Why Afghanistan Matters - Clifford D. May, Washington Times opinion.

Eight years ago this week, Osama bin Laden watched and then celebrated as a terrorist attack he had authorized brought down the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, slaughtering thousands of innocent Americans.

Bin Laden was, at that time, in Afghanistan, which was, at that time, ruled by the Taliban. Soon, US forces and their anti-Taliban Afghan allies would chase bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar across the border into the wild tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. From that base, they would organize an insurgency against US and NATO forces and a new Afghan government.

Conservatives are now divided over this conflict. The debate on the right is interesting but academic. Barack Obama - no conservative - is president. During his campaign for the White House, he blasted President Bush for diverting to Iraq resources needed for Afghanistan, the "good war," the war that, he emphasized, must be fought and won.

If Mr. Obama intends for this mission to succeed, he will have to return to this theme. He will have to use his not-inconsiderable powers of persuasion to make the case that Afghanistan is both worth winning and winnable. If he cannot bring himself to do that - with at least as much passion as he has put into the debate on health care - support for Afghanistan will collapse, and nothing pro-mission conservatives say, write or do will prevent it. Does history offer any precedent of an ambivalent commander in chief leading a nation to victory in war? ...

More at The Washington Times.

Hitting Bottom in Foggy Bottom - Matt Armstrong, Foreign Policy.

The State Department suffers from low morale, bottlenecks, and bureaucratic inepititude. Do we need to kill it to save it?

Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the US State Department.

Years of neglect and marginalization, as well as a dearth of long-term vision and strategic planning, have left the 19th-century institution hamstrung with fiefdoms and bureaucratic bottlenecks. The Pentagon now funds and controls a wide range of foreign-policy and diplomatic priorities - from development to public diplomacy and beyond. The world has changed, with everyone from politicians to talking heads to terrorists directly influencing global audiences. The most pressing issues are stateless: pandemics, recession, terrorism, poverty, proliferation, and conflict. But as report after report, investigation after investigation, has highlighted, the State Department is broken and paralyzed, unable to respond to the new 21st-century paradigm...

More at Foreign Policy.

Preparing to Lose the Information War? - Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner.

It has now been eight years since 9/11 and we finally seem to understand that in the modern struggles against terrorism, insurgency, and instability, the tools of public diplomacy are invaluable and essential. We live in a world where an individual with a camera phone can wield more influence than an F-22 stealth fighter jet. The capability of engaging public audiences has long been thought of as the domain of civilians. But for the past eight years, the functions, authorities, and funding for engaging global audiences, from anti-AIDS literature to soccer balls to development projects, has migrated from the State Department to the Defense Department. It seems whole forests have fallen over the same period on the need to enhance civilian agencies - be it the State Department or a new USIA-like entity - to provide a valid alternative to the Defense Department who most, even the detractors, agree was filling a void left by civilians who abrogated their responsibility for one reason or another.

This summer may be a turning point. Some in Congress have unilaterally decided that 2010 is the year America's public diplomacy will stop wearing combat boots. Sounds good, right? This is the future most, including analysts and the military, have wished for. The military has been the un—(if passionate once engaged) and often clumsy surrogate and partner for the State Department in representing the US and its interests in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world through what the House Armed Services Committee now calls "military public diplomacy." In some regions, State is almost wholly dependent on Defense money and resources to accomplish its mandate...

More at MountainRunner.

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

A U.S.-Gulf alliance against Iran?

On Sept. 4 U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates granted an interview to Al Jazeera. In the final segment of the interview Gates got a chance to deliver a message on Iran's nuclear program. He said:

I think there's a central question or a central point here to be made. And it has to do with both our friends and allies in the region, our Arab friends and allies, as well as the Iranian nuclear program. And that is, one of the pathways to getting the Iranians to change their approach, on the nuclear issue, is to persuade them that moving down that path will actually jeopardize their security, not enhance it.

And so the more that our Arab friends and allies can strengthen their security capabilities, the more they can strengthen their cooperation both with each other and with us, I think, sends the signal to the Iranians that this path that they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it.

And so that's one of the reasons why I think our relationship with these countries and our security cooperation with them is so important.

Gates realizes that there is a stalemate on the Iran nuclear problem, a stalemate that allows Iran to advance its nuclear program and eventually bring on line whichever options it wishes to pursue. For a variety of reasons, U.S. and European policymakers have been unable to achieve sufficient leverage to change Iranian policies. Targeted economic and financial sanctions against Iranian leaders and organizations have been too tepid or leaky to be persuasive. The Russian and Chinese governments have thus far blocked more wide-ranging sanctions. Subtle threats of military force by Israel or the United States have lacked credibility. The United States and Europe have been un—to impose economic measures that would abruptly harm the Iranian people. And these policymakers have been deterred by fears of violent Iranian retaliation.

