An Afghanistan troop surge

The Times of London, not usually given to hyperbole, forecasts a looming showdown between President Obama and his generals over the size of the American military force needed in Afghanistan. (“Afghanistan troops surge: stakes for Obama could not be higher,” Times Online, September 28, 2009)

The upsurge in violence in Afghanistan certainly underscores the lack of effective governance in that country. Criteria in the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency manual suggest that at least 500,000 troops are necessary to quell the Afghanistan violence. The total of NATO and effective Afghan military forces falls far below half that number. From this perspective, the general are right: more troops are needed.

Furthermore, the generals are correct in their assessment that a withdrawal by the U.S. and its allies from Afghanistan will give the Taliban and al Qaeda a huge and potent public relations victory. A 1983 suicide truck bomber killed 241 U.S. military personnel, mostly Marines, at a barracks adjacent to the Beirut International Airport. The U.S. personnel were in Lebanon as part of an international peacekeeping force. President Reagan promptly withdrew U.S. forces from Lebanon following that attack, stating that the U.S. could not afford another such loss. Osama bin Laden often points to the U.S. withdrawal as an example of U.S. cowardice and a victory for his brand of Islam. If the peacekeeping force in Lebanon had an important, achievable mission, the U.S. force lacked a good defense and the nation lacked perseverance. Otherwise, establishing the peacekeeping force was a mistake, a policy without a defensible, realistic goal and President Reagan should have blunted bin Laden’s criticism by openly acknowledging and accepting responsibility for that mistake.

The generals, however, have too limited of a focus on immediate mission and an appropriate, although unhelpful, confidence in the ability of the U.S. military to achieve victory. Warfighters need to believe they can win. John Paul Jones’ valiant boast, “I have not yet begun to fight!” in the face of near-certain defeat turned the tide of that battle in his favor. Military leaders lacking unswerving confidence in their troops’ ability to prevail should not hold battlefield command. Political leaders and strategists removed from the battle zone must temper that confidence with informed, prudential judgment about prospects for victory. This tempering of warfighters’ confidence vitally supports warfighters by helping the warfighters to avoid situations in which victory is truly impossible.

Victory in Afghanistan is impossible, as I have previously argued in this blog. The U.S. does not even have a viable definition of victory for the conflict in Afghanistan. Generals who focus on today’s battle, today’s pacification project, without keeping the large challenges in focus will benefit from the strategic focus that political leaders bring to the table. Refusing to face the no-win reality of Afghanistan pushes closer toward a second Vietnam War, a true tragedy for all involved. Comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam are increasingly common in the media and blogosphere.

The correct question, given the impossibility of victory, is how the U.S. can make the best of a bad situation. Some negative consequences of the misguided decision to invade Afghanistan are unavoidable. Sooner or later, the U.S. will withdraw, the Taliban will attempt to reassert control, and al Qaeda will claim to have defeated the U.S. Allowing the death toll of Afghanis, Americans, and others to continue growing will only magnify those negative consequences. The enormous sums of U.S. government funds expended in Afghanistan will eventually fuel anger among American taxpayers (this is already growing) and resentment among the Afghanis who want the money but not the strings that inevitably come with it. Afghanis are fiercely proud, independent people who object to any foreign control.

Now is the time for conversation about how the U.S. and its allies can best withdraw and best achieve legitimate foreign policy goals.