Small Wars Journal

Michael Yon: Undeniable Progress, But it Could All Unravel

Mon, 06/20/2011 - 9:46am
Afghanistan is Making Undeniable Progress, But it Could All Unravel, New York Daily News opinion piece by Michael Yon. BLUF: "... there are unmistakable signs of progress in Afghanistan, and Gen. David Petraeus is about to make a very important recommendation."

Comments

pjmunson

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 9:53pm

With regard to being afraid of things getting out of hand if the ISI/Pak thing is brought up. I do believe that they are giving important support and sanctuary. However, I do not see this as a critical vulnerability. That is, I don't believe that if you cut it off, the insurgency will die. I speak against it strongly not because I'm afraid of the war expanding, but because I think it is a cop out. An excuse like the Ho Chi Minh Trail was an excuse. A false prophet. Even if we had significantly interdicted the trail, there were many, many other routes for things to come in to the country. And we would not have been successful in completely stopping the flow even along the HCM Trail routes. Yet this argument, with others, are held out as ways we could have done it better and perhaps won the war. I think that is the wrong lesson. Same goes for Pak Army/ISI. It is a convenient scapegoat, and it is real. Yet, it will not be the reason for winning or losing the war. I almost wish we would go after it just to keep the counterfactual argument from coming up in debate in the future. The issue is less the Pak support than the fact that we have about zero control of the border. It is real for us and imaginary for everyone else. That is not a matter to blame on the Pakistanis. It has been a matter for the counterinsurgent to deal with in almost every insurgency where land borders were in play.

SJPONeill

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:50pm

PS

Carl, why I agree with the sentiment, your item was much better written than the Yon item...there is something in that advice about not typing angry...

SJPONeill

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:49pm

Ken White said: "The humanitarian aspects of the liberation of France occurred as a by product of a totally focused war effort aimed at destroying the German Army and achieving their unconditional surrender. That the people of France were nominally liberated was almost an unintended byproduct -- the liberation of the French people was far from the primary goal or effort of the armed force."

Which does not explain while the rehabilitation of Europe progressed seamlessly from the end of the war in Europe into the Marshall and the same happened in Japan. It is more than just the realisation that the Soviet Empire was going to need resisting but an acknowledgement by some very smart people that the lack of such a programme post-WW1 was a direct precursor for the second go-round.

The best way I have heard it described was in Puckapunyal "...while no one told Eisenhower to conduct stabops during the post-D Day march across Europe, it was a clear implied task" Smart people, some of those Aussies...

Ken White (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 2:19pm

<b>Madhu:</b>

As I am one who disagrees strongly with Carl on what can -- not necessarily what should -- be 'done' with respect to Pakistan, allow me to suggest a couple of things. <blockquote>"Is this what some of you are afraid of when carl and I get on about the Pak Army/ISI?"</blockquote>I cannot speak for all others but I believe I speak for many here in saying we're not afraid and we don't necessarily agree with the person that you quoted from the NYT. I for one am not opposed to violence and think any talk of rejecting warfare as an instrument of foreign policy is naive at best if not plain silly. Not going to happen, nor should it. War is the most stupid of human endeavors and it should be avoided -- but some wars are necessary.

Most of us are not afraid of doing anything to or with Pakistan or most anyone else however the potential end result should justify the effort to be expended. The real issue regarding 'leaving' Afghanistan and with Pakistan is that we, the US, cannot 'fix' dysfunctional governments. The people involved must fix it themselves. It's that simple. No fear, no anger, just common sense. The so called liberal wing of this nation's polity (in all parties), the ultra humanistic types have gotten us engaged in several really stupid and unnecessary wars (all of which have failed to do anyone much good...) due to their foolishly Quixotic desire to save mankind. That also is not going to happen.

You ask:<blockquote>"Do you think this will lead to things getting out of hand?"</blockquote>Here I can speak only for myself and I say no.<blockquote>"...The location where OBL was found caused the anger, not these "leaks." I saw it immediately. Did you all not see it?</blockquote>Here, I think I can speak for many and say yes, we saw it. So what?

That anger -- actually, I'd put it down as immediate adverse reaction and not real anger, real anger is deadly and we aren't there (it takes a lot to get the US to that point...) -- is the cause of increased (they've always been there) calls for cessation of aid and what have you. It doesn't amount to much other than noise at this point.

I don't think the public is confused, I think it merely disagrees with the way the US has acted in international relations over the last 30-40 years and the US public is starting to get really fed up with it while the idiot politicians do not know how to turn things around domestically or internationally. However, they better figure it out, American are basically tolerant and do not expect much from their government but on this score and others, the public is beginning to get a bit irate...

The 'militarism' on the US side is in reference to the fact that DoD derives fiscal, manpower and political power benefit from militarising as many things to the greatest extent possible (whether it makes sense to do so is not an issue...). While some Americans in uniform support that approach, most do not. Those in positions of power, in uniform and not, had best awaken to that reality before it bites them.

A far shorter response to your comment is almost no one with any experience of warfare wants another, however, most of us will go and do -- we just would like it to be for a sensible reason and for real, not politically or foolish humanistically devised, national interests.

Pakistan is not such a case. At this time...

Madhu (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:44am

I was reading through this thread again and the emotion struck me.

And then, reading the NYT, I came across this comment:

<em>Careful; as a veteran special ops soldier, I've seen this kind of press build up to warfare in far flung regions again and again. ' Leaks' from 'officials' to the press lead to public outcry, which leads to another public sanctioned war. No good comes from these wars. Many people get killed. We never know the real reason. We in the field are told that 'we don't need a reason' [honestly, that's what we're told]. We need to wake up, drop the the emotion, and reject warfare as legitimate foreign policy.</em>

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/asia/24pakistan.html?src=tptw

Is this what some of you are afraid of when carl and I get on about the Pak Army/ISI?

Do you think this will lead to things getting out of hand?

It could, but I don't want any confrontation and I don't see any stomach for it from what I read. But you never know.

I want a controlled and responsible disengagement. And I want our public officials to start speaking the truth about the situation because it only causes more anger, not less. The location where OBL was found caused the anger, not these "leaks." I saw it immediately. Did you all not see it?

Most of the comments I see regarding American anger post Abbottabad have to do with leaving or cutting aid.

This all comes from democratic regimes working with illiberal regimes for a long time. Public officials, military and civilian alike, keep their cards close. The public gets confused.

If there is any "militarism" in this, it is the level of confusion that occurs when all the smoke and mirrors go up for the public at home.

pjmunson

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 2:31pm

Ken's point rounds out what I should have made clearer. I am certainly not saying that it is good to meddle and leave. First, I think we should avoid meddling to the maximum extent possible, be clear about what are truly threats, and be honest about our capability to decisively deal with them. We routinely get ourselves into things that we shouldn't, or get into them in ways that are not likely to be decisive. In my opinion, when we make these errors, we need to learn to lose small, rather than sticking it out until we lose big.

As far as getting ourselves into things, there are two problems: politicians and generals. The politicians generally want to expend as little capital as possible. Rational. The generals generally want as much force as possible to mitigate risk. Rational. They then barter until they get to a point where the means don't really suffice to attain the end. Irrational, but this is the nature of compromise. The generals must be the ones to say that we cannot attain these ends with these means. But they don't. Finally, once the politicians have decided on a course, they tend to overpromise, thus expanding the ends by way of justification of the effort to the American people.

I think our military institution needs to be far less confident about our ability to bring about any but the most straightforward of changes by the use of force. Time and again in the modern world, we've tried to use force to achieve limited and incredibly complex aims (limited as in other that complete defeat of a nation and occupation of the territory), and it has not worked out. In these interventions, we tend to sow the seed for the argument that we did it wrong and should have stuck it out. I just don't believe that military force is as agile and fungible an instrument as the stick-it-out argument would have us believe.

The answer isn't to not stick-it-out. The answer is to not get involved in the first place except in cases of clear and dire national interest or with extremely, extremely circumscribed ends in mind. When we ignore this advice, however, I think that we need to be capable of extricating ourselves rather than continuing to waste strategic power.

Ken White (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 12:41pm

<b>Jamie B.:</b>

Good points -- however the counterpoints are in your last sentence:<blockquote>"War is all or nothing. This idea of "do a little bit and then leave" is modern, without historical precedence and very, very stupid.)."</blockquote>Totally true.