In his remarks to Al Jazeera, Gates fished in the Persian Gulf for the leverage over Iran the United States has thus far lacked. If U.S. or Israeli military options lack credibility, perhaps, Gates is hoping, the prospect of an increasingly capable Sunni-Arab military alliance might provide the leverage necessary to change Iranian behavior.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently published a report on the Iran versus Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) strategic balance. According to the report, GCC air power dominates Iran's defensive and offensive air combat capabilities. On paper, Saudi Arabia and the other mostly Sunni-Arab states in the gulf could strip Iran of its air defenses and pummel Iran's military targets while defending against Iranian aerial counterattacks. According to CSIS, Iran's advantage in ballistic missiles would not be useful against GCC military targets but could terrorize population centers.

Yet as the CSIS report itself explains, the Gulf states, even after decades of Western assistance, need to do much more work on military doctrine, training, supporting infrastructure, sustainment, and cooperation with each other before the GCC will be a persuasive military force.

Gates is hoping that Gulf-state unity and effective U.S. security assistance to the GCC will persuade Iran to change course. The U.S. has had some success this decade with security assistance -- training constabulary foot soldiers. The confrontation with Iran would occur, or at least begin, in the aerospace realm. U.S. security assistance needs to be successful there, too.

Karzai has some thinking to do

U.S. foreign policy analysts are focused on what President Barack Obama intends to do about Afghanistan. But Obama isn't the only one with decisions to make. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan must also be pondering his options.

Whether it was his design or not, electoral fraud has marred the legitimacy of Karzai's likely reelection. This outcome is particularly regrettable since any other prospective winner would have been more destabilizing than Karzai. Having the support of many of Afghanistan's power brokers, Karzai was the most viable president. But the West will now have a hard time sustaining support for him.

Karzai is undoubtedly aware that political support for the Afghan effort is falling fast in Europe and the United States. A European call for an international conference on Afghanistan, to provide "new benchmarks and timelines," may be cover for a run to the exits.

The president must now prepare for what may come next. The West's presence in Afghanistan has been useful to Karzai. An enormous flow of money has benefitted many of his friends and perhaps Karzai personally. Western soldiers do much of the dirty work against his government's enemies. And the Western presence provides a foil for Karzai to demonstrate his nationalist credentials.

Karzai would surely miss much of what the United States and Europe are bringing to his country. Yet he must sense that their contribution no longer seems sustainable. Or at least he must begin planning for that possibility.

Should the West pull out, Karzai would need a new outside patron. Indian might be the most —prospect. Instead of taking on the NATO mission to stabilize Afghanistan, India's more modest goal would be to provide a distraction to Pakistan and to prevent Pakistan from gaining too much influence over Afghanistan. India might be able to achieve these limited objectives by providing funding to Afghan factions aligned with its goals.

India would never replace the largesse the West has injected into Afghanistan. But for Afghans who don't feel very secure and who have lost faith in NATO's counterinsurgency tactics, a new non-Western patron might be a welcome change. A new patron might mean new rules for Karzai and the factions that support him, such as the Sri Lankan Rules which seem to have decisively ended a long insurgency.

Is it too soon for Karzai to contemplate such drastic changes? This week, U.S. and British officials again pledged their unwavering support for the Afghan mission. But with the Afghan election turning into a mess, events could change rapidly. It is not too soon for Karzai to plan ahead.

Many of those advocating drawing down from Afghanistan argue that we have been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years, and if we haven't won the war by now, we never will. The reality is that the White House has only really dedicated the effort to win for just over eight weeks, not eight years. This a worthy cause. Only if we control the ground in Afghanistan can we hunt and kill Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The men and women who served on the ground in Afghanistan who have risked and often sacrificed their lives since the awful events of September 11th have been trying to win from the very beginning, but over time they were abandoned by a Bush administration more interested in taking the fight to Iraq. Now the Obama administration is trying to salvage America's War in Afghanistan, which we've been truly fighting for only eight weeks, after the Bush Administration basically lost the war over eight years.

The Obama administration is about to announce a major increase in our troop levels to Afghanistan. Voices on both the left and the right are emerging in opposition to our efforts to control the ground in Afghanistan so we can hunt and defeat al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. Many such opponents and supposedly impartial observers, from across the political spectrum (The Nation, George Will, and Time Magazine) have taken to calling the war in Afghanistan "Obama's War." They have laid the success or failure of the conflict at the feet of the eight-month-old Presidency of Barack Obama. This view misplaces the credit of how catastrophically the Bush administration failed in Afghanistan, and how much of a fully national effort will be required to turn this debacle around.

