Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?
There's a rapidly growing discussion here in the US about "what to do in Afghanistan." Some of it is thoughtful, well-informed, and serious. Like this piece by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in today's WaPo, which argues that the two best options look to be "Go all-in, or fold."
(Actually, that's only one choice, since the US citizenry and budget are quite incapable of doing what would be needed to "go all-in" in that very distant and logistically intimidating country.)
I note that one aspect of the way path forward that just about nobody in the US discourse has yet started talking/writing about is the idea, that I consider crucial, that it does not have to be, indeed should not be, the US that dominates all decisionmaking and international action regarding Afghanistan, going forward.
Members of the US commentatoriat are so US-centric! It still boggles my mind. I suppose that right now, this is still part of the legacy of the 1990s, when the US was the sole and uncontested Uber-power in the world...
Anyway, that caveat notwithstanding, Frank Rich had a fascinating piece in today's NYT in which he noted a new aspect of the strong relevance the Vietnam precedent has for the decisions Obama currently faces over Afghanistan.
Rich noted that George Stephanopoulos recently blogged that the latest "must-read book" for members of Obama's "war team" is Lessons in Disaster, a book published last year about a guy called McGeorge Bundy and "the path to war in Vietnam." Bundy was John Kennedy's national security adviser.
Underscoring the book's relevance, Rich notes that when it came out last year, no less a person than Richard Holbrooke, now Obama's chief emissary for Afghanistan and Pakistan, reviewed it (in late November) in the NYT.
Holbrooke's review is well worth reading. He gives some helpful info about the background to the writing of the book. He also refers to a much earlier essay he himself had written about Bundy that he had titled, ""The Smartest Man in the Room Is Not Always Right", noting that, having known Bundy a little bit, he had had him in mind when he wrote it.
Holbrooke concluded the review with this:
Bundy never believed in negotiations with the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese. This, coupled with his enduring faith in the value of military force in almost any terrain or circumstance, were his greatest errors. They contributed to a tragic failure. With the nation now about to inaugurate a new president committed to withdraw combat troops from Iraq and succeed in Afghanistan, the lessons of Vietnam are still relevant.
These two little insights into the mind of Richard Holbrooke belie an awareness of the limitations of being "the smartest man" and of the value of military force that I, for one, find a little reassuring.
Much of the current analogizing between the US in Vietnam and the US in Afghanistan focuses on the decisions Kennedy faced in 1961. Other commentaors have focused on decisions faced by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, in 1964.
Last week, I had a couple of good conversations with Dr Jeffrey Record, a very thoughtful guy who teaches at the US Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, who has written a lot of good studies of the big mistakes the Bush administration made in Iraq.
Record has also studied the US performance in Vietnam very closely. As we talked last week, he explored the 1964-2009 analogy a bit. He noted that in 1964, Johnson faced much the same kind of "big" decision Obama now faces-- whether to increase the US force commitment substantially, or find a way to ramp it down...
And like Obama today, Record said, Johnson was concerned both about trying to win some serious, big-picture reforms in domestic social policy and about the possibility of a political backlash inside the US if he should be seen as "backing down" from the confrontation in Vietnam.
In 1964, Johnson made the fateful decision to escalate. Rather than investing his domestic political capital in defending a decision to de-escalate in Vietnam, he invested it in pushing through a number of important "Great Society" social reforms at home, instead.
Later, the Vietnam part of that decision would come back to haunt him badly...
On balance, then, it seems good that Obama and his people are all reading what sounds to be an excellent study of the decisionmaking of those earlier years.
Read more at Just World News
Eight years ago the Americans went in there to get the guys who attacked us.
EIGHT YEARS AGO. WTF have we been doing all this time ?
What happened to that plan ?? Can we not 'find' the bad guys ?
Now people are openly saying the Americans should get out of there - simultaneously crying up a new war one country over.
The nonsense story about WMDs is being repeated verbatim to get us fired up to bomb Iran. De-emphasizing Afghanistan is part of that effort.
What the government tells the public is complete nonsense.
Do you, colleagues, believe any of the horse poop we are being told nowadays ?
September 28, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
One wonders why China, Russia and India which have sizable Muslim populations and close land linked proximity to the full array of Islamic fundamentalists movements from Afghanistan to Chechnya to Pakistan have no interest in joining the war in Afghanistan, while the United States pretends securing the land locked poor and corrupt country on the other side of the globe is a huge US national security issue.
September 28, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
India gains from a Northern Front in its proxy war with Pakistan.
China gains from keeping itself out of the war because as far as it's concerned, any publicity given to its ethnic/religious minorities and its western extremities is bad publicity.
