Lies, Damn Lies and Counterinsurgency Benchmarks - Carlos Lozada, Washington Post opinion.

Whatever strategy President Obama chooses for Afghanistan, you can be sure that "benchmarks" or "metrics" will be a big part of the prime-time news conference. "Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course," Obama said in March, when he first reassessed the war. "Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable."

So, how do we measure success in Afghanistan? If Obama opts for a narrow counterterrorism approach, the ultimate benchmark is simple: no terrorist attacks against the American homeland. But if he goes with the full McChrystal - a long-term, fully resourced counterinsurgency, with lots of new troops - the indicators of success become murkier.

Acknowledging that "using metrics in Afghanistan is more art than science," Brookings Institution scholars Jason Campbell, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jeremy Shapiro map out the key indicators for a counterinsurgency war in the latest issue of Policy Review. In Iraq, they note, the most critical measures focused on violence and civilian deaths; in Afghanistan, "the most important metrics are those that gauge progress in the capacity and viability of the government." ...

More at The Washington Post.

How to Measure the War - Jason Campbell, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jeremy Shapiro, Policy Review.

How to tell if a counterinsurgency campaign is being won? Sizing the force correctly for a stabilization mission is a key ingredient - and it has been the subject of much discussion in the modern American debate. But in fact, there is no exact formula for sizing forces. Even if there were, getting the numbers right would hardly ensure success. Troops might not perform optimally if poorly prepared for the mission; the security environment might pose too many daunting challenges for even properly sized and trained forces to contend with; indigenous forces might not be up to the job of gradually accepting primary responsibility for their country's security themselves; and the politics of the country in question might not evolve in a favorable direction due to the actions of internal or external spoilers. So to know if we are being successful, we must also track and study results on the ground.

In conventional warfare, identifying the momentum of battle is a fairly straightforward undertaking. Predicting ultimate outcomes is still very difficult, but determining who is "ahead" at a given moment is usually feasible. Movement of the frontlines, attrition rates, industrial production of war materiel, and logistical sustainability of forces in the field provide fairly obvious standards by which to assess trends. But counterinsurgency and stabilization operations - like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan - are different, and more complex. They also appear to be the future of warfare. How do we measure progress in such situations? ...

More at Policy Review.

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) Afghanistan and some unmentioned strategic risks,

2) Gates finds frustration in Tokyo.

Afghanistan and some unmentioned strategic risks

Left unmentioned in all the discussion of America's interests in Afghanistan are several risks that Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 additional soldiers, if implemented, would create. McChrystal is asking for a permanent escalation in Afghanistan which would commit U.S. ground forces to a larger open-ended effort. Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, fears that the size and duration of this commitment could eventually break the all-volunteer Army. One strategic risk is that the United States would not have enough ready ground forces for another sustained contingency elsewhere. Finally, the funding that is diverted to sustaining ground-force intensive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could be creating risks in the space, air, and naval dimensions that will unpleasantly appear in the next decade and beyond.

The Bush administration's "surge" in Iraq was a strategic gamble. The increase from 15 to 20 brigades in Iraq tapped out the last of America's ground combat power. In addition, the required deployment schedule -- 15 months in combat followed by 12 months back home -- was considered a temporary, emergency measure. It was for this reason that the Iraq "surge" was a temporary measure -- it was not feasible to indefinitely sustain 20 brigades in Iraq.

In these terms, McChrystal's troop request is not a "surge" but an escalation. McChrystal's initial assessment does not define a discrete time period during which he would need the additional troops -- the request is open-ended.

In May, prior to the Obama administration's latest review of Afghan policy and McChrystal's report, Casey declared the current deployment practice of "12 months deployed, 12 months home" unsustainable. The Army now considers a routine of 12 months deployed, 24 months home sustainable in the long run. The Army believes it can implement this routine if it limits its commitment to Afghanistan and Iraq to no more than 10 brigades.

But according to this open-source estimate of the current U.S. order of battle in Afghanistan, one Marine and six Army brigades are currently serving in Afghanistan. These seven brigades are part of the 68,000 U.S. troops in the country. McChrystal's 40,000-soldier increase would bring the U.S. brigade count in Afghanistan to at least 11 and probably more.