When the horrific remains of the World Trade Center were still smoldering and America's rage was still visceral, the entire country was ready and —to commit to total victory in Afghanistan. Instead, despite the absolute proof that this was the central front against al Qaeda and its ilk, Afghanistan was never a conservative priority. Even before we fully secured the entire country in December of 2001, resources were being diverted for Iraq. Senator John McCain's view as far back as 2003 was that we could simply "muddle through Afghanistan," because Iraq was what mattered.

The situation in Afghanistan is terrible right now, and we distinctly are not winning at the moment, but that does not mean that hope is lost and it does not mean that trying to win is not worth the effort and tragic sacrifices required. As a Marine veteran of Iraq who watched a comrade buried last week at Arlington who lost his life in Afghanistan, I am acutely aware of the price.

According to Admiral Mullen, the Taliban today is "much more capable and much more potent than it was back [in 2001]...and it is much broader than it was back then, and much deeper." The Taliban has learned to adapt to us and has become battle-hardened without being defeated. It was akin to taking one-twentieth of the prescribed medication for a terminal, yet curable virus. If you fully-resourced the cure, you'd be healed. Instead, the virus morphed, adapted and has become even more virulent, lethal and resistant to all forms of medication.

A couple of Army Rangers shockingly described to Admiral Mullen their respect for the Taliban's fighting capabilities, "They said it was like fighting the [United States] Marines. The Taliban were well trained, better organized, much tougher fighters than they'd been in the past." Despite the current dire situation, we must as an entire nation rededicate ourselves to the struggle. The forces we are trying to defeat have killed or wounded over 11,000 civilians in the United States and around the world over the past twelve years. They will continue to do so until we neutralize them.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration strategy effectively empowered and strengthened these extremists. For eight long years we haven't even tried to defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban. With President Obama at the helm, we've only begun to implement a strategy designed to succeed for a mere eight weeks. If we continue to give it our full attention over a two year period, we possibly can set the stage to defeat these extremists. But we have yet to even try. In the end, if President Obama pulls the rabbit out of the hat, it will be because he involved the full force of American military and civilian resources. Even then, it won't be "Obama's War". It is and will remain America's War.

Jonathan Morgenstein is Senior Policy Fellow, National Security Program, Third Way. This article is a cross-post with the Huffington Post. Jonathan will be joining the Small Wars Journal blog as a regular author.

A Miltary Review twofer on the military-media relationship:

The Military-Media Relationship: A Dysfunctional Marriage? - Thom Shanker, New York Times, and Major General Mark Hertling, U.S. Army.

In the information age, the first casualty of war is often trust—between those who fight the wars and those who report them. A general and a journalist express their ideas about truth, trust, and getting the story straight.

Fostering a Culture of Engagement - Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, U.S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel Shawn Stroud, U.S. Army, and Mr. Anton Menning.

In the contemporary media environment, the Army must move beyond "business as usual" to embrace a culture of engagement. This dynamic mediascape can be potentially chaotic, but it also offers opportunities.

Much more in the September - October 2009 edition of Military Review.

Ten years ago, the ideas about warfare expressed in General Krulak's email to George Will would have been merely disappointing. However, after eight years of war have we have learned many hard lessons at a very high price, and the ideas attributed to General Krulak are now incomprehensible.

General Krulak appears unsure as to whether al-Qaeda and the Taliban are our enemies, and whether the United States has an interest in preventing Taliban control of Afghanistan. Exactly eight years ago today, al-Qaeda operatives supported by the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan murdered 3,000 Americans on American soil. The answer to the general's question is yes - al-Qaeda and the Taliban are America's enemies.

General Krulak advocates the use of 'hunter-killer teams' backed by airpower governed by minimal rules of engagement to 'take out the bad guys.' This light footprint tactic has failed for the last eight years. Aircraft operating with few or no ground forces cannot distinguish between insurgents and innocent civilians. Minimal rules of engagement result in maximum civilian casualties, tacitly assisting our enemies as they seek sanctuary and support from civilian populations.

General Krulak misrepresents the manpower requirements necessary for success in Afghanistan. Most of the troops required to provide security for the Afghan people can and will come from the Afghans themselves. Indeed, the most important task for American military forces is to strengthen the capabilities of Afghan security forces to accomplish this task.

General Krulak speculates that the American people would not provide the resources necessary to prevail in Afghanistan. While every citizen is entitled to his or her opinion, it's not clear that General Krulak has any particular expertise in the area of domestic American political opinion.

What's more certain is that the American people and their elected representatives have provided virtually everything asked of them by our military leaders. If there are insufficient resources to prevail in Afghanistan, it is the responsibility of senior military officers and other leaders within the executive branch to ask for more. It is dismaying that a retired general officer would advocate abandoning the war in Afghanistan out of concern for its impact on military personnel or equipment. We must tailor our forces to meet the demands of our wars, rather than vice versa.

