Foreign Policy In Focus

Day of the Deadlines, as well as timelines, in the world of international relations (at least in so far as they were brought to my attention) . First this: at IPS News, Gareth Porter writes about General McChrystal:

McChrystal's shift in emphasis toward the targeted raids against the Taliban was undoubtedly accelerated by the message from the Barack Obama administration in March that he had to demonstrate progress in his counterinsurgency strategy by the end of December 2010 rather than the mid-2011 deadline for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

That earlier deadline, first reported by the Washington Post Mar. 31, was confirmed this month by U.S. Gen. Frederick Hodge, the director of operations for all of southern Afghanistan. "Our mission is to show irreversible momentum by the end of 2010 -- that's the clock I'm using," Hodge told The Times of London.

Second, at Foreign Policy, Barbara Slavin writes about the Israel-Palestine peace process:

George Mitchell, the Obama administration's special envoy for Middle East peace, plans to set a deadline for an Israel-Palestinian agreement, applying lessons learned from his successful mediation in a previous conflict. [Asked] whether he intended to set a similar deadline for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Mitchell said that he would do so after indirect talks between the two sides progress to direct negotiations. … In his public remarks, the former Senate majority leader acknowledged widespread skepticism both in the region and in Washington that he can broker a deal between the center-right government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

So far, the skeptics would seem to have the better of the argument. . . . But Mitchell . . . noted that the Netanyahu government has endorsed the concept of an independent Palestinian state and agreed to freeze new housing construction on the West Bank for 10 months. The Palestinians, the envoy said, are working to stop attacks on Israel. . . . Mitchell omitted mention of the toughest issues impeding Israeli-Palestinian peace: the fate of Jerusalem and of Palestinian refugees.

Third, at Global Security Newswire (of which Focal Points is an unabashed fan), Elaine Grossman writes of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty review conference yesterday:

"It is almost an impossible task," said Zimbabwean Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, who chaired the conference's committee on disarmament, describing his unsuccessful effort to obtain support from all of the accord's 189 member nations for a draft joint statement about efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. . . .  One central point of contention in Chidyausiku's draft text pertains to whether the five nuclear powers recognized under the treaty -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- should be pressed to establish a set schedule for eliminating their atomic arms.

"The conference affirms that the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process and other related measures should be pursued within a legal framework with specified time lines," reads a particularly controversial passage of the disarmament committee's in-progress report. The reference to adhering to disarmament "time lines" has raised the ire of Washington and others. Representatives of a number of nations -- including the United States, France and Russia -- called yesterday for any timing imperative to be removed from the resolution. 

"We remain resolute" in backing the draft's "very mild language" regarding an initiative to draft time lines for disarmament, South Africa's delegate to the disarmament committee said.

Then, with some poignancy, the delegate added: "Allow us to take something home."

Some quick impressions . . . In the first instance, a timeline seems to have driven Gen. McChrystal to increased brutality. (Not that I'm advocating a longer timeline!) In the second, one can't help but wonder if Mitchell is just reliving past glories (his success in Northern Ireland). In the third, as during the Bush administration, the United States seems to reflexively balk at measures initiated by other nations.

Getting down to basics, most humans resist pressure. Do Focal Points readers see an alternative to deadlines and timelines? After all, recent discoveries about the "emergent phenomena" of complexity science makes a mocker of them. (Kind of an abstract question, I know.) Or do you think they're valid in one or all of the above instances?

For most Americans, Kyrgyzstan is the most unpronounceable of the six “stans” that constituted the former Soviet Union’s southern flank. It has little in the way of wealth or natural resources, but it has what every real estate agent looks for: location, location, location. Bordered by Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, the mountainous nation is the U.S.’s wedge into Central Asia, and its umbilical cord to the war in Afghanistan.

Much of the oil and fuel that keep the U.S. war machine running comes through Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Air Base, a sprawling complex close to the country’s capital. In March of this year, 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops moved through the base. Indeed, without Manas, it is hard to conceive how the U.S. could support the current surge of troops into Southern Afghanistan.

