Can the Right War Be Won?
Defining American Interests in Afghanistan
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In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan
Norton
2009
432 pp.
9780393068986
$27.95
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One
Oxford University Press
2009
384 pp.
9780195368345
$27.95
Reading List
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on fighting insurgencies.
The Obama administration recently completed its 60-day review of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the president, "The core goal of the U.S. must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." The United States will pursue this goal, he explained, by carrying out five tasks: disrupting terrorist networks that are capable of launching international attacks; "promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan"; building up Afghan security forces that are "increasingly self reliant"; nudging Pakistan toward greater civilian control and "a stable constitutional government"; and getting the international community to help achieve these objectives under UN auspices. The premise of the strategy is that the turbulence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, if untamed, will lead to a nuclear 9/11.
In some ways, the new administration's goals are more modest than those of its predecessor. As President George W. Bush described the U.S. goal, "We have a strategic interest and I believe a moral interest in a prosperous and peaceful democratic Afghanistan, and no matter how long it takes, we will help the people of Afghanistan succeed." President Barack Obama has dismissed this objective as unrealistic, stating that the United States was not going to "rebuild Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy."
In practical terms, however, the Obama commitment is bigger. Whereas the Bush administration put a ceiling on troop deployments to Afghanistan (albeit largely because of Iraq), Obama ordered the deployment of an additional 21,000 troops. General David McKiernan -- who in May was replaced by General Stanley McChrystal as U.S. commander in Afghanistan -- had asked for 10,000 more; the White House will decide whether to add those in the fall. By the middle of 2010, the U.S. troop presence will have expanded by nearly one-third, to 78,000. Adding NATO troops, including those slated for deployment through the August Afghan elections, would boost the total coalition troop level to approximately 100,000.
During the presidential campaign, Obama emphasized that the war in Iraq was the wrong one; it was the effort in Afghanistan, al Qaeda's base, that was the right war. "Only a comprehensive strategy that prioritizes Afghanistan and the fight against al Qaeda will succeed," Obama said, "and that's the change I'll bring to the White House." The notion that Afghanistan was the epicenter of global terrorism and would prove to be an enduring source of danger to the United States unless the Taliban were subdued became a recurring theme. It was therefore unlikely that the administration's 60-day policy review was going to propose anything but a heightened military and economic investment in Afghanistan's future.
Now, the transition from Iraq to Afghanistan is well under way. Total annual spending in Afghanistan will soon exceed that in Iraq -- $65 billion versus $61 billion in the fiscal year 2010 budget request. This would be an increase of nearly 40 percent for Operation Enduring Freedom, adding nearly $7.5 billion for the Afghanistan security forces and $700 million for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund. The administration's strategy will also necessitate far greater civilian involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, a fact reflected in the $4.1 billion international affairs portion of the request, which covers the cost of diplomats and technical experts as well as economic assistance to both countries (including a down payment on a five-year $7.5 billion package for Pakistan).
LESSONS OF THE PAST
In 2001, most Afghans welcomed the U.S. troops. Inattention, ineptitude, and a lack of resources squandered this goodwill. Unsurprisingly, the dramatic escalation of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan has triggered a vigorous debate about whether it will prove to be "Obama's Vietnam," as it was framed in Newsweek, or a successful effort that finally matches goals to resources and is guided by a counterinsurgency strategy honed in the "Wild West" of Iraq. Two new books contribute to this discussion in different ways. In the Graveyard of Empires, by Seth Jones, chronicles the misjudgments and blunders that have characterized the U.S. effort in Afghanistan thus far, intimating that the record does not presage success for Washington's renewed commitment. The Accidental Guerrilla, by David Kilcullen, deals only partly with Afghanistan per se, but it lays out a counterinsurgency strategy that he argues would maximize the chances of success there.
Jones is an analyst at the RAND Corporation and has made Afghanistan his niche. He has been there a number of times and even grew a beard and wore baggy pants for a native's-eye view. Although his book breaks no new ground, it is a useful and generally lively account of what can go wrong when outsiders venture onto the Afghan landscape. Those ventures have generally not turned out well. Alexander the Great met his match there; the British were massacred; the Soviets, humiliated. The title of Jones' book, which focuses mostly on the U.S. effort, seems to impart a glimpse of the author's own assessment of U.S. prospects. This is ominous, because he knows too much about recent interventions for his pessimism to be disregarded.
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The majority of the efforts to rebuild, modernize, and educate Afghans has to be conducted in Pashtun-dominated territory, with a view to driving a wedge into Taliban-controlled areas.
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