After eight years of war, we have learned some hard lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan, including:

* Al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates pose a serious threat to the security of the United States, our people and our allies

* Airpower and special operations forces are a necessary part of any counter-terrorism operation, but in and of themselves are insufficient to deny sanctuary to terrorist organizations.

* Developing host-nation security forces is an essential component of counterinsurgency operations. These forces are more credible, more enduring and more cost-effective than relying exclusively or primarily on U.S. forces.

* It is the responsibility of general officers to ask for the resources necessary to win our wars.

I respect General Krulak for his decades of service to our country. However, I was dismayed that any officer, active or retired, could still hold the views attributed to him on September 11, 2009.

General Charles Krulak, 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps, responds to "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan" - a Washington Post op-ed by George Will in this e-mail.

Here's the intro paragraph:

I would imagine that your article "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan" will result in some "incoming" on your Command Post. First and Foremost, let me say that I am in total agreement with your assessment. Simply put, no desired end state has ever been clearly articulated and no strategy formulated that would lead us to achieve even an ill defined end state.

General Krulak goes on to articulate several points concerning our efforts in Afghanistan.

More at General Krulak's e-mail to George Will.

Here is a collection of recent essays on China:

Evan Medeiros of RAND wrote a book-length report on China's international behavior. Medeiros concludes that China is a status quo power. According to Medeiros, China's leaders are focused on China's internal problems and development and are using China's increasing economic and diplomatic presence in the global community to improve China's domestic situation. Medeiros asserts that China does not seek to push the U.S. out of east Asia and that China does not foresee a conflict with a major power within a 15-20 year planning horizon. However, he believes China will resist actions the U.S. might take which would constrain China's options, especially in the Asian region.

Avery Goldstein of FPRI and the University of Pennsylvania discusses the ongoing struggle between the U.S. and China over China's military "transparency." U.S. military leaders can't reconcile China's stated benign intentions with China's high level of secrecy regarding its military doctrine and investment. China's military leaders, by contrast, are highly nervous about U.S. military intelligence collection capabilities. Goldstein believes that greater military diplomacy might bridge this gap, at least somewhat. Goldstein also discusses popular nationalist pressure China's leaders must deal with and attempt to restrain.

John Lee of the Hudson Institute makes an interesting case why the U.S. will remain the preeminent Asia-Pacific power. Lee argues that (Guam excepted) the lack of actual U.S. territory for military bases in the western Pacific and east Asia works to America's benefit. According to Lee, the countries in the region that permit U.S. military operations from their soil are comfortable doing so because they know they can terminate U.S. operations from their territory if they feared the U.S. was becoming too dangerous. Thus, U.S. territorial weakness in the region is actually a strength. It thus follows, Lee asserts, that these countries will favor U.S. military dominance and resist the same from China. Since China is in the region and always will be, the other countries can't throw China out as they could with the U.S. Their power over U.S. basing gives them a "balancing" lever over the U.S., something they cannot achieve with China. Thus, according to Lee, those countries that host U.S. military forces will continue to do so, especially when it balances Chinese power.

Another report from RAND calculated that China's ballistic and cruise missile inventories have become so large that China's missile and air forces now have the ability to sweep away Taiwan's air force and air defenses. However, the report also asserts that Taiwan could still defend itself from a Chinese amphibious assault through the employment of land-based anti-ship cruise missiles, sea mines, anti-tank missiles, and indirect fire. Based on RAND's conclusions, one can question whether Taiwan should invest any more in high-end conventional platforms such as fixed wing aircraft (the report also calls into question what role there would be for USAF or USMC tactical air power in a conflict with China). In the future Taiwan may need to invest in its own hardened ballistic missile force and purely irregular warfare capabilities for its ground forces. In addition, what do the report's conclusions on amphibious assaults indicate for USN/USMC investments in amphibious warfare?

Finally, I will link to this post I wrote in July citing David Finkelstein's study of China's grand strategy.

Worst Case Unfolding in Afghanistan? - Greg Grant, DoD Buzz.

What if the entire US strategy in Afghanistan is based on a flawed premise? A counterinsurgency campaign is waged to defeat insurgents who are trying to supplant a central government with some version of their own. In Afghanistan, the US military has been trying to defeat a largely Pashtun insurgency that doesn't care much for our man in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai.

That goal never appeared easy; the Pashtun are an extremely war like bunch and they don't like foreign armies on their soil either. Now things have gotten even worse as the insurgency has spread far beyond the Pashtun community, driven in large measure by the illegitimacy of the Karzai regime. It was hoped that national elections would serve to unify the country. Widespread accusations of voter fraud have dashed those hopes.

Last month, speaking at the US Institute of Peace, Tuft University's Andrew Wilder, who has spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan, said the "fundamental flaw" in the US counterinsurgency strategy there was trying to extend the reach of the central government when the local people view the central government as the number one cause of insecurity...

More at DoD Buzz.