Obama, DragonSlayer Posted by Adam Blickstein

I fully expect Robert Kagan to cite the following line in his next Washington Post Op-Ed:

"Was the atomic bomb or karate developed in five years? President Obama is putting lives at risk. The only explanation I can think of is that he's terrified of dragons."

Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - British Version Posted by Michael Cohen

MIchael Crowley at TNR flags an interesting story from the UK's Guardian about doings in Afghanistan:

Gordon Brown has told the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to put more Afghan troops into Helmand province immediately to make sure the costly territorial gains made by UK forces are not lost and British soldiers do not die in vain.

Amid mounting political pressure on the government over the sharp rise in British fatalities this month, Brown issued his demand to Karzai in a phone conversation on Sunday after talks with the US president, Barack Obama.

Less than 10% of the 80,000-strong Afghan army are stationed in Helmand even though 50% of the fighting is being conducted in the Taliban stronghold.

British forces have been repeatedly frustrated that they capture vital ground only for it to be ceded within months due to the lack of Afghan soldiers to move in and take control. There are only 500 Afghan troops involved in the British Operation Panther's Claw in Helmand province.

This is obviously well-known and mirrors complaints that you are hearing from American military officials. But here's the odd part. In a statement to Parliament, Prime Minister Brown makes a very different argument:

It has been a very difficult summer and it is not over yet but if we are to deny Helmand to the Taliban in the long term, if we are to defeat this insurgency, and by doing so make Britain and the world a safer place, then we must persist with our operations in Afghanistan … I am confident that we are right to be in Afghanistan, that we have the strongest possible plan."

Huh?  Clearly this is not true. If the Afghan government is not supporting the offensive in Helmand province - and if as many have suggested they lack the capacity to do the "hold" part of clear, hold and build -- and if UK forces are repeatedly frustrated that their efforts to clear vital ground are reversed . . . then how exactly is this strongest possible plan?  (I have to admit that after regularly reading the pronouncements of British officials about the war in Afghanistan, they seem far more divorced from reality and infused with absurd patriotic pablum than those of their counterparts in Washington).

At some point, one would hope that on both sides of the Atlantic there would be a recognition that the problem in Afghanistan is not one of tactics, but instead strategy - in other words the strategy is not realistic or achievable in the near-term. (Actually maybe I'm being to kind because from an operational standpoint things don't appear to be going swimmingly either).

This seems particularly important when one considers the obvious political constraints on Prime Minister Brown and the Labor Party.  One can imagine - quite frightfully - that US troops will muddle through even bad news and declining public support. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the UK where support for the war is on the wane. The problem seems to be that, as in this country, the political opposition is not interested in ratcheting down military efforts in Afghanistan, but instead doubling down.

My feelings on COIN are well-known, but even if you are an advocate of counter-insurgency there has to, at some point, be a recognition that Afghanistan might not be the best testing ground for FM 3-24.

ADDENDUM:

As an addendum I highly recommend reading this memo from Lord Ashdown to Condi Rice and Gordon Brown, written in December 2007 and recently published in his autobiography and at the Guardian. It seems as relevant now as it was then:

1. We do not have enough troops, aid or international will to make Afghanistan much different from what it has been for the last 1000 years – a society built around the gun, drugs and tribalism. And even if we had all of these in sufficient quantities, we would not have them for sufficient time – around 25 years or so – to make the aim of fundamentally altering the nature of Afghanistan, achievable. . . .

11. So one of our tasks is, gently, to lower expectations in the Western world and bring our ambitions back into the range of the achievable. This will certainly be difficult and may well make those who attempt it, unpopular.

12. There is one thing we have achieved, however, and, with skill and a ruthless prioritisation of resources, ought to be able to continue to achieve, even with diminished resources. That is denying the Islamic jihadists the use of Afghanistan for the kind of activities they conducted there prior to 9/11.

Islamic jihadist fighters may be taking part in the insurgency in Afghanistan, but they are no longer using the country for bases, recruitment and training These activities are now taking place over the border in Pakistan.

