Small Wars Journal

Political Blindspot in America's Afghanistan

Mon, 05/10/2010 - 7:38pm
Politics is the blind spot in America's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, according to a report released on 6 May by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan, by CNAS fellow Andrew Exum, notes that America's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan has focused more on waging war at the operational and tactical levels at the expense of the strategic and political levels.

"In the end, by having so vocally and materially committed to the Karzai regime, the United States and its allies are tied to its successes and failures. The goal, then, should be to maximize the former and minimize the latter through focused application of U.S. leverage," writes Exum. "Designing a political campaign minimizes the role luck plays in whether the United States and its allies are successful."

By drawing on research conducted through hundreds of interviews with U.S. and NATO military officers and diplomats, policymakers and NGOs in Afghanistan, Exum offers recommendations to design an effective political strategy:

1. President Obama should convene another strategic review to assess the civilian strategy in Afghanistan. The President should ask his secretaries and envoys to answer some tough questions like he expected of General Stanley McChrystal in his fall 2009 review. What are the political ends the U.S. and its allies are fighting to realize? What are key points of U.S. and allied leverage? Is the U.S. effectively organized to carry out the president's strategic initiatives in Afghanistan?

2. Build a functioning relationship with Hamid Karzai and demonstrate to the Afghan president that he has an enduring partner in the United States and its allies.

3. Use U.S. and allied leverage to press the government of Afghanistan to either hold elections for district governors or appoint competent governors from Kabul. Effective local governance is a prerequisite for U.S. and allied forces to institute aid and development projects that are essential to addressing the factors driving conflict and violence at the local level.

Download Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan here.

Comments

Ken White (not verified)

Wed, 05/12/2010 - 4:33pm

Issues there are...

I agree with the thrust of the paper, that the US counterinsurgency effort -- I would not call it a strategy, believing there really is none -- in Afghanistan has focused more on waging war at the operational and tactical levels at the expense of the strategic and political levels.

I think beyond that the paper exhibits two major flaws:

It posits the capability of a coherent US strategy. Other than one existential war (1861-65) and one nearly existential according to many (1941-45) the US has not produced a coherent strategy since the Mexican War (and that was questionable...). We are increasingly unlikely to do so barring another existential war for a variety of reasons -- most involving our two year electoral cycle and our sheer size in all aspects. All the 'Think Tanks' (silly term...) should realize that and stop offering idealistic solutions that will generally be ground to dust by domestic political reality.

Secondly, it advocates solutions for Afghanistan based on <i>western</i> norms. Not going to happen in our lifetimes.

Thus for the three major recommendations:<blockquote>"Convene another strategic review to assess the civilian strategy, not the U.S. and allied military strategy, in Afghanistan."</blockquote>Excellent political theater with minimal chance of producing much of real value. That electoral cycle thingy.

With regard to that, it is suggested that a need exists to<blockquote>"Clearly identify the "end state" of the campaign, i.e. what it is that policymakers are trying to accomplish or what "success" looks like."</blockquote>Good idea for a conventional war or even if we were the COIN agent -- it is not we are not, the Government of Afghanistan is, thus we can only state what we would like to see occur. I submit that would be unwise under the circumstances because it could almost certainly be thwarted or delayed by our astute and far more flexible opponents.

There are two additional suggested outcomes of a policy review. Both make sense but the broadcasting of either would likely be a mistake for the reason cited above.<blockquote>"Build a functioning relationship with Hamid Karzai."</blockquote>That has merit. Karzai may not be in full agreement but after all, we're paying the freight (though I'm not at all convinced he cares too much about that). I think perhaps we care more about that than we possibly should...
<blockquote>"Use U.S. and allied leverage to press the government of Afghanistan to either hold elections for district governors or appoint competent governors from Kabul."</blockquote>Heh. Good luck with that...<br><br>
For Afghanistan, it's too late to do much, the die, as they say, is pretty well cast -- it's bouncing off the backboard, in fact. For other possible interventions, there is a gem in the Paper:<blockquote>"Daniel Byman correctly noted five years into the "war on terror" that unreliable allies would be a central problem of U.S. foreign interventions in the fight against transnational terror threats."</blockquote>Just so. They not only will be if we are foolish enough to proceed down the road to unnecessary interventions, they have pretty much always been so. We have a history in that regard and it is not pretty. Pity we refuse to learn from that history.

