Foreign Policy In Focus

It’s no secret that the Obama administration has struggled from the beginning to find a coherent narrative to support the Afghan war it inherited. Or to craft an even remotely coherent strategy. (Other than how to shift the blame when the whole thing implodes.)

But now that General David Petraeus is assuming command, hearts seem suddenly light. There is a sense – or at least a claim – that new leadership in the field will somehow transform an otherwise bleak and worsening situation. This sense is shared across party lines, and it appears likely that Petraeus will be unanimously confirmed in his new role by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It seems appropriate, therefore, to reread Gen. Petraeus’ seminal work, Field Manual 3-24, to get a sense of how he might undertake this transformation. (FM 3-24 is the counterinsurgency guide for the US military. Along with FM 3-24.2, Tactics In Counterinsurgency, it details what every US soldier, from private to four-star is supposed to know about COIN.)

If Afghanistan is, in fact, a COIN engagement – and we must assume POTUS believes it is, since he has nominated a man perceived to be America’s foremost COIN expert to lead it – then he should be using the best available COIN guidelines to assess it. Presumably that would be FM 3-24, so I’ve taken the liberty of extracting key points to use as metrics. The number and italicized sections below are lifted directly from FM 3-24. The snarky (excuse me, I mean insightful) commentary is mine.

1-4. Long-term success in COIN depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule. 

Er . . . then actually having a functioning ‘Host Nation’ government is a necessary precondition for success? 

1-10. For the reasons just mentioned, maintaining security in an unstable environment requires vast resources, whether host nation, U.S., or multinational.

You mean vast, as in hundreds of thousands of troops, similar numbers of development personnel and the cash to fund it all?

1-30. Protracted conflicts favor insurgents, and no approach makes better use of that asymmetry than the protracted popular war. 

Nine years and counting. Might be a good time to ask which team has the deeper bench.

1-113. The primary objective of any COIN operation is to foster development of effective governance by a legitimate government. 

Oh. Whoops. 

1-116. Six possible indicators of legitimacy that can be used to analyze threats to stability include the following:

• The ability to provide security for the populace (including protection from internal and external threats).
• Selection of leaders at a frequency and in a manner considered just and fair by a substantial majority of the populace.
• A high level of popular participation in or support for political processes.
• A culturally acceptable level of corruption.
• A culturally acceptable level and rate of political, economic, and social development.
• A high level of regime acceptance by major social institutions.

How many points do you get for ‘none of the above’? 

1-121. Unity of effort must be present at every echelon of a COIN operation.

Ah, man, even the VP, those weenies over at State and the National Security Advisor?

1-131. The cornerstone of any COIN effort is establishing security for the civilian populace. 

Right. Remind me how many of those provinces were rated as ‘fully secure’ in the April 2010 review? As I recall, the exact number was, umm . . . is zero a number?

1-134. Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.

Roger that. Just so long as the pull date is before the next election. 

Well, shucks. Color me cynical. 

In the wildland fire biz we used a quick and dirty little algorithm called TREAT to decide whether to fight or flee. I think it might apply here, too.

• Time
• Resources
• Experience
• Attitude
• Training

The rule was, if you had any three or more, it was a good decision to stand and fight. Any fewer, and it was time to remove your crews from danger. 

Using that for AfPak, I’d give the US about 1.2. Pretty good on attitude, fair on training (for that specific environment), way short of time, resources and experience.

The US cannot commit to the 10 to 20 year time frame (starting today!) that is likely necessary to actually succeed. Nor can it come close to putting the necessary number of troops in the field. (Estimated at over 1.4 million with the classic troop density of 20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 population. Yeah, you can count the locals, but at this point, the ANA and ANP are so bad they would have to be subtracted from the total, not added.) And – key point – in terms of experience, the US has yet to win a classical counterinsurgency fight. (Sorry, Iraq doesn’t count. It wasn’t true COIN, and the US did not win. For an explanation, see Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict.) 

Bottom line? Time to run. 

Excuse me. I mean ‘strategically redeploy’.

I spent the better part of Wednesday morning trying to keep up with the flurry of news about General McChrystal’s recall.  Everyone wanted to know, would he stay or would he go?

