Quickthink

A while ago, I posted that the US assault in Kandahar is a sideshow compared to the drone attacks on high level taliban in Pakistan. The reason I think so is that disrupting the chain of command by drone attacks seems to be more effective in driving the taliban to peace talks than trying to kill off peasants and dodge suicide bombers in Afghanistan.

I still think this is true. But the Kandahar assault has produced a surprise. A new US weapon that targets command and control points in the field. Check out this quote from NYT

Some of the gains (in Kandahar) seem to have come from a new mobile rocket that has pinpoint accuracy — like a small cruise missile — and has been used against the hideouts of insurgent commanders around Kandahar.

These are called “himars” and they appear to be scaring the hell out of local taliban commanders who, it is reported, are fleeing their posts. We might also mention that the assault has successfully targeted taliban supply lines. Result? The taliban are losing bases that they have controlled for years and appear to have lost face in an area where they were top ogs. Effect? Less taliban leverage in the peace dialogue and perhaps a stronger incentive to do a deal before the situation gets even worse.

So it seems that General Petraeus had one more ace up his sleeve to disrupt command and control. Will it be enough? Let’s see. But a couple of things are pretty clear by now. First, Patraeus knows what he is doing. Second, the US military is impressive at what it does.

One of the main problems faced by the US in its Afghan campaign is the huge cultural gap between US and Afghan peoples. A recent Slate article that discusses the mixed benefits of a huge hydro-electric plant project brings this out rather well. Here is the link.

More striking for me, however, is the assertion in the article that the taliban deliver more effective justice than Afghan authorities assisted by the US. Ouch! That is truly pathetic. But I can understand it. US legal culture has rather moved far away from its pragmatic and problem solving origins. So why should we expect that US legal assistance providers would be able to work in a setting where problems sit on top of problems that lie spread eagled on top of a huge crisis? Perhaps we should bring back Judge Roy Bean.

Faisal Shahzad, the guy who tried and failed to blow up his car in Times Square in New York appeared in court  and pleaded guilty to the attempted terrorist attack. Indeed, he pleaded guilty “a hundred times” claiming that he is a foot soldier in a war against the US.

Is this yet another example of the menace faced by the US from terrorism cloaked in the idea of jihad? Or is it the rather pathetic rant of a guy who is begging for attention? Robert Wright thinks it is the latter. He argues as well that some are using this to further inflate the risks from terrorism in order to justify wars that are not necessary or productive. According to Wright, this happened in Vietnam and is happening again. Here is a link to his rather provocative article.

I recall the long, long, long, long debate about the merits of the Vietnam War and I would caution against drawing this type of parallel. The Vietnam War was far more intense than the fighting in Afghanistan. 58,000 US servicemen and millions of Vietnamese lost their lives in 13 plus years of fighting. Moreover, one might argue that the main problem in Vietnam was the failure of US policy makers to understand the passion of a post-colonial people who were fighting for liberation. Whatever Afghanistan is, it is not a post-colonial war for national liberation.

I think the more relevant comparison is post war Europe. Occupation forces hung around in Germany for a long time to insure that fascism was really dead. Whether we like it or not, the Afghans similarly need the security of an international force, and they will need it for a long time whether the US is menaced from more Shahzads or not. We should get used to that idea. A comparison — the first step in the Fayyadist “surge” (in the West Bank) was to build up a credible police force.

Allow me make the argument another way.  If anything has been “inflated” in order to justify the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been the prospects for nation building. This silliness has had unfortunate side effects. It created false expectations that the west could quickly build up new states and then pull out with marginal costs. This was foolish, and it ignored the much more painful historical lessons from nation building adventures especially in post-conflict zones. It also obscured the urgent and ongoing need of the people who live there for security. Insuring that has to come first before any other concern becomes relevant. That is how things work in the real world.

I think Ross Douthat puts the case rather well. The US cannot leave Afghanistan because that would risk a resurgence of state sponsored terrorism. The real choice is between counterinsurgency (the current strategy) and drone protected fortress building (the Biden option).  The argument for building fortresses is that it seems cheaper, and it would take the conflict off the front page. At the same time, it has a flaw. The US will not be able to effectively combat the taliban from inside fortresses, and so it will become trapped inside its defensive perimeters unless someone else fights them. But there is no other force to do that. So, onward with counterinsurgency! Let’s hope it works at some point within the next decade or two.

Here is the link to Ross’s interesting piece.

Before we move on, perhaps a quick reminder of General McChrystal’s contribution to the Afghan war is in order. Sure, he had to go. But he was not all bad either. Consider this comment:

… General McChrystal … revived that feeling of hope in Afghans. He made the war about protecting the people and gave us the strength to fight.

From a tribute to McChrystal by Khoshal Sadat, an Afghan special forces officer who served with McChrystal. I like the comment that he made the war about protecting people. Here is the link.

This interesting development in Afghanistan

Washington has watched with some nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset.

Here is a link to the story. And what is really going on? No one knows.

Commentary about the McChrystal firing got me thinking. Thomas Ricks thinks that it should be done more often. The men at the top are replaceable and too comfortable. Lucian Trescott sees a worrying sentimentality in McChrystal’s attitude about his men.The underlying message — the mission is more important than the man.  And I think this is the problem we have in Afghanistan. The nation building mission was long ago degraded. Now the talk is about exit strategy. Not pretty, but there it is.

That about says it all these days. The dust up over McChrystal’s comments is ugly enough, but even uglier is the argument that McCrystal’s surge strategy simply is not working. Tom Friedman lays out the case why not in this editorial. Friedman’s main point is that the US cannot identify who it is fighting for or why. His underlying strategic idea is that the US should only fight when local allies fight too.  Sounds reasonable. But in fact, this misses the point altogether. The US role in Afghanistan is to empower someone (not just to fight with them). At some point the US will have to be more ruthless in selecting whom it chooses to empower.  Ugly, but I don’t think there is another exit strategy.

BTW, Max Boot thinks that the criticism of the US surge is premature. After all, not all of the extra troops have even arrived. He thinks the problem is in Washington — where Obama et al are demonstrating weakness rather than strength. Interesting counterpoint. Here is the link to his article.

An Update on Afghanistan

As predicted, it has proven to be more difficult to hold Marja than to take it. Taliban intimidation of locals continues long after the front line fighting is over. Despite this, the US military is moving forward with its planned assault against the taliban at Kandahar. This will be a much larger effort than the Marja affair, and there is an added problem. President Karzai’s brother runs the local council. Yes, that brother who some suspect is connected with smuggling, etc.

NYT has a report on the initial steps being taken. Here is the link.