Because Afghanistan is landlocked, the logistics of supplying fuel, food and weapons to U.S. troops is daunting. While it costs about $400,000 a year to support a soldier in Iraq, the price tag in Afghanistan is $1 million. According to U.S. Marine Gen, James T. Conway, gasoline costs $400 a gallon in Afghanistan.

It now appears that since 1991 the U.S. has been bribing Kyrgyz politicians through two shadowy companies, Mina Corp. Ltd and Red Star Enterprises, both registered in Britain and British-controlled Gibraltar. The latter is little more than a big rock and a tax dodge.

According to The New York Times, the ousted president skimmed as much as $8 million a month off the no-bid contracts. So far, the Obama administration is stonewalling the bribery charges, but the House National Security Oversight Subcommittee is sniffing around the issue.

But the U.S. is interested in more than fuel costs in Central Asia.

Kyrgyzstan borders China’s volatile Xingjian Autonomous Region, where local Uyghur anger at the growing influx of Han into the area has touched off several riots over the past few years. There is also a nascent Islamic resistance movement in parts of the region.  If the U.S. wanted to stir up trouble for China in its restive west—and maybe peek into its military deployment in the area—Kyrgyzstan is the place to be.

So far, Beijing has been quiet on the recent revolution, merely commenting, “China hopes that relevant issues will be settled in a lawful way.”  China is Kyrgyzstan’s number one trading partner, and it is clearly concerned about the quarter of a million Uyghurs residing in Kyrgyzstan.

There is certainly suspicion by the Russians that the U.S. would like to rope countries along its southern border into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a distrust for which one can hardly fault them. In spite of assurances given to the Russians that NATO would not expand into former Soviet states, or recruit ex-members of the Warsaw Pact, NATO now counts Poland, Bulgaria, Albania, the Czech Republic, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia among its members and was on the verge of recruiting Georgia before its 2008 war with Russia.

Following a February tour of Central Asia, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.’s special representative to Afghanistan, proposed expanding NATO’s reach into the region as a foil to organizations like al-Qaeda. A recent NATO report calls for the Alliance to “help shape a more stable and peaceful international security environment,” the rationale for its current deployment in Afghanistan.

The U.S.’s sponsorship of the Islamic radicalism to destabilize Afghanistan in the 1980s is certainly in the back of the Russian’s mind, which is already concerned about Islamic extremism in places like Chechnya. The region has a number of Islamic groups in the wings, and if the Afghan War really does wind down, there will be plenty of battle-hardened recruits coming home to fill the ranks of those groups.

Most the nations in the region are tied together in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose meeting this June in Tashkent will likely focus on the situation in Kyrgyzstan. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a military alliance that also includes a number of countries in the area, has been working to stabilize the situation. Kazakhstan currently chairs the OSCE and had already sent a representative to Bishkek.

If the current situation remains regional, then there are organizations in place that can play an important role in defusing the instability. But if Kyrgyzstan becomes a pawn on a larger board, then the “Great Game” will shift from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the rest of Central Asia, with all the pain and misery that follows in the wake of imperial maneuvering.

Is NATO's Excellent Afghanistan Adventure a blessing in disguise? At Foreign Policy, Robert Haddick writes:

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright chaired a commission charged with reviewing NATO's "strategic concept." . . . On May 17, Albright's "Group of Experts" released its report. . . .  The group's conclusion? NATO should slim down, scale back, and pass the ball. . . . NATO needs better preparations against cyberattacks, ballistic missiles, and unconventional threats. [Meanwhile] NATO headquarters, with a bloated staff and far too many generals walking its halls, is itself due for slimming down.

But looming over the panel's effort is . . . a review of lessons learned in Afghanistan [and] the report calls for guidelines on when and where the alliance will again operate outside its borders. . . . Those member states with detachments in Afghanistan will no doubt be eager to join the U.S. caravan that will begin departing in 2011 . . . crushing fiscal retrenchment and sour memories of Afghanistan will likely leave most member states . . . incapable of any significant military expeditions. . . .

After Afghanistan, NATO's military character will shrink, making way for a more purely diplomatic role. The staff in Brussels -- those who remain after the pink slips -- will spend more time coordinating NGOs and contractors than directing tank brigades.

