Afghanistan and the Long War: "Obama, Tell Me How This Ends"

From Andrew Bacevich in The New York Daily News:

On the march to Baghdad, back when America's war on terror was young, a rising star in the United States military lobbed this enigmatic bon mot to an accommodating reporter: "Tell me how this ends." Thus did then-Maj. Gen. David Petraeus in 2003 neatly frame the issue that still today haunts the U.S.-led effort to defeat violent anti-Western jihadism.

To know how something ends implies knowing where it's going. Yet eight years after it began, the war on terror is headed back to where it started. The prequel is the sequel, Afghanistan replacing Iraq as the once and now once again central front.

Afghanistan: A Few Numbers You Might Want to Know About the War

So are we making progress? Even as President Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, that question hangs in the air, ignored by all. Rather than explaining how the struggle will end, the President merely affirms that it must continue, his eye fixed on pacifying a country of which his own secretary of state recently remarked "We have no long-term stake there."

How pacifying Afghanistan will bring us closer to the figurative Berlin or Tokyo that defines our ultimate objective is unclear. True, the 9/11 plot was hatched in Afghanistan, and we want to prevent any recurrence of that event. It's also true that Dallas was the site of our last presidential assassination. Yet no one thinks that posting Secret Service agents in the Texas School Book Depository holds the key to keeping our current President safe.

Then there is the Af-Pak argument --- that U.S. military action in Afghanistan is necessary to ensuring the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan. Selling Pakistanis on the logic of this argument poses a challenge, however, given that the eight-year Western military presence in Afghanistan corresponds to an eight-year period during which Pakistan has edged steadily closer to internal collapse.

In reality, the chief rationale for pouring more troops into Afghanistan derives from a determination to restore the credibility of American arms, badly tarnished in Iraq. Thanks to Petraeus' rediscovery of counterinsurgency doctrine, road-tested in Surge I, U.S. forces ostensibly won a belated but significant triumph. Surge II could show that Iraq was no fluke.

Military analysts who a decade ago were touting the wonders of precision-guided munitions now cite counterinsurgency as the new American way of war. Killing the enemy has become passé. Advanced thinking now assigns top priority to "securing the people," insulating them from violence and winning them over with good governance. Twenty-first century American military officers speak the language of 20th century social reformers, sounding less like George Patton and more like Jane Addams.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has declared his intention to remedy "the weakness of \[Afghan political\] institutions, the unpunished abuse of power by corrupt officials and powerbrokers, a widespread sense of political disenfranchisement and a longstanding lack of economic opportunity."

Undertaken in Louisiana or Illinois, this would qualify as an ambitious agenda. In Afghanistan, it qualifies as a tall order indeed.

But assume the best: If McChrystal replicates in Afghanistan the success that Petraeus achieved in Iraq - ignore, please, the government ministries imploding in Baghdad - where does that leave us?

To sustain public support, a protracted war needs a persuasive narrative. Americans after Dec. 7, 1941, didn't know when their war would end. But they took comfort in knowing where and how it was going to end: with enemy armies destroyed and enemy capitals occupied.

Americans today haven't a clue when, where or how their war will end. The Long War, as the Pentagon aptly calls it, has no coherent narrative. When it comes to defining victory, U.S. political and military leaders are flying blind.

Historically, the default strategy for wars that lack a plausible victory narrative is attrition. When you don't know how to win, you try to outlast your opponent, hoping he'll run out of troops, money and will before you do. Think World War I, but also Vietnam.

The revival of counterinsurgency doctrine, celebrated as evidence of enlightened military practice, commits America to a postmodern version of attrition. Rather than wearing the enemy down, we'll build contested countries up, while expending hundreds of billions of dollars (borrowed from abroad) and hundreds of soldiers' lives (sent from home).

How does this end? The verdict is already written: The Long War ends not in victory but in exhaustion and insolvency, when the United States runs out of troops and out of money.

Comments

[Dave]

Quoting -- "Advanced thinking now assigns top priority to “securing the people,” insulating them from violence and winning them over with good governance.......and economic opportunity." ----->> But this doesn't get to the heart of the problem.

How does this end? The verdict is already written: The Long War ends not in victory but in exhaustion and insolvency, when the United States runs out of troops and out of money.

***********

Agreed.

The US and its allies have no remedy for the economic and political problems there and in the rest of the region. The following has fueled and will continue to fuel extremism and negative attitudes towards the West:

1. Population explosion in the Middle East and Africa that will exacerbate economic problems, deplete a precious natural resource (water), increased urbanisation and more people driven into poverty.

2. Globalisation and modernity -- This part of the world has coped very badly with these challenges of these two, causing more anger and resentment at the "callous" West. -- leading to #3

3. Christian evangelism -- Western evangelists have seized new opportunities in this globalised world order, making inroads deep into predominantly Islamic lands. Case in point is Africa, which Muslims regard as part of their sphere of cultural influence. And their power had been safeguarded under the colonial regimes. After decolonisation (1960s+), Christians outnumbered Muslims on the continent. Muslims growth rates in Africa were generally slow in the 20th century. This is shocking to Muslims. And it's all been backed by Western money and other resources. Christianity is still seen as a white Western import. Western money flows to the churches which provide for the social needs of the people. Case in point -- '10-40 Window'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10/40_Window

http://www.1040window.org/

The rise of the Taliban and Islamic movements in general, have been the response to the challenges mentioned above, making Islamic aggression a sort of defensive quality, if you will. As for #s 2 and 3: they fear the loss of CULTURAL IDENTITY. All of this fuels the extremist elements.

[escot]

Thanks for posting this gem; had missed it from before the Holidays, back when even the NYTimes et. al. were telling us why we should bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Reading Col./Prof. Bacevich, as always, is sobering.

I can imagine though the question that Obama's political team kept asking was: tell me how withdrawal ends? (e.g., in Obama getting defeated in 2012.)

As for strategies of attrition, (and since we're digressing) it's often forgotten that the US "Revolution" itself was largely contested in terms of attrition -- in the sense that Washington (George) & co had few visions/fantasies of actually beating the British legions -- with all their mights and mercenaries. As GW learned well around New York, frontal confrontations with British might risked losing the entire cause.

The idea instead was to continue to survive as a fighting force, on the flanks of the main British forces, to never risk annihilation, to keep pecking away, in hopes that in time Britain would wear out, run out of treasure, and give up the ghost....

Plan nearly backfired -- especially as much of the colonial line mutinied in 1781. Ah, but that would muddy the picture here. Time isn't necessarily the friend to the rebel, nor to the indigenous.

Alas, back to my opening thought, to "win" the argument, I hope Bacevich will next write, perhaps like William Polk, of how expediting a withdrawal from Afghanistan will end up a positive.

[marlys burnett]

The other question begs attention: If the "evangelicals" of the Muslim faith
gain political/economic/spiritual control of Afghanistan, then where are we?