The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Winners - General Odierno, the West Point social science and history departments, President Bush, AEI and Jack Keane, the U.S. Army, and the foreigners (Skye, Kilcullen and Othman).

Losers - The general officer corps and Colonel Gian Gentile.

Curious Omissions - Brigade commanders, the National Security Council and the new media.

Much more at Abu Muqawama.

We have learned, after seven years of war, that trust is the coin of the realm -- that building it takes time, losing it takes mere seconds, and maintaining it may be our most important and most difficult objective.

That's why images of prisoner maltreatment at Abu Ghraib still serve as recruiting tools for al-Qaeda. And it's why each civilian casualty for which we are even remotely responsible sets back our efforts to gain the confidence of the Afghan people months, if not years.

Going the Distance. The war in Afghanistan isn't doomed. We just need to rethink the insurgency. By Seth G. Jones.

Afghanistan has a reputation as a graveyard of empires, based as much on lore as on reality. This reputation has contributed to a growing pessimism that U.S. and NATO forces will fare no better there than did the Soviet and British armies, or even their predecessors reaching back to Alexander the Great. The gloom was only stoked by last week's brazen suicide attacks in Kabul on the eve of a visit by Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Not Even the Afghans Know How to Fix It. By Edward P. Joseph.

At the Jihad Museum in Herat, the ancient Afghan city not far from the Iranian border, the main attraction was just about ready: a 360-degree diorama showing mujaheddin being slaughtered by, and then slaughtering, the Soviet invaders of the 1980s.

I recently visited the exhibit during a seven-week mission to evaluate a U.S. program assisting local governments in Afghanistan. On our way out of the museum, we bumped into a prominent mujahed fighter and his entourage. When an American in our group told him that the United States would never forget the Afghan fighters' struggle against the Soviets, he smiled and nodded proudly. "And we also can never forget your fight against the Taliban now," the American added. With that, the mujahed's smile vanished -- and so did he, with all his people, after an awkward goodbye.

The war in Iraq isn't over. The main events may not even have happened yet. By Tom Ricks.

... I don't think the Iraq war is over, and I worry that there is more to come than any of us suspect.

A smaller but long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq is probably the best we can hope for. The thought of having small numbers of U.S. troops dying for years to come in the country's deserts and palm groves isn't appealing, but it appears to be better than either being ejected or pulling out -- and letting the genocidal chips fall where they may.

Almost every American official I interviewed in Iraq over the past three years agreed. "This is not a campaign that can be won in one or two years," said Col. Peter Mansoor, who was Gen. David H. Petraeus's executive officer during much of the latter's tour in Iraq. "The United States has got to be —to underwrite this effort for many, many years to come. I can't put it in any brighter colors than that." ...

... I don't think the Iraq war is over, and I worry that there is more to come than any of us suspect.

A smaller but long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq is probably the best we can hope for. The thought of having small numbers of U.S. troops dying for years to come in the country's deserts and palm groves isn't appealing, but it appears to be better than either being ejected or pulling out -- and letting the genocidal chips fall where they may.

Almost every American official I interviewed in Iraq over the past three years agreed. "This is not a campaign that can be won in one or two years," said Col. Peter Mansoor, who was Gen. David H. Petraeus's executive officer during much of the latter's tour in Iraq. "The United States has got to be —to underwrite this effort for many, many years to come. I can't put it in any brighter colors than that." ...

More at The Washington Post.

By John J. Kruzel

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2009 -- The U.S. military boasts dominant nuclear and conventional capabilities, but must improve its capacity to fight irregular wars, NATO's supreme allied commander for transformation said yesterday.

Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, who also serves as the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, said the United States has lost some of its nuclear and conventional war edge in recent years, but remains superior on these fronts.

"We are not superior in irregular warfare," he said in a speech at the Foreign Policy Research Institute here. "And that's what we've got to be."

Mattis discussed the need for the U.S. military to transform to a "hybrid" force that expands its nonconventional means without sacrificing classic warfighting competence.

Broadly defined, irregular warfare refers to conflict with an enemy that does not organize itself as a traditional military. As in the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, this type of fighting entails stealthy attacks such as roadside bombings and ambushes, instead of direct military-to-military engagement.

In calculating how to establish greater balance among the two types of warfare, the general said, he noticed a common thread among past armies that morphed to meet a new set of challenges.

"Every military that transformed, that changed, that modernized, did so on the basis of one thing," he said. "They identified a problem and solved it."

These historical precedents are relevant today because the fundamental nature of war is unchanging, he added.

"If I was to sum up everything I've learned in 35 years of wearing this uniform, I'd do it with three words: improvise, improvise, improvise. And the more we anticipate, the more we try to get it right ahead of time, the less we have to improvise in combat," he said.

To help quantify problems the military may face over the next quarter century, officials developed the idea of the Joint Operating Environment. This conceptual battlefield takes into account potential threats born out of competition for resources, economics, increased urbanization and the possibility of nonstate actors obtaining more deadly weapons.

Joint Forces Command released its findings in December in a report called Joint Operating Environment 2008. A follow-on document, known as the Capstone Concept, created with approval from Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will guide how U.S. joint forces are implemented.

