Realism in Afghanistan
Realism in Afghanistan: Rethinking an Uncertain Case for the War by Anthony Cordesman at CSIS.
There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by “spin” or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems…
Andrew Exum responds at Abu Muqawama.
These past few weeks have brought a fresh torrent of bad news from Afghanistan: a governor in a key district assassinated, U.S. and allied operations in flux, Afghan leadership in question. Policy-makers in Washington and allied capitols are wondering if the U.S. and allied counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan can succeed. These are reasonable concerns. Tony Cordesman, one of the U.S. defense analysts who has advised the command in Afghanistan, wrote today that “There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by ‘spin’ or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems”…
Michael Cohen responds to Cordesman and Exum at Democracy Arsenal.
As regular readers of DA are well aware I have been beating the drums on the incoherence of our Afghanistan policy for more than a year – well for the first time in a long while I have some company and from two individuals whose voices should wake people up. Both Tony Cordesman and Andrew Exum served on General McChrystal’s strategic review team that last year recommended a pop-centric COIN strategy for Afghanistan. Both are now having second thoughts…
Max Boot responds to Exum at Contentions.
… I agree with him that the political will to prevail appears to be waning. But I think it’s bizarre that he treats “political will” as a fixed, exogenous factor like the weather or the terrain. Hurricane Katrina did not make impossible the success of the surge in Iraq; so too the BP oil spill does not make impossible the success of the ongoing surge in Afghanistan. The question is whether President Obama will have the will to see this through as President Bush did in the face of much greater public opposition…
Spencer Ackerman responds to Exum at Attackerman.
Andrew Exum writes a very valuable post hinging off the Tony Cordesman piece that I cited earlier, and the point of both posts is to test the tensile strength of the assumptions behind the Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. As a meta-point, it amuses me when critics accuse counterinsurgents of dogmatism or closed-mindedness. Ex is —to subject himself to rather thorough self-criticism, as have many others in counterinsurgent circles – particularly around CNAS – who recognize that their course of action involves the escalation of a war. As far as I’ve concerned, from the perspective of intellectual honesty and intellectual rigor, they’ve acquitted themselves well. Personally, I would find arguments for de-escalation in Afghanistan more persuasive if they dealt similarly with an assessment of the risks they entail and why those risks ultimately better advance the national interest…
What say you?