Thus I'd say that your citations of Iraq 1, Korea, Clinton's abortive strikes which did far more harm than good are valid examples of what not to do.

The real question, however, in all those cases is whether we should have done "all or nothing" militarily speaking. Since American popular opinion would never have and will not support 'all' lacking an existential threat, I'd vote for 'nothing.' Each of those cases and many more had other options and we simply chose the wrong method.

<b>Robert C. Jones:</b>

That's a great post. BZ, 15,000 Attaboys...

<b>Carl:</b>

Counsilor or Councilor or Counsellor or Conciliator are all fine with me and I'll withdraw my needle... ;)

Re: Pakistan. No one is pretending not to see it, others see it with the same clarity as do you, we aren't all stoopid or uncaring -- they just seem to think it is not possible to do what you suggest. You might consider that and wonder why. The problem with Pakistan as you would handle it is not in Pakistan, it is in the US and much of the rest of the world.

We can disagree on the trail. People could quibble about the net effect of cutting it for days with no resolution because it was not cut and thus we cannot really know what the net effect would have been. My point is that cutting it would have been little more effective than almost cutting it which we did. The North would just have adopted other means and methods because they wanted to win and the US did not (See Jamie B. above...). That determination thing. Cutting the trail may have helped but it would not have changed the outcome -- just as any 'fix' in Pakistan will not change the outcome in Afghansitan.

In all those cases, as in Libya, the issues are not so much what happens on the ground there as they are with the basic strategy of the involvement -- if that's poor (and it most assuredly is or was in those cases) then <u>no</u> amount of on the ground tinkering is going to remedy that.

As you said to </b>Peter J. Munson</b>, "<i>We tried. We lost. Tragedy ensued."</i> That has been the case in every conflict mentioned in this thread. You contend on humanitarian grounds we have to try. Others including me contend that 'trying' isn't good enough and does more harm than good. That is a philosophical and ideological disconnect and that disconnect is precisely the reason there will be a lack of determination to 'win.' That lack of determination <i>on the part of everyone involved</i> is directly responsible for most of those failures -- policy makers and politicians cannot agree on and select a course and stick to it. One IMO must consider that and to presume that all will wish to do what is right is fatally flawed logic in one sense -- most will try to do what is 'right' as they see it and will try to change what is being done if they disagree with it.

In WW II we had near unanimity of purpose. In these minor interventions, in Small Wars we will <u>never</u> have that and that should be, must be IMO, a strategic consideration. That goes back to the don't start something you cannot satisfactorily conclude unless you have no other option -- and we have always in these things had other options. We will continue to do that, have other options -- we ought to get busy on enhancing our ability to employ them...

The humanitarian aspects of the liberation of France occurred as a by product of a totally focused war effort aimed at destroying the German Army and achieving their unconditional surrender. That the people of France were nominally liberated was almost an unintended byproduct -- the liberation of the French people was far from the primary goal or effort of the armed force. Similarly, what happened to the people of Viet Nam and what happens to the people of Afghanistan will be unintended consequences. They were not the issue and whether they should have been is moot.

You can use Armed Force<b><u>S</u></b> for humanitarian efforts, no question -- but that's not what I wrote. That was "One cannot successfully use Armed Force for humanitarian purposes. Period. It is folly to try..."

pjmunson

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 11:54am

Jamie B,
Iraq 1: "We had to go back." I'd argue that we didn't have to go back. Saddam was no more of a threat to us than any other handful of dictators around the world still standing. See Bob's comments about defining true threats.

Korea: Uhh, we're still there. We just got kicked out of the northern part and signed a truce. How would you rewrite that history?

Japan: I don't get what you're saying. We stayed in Japan long enough to set them on their feet and they are now a highly developed state and zero threat. Also, we stayed there with our bases, which were critical nodes for Korea and Vietnam.

By your logic, we should have troops in all of these places, plus Lebanon, Somalia, Panama, Granada, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and probably a whole list I'm forgetting. Why? And extending that logic, we should be doing regime change/nation building in Yemen and host of other places. Why not take over Mexico to rid ourselves of the drug violence and trafficking threat there?

We left Somalia, Lebanon, Panama, Haiti, etc, because we never defined nation-building as one of our goals there. Are they garden spots? No. But they aren't draining our resources and lives right now. And most of the places you say we "had" to go back into (Libya, Iraq) we didn't really have to go back into. Why did we have to get involved in Libya but not Syria? Answer is we don't have to be involved in either.

Finally, instead of "staying" in Afghanistan after the bombings, which would mean that we would have invaded, we should have invaded Saudi Arabia, Germany, and a bunch of US flight schools instead, since that is truly where the threat came from. Yes, I get the Afghanistan connection, but there are a lot of other ungoverned spaces where these people will go around the world to hatch their plots. Once they do that, their operatives can actually move more freely in our country and the West than in the security states we are so concerned with.

So withdrawing is a stupid modern idea. Fine. What is the alternative? Global empire? Who do you expect to man all of these adventures you propose? I trust you are in the military and eager for a life abroad.

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 9:21am

Mr. Munson:

Ken implied I can be unclear so I will try to do better.

Syria is an inapt analogy. The horrors in Laos and Cambodia occurred because the NVA kicked us out and defeated the ARVN. Once we were gone there was no way we were going back in. Those two dominoes fell (I shall refrain from any sound effects) and hell began for a lot of people. We tried. We lost. Tragedy ensued.

We haven't been in Syria and we didn't get kicked out. Our ejection didn't start off the death. It doesn't fit.

I will concede that even if the Pak Army/ISI were to cooperate fully with us, east of the Durand line would still be a sanctuary because our forces couldn't physically follow. However, it would not be sanctuary to the degree that it is today, and that is vitally important. Without the active support and sponsorship of the Pak Army/ISI, Taliban & Co. would not have much of a chance nor be nearly the problem they are now. The ISI knows exactly where MO, Hekmatyar, Haqqani and the others are and could pick them up tomorrow. If they did that, and continued to do that, I think Taliban & Co would be sorely crippled, maybe fatally so. Being able to live and operate openly in Pakistan is pretty important to those guys. Take it away and their lives would get a lot harder.

You seem to disagree with that. That is a fundamental disagreement, the Pak Army/ISI is the key vs. it is not. I think it is to the large extent a proxy war. You don't. That gap in outlook can't be bridged.

I agree that our trying to impose a national structure as we know it, especially a centralized top down structure on the place is a mistake. It is not a good fit. But I disagree with you about it is not being capable of being a nation state. It was during the 20th century up till the 70s. There were borders, customs posts, police, an army and the central gov could call up military forces and guys would respond. Was it Switzerland east? Nope, but it was a country.

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 8:47am

Ken:

I like the way Counsilor looks on the page better so I use that. I shall endeavor to be more clear in my writing so people won't think I said what I didn't.

You think we can't pressure the Pak Army/ISI, I think we can, especially if we give up the Karachi supply line. It would be hard, but we could do it and the payoff could be great. You disagree. If we can't pressure the Pak Army/ISI the whole thing isn't possible and it is a charade to think it is. It is a charade because that is the crux of the matter and it is folly to pretend not to see it. My hyper rough analogy is continuing to bail instead of fixing the hole in the boat and telling the pax that this will work through to the conclusion of a successful voyage.

We'll have to disagree about the Trail too. 10%-20% reduction in the net war fighting problem quotient seems an underestimate to me especially considering the character of the NVA attacks from 72 on and the total number of NVAs who were born in the North to die in the South. I admit though I don't know exactly what net war fighting problem quotient means.

The incursion in Laos I won't argue but I thought we pulled out of Cambodia on our own and weren't pushed out.

You can use Armed Forces for humanitarian purposes. The Navy shows up often after tsunamis. The liberation of occupied France was humanitarian, though it may have been more of a humanitarian outcome.

Bob's World

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 7:31am

Not everyone or everything that "threatens" us is also a "threat" to us.

Iran? Not a threat.

North Korea? Not a threat.

An unstable Afghanistan? Not a threat.

Venezuela? Not a threat.

AQ? Not a threat.

China-Taiwan reunification on China's terms? Not a threat.

