Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

Major crises of each generation create heroes and villains related to them. This is true for all nations. One of the recent trends inside the United States, when facing the crisis du jour, is to examine how leaders who faced similar crises in the past behaved; what mistakes they made, and why they made those mistakes; why they did not take the advice of those who, in the hindsight of twenty-twenty, were proven right. These tormented questions are glaring in the face of President Barack H. Obama, a man who reminds many of President John F. Kennedy. Both of them share youth, intelligence, and a capacity to be highly articulate and are regarded as visionaries. They both were served by the “best and the brightest” of their respective generations. Still, the American involvement in Vietnam emerged as an archetypal example of how the best and the brightest can fail.

Kennedy started the American failed involvement in South Vietnam, but did not live to conclude the way he wanted.  Still, he must have faced the aforementioned agonizing questions of how he was going to end that conflict.  Obama is about to enter Afghanistan in a big way.  However, unlike Kennedy, he is faced with increased opposition from many in the U.S. Congress and, most significantly, from the American public. 

No one can doubt that Kennedy felt he was right in committing the American troops to fight the communists in Vietnam.  One only has to recall the famous lines of his inaugural address of paying any price and facing any foes in fighting for freedom.

By the same token, Obama has frequently described the war in Afghanistan as a war of necessity.  He might not have realized that that is how many presidents and prime ministers got embroiled in wars.  However, the most ignored aspect of such decisions is that it is relatively easy to paint oneself in rhetorical corners of one’s own making.  That was Obama did during the presidential campaign when he regularly chided President George W. Bush for starting the war in Iraq, but stated that the United States should be waging a war in Afghanistan and against al-Qaida and the Taliban. 

Obama is facing a challenge that Kennedy did not encounter, because he did not live to face the consequences of failure.  That challenge is related to the question of what if he failed in Afghanistan.

While there are no silver bullets for winning in Afghanistan, the counterinsurgency strategy that was used in Iraq is considered by the American military leaders as something that comes close to being regarded as ensuring the victory.

Obama is encountering another very hot issue: As President, he must decide whether to insert more troops into Afghanistan as General Stanley McCrystal wants, or deny him forces and condemn himself (Obama) to failure.  If he sends more troops to Afghanistan and faces failure, then future historians would be highly disparaging of him for not standing up to his military adviser, something that Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill famously did and, thus, became archetypes of what “great leaders” should do. 

If he inserts more troops into Afghanistan and postpones defeat, then the judgment on his leadership will be convoluted and contentious.  In this context, we hear that President Obama and his advisers are reading Gordon Goldstein’s book, Lessons in Disaster, which deals with Kennedy’s national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy’s role in the Vietnam War.

However, the trouble with books of history is that they will tell you everything about the past successes and failures.  However, they invariably leave the reader—in this instance, President Obama—to decide for himself what decision he should make regarding a crisis at hand.  Another important reality is that no two historical events or crises are exactly the same, no matter how similar those events appear to be.

Obama is doing everything he can before making up his mind about accepting or not accepting General McCrystal’s recommendation for more troops.  He is well-advised in not attaching much importance to where the top military brass stands on this issue.  They have no superior insight on this issue.  They were wrong during the Vietnam conflict, and the odds are high that they might be wrong in the Afghan conflict.  Obama is reportedly reading books on Vietnam, discussing what went right and wrong in the United States’ latest embroilment in Iraq, is having open discussions with his aids. 

However, in the final analysis, he must remember two advices that come from two different sources.  The first one comes from Collin Powell when he was the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He did not want to commit the American troops in any conflicts for which there was no support from the American public.  More to the point, he advised future presidents for the necessity of having an “exit strategy” before committing the U.S. forces. 

The second source of advice for President Obama is what McGeorge Bundy told Goldstein:  “Never Trust the Bureaucracy to Get It Right” [and] “Never Deploy Military Means in Pursuit of Indeterminate Ends.”  That second half of the preceding statement is precisely what Powell has stated in his insistence on having an “exit strategy.”