The Path Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan Posted by Patrick Barry

NSN's panel at Netroots Nation on 'The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,' has begun! 

Check in here for live updates.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Wrong Tactics Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Registan, Josh Foust links to a recent post by Tim Lynch that captures much of my concern over the current focus in Afghanistan on rules of engagement (ROE) aimed at limiting civilian casualties rather than targeting the enemy. The post is rather long, but worth a read:

It seems to me that the Taliban understands this ROE  change and know that as long as they are operating near civilians we will not whack them.  How else do you explain 20 armed guys moving several kilometers in broad daylight through the densely populated, strategically important Kabul river delta?  A year ago there would have been so many attack birds stacked over these deadbeats they would have needed an airborne controller to keep them from hitting each other.

 . . . Air-power is how we fight when we want to be asymmetrical and we are good at it.  However our FOB bound operational mindset has created opportunities for Afghan score settling which is how we have been  tricked into bombing wedding parties or warning the only physician in Nuristan to flee his clinic and then killing him and all the nurses and midwife too as they pulled out in their vehicle.  Due to our over reliance on technology and local informants we have created a more level playing field for the bad guys who clearly understand they are, for now, safe from our ground attack aviation assets.  Just in time for the elections too….unbelievable.

The way forward  is not allowing the very same senior military and civilian leaders directly responsible for creating the Big Box FOB method of warfare to place even great constraints on the junior men doing the fighting.  They are not changing the Rules of Engagement (ROE) because those rules proved ineffective at protecting men in contact by pounding the bad guys to parade rest.  They are changing the rules based on pressure concerning civilian casualties . . .

In war people die; the currency spent by battle commanders is blood.  Many of those who perish are innocents which is why the professional does not enjoy war, seek combat or prolong conflict.  Our leaders are prolonging conflict by restricting the use of our decisive combat arm.  They say they are doing this to avoid civilian casualties yet we know from history that this is a consideration to which we pay lip service only when it is convenient to do so.  Do you think those same commanders were worried about civilian casualties when they had an American platoon surround and in danger of being overrun at Wanat last year?  Of course not – they leveled that village and I’m glad they did because those cats were all combatants in my eyes. Of course the children inside that village were innocents and no military professional wants to be forced into killing innocents but the enemy has a vote in how battles turn out too.  In war people die; that is why it is called war. It is in everyone’s best interest to get this shit over quickly and to beat the enemy decisively.  It is not important how wars start; how the end is critical.  When the enemy is beaten and knows he is beaten wars end.  Until we reach that point we will spend blood, our blood, their blood and the blood of innocents.  The longer this is allowed to continue the more we are going to bleed….it is now as it always has been which is why we need to finish it.   And the only way to finish it is to kill the Big T Taliban when and where we find them regardless of how many innocents are in the blast radius.

This post makes me deeply uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. First, the suggestion that killing civilians is acceptable; and second that I think the author makes an important point.

The current mission in Afghanistan is predicated on the operational approach of population centric counter-insurgency - i.e. separating the population from insurgents by, in part, providing them with protection and security. As General McChrystal has made clear: ""The Afghan people are at the center of our mission," he said. "In reality, they are the mission. We must protect them from violence -- whatever its nature. We must respect their religion and traditions."

Here's the problem: if there is one constant in counter-insurgency it is the use of violence and coercion to achieve one's goals. Malaysia, for example, is often portrayed as a successful approach to counter-insurgency and capturing "hearts and minds"  - less commented upon is the most successful element of that effort, the forcible relocation of half a million ethnic Chinese. That is, unfortunately, one way to separate the insurgent from the population.

In the Philippines, the US fought a counter-insurgency that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians while introducing techniques of torture, like waterboarding. In the counter-insurgency manual, FM 3-24, there is discussion of the CORDS, counter-insurgency program in Vietnam. Less discussed is one of its key features - the Phoenix Program, an assassination program of Vietcong leaders that killed more than 25,000 people. Finally, in Iraq, the "success" of the surge and COIN tactics there had far more to do with the ethnic cleansing and sectarian conflict of 2005 and 2006, which separated rival Sunni and Shiite ethnic groups from one another. Even more rarely mentioned in the surge narrative is the high levels of US military violence that accompanied the surge - indeed in 2007 US air strikes killed 3 1/2 times as many civilians as they did in 2006.

