Yesterday, President Barack Obama held the first meeting of his military cabinet. Expectations are huge; among those in attendance was Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in chief of Centcom and the officer who will be responsible for the Obama administration's strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For some insight into what Gen. Petraeus expects from President Obama, I spoke with a friend of his; Col. Peter Mansoor (Ret)., a key adviser who served two tours in Iraq. Mansoor is the author of Baghdad at Sunrise and an architect of the counterinsurgency doctrine that proved successful in Iraq. Mansoor is now a professor of history at Ohio State University...
Read the interview at The Atlantic.
Comments
I totally agree with all that -- however, after too many years of watching the way Washington works, regardless of who is where or what Party is on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I'm not particularly optimistic about that occurring.
Our political system which is great and I would not change has one glaring shortfall -- it mitigates against long range vision and continuity of policies. So we get to muddle through quite often. Fortunately, we do it fairly well...
Ken -- On this...
<i>I agree that it is not his responsibility to do what you said.
It is his responsibility to tell the President, through the chain, that what is being asked is or is not achievable in his professional estimation and to relay the probable cost of the options available...</i>
...we completely agree.
I suppose my point is that the civilian leadership needs to have a firm concept -- developed, in the realm of the possible, with the participation and advice of the entire foreign policy and national security team -- of desired endstates in South Asia. I would hope (and reasonably expect) that the President's direction will be more specific than "stabilize the situation in Afghanistan [and] reverse the spiral downward," and more general than "conduct a counterinsurgency campaign to reinforce the legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul."
Endstates selected and prioritized by the political leadership; ways, means, and campaign plans applied by the military to achieve those endstates.
Chris Mewett:<blockquote>"I don't think it's the responsibility of the combatant commander to determine whether or not Afghanistan as it is presently constituted should continue to exist. Perhaps "reinforce the legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul" circumscribes this mission enough for the military to take back concrete campaign plans; perhaps not.</quote>I agree that it is not his responsibility to do what you said.
It is his responsibility to tell the President, through the chain, that what is being asked is or is not achievable in his professional estimation and to relay the probable cost of the options available; that's all that was actually being said in the interview.
To me, this is the most interesting section of the (abysmally edited) interview:
<i><b>Doesn't that all depend on the Pashtuns in the ISI in Pakistan who're helping Pashtuns in Afghanistan? You can't just treat the Pashtuns in Afghanistan in isolation.</b>
Clearly, the Pashtun tribe straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. That tribe has to be dealt with in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and so Pakistan is clearly part of the solution to the solution in Afghanistan. There are very few insurgencies with a major sanctuary across the border like the FATA, where the counterinsurgents are successful because the insurgents have the ability to ramp up whenever they want to by infiltrating across the border. My question is more funfdamental than that; even if you're able to work counterinsurgency with the Pakistani army, are the Pashtu's people amenable to a political solution to their grievances in the current state structure that exists in southwest Asia. I don't know the answer to that question.</i>
It's a cliche by now that you can't solve Afghanistan without dealing with Pakistan, but COL Mansoor's response is interesting for what it reveals about our strategic thinking: we don't have any idea what victory in South Asia will look like in one, five, or fifteen year/s. Do we hope for a situation where state borders remain the same and national governments in Islamabad and Kabul are capable of addressing the needs and grievances of their respective populations while (fundamentally) controlling all of their territory? Does anyone believe that this is possible? Could we reasonably support a partition plan?
These are largely political questions, of course, and so in a sense I think that COL Mansoor is too generous in his construction of what should reasonably be expected from the President vs. from GEN Petraeus. Specifically here:
<i>[From the President to GEN Petraeus] "It's my intention to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, reverse the spiral downward and conduct a counterinsurgency campaign in order to reinforce the legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul." And then, in return, the military can say, here are two or three courses of actions, associated with timelines and risks associated of withdrawing more quickly from Iraq and not reinforcement more quickly in Afghanistan.</i>
I don't think it's the responsibility of the combatant commander to determine whether or not Afghanistan as it is presently constituted should continue to exist. Perhaps "reinforce the legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul" circumscribes this mission enough for the military to take back concrete campaign plans; perhaps not.