(If I gored your personal ox, or your favorite program employed to justify the Billions of dollars provided to your Service, I did so intentionally. We need to define ourselves more accurately by what we need to do so that we will have available what we need to do it)

A threat is something that puts our national survival at risk, or arguably one that puts a truly vital national interest at risk. When I read our current national security strategy I see a laundry list of interests that are vastly expanded (though oddly labeled as "enduring") vital national interests. To me it appears that we have expanded our interests to match our current list of things and people who "threaten" us. Part of being a powerful, credible figure is knowing the difference between what is a threat and what merely threatens, and acting appropriately according to a sound assessment.

We seem to shoot at noises in the dark, and to spend a lot of energy arguing with and slapping around little loud mouths that draw much of their own credibility through their ability to get us to react. Sad.

Strategist far smarter, better credentialed, and experienced than I identify two limiting factors for defining vital national interests that I believe need to be dusted off and re-applied today:

1. Do not define a vital national interest that exceeds ones resources to enforce.

(Today's list is a list made by a rich nation with no peer threats. A Hegemon. That is how we see ourselves, at least. Peers are rising though, and we are descending to meet them. Alliances can form quickly, changing that math as well. Enemies become friends on one side, and friends become neutral on the other, and suddenly one finds themselves in confrontation where they cannot simply order the other side to do what you want. We cannot afford our current list, and we are quickly, if not already, out of the Hegemon business - and that is not all bad.)

2. Vital national interests should avoid what Walter Lippmann described as "American Fundamentalism" - a describing of American ideals as universal truths.

(I am first to admit that I flirt with this myself. I do, however make a distinction between "principles" and "values" that our policy makers do not. I see a value as a principle that has some judgment applied to it, with the classic example being the American belief that "all men are created equal." I see that as a principle and believe that it is ok for us to promote that ideal. A value is how any given culture defines that principle at any given point in time, and certainly even within the short history of the US we have valued "equality" in radically changing ways. When we demand others to recognize our "values" on womens rights, etc I believe we go too far and violate this rule of "American Fundamentalism.)

Why discuss vital national interests? Because it is how we have defined our interests that pins us to this problem. Our vital interests are impossibly broad and outrageously judgmental and intrusive on issues and people that are certainly things we should care about, but are not things we should go to war over.

Arguments about letting the military define conditions that mark success and staying until they achieve those conditions is about as smart as letting ones teenage child define when they need to be home at night. (Or giving the all the money, toys, time and authorities to do everything they have put on their list of activities). The civilian government cannot punt this responsibility, and the way they begin setting limits is with interests. Our current interests are sadly limitless.

Cheers.

Bob

Jamie B. (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 6:46am

Name some historical instances where a military power attacked someone, pulled out and had that work well for them.

Iraq 1? Pulled out. Disaster. Native uprisings crushed, Saddam kept shooting at our planes, we eventually had to go back and do it right.

Korea? We left the north to their own devices. Now it's a nuclear armed crazy bin loosely staffed by a severely oppressed population. South Korea, meanwhile, we stayed in, even to this day, and they turned into an amazing country.

Japan? See South Korea. Much of central asia: they got Pol Pot and are still a mess today.

For that matter, we bombed Afghanistan in Clinton's era and the result was 9/11. We didn't go in and do the real job and we paid for it.

So again I ask, when was there a time, in any war throughout history, go as far back as you need to, where two countries fought, the winner backed off and that worked out well for them. I can't think of any examples. I can think of plenty where it was a disaster.

We need to either stay long term in Afghanistan or we need to start building better skyscrapers in preparation for the inevitable retaliation.

(See also: Libya. We beat Khadaffi up over his "line of death" and the result was, likely, Lockerbie. Now we're putzing around Libya again. It'll go bad for us if Khadaffi is still in power when it's all over. War is all or nothing. This idea of "do a little bit and then leave" is modern, without historical precedence and very, very stupid.)

Rachel (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 6:35am

Sure let the politicians make all these decisions based on their polls numbers during election years, as they lose focus and will. That worked out so well during Vietnam.

pjmunson

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 2:57am

Carl,
The Syria reference was to bring a modern analogy. If Cambodia and Laos were tragedies, then so is Syria. We're not involved in Syria, a tragedy today. I'm asking if you think we should be involved there. If not, then you think it is peripheral to our interests, just as I argued that Laos and Cambodia were peripheral.

The border issue: Unless you can seal off the border, then there IS sanctuary on the other side of it even if the ISI/Army aren't actively "giving" sanctuary. Even if the ISI/Army were in complete cooperation, there IS sanctuary across that border and unless we are going to start operations across the border in significant numbers, then it is a moot point. I don't think that ISI's active assistance is as decisive as many would have us believe. There are simply a lot of weapons, money, explosives, etc floating around on both sides of the border. Even if the ISI stopped all assistance tomorrow, others would sell weapons, etc. Thus, the only way to stop the cross-border flow is to hermetically seal it and that can't be done, so the argument is irrelevant.

The mud huts comment may seem pejorative, and really it is. That is because my mental image of a barren country full of mud huts in the Stone Age would look like is exactly what I saw when I first got to Afghanistan. The first compound I saw on the helo north out of Kandahar once we got into the mountains was abandoned. I thought it was an old ruin. Then we went over the next hill and in the valley was an identical compound in slightly better repair with people living in it. This is simply not a place that bears any resemblance to a nation-state, whether at that superficial level or at more significant levels of examination, so when we try to project nation-state derived political, economic, and social structures onto it, they just don't work. The history of national rulers like the Iron Emir is great, but outside of the cities, it is irrelevant.

Ken White (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 2:55am

<b>Carl:</b>

The different paths are due to philosophical and quite real differences...

I'm sure you are sticking to what you thought the Councilor meant-- I presume you mean Counsellor -- though I suggest that if you believe people are misconstruing what you write it seems there's a lot of that going around...

In that vein, I do not think you want to charge into Pakistan, you've made your thoughts quite clear -- I just happen to disagree with the viability, logic, desirability or even possibility to do what you suggest. We simply do not have the ability to apply the kind of pressure you suggest. We aren't participating in a charade with respect to that, nor even in Afghanistan is general. We are simply engaged in an endeavor in which real success was strategically and practically so very improbable that we should never have started and Paksitan, believe it or not, is but a small part of the problem in achieving that success.. Nothing wrong with deposing the Talibs. Should have done that and left but George W. got an attack of Christian conscience and decided to do some social engineering. One can applaud his humanity but one should also decry his failure to exercise his responsibility as President to not waste Americans and resources on an exercise in futility.

Cutting the trail would have had a minor effect, not a profound one. Most of the noise about the trail (and sanctuaries in other nations, even today...) is about military face saving. Most, not all -- and it is an apologia for flawed strategy and an excuse for not doing a better job when the actuality is that if those sanctuaries did not exist, it would decrease the net war fighting problem quotient by about 10-20% (variable and METT-TC dependent), no more. One cannot erase even a short insurgents home court advantage nor can one restructure the US Army to be an agile or far larger force nor can one buy ones way into a rebuilt nation. The debacles in Laos and Cambodia were both military fiascos and were not worth the damage caused the NVA either militarily or politically -- yes, they were also political failures as was the entire war and as was / are Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya -- and, yes, I told you so. ;)

One cannot successfully use Armed Force for humanitarian purposes. Period. It is folly to try...

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 2:16am

Mr. Munson:

I said determination to win is a martial virtue at all levels because it helps you in the fight and helps prevent fights in the future. I also agreed with Ken when he said that you have to know when to quit. That seems logical to me and, when stripped of the extra words, seems pretty close to what you are saying.

You said two peripheral countries bordering Vietnam fell. The way that sentence was constructed it seemed that you were rather dismissive of their fate because of their minor stature in the wider world. I felt it needed to be pointed out that in spite of the minor stature of the countries, the human suffering was very great. Like you said; it was no big thing to us, but it was to them. But at least we tried to save them and did for a little while.

How did Syria get into this?

It is interesting that people ascribe to me positions that I do not take, such as your suggesting that I think it possible to seal off the Af-Pak border. If you look back and read carefully, you will see that my main concern is that we somehow someway stop Pak Army/ISI support of Taliban & Co, to include provision of sanctuary, or at least try to do that. Of course the border cannot be sealed off. I never said it could. Of course smuggling and money making will go on. That is not the point. The point is that organized political/military entities, enemies of ours, are operating openly east of the Durand line and if they could not do so we would have a chance in Afghanistan. The Pak Army/ISI allows them to do so.