The point here is that successful counter-insurgency is not simply a matter of offering carrots to your enemy; there is also a lot of stick. But to read the post above suggests that in Afghanistan we are using far more carrots - and in the process potentially prolonging the conflict. For all the talk of reconciliation, what is the motivation for disaffected Pasthuns to switch sides if a) they believe they are winning the war and b) they aren't coming under the sort of military pressure that would serve as leverage for encouraging reconciliation. Now granted, one can't lump all Taliban together, but if we are not willing to use coercion to get them to switch sides or give up arms then we truly are looking at a much longer possible conflict.

Now before I get in another blog dust-up I should say that I am not advocating this approach. But the very fact that we've taken military coercion off the table as a tactic is part of the reason why I am so skeptical about the mission in Afghanistan. We have created a paradox in Afghanistan - our announced goal is to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, which will in the short-term make it far harder to win the war because we are not targeting the enemy directly.  In other words, since we don't have effective host country support or enough US troops on the ground the process of building and holding will take that much longer to achieve. Again, this is not to say such an approach won't work, but it's predicated on a long-term trajectory of building up the confidence of the population, providing security and offering services.

In the mean time, by not taking the war to the the Taliban directly - outside the core 5-10% ideological Taliban - we appear to be emboldening them to attack US and ISAF troops and operate with some degree of impunity. Where is the incentive of the $10 a day Taliban or disaffected Pashtun nationalist to switch sides? The fact that we are unable to dismantle their safe havens in Pakistan makes it even more difficult. So the process of political reconciliation that everyone agrees will be the key to "winning the war" will become that much harder to achieve.

We are, for lack of a better word, betwixt and between. Unwilling, for public relations reasons, to really take the fight to the Taliban and yet at the same time embarking on a mission organized around carrots and not sticks that flies in the face of past COIN "successes."

In a sense, it appears that we've chosen a mission in Afghanistan that minimizes our military's comparative advantage and accentuates practices for which we have neither the will, the resources nor the core competency to successfully implement.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Jumping the Shark Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Richard Holbrooke today at the St. Regis Hotel:

“The military struggle with U.S. troops is not an open-ended event, but our civilian assistance will continue,” Holbrooke said. Stressing the interagency coordination represented by the ten officials flanking Holbrooke on the panel at Washington’s St. Regis Hotel, Holbrooke said that while the United States had to be “clear about what our national interests are,” ultimately, success would require taking a “Supreme Court test” — “We’ll know it when we see it.”

Well I don't know about you guys, but I feel a lot better . . .

If our special envoy to the region cannot explain precisely what success in Afghanistan looks like then how has the US mission there not become completely unmoored ? I have become more and more convinced, in recent days, that the Administration has no clear sense of what the end game is Afghanistan and what they are trying to achieve there.  Day by day we are wading more deeply into what looks like a military and political quagmire for which we have no clear plan for success.

If anyone wasn't concerned about mission creep in Afghanistan before now they sure as heck should be after today.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The 'Look at the Shiny Thing In My Hand' Version Posted by Michael Cohen

I'm not even sure how to respond to Dave Dilegge's rant at Small Wars Journal today:

The Afghanistan affair is quite complicated; we know that, we also can study it to death and comment until the cows come home.

How about a novel approach at this particular point in time - give the Commander in Chief, the National Command Authority, State... and most importantly, the Commanding General and his staff in Afghanistan some efing breathing room to sort this out? The guys on the ground - get it?

How much is too much?

For the all the hype about the benefits of instantaneous global communications and Web 2.0 - of which we most certainly are a part - we’ve never really examined the tipping point - the place where we become part of the problem, rather than the solution.