13. So the realistic aim in Afghanistan, with current resources, is not victory, but containment. Our success will be measured, not in making things different, but making them better; not in final defeat of the jihadists, but in preventing them from using Afghanistan as a space for their activity. These two aims will be difficult enough to achieve; but they are at least achievable.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch Posted by Michael Cohen

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, July 9, 2009:

Nicholson told his 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade that everywhere Marines landed in this operation — with 4,000 troops, the Marines' biggest aerial insertion since Vietnam — they were to hold meetings within 24 hours to explain to the locals why they had come.

The problem is, the Afghan people, at least in Sorhodez, don't believe the promises. They have heard it all before. According to Nicholson, the No. 1 question the Marines get from people across Helmand is, "When are you leaving?" His answer is that they are not leaving "until the transition for security is made to the provincial government."

This is obviously a laudable goal, but as a couple of articles from the last few days make clear the ability of the Afghan police to provide that security is in serious question.

First this story from Reuters:

As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police.

U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions.

But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government's police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators.

"The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money," said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.

And then this from the AP:

Afghan villagers had complained to the U.S. Marines for days: The police are the problem, not the Taliban. They steal from villagers and beat them. Days later, the Marines learned firsthand what the villagers meant.

As about 150 Marines and Afghan soldiers approached the police headquarters in the Helmand River town of Aynak, the police fired four gunshots at the combined force. No larger fight broke out, but once inside the headquarters the Marines found a raggedy force in a decrepit mud-brick compound that the police used as an open-pit toilet.

The meeting was tense. Some police were smoking pot. Others loaded their guns in a threatening manner near the Marines.

Over the past year, the Interior Ministry has tried to overhaul the police, and dozens of corrupt officials have been fired. The U.S. has faced similar problems in Iraq, where years of effort have so far failed to produce a police force with the same level of skill and professionalism as the Iraqi army.

To be sure, it's a good thing that the US military is training the Afghan Army and police force. It's a long overdue step that was not taken as seriously by the previous Administration, but the current problems do suggest two unpleasant realities: it's going to be a long time until US troops transition security responsibilities to an Afghan provincial government and second, why exactly are we setting out to do a counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan when we don't have the support of the host country's police and security services?

Scoblic v. Krauthammer Posted by David Shorr

Peter Scoblic offers an excellent retort in The New Republic to Charles Krauthammer's recent hyperventilation over missile defense. Scoblic points out the folly of pursuing technology for its own sake and reminds us of the precarious balance of terror associated with nuclear weapons. These are not totems of military or technical prowess, they are enormously, uniquely destructive instruments of catastrophe. The utmost priority of any policy, therefore, is to keep them from being used. And as Scoblic rightly emphasizes, it's all about deterrence and everyone being confident that their own ability to retaliate for an attack will discourage the other guy. Any attempt to gain an advantage could give an adversary an itchy trigger finger -- not good. Since the New York Times recently traced President Obama's attitudes back to college days in the early 1980s, let me add a generational note. For many of us who came of age in the nuclear freeze movement, this issue of undermining deterrence and upsetting the balance of terror was the main worry.

The Part Where I Strenuously Disagree with Tom Ricks Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Best Defense Tom Ricks has a post up about the "soft lives" of White House staffers who work ridiculously long hours. According to Ricks:

I know a lot of infantrymen who would love to have the soft life these people have. I think this sort of mewling is what happens when you staff the White House mainly with people who think the hardest thing you can do in life is take the bar exam.

This is manifestly unfair, simplistic and dangerous. In the Washington Post article that sparked Ricks complaint I'm not aware of a single White House staffer who compares their plight to those of US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a false and absurd comparison. Even less clear is a White House staffer quoted who asks Tom Ricks or anyone else to feel sorry for them. If anything, quite the opposite.

But, there is a larger and more upsetting implication in Ricks' rant -- that the only real sacrifice an American can make to their country is that of a soldier. Instead of denigrating Americans who choose to give up their personal lives (and time with their children and spouses) to serve their country he should be applauding them. I would imagine that Tom has lived in Washington long enough to know that there are a myriad of ways that people can and should serve their country - both in government and outside and even as a journalist.

But when we start believing that the only true means of national sacrifice is to carry a gun . . . well then we well on our way to becoming a garrison state.

The Phantom Trip to Chad Posted by Patrick Barry

Displaying an unsurprising grasp of basic facts yesterday, Oliver North expressed relief that President Obama's trip to Chad produced no "serious risks to our future." Maybe that's because the President actually went to GHANA!