Between checking for updates on the New York Times and the Small Wars Journal and listening to George Packer and Fred Kaplan on NPR, I opened a package that had arrived in yesterday’s mail.  It was a book—A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq, by Mark Moyer.  As the title suggests, the book argues that the success or failure of a counterinsurgency strategy depends on the quality and commitment of the individuals leading the fight.

Those who spoke out against McChrystal’s dismissal made the same argument.  We can’t change leadership at such a crucial moment in the battle, they say.  As one NPR reporter put it, “McChrystal is the war in Afghanistan.”  Thus, many believe that the success or failure of the counterinsurgency strategy depends on him.

This just isn’t true.  First of all, it’s unlikely that the administration’s policy in Afghanistan will change with McChrystal’s resgination.  Like Petraeus, who has now been named to fill the job, everyone else mentioned as a possible replacement for McChrystal shares his emphasis on the clear-hold-build strategy of counterinsurgency and the importance of building up trust between the local population and the Afghan government.

Perhaps more importantly, the idea that this war will be won or lost by a brilliant general is problematic.  Everyone agrees that both McChrystal and Petraeus are exceptional individuals.  They therefore fit nicely into the standard narrative of counterinsurgency as told by many of its proponents.  According to this narrative, there are enlightened generals who “get” COIN and dim-witted generals who don’t.  The classic example comes out of Vietnam lore.  As the story goes, the blockhead general, William Westmoreland, who gauged the war in terms of body count and bombs, was replaced in 1969 by the more astute and versatile Creighton Abrams who made pacification and political reform a more central aspect of the war effort.  A similar narrative emerged from Iraq.  Here, the dimwit was General Casey.  He was replaced by the brilliant Petraeus who turned the war in Iraq around by revitalizing the lost doctrine and practice of counterinsurgency.

Surely, generals play an important role in winning and losing wars.  But it is misleading to imagine that they or any other individual determine the outcome of a conflict whose causes stem from the underlying political and social system.  Despite the counterfactual argument that we would’ve won in Vietnam if we hadn’t cut the rug out from under Abrams, the larger truth is that the South Vietnamese government remained unwilling to engage in serious reform, thus making lasting victory in Vietnam impossible.  Critics of Petraeus argue that the decreased violence in Iraq was largely the result of political developments within the insurgency, rather than a direct response to the surge.  If establishing a viable infrastructure, building a stable political system, and getting electricity to the population are part of winning, then we can’t credit Petraeus or anyone else with succeeding in Iraq.

The political and social barriers to success in Afghanistan are even steeper.  As did McChrystal, Petraeus will face the super-human challenge of refashioning a political system that resists change and garnering popular support for a government that cares little about the populace.

In the scramble to follow the latest news on whether or not McChrystal deserved to go, the question of whether it will make any difference seems to have gotten lost.  This is rather ironic, considering the article in Rolling Stone that ignited the flames in the first place.  Anyone who reads the full article will see that the jabs at Obama, Holbrooke, and Ikenberry by McChrystal and his aides play a relatively small part in the piece.  Much more time is spent considering the blowback from the rank-and-file military and the larger problem of nation-building in Afghanistan.  By the end of the piece, Hastings has poked serious holes in the inflated wish that McChrystal or any other hero general can succeed in Afghanistan.  “Winning, it would seem, is not really possible,” he concludes.  “Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge.”  In the meantime, though, we can count on the 24-hour news cycle to focus on the people and personalities—to pretend for the moment that the war in Afghanistan is really just a question of command.

Hannah Gurman is an Assistant Professor at NYU's Gallatin School. She teaches and researches widely on issues of US foreign policy and American culture. Currently she's researching the return of counterinsurgency in the American military establishment.

Someone recently posted a blurb to a security list I play on, quoting a noted Mid East analyst (whose work I admire, incidentally) as saying that the Democrats can't leave Afghanistan, because that would make them losers, and as a result, they would lose elections for decades to come.

I guess I was either under or over-caffeinated at the moment, because this is a polite version of what spewed out of my terminal . . .