Your description of Afghanistan in your fourth paragraph could well describe Mexico in 1830. That was and is a country. Not all countries are Sweden circa 1990. I bring this up because your use of mud huts and things can appear to be supercillious (sic) which you probably don't mean to be.

I will agree with you that the way we are trying to set it up is not a good way.

I am sorry you dislike me and my ideas.

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 1:43am

Ken:

I don't know if we disagree as much as you say. On several occasions in the past we were in the same place but got there by different paths so to speak.

I am getting a little confused now about who said what when concerning concerning feelings and military missions. The Councilor said, and I'm sticking to it, that feelings somehow got turned into a military mission. That still seems an odd thing to me and unwise.

I can't agree that cutting the trail would not have had a profound effect. I realize that you been there and done that but too many men and supplies came down that trail for its elimination not to have had a profound effect.

I realize these things aren't easy and the enemy isn't all that tall (Mr. Munson seems to think I'm mainly a smart ass; mostly maybe but not mainly).

The incursions into Laos and Cambodia were debacles in the political sense I think, which was the important one in those cases. In a military sense though the NVA did get hurt.

People get the idea that I want to charge into Pakistan and take care of business. I don't and never did. What I do want to do is get serious about pressuring the Pak Army/ISI to change its ways. That is mostly a matter of serious political pressure and cutting the money. We have been and are participants in a charade if we won't do that.

pjmunson

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 1:39am

Carl,
I don't know where you are coming from and what your background is, but I do understand what it means to have fire in my belly and I do know that for those at the tactical level, that determination to win is absolutely indispensable. I stand by my argument, however, that the calculus needs to be more cold and measured the further one is removed from the actual fighting by level of command and span of influence. Determination to win, stick-to-itiveness, or whatever else you want to call it from your computer screen, whether at home or in a headquarters, becomes mindlessly filling bodybags and transfer cases. So, the fire in my belly is directed at people like you who think it is a good idea to waste young lives and the nation's wealth for your b*&$it ideas and imagination that if we just stick it out, it will all be better and no one else will ever trifle with us.

As for the Cambodians and Laotians, and Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Afghanis for that matter, the lives lost are a tragedy. Tragedy, however, does not make a given fight any less peripheral to US interests, nor should it guide our interventions. Would you have us filling US bodybags in Syria due to the deaths there? Would you have had us filling bodybags for Laos or Cambodia? If so, I detest you. If not, then why wave that in my face? No conflict is peripheral to the people in the middle of it, but the US need not become mired in every one to make you feel better about yourself.

Afghanistan is a huge state with a sizable population in forbidding territory. You could place the entire thing on the moon tomorrow and we'd still be chasing ghosts around for years. And even if we did more to interdict the borders and gain Pakistani cooperation, you simply cannot control the borders in this territory and others will step up where there's money to be had from selling guns, fertilizer, etc. Your Pakistani border argument is both overstated and an irrelevant counterfactual as it cannot be hermetically sealed even with a force twice, three times, even more larger than what we have now.

Finally, if you call a nation a handful of poorly connected urban areas interspersed with some of the world's most forbidding terrain dotted with Stone Age mud huts and people who have never been past the next village (i.e. for them Kabul might as well be Mars), then sure, there was one. My point is that even with the successes that we are having at the local level, there is not a national entity to really hold it all together in the way we are setting it up to work.

In sum, I like neither your ideas nor your smug tone. It reeks of someone lightly suggesting sacrifices for others to make. I've seen far too much of that, which is where my vitriol comes from.

Ken White (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 12:46am

<b>Carl:</b>

S'okay, we can disagree as we do on most things. I suggest that it isn't really a small thing, though. You're confusing what the President wanted to do -- his assumed 'mssion' -- with the missions given the Armed Forces. Had anyone in the Army made that flawed assumption, we'd be even more screwed up than we are now...

As for Viet Nam -- you're wrong on the trail and sanctuary elimination having much long term effect on what happened there -- I suspect that is also true of the Afghanistan - Pakistan sanctuary issue. Too early to tell on that one, really. We'll see.

As Peter J. Munson and Bill M. are trying to tell you, this stuff isn't as easy as it can appear sitting at a computer. Insurgents aren't 10 feet tall and no one thinks they are -- the average North Viet Namese was about 5'3"...

However, it's foolish to ignore that they do possess several advantages, not least in knowing that, as has been said, while they know we could wipe them out totally with little effort they also know we will not, cannot, do that; they know that they don't have to obey the rules and that we will try to do that; they know we are not mean enough to just eliminate the problem just as they know the domestic and international political limitations imposed on us with respect to interfering inside the borders of other nations. Sanctuaries are used and are a problem because they work. You may recall that incursions into Laos and Cambodia both ended up being debacles. Any incursion into or excessive meddling with Pakistan in force would be far worse and everyone involved or interested but you seems to realize that.

Sanctuaries work, those earlier attempts were debacles due to the same problem that causes Libya to be a debacle, lack of political support -- not will, support. It's all very well to call for all sorts of fixes when one has no responsibility for lives and resources involved -- that's a much harder call for those who do have the responsibility to make such decisions -- or to go and do...<blockquote>"Of course, you got to know when to quit too..."</blockquote>Yes. One does. You may recall I also said one has to know when not to start and both Viet Nam and Afghanistan are quite different but equally good examples of that.

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 12:25am

Mr. Munson:

Call it what you will, stick-to-itiveness, determination to win or sheer bloody minded refusal to be beat is a martial virtue at all levels. You can quibble about definitions of victory and the meaninglessness of it all, but that desire to prevail, the fire in the belly, is absolutely invaluable when you are in a fight. It is a simple thing, and it is a simple question. So tell me, when you are in a fight, is that a valuable thing?

Of course, you got to know when to quit too. Read Ken's comment on that. He is right.

Actually, I did address your points. There weren't very many. Apparently you dislike my response.

Perhaps Afghanistan wasn't up to your standards of nationhood, but they were a nation during that time so they can do it. They seemed happy enough until the Communists wrecked everything.

Two of those dominoes fell and millions died. That was probably pretty important to those who are not alive. Maybe they were peripheral to you, but not to their families, those that are left. The third one didn't fall and the others neither. Perhaps that was because we tried so hard for so long it gave them a chance to get their acts together like it did Thailand. But I'll concede the whole thing didn't collapse, a good result for us and the people of those countries.

The effect of cutting off Pakistan from the conflict is not overstated. There would still be fighting, but could Taliban & Co win the fight? Probably not. That is rather an important effect. The important effect, the point of it all.

Madhu (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 11:48pm

BTW, all the Indian sites I read are bracing for a realignment of some fighting in Afghanistan toward Kashmir and India. I suppose Pakistan will be at risk internally, too, but they are either way until they make serious attempts to stop playing games.

None of which means we need to stay and do nation building.

The Indians really shouldn't have dismantled a bunch of their covert capabilities (according to B. Raman's site). They never do things with which they can leverage others and then complain....

Madhu (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 11:42pm

Sigh.

"Its" not "it's" and I messed up the other ), too....

Madhu (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 11:41pm

<em>Finally, the whole ISI/Pakistan (Ho Chi Minh Trail, etc is the analog) argument is overstated. If you (a) could and (b) did cut off Pakistan completely from Afghanistan, there would still be a lot of people fighting our presence there and nation-building would still be a questionable task at best.</em>

True, there would still be an indigenous insurgency against the Karzai government but how can the presence of <em>that</em> particular sanctuary be overstated? We'd stand a much better chance of disarming the small t Taliban and bringing them to the negotiating table if they didn't have an unlimited logistical trail.

We did it once before, right after 9-11, with the NA in the lead (using it's intelligence_ and it all stayed quiet for a time. Our politicos said because we didn't devote enough resources but basically we pumped a lot of money in across the border and looked the other way while we were at it. Isn't that one "data point" in support of the theory that outside sanctuary is key?

But again, I don't know. That's why I come here. I'd rather learn from you all than listen to shouting heads on cable discuss ephemera.

Bing West made the following point on Tom Rick's blog:

<em>After the talks by Kaplan and Lynch at the sponsors' breakfast, Francis "Bing" West, who was sitting near me, said he found them wildly over optimistic about the next several decades, which he thinks will be dominated by the proliferation of nuclear weaponry. But let him tell it his own way: "That was insane. The lesson of Libya is, Get a nuclear weapon and tell everyone to go f*ck themselves. Qaddafi got rid of his nukes and we said, 'OK, you're out of there.'" </em>

Isn't this an important lesson to be learned from "afpak"? That states can use proxies and milk international aid almost at will as long as they have a nuclear umbrella?