Um, no. Actually, how about hell, no!

Or how about, "Hey Dave, how did trusting the Commander-in-Chief, the State Department and the military to sort this out in Iraq, go?" Or Vietnam?

Or how about, "do you see an irony in pushing for democracy in Afghanistan (or some version of it) while arguing against an open and vibrant debate in the United States about the war we are fighting there . . . to defeat an anti-democratic insurgent group."

Does Dave Dilegge really believe that the problem in Afghanistan is that debate at "home" is undermining the mission there? Or it could be that the mission doesn't make a ton of sense and hasn't been properly explained to the American people. Case in point - this statement by Ambassador Dick Holbrooke today about Afghanistan:

Holbrooke said that while the United States had to be “clear about what our national interests are,” ultimately, success would require taking a “Supreme Court test” — “We’ll know it when we see it.”

Gulp! Yeah, Dave, critics of the mission in Afghanistan are definitely part of the problem.

Does Democracy Assistance lead to Democracy? (should it?) Posted by Shadi Hamid

As I mentioned in my earlier post about POMED's new budget paper, budgets speak louder than words. But a lot of other things speak louder than budgets, and therein lies a problem that I've been struggling with at a conceptual level. Democracy assistance is only one small component in the foreign policy toolbox. But there is a bigger problem of failing to effectively match means with ends. What is democracy assistance supposed to accomplish exactly and what message are we trying to send to reformers on the ground in the Middle East?

Presumably, at least at an abstract level, the intent of democracy promotion is to promote democracy. Democracy, in nearly all of its definitions, necessitates alternation of power. Alternation of power entails the old order (autocratic regimes, or ruling parties) being replaced by "something else." Many policymakers, including those responsible for appropriating billions of dollars to democracy assistance efforts, aren't necessarily comfortable with this notion, out of fear that Islamist parties would be among those most likely to replace existing ruling parties. So we have the odd situation of people "promoting democracy" without actually accepting the presumed endpoint of such a process. This is why American strategy, in this regard, is a bundle of contradictions, with various polices canceling each other out.

For example, we give tens of millions of dollars to civil society organizations in a country like Egypt and we state that we want Egypt to embark on political reforms. On the other hand, we give 1.3 billion dollars of aid to the Egyptian military; we help train the Egyptian military. We state publicly that the current Egyptian regime is one of our closest friends and allies in the region. So with one hand, we are funding opposition groups (although at a minimal level) and, with the other, we are actively supporting a regime that is, by any definition, thoroughly undemocratic.

In short, it is difficult to devise effective means without knowing, exactly, what the ends are, particularly in a place like the Middle East where appear to have various conflicting and competing goals.

The Numbers of U.S. Foreign Assistance in the Middle East: What do they tell us? Posted by Shadi Hamid

The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) has released a fascinating new paper grinding down the budget numbers on the U.S. foreign assistance to the Middle East, and, more importantly, telling us what these numbers mean for political reform and democratization in the region. The numbers, in my view, are not particularly encouraging and appear to reflect the downgrading of democracy in the hierarchy of American priorities (at least outside of Afghanistan/Pakistan).

In some sense, budgets speak louder than words. As the paper's author, Stephen McInerney, notes, "[President Obama's] budget request can be viewed as one of the first tangible demonstrations of democracy's place in the administration's approach to the Middle East." Here are some of Steve's conclusions:

• President Obama’s increased emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan is clearly backed up by an enormous investment of resources, including dramatic support for democratic institutions and civil society
• President Obama demonstrates strong support for two Bush administration initiatives – MEPI and MCC – that many feared may be discontinued for political reasons
• Cuts to civil society are particularly severe in Egypt and Jordan – two key Arab allies for which overall democracy and governance funding is also reduced.