"Today's challenges and threats are not strictly military in nature, solved or countered by military means alone," Mullen said last month. "We owe future generations a longer-term view of security. The concept is designed to help military and other national security leaders think about challenges and opportunities."

Mattis said one certainty is that the United States will fight 21st century war among "hybrid conditions" and emphasized the need to maintain focus on the mixed-type of warfare and to make irregular war a core competency.

"If we don't set up some kind of magnet to pull the [Defense] Department out of its good old 'mano-a-mano' conventional war focus, then we won't shift the budgeting, we won't shift the focus over where it has to go," he said. "Really, we're going to have to be able to fight hybrid enemies."

One result of that failure to be deployed as a result of deferring to process as a forestalling tactic was an unintended consequence of little desired Congressional involvement. As I recall, the Defense Appropriation Acts of 1992 and 1993 dedicated 5,000 experienced Active Component soldiers. All captains had to be branch qualified and all NCOs, mostly SSG and above and had to have recent troop experience.

At the time those structures came into being, I was working in a large headquarters and happened to be in the Commanding General's Office when he telephonically questioned a Senate staff member of his acquaintance as to why Congress had passed a rather convoluted law that led to the establishment of the Advisory 'Brigades.' The response was to the effect that Congress wished to ensure that in future wars The Army National Guard Brigades were deployed. The General's response to the Staff person was "Well, you haven't done that. There's no assurance as I read this law that will happen and what you have done is create a bureaucratic nightmare that will waste Active Component Spaces and is likely to be a detriment to the Reserve Components..." or words to that effect.

Thus, a lack of clarity of purpose and a concentration on process and minutia by Congress led to an unintended consequence of massive effort, disruption and cost that accomplished little. Fortunately, after some turmoil and unnecessary costs, that failure was recognized and rectified and today's Training Support Brigades comprised of soldiers from all components resulted in a far better structure.

Regrettably, the other failure cited in that Post has not been rectified. That is the Army Training System using Tasks, Conditions and Standards as the principal individual and unit training methodologies. As Colonel Jones stated in the above linked Post, "...Failure of an essential task is to fail the entire larger task. So any AC army unit (if ever held to evaluation) would have say 2 of 40 subtasks that they must do correctly to pass." That was held to be true at the time; later it was realized that sub task failure need not cause a major task failure but interpretation is still seen as problematic by some.

The process says that we train to standard, and is an effort to provide objectivity by defining 'tasks' down to a pass / fail grade for an easily identified discrete element that may be a task or a sub task or simply an enabling skill with multi-task applicability. What is lost in this is the fact that effective training evaluation most often has to be subjective particularly as numerous sub tasks are frequently combined as they must be in combat. As often, omission of one or more tasks -- or the addition of some not normally included -- may have no effect on mission (or primary task) accomplishment.

There has been recognition that Conditions can vary widely. "Enter and Clear a building" is a task. "Given a structure with a defending enemy element" is the condition, "Enter and clear the building with minimal exposure to enemy fire" is the standard. Whether the unit involved is to clear a two room mud hut, a 20 room mansion, a strip shopping center, nine story office building or the Mall of America can result in significant differences in execution and outcome. It was assumed the evaluator would suitably modify the conditions based on the unit's capabilities and facilities available, but this all too frequently did and does not happen, thus further reinforcing a one size fits all mentality.

The system has admittedly been refined over the years and it now recognizes that many of the early identified 'Tasks' are in fact sub tasks or enabling skills or abilities; that most tasks are performed in conjunction with other tasks and thus that task integration itself becomes a 'Task.' The new FM 7.0 and FM 7.1 continue the process of fixing the process and are great improvements over their predecessors. However, the underlying architecture remains an insidious problem in spite of much improvement.

Improvement is not rectification. The process still forces the Trainer to concentrate on the minimums and lower order efforts. It creates a product that can perform a number of tasks to standard but who or which still may not be able to function effectively in combat.

That we have been as well trained as we actually have been over the past 30 years is testimony to the fact that good trainers have overcome a flawed system. Both yesterdays and today's leaders and trainers deserve a great deal of credit for that. However, the process itself is terribly flawed, is based on 1960s educational technology and was specifically developed to cope with the far lower enlistment and accession standards of 1975, a much trumpeted 'fifth grade reading level.' That old process has some merit for the training of a large conscript Army upon mobilization. We are not now such an Army and are unlikely to be one for many years -- and adequate warning is almost certainly going to be available in event such effort becomes necessary.

Today's accession population is vastly different and far better educated. A very poor 'system' is still being used in spite of major changes in the trained population, in doctrine and in the availability of far more current techniques.

Thus an unintended consequence of adoption of what was at the time recognized by some as a flawed training process is that it further succumbed to bureaucratic inertia and is now hostage to the real -- but manageable -- cost of changing embedded infrastructure including publications and documentation.

These are but three cases of unintended consequences that have had an adverse impact on the Army; a decision to stall Congress, a statute that intended to do something it did not do and adoption of a training process that actually stifles learning, adaptation, innovation and the all critical initiative -- necessities for combat success. All three examples show that reliance on process as opposed to establishing goals or outcomes is terribly flawed -- yet we continue to fret over process...