Assuming the U.S. really does evacuate all of its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, the Army and the Marine Corps would find a way to sustain the larger effort in Afghanistan while also increasing home-station time -- assuming that this would be McChrystal's final escalation of the war.

But the other strategic risks would remain. U.S. ground combat power would be unavailable for another sustained effort elsewhere, unless force generation planners were again —to risk reducing home-station time down toward 12 months. Casey wants to stop this gamble on the Army's future.

Second, McChrystal's open-ended commitment to Afghanistan would mean that ground force operations, paid for with either regular or supplemental budgets, would continue to divert funds away from space, air, and naval modernization. Given the very long lead times involved with these programs (along with some deteriorating trends I mentioned last week), President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates should ponder what strategic legacy they will leave to their successors and how that measures up to the current effort in Afghanistan.

Gates finds frustration in Tokyo

This week Defense Secretary Robert Gates tended to some business in East Asia. On Oct. 21, he arrived in Japan only to encounter a headache, caused by not by jet lag but by his Japanese interlocutors.

In 2006, after over a decade of negotiations, the United States and Japan reached a deal on restructuring the U.S. military presence in Japan. The deal will shift U.S. forces on Okinawa and Japan's home islands, close some bases, build new facilities, and move 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Now the new government in Tokyo, led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), wants to reopen the deal. Gates refused, adding, "It is time to move on." Just to make sure his Japanese hosts understood, Gates turned down invitations to a welcome ceremony at the Defense Ministry and dinner with Japanese officials.

The new Japanese leaders have their reasons for wanting to reopen the 2006 basing deal. Although Japan has long depended on the presence of U.S. military forces for Japan's defense, the U.S. presence has become an increasing irritant, especially on Okinawa. Second, now that they are finally in power, DPJ leaders feel they have a strong mandate to scrutinize the commitments made by their Liberal Democratic predecessors. Finally, while facing its own budget burdens, the basing deal requires Japan to pay for most of the new facilities, both on Okinawa and Guam.

From a strategic perspective, Gates and the U.S. military want to get on with a retreat from Okinawa to Guam. In the past, Okinawa, located so close to China's coast, was an important U.S. outpost, both for intelligence collection and for force projection. However, China's massive and continuing buildup in short and medium-range ballistic missiles is making it an increasingly risky place to be. The U.S. wants to retain Okinawa as an important forward base, but moving many of the Marines to Guam will reduce friction with Japan and improve the strategic flexibility of Marine forces in the Pacific. Even better for the U.S. if Japan pays for much of the move.

Japan's new leaders have decided that they do not have to play the diplomatic game with the U.S. the same way Japan played it in the past. Gates will have to develop options or leverage should Japan's leaders persist with their new-found obstinacy.

Gates may be working on this. Next stop was South Korea, where in a speech to South Korean military leaders, Gates called for the South Korea military to regularly participate in regional and global security missions. Beyond reorienting South Korea away from just the North Korean threat, the U.S. has also been reorienting its military posture in South Korea. Continuing a program begun when Donald Rumsfeld was defense secretary, U.S. ground forces are withdrawing from Korea's demilitarized zone and repositioning to central South Korea. From there, these and other U.S. forces would have the flexibility to deploy to missions elsewhere in the region. The complex of U.S. bases in central South Korea will become a supplementary option to those the United States uses in Japan.

Japan's new leaders are attempting to protect Japan's interests, as they see them. As with any negotiation, they are testing to see which side has more bargaining power. By developing his alternatives, such as those in South Korea, Gates is enhancing his bargaining power with the Japanese. Maybe that's the best cure for a Japanese headache.

On September 17th, President Obama scrapped the Bush administration's plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. That day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General James Cartwright gave a briefing on the Obama administration's "stronger, smarter, and swifter" European missile defense program.

On September 17th I had both praise and some doubts for the new plan. I liked the shift to a distributed, flexible, and more mobile system. On the other hand, the plan seemed vague and incomplete and not very reassuring to allies in eastern Europe. In particular, I wondered where the X-band radar, previously slated for the Czech Republic and highly praised for its capabilities by General Cartwright, was going to end up. Without a convincing plan for missile defense sensors in Europe, it is hard to claim that there really is a missile defense plan for Europe.

It seems as if vagueness on the X-band radar and other sensors has turned into confusion and perhaps paralysis. In the end, Russian objections to high-powered missile defense radars, and the Obama administration's acquiescence to those objections, is for now gutting the administration's credibility on European missile defense. The Bush administration found out that its missile defense sensors would annoy the Russians but that annoyance would not stop the U.S. from having a missile defense system in Europe. The Obama team does not seem —to reach this same conclusion. Until it does, it does not really have a European missile defense plan.

Let's go back to the September 17th Gates and Cartwright briefing at the Pentagon. First, here is Cartwright discussing the virtues of the X-band radar:

But we've also added mobile and re-locatable radars: the X-band radar that is in Japan, the X-band radar that we currently have deployed to Israel, one that will be probably deployed someplace in Europe, to be part of this European lay down. That system has proved to be very, very effective and very capable.

The Bush plan had such a radar in the Czech Republic. This annoyed the Russians and led to the Obama team relocating it, as Cartwright explains in this confusing and contradictory excerpt:

It's [the X-band radar] probably more likely to be in The Caucasus that we would base that, because it's to get the early tracks. So that likely would be more down in The Caucasus ... On the X-band radar, what we're trying to get -- the first question really has to do with Russia and their perception of a threat, from the radar that would have been in the Czech Republic. And that radar is an omni-directional radar. In other words, it sees 360 degrees. And it has a very deep peering capability into Russia. And the worry would be that we would be able then to see very early the launches if Russia were launching their ICBMs and that could be perceived as destabilizing. The X-band radar is a single directional. In other words, when you put it down, it points in a single direction. And it will be very clear that it is pointing south towards Iran.

Confusing or not, the X-band radar is going to "the Caucasus," right? Probably not, according to this story from the Wall Street Journal:

"We are not consulting with any non-NATO countries and we do not envisage the emplacement of elements of our new architecture on the territory of any non-NATO states," Deputy Secretary of Defense Sandy Vershbow, who had been quoted in the initial reports that rattled Moscow, told reporters Tuesday in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

This also terminated an idea of using radars in Ukraine for the European missile defense system.

So where is that European X-band radar going? Romania or Bulgaria? From the Russians' point of view, those are no different than the Czech Republic. How about Turkey? I have seen no mention of Turkey as a site. Perhaps the Turkish government has already quietly and preemptively rejected the idea.

The conclusion is that the sensor plan for the European missile defense system is even vaguer than it was on September 17th. Cartwright discussed plans to site an X-band radar, which by his words seems very important to the system, somewhere "in the Caucasus." But the Pentagon has since scratched that idea. Cartwright also discussed a concept of distributed space-based and airborne sensors for missile defense. But that vague concept looks more like a theory than an actual capability, like the X-band radar.

It is Russian objections that removed the X-band radar from the Czech Republic and that are keeping it out of the Ukraine, Georgia, the Caucasus, or anywhere else in Russia's "near abroad." Without missile defense sensors in Europe, there is no European missile defense system. The Obama administration's European missile defense plan is not looking "stronger, smarter, and swifter."

There's No Substitute for Troops on the Ground - Max Boot, New York Times opinion.

"I hope people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like." Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan's strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel's men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a "security bubble" around Nawa. Colonel McCollough recalls that when they first arrived the bazaar was mostly shuttered and the streets empty. "This town was strangled by the Taliban," he says. "Anyone who was still here was beaten, taxed or intimidated."

Today, Nawa is flourishing. Seventy stores are open, according to the colonel, and the streets are full of trucks and pedestrians. Security is so good we were able to walk around without body armor - unthinkable in most of Helmand, the country's most dangerous province. The Marines are spending much of their time not in firefights but in clearing canals and building bridges and schools. On those rare occasions when the Taliban try to sneak back in to plant roadside bombs, the locals notify the Marines...

