Win-Lose Situation
As those seem to be the leading options in Afghanistan. How to win/how to lose roundup kicks off with LTC David Kilcullen, Australia’s wartime gift to the world, painting a dire picture of Afghanistan, “Winnable, but only just.” Unlike most doom/gloomsayers, he lays out a practical path to a turnaround in Afghanistan. Advises getting on the stick ASAP. The New Yorker:
It’s bad: violence is way up, Taliban influence has spread at the local level, and popular confidence in the government and the international community is waning fast. It’s still winnable, but only just, and to turn this thing around will take an extremely major effort starting with local-level governance, political strategy, giving the Afghan people a well-founded feeling of security, and dealing with the active sanctuary in Pakistan. A normal U.S. government transition takes six to nine months, by the time new political appointees are confirmed, briefed, and in position. But nine months out from now will be the height of the Afghan fighting season, and less than a month out from critical Presidential elections in Afghanistan. If we do this the “normal” way, it will be too late for the Obama Administration to grip it up. I think this is shaping up to be one of the smoothest transitions on record, with the current Administration going out of its way to assist and facilitate. That said, the incoming Administration has a steep learning curve, and has inherited a dire situation—so whatever we do, it’s not going to be easy.
Adds that he doesn’t think at Anbar-style Awakening is likely, but goes on to point out how an Afghan Awakening might be effected:
The enemy is very different from A.Q.I. and, in any case, Pashtun tribes have a very different makeup from Arab tribes. So even if an awakening happened it would likely play out differently from Iraq. Rather than talking about negotiations (which implies offering an undefeated Taliban a seat at the table, and is totally not in the cards) I would prefer the term “community engagement.” The local communities (tribes, districts, villages) in some parts of Afghanistan have been alienated by poor governance and feel disenfranchised through the lack of district elections. This creates a vacuum, especially in terms of rule of law, dispute resolution, and mediation at the village level, that the Taliban have filled. Rather than negotiate directly with the Taliban, a program to reconcile with local communities who are tacitly supporting the Taliban by default (because of lack of an alternative) would bear more fruit. The Taliban movement itself is disunited and fissured with mutual suspicion—local tribal leaders have told me that ninety per cent of the people we call Taliban could be reconcilable under some circumstances, but that many are terrified of what the Quetta shura and other extremists associated with the old Taliban regime might do to them if they tried to reconcile. So, while an awakening may not happen, the basic principles we applied in Iraq—co-opt the reconcilables, make peace with anyone willing to give up the armed struggle, but simultaneously kill or capture all those who prove themselves to be irreconcilable—are probably very applicable.
Especially when recent indicators are the locals are getting really sick of Taliban murder tactics. His advice for Obama:
… First, the draw-down in Iraq needs to be conditions-based and needs to recognize how fragile our gains there have been, and our moral obligation to Iraqis who have trusted us. As I said, we don’t want to un-bog ourselves from Iraq only to get bogged in Afghanistan while Iraq turns bad again. Second, our priorities in Afghanistan should be security, governance, and dealing with the Pakistan safe haven—and we may not necessarily need that many more combat troops to do so. Third, the Afghan elections of September 2009 are a key milestone—we can’t just muddle through, and the key problem is political: delivering effective and legitimate governance that meets Afghans’ needs. And finally, most importantly, this is a wartime transition and we can’t afford the normal nine-month hiatus while we put the new Administration in place.
Whole thing, with a lot of detail in a short space on what might work, what won’t by someone who knows the territory and has a lot of hands-on experience doing it.
Small Wars Journal rounds up some reax, and notes Kilcullen will be a guest with Fareed Zakaria on CNN at 1 p.m. ET today, discussing the above.
When Frontline did its recent doom/gloom-mongerfest on Afghanistan, Kilcullen was interviewed, but not very well. Hey Frontline, see above for what you missed.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the surrender camp, despair over the quagmire has predictably shifted to demands for immediate capitulation. Huffington Post: No-win situation.
Either that, or, back to SWJ again: How should the U.S. execute a surge in Afghanistan, by three LTCs and a Commander. Different from Iraq, yet not dissimilar. Challenging, but not impossible. A lot of detail on what and how.
Quick Afghan news roundup:
Stop for a minute, salute that magnificent gift Nepal and Great Britain brought the world at war … the Gurkhas. AFP: Gurkha down in Afghanistan.
Colour Sergeant Krishnabahadur Dura, 36, from 2nd Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles, was killed after the explosion Saturday in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province …
If you have ever known any Gurkhas, you may know you are safe under their guard. These tough, cheerful, fiercely loyal born soldiers will die with a pile of hacked-up bodies in front of them before they let anyone touch you, which is why the photos of Prince Harry in Afghanistan show him in their company.
PTI: Paks to restore military supply route to Afghanistan after being caught with ther pants down. Update from VOA, Paks reopen route.
Xinhua: 30 Taliban wacked, drug facility destroyed. No thanks to the Chinese, despite a shared border and domestic concerns about Afghan-linked Islamic terrorism … Xinhua again, China denies media reports of a plan to send troops to Afghanistan. Chinese humor: ”Except the United Nations’ (UN) peace-keeping operations approved by the UN Security Council, China never sends troops abroad.” Tell it to Tibetan monks. Tell it to Korean war vets.
Fox: Key insurgent leader captured, suicide attack thwarted.
Welcome Instapundit, Memeorandum, etal. Always so good to see you. Come on in. For those who are interested in my ancestral island continent’s (latest) gift to a world at war, here’s some prior on Kilcullen:
Topics: Afghanistan
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:41 am on Sunday, November 16, 2008
One Response to “Win-Lose Situation”
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November 18th, 2008 at 2:25 am
I just don’t see the war as winnable.
We can kill jihadis every year, they go home during winter and return in the spring.
We would be far better off using the money that we are putting in, to buy the indigenous support and fight the war by proxy. For half the price and far fewer casualties, we could be getting the same results.
It’s not about land or leaders…I really can’t see how it can be truly won.
That is probably the biggest irony of Obama. He saw Iraq as unwinnable, and simultaneously advocated increasing troops in AG. Why not a push for a timetable in Afgh.? What’s his exit strategy? This is a classic diffusion of responsibility, as the world is happy that the rest of the world is there, but no one is running the show.
We should be keeping troop levels low, using our high tech, and avoiding the the belief that more is better, unless the ‘more’ is troops that are stateside.
Can anyone describe victory? I can’t.