Fortunately, the law has been changed slightly and the current process is an improvement. Cosmetic changes have been made to the training system and provide some improvement; far better, we are realizing the benefits of Outcome Based Training and we can hopefully we can consign the Task, Conditions and Standard process to the dumpster. The issue should be mission accomplishment ability. Excessive dictation of how to get there is stifling, removes necessary challenges from the purview of subordinate leaders, unnecessarily burdens senior commanders and forces them to interfere with their subordinates to the point of distraction for both. More damaging, we are not inclined to trust our subordinates because we know they are not fully trained. Why do we accept that?

All the foregoing is summed up, I think in this quote from an interview with the author of "The Echo of Battle: the Army's Way of War", Professor Brian McAllister Linn at Bellum, A Stanford Review Blog:

"A final word. The Army is unlikely to win a particular war, much less all wars, unless it starts thinking a lot more seriously about war and a little less about process and procedure."

... For now, Nagl is acting president, a CNAS officer told The Cable, saying the think tank plans to roll out more detailed plans soon, including the addition of a "big strategic thinker" to guide its policy initiatives. "We will continue to be the leading national security think tank in the U.S.," he said...

Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl, authors of The Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition, appeared on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show and The Gamble author and Best Defense blogger Tom Ricks on The Daily Show below:

Well, good morning to you all. And thanks to Chairman Ischinger and his team. It's an honor to be with you -- and it's great to be on the stage with my new diplomatic partner, AMB Richard Holbrook. You know, it's every Commander's dream to have an ambassadorial wingman who is described by journalists with nicknames like "The Bulldozer." PAUSE. In all seriousness, I want to publicly salute this gifted, selfless diplomat for taking on his new position, an appointment that conveys how significant the focus in the United States is on Afghanistan and Pakistan and on the South and Central Asia region more broadly.

This morning's topic is Afghanistan, which Secretary of Defense Gates recently described to the US Congress as posing "our greatest military challenge right now." As he noted, our fundamental objective in Afghanistan is to ensure that transnational terrorists are not able to reestablish the sanctuaries they enjoyed prior to 9/11. It was to eliminate such sanctuaries that we took action in Afghanistan in 2001. And preventing their reestablishment remains an imperative today -- noting, to be sure, that achievement of that objective inevitably requires accomplishment of other interrelated tasks as well. And, [as has been explained,] President Obama has directed a strategy review that will sharpen the clarity of those tasks.

Afghanistan has been a very tough endeavor. Certainly, there have been important achievements there over the past seven years -- agreement on a constitution, elections, and establishment of a government; increased access to education, health care, media, and telecommunications; construction of a significant number of infrastructure projects; development of the Afghan National Army; and others.

But in recent years the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda has led to an increase in violence, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Numerous other challenges have emerged as well, among them: difficulties in the development of governmental institutions that achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people; corruption; expansion -- until last year -- of poppy production and the illegal narcotics industry; and difficulties in the establishment of the Afghan police.

In fact, there has been nothing easy about Afghanistan. And, as Senator Lieberman observed in a recent speech to the Brookings Institution, "Reversing Afghanistan's slide into insecurity will not come quickly, easily, or cheaply." Similarly, Secretary Gates told Congress, "This will undoubtedly be a long and difficult fight." I agree. In fact, I think it is important to be clear eyed about the challenges that lie ahead, while also remembering the importance of our objectives in Afghanistan and the importance of the opportunity that exists if we all intensify our efforts and work together to achieve those objectives.

Many observers have noted that there are no purely military solutions in Afghanistan. That is correct. Nonetheless, military action, while not sufficient by itself, is absolutely necessary, for security provides the essential foundation for the achievement of progress in all the other so-called lines of operation -- recognizing, of course, that progress in other areas made possible by security improvements typically contributes to further progress in the security arena -- creating an upward spiral in which improvements in one area reinforce progress in another.

Arresting and then reversing the downward spiral in security in Afghanistan thus will require not just additional military forces, but also more civilian contributions, greater unity of effort between civilian and military elements and with our Afghan partners, and a comprehensive approach, as well as sustained commitment and a strategy that addresses the situations in neighboring countries.

This morning, I'd like to describe in very general terms the resource requirements that are under discussion in Washington and various other national capitals. Then I'll describe briefly a few of the ideas that helped us in Iraq and that, properly adapted for Afghanistan, can help guide GEN McKiernan and ISAF.

THE NEED FOR MORE FORCES, ENABLERS, AND TRAINERS

In recent months, our President and many others have highlighted the need for additional forces in Afghanistan to reverse the downward spiral in security, help Afghan forces provide security for the elections on August 20th, and enable progress in the tasks essential to achievement of our objectives. Indeed, as has been announced in recent months, more US forces are entering operations in as part of ISAF in Afghanistan now, more have been ordered to deploy, and the deployment of others is under consideration. Beyond that, the number of Afghan soldiers to be trained and equipped has been increased, and many of the other troop contributing nations will deploy additional forces, as well, with a number of commitments under discussion. And I would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine what forces and other contributions they can provide as ISAF intensifies its efforts in preparation for the elections in August.