Russia gains pleasure from watching the same nation that meticulously laid a trap for it decades ago- fall into the same trap itself.
As for terrorism, Afghanistan is better as a terrorist state geared to serve the purposes of the ISI and al-Qaeda than as another reason for these countries to hate Russia and China.
On the other hand, who gains, in the region, from seeing the Taliban eradicated?
September 28, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The President is clearly looking long and hard at his options, which is a far cry from the decisionmaking we endured the past 8 years.
September 28, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, where was Obama's "clear-looking" at "decision-making" over those eight years? Where were all the sudden experts on the Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy, now popping up like cloned mushrooms?
Democrats wanted to win in 2002, so when it looked like incredible stupidity on Iraq would win Republicans votes, Democrats practiced copy cat stupidity. Actually this was double stupidity on their part, because the Dems lost anyway.
One reason the Iraq fiasco was stupid is that by straining America's military deployment, international credibility, and attention span on foreign affairs to the breaking point, it doomed any chance of a Powell-doctrine-conforming clearly defined goal in and prompt exit from Afghanistan.
By 2006, being stupid was costing Republicans on Iraq, so they became less stupid. After much bluster, no clear-thinking, and no independent action despite their Congressional majority, Democrats again copy-catted the Repubs by supporting the "surge." No one of these win-at-all-cost fools bothered to think much about the implication that the Republicans might well "win" their "war" in Iraq, while kicking the Afghanistan mess on to the next administration (e.g. probably the Democrats).
During 2007-08 wanting still to win, and let common sense be damned, Democrats ignored the growing mess in Afghanistan. Having stupidly assumed in 2002 that the quick liberation of Kabul could be replicated by a cakewalk to the very different Baghdad, couldn't-care-less Republicans and muddle-headed Democrats again stupidly assumed that some kind of Iraq like "surge" could be readily applied to Afghanistan too.
Once upon a time America had a considerable number of leaders who gave a damn about being SMART and RIGHT, not just winning elections. Or at least gave a credible pretense of wanting to. We now need to find and elect more of those, particularly of the first and more endangered of these two species.
September 28, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's important for the public to play a dominant role in determining our foreign policy objectives, but it's equally important for experts in the realm of geopolitics and military strategy to play a guiding role in deciding how to achieve those goals, albeit within the realm of what the public would consider consistent with our basic principles. It's therefore hard to judge whether a strategy of troop increases or some alternative, more selective form of engagement in Afghanistan would be more effective. I don't think the "fold" strategy would be realistically considered, given the need to prvent a completely destabilized, Taliban-dominated Afghanistan from emerging that would provide potential access by Al Qaeda to Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
September 28, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
asking again, from D. Seaton's blog,
Time to pull back to the cities, let Karzai handle the Fundamentalist Ungovernable Hill Folk.
September 28, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those who haven't seen Bill Moyers Journal of 9.25.09 with Rory Stewart, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, go to http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09252009/profile.html for, IMO, the best analysis of where we are and the outcome of different scenarios. It's worth the read, or view the video.
September 28, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
What to do in Afghanistan?
General McChrystal recently provided an assessment which, we're told, relies heavily on the on-site assistance of people from US think tanks, people who make their living on the continuation of war, people who naturally recommended more war in Afghanistan. People like Stephen Biddle, who pondered the fact that we're in Afghanistan supposedly to attack al Qaeda, but General Petraeus has said that al Qaeda isn't in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda is present in a dozen other countries, yada yada, but what the heck, Biddle said, there are many factors on all sides, but "For me, this balance is a close call but ultimately favors the waging of war in Afghanistan."
http://www.cfr.org/publication/20220/
Hey, the waging of war is a violation of the UN Charter, the law of the land! What about that? It kills people, mostly women and children! What's this about a "close call"?
So the thinkers think, of course, that more war is the way to go. But, as Helena suggests, there are other people in the world, and there's history, and those who don't know it are doomed to repeat it.
One historical source I depend on, regarding Vietnam, is the "human computer", the man who was the principal conductor of the war, and the man who later said "We were wrong, terribly wrong."
Here are Robert S. McNamara's Eleven lessons from the Vietnam War (edited and re-phrased for brevity)
1. misjudged and exaggerated the dangers of adversaries
2. viewed others in term of our own experiences
3. underestimated the power on nationalism
4. our ignorance of history, culture and politics
5. too much faith in technology
6. military couldn't adapt to gaining trust with a different culture
7. no full domestic discussion of military involvement
8. no explanations were provided for course changes
9. too much American Exceptionalism
10. acted unilaterally, not internationally with military
11. belief that all problems have immediate solutions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
Now let's make this into a checklist, and see how we're doing.