More at The New York Times.

Pakistan Fights Back - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.

Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term "miscreants" when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western tribal areas. This moniker conveyed the sense that the Taliban was a nuisance - a ragtag band of fanatics and gangsters who could be placated with peace deals - rather than a mortal threat to the nation. That state of denial appears to be over. This week's offensive against Taliban sanctuaries in South Waziristan is the latest sign that Pakistan has awakened to the seriousness of its domestic terrorism problem.

Here's how one of Pakistan's top military commanders put it to me, expressing sentiments that are widely shared among his colleagues: "We must win, if we want our children to be living a life of their choice and belief, and not of these beasts. I wish I could tell you how much I hate them. We want to get our beautiful and peaceful country back from their vicious clutches. We cannot allow them to destroy our future." Popular anger against the Taliban has been building this year. Back in April, the country seemed dazed and politically paralyzed. But as the Islamic extremists broke out of the Swat Valley that month and moved closer to the capital, something changed. The army launched an aggressive campaign in Swat, the Taliban fighters were pushed back and the public cheered...

More at The Washington Post.

Is There a Middle Way? - Stephen Biddle, The New Republic

General Stanley McChrystal's request to send more troops to Afghanistan has induced sticker shock for many Americans--including, apparently, President Obama. The integrated counterinsurgency, or COIN, strategy that McChrystal wants to pursue has many components: protecting Afghan civilians, rapidly expanding the Afghan army and police, reforming government, providing economic development assistance, weaning Taliban fighters and leaders away from Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, reconciling them into the new government, and targeting those who refuse. This makes it a demanding strategy that McChrystal reportedly believes will require providing at least an additional 10,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops and more than doubling existing Afghan forces to a total of 400,000 indigenous soldiers and police. (Full disclosure: I served as a member of General McChrystal's assessment team in June and July 2009, but I do not speak for his command, and the views expressed here are strictly my own.) This price tag has further galvanized opposition to a war whose support was already fading fast.

Few, however, actually want to leave Afghanistan outright. Instead, most pair their opposition to reinforcement with support for a middle way--a more limited presence intended to secure U.S. interests without the cost and risk of escalation. Opponents have proposed at least a half-dozen such "middle ways," ranging from greater reliance on drone-based counterterrorism strikes to early pursuit of a negotiated settlement to end the war. The specifics are often fuzzy; none has been articulated with the detail of McChrystal's proposal, particularly regarding troop requirements. But most are tantamount to splitting off a piece of McChrystal-style integrated COIN and executing it alone. Some critics propose pursuing pieces in combination, but none attempts the totality, and, especially, none includes McChrystal's large U.S. ground combat presence for protecting Afghan civilians. For all, the underlying idea is to reduce the cost of the war without abandoning the U.S. interest in denying Al Qaeda a base for attacking the West or destabilizing neighboring Pakistan.

It is easy to see why such middle ways are so popular. They could lighten the burden on the federal deficit. They could put fewer Americans in harm's way. They would seem to better fit the U.S. interests at stake, which are real but limited and indirect. They appeal to the centrism of many American voters. The problem is that they probably won't work.

The reasons vary from proposal to proposal, but the basic problem is that the pieces of COIN are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts; implementing just one or two pieces alone undermines their effectiveness. It might make sense to do less and accept a greater risk of failure, depending on one's tolerance for risk and cost. But there is no magic middle way between the McChrystal recommendation and total withdrawal that offers comparable odds at lower cost. In counterinsurgency, less is not more...

Much more at The New Republic.

Stephen Biddle is the Roger Hertog Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

CNAS Releases Afghanistan Policy Brief by Andrew Exum

After eight years of conflict and an ongoing policy review by the Obama Administration, the future of Afghanistan remains uncertain. Yet, as the latest assessment in Washington takes place amidst a contested Afghan national election, conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate. The brief, authored by CNAS Fellow and U.S. Afghanistan policy expert Andrew Exum, is meant to serve as a guide for strategic Afghanistan policy planning by laying out the worst, most likely, and best-case scenario for what the country might look like in 24 months, and how U.S. policy might make each scenario more or less likely. Although all three scenarios involve risks, an Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbors remains a possibility.