That's quite an error, even for a guy like North.  As the New York Times noted this morning Ghana features "a functioning democracy that has managed several peaceful transitions of power," making it "the favorite American success story in sub-Saharan Africa." 

Chad is an altogether different place. The country faces a series of overlapping crises, including an ongoing battle between the government and rebel factions that draw support from Sudan; ethnic violence in the East with "the potential to destabilise the entire country as well as neighbouring states," according to the International Crisis Group; and tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled either internal conflict, or violence in Darfur.  (For some detailed but digestible background material on these interwoven threads, check out this Enough Project primer)

It's inexplicable why North should confuse the two countries, since they have almost nothing in common. 

Seriously, why does this guy have a regular column? And for that matter, who is editing him?

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - Part 2 Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Attackerman, Spencer makes a good point about Gen. McCrystal's likely request for more US troops in Afghanistan to train the Afghan security services:

Whatever you think about the war in Afghanistan, it's foolhardy to suggest that the commander of U.S. troops there ought to hold off spelling out what resources he thinks is necessary to accomplish his mission. Hiding the true costs of the mission benefits no one. 

Spencer is absolutely correct and it's a point I made last week. But I wonder if Spencer is being too generous. Consider the context for not only Saturday's Washington Post article describing McCrystal's belief that more troops are needed, but also the McClatchy interview from today in which Gen. McCrystal again says he will tell his superiors in Washington that he needs a bigger force.

Less than two weeks ago we had Jim Jones, the national security advisor telling his military commanders in Afghanistan they're not getting any more troops. And now you have two articles, a big Rajiv Chandrasekaran piece in the Washington Post decrying that lack of Afghan Army support for the Helmand offensive and this priceless quote from an unnamed military official, "Without significant increases . . . 'we will lose the war.'"

Perhaps I'm being conspiratorial, but this doesn't feel coincidental. It's one thing for McCrystal to discretely ask his superiors for more troops, it's quite another to voice that request - before formally made -- to various news outlets. Now maybe this is a case of the Obama Administration using the unimpeachable image of the military to get more troops into Afghanistan or maybe it's the military trying to put pressure on the White House. If it's the latter, does anyone really believe that Obama will be able to deny a request for more troops, particularly if you have folks in Kabul saying not only that it's absolutely necessary, but that America risks losing the war if we don't?

But whether it's one or the other, one thing seems clear: we're going to be sending more troops to Afghanistan in the pursuit of an uncertain and dubious mission.

NSN Daily Update: 7/13/09 Posted by The Editors

For today's complete NSN Daily Update, click here

What We're Reading

CIA programs not fully disclosed to Congress, coupled with President Bush’s management of a NSA wiretapping program, fuels demands for accountability, both in Congress and by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Violence in Afghanistan continues to rise as troops push against the Taliban, causing some debate as to how Obama’s additional troops should best be put to use. In this environment, Afghan President Hamid Karzai produces a few gaffes during his campaign for reelection.

Ecuador and Colombia continue to let tension stemming from a military strike by Colombia against rebel groups hiding in Ecuador in 2008 affect their relationship, with new tariffs being imposed on bilateral trade.

Ethnic Tamils still languish in Sri Lankan camps, weeks following the government’s military victory over the Tamil Tigers separatist group.

Commentary of the Day

Jonathan Fenby and John Pomfret explain the various factors influencing the violence in Western China between Uighurs and Han Chinese.

Jon Meacham discusses the detention in Iran of his colleague, Maziar Bahari, for reporting on their disputed presidential election.

Donald Rumsfeld biographer Bradley Graham muses on whether or not the former Secretary of Defense will be as contrite on the Iraq War as former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was for the Vietnam War.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch Posted by Michael Cohen

There is so much to write about today on the AMCW, but the piece de resistance is almost certainly Saturday's Washington Post article on the problems with the Afghan security forces:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials. Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said

"There are not enough Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police for our forces to partner with in operations . . . and that gap will exist into the coming years even with the planned growth already budgeted for," said a U.S. military official in Kabul who is familiar with McChrystal's ongoing review.

