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April 14, 2010

Afghanistan Mission Creep Tab Dump
Posted by Michael Cohen

There have been a number of interesting pieces as of late on Afghanistan  . . . so let's go to the speed round. First (and this will be a shocker), residents of Marjah aren't feeling very secure, just two months after the US offensive:

"No one can move about freely. There is no security," said Marja tribal elder Sultan Mohammad Shah, 64. "The Taliban are killing and beating people, and no one knows what is going on the next block over because they cannot go anywhere."He and others said promised government services have been slow to materialize. "If the situation remains like this, people will leave Marja."

For the battle of Marja to influence the overall struggle for control of Afghanistan, the U.S. and Afghan governments will have to move quickly to improve the lot of its citizens, officials have long acknowledged. "Right now, it's pretty thin," Nicholson said of the government presence in Marja. "We need to do more."

You know even if security improved in Marja I doubt it would do all that much to influence control of Afghanistan, but look we're not really that interested in securing Marja - this was a test run for Kandahar.  If we were truly interested we'd have more than 2,000 troops on the ground and we would have been absolutely sure that government services were pouring in. They're not and we're not. But I'm sure the offensive in Kandahar will go swimmingly.

Next, Martine van Biljert who has a tad more credibility on these issues agrees with me about the misplaced US focus on smoothing over relations with Karzai:

The Western focus on a single figurehead and a few ‘effective officials’ distracts from the fact that both the government and the international intervention rest largely on a foundation of exploitative and violent networks. It was of course the Karzai administration that allowed them to flourish, but he did not do it on its own and the international actors have become part of the tangled mess of murky relationships and conflicting interests in more ways than they wish to think about.

The fundamental problem of course is that the Afghan government is not a reliable partner. It is dysfunctional and largely focused on extraction and survival, although at the central level and during coordination meetings there may be a spreading veneer of efficiency. This does not mean that Afghanistan is a lost cause, but it does mean we may want to give up on pretending that the government is something that it is not.

Right. And if we're going to start treating the Afghan government as it is - not as we want it to be - then it might cause us to reassess whether a population-centric COIN effort that relies on host country support makes sense.

Apparently members of the US military increasingly believe that the Afghan war might not be winnable. I wonder if the 40 percent who believe it willl" take up to five years before Afghan military and police forces are ready to take over from U.S. and allied troops in the fight against Islamist insurgents" has something to do with the falling confidence.

There is evidence that the ISI continues to support the Taliban, which makes my optimism from a few weeks about the Baradar capture a few weeks back seem even more misplaced.

U.S. officials believe that Pakistan continues to pursue a hedging strategy in seeking to maintain relationships with an array of entities -- including the U.S. and Afghan governments, as well as insurgent networks -- struggling to shape the outcome in Afghanistan, even as it aggressively battles the Pakistani branch of the Taliban.

It's good, by the way, that US officials "believe" Pakistan is acting in the manner that pretty much every country in the world acts - in defense of their perceived security interests. What is troubling would be if anyone is actually surprised by this.

James Traub has a good piece at FP on his recent trip to Afghanistan and this priceless quote:

Stanley McChrystal, commanding general in Afghanistan, has promised to deliver what he calls "government in a box" to newly cleared districts. The military hopes to stand up, or perhaps defrost, as many as 48 of these in coming months. This is a fantasy only a military bureaucracy could entertain.

I feel comfortable in saying that "government in a box" is one of the worst expressions I've ever heard - it represents a complete misunderstanding of the nature of nation-state legitimacy not to mention the fact that it seems completely unfeasible in Afghanistan. But don't believe me on that point: believe the strategic review written last Fall by some general whose name I can't seem to remember.

Finally, some recommended reading - Tim Lynch's always interesting blog on doings in Afghanistan.

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