It is, of course not just additional combat forces that are required. ISAF also needs more so-called enablers to support the effort in Afghanistan -- more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms and the connectivity to exploit the capabilities they bring; more military police, engineers, and logistics elements; additional special operations forces and civil affairs units; more lift and attack helicopters and fixed wing aircraft; additional air medevac assets; increases in information operations capabilities; and so on. Also required are more Embedded Training Teams, Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams, and Police Mentoring Teams, all elements that are essential to building capable Afghan National Security Forces. And I applaud the German Defense Minister's announcement of additional police and army training teams this morning. As with combat forces, some additional enabler elements are already flowing to Afghanistan, commitments have been made to provide others, and others are under discussion as well.

As Senator Lieberman highlighted in his Brookings speech, a surge in civilian capacity is needed to match the increase in military forces in order to field adequate numbers of provincial reconstruction teams and other civilian elements -- teams and personnel that are essential to help our Afghan partners expand their capabilities in key governmental areas, to support basic economic development, and to assist in the development of various important aspects of the rule of law, including initiatives to support the development of police and various judicial initiatives.

It is also essential, of course, that sufficient financial resources be provided for the effort in Afghanistan. It is hugely important that nations deliver on pledges of economic development assistance, that the Afghan National Army and Law and Order Trust Funds be fully financed, that support be maintained for the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, and that resources continue to be provided for the projects conducted by our military units and PRTs at local levels. And, I applaud the German Defense Minister's announcement of additional development aid this morning, too.

Of course, just more troops, civilians, dollars and Euros won't be enough. As students of history, we're keenly aware that Afghanistan has, over the years, been known as the graveyard of empires. It is, after all, a country that has never taken kindly to outsiders bent on conquering it. We cannot take that history lightly. And our awareness of it should caution us to recognize that, while additional forces are essential, their effectiveness will depend on how they are employed, as that, in turn, will determine how they are seen by the Afghan population.

COUNTERINSURGENCY FOR AFGHANISTAN

What I'd like to discuss next, then, are some of the concepts that our commanders have in mind as plans are refined to employ additional forces. I base this on discussions with GEN McKiernan and others who have served in Afghanistan, as well as on lessons learned in recent years. I do so with awareness that a number of the elements on the ground are operating along the lines of these ideas -- and that their ability to do so will be enhanced by the increased density on the ground of ISAF and Afghan forces as additional elements deploy to the most challenging areas. Counterinsurgency operations are, after all, troop intensive. Finally, I want to underscore the fact that commanders on the ground will, as always, operationalize the so-called big ideas in ways that are appropriate for their specific situations on the ground. So here are some of those ideas:

First and foremost, our forces and those of our Afghan partners have to strive to secure and serve the population. We have to recognize that the Afghan people are the decisive "terrain." And together with our Afghan partners, we have to work to provide the people security, to give them respect, to gain their support, and to facilitate the provision of basic services, the development of the Afghan Security Forces in the area, the promotion of local economic development, and the establishment of governance that includes links to the traditional leaders in society and is viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the people.

Securing and serving the people requires that our forces be good neighbors. While it may be less culturally acceptable to live among the people in certain parts of Afghanistan than it was in Iraq, it is necessary to locate Afghan and ISAF forces where they can establish a persistent security presence. You can't commute to work in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Positioning outposts and patrol bases, then, requires careful thought, consultation with local leaders, and the establishment of good local relationships to be effective.

Positioning near those we and our Afghan partners are helping to secure also enables us to understand the neighborhood. A nuanced appreciation of the local situation is essential. Leaders and troopers have to understand the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history, and how systems are supposed to work and do work. This requires listening and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, and farmers and shopkeepers -- and it also requires, of course, many cups of tea.

It is also essential that we achieve unity of effort, that we coordinate and synchronize the actions of all ISAF and Afghan forces -- and those of our Pakistani partners across the border -- and that we do the same with the actions of our embassy and international partners, our Afghan counterparts, local governmental leaders, and international and non-governmental organizations. Working to a common purpose is essential in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations.

We also, in support of and in coordination with our Afghan partners, need to help promote local reconciliation, although this has to be done very carefully and in accordance with the principles established in the Afghan Constitution. In concert with and in support of our Afghan partners, we need to identify and separate the "irreconcilables" from the "reconcilables, striving to create the conditions that can make the reconcilables part of the solution, even as we kill, capture, or drive out the irreconcilables. In fact, programs already exist in this area and careful application of them will be essential in the effort to fracture and break off elements of the insurgency in order to get various groups to put down their weapons and support the legitimate constitution of Afghanistan.

Having said that, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly and tenaciously. True irreconcilables, again, must be killed, captured, or driven out of the area. And we cannot shrink from that any more than we can shrink from being —to support Afghan reconciliation with those elements that show a willingness to reject the insurgents and help Afghan and ISAF forces.

To ensure that the gains achieved endure, ISAF and Afghan forces have to hold areas that have been cleared. Once we fight to clear and secure an area, we must ensure that it is retained. The people -- and local security forces -- need to know that we will not abandon them. Additionally, we should look for ways to give local citizens a stake in the success of the local security effort and in the success of the new Afghanistan more broadly as well. To this end, a reformed, capable Afghan National Police force -- with the necessary support from the international community and the alliance -- is imperative to ensuring the ability to protect the population. And the new Afghan Population Protection Program announced by MOI Atmar holds considerable promise and deserves our support as well.

