Small Wars Journal

Cordesman Announces Death of a Strategy in Afghanistan

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 7:52pm

CSIS's Anthony Cordesman argues that the strategy embarked upon by Gen Stanley McChrystal is now dead and that the U.S. and its allies must construct and resource a strategy to transition to an Afghan "muddle through" that doesn't greatly jeopardize U.S. interests.  While I'm not sure that there has ever been a strategy in Afghanistan, or how to state it, Cordesman argues that four threats have been killing any such strategy from the beginning. (h/t Nathan Finney)

The key reasons shaping uncertainty as to whether the mission could be accomplished—whether it would be possible to create an Afghanistan that could largely stand on its own and be free of any major enclaves of terrorists or violent extremists—went far beyond the problems created by the insurgents.

It was clear that there were four roughly equal threats to success, of which the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar were only the first. The second was the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. The third was the role of Pakistan and its tolerance and support of insurgent sanctuaries. The fourth was the United States and its allies.

I highly recommend that you also see Jim Sleeper's "How the Debacle in Afghanistan Disgraced its Cheerleaders" at the Huffington Post, h/t anonymous you know who you are.

Categories: strategy - COIN - Afghanistan

Comments

carl

Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:57am

In reply to by Peter J. Munson

Peter:

Very good point and you present it much more clearly and cogently that the article did. You are right. But maybe it goes even farther than that. There seems to be an advanced case of groupthink inside the beltway. No matter what the basic domestic or general political philosophy people start out with, when they think about Afghanistan or Iraq for the matter, they all end up in the same big centralized state place.

Perhaps a good specific example of that is that here in the US, almost all policing is local or state. We don't do national police and would object strongly if somebody tried to inflict that on us. Yet, that is what we insist the Afghans do in a country with far greater local differences than we have. Good point you made.

I will point out though, Mr. Munson; I don't huff. I merely politely point out what others don't seem to see with the laser sharp clarity that I do. My duty to humanity you see.

Peter J. Munson

Fri, 03/02/2012 - 5:21am

In reply to by carl

I recommended it because I knew it would make people squirmy and huffy. You miss the point of the article, or at least the point I got out of it. You huff against an argument in favor of an American welfare state, but the point is that we want to do welfare state shiny happy projects in Afghanistan when we don't do the very same here. What is more, the very people who argue for these projects there are the ones who think they are an anathema here. Conservatives expect these liberal projects to succeed in an incredibly tortured, pre-modern state, but are abhorred by the idea of social programs in their own country. There is a significant element of cognitive dissonance in the policies advocated over the previous decade that makes people uncomfortable and even incapable of reconciling their own views.

I don't why you recommended the Huff Post piece. It is mostly a confused "I told you so" using failure in Afghanistan to argue in favor of an American welfare state.

Ken White

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 10:32pm

Cordesman is saying the same thing many of us were saying almost precisely nine years ago. Good to know that an adviser of one sort or another that helped develop or certainly aided in the development of the so-called 'strategy' has realized that it was an error. As I recall, his trip to support the McChrystal review resulted in his announcing on return to CONUS that many more Troops were needed. Heh, aside from the fact that none were available, he seems to now realize that had they been it would have made little difference.

He writes:<blockquote>"It was clear that there were four roughly equal threats to success, of which the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar were only the first. The second was the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. The third was the role of Pakistan and its tolerance and support of insurgent sanctuaries. The fourth was the United States and its allies."</blockquote>He then amplifies this and again makes the "more troops" plea but I submit he has the threats in the wrong order. In the first place, the US and its allies believing they could affect Afghan culture and 'fix the problems' was the greatest error and thus threat to to the endeavor. Conceit is a terrible thing...

Conceit is also a curious thing. I do not disagree with Peter J. Munson's linked article by one Jim Sleeper "<i>How the Debacle in Aghanistan Disgraced its Cheerleaders</i>." Sleeper is correct and it did disgrace them -- and all of us. However, he wrote:<blockquote>"The biggest obstacle was the delusion that Americans could do for Kabul and Kunduz what we refuse to do for New Orleans or Detroit."</blockquote>Fascinating conceit that. Anyone who believes that we have the capability to do 'something' about Detroit and / or New Orleans is in fantasy land. We do not. No more than we had or have the capability to do something about Afghanistan. We, the US, have been trying in one way or another to do 'something' about those cities and others for years. Better focus, more people or more money won't fix those either...

The problem is not Cheerleaders of any ideological or 'strategic' persuasion but Cheerleaders generally. They do little but make a lot of noise. Usually noise that has little to no effect on events transpiring on or in the field yet noise that spurs the unthinking on to repeat failed efforts again and again. Cheerleaders want to 'win' yet have no clue about the realities of the situations they wish to affect -- or the sweaty, dirty players or people for whom they are nominally cheering. Most do not really even know the rules of the game -- and it shows.

Cheerleaders sell self esteem. What's needed is self confidence as that leads to effective self analysis.