Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

As President Barack H. Obama is edging toward making up his mind about accepting, partially accepting, or not accepting General Stanley McChrystal’s advice to insert more troops in Afghanistan, I hear an abundance of metaphors flying.  One metaphor was used by the candidate Obama himself during the presidential campaign, when he described starting the war in Iraq to driving a bus into ditch.  That metaphor is being reprinted (recently by the New York Times).  Rory Stewart, a Professor at Harvard and an opponent of the option of increasing the troops, is using the metaphor “driving off a cliff.”  Steven Biddle, a Fellow at CFR, calls it “a war that is worth waging, but only barely.” John Nagle, who built his reputation by being one of General David Petraeus’ assistants, and a person whose doctoral dissertation was on counterinsurgency (and a very good read), calls the war in Afghanistan “a better war.”  The debate within the Principals Committee in the White House is reported to be waging along the lines of COIN or counterterrorism.

What is missing from all these metaphors and depictions is what should be our strategy in Afghanistan.  If the United States is committed to remain in Afghanistan for the next twenty years, we need to add more troops.  Even as we do that, our focus ought to be nation-building, not the in the sense of how this phrase is used among the U.S. Special Forces.  What I mean by nation-building is a massive process of institution building for the purpose of establishing democracy in Afghanistan, along with a huge campaign against counter-drug operations, crop substitution, educational reforms, a colossal campaign of building civilian infrastructures, etc.  What I have in mind as a suggestion for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has no precedent (no, not even Japan or West Germany, for they were advanced polities before the war, while Afghanistan has never been one).  That is the only way of winning in Afghanistan.

What most Western observers are missing when they offer their expert advice regarding Afghanistan is an absence of a strong sense of history and an understanding of the culture of that country.  Stewart is an exception to that observation.  The decision to add more troops in Afghanistan cannot be made purely by couching it in the requirements of American domestic politics, and by viewing it from the perspective of what is appropriate and acceptable inside the United States.  I say that because, as more troops are inserted in Afghanistan, that will be seen as an evidence of commitment by outsiders, but not necessarily by the Afghans.  They need more persuading than mere escalation troops for now.  The abruptness by which the United States left Afghanistan after the redeployment of the Soviet troops in 1989 leaves them no reason to believe that we are likely to stay there.  This time there is no much difference.  All they have to do is to watch the current debate regarding Afghanistan inside the United States.

Mind you, I am not questioning the legitimacy of these debates.  They are quite genuine in the sense that, before more U.S. young men and women are sent there and before more money is invested, we need to debate the nature of our commitment.  However, that is precisely why the Afghans are skeptical that we mean to stay there for a long while this time.   In fact, my gut feeling is that we have no intention of making a long-term commitment to that tormented country.  I am especially flabbergasted by suggestions-even Vice President Joe Biden is part of this-that we need to wage counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.  That is an entirely silly notion that was first proposed by the Conservative Columnist George Will, and it is popular among some senior military officials.

What President Obama must do, first and foremost, is to elucidate his strategy and then commit this country’s resources accordingly.  If General McChrystal is asking for 40,000 troops (or whatever other numbers that are being floated), we need to look at the strategy first.  Obama’s proclamation of strategy will tell the Afghans and the Taliban how long we intend to stay.  No other rhetorical assurances are required.  So, when Mr. Obama announces his decision to the American public and the world,  that will be the ultimate litmus test of the earnestness of America’s commitment.  Otherwise, he should listen to his own advice when he said about Bush’s war in Iraq: “Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out.  The question is, who’s making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch?”

If we have no intention of making a long-term commitment for building Afghanistan into a stable polity, we need not increase the level of our troops.  Obama should think about listening to his own advice of not driving the country into a ditch or off a cliff.