Why wouldn't even larger and more fit states learn from this? You align with a weaker proxy state and the two can get up to a lot of mischief. Same with Iran and her proxies. How about China and Pakistan? And hence, Iran? Isn't that an important message to be learned from 9-11? State sponsorship needn't be explicit. It merely need set the conditions.

Brought up for discussion purposes only :)

Bill M.

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 11:24pm

Correction on my post above, I meant to write that the USSR was NOT defeated militarily. The Soviets sent a very small portion of their military into Afghanistan (because they under estimated the resistance), and easily could have surged many more if they thought that a military victory was worth the cost. They didn't so they chose to leave. Compared to our investment in Vietnam, their investment in Afghanistan was miniscule.

Peter, this was clearly a case of mission creep, or perhaps more accurately the administration didn't have an end state when we invaded (understandably) and after much debate during a time when voices like Wolfawitz were influencial our leadership decided to nation build. At the time I don't think I would have disagreed with the decision, but we need a check and balance system that constantly challenges our original assumptions to see if they're still valid, and if they're not we have to have the courage to readjust our objectives and plans accordingly. If we don't do this, then we fail to be a learning organization. Perhaps something along the lines of design will facilitate this?

pjmunson

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 11:12pm

Carl,
Your original term was stick-to-itiveness. You redefine it as determination to win. What is determination to win? It is nothing. It is meaningless, especially when you cannot or have not defined what the hell winning is. So in the absence of a real definition of what winning is in a given conflict, or when winning is on a sliding scale that changes every few months, determination to win is meaningless. When that happens, you're back to stick-to-itiveness, which is continuing to plod along wasting money and lives with no real and actually attainable end in mind. So, stick-to-itiveness is not a preferable military virtue when there is no definition of winning.

Second, you didn't address any of my points in the referenced comment. It was a paragraph of snot, then you moved on to Jones.

Third, point taken on the "nation" comment, given that the term nation is very squishy and can mean any number of things. I should have chosen my words more carefully. I would argue that Afghanistan has never been a modern (in the political and economic sense) nation-state along the lines of what we are trying to build. The "nation" from the time period you reference was really a few urban power centers and little beyond that.

Fourth, your cutesy little tink-tink is a nice foil, but it is underlined by a misunderstanding of just what the domino theory really asserted. Here's Eisenhower's formulation of what he feared in Asia in 1954: "But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking really about millions and millions and millions of people. Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand. It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will have only one place in the world to go- that is, toward the Communist areas in order to live. So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world."

This vision of the domino theory, and it is arguably the one that got us into the war, is quite a bit more than your smug tink tink example. You suggest that two out of three dominos fell. There are a lot more dominos in Eisenhower's formulation. Yes, two peripheral countries bordering Vietnam fell. But the doomsday scenario on which the checks were written and the lives staked never came.

Finally, the whole ISI/Pakistan (Ho Chi Minh Trail, etc is the analog) argument is overstated. If you (a) could and (b) did cut off Pakistan completely from Afghanistan, there would still be a lot of people fighting our presence there and nation-building would still be a questionable task at best.

Bill M.,
Point well taken, but note that this mission came in April of 2002. I haven't read enough about the national security decision-making between September 01 and this formulation, but isn't this a bit of an afterthought window dressing coming that much after the original invasion? Granted, orders are orders, but maybe it just shows the mission creep? It is also telling that, from my understanding, we were willing to leave the Taliban in power if they turned over UBL. So it wasn't about regime change for regime change, it was about UBL and AQ and the fact that they refused to give them up.

Bill M.

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 10:23pm

Here is what President Bush said in 2002,

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/world/a-nation-challenged-the-preside…

''We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations,'' Mr. Bush said. ''Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army. And peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls which works.''

He also talked at length about the need of a Marshall Plan like to rebuild Afghanistan. Interesting numbers quoted in the article (I don't know if they're accurate), the author said we spent the equivalent of 90 billion dollars on the Marshall Plan for 17 European nations, and we were only allocating 15 billion to Afghanistan. Only 15 billion? While I know the dollars were not divided equally between the 17 nations, 90 billion divided by 17 is roughly 5 billion per country. Afghanistan never had an industrial base to "rebuild", so I would think 15 billion "wisely" invested would have been more than adequate. Why did we fail to make the impressive gains we made in Europe? I suspect for one that the war was not (and is not) over in Afghanistan. Other reasons is the lack of unity, lack of history/knowledge with modern economic models, corruption, etc. It appears that SEC Rumfield made a statement that was contrary to the President's, or at least tried to limit his vision on what U.S. forces would do. Obviously their was considerable mission creep from the original intent of avenging the attacks on 9/11. I know there is a lot of disagreement in this forum (and in Congress) on the wisdom of nation building in Afghanistan, but I don't believe there is any doubt that is what the President told us to do.

As for all the talk about winning and losing. I suspect this opinion will create a crap storm, so I'm open my umbrella, but from a military perspective the USSR was defeated in Afghanistan. When they finally realized what it would take to achieve their stated objectives, they decided it wasn't worth the cost. The government they installed didn't collapse right after they left, they actually held on for a few years, and it is doubtful the Taliban would have won if they weren't supported by Pakistan (and all their rich Muslim friends who donated money so the ISI could fund the Taliban). Our downsizing in Afghanistan is clearly not a loss, although some will try to paint that it that way. It is a realization that the bang is for the buck just isn't there. One more year, or 10 more years, will not change the structural problems with the current government, and as long as we are the power to reckon with in Afghanistan the Afghan people can't fix it. We did achieve our initial goal of punishing and greatly diminishing AQ. Our fight with the Taliban was "only" because they provided sanctuary to AQ. If the Taliban turned over the AQ leadership in their country, I doubt we would have invaded. Downsizing doesn't mean we're pulling the rug out from under the Afghan people, but simply that we're taking the training wheels off their bicycles. We are not "leaving" Afghanistan, we are downsizing, and that is two entirely different things.

The nation building aspects need to be readdressed to see what is working and what is affordable, and if it is actually possible to do effective nation building before there is peace.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 10:11pm

Mr. Munson:

I forgot. You said Afghanistan has never been a nation. Please look up the history of the place from the time of the Iron Emir until the coup in the 70s.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 10:08pm

Mr. Munson:

I asked a simple question, is determination to win a military virtue at all levels. I infer from your answer that it is, but with provisos. Fair enough.

I did address your examples and in doing so I had to add some things you left out that were critically important to situations described.

Persisting in doing what we have been doing in Afghanistan is not wise and I have stated so on many occasions. The critical thing is the Pak Army/ISI giving sanctuary and support to Taliban & Co. That is the thing we must work on.

You might note that the dominoes did fall in South-East Asia. Laos and Cambodia both fell-tink, tink. Our effort gave Thailand enough time so that it didn't fall. It was only tink, tink; not tink, tink, tink. A small consolation anyway.

pjmunson

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 9:29pm

Carl,
Your response basically underlines your inability to address my examples that you snottily dismiss except to restate that persistence is good. It is also roughly akin to Einstein's definition of insanity in some cases: continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results.

Persistence is not good when it becomes the end in and of itself, as in we can't cut our losses and call this good enough because we haven't "won" when no one knows what winning looks like. No matter how persistent one is in Afghanistan, we have to leave someday and they know that. No matter how persistent one is in Afghanistan, it still isn't in our core strategerical (is that dumbed down enough since you seem to have taken offense to the use of the word strategically as overly schoolish) interest to try to build a nation there where there never has been one. If persistence means staying around to bash your head against a rock after you've already done what you originally went there to do, then it isn't good.

Persistence can actually be bad and play into the enemy's hands when your enemy's stated goal was to draw you into a "bleeding war" and you have obliged for over a decade. Persistence is also not good when you expend on the order of a trillion dollars chasing after peripheral interests just as your nation is facing significant fiscal challenges and others are growing relatively stronger.