What is it the shrinks say; "Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is lunacy."

I did see one thing that gave me a big laugh:<blockquote>"U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine thus borrows heavily from the so-called "golden age" of counterinsurgency following the Second World War."</blockquote>Having participated in most of those 'Golden Age' efforts, I suspect my recollection will differ markedly from he or she who was ignorant enough to hang that 'Golden Age' tag on the period. We made more goofs per day than we do today -- and that took effort...

We do not do this stuff at all well and we never will for a variety of reasons. Better we pursue alternative goals and processes like better Intel, better diplomacy, early specialized FID assistance and strategic raids saving the big Army COIN-assist thing to use only if there is no alternative. We have to be prepared to do it, no question -- but we should put far more effort into avoiding it; the result is almost never worth the cost...

I am pleased to note that two hour long review sessions were devoted to repairing issues developed over 60 plus years or so in total and over nine years of direct contributory effort to the current situation. That comment is not to insult those who participated in the preparation of this academic paper which I know entailed far more effort by many well intentioned persons, it is appended merely to provide some perspective...

The good news is that the Paper does offer a Plan B.

SWJED (not verified)

Wed, 05/12/2010 - 1:15pm

Mike - not directed at you per se - a trend seemed to be starting... - Dave

Sorry Dave. I guess I was a bit frustrated and disappointed with this publication. It was not meant to be a personal attack.

Please - let's not go down the slippery path of getting personal about this thread - issues please - thanks - Dave D.

Vito (not verified)

Wed, 05/12/2010 - 12:22pm

Exum is too busy now extolling the virtues of a post-DADT military. One smart captain, that one.

Schmedlap

Wed, 05/12/2010 - 11:13am

Mike,

You can't talk a cult member out of a cult.

Can someone please explain to me how Andrew Exum, constantly self-referenced and publicized as an advisor to LTG McChrystal, in his own words in 'Back from Afghanistan' dated 22 Jul 2009,

"About five weeks ago, I was asked by General McChrystal to be part of a small team of scholars and practitioners helping to conduct his 60-day review of strategy and operations in Afghanistan. So I have spent the past month traveling around Afghanistan conducting interviews and trying to evaluate ISAF's operations."

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/07/back-afghanistan.html

is now making a published academic article describing how his own surge will not work?

I have nothing against Andrew personally, he is a decorated combat veteran, a published author, and runs his own blog, but I'm wondering where the accountability and responsibility are?

Is no one responsible?

I simply don't understand.

I've lost a couple of brothers between Exum's post and his latest publication.

In the simplest terms that I know,

WTF, over?

Major Michael Few

MAJ K (not verified)

Tue, 05/11/2010 - 1:32am

Huzzah! I knew CNAS would come through for us!

"<i>What are the political ends the U.S. and its allies are fighting to realize?</i>"

So we've been fighting with no solid/justifiable/coherent political ends? It took the COINdinistas 9 yrs to realize this? Wow. How have we gone this far. 9 yrs into a "war" and *that* question, raised by one of, if not probably *the* leading lobbyist organization (next to ISW and AEI, maybe) for PC COIN, is truly pathetic. Even more so is that we have allowed ourselves to get this far. Clausewitz is undoubtedly rolling in his grave. Whither Strategy indeed.

Schmedlap

Mon, 05/10/2010 - 10:35pm

Now that we've determined that pop-COIN is the solution, let's devise a strategy to connect some objectives to the tactics. Awesome.