On a related note, to help increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government, we need to help our Afghan partners give the people a reason to support the government and their local authorities. This includes helping enable Afghan solutions to Afghan problems. And on a related note, given the importance of Afghan solutions and governance being viewed as legitimate by the people and in view of allegations of corruption, such efforts likely should feature support for what might be called an "Afghan accountability offensive" as well. That will be an important effort.

In all that we do as we perform various missions, we need to live our values. While our forces should not hesitate to engage and destroy an enemy, our troopers must also stay true to the values we hold dear. This is, after all, an important element that distinguishes us from the enemy, and it manifests itself in many ways, including making determined efforts to reduce to the absolute minimum civilian casualties -- an effort furthered significantly by the tactical direction and partnering initiatives developed by GEN McKiernan with our Afghan counterparts.

We also must strive to be first with the truth. We need to beat the insurgents and extremists to the headlines and to pre-empt rumors. We can do that by getting accurate information to the chain of command, to our Afghan partners, and to the press as soon as is possible. Integrity is critical to this fight. Thus, when situations are bad, we should freely acknowledge that fact and avoid temptations to spin. Rather, we should describe the setbacks and failures we suffer and then state what we've learned from them and how we'll adjust to reduce the chances of similar events in the future.

Finally, we always must strive to learn and adapt. The situation in Afghanistan has changed significantly in the past several years and it continues to evolve. This makes it incumbent on us to assess the situation continually and to adjust our plans, operations, and tactics as required. We should share good ideas and best practices, but we also should never forget that what works in an area today may not work there tomorrow, and that what works in one area may not work in another.

IT WILL GET HARDER BEFORE IT GETS EASIER

In conclusion, allow me to reiterate the key points I've sought to make. We have a hugely important interest in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for trans-national terrorists. Achieving that core objective, in turn, requires the accomplishment of several other significant tasks. Although there have been impressive achievements in Afghanistan since 2001, the security situation has deteriorated markedly in certain areas in the past two years. Reversing that trend is necessary to improve security for the population, to permit the conduct of free and fair elections in August, and to enable progress in other important areas. Achieving security improvements will require more ISAF and Afghan security forces of all types -- combat, combat support, logistics, trainers and advisors, special operations, and so on. Some additional forces are already deploying, further increases have been ordered or pledged, and more are under discussion. To be effective, the additional military forces will need to be employed in accordance with counterinsurgency concepts applied by leaders who have a nuanced understanding of their areas of operation. And to complement and capitalize on the increased military resources, more civilian assets, adequate financial resources, close civil-military cooperation, and a comprehensive approach that encompasses regional states will be necessary. None of this will be easy. Indeed, as Vice President Biden observed recently, Afghanistan likely will get harder before it gets easier. And sustained progress will require sustained commitment. But, again, our objectives are of enormous importance, a significant opportunity is at hand, and we all need to summon the will and the resources necessary to make the most of it. Thank you very much.

In an address, on 29 January, to the Brookings Institution, Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) outlined a comprehensive civil-military campaign with five major elements to defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan.

Below are excerpts and the full text of the speech as prepared for delivery:

"There is no question, we all need to be realists when it comes to Afghanistan, both about our objectives and about the limits of our power. But we should not and cannot take any false comfort from declaring 'modest expectations' for Afghanistan."

"We all agree, our foremost interest in Afghanistan is preventing that country from becoming a terrorist safe haven. But the only realistic way to prevent that from happening is through the emergence of a stable and legitimate political order in Afghanistan, backed by capable indigenous security forces—and neither of those realities is going to materialize without a significant and sustained American commitment. This will be difficult, but it is absolutely necessary."

"...As General David Petraeus put it two years ago about another battlefield: 'hard is not hopeless.' In my remarks today, I want to speak, first, about why—despite the missteps and difficulties in Afghanistan—I am still confident we can turn the tide there; second, about how we can do so; and third, about why I believe we must do so."

"...the decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan this year is both right and important. As the Bush administration learned the hard way in Iraq, counterinsurgency is manpower-intensive. Our military coalition is undermanned and overstretched in Afghanistan today."

"However, as we also learned in Iraq, successful counterinsurgency requires more than a heavy military footprint. In fact, our allied coalition has already doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan over the last two years. But at the same time, security has worsened."

"That is why we must match the coming surge in troop strength in Afghanistan with at least five other surges that are equally important."

"First, we need a surge in the strategic coherence of our war effort. The problem in Afghanistan today is not only that we have devoted too few resources, but that the resources we have devoted are being applied incoherently."

"In contrast to Iraq, where General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came together two years ago to develop a nationwide civil-military campaign plan to defeat the insurgency, there is still no such integrated nationwide counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan. This is an unacceptable failure. It is also the predictable consequence of a fragmented military command structure under NATO, an even more incoherent civilian effort, and no unified leadership between the two. This is no way to run a counterinsurgency."

"Second, we must insist that any military surge in Afghanistan is matched by a surge in civilian capacity."