1. Afghanistan -- a threat to the US?
2. Do we really expect to bring democracy to the Afghans?
3. Do we expect people to not fight for their country against foreigners?
etcetera. It's not difficult, anybody can do this. We DON"T NEED "security experts" to figure this stuff out for us. What we do need to do is work with others, and look at history, and then do the smart thing. But the US won't.
September 28, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now let's make this into a checklist, and see how we're doing.
1. Afghanistan -- a threat to the US?
2. Do we really expect to bring democracy to the Afghans?
3. Do we expect people to not fight for their country against foreigners?
1. An Afghanistan dominated by the Taliban is a serious threat to the U.S., because it would allow Al Qaeda to evade the so far successful efforts by the Pakistani's (with U.S. support) to put them on the run within Pakistan with no escape route. If they could safely encamp in Afghanistan, their ability to destabiize Pakistan and gain access to that country's nuclear weapons would be greatly enhanced. That is a danger to the U.S. of enormous proportions.
2. No. We expect to restore the balance among various tribes and factions that has characterized Afghanistan for centuries, and which the Taliban threaten to upset.
3. The "people" of Afghanistan in most instances hate the Taliban, but indigenous forces are not yet strong enough to prevent a Taliban takeover. Many Afghans are ambivalent about the NATO/U.S. presence. It's not so much that they resent "foreigners", but rather that they fear the dangers to innocents from the crossfire between our side and the insurgents. However, their desire to be free from Taliban oppression is very strong, and so the goal is to help Afghan forces accomplish this as soon as possible, at which point we can withdraw. That will probably require a few years, perhaps less, but whatever time it takes will be shortened if we pursue our current efforts both vigorously and wisely. Not being a military strategist, I'm not prepared to judge the wisdom of proposed troop increases, but if they are needed, they should be provided.
September 28, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You response on 3 of the 11 is a good example of how some people haven't studied history and so haven't learned anything from it.
You have misjudged and exaggerated the dangers of adversaries, viewed others in term of our own experiences and underestimated the power of nationalism.
1. Al-Qaeda is present in dozens of countries -- should the US invade Yemen and Pakistan, for two examples? Al-Qaeda's danger to the average American is statistically somewhere below lightning strikes and bathtub slips, and nothing compared to auto accidents, heart attacks and cancer. With satellites and drones there's nowhere the US military doesn't exercise control.
2.Restore the balance among various tribes in Afghanistan is surely a fools' errand. What do Americans know about Afghan tribes? What do you know about them?
3. The people may hate the Taliban but the fact is that the Taliban controls more and more of the cities and countryside, and the people have to go with who's in control. The US would have to provide 600,000 troops (COIN ratio) to control Afghanistan. Fugedaboudit.
Bonus: The plan is that the Afghan army will take over security. The US has spent over $21bn in eight years to build an Afghan army and national policfe force. Guess what they have to show for that -- zilch, nada, nothing. 300,000 security forces, all on paper only.
You're not a military strategist, so you let others decide to do foolish things. My point is that if you go through the checklist honestly, without spouting government propaganda, but honestly, than YOU CAN contribute. Don't let the militarists rule!
September 28, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they could safely encamp in Afghanistan, their ability to destabilize Pakistan and gain access to that country's nuclear weapons would be greatly enhanced.
Maybe. But the last I read, there are only a few hundred Al Qaeda left. If they all decided to move to Afghanistan, why couldn't we just bomb them to smithereens and be done with them?
September 28, 2009 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Al Qaeda/Taliban presence in Pakistan is still a formidable obstacle to stability in that country, but the successes of the Pakistani government's suppression efforts have kept them on the defensive, cooped up in the tribal areas. Unfortunately, there is not yet an equivalent government force in Afghanistan that could do the same thing, and so the danger of Taliban/Al Qaeda expansion into Afghanistan is real, and poses a significant threat to attempts to contain them permanently.
I don't believe we can "bomb them to smithereens" - we haven't done that even in Pakistan, and there would be no hope for such a strategy as the only means of containment in Afghanistan, particularly given the outrage that has already caused us to reduce bombing as our main weapon. That doesn't mean that troops on the ground are the only tool at our disposal - a combination of pinpointed drone attacks, special forces operations, and larger military interventions, in various proportions might be indicated, along with vigorous efforts to train indigenous security forces as eventual replacements for the NATO effort.
