Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - Weekly Roundup Posted by Michael Cohen

It's been a rather busy week but there are a few items worthy of mention in the AMCW.

First comes word from Spencer Ackerman that in a conference call with Col. John Agoglia, the head of the Counterinsurgency Training Center-Afghanistan, he learned that Afghan forces are not well trained counter-insurgency doctrine. As Spencer puts it, "Given that this is the force the United States is relying on to hold areas that the coalition clears of the Taliban, that seems like a particularly striking training issue." Yup.

This goes back to a point I made earlier about trying to do population-centric counter-insurgency in Afghanistan: it feels more and more like sticking a square peg in a round hole.

Next we have Joe Biden in the Ukraine and Georgia making dubious assumptions about the threat posed by Afghanistan:

Mr. Biden told the BBC that the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was “a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.”

He said that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region was “the place from which the attacks of 9/11 and all those attacks in Europe that came from Al Qaeda have flowed, from that place between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

I pretty vehemently disagree with the notion that just because 9/11 and the London bombings emanated, in part, from the Af/Pak border that history will be repeated. But really the issue is whether the current COIN mission is commensurate not only to the risk of terrorism but also to the national interest. I have to yet see a very convincing argument that nation building, which is what we are currently doing in Afghanistan, is either achievable or makes sense from a national interest perspective. Biden's answer is a distraction from that question.

From across the border in Pakistan we have some more "good" news:

Pakistani officials have told the Obama administration that the Marines fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will force militants across the border into Pakistan, with the potential to further inflame the troubled province of Baluchistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on the Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India, the officials said. Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan’s national interest, they said.The Pakistani account made clear that even as the United States recommits troops and other resources to take on a growing Taliban threat, Pakistani officials still consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated.  

Pakistani authorities have chosen to fight Pakistani Taliban who threaten their government, while ignoring Taliban and other militants fighting Americans in Afghanistan or terrorizing India.

This could be a problem - although not really a surprising one. If the Taliban we are attacking in Afghanistan are able to slip over the border and remain unmolested in Pakistan, well again it does bring into question the effectiveness of the current counter-insurgency mission. What's to stop the Taliban from simply waiting the United States out? And with the Taliban remaining a viable insurgent force how long do US troops have to remain in hold and build mode in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan while we wait for the Afghan Army and police to get up to speed?

To be fair, there are no easy answers to this one, except possibly browbeating the Pakistanis into seeing things our way - or brokering a peace deal with India so the Pakistan military can focus on the Taliban threat (even then it's not so sure). Granted those won't be easy. But it's just further evidence that while the US military is focused on Afghanistan the real fight is actually happening in Pakistan and that the counter-insurgency mission currently being waged in Afghanistan risks being the military equivalent of mowing the lawn.

Finally, I missed this when it first came out earlier this month by David Kilcullen explicitly makes the argument that underpins the entire Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch:

We are looking at ten years at least in Afghanistan, and that is the best case scenario and at least half of that will be pretty major combat. This is the commitment needed, and this is what people in America and Britain should be told, and they should be told that there will be a cost involved.

He's absolutely right. If this is what the US and Britain are prepared to do (foolishly I would add) the people should be told. To date, at least here in the United States, they haven't been.

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