If It Quacks Like A Duck . . . It's Nation Building: UPDATED Posted by Michael Cohen

Spencer has confused me. Reflecting on the new US mission in Afghanistan he argues that it's not fair to define it as a nation-building strategy. And he makes that comment after writing this about what he heard from Michele Flournoy at an AEI pow-wow:

[She] described restricting U.S. support to key ministries focused on security and (mostly agricultural) development; immediate-impact short-term development projects like irrigation; efforts out in the provinces and districts to expand the relevance of those ministries to local communities;

No mention, in other words, of the structure of the Afghan government; no normative judgments about the structure of the Afghan economy; nothing at all about culture or religion. It’s sure not like the U.S. is backing away from Hamid Karzai. But I think we can fairly infer that the strategy aims at mitigating Karzai’s deleterious effects and enhancing both capacity and, crucially, constituency among Afghans for better governance. It isn’t “necessary, nor is it feasible,” Flournoy said, to make Afghanistan a western-modeled nation state. Indeed, I would say if that was the aim of this strategy, it would be incoherent. This looks more like meeting Afghan society where it is, not where we’d like it to be.

Um, how is this NOT nation-building? Sure it might look different from traditional nation-building efforts that we've seen in the past - and thankfully the US is not trying to turn Afghanistan into a western-modeled nation state - but this is still pretty clearly an effort by the US government to deeply embed itself in the country's economic development, governance, infrastructure and security efforts. And if building capacity in government ministries isn't nation building then clearly we have very different definitions of what nation building represents.

NOT nation-building would mean NOT doing counter-insurgency and NOT expanding the influence of the Afghan government to Helmand and Kandahar. NOT nation building would mean NOT building up an Afghan security and police force to protect said nation. 

NOT nation building might look something like a narrowly-focused counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan. But as we all know that is NOT happening.

UPDATED: Spencer responds here:

We used to have a grandiose and ill-defined commitment to shaping Afghan society that George Bush analogized to the Marshall Plan. Now we have the sponsorship of the security and agricultural sectors, and all of that geared toward the delivery of short-term results.

Ok, so maybe we're doing nation-building-lite. But it's still nation-building. I mean seriously, which government is that Afghan Army we're creating going to be protecting - the one in Kabul. And if you're expanding the relevance of Afghan ministries to communities across the country, for which government precisely are you doing that for?  When you are basically building up state capacity it might be geared toward a short-term goal (getting out of Dodge) but clearly it has a long-term trajectory. The notion that the US is going to strengthen government ministries that serve the needs of the Afghan people and build a national army that serves at the behest of the Kabul government - but you're not doing nation building. Give me a break.

As for Spencer's final notion that "there’s something between nation-building and counterterrorism. And whether Michael recognizes it or not, it’s called counterinsurgency."  This is an apples and oranges comparison that represents a political/military spectrum to which I'm really not familiar. Obviously, there are many different kinds of counter-insurgencies. So while the US war in the Philippines should be considered a nation-building exercise as well as a counter-insurgency fight, clearly that label does not apply to Algeria or Sri Lanka - where it was more nation suppressing!

But as Spencer knows all too well we don't fight enemy centric counter-insurgencies; we fight population centric counter-insurgencies that are described by four-star generals like this:

The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area that: Protects the Afghan people, allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of; Provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency.

. . . Insurgencies fail when root causes disappear. Security is essential; but I believe our ultimate success lies in partnering with the Afghan Government, partner nations, NGO's, and other to build the foundations of good government and economic development.

And as we were told today in the Washington Post, the President's new strategy "does not order McChrystal to wage the war in a fundamentally different way from what he outlined in an assessment he sent the White House in late August."

So this might be some bastardized version of nation building; or some new-fangled 21st century way of doing nation-building, and maybe it's as Spencer suggests "less nation building" then that preached (and not realized) by the Bush Administration, but crikey . . . it's still nation building.

And to a large extent, the success of the President's plans to achieve stability in Afghanistan will rely on the success of these initiatives. And look, even if we took my suggestions and did a more narrowly focused CT operation in Afghanistan there would still be a nation-building component, although not as robust as what the current plan calls for. 

Getting the Focus Right? Posted by Patrick Barry

How would you rate the likelihood of an Al-Qaeda return to Afghanistan absent a U.S. policy of surge\prolonged surge\escalation? The answer should reveal a lot about whether you think the core interest of thwarting a terrorist attack on US soil depends directly on achieving a certain level of stability in Afghanistan.  Over the weekend, General Jones drew a strong correlation between the ultimate goal of defeating Al-Qaeda, and the secondary objective of stabilizing Afghanistan in an interview with Wolf Blitzer:

Wolf Blitzer: All right, less than 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and the United States needs 100,000 troops to fight less than 100 al Qaeda operatives?

General Jones: Well, the mission is obviously to keep it that way.

Ok. Of course no one wants the 9/11 people returning to Afghanistan.  But Jones' statements in support of keeping Afghanistan Al-Qaeda-free coincided with new evidence casting further doubt on the possibility of that happening.  Not only was there this letter from longtime jihadi and Taliban adviser Egyptian-born Abu Walid al-Masri saying that the Taliban wouldn't welcome Al-Qaeda back, in part because "the majority of the population is against al-Qa'ida," but the Taliban, in its response to the President's West Point speech, makes the same point as Blitzer: there's a disconnect between the shift in U.S. policy, and the actual threat posed by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. 

Even if Al-Qaeda was allowed to return to Afghanistan, there's little reason to think that it would, an observation made by David Kilcullen at an NSN event last month. Kilcullen noted that in many ways, Pakistan is a much richer operating environment.  Not only is there a radicalized and ungoverned population willing to give it shelter, but there also aren't likely to be 100,000 U.S. troops in Pakistan anytime soon. Pakistan is also arguably a better safe-haven for terrorists planning destablizing attacks in the region than Afghanistan, a fact illustrated by the Mumbai attacks last year.

All of this goes a long way toward confirming for me a point commonly made by skeptics of the Administration's approach: stability in Afghanistan is only a core U.S. interest to the extent it impacts Pakistan, and that preventing instability in Pakistan is only a core U.S. interest to the extent it benefits Al-Qaeda terrorists targeting the U.S. That's a fairly complicated, but not impossible, case to state before the American people. It worries me that Administration officials are only making it in pieces.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Redux Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Several months ago when I started writing the AMCW I noted the apparent disparity between the words that the Obama Administration was using to describe the war in Afghanistan and the words coming out of the mouths of the nation's generals who were actually fighting the war. This was particularly relevant on the issue of counter-insurgency, which the President never mentioned in his March 27th speech announcing his new Afghanistan policy, but which came to define the military's approach to the conflict. At the time, I noted that the Administration seemed to be either confused of less than honest about the sort of war we were waging in Afghanistan.

So you can imagine my surprise when after a comprehensive three month review of Afghanistan policy I read this in the Washington Post today:

The White House has shied away from labeling this phase of the war a counterinsurgency campaign because of concern that it connotes nation-building -- "counterinsurgency" was conspicuously absent from an administration fact sheet about the strategy issued after Obama's speech. But McChrystal has left little doubt that counterinsurgency is what he intends to do. He used the word multiple times in talking to his troops Wednesday morning in Kabul.

Here we go again. If in fact, the tactical approach being utilized by the United States and ISAF is a population centric counter-insurgency that's fine (ish), but the Administration needs to be very clear about what a COIN operation in Afghanistan entails. Clearly, it's a strategy that will be difficult to execute with only 30,000 more troops, a host country that seems disinclined to play an important role in the COIN effort and a timetable for withdrawal that begins in 2011. Might this be a problem down the road when you have a military that is taking the slower strategic course of protecting population centers and a political leadership that needs to start seeing results in 18 months? In general, what is a little disturbing - although not surprising - is that the military seems focused on how to win the war (as they see fit) and the Administration seems more focused on how to sell the war.

As I noted several months ago, it does seem as though the Administration is being less than upfront with the American people about the sort of conflict we are preparing to wage in Afghanistan.

And if the Post's reporting is to be believed it's not just that the Administration and military are on a different page from a communications standpoint:

The fundamentals of the Obama administration's approach largely mirror the counterinsurgency effort that was mounted in Iraq in the latter months of the Bush administration. In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, senior commanders focused primarily on driving enemy troops from key population centers and then safeguarding the locals in those areas from insurgent attacks.

"Iraq validated our beliefs that we know how to do this stuff," said a senior general involved in the strategy review.

The parallels to Iraq, however, caused unease among some Obama administration officials who had opposed Bush's surge and maintained during the presidential campaign that the sudden drop in violence in 2007 and 2008 was attributable largely to al-Qaeda's campaign of terror, which alienated its Sunni Arab allies in the country. "The reality is that there is a narrative that emerged during the campaign . . . that we bought off the Sunnis and got lucky," said one senior military official. "That is not what happened."

Well ignoring the fact that buying off the Sunnis and accruing strategic benefit from the ethnic cleansing and enclaving of 2006-2007 in Baghdad were pretty key reasons why "the surge worked" doesn't it seem like some people in the Administration and the military might not be on the same page here?

But put that aside for a second. After the President's speech last week I noted ruefully that for all the debate about CT vs. COIN over the past few months the President didn't even bother to mention the words in his address. Now we see once again the pitfall of this approach. Perhaps when General McChrystal testifies before Congress someone could raise this issue.

Is the "Swiss Problem" the Fault of Muslim Men? Posted by Shadi Hamid

Isaac Chotiner flags an interesting claim from Ian Buruma in the New Yorker - that Muslim integration in the Netherlands started going downhill when Muslim women started joining their worker husbands. Chotiner takes an interesting hypothesis and makes it even more interesting by suggesting that the presence of women in a sexually permissive society put men in fanatical protective mode.

It's plausible, I suppose, but it would be hard to demonstrate a causal link because Muslim women started arriving at precisely the same time - the late 60s, 70s, and 80s - that the Islamic revival in the Middle East was coming into its own. So what might appear to be a result of the mass arrival of wives might actually be the result of a more generalized movement toward an explicit Islamism. The two might also amplify each other's effects. I suppose it's also worth noting that people often forget that the Middle East was not particularly religious or Islamized for much of the 20th century. The dominant ideology was secular nationalism. Secular nationalism gave way to Islamist fervor - an evidently "religious" phenomenon fueled by political developments. If politics propelled religious conservatism (and radicalization) - which, in my view, it quite evidently did - then religious conservatism cannot be explained primarily by religion.

Leverage, of the Ground-Level Governance and Geostrategic Kind Posted by David Shorr

To paraphrase what Albert Camus said about suicide, the only interesting foreign policy question is what is our leverage over the problem? This morning's Afghanistan discussion hosted by American Security Project was no exception.

Caroline Wadhams of CAP made some of the same points at today's event that she made in a recent guest post here on DA, particularly the weak-to-absent emphasis on stronger protections for the rights of ordinary Afghani citizens. She has an interesting observation about how President Obama spoke of working through regional local officials as individuals rather than institutions -- perhaps a syntactical slip, but a telling one. But even as someone inclined to favor (right-sized rather than comprehensive) state-building, I felt compelled to ask whether Obama's shying away from governance questions reflects a necessary trade-off based on what is accomplishable. Caroline responded that the US can exert political influence by pressing these matters without taking away from its military objectives and there are feasible improvements that can be made to the rule of law and criminal justice systems. Indeed, she argued, some elements of counterinsurgency and police training will contribute in exactly that direction. I hope Caroline's right, but I tend to think that institution-building requires a lot of follow-through. I sure hope we can make good on a civilian surge, but I worry that the availability of civilian personnel is even more strapped than on the military side.

Another interesting part of today's discussion focused on the role of the Pakistani security establishment and the wider regional context. Here again, the leverage issue. In another post I wrote about the idea that pressuring the Taliban from the Afghan side of the border would alter the calculation of the Pakistani security elite to be less mischievous, which I raised with today's panelists. No dice, said Bernard Finel of ASP and Jonathan Landay of McClatchey News. Both said that the Pakistani officer corps really only cared about India. From a leverage standpoint, Finel at least held out hope that if the US focused on this side of the problem, we could make an impact. According to Landay, America wiped any credibility it had when it made the nuclear deal with India.

Distortion Peddling Posted by Patrick Barry

Generally speaking, there are two types of people involved in the debate on Afghanistan and Pakistan.  One type, which exists on both sides of the issue, is for the most part thoughtful, sober, and meticulous with its analysis. Exactly what you would want in a debate over a country's war strategy.  The other type is none of those things. Where do you think Mitt Romney fits in?

And President Bush took action to make sure they wouldn't attack us and at the same time he pointed out through the surge that he carried out, President Bush did that that work. I'm glad that President Obama has adopted the surge strategy for Afghanistan. He has made a number of miscalculations, however. His idea that this is going to be solved in 18 months is hopeful but probably not likely. His plan calls for fewer troops in the general. If generals said we're in a real tough situation. We need at a minimum 40,000 troops from the U.S. to solve this problem. I wouldn't be saying to them, okay, I can cut you down to 30,000. Can I give you 45,000?

First of all, this is wrong. McChrystal's original strategic review never included 40,000 as a minimum.  Instead it discussed a range of options for the President, with one as low as 10,000.  But it's also the case that the 'generals' Romney likes to talk about all seem pretty comfortable with the President's strategy:

Gen. McChrystal: "The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task.  The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the President’s address are critical steps toward bringing security to Afghanistan and eliminating terrorist safe havens that threaten regional and global security.  

Gen. Petraeus: "...we're quite satisfied, frankly, with the outcome of this and with, also, the contribution that's going to come from the civilian and in the funding realm as well."

Mitt Romney should really know better.  This sort of nonsense does absolutely nothing to help the U.S. or Afghanistan.  It's a distraction that only serves to cheapen the debate and advance Mitt Romney's political prospects. Nothing more.

They Don't Call COIN the "Graduate Level of War" for Nothing Posted by Michael Cohen

I generally consider myself to be a somewhat intelligent guy, but looking at this picture about the inter-related dynamics of development in a counter-insurgency environment reminds me of trying to do pre-calculus in the 10th grade.

For anyone who thinks COIN can be easily embedded into the US military this presentation, which Richard Engel of NBC News uncovered from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be sobering - or at the very least, a reminder that PowerPoint has a downside:

Perhaps Some Elaboration Is In Order . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

Seth Jones has quite an op-ed in the New York Times today. After discussing the importance of Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan to the insurgency in Afghanistan (a point made repeatedly here at DA), Jones drops in this rather audacious solution:

The United States and Pakistan must target Taliban leaders in Baluchistan. There are several ways to do it, and none requires military forces.

The first is to conduct raids to capture Taliban leaders in Baluchistan. Most Taliban are in or near Baluchi cities like Quetta. These should be police and intelligence operations, much like American-Pakistani efforts to capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other Qaeda operatives after 9/11. The second is to hit Taliban leaders with drone strikes, as the United States and Pakistan have done so effectively in the tribal areas.

First of all how is hitting Taliban leaders with drone strikes NOT the use of military force. I mean I get that you're not sending a brigade across the Durand line, but still.

But my larger reaction is this is a great idea . . . and why would the Pakistanis not throw a fit if we tried to do exactly this. Seriously, is this realistic at all? And for once I'm not even being snarky.

Honestly, would the Pakistanis allow us to do this? Not long ago I watched a Frontline special where the Pakistan Army Chief of Staff and the country's Interior Ministry basically denied that the Quetta Shura even existed or that Mullah Omar was not in the country - statements that if Jones op-ed is to be believed are simply laughable.

So how do you get from that to the Pakistanis just letting the US go in and arrest Afghan Taliban leaders or send Hellfire missiles into what are likely populated areas? This would represent an absolute sea change in how Pakistan deals with the Afghan Taliban in their midst. In other words, it would be a huge deal.

Perhaps, in retrospect, the Times could have pushed Jones a bit on this point.

About That Timetable - Part 2 Posted by Michael Cohen

The other day I was on the radio debating Max Boot - and he was arguing that the key to success in Afghanistan was a counter-insurgency approach that protected the population and I was arguing that any new troops in Afghanistan should be used to more aggressively target the enemy. I was the hawk; he was the dove (ish)

And then the host's head exploded.

Ok, jokes aside, Bernard Finel picks up that point in a smart post about the paradox of trying to do pop centric COIN on an 18-month timeline:

18-24 months is probably sufficient to beat the insurgents about the head and neck sufficiently to make them willing to sit down and engage in a process leading to a negotiated cessation of hostilities.

. . . Operationally, this approach would require an unabashedly enemy-centric military campaign, with the goal of systematically dislodging Taliban forces from strongholds and pursuing insurgent fighters vigorously.  The goal isn’t to build institution or win the hearts and minds of the people.  The goal is to alter the cost-benefit calculation of insurgent leaders to make them willing to enter into a serious negotiation process.  This approach also has the advantages of (a) not holding American hostages to the ability of the Karzai government to get its act together and (b) takes better advantage of our military dominance of the battlefield.

I'm not exactly sure how this approach would work on the ground. It would certainly be tricky if you can't also get access to Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan - and like Finel I tend to think that it's politically difficult - but the underlying point is spot on. If we want to get the Taliban into a serious political negotiation, its going to be the stick and not the carrot that will likely do the trick.

Now I'm still not clear on which approach McChrystal will use although if his review is any indication it would likely be the carrot. But it's really hard to believe that a population centric approach - which by its very nature is slow going - is going to turn things around in 18-24 months. I feel like a bit of a broken record on this point, but if you a) accept the notion that you are not going to eliminate the Taliban b) understand that the Taliban will likely play some role in Afghanistan's political future c) want to make political reconciliation with the Taliban a key part of your strategy then d) you're going to need to regain the military initiative in order to change facts on the ground and lay the groundwork for a negotiation process.

Finally there is e) that's more or less what happened in Iraq. It wasn't the carrot that ended the insurgency. It was the stick.

About That Timetable Posted by Michael Cohen

Marc Lynch makes a really smart point about Obama's timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan:

He spoke effectively about the logic of a clear time horizon, generating political accountability, and converting a brief military respite into lasting political gains through a clear commitment to ultimately withdraw troops.  His direct vow that the U.S. did not seek occupation or endless escalation was well said. But the problem is that such commitments are inherently non-credible.   To quote that great IR theorist Drake, we hear you talking boo but we just don't believe you. I haven't heard anybody yet say that they believed that Obama would really start drawing down in June 2011, no matter what he says.  And yet the strategy depends upon that commitment being credible, because that is what is supposed to generate the urgency for local actors to change. 

Ask yourself a question: if in 2011 the Afghan government is still mired in corruption and if the Taliban remains a potent political and military force does anyone really think that Obama is going to want to start bringing troops home? If anything, it could go in the opposite direction, particularly since the President has declared the war to be a vital national interest of the United States. How do you think that decision will play in Congress?

But I would go even a step further than Marc. The entire back half of Obama's speech felt like Ben Rhodes was channeling Barry Posner. Restraint, modesty and limitations were the buzz words. Yet, the realization of that new approach to US foreign policy will depend in large measure on Obama sticking to his plan of beginning a turnover of power to the Afghan government by 2011. In other words, you can't put in place a more realist and restrained vision of American foreign policy if you are spending $100 billion in Afghanistan and maintaining a force of 100,000 troops.

The pressure on Obama from the military and the Republicans to stay the course in Afghanistan will be profound - it makes it much more important that Congress hold Obama's feet to the fire and demand he adhere to his pledge not to make this an open-ended commitment.  Of course doing could set up a true political battle royale for not the White House and the Democratic Party.

Perhaps Marc is right that "generating domestic pressure to make his commitments on a time horizon" credible is the President's plan . .  but if so that is one dangerous political strategy. I think Bernard Finel gets it right, "The president is buying time, hoping for the best, but all he’s done is ensure we face the same debate again in an even more polarized atmosphere as we approach the 2012 presidential election."