These people all know that we can take any state down we want, if we really wanted to, and that we will persist in that campaign until finished. They also know that we will persist in chasing shadows in the mountains or jungles for about a decade, then go home. But show me how continuing to chase shadows for longer than a decade is going to be any different than the first 10 years. Show me how not persisting in Vietnam sowed the seeds for our downfall, resulted in the dominoes falling across Asia, and in the Soviet Union winning the Cold War. Losing small can be a virtue, but when we mis-define our ends and keep getting drug in deeper, persistence becomes the argument that keeps the charade going.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 9:11pm

Ken:

We'll have to disagree on this one. I read the paragraph as saying "they wanted to feel safe" followed by "That is the original mission." The paragraph before states the military was given a mission so I read that feel good was a military mission. Small thing perhaps.

That the President made that a military mission was a foolish thing. I think it flows from a cultural trait in the US that feeling good is some sort of inherent right.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:34pm

Mr. Munson:

Another term for stick-to-iteveness is perhaps determination to win. Now tell me how that is a martial virtue at the tactical level but not one at the strategic, operational, grand strategerical or whatever other term has come out of the schools for international relations level? I have been talking about how determination to win helps you in your present fight and a rep for that will help you to avoid fights in the future. Without recourse to references about this war and that conflict and % of reasons, tell me how determination to win is not a martial virtue at any level.

Councilor Jones:

You said "Instead we apply "stick-to-itiveness" logic that Carl promotes, and just keep rotating in new guys with new tanks to continue the artificial capability." Tell me what you think I meant. Before I can respond to it I have to know what you claim I advocate because you on occasion get mixed up. What is it I advocate?

A couple of minor things, we did indeed invade Afghanistan, we helped the NA forces kick out the Taliban with lots of airpower. We did it because we were attacked by forces give protection by the Taliban. It is good to remember that.

Also judging by the number of residents of Pakistan who went to Afghanistan to fight for Taliban & Co. it might not be wholly accurate to say Taliban & Co. are not invaders of Afghanistan.

Lastly your contention that the military mission is to make the American people "feel" safe is a very curious one. Wouldn't a more sensible mission for soldiers be to make sure the American people "are" safe? A Madison avenue ad agency would probably more useful for affecting people's feelings than the military, cheaper too I'll bet. We felt pretty safe on 9-10-2001 but that didn't mean a whole lot. Hmm, the military mission is to make people feel safe, hmm.

You also mention a razor sharp CT capability. I don't believe it can be anything but dull if we don't have people on the ground to tell us things and that isn't possible if we aren't on the ground in the area too. The magic men swooping in darkness, sigint, fusion cells and all those other things can't replace talking to somebody who knows and that is hard to do if you ain't there.

Bob's World

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 10:09am

Popcorn,

Just curious where you got that "mission" from? Similarly, why you feel compelled to define this in terms of "threats" to be defeated, rather than "problems" to be resolved?

This is inherent in military approaches to insurgency. Mission creep has been perhaps the greatest "threat" to success in Afghanistan in many ways.

The inititial mission was pretty simple, to punish AQ for the attacks of 9/11 and to deny them formal, state-sponsored sanctuary in Afghanistan. There are a couple of key points that I believe are worth remembering:

1. The Taliban are not the invaders in Afghanistan, we are.

2. The people of Afghanistan did not participate in the decision to replace the Taliban government with one fromed from the Northern Alliance; the NATO Coalition did not participate in the decision to replace the Taliban government with one fromed from the Northern Alliance either. This was a unilateral decision by the President of the United States, and we were clear, that "you were either with us or against us" in that decision.

Now we grow frustrated that the segment of the Afghan populace that we elevated into governance seems little interested in governing, and more interested in wealth, power and control. We also grow frustrated that the segment of the populace supportive of the government we opted to drive off into exile grow increasingly resistent to our "surging" efforts to force them to submit to the solution we have crafted for them.

Must we now define a "win" as the ability to force a stability under the terms we have defined and the conditions we have created? Does continually moving the goal posts with new mission statements help or hurt our actual interests that brought us to this region in the first place?

I get it that the military was given a mission, and that the military will break itself trying before it will admit that it cannot accomplish the mission (though clearly they are not shy about refining the terms of that mission as it suits their efforts).

The fact is we have already won. The American people wanted revenge agaist AQ and they wanted to feel safe once again as they went about their daily lives. THAT is the original mission that led a President to declare a War on Terrorism. Ask yourself: Do the American People feel avenged? Do the American People feel safe?

I believe we all know the answer to that. Yes. And they owe that to the hard work of a very small portion of the populace who have dedicated years of their lives and endured tremendous hardships to this cause. The war, my friend, is over. The ends are met. The mission, however, continues. But it need not continue in terms of "fixing" Afghanistan, that is the duty of Mr. Karzai and we enable him to ignore that duty with our current course. We also inflame the very factors that led to the initial attacks of 9/11 by continuting to wage war long after the ends for the war are well met.

Now is a time to focus on policy and diplomacy, and to maintain a razor sharp CT capability that works silently behind the scenes to continue to disrupt dangerous networks, while the US gets on track for how to better engage the world in the current environment.

Cheers,

Bob

There's a reason for doing METT-TC and other ASCOPE, DIME, and PMESII-PT analysis. Every situation is different and historical "lessons" often do not apply to different places, people, and times.

Mission: Prevent Islamic EXTREMIST terrorism in an area where it breeds and nuclear weapons are at risk and local nuclear war is a possibility. It goes beyond al Qaeda to LeT and other groups traveling to the isolated area and its madrassas and being financed by other external extremists.

Enemy: Taliban, LeT, and foreign fighters with sanctuary and ability to blend in with the 40 million Pashtun population. Very few enemies are in the northern half of Afghanistan or the "stans" to the north. A potential enemy is Iran which also poses a nuclear and state-sponsor of terror problem.

Terrain and weather: Harsh and huge making small force "clear and hold" impossible and breeding localized rule where 10 miles difference can be a world away. Weather/terrain also limit arable land and create desperation/greed reliance on the drug trade. Localized gem/timber interests breed problems elsewhere. New mineral finds will create new problems.

Troops and support available: ISAF and U.S. capabilities prove an international realization of the mission's importance and enemy's relevance. Pakistan Army and ISI allies are critical but have elements that are enemies. ANSF are thrust into unfamiliar areas where ethnicity/language are not their own. They may not consistently fight there but would to defend Tajik/Hazara/Uzbek territory. ANSF are building to required numbers/capabilities once again proving that less is not more.

Time available: 2014 because Iraqi priorities precluded adequate earlier money/forces focus.

Civil considerations: Most critical and diverse contrasted with other insurgencies. There is a reason for a Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, informal Balochistan etc. But there is no Pashtunistan. Why? The Durand Line from over a century ago and a recalcitrant Pakistan that needs "strategic depth" from its perceived Indian nemesis.

While we negotiate with the Taliban, could there be opportunities to do the same with Pakistan over a Sinai-like buffer called Pashtunistan. Could a referendum be offered to the people of Afghanistan as in Sudan? Could monies spent on nation-building be used for moving Pashtuns out of the north, exchanging land with Tajiks in the south? Could Pakistan be persuaded to give up Kurram and Northern Waziristan to the new Pashtunistan?

If all else fails, shouldn't we support and base/"build" in the parts of Afghanistan most receptive to progress, women's rights, and rejection of terror? In a country with walls around every rural home, wouldn't barriers around Kandahar, Kabul, and a few other Berlin-like multi-ethnic areas provide added security?

Bob's World

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:55am

Freudian slip in the final paragraph, I meant to write "Just ensure the reasons are truly vital," but I wrote "Just endure..."

Bob

Bob's World

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:50am

As I read the latest series of posts from Carl, Popcorn eater, ET. al.; I am reminded of a simple exchange long ago:

"When Harry told him, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield," Colonel Tu responded, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Insurgency viewed as a military problem, as a war to be won, is indeed a vexing problem. Certainly military capabilities bring a very necessary skill-set to any comprehensive security operation, but left to lead are at best a tool to suppress current challengers in a manner that allows the status quo to endure. This is not success; it is merely the enabling of a bad system to continue to exist in an environment it is unsuited for.

This is not unlike strapping scuba gear on a man and allowing him to operate in an underwater environment long beyond what his natural capabilities would allow. Nothing wrong with that, just don't thing that means you have gills.

If the goal is to extend some unsustainable system for some vital reason, ok, but never forget you are merely "putting tanks on it." If the goal is to actually resolve the problems that make that current system unsustainable, one may still need to put tanks on it for a while, but one must be dedicated as their main effort to modifying the government to make it sustainable in the environment it operates in.