In the "worst-case" and most unlikely scenario, Afghanistan returns to pre-9/11 conditions where insurgent groups again gain control of the nation, reestablish an Islamic Emirate, and grant refuge to transnational terror groups. This inevitably leads to civil war and furthers regional instability. In the "most-likely" scenario, the Obama Administration cautiously transitions to a coordinated counterterrorism mission where allied engagement is limited to training Afghan National Security Forces, employing precision airpower and conducting direct-action special operations. Given similar attempts to execute a small footprint-type mission in Afghanistan, the likelihood of failure is high and eventually leads to a protracted proxy war between the United States and Pakistan. In the third and "best-case" scenario, the United States and its allies agree to a fully resourced campaign to provide security for key population centers and continue to develop effective security forces. By committing to a foundation for peace in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies achieve its main policy objective of regional stability.

Download the full Afghanistan Policy Brief (PDF)

Small Wars Journal has featured the U.S. Army's new Capstone Concept, the Army's top-level doctrine for how it will prepare for conflict over the next two decades. The Army Capstone Concept calls for full-spectrum capability. But it also emphasizes the need for "high touch" skills, the language, cultural, historical, population, and personal skills required to be effective in low-intensity and irregular warfare environments.

It seems as if Russia's military doctrine is going in exactly the opposite direction, if a recent article from Defense News is any indication. Some excerpts:

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the powerful security council, said the conditions under which Russia could resort to atomic weapons are being reworked in the main strategy document and will be reviewed by President Dmitry Medvedev by the end of the year.

"The conditions have been revised for the use of nuclear weapons to rebuff an aggression with the use of conventional weapons, not only on a massive-scale but on a regional and even local level," Patrushev told the Izvestia newspaper.

"Variants are under considerations for the use of nuclear weapons depending on the situation and potential of a would-be aggressor," he said.

"In a critical situation for national security, a preventative nuclear strike on an aggressor is not ruled out."

One could call "a preventative nuclear strike on an aggressor" the Bush Doctrine on Steroids.

Russia is finding itself resorting to a nuclear-centered military doctrine because it is finding it more and more difficult to maintain adequate conventional military capabilities. 20 years ago Soviet conventional forces were massive and frightening -- it was the U.S. and NATO that required a large inventory of tactical nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet armored behemoth in eastern Europe. Today, the situation is reversed -- it is Russia that needs its remaining nuclear weapons to compensate for its conventional weakness.

Naturally, any country that has a declared or undeclared "no first use" policy can instantly drop that policy during a stressful moment. The problem with Russia's doctrine is that it is doctrine -- it is what Russia will plan for, prepare for, train for, and as a result, make more likely to occur.

President Obama (as did President Reagan) dreams of a world free of nuclear weapons. Strategically, no country would benefit more from this dream, at least at this moment in history, than the United States. That is the single most powerful reason why this dream will not come true.

The Civilian Surge Myth - Steven Metz, The New Republic.

How can we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in Afghanistan? There's one solution that has attracted analysts of all stripes: a "civilian surge," where development and political advisers working for (or contracted by) the State department and the US Agency for International Development flood the country and turn the tide against the insurgents.

The logic, at least, is sound: It takes more than military success to defeat insurgents. Insurgency grows where a corrupt and weak government does not provide security, justice, and opportunity. Unless these underlying problems are resolved, the military can kill insurgents forever, and more will emerge. Insurgency is a symptom of deeper ills. The rub is that these deeper ills are not military, but political, economic, and social--things that armed forces are not prepared to fix...

There is consensus on the problem and general agreement on the solution, but absolutely no sense of how to make it happen. There is little chance that the United States will mobilize enough civilian capability to re-engineer backward states and keep it in the field during a protracted insurgency...

More at The New Republic. Also see the discussion at Small Wars Council.