"Third, as the United States steps up its commitments in Afghanistan, it is equally critical that we help the Afghans surge with us."

"Fourth, as many have observed, we cannot deal with Afghanistan in a vacuum. That is why we also need a surge in our regional strategy."

"Fifth and perhaps most importantly, success in Afghanistan requires a sustained, realistic political and public commitment to this mission here at home."

"...there are already voices on both the left and the right murmuring the word 'quagmire.'"

"They say Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, that we should abandon any hope of nation-building there, and that President Obama should rethink his pledge to deploy additional forces."

"Why, then, is this wrong? Why should we send tens of thousands of our loved ones to a remote country on the far side of the world?"

"The most direct answer is that Afghanistan is the frontline of the global ideological and military war we are waging with Islamist extremism. Afghanistan is where the attacks of 9/11 were plotted, where al Qaeda made its sanctuary under the Taliban, and where they will do so again if given the chance."

Turning the Tide in Afghanistan

An Address by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (ID-CT)

The Brookings Institution

January 29, 2009

Thank you so much, Strobe, for that kind introduction. It is a pleasure to be back at the Brookings Institution, which has flourished under your leadership. Thank you also, Michael O'Hanlon, for moderating this afternoon's discussion, and for the discerning and thoughtful scholarship you have contributed to so many of our critical national debates.

Nine days ago, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, at a moment in history when our country faces unprecedented economic problems. But the world will not allow our new President or our country to concentrate solely on our domestic challenges, critical as they are. As the President said recently, we remain a nation at war, with multiple simultaneous crises confronting us abroad.

One of the most important challenges the Obama administration has inherited is Afghanistan, where every year, for several years, the security situation has worsened. The insurgents have grown in strength, size, and sophistication, and have expanded their influence over an increasing swath of territory, including provinces on the outskirts of Kabul that were until recently secure.

I visited Afghanistan twice last year, in January and again last month. During one of those visits, an official of our military coalition there tried to reassure me that, whenever the Taliban stands and fights, we defeat them. This may be true.

But as students of counterinsurgency know, it is also insufficient. The center of gravity of the fight in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, is not our ability to kill insurgents on the battlefield, but to provide sustained security for the population. By that measure, today, we are failing in Afghanistan.

Reversing Afghanistan's slide into insecurity will not come quickly, easily, or cheaply. On the contrary, conditions are likely to get worse before they get better, and the path ahead will be long, costly, and hard.

But as General David Petraeus put it two years ago about another battlefield: "hard is not hopeless." In my remarks today, I want to speak, first, about why—despite the missteps and difficulties in Afghanistan—I am still confident we can turn the tide there; second, about how we can do so; and third, about why I believe we must do so.

Why We Can Win

Let me begin with a few reasons for my cautious confidence about our ability to ultimately prevail in this hard war.

The first is Iraq. Simply put, two years ago, we were losing there. Today, that situation has completely reversed. And although the gains we have achieved are not irreversible, and we need to be careful and responsible in the pace of our withdrawal, the success we have achieved in Iraq means that more forces will be available for Afghanistan—in particular, southern Afghanistan—and that our military will deploy from Iraq to Afghanistan with high morale, great experience, and real confidence.

Seven years ago, when we first went into Afghanistan, the American military was not built for the kind of fight we are in now. But through the crucible of war, it has transformed itself into the most capable counterinsurgency force in history. And although Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places, many of the same guiding principles and lessons of counterinsurgency do apply to both theaters—most importantly, the primary need to secure the civilian population.

Afghanistan itself is another reason for hope. There's no question that much about this country is very hard and very complex. It is large and remote, with limited infrastructure, harsh terrain, and some of the most extreme poverty in the world.

Yet despite its difficulty and complexity, we also have advantages in Afghanistan. Afghans are a proud people with a long history. Although their frustration with our coalition is growing, they are not eager to return to the tyranny and poverty of life under the Taliban. On the contrary, they want schools, medicine, roads, and other basic services, not to mention cell phones and music—all of which the Taliban try to deny them. That is why the insurgents have not won the support of the Afghan people—and why they have been forced to resort to the self-defeating tactics of cruelty and coercion.

In a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine, counterinsurgency experts Nate Fick and John Nagl put it well: "Afghans are not committed xenophobes, obsessed with driving out the coalition... Afghans are not tired of the Western presence; they are frustrated with Western incompetence."

In addition to the gulf between the Afghan people and the insurgents, there are also divisions among the insurgents themselves we can exploit. Some like Al Qaeda and many Taliban are committed extremists who will fight to the last suicide bombing, but others have taken up arms in Afghanistan for reasons that are far more opportunistic. And many will not hesitate to switch sides, if they conclude they are headed for defeat and can get a better deal by aligning themselves with the government and our coalition instead.

That, after all, is how most insurgencies end: not when every last insurgent is killed or captured, but when a critical mass comes to the conclusion they are not going to win, and that they'd be better off suing for peace.

A third reason for confidence about our prospects in Afghanistan is here in America, and in the new administration and Congress. President Obama has made very clear that this is a war he intends to win and he has moved swiftly to take command of it.