It is this last point which is particularly concerning to me. Egypt and Jordan are among America's most vital Arab allies and the only two countries in the region that have signed peace treaties with Israel. Because Egypt and Jordan are perceived to be such reliable, albeit autocratic, allies, it is assumed that democracy or any substantive political change in Egypt or Jordan will bear consequences for our broader national interest in the Middle East. Of course, Egypt, in particular, is not necessarily stable, with a succession crisis looming and a ruling party more intent than ever on impose its will (through force) on a people that has long ceased to believe in its legitimacy.

On the other hand, we can afford to increase democracy assistance to countries that are seen as less strategically vital, such as Morocco and Yemen, two countries whose aid packages have increased significantly in this fiscal year.

Clinton Fights Rape in the Congo Posted by The Editors

This blog post was written by NSN intern Kate Aizpuru.

The New York Times reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton introduced a $17 million plan to fight the sexual violence that has been widespread in the Congo during its more than a decade of civil war.  Funds have been pledged to go towards training gynecologists, supplying rape victims with video cameras to document the violence, and training Congolese police to crack down on the rapists. Well done, Secretary Clinton; it’s about time.

It is well known that rape and other forms of sexual violence are a serious, widespread problem in the Congo. A 59-page report from Human Rights Watch describes how tens of thousands of Congolese women and girls have suffered from sexual violence in the past fifteen years, with over 15,000 new cases registered in 2008 alone. They write: “The medical, psychological and social impact of sexual violence is disastrous. Victims may suffer deadly injuries due to the rape, in particular when they are very young…victims are not only traumatized by sexual violence, but by also by the negative attitudes of their communities towards them.”

 According to an article on the UNICEF website, Congolese youth have begun to form youth groups, getting together to talk about the effects of widespread rape in their society: “The young people discuss issues such as HIV/AIDS openly and distribute pamphlets on ways to protect themselves from sexual assault. They try to bring the issues up at home with their parents and elders. But there is a feeling that the adults are not yet listening.”

Maybe some of the adults will begin listening now. I hope that some of the funds will be allotted for homegrown campaigns that have taken root in the Congo. Congolese rape victims have begun forming initiatives to raise awareness, provide assistance to victims, and stop perpetrators.  For example, the Congolese Women’s Campaign Against Sexual Violence was formed by women’s associations in Eastern Congo. One of the best ways the U.S. can help protect the rights of women and girls vulnerable to rape is by empowering their own communities. The U.S. can’t go into the Congo and make the army and rebel forces stop committing these atrocities, but we can provide support to grassroots efforts that understand the cultural landscape and may just be lacking resources. Kudos to Secretary Clinton for directing international attention to a problem that has gone ignored for too long. Here’s hoping her plan is executed effectively.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Definition Of . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

I apologize to my loyal readers for not earlier referencing this gobsmacking piece from the NYT today:

Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.

United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

Ok, just so I have this straight: we're going to start killing drug traffickers in Afghanistan because drug money from opium sales goes to the Taliban. (Oh and by the way don't worry this is totally legal because the military said it is).

The reason we are killing drug traffickers is because if the Taliban pockets that money they can buy more $10 a day soldiers; and if they have more soldiers they can one day take over Kandahar, which by the way is the next new battle in Afghanistan (never mind that pesky little offensive in Helmand Province that was underresourced and had no host country support. Nothing to see here, move along, move along, just a sideshow).

And if we don't target these drug traffickers the Taliban will drive from Kandahar to Kabul where they will take over the country again. Then they will create a safe haven for Al Qaeda, who will set up precisely the same terrorist infrastructure that they had pre-2001 and there's not a single thing that the US will be able to do about it.

And then America will get hit by a terrorist attack again.

You want to know how messed up this idea is: even Andrew Exum agrees with me!

Are we really going to spend our time, money and precious ISR assets going after the Pashtun Pablo Escobar? Again, why are we in Afghanistan? To fight drugs?

Here's the thing: if we're out there killing drug dealers in Afghanistan that's the practical definition of mission creep. What's next, are we going to start trying to convince farmers to grow something other than opium . . . oh jeez.