Still, do Focal Points readers think confining NATO to its own backyard and scaling back its mission could spell the beginning of its end? Or, as with corporations, might "downsizing" only serve to ensure NATO's continuation?

Whew. I feel so much better now that POTUS has assured us the US has, "begun to reverse the momentum of the insurgency," in Afghanistan.

Oh. Sorry. Just kidding.

What it really made me think is that Mr. Obama needs to find advisors who haven’t already drunk the Kool-Aid. And / or get his own meds checked.

Here’s why . . .

Afghanistan is not a failing state. It is a non-state -- a network of tribes that alternately compete and collaborate. It is a landscape of "sink holes" into which our idea of governance has fallen.

The window to shift that reality (if it ever truly existed) certainly closed with the onset of the global economic implosion. The western commitment to Afghanistan would have died of 'donor fatigue' and overstretch sooner or later anyway, but the meltdowns and bailouts have pushed that moment up. It is better, therefore, to leave now.

What’s the downside of an immediate departure?

Loss of prestige? The US has none to lose with any of the groups they're attempting to defeat.

Loss of deterrence? Misapplied force encourages rather than discourages resistance.

The Taliban take over? Let them. If they succeed in governing and create development and stability, the US wins. If they fail and destroy their popular support, the US wins. (Yes, it will be difficult for some of the Afghan people, but let's tell truths -- the US didn’t care about them before 9-11, and actions have pretty well demonstrated they haven't really cared since. And, honestly, would you rather have to wear a beard / burqa, or get smoked in an air strike?)

That al Qaeda will flourish? It's more an identity than an entity, and you can't defeat ideas with firepower.

The instability in Afghanistan spills over into Pakistan? Too late. That outcome was pretty much assured when the US underwrote the original Muj back in the 80’s and then walked away after the Red Army bolted. (If not in 1947, when parts of Pakistan were incorporated by force, while others were excluded by whim, such as splitting the Pashtun nation.)

The Pakistan government falls and loses control over its nukes? We’re not sure to what extent such control exists today. Nor that US presence and assistance to that government are not more destabilizing.

That heroin will flood the world? Legalize drugs and kill a major funding source for criminals and insurgents. Then shift the DEA budget to recovery and development work.

That Afghanistan will become a training ground (again) for terrorists? As long as there is a sea of disaffected people in which to swim, terrorists will exist. The solution is development and equity -- not combat.

Even if all the above were to occur, such outcomes are not necessarily more or less likely whether the US stays or goes.

Science tells us it that "complex adaptive systems" (which include all human organizations, whether your family, nation states, the Taliban or the LA Lakers) cannot be precisely predicted or controlled. The behaviors and outcomes manifested by the system emerge from the complex interactions among the ‘initial conditions’ (which continually "refresh"), the rules of the system, and the relationships among the 'agents', or members of the system.

So US prestige / deterrence may be damaged far more by overstretch than by withdrawal.

Al Qaeda may become irrelevant even if the US leaves, or may flourish because of events far from Afghanistan.

The Taliban may win simply by outlasting the invaders. (Remember, the US has to win. They only have to not lose.) Or it may lose because a US departure robs it of legitimacy, and what’s left is a bunch of ignorant thugs the tribes eradicate.

The Pakistani government may fall because of US support, or lack of it. Or simply implode from its internal inconsistencies.

The Pak nukes may be captured by the OG’s in such a collapse, or covertly handed over by the ISI in its ascendance. (Remember A Q Khan?) Or spirited away by a brilliant covert op.

None of these outcomes necessarily emerge because of US presence or absence. They are not really within US control. (Though American policymakers cling to that illusion.)

Most important, AfPak is nowhere near as great a strategic threat to the US as another $10 trillion of national debt. American military adventures in west and south Asia appear on course to add $3 trillion plus. A bloated 'defense' budget, corporate welfare and bailouts are on course to add the rest.

When American voters finally figure out how to crunch those numbers, it's turn out the lights time, because the party's over.

Better to bail now.

The above is an update of a response to David Kilcullen’s 2/09 piece in Small Wars Journal titled, Crunch Time in Afghanistan-Pakistan, in which he called a "Prevent, Protect, Build, Hand-Off" strategy the only viable option. I suggested "Option C" -- bail immediately.