He has not wavered in his pledge to deploy more troops to the region, and last Thursday, on his second full day in office, traveled to the State Department to stand alongside Secretary Clinton as they announced the appointment of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

My advice to anyone who is hedging their bets in South Asia: the combination of Dick Holbrooke and Dave Petraeus, led by Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates, is not a team I would bet against.

Perhaps most important of all, seven years on, the war in Afghanistan—unlike the war in Iraq—continues to command bipartisan support in Congress and from a solid majority of the American people. These are considerable advantages.

How We Can Win

That, then, is the good news. The bad news is that—even if we do everything better in Afghanistan, and we are far from that point today—it is still going to be hard as hell to turn around.

Nor do we have the luxury of time. Afghanistan is slated to hold presidential elections later this year. The insurgents see the vote as a window of opportunity and will try to derail it, in the hope of discrediting the Afghan government and our coalition. We must prevent that from happening, and reverse this dynamic, so that the election instead becomes a breakthrough for improved security, development, and governance across the country.

That is one of several reasons why the decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan this year is both right and important. As the Bush administration learned the hard way in Iraq, counterinsurgency is manpower-intensive. Our military coalition is undermanned and overstretched in Afghanistan today.

However, as we also learned in Iraq, successful counterinsurgency requires more than a heavy military footprint. In fact, our allied coalition has already doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan over the last two years. But at the same time, security has worsened.

That is why we must match the coming surge in troop strength in Afghanistan with at least five other surges that are equally important to success.

A Surge in Strategic Coherence

First, we need a surge in the strategic coherence of our war effort.

The problem in Afghanistan today is not only that we have devoted too few resources, but that the resources we have devoted are being applied incoherently. In contrast to Iraq, where General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came together two years ago to develop a nationwide civil-military campaign plan to defeat the insurgency, there is still no such integrated nationwide counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan. This is an unacceptable failure.

It is also the predictable consequence of a fragmented military command structure under NATO, an even more incoherent civilian effort, and no unified leadership between the two. This is no way to run a counterinsurgency.

This serious problem, paradoxically, results from something good: the willingness of so many countries and organizations to contribute to this war effort. Many of our allies have fought bravely and nobly and to the very limit of their capacity in Afghanistan; we should be grateful for their sacrifices. We should also be grateful for the courage of the political leaders of our NATO allies who have contributed to Afghanistan despite the unpopularity of this war in their countries.

But we owe them and NATO more than our gratitude. We owe them success. And that, in turn, requires an integrated campaign plan. It is time for the United States to provide the stronger leadership necessary to ensure that we get one.

Ambassador Holbrooke's appointment as Special Representative is a big step in the right direction, and I know that both he and General Petraeus are very focused on the strategic incoherence of our war effort. Congress must also be a strong ally in this.

If we are to support the dispatch of tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan on a long term basis, it must be as part of a multifaceted nationwide campaign plan that we are confident will work. Indeed, it is unclear to me how we can justify sending 30,000 additional troops in the absence of a plan that can justify why this is the necessary number of forces to succeed.

A Civilian Surge

Second, we must insist that any military surge in Afghanistan is matched by a surge in civilian capacity. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul needs to be transformed and expanded, with the necessary resources and the explicit direction to work side-by-side with the military at every level. This should include co-locating the U.S. ambassador and the coalition commander in the same headquarters, as was the case until a few years ago.

Civilian capacity must also be ramped up outside our embassy—at the provincial, district, and village levels, embedding non-military experts among our troops as they move in. Provincial Reconstruction Teams need to be expanded in number, size, and sophistication, with seasoned experts pulled from across the U.S. government and the private sector.

As Ambassador Crocker can attest, getting the appropriate civilian talent from a recalcitrant federal bureaucracy for an unconventional and dangerous assignment is a difficult task. But it is absolutely critical to the success of any counterinsurgency campaign. In Afghanistan, it will require steadfast leadership, constant advocacy, and ruthless determination from top decision-makers in the Obama administration, and from Congress.

An Afghan Surge

Third, as the United States steps up its commitments in Afghanistan, it is equally important that we help the Afghans surge with us.

A year ago, I called for a major expansion in the size of the Afghan National Army. I am encouraged that this is now happening. But more is required.

We need to further expand the Afghan National Army, beyond the current goal of 134,000 troops, to at least 200,000 troops, and equip them well. We must also take a fresh look at how our forces partner with the other, more neglected branches of the Afghan National Security Forces, in particular the police and the internal intelligence service.

We must also take tough action to combat the pervasive corruption that is destroying the legitimacy of the Afghan government and fueling the insurgency. This requires more than threatening specific leaders on an ad hoc basis. Because the problem is systemic, it requires a systemic response.

We must roll back corruption by strengthening Afghan governance and development comprehensively—both from top-down and bottom-up. The truth is, in the last seven years, we have only invested in one Afghan state institution in a patient, resource-intensive, and system-wide way: the Afghan army.

And the ANA, as a consequence, is emerging as a capable, courageous, professional, multi-ethnic force. If we want other Afghan institutions to operate this way, we need to make similarly focused, long-term investments in them. If we can build an army of 200,000 that works, we should be able to build a civil service of 20,000 that also works.