Instead we apply "stick-to-itiveness" logic that Carl promotes, and just keep rotating in new guys with new tanks to continue the artificial capability. While those guys are there, they seek not to fix the government to operate in its natural environment (they are military after all, and fixing government is not what the military does), they instead takes on tasks, such as popcorn describes, to attempt to change the very environment to accommodate the government as it exists in its unsustainable form. So we in effect seek to oxygenate the ocean, or build those big sci-fi Plexiglas bubbles over undersea cities....

I apologize for the silly analogy, but the fact is our current scheme, our historic western scheme, of engagement to insurgency is equally temporal, equally artificial, and equally silly in so many ways.

Nothing wrong with being able to force an artificial condition for some short period of time for some vital reason. (I question the interests and rationale we use to justify opertaions in Afghanistan) Just endure the reasons are truly vital, as it will be expensive to do this. And never forget the conditions you create are as temporal as they are artificial. Nature always wins in the end.

Bob

pjmunson

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 2:32am

Stick-to-itiveness "That attribute is quite a valuable one in a fight and in avoiding future fights." I disagree. Tactically, yes. Strategically, this was a major reason for continuing to pour resources into Vietnam and the end result was that we couldn't make our non-strategy work and pulled out after committing ourselves deeply. It did not avoid future fights, it showed our limits. We could have done it differently, blah, blah, blah. In Iraq the surge, COPs, and MRAPs won the war (neither part of that statement is by any stretch of the imagination fact popcorn eater, and while we may be bashing, some of the bashers have given up significant parts of our lives in quest of "victory"), etc, etc. The lesson is not that stick-to-itiveness is a virtue. We need to learn how to think smaller and, if need be, "lose small" rather than going all in when we do not need to. If we had defined our aims more carefully in Afghanistan, we could be gone already. Now, we're there to "win" when by what the original strategic definition of our ends should have been we've already won. But if we pull out, we're not sticking to it. We've got generals saying that we have to "make their sacrifice count," so because people have died, we have to stay there with more people dying to make it all worthwhile. What sense does that make? Define a strategic end. And that end is not "sticking it out" so others know we'll stick it out. All we are doing is bleeding ourselves for a nation that will never be. And the popcorn eater can say that Iraq proved us pessimists wrong, but in 5 years, I'm not sure that place will really look all that much like a place worth all that effort and sacrifice. But of course, because he's non-scholarly and not a pessimist and not bashing anyone, we're unpatriotic and weak.

"His [GEN Petraeus] judgment should be trusted." Absolutely, and it will be interesting to see what song Michael Yon sings if that judgement if that it's time to go, however that judgement is not the final word on the subject and there are larger issues to be considered in regard to withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes, much blood and treasure has been expended there but it is no justification in itself for an ongoing commitment. In the end, it is all about national objectives and when these are deemed to no longer be met or as having been achieved, it is time to go...

The '...and a little girl waits...' play on heart strings and consciences was worn out years ago - as has been pointed out above, there are many such little girls around the world: even with the best of intentions, we can not save them all...Yon's schmaltzy fawning to GEN Petraeus is kinda embarrassing and set the General up on a pedestal that he neither seeks nor desires...

I couldn't agree more with Gian Gentile's close statement in his (IMHO) non-rambling comment "...if this isnt the nightmare of perpetual war maintained through outright militarism I dont know what is..." Yon's Afghanistan is not Disney, it is scary...

Ken White (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 8:05pm

<b>Carl:</b>

Don't waste time and effort trying to interpret it, just read it as written:

"The American people wanted revenge agaist AQ and they wanted to feel safe once again as they went about their daily lives. <b>THAT is the original mission that led a President to declare a War on Terrorism</b>. Ask yourself: Do the American People feel avenged? Do the American People feel safe?"(emphasis added /kw)

The 'mission' the President took upon <u>himself</u> was to make people feel safe. That was reason he "declared a global war on terror." Certainly some military missions flowed from that but at no point is the statement or implication made that the 'feel safe' bit was or is a military mission.

All that said, the paragraph is an unusual and conflicted construction... ;)

Bill M.

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 11:56pm

Carl,

You prompted me to read it again, and you're right, he specifically said GEN P shouldn't consider political or economic factors, although I'm not sure how you filter those out entirely, but point well taken.

My point about the little girl is there are thousands of little girls in similiar conditions across the world in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Of course it matters to them and their families, but one little girl shouldn't drive foreign policy decisions. Personally I would like to help them all, but reality limits what I, you and our nation can do. However, I understand that putting a human face on it makes it stick and gives the article/opinion more power.

Works out in the end for "our country", the situation didn't work out for the people of Lebanon, again I wish we could "effectively" help them, but I doubt by staying we would have been able to stablize the country, but again it didn't put our nation at considerable risk. I wouldn't have used Poland as an example, actually that was an example of a wake up call that may not have been heeded as soon as it should have.

Poorly written, what I was trying to convey with the sink and drown comment is that if we don't do something about Pakistan (instead of just giving them billions of dollars) when we eventually hand Afghanistan's security back to them they will sink and drown due to the Tsunami of Islamist radicals flowing in from Pakistan that are well armed and financed.

Madhu your comments are perfectly logical, and I think many (if not most) of the policy makers understand that. They may not address the complexity in public forum, because it doesn't nest well with a 30 sec sound byte, but the complexity is recognized, which is why there is so much debate on this topic.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:43pm

Ken:

Whoops. I should have said I concur with your first 3 paragraphs.

carl (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:28pm

Ken:

Concur with the first two paragraphs.

As far as the Councilor goes, that is exactly what he said. Here is his quote "The American people wanted revenge agaist AQ and they wanted to feel safe once again as they went about their daily lives. THAT is the original mission that led a President to declare a War on Terrorism." That clearly states that a major part of the mission was to make the American people feel safe. I don't know how else you can interpret that.

You are right in your third paragraph. I should have written something along the lines of are as safe as practicable.

Ken White (not verified)

Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:04pm

<b>Carl:</b>

Determination to win is indeed a desirable trait at strategic, operational and tactical levels.

<u><b>If</b></u> you're in a fight or conflict that can be 'won' or anything close to that.

If not, it is not a beneficial trait, quite the reverse in fact. The line between perseverence and stubbornness isn't always clear -- nor is the line between conflicts that can be won and those that cannot. Ideally, one would never enter conflicts that cannot be 'won.' Unfortunately, nations and people often do enter such conflicts and there comes a time when the cost-benefit ratio starts to go rapidly down hill.

Yous say with reference to a Robert C. Jones post:<blockquote>"Lastly your contention that the military mission is to make the American people "feel" safe is a very curious one. Wouldn't a more sensible mission for soldiers be to make sure the American people "are" safe?"</blockquote>He's perfectly able to take care of himself but that is not at all what he said. He instead asked if the American people felt safe as a result of the mission the Armed Forces were given, a totally different thing.

As an aside, a mission for soldiers to make sure the American people "are" safe is no more feasible than is correcting all the perceived ills or keeping someone on the ground at every current or potential trouble spot in the world. Trying to achieve the unattainable may make some feel good but it always does more harm than good. In fact, it usually leads to biting off more than one can chew or getting involved in 'missions' that no one is going to win, harming a lot of innocent folks and insuring one does more harm than good...

Madhu (not verified)

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 11:42pm

Here is one example, non scholarly pop-corn eater (great blog handle!):

<em>The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

Last year, Barack Obama, US president, called for "a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials". In response, the Conference on Disarmament, a 64-nation coalition that negotiated the 1992 Chemical Weapons convention and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed to negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, intended to cap production of weapons-grade enriched uranium and most forms of plutonium.

But Pakistan, which is deepening its nuclear ties to China, has blocked the Conference on Disarmament from starting discussions, saying a cut-off would hurt its national security interests. Ashley Tellis, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "Pakistan thinks its going to be forced to cap its fissile material stocks and wants to make sure it has as much as it can get before then." The country's position has frustrated many states. Rose Gottmeiler, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, recently warned that her country's "patience is running out".</em>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8053775/Pakista…

Plus, there are the missiles that supposedly reach into the MidEast (like, Israel?)

But I don't know. That's why your comment is so fascinating and pertinent, pop corn eater.

How do you balance all of these things?

Less is more in this context might be titrating down to the least amount of money you need for access without "feeding the beast," so to speak.