Without significant increases, said another U.S. official involved in training Afghan forces, "we will lose the war." Gates would have to agree to any request from McChrystal for additional funding or troops, and recommend it to Obama.

I don't even know where to start here. First of all how have we gone through numerous strategic reviews on what to do in Afghanistan; decided to send an additional 17,000 US troops to the country and only now - in July of 2009 - is the military coming to the realization that we might not have enough Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to conduct a serious counter-insurgency mission? Seriously, how is that possible?

And here's another question: why did we order 4,000 Marines into Helmand Province to conduct counter-insurgency operations without conducting the necessary due diligence to see if we had appropriate support from the Afghan military? If we don't have the Afghan support to conduct a counter-insurgency operation and maximize any security gains achieved than why are we even doing this? 

Now I understand the possibility that Gen. McCrystal got to country, looked around and decided that he needed more Afghan support. But what I'm having a hard time understanding is how that wasn't the critical part of the strategic review that went on last Spring in the Obama Administration.

If you want to know why I call this increasingly daily feature the Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch it's precisely because of situations like this and my own sneaking suspicion that when President Obama announced his strategic review for Af/Pak in March a robust counter-insurgency mission wasn't necessarily in the cards. It certainly seems to be now.

But it gets worse.

Does anyone remember the Bob Woodward piece from last week that touched on the question of whether the US would be in a position to send more troops to Afghanistan? Allow me to refresh your memory:

Suppose you're the president, Jones (National Security Advisor Jim Jones) told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel? Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to WTF -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What the [expletive]?" Nicholson and his colonels -- all or nearly all veterans of Iraq -- seemed to blanch at the unambiguous message that this might be all the troops they were going to get.

And you know how long that guidance was operative for? About ten days . . .

Despite concerns that too large a U.S. military presence would undermine efforts to eventually put the Afghans in charge of their own security, Jones said McChrystal is "perfectly within his mandate as a new commander to make the recommendation on the military posture as he sees it. We have to wait until he does that. There was never any intention on my visit [to Afghanistan] to say, 'Don't ever come in with a request or to put a cap on troops.' "

And then there is this:

McChrystal now has what the official called a "halo effect," similar to that of Gen. David H. Petraeus when he arrived in Iraq in early 2007 to preside over a major troop expansion and change in strategy that ultimately succeeded in turning the tide of that war.

Petraeus now heads U.S. Central Command, which includes Afghanistan. "If you've got Stan's word . . . and Petraeus standing behind him" in requesting more resources, the official said, Obama can stress the need for a "marginal adjustment" based on advice from commanders on the ground.

Perhaps my favorite part of this article is the US military official who says sotto voce to the Washington Post without significant troop increases in Afghanistan, "we will lose the war." I believe this is known as the ratf**k. Does anyone else think that if McCrystal and Petraues come to the President in the Summer of 2010 (a few months before a mid-term election) and say we need more troops at the same time you have military officials leaking to the WP that we'll lose war if we don't get more troops . . . that more troops won't be on their way to Afghanistan?

If anyone was perhaps operating under the assumption that the US role in Afghanistan was going to begin winding down in 18-24 months - as I once foolishly did - this article should quickly disabuse you of that notion.

That Wacky, Wacky Krauthammer and Politico Posted by Michael Cohen

Did you see that Politico named its top 50 politicos and Charles Krauthammer made the list!

With Democrats ascendant in Washington and the GOP a shambles, Krauthammer’s clear, concise criticism of left-wing orthodoxy could make the Obama era his, as well. Said New York Times columnist David Brooks: “He’s the most important conservative columnist right now.”

Apparently in offering this designation to Charles Krauthammer, Politico reporter Michael Calderone failed to mention that Charles Krauthammer likes to write things that simply aren't true. Joe Cirincione has the goods:

Washington Post senior columnist Charles Krauthammer wants Russia to build more nuclear weapons. Why? Because he thinks we can shoot them out of the sky like clay pigeons. This is simply not true. The Post's promotion of this fantasy could lead to global disaster.

He claims, "We can reliably shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile." This is demonstrably false. We cannot now reliably shoot down a real long-range missile. We have never been able to do this and there is no prospect that we will able to do this in the future. Claims that we can are not true. People who repeat these claims are not telling the truth.

Keep up the good work Chuck . . . and you too Politico!