To help develop Afghanistan's human capacity, we should also work with our allies to establish a major scholarship program to bring thousands of Afghans students and professionals to the United States and other coalition countries every year—much as we did with South Korea in the 1950s, when that country was still mired in poverty.

We also need to invest in proven Afghan-led programs that will complement our campaign plan at the local level. Rather than funding a parallel government in Kabul through foreign NGOs and contractors that buy up the best Afghan human talent and detract from the ability of the actual Afghan government to do its job, we should be supporting efforts like the National Solidarity Program, which empower Afghan communities by offering them grants to design and implement their own development projects.

And instead of putting forward these projects piecemeal, the United States should bundle them together in a large-scale, ten-year plan of assistance for governance and development. The Afghan government in return would need to accept tough, specific benchmarks on its performance and progress. It would be a policy of "more for more."

A Regional Surge

Fourth, as many have observed, we cannot deal with Afghanistan in a vacuum. That is why we also need a surge in our regional strategy.

Almost all of Afghanistan's neighbors are active in some way inside the country. Some of this is positive. For instance, it is a good thing when a foreign company invests in Afghanistan, or when a foreign government provides aid. But it is a very different matter when a neighboring state gives weapons to insurgents, or otherwise treats Afghanistan as a chessboard on which to pursue its geopolitical ambitions.

Part of the solution must be to "harden" Afghanistan against malign interference from outside by strengthening Afghan institutions at both the national and local levels so the country becomes less vulnerable to foreign interference.

The United States should also explore the possibility of signing a bilateral defense pact with Afghanistan that would include explicit security guarantees.

Some of Afghanistan's neighbors and some Afghans are hedging their bets because they fear what will happen "the day after" America grows tired and abandons the region, as we did once before. Nothing will put an end to that dangerous uncertainty better than a long-term American security commitment to Afghanistan.

A Political Surge

Fifth and perhaps most importantly, success in Afghanistan requires a sustained, realistic political and public commitment to this mission here at home.

This was brought home to me in December when I visited Forward Operating Base Bastion, which will become one of the major logistical hubs when American forces begin to flow into southern Afghanistan later this year. A great American officer I met there put in very blunt terms exactly what this meant.

"I asked you to come here," he told me, "because six months from now, American soldiers are going to be dying here, and I want you to understand why."

We have an urgent responsibility to prepare our public for this reality, and to make the public case why it is necessary. Before the casualties begin to rise, before the old patterns of partisanship return to Washington, this is a moment for all of us—Congress and the White House, Democrats and Republicans—to step forward and recommit ourselves publicly and unambiguously to this fight. There are many competing demands on our attention right now, but there are few more important to our future than this.

Why We Must Win

Indeed, there are already voices on both the left and the right murmuring the word "quagmire."

They say Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, that we should abandon any hope of nation-building there, and that President Obama should rethink his pledge to deploy additional forces.

Why, then, is this wrong? Why should we send tens of thousands of our loved ones to a remote country on the far side of the world?

The most direct answer is that Afghanistan is the frontline of the global ideological and military war we are waging with Islamist extremism. Afghanistan is where the attacks of 9/11 were plotted, where al Qaeda made its sanctuary under the Taliban, and where they will do so again if given the chance.

It is also because, although Afghanistan is remote, it is in the heart of a region in which we do have vital national security interests. Getting Afghanistan moving in the right direction will not solve every problem in South Asia, from the terrorist safe haven in the FATA to the threat of nuclear weapons slipping into the hands of terrorists. But our defeat there will make every problem there worse and harder to solve.

And finally it is because, in Afghanistan, we have the opportunity to strike a powerful blow to our terrorist enemies—both through our military power and through our good works.

There is no question, we all need to be realists when it comes to Afghanistan, both about our objectives and about the limits of our power. And I agree with Secretary Gates that we need to have "modest expectations" about the near term in Afghanistan. But we should not and cannot take any false comfort from these modest expectations, because the way ahead is still going to be extremely hard.

We all agree, our foremost interest in Afghanistan is preventing that country from becoming a terrorist safe haven. But the only realistic way to prevent that from happening is through the emergence of a stable and legitimate political order in Afghanistan, backed by capable indigenous security forces—and neither of those realities is going to materialize without a significant and sustained American commitment. This will not be easy, but it is absolutely necessary.

We should also acknowledge that, although we face many problems in Afghanistan today, none of them are because of the good things we have already helped Afghanistan achieve. None are because we have made it possible for five million Afghan children, boys and girls, to go to school, or because child mortality has dropped 25 percent since we overthrew the Taliban in 2001, or because Afghan men and women have been able to vote in their country's first free and fair elections in history.

On the contrary, the reason we have not lost in Afghanistan—despite our many missteps—is because America still inspires hope of a better life for millions of ordinary Afghans, and has already delivered it to so many. And the reason we can defeat the extremists is because they do not.

That, ultimately, is how I believe the war on terror will end—and it will end—not because we capture or kill Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar, though we must, but because we have empowered and expanded the mainstream Muslim majority to stand up and defeat the extremist minority.

That, then, is the real opportunity and objective that is ours to seize: to make Afghanistan into a quagmire—not for America, but for al Qaeda and its fellow extremists.

I thank you, and look forward to your questions.