And that's it for me on this topic for a bit. I promise! But I always get carried away....

carl (not verified)

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 11:39pm

Mr. Munson & Mr. Martin:

I'm glad you like my almost a word "stick-to-itiveness." I learned that a long time ago. Sometimes old things are the best things.

That attribute is quite a valuable one in a fight and in avoiding future fights. People are not inclined to tangle with somebody who just won't give up. Tangling with wildcats and all that. However it won't overcome advanced dunderheadedness (another almost a word) burned into the soul by an education at the best schools. An example of obdurate dunderheadedness was our refusal to cut the Trail. Without that, keeping NVN from conquering SVN was not possible. But we tried hard for a long time and I believe the world noted the determination in addition to the dunderheadedness. We are doing much the same thing now by refusing to truly confront Pakistan about their support for the enemy. I guess Dunderhead 101 was never removed from the international relations courses at Harvard.

Bill M.:

I believe Mr. Yon mentioned the girl because he wanted to give the consequences of our decisions a human face. It may not matter to the big picture but it will matter to her and her family.

Mr. Yon argued that GEN P. should not consider politics and the economy when making his recommendations. That seems sensible advice for a military man giving military advice. He did not argue that the civilian leadership shouldn't consider these other factors.

It is not fair to criticize Mr. Yon for not providing good an balanced reporting in this case since this is not a reportorial piece; it is an opinion piece and is clearly labeled as such.

I do not think it useful to say things work out in the end. Poland is doing pretty good now but I don't think being conquered and occupied by the Nazis and the Soviets in turn really can be said to have worked out for them in the end.

i pretty much agree with your last paragraph but the "sink and drown" part confused me.

Madhu: You convey your point well. The fact that some won't get it is testament to their refusal to see the sun in the sky, not an indictment of your writing.

Madhu (not verified)

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 10:59pm

<em>If it was so militaristic in the early Afghan years, why were casualties so low back then. If less is more, why didn't nine year of less solve the problem...</em>

The Taliban were chased into Pakistan and took some time to rearm within their sanctuaries. Once it was clear to the Pakistani Army/ISI that the old relationship was back between the United States and Pakistan, they went back to nurturing their good Taliban while foot dragging on the bad Taliban. With our money. And using our presence in their internal PSYOP.

But your larger point is well taken. We <em>do</em> need access to that region and will have to pay some to get at it in the near term. But for how long? Two things go on simultaneously within Pakistan as we "pay to play" with our old Cold War buddies.

1. We attrite one group with our bilateral counterterrorism operations and drones.

2. A second group (or groups, really) grow with the money we give and are ideologically nurtured by our very presence (in addition to the usually jihadi ideological stuff).

That's why OBL was found in Abbottabad. The system is designed to be tolerant to such groups. There are training camps all over the place and not just in the FATA, etc. These groups interact with one another.

So, you do your "fig leaf" counterterror operations in one area while the big fish hang out in Karachi or whatever.

How long do we play this game? While you box up some groups in the FATA, fissile material might be slowly stolen from internal groups radicalized by your presence.

It's a balancing act and the problem is we have been feeding it.

Does anyone get what I am saying? I must be a poor writer because I can't seem to get through to some of you. It's like only one thing can happen at a time.

Many things are going on simultaneously.

Lost in all the bashing by some is inaccurate analysis of historical facts, and near-stubborn denial of other realities.

Fact: things were going badly in Iraq until the surge, COPs, concrete barriers, and MRAPs. Violence-driven segregation of Shiites and Sunnis also helped. A Marine MI type wasn't optimistic about Anbar and said as much and they don't tend to be pessimists.

Fact: Billions more were spent in Iraq than Afghanistan until recently. All prior years of "militarism" were too little for the Texas-sized terrain and problem. If it was so militaristic in the early Afghan years, why were casualties so low back then. If less is more, why didn't nine year of less solve the problem...

Fact: Since the Afghanistan surge, things have improved...approximately one year of out ten worth of resources were finally allocated, still far short of Iraqi funds/forces.

Fact: the Israelis seem to solve their insurgency problems by building fences and segregating folks with different ethnicities. Funny, that worked in the Balkans, too. It seems to work in Iraq, as well.

Michael Yon has been there before, and never had any problem calling a spade a spade in the past. Although a less altruistic motive for staying is probably the real reason to remain there in force. The terror problem won't end and we may need a return engagement if we don't train the ANSF properly before leaving.

Counterterror is difficult if you cut off Pakistani money and they cut off the drone flights while Karzai simultaneously demands no more SOF raids and no U.S. bases.

Bill M.

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 10:16pm

In some ways this article illustrates the American decision making process. Instead of using rationale arguments, it focuses on emotion (and we have done this throughout our history). This article hypes GEN Petreaus and then reaches real low when it exploits the poor 4 year old Afghan girl and ties our decision to stay to her future opportunity to pursue higher education someday (that may be true, but in the big picture that isn't important). Then it completely rejects reality by stating that politics and economics should have nothing to do with our decision? In what democracy do political leaders not consider politics when making decisions on wars, especially wars of choice where the objectives are vague at best? We had to go into Afghanistan, the choice part was staying and trying to rebuild it. What rational leader would disregard the greatest threat to our national security and future position in the world, which is our current economic crisis when they weigh the pro's and con's of various options for Afghanistan?

As for the four year old sweet heart, as Michael wrote, many of us have spent a good part of our adult lives in developing nations and in all those nations they had cute kids who didn't have much opportunity in life. We're not cold to that fact, but that sure as hell doesn't drive national security decisions. We have kids in our own inner cities who don't have a good shot at life. Most parents think their kids are cute, but they don't so look so cute coming home in caskets, or when they're terribly maimed by acts of war. Parents and families have a vote on the what the cost of the war should be, and politicians who stay in office had better listen to that vote. Personally I don't hear or see a big back lash against the war, I just see frustration with a strategy that doesn't seem to be producing results.

GEN P is getting paid to provide military advice (and in reality much more), and that advice is then considered by our civilian leadership. They incorporate it into the larger strategic political and economic picture to determine the way forward (whatever that should be).

I do think this piece came across as cheerleading; to much along the lines of Max Boot, but the big difference between Michael Yon and Max Boot is that Michael has been living and working the war zone for a long time. When he writes stories about soldiers and Marines I enjoy them because they are authentic; he is a great battlefield reporter, so I hope this piece doesn't sour the opinion on the many good articles he has written. It is understandable to have bias when you live there, so I don't fault his views, but it simply isn't good and balanced reporting in this case.

Know matter what decision regarding our future in Afghanistan it will be second guessed for years to come but in the long run I suspect it work out. Pulling out Lebanon in 83 didn't seem to hurt us too much in the long run, and probably avoided more losses (after the tragic loss of more than 200 Marines in the suicide attack) when no real gain was achievable. Yes there is a Hizbollah issue, and still a lot of instability, but by staying would we have prevented it? We pulled out Vietnam (a decision I still question), but in the end it seems to be working out. I'm not trying to make light of these events or Afghanistan, but simply pointing out that those that predicted the end of the world before were always wrong.

I'm not non bias, but then again I'm not writing an article as a professional journalist. I think we can achieve some semblance of a win in Afghanistan if we have the courage and will to deal with Pakistan, if we don't then we're simply treading water, and we when we quit treading water we'll sink and drown. Its an opinion, but one that I think is valid.

G Martin

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 10:06pm

I keep hearing that our enemies traditionally have not believed we have any "stick-to-itiveness"- our military "can-do" attitude notwithstanding.

I definitely think there have been some issues with us getting too enamored with our efforts and take on things and not taking into consideration competing narratives, alternative logics, the rest of the world's perceptions, and our own people's will (and thinking we should actively shape it towards our take on things). If that isn't "militarism"- then it still can lead us down a dangerous path. I'd hate to lose our populace's trust in our objectiveness again.

In terms of things getting better- I'm sure some metrics in some areas point that way- I'm curious, though, to hear Michael's opinion if he thinks they are sustainable- and, if not- when they might be. I think when I was there that was one of the most-debated and relevant topics- and probably still is.

pjmunson

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 9:48pm

Carl,
How'd that stick-to-itiveness work out for us in Vietnam? For the Soviets in Afghanistan? That was an argument used in 1965 to bring in more and more and more troops. It was actually "70 percent" of the justification by one influential staffer. Stick-to-itiveness is not a strategic justification for continuing to piss strategic power down your leg.