I already responded above to Don Bacon's summary three points, and readers are invited to review those discussions to form their own opinions. At this point, none of us here is expert enough to advise on the fine points of strategy, but we have enough evidence to know that we can't disengage from Afghanistan and permit a Taliban takeover. In 2001 and shortly thereafter, we successfully (to a degree) exploited the rivalries and shifting allegiances among tribal factions to our advantage, and I expect we'll do more of that in the future. To some extent, we may have to sidesteck the Karzai government, which has been an impediment, but while that complicates our efforts, it doesn't make them impossible. Richard Holbrooke already appears to be taking some steps in this direction.
I still don't know whether more troops are essential, but they may well be. If they are, we would fail to provide them at considerable risk to our security.
I hope President Obama will make the right decisions. He is surely aware of the strategic importance of this area. During the presidential campaign, he was consistent in pointing out that our obsession with Iraq had caused us to neglect the Afghanistan campaign, and also that Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked, with Pakistan's nuclear weapons a prize that the terrorists covet and we need to protect. I don't think that problem is likely to go away anytime soon, and so we need to address it.
September 29, 2009 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan - One other observation that may be a cause for cautious optimism in somewhat of an ironic sense is the recent evidence that the fear-inducing violence perpetrated by Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents, while effective in the short term, has dramatically reduced support for that form of terrorism in the muslim world. In Afghanistan, many civilian causualties have resulted from our military campaign, particularly before recent constraints on bombing, but even more have resulted from insurgent activities, including suicide bombings aimed at civilians.
I believe this encourages some hope that if NATO force, supplanted as soon as possible by indigenous force, can put the Taliban on the defensive and can protect civilian areas, the civilian population will try to keep it that way, unlike many insurgencies that are insuppressible because they enjoy widespread popular support. The Afghan people have already enjoyed a brief respite after 2001 from Taliban oppression. Remembering what that was like, they would probably relish a return to that kind of freedom, provided that some security could be ensured.
September 29, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred Moolten wrote:
but it's equally important for experts in the realm of geopolitics and military strategy to play a guiding role in deciding how to achieve those goals,..
But these experts are the same people who got involved in the Iraq fiasco. When it comes to making peace they cannot be trusted for the simple reason they are paid to make war. That is their job.
Also your little essay on how the Afghan people are turning away from the Taliban has its Viet Nam precedent. Dozens of articles were written about how the Vietnamese hated the Viet Cong. And most of these articles were right up to a point. Many Vietnamese hated the Viet Cong because they were terrorists who terrorized a sizable fraction of the population. But in the end that was irrelevant because the US Army terrorized an even larger fraction. Hating the Taliban does not mean love for the US Army.
September 29, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred Moolton:
The NYTimes disagrees:
Is the Afghan army the answer? Moolten:
Not really (from above).
So let's get get negative again -- Moolten:
My whole point is that the average citizen CAN determine what the US should do, and the retaking of Afghanistan by the former government is definitely one of the possibilities that ought to be considered. The US has the capability to fight terrorists without huge expenditures of money, personnel and materiel.
Moolten:
The whole idea of counterinsurgency is to partner with and assist the host government. Sidestepping that government in COIN is not an option.
Moolten:
Hope is all you have if you refuse to engage the facts.
.
.
September 29, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don - It seems to me that your latest comments either reinforce the points I was trying to make or in some cases simply don't address them, but I'll let other readers review all the discussion and judge for themselves.
As a practical matter, it is now clear that the Administration, Secretary Gates, and Congressional Democrats and Republicans (including those most knowledgeable and objective on the subject of national security), almost without exception agree on the general principle that it is vital to our national security to remain engaged in Afghanistan/Pakistan, with disagreement mainly in regard to the extent to which McChrystal's troop increase recommendation should be the best approach. Their agreement on the essentiality of the mission is based on the evidence I've provided, and so it seems to me that arguments for disengagement are going to place the arguer in the position of not being taken seriously.
If new evidence emerges, rather than a repetition of the same arguments, then everyone should be willing to reassess, because the potential dangers, or their lack, are too consequential for anyone to refuse to be open-minded, and too consequential for anyone to substitute dogmatism or ideology for a relentless determination to proceed on the basis of the best information available.
I do, however, wish to add one item reinforcing a point I made earlier, because it's compelling in my view. The evidence that the Taliban are almost universally hated and feared in Afghanistan is substantial rather than based on isolated anecdotes - there is no parallel with Vietnam. One only has to look back on those brief few years after 2001 to understand why Afghans feel as they do. Before that, Taliban oppressive rule killed or maimed men for not wearing the proper beards, beat women for walking on the street without properly devout religious attire, punished adolescents for listening to music, and relegated girls to the home, with severe punishment for even the slightest hint that they might actually want to go to school and yearn for a life above that of subservient devotion to male domination.