I mean part of me is really starting to wonder if all of this - from the targeting of drug traffickers and the prison reform to the calls for 45,000 more troops -- is just a bizarre plot by the military to undermine support for the mission in Afghanistan. Cause it seems to be working.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - Is The Worm Turning UPDATED Posted by Michael Cohen

Perhaps it is my imagination (or just wishful thinking) but it sure seems like over the past week or so there has been a rising sense of queasiness about the current US mission in Afghanistan. Not a moment too soon it would seem since Gen McChrystal now seems poised to ask for an additional 10,000 troops for the fight.

Over at abu muqawama, Andrew Exum has started an Afghanistan Strategy Dialogue to examine the national interest implications of our mission in Afghanistan. That's a good step in the right direction and I applaud Andrew for doing it. But I sort of wish he would put some skin in the game by answering the questions that he is posing.

Along those lines, Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy takes a stab at the issue and comes up with a pretty smart response:

Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things).  So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa --- into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments.  Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world?  On whose budget? To his credit, McChrystal adviser Steve Biddle raises all of these questions in his excellent American Interest article from last month -- but in my view goes wrong by limiting the policy options to either full withdrawal or full commitment to COIN.

I highly recommend reading the whole post.

But Mark's post got me thinking about something else. Mark is front and center about the fact that he is not a Afghanistan expert. While I've been highly critical of the US mission in Afghanistan, not only because the tactics seem at odds with the strategy, but because as Mark points out the national interest in stabilizing Afghanistan seems very unclear, not being a regional or national expert on Afghanistan is something that weighs on me as well.

But whether one is an expert or not, if the Iraq war showed us anything it is that untested and unquestioned assumptions can lead to disastrous outcomes. We all have a responsibility to scrutinize the arguments that would cost the lives of American servicemen and ensnare the country in potential military quagmires. And that means questioning the pronouncements of our leaders - whatever our political affiliation. As someone pointed out to me recently, our default position on going to war or intensifying a military intervention should be "this might not be such a good idea," unless someone can make the case why military conflict is in the national interest. But generally it seems since September 11th, the opposite has occurred - the pressure is on opponents to prove why military intervention is a bad idea. And in a politicized national security environment that is not an easy argument to make.

The intervention in Afghanistan has been predicated on an often dubious set of assumptions or at the very least, ones that are not scrutinized as seriously as they should have been (on the latter, I certainly include myself). It's entirely possible that those of us who are critical of the US mission in Afghanistan are wrong and that our pessimism is unfounded. But it should be incumbent upon those who believe we need to do more not less in Afghanistan to make the case. Increasingly it seems that's just not happening.

UPDATE: My apologies to MarC Lynch for misspelling his name - that's a C not a K!

How Big Is The Threat from Afghanistan? Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at the Wall Street Journal, my old colleague Seth Jones makes the reasonable argument that if America wants to achieve success in Afghanistan its energy must be focused on the local level and not building up the central government. Here's his solution:

In some areas, local tribes and villages have already tried to resist the Taliban, but have been heavily outmatched. The solution should be obvious: They should be strongly supported. This may include helping establish village-level “community watch” programs centered on the jirga, the legitimate governing institution in Pashtun areas. In some places, jirgas are composed primarily of tribal leaders, who adjudicate disputes and mete out justice. In others, they include religious and other figures. Finding ways for organizations like the Afghan army to support village-level forces, such as developing a quick reaction force when villages come under attack, would give the people a reason to ally with the central government.

Ok, fair enough, but considering that the Afghan army can't even be relied upon to support the Marine offensive in Helmand Province how exactly are they going to be marshaled to do what Jones ambitiously describes - and how long do US troops need to be in the country to achieve that goal? It's not that I don't agree with Jones's overall point, but the lack of specificity on how he would do it does not exactly inspire me with confidence.

But part of the problem stems from Jones's description of the the threat emanating from Afghanistan - and the faulty assumption on which it lies:

Nearly eight years after the attacks, U.S. and other Western intelligence indicates that al Qaeda is still the most significant threat to the U.S. homeland. Al Qaeda’s key sanctuary has moved from key areas like Jalalabad in 2001 to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan today. That’s about the distance from New York City to Philadelphia.

Earlier this year, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, noted that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area “is the headquarters of the al Qaeda senior leadership” who are planning attacks on the United States. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also warned that “three quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al Qaeda” operating from the border region.

A litany of terrorist attacks and plots has been incubated in this area. The successful March 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, July 2005 attacks in London, foiled 2006 plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the U.S. and Canada, and more recently thwarted plots in Germany, Denmark, Spain and France have a common theme. They all link back to al Qaeda or other affiliated terrorist groups operating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

What’s more, the two most successful insurgent groups in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Haqqani network, have developed a close strategic relationship with al Qaeda. In fact, some assessments indicate that their links are even closer than before 2001. If Americans should have learned anything from September 11, it was that the United States cannot accept a situation where al Qaeda and its allies enjoy a sanctuary to plan and train for terrorist attacks against the United States.

There are several points here that seem dubious at best. First, Jones argues that potential attacks link back to groups operating along the Afghan-Pakistan border - but those groups are all in Pakistan right now, not Afghanistan. And if the US didn't maintain a robust military presence in Afghanistan what would stop the US from using the same drone aircraft to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda that are being utilized in Pakistan?

And the simple fact is that while the Madrid attacks and the London bombing were "incubated" in Af/Pak they were prepared and implemented in Western countries - same goes for the September 11th attacks, which were plotted in Hamburg and executed, in part, by using American flight schools. In fact, the direct links between the Madrid bombers and Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan seem tenuous at best. What's worse, many of the current arguments about Al Qaeda seem to ignore the fact that the terrorist group has been diffused and even franchised around the world since September 11th. We continue act as though drawing down our military engagement in Afghanistan will somehow make America vulnerable again to precisely the same sort of terrorist attack as we were hit with 8 years ago; as if the nature of our enemy and their capabilities hasn't fundamentally changed since then.

And yet Jones oft-repeated, rarely scrutinized rationale for why the US must remain in Afghanistan seems to reflect the reigning Washington Consensus on Afghanistan. Take for example, Senator Carl Levin's statement on Face the Nation yesterday:

So, you know, Afghanistan is a little but different from -- a lot different from Iraq. For one thing, Afghanistan is the place, along with the Pakistan border, that the attackers were trained and harbored, that hit us on 9/11. We took our eye off that ball when we went to Iraq, but now we’ve got our eye on that border. We cannot allow that border to become a safe haven again.

Ugh. Do I have to mention the fact that Al Qaeda has HAD a safe haven since 2002. It's in Pakistan and as near I can tell they haven't been able to execute any serious terrorist plot against the United States since then. Al Qaeda is a non-state actor, which means they can operate in any ungoverned space they can find on the map - Somalia, Yemen, Congo . . . the FATA in Pakistan!

As John Mueller said recently in Foreign Affairs:

No convincing evidence has been offered publicly to show that al Qaeda Central has put together a single full operation anywhere in the world since 9/11. And, outside of war zones, the violence perpetrated by al Qaeda affiliates, wannabes, and lookalikes combined has resulted in the deaths of some 200 to 300 people per year, and may be declining. That is 200 to 300 too many, of course, but it scarcely suggests that "the safety of people around the world is at stake," as Obama dramatically puts it.

This is exactly right. From a cost benefit analysis, trying to build up local community organizations in Afghanistan because if we don't the Taliban might take over Kabul again and then might set up a safe haven for Al Qaeda (which for some reason the US would be powerless to dismantle or disrupt) seems a tad less cost effective way to deal with the threat of terrorism then say improving homeland security and actively containing Al Qaeda leadership in Af/Pak.

Jones says in his piece "The reality, then, is that the United States is stuck in Afghanistan and Pakistan for now." Yeah we are: if we keep believing tired arguments about why we have to remain stuck there.