Get over it, people! This is pure legacy thinking!

The Democrats are forever angsting over being accused of ‘losing China’ or being ‘soft on communism’. Time to get their meds titrated.

Between debt, disinterest and rising casualties, it will likely be far more dangerous politically for Obama NOT to bring the boys home quickly.

And here’s how he can do it.

1. Frame it as a bad war, started by the bozos across the aisle, which he tried to fix, but – so sorry – it was just too late after years of mismanagement under those duplicitous Republicans. And, really folks, we can’t justify more blood and treasure for people who look and talk funny, and don’t like us anyway. Also, dear voters, let’s talk about all that money we’ll save, and how, as your leader in a new term, I’ll use it to create jobs, rebuild your communities and bake a whole ton of apple pies using my dear, old Nona’s secret recipe
2. Throw (SecDef) Gates under the bus as an example of what happens when you try to be a nice guy and let those duplicitous Republicans help govern and they go and lose a war for you. Dump Hillary, too, for totally bricking it as SecState, being a general pain in the butt, and for a little righteous payback. I mean, it will be time for a cabinet shuffle prior to the election anyway. Also, with any luck, Petraeus will be collateral damage, just as people start to call for drafting him as the Great Republican Hope in 2012.
3. Blend this with a righteous maskirovka claiming ‘We got UBL!’ (like we ‘got’ all those other muj who later turn out to be inconveniently alive) and claim victory. By the time anyone burns through the jamming, it will be beyond the attention span of the Average American Voter. (Currently estimated at the length of one Idol episode, or until the beer runs out.) Great October Surprise payback, too. Plus, the thought of Osama jumping up and down in front of a video camera screaming, ‘I’m alive, you idiot infidels!’ is just too funny. Imagine it with a Bart Simpson voice-over. Could set the movement back 20 years and the BBBG (big, bad, bearded guy) might even be tempted to wave at a drone pilot just to be taken seriously. 
4. If it turns out the polls say POTUS needs some tough guy creds (if saying ‘kick some ass’ wasn’t tough enough, although it totally scared me) he can just send the Secret Squirrels over and blow the bejeebers out of Somalia, Yemen or some other third world backwater in the name of freedom, democracy and using up the ordnance so the contractors who own congress can replace it all with newer (and more expensive, if not better) models.
5. Start practicing the tango with Michelle because you’ll look soooo cool at the (second!) inaugural ball.

Oh, gotta run. The phone’s ringing, and I think it’s Rahm Emanuel offering me a consulting gig.

(Yeah, I know I’m being cynical, but am I being cynical enough? And I DO need the work.)

The New York Times reports in U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

 At first glance, it looks like, fate-wise, Afghanistan has finally caught a break. Do Focal Points readers think this will fundamentally improve the country? Or will Afghanistan's rulers and military siphon off the money? The Taliban have to be drooling. Suddenly, drug trade seems like kid stuff. How will it react?

Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter at IPS News writes in an article titled CIA Drone Operators Oppose Strikes as Helping al Qaeda:

Some CIA officers involved in the agency's drone strikes programme in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the programme within the agency, because it is helping al Qaeda and its allies recruit, according to a retired military officer in contact with them.

The interview he landed is an eye-opener.

"Some of the CIA operators are concerned that, because of its blowback effect, it is doing more harm than good," said Jeffrey Addicott, former legal adviser to U.S. Special Forces and director of the Centre for Terrorism Law at St Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, in an interview with IPS.

Not only that, but neither are "'The people at the top . . . believers,' said Addicott, referring to the CIA. 'They know that the objective is not going to be achieved.'"

Especially discouraging . . .

Addicott said the drone programme has been driven by President Barack Obama, rather than by the CIA. "Obama's trying to show people that we're winning," he added. …

Within the administration, it appears that the logic behind the programme is that it has to be seen to be doing something about al Qaeda. ... "Very frankly," Panetta declared May 18, 2009, "it's the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership."

CIA officers: Come to Florida, where you, too, can become a victim of PTSD while dealing out indiscriminate death from the comfort of your own console.

Be sure to read the rest of Gareth Porter's exclusive at IPS News: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51706