist militants and warlords.

 NATO Troop Strength In Afghanistan  (February 4, 2004)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) seeks to more than double its presence in Afghanistan, the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily reported on Feb. 4.  According to the German daily, NATO will consider plans to raise the number of troops from the current 6,000 to 14,000. … another detachment of 12,000 U.S.-led forces, separate from the NATO-led peacekeepers, is engaged in tracking down Taliban militants and their jihadist allies in southern and eastern Afghanistan. There are plans to put these troops under NATO control and to construct an Afghan headquarters for Eurocorps, a five-nation military alliance.

Why are we are fighting in Afghanistan?

Summary: a debate about our role in the Afghanistan War, and more generally about the limits of America’s power and military power. As our share of global income declines, this is increasingly the same thing.

“Don’t ‘pull an Iraq’ in Afghanistan“, Benjamin H. Friedman, Christian Science Monitor (3 April 2008) — “Massive state-building efforts are not a good use of tax dollars.”

This article sparked a discussion about the Afghanistan War with Joshua Foust at Registan.net (”Central Asia News - All Central Asia, All The Time”). What can we gain by fighting in Afghanistan? Is it worth the cost? See “Why we fight” for the full text of the debate.

In the opening round, Friedman makes what I consider powerful arguments.

This week at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, American officials asked Europeans to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan. Leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties agree that higher troop levels and a deeper commitment to state-building are the path to victory in Afghanistan. But both sides are wrong, and Iraq shows why.

How long will all American Presidents be War Presidents?

The Presidential campaign rolls on in the seventh year since 9/11, with the only debate about the Long War being in which nations America should fight. We see this even the speeches of the most “liberal” candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

I recommend reading “The World Beyond Iraq”, his speech about national security given at Fayetteville, NC on 19 March 2008.  He describes his plan for withdrawal from Iraq, but only to focus our efforts on Afghanistan … and Pakistan.  This is doubling down when losing, known as the “gambler’s ruin.” {revisions to this are in red)  This speech is a rhetorical masterpiece, providing strong and specific promises.  He gets right to the point…

…while we have a General who has used improved tactics to reduce violence, we still have the wrong strategy.   As General Petraeus has himself acknowledged, the Iraqis are not achieving the political progress needed to end their civil war…. When you have no overarching strategy, there is no clear definition of success.  Success comes to be defined as the ability to maintain a flawed policy indefinitely. Here is the truth: fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. And fighting in a war without end will not make the American people safer.

So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war.  Not because politics compels it.  Not because our troops cannot bear the burden- as heavy as it is.  But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.

One telling similarity between the the Wehrmacht and the US Military

“Center of Gravity versus Lines of Effort in COIN“, Herschel Smith, at the Captain’s Journal (3 March 2008) — An article well worth reading.  Thoroughly researched, Smith provides several powerful insights and provides an excellent operational and tactical perspective.

From a larger perspective this article shows how the 21st century US military is locked into a historically common trap.  No matter how good, it remains harnessed to US elites’ geopolitical thinking — poorly reasoned, emotional (ruled by hubris and fear).  Our military apparatus consistently provides professional, smooth execution of bad strategy.   We do the wrong thing, but brilliantly.  In this we have become like the WWI and WWII German military (aka loosely as the Wehrmacht), attempting to overcome foolish strategy with operational excellence.  In the seventh article of William Lind’s ”On War” series (12 March 2003), he presented on of his most incisive observations:

Between 1809 and 1945, the Prussian and, later, German armies developed what is often called maneuver warfare of Third Generation warfare. For the past quarter century, the U.S. military has been trying to adopt this German way of war, and failing.

Another perspective on Afghanistan, a reply to George Friedman

The following note by Joshua Foust was lifted from the comments section of yesterday’s note about an article by George Friedman of Stratfor, due to its length and value.  Foust is an expert in Central Asian affairs, frequently posting at Registan.net (”Central Asia News - All Central Asia, All The Time“).

Regarding Stratfor, as a long-time subscriber I believe it to be a window into the thinking of America’s business and government elites.  Like all good service vendors, they stay in close harmony with the views of the customers. The almost dreamlike nature of some Stratfor analysis in recent years (unlike the solid work which build their fine reputation) reflects, in my opinion, the similarly disordered thinking of US elites about economic and geopolitical affairs. Our national OODA loop is broken in these matters.

This can be read by itself, or in counter-point with Friedman’s article.  The war in Afghanistan is important for America; it is even more important as an example of the flawed decision-making process by which America conducts its affairs.

The key question raised by Foust, beyond the scope of this note:  if Afghanistan is important to America, what should we do?  Is waging war, as part of a War on Terror, the correct policy?

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Note by Joshua Foust (27 February 2008)

It is a smart bet to consider everything written in STRATFOR to be questionable unless verified by other sources. At least with regard to Central Asia, they’ve declared that, after Sapurmurat Niyazov’s death, Iran was the country most likely to invade (neglecting to mention the U.S, China, or Europe). They also declared that Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan were inches away from falling into a violent ethnic conflict on an Iraq scale, all while assuming that in the aftermath Kazakhstan would military occupy all three countries for their mineral wealth.

Quote of the day: this is America’s geopolitical strategy in action

This 2300 word essay by George Friedman of Stratfor shows the essence of America’s geopolitical engine, the heart of the War on Terror.  I strongly recommend reading it.  The end is especially worth pondering.  More than just reading it, I recommend mailing copies to your elected representatives along with letters of outrage.

“Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War“, George Friedman, Stratfor (26 February 2008) — Excerpts:

…It {the US government} was not after the Taliban but al Qaeda. It appears — and much of this remains murky — that the command cell of al Qaeda escaped from Afghan forces and U.S. Special Operations personnel at Tora Bora and slipped across the border into Pakistan. …Al Qaeda clearly was disrupted and relocated — and was denied its sanctuary. A number of its operatives were captured, further degrading its operational capability.

…The U.S. commitment of troops was enough to hold the major cities and conduct offensive operations that kept the Taliban off balance, but the United States could not possibly defeat them. The Soviets had deployed 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and could not defeat the mujahideen. NATO, with 50,000 troops and facing the same shifting alliance of factions and tribes that the Soviets couldn’t pull together, could not pacify Afghanistan.  But vanquishing the Taliban simply was not the goal. The goal was to maintain a presence that could conduct covert operations in Pakistan looking for al Qaeda and keep al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan.