Cordesman Announces Death of a Strategy in Afghanistan
CSIS's Anthony Cordesman argues that the strategy embarked upon by Gen Stanley McChrystal is now dead and that the U.S. and its allies must construct and resource a strategy to transition to an Afghan "muddle through" that doesn't greatly jeopardize U.S. interests. While I'm not sure that there has ever been a strategy in Afghanistan, or how to state it, Cordesman argues that four threats have been killing any such strategy from the beginning. (h/t Nathan Finney)
The key reasons shaping uncertainty as to whether the mission could be accomplished—whether it would be possible to create an Afghanistan that could largely stand on its own and be free of any major enclaves of terrorists or violent extremists—went far beyond the problems created by the insurgents.
It was clear that there were four roughly equal threats to success, of which the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar were only the first. The second was the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. The third was the role of Pakistan and its tolerance and support of insurgent sanctuaries. The fourth was the United States and its allies.
I highly recommend that you also see Jim Sleeper's "How the Debacle in Afghanistan Disgraced its Cheerleaders" at the Huffington Post, h/t anonymous you know who you are.
Cordesman is saying the same thing many of us were saying almost precisely nine years ago. Good to know that an adviser of one sort or another that helped develop or certainly aided in the development of the so-called ‘strategy’ has realized that it was an error. As I recall, his trip to support the McChrystal review resulted in his announcing on return to CONUS that many more Troops were needed. Heh, aside from the fact that none were available, he seems to now realize that had they been it would have made little difference.
He writes:
He then amplifies this and again makes the “more troops” plea but I submit he has the threats in the wrong order. In the first place, the US and its allies believing they could affect Afghan culture and ‘fix the problems’ was the greatest error and thus threat to to the endeavor. Conceit is a terrible thing…
Conceit is also a curious thing. I do not disagree with Peter J. Munson’s linked article by one Jim Sleeper “How the Debacle in Aghanistan Disgraced its Cheerleaders.” Sleeper is correct and it did disgrace them — and all of us. However, he wrote:
Fascinating conceit that. Anyone who believes that we have the capability to do ‘something’ about Detroit and / or New Orleans is in fantasy land. We do not. No more than we had or have the capability to do something about Afghanistan. We, the US, have been trying in one way or another to do ‘something’ about those cities and others for years. Better focus, more people or more money won’t fix those either…
The problem is not Cheerleaders of any ideological or ‘strategic’ persuasion but Cheerleaders generally. They do little but make a lot of noise. Usually noise that has little to no effect on events transpiring on or in the field yet noise that spurs the unthinking on to repeat failed efforts again and again. Cheerleaders want to ‘win’ yet have no clue about the realities of the situations they wish to affect — or the sweaty, dirty players or people for whom they are nominally cheering. Most do not really even know the rules of the game — and it shows.
Cheerleaders sell self esteem. What’s needed is self confidence as that leads to effective self analysis.
I don’t why you recommended the Huff Post piece. It is mostly a confused “I told you so” using failure in Afghanistan to argue in favor of an American welfare state.