Those freedoms were wildly celebrated with enormous gratitude by Afghans, who were at last able to join the rest of the human race and partake in the rewards of being human. This is now disappearing with the resurgence of the Taliban, and if we desert those people, we will have given them a taste of something enormously valuable, only to stand by while it is once again taken from them. The challenge is to preserve their freedom without subjecting them or us to extreme dangers in the process. It's a challenge indeed, but it is doable.
The alternative is not something we should be quick to embrace. That would be true even if terrorist access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons were not an issue. They are, and so disengagement from Afghanistan is not about to happen, and that is fortunate.
September 29, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a practical matter, it is now clear that the Administration, Secretary Gates, and Congressional Democrats and Republicans (including those most knowledgeable and objective on the subject of national security), almost without exception agree on the general principle that it is vital to our national security to remain engaged in Afghanistan/Pakistan
Yep that is the same gang that led us into the Iraq fiasco. And because that gang of losers still controlls the debate it means that arguments for disengagement are going to place the arguer in the position of not being taken seriously.
Actually I agree with you on this. We will not be taken seriously because we want peace, and the consensus you idolize is for more war.
I guess this will just have to be resolved on the battlefield. Another painful defeat for the US.
September 29, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred Moolten,
Your concern for Afghans as being victims of the Taliban is commendable. You really have a feeling for people of a different culture, so far away. It's wonderful to see such empathy for people you don't know who are realizing "freedom." (Of course females in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, are mush worse off then before, but who cares about them.)
This same concern for people halfway 'round the world -- does it also apply to the people in China, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Yemen and Sudan? Is there any limit to your concern for oppressed people, or should the US military be everywhere all the time, resisting this oppression?
And are you simply a chickenhawk in this dangerous business, or do you intend to put your own body on the oppression-resisting line? Or does your professed altruism stop at the keyboard, while others die for your beliefs?
You're right, disengagement will not happen, and that's a tragedy. For one thing, the current annual budget deficit in the US is over $5,000 for every man, woman, and child, and now more money, that is money we don't have, will be voted for this Quixotic adventure to bring freedom to the hill tribes of Afghanistan.
Of course it makes no sense, but a lot of people are making a lot of money on it, with the backing of the idealistic go-alongs who support them.
September 30, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The moral argument for restoring some of the freedoms Afghans briefly enjoyed is a powerful one, but what transforms the current effort from a matter of choice into an imperative is the potential access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons terrorists would enjoy if they were free to move across the Afghanistan/Pakistan border with impunity from entrenched positions in Afghanistan.
If this does not require additional troops, then we should be grateful, but that is a decision that must be made on the basis of evidence, not philosoophy. If the troops are required to avert an increased threat of terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons, then they should be sent, as part of a multifaceted strategy to address the threat.
September 30, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This argument that we have to continue the Afghan war to prevent the Taliban from obtaining nuclear weapons sounds so much like the justification to invade Iraq. There was no evidence then that Hussein had a nuclear capability and there is no evidence today that the Taliban could steal one from Pakistan. This argument is just irrational: expand the war in Afghanistan to prevent a theft in Pakistan. If the experts were really worried this scenario then why are they not advocating that we seize those bombs ourselves by invading Pakistan?
September 30, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think at this point, the discussion is degenerating into a series of repeated assertions without any new data offered to support them. Why don't we let readers review what's already been written to draw their own conclusions?
In any case, what the Administration does will depend on its assessments of the risks and benefits from the different courses of action (or inaction). There are no certainties, but if anyone has data demonstrating that it is highly improbable Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal would be destabilized by the domination of Afghanistan by a terrorist insurgency, I hope they will provide the data here. Most analysts who have observed the shakiness of the Pakistan government in recent years under the threat of insurgency believe otherwise. What concerns me is not that views differ on the threat, but that some viewers are more influenced by ideological forces than by objective evidence, and have already decided what conclusion they intend to arrive at regardless of the evidence. I hope I'm wrong, but that happens a great deal in some of these discussions, and it's troubling, because the consequences could be severe.
September 30, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
some viewers are more influenced by ideological forces than by objective evidence, and have already decided what conclusion they intend to arrive at regardless of the evidence.
That is quite correct. The experts you keep talking about pushed us into the Iraq war with no evidence whatsoever because of their ideology. Today these same experts are pushing for more war in Afghanistan with the absence of evidence. Your "most analysts" that you cite do not provide evidence but their own ideologically driven opinion.
September 30, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink