Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch Posted by Michael Cohen

In today's edition of AMCW we head across the ocean to this article from the UK's Telegraph and quotes from Gen. McCrystal and British Defense Secretary, Bob Ainsworth.

General McCrystal:

General McChrystal has recently ordered his forces to reduce aerial bombing, in an attempt to gain support of the local population. Arguing that the additional risks to soldiers were a price worth paying, General McChrystal believes that if civilians began to support the Taliban, it would make the war unwinnable.

"In the long run it is more economical in terms of loss of life to operate this way because we can gain the support of the population," he said.  General McChrystal, who took over as commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force last month, said: "We want to protect the lives of civilians, but I believe that risks we accept now save coalition soldiers in the long run. If you create antipathy in the population, you are going to create more insurgents." 

Bob Ainsworth:

“Let us be under no illusion. The situation in Afghanistan is serious – and not yet decided. The way forward is hard and dangerous. More lives will be lost and our resolve is going to be tested," he said.

“If we are to succeed we will need both the courage and the patience to see it through. There is no defined end date – only an end state.”

Now on the surface there is nothing necessarily wrong with these words - well besides the fact that they reflect a misguided mission and that the unstated "end state" probably is somewhat out of reach. But the real problem is that McCrystal and Ainsworth are clearly operating on a mission that has a fairly long trajectory: and considering the lack of host country support for a counter-insurgency mission, one that will likely continue to have an American face.

Is it possible to read the words above and come to the conclusion that the United States will be out of Afghanistan in 18-24 months? And frankly, if the mission is as, McCrystal and Ainsworth describe; would that make any sense? If we only intend to be in Afghanistan for say, two years, does anyone think that we would be carrying out a mission that focuses more on protecting the population than it does killing Taliban?

So what we have here is either a very long, bloody and expensive mission in Afghanistan or a pretty significant mismatch between tactics and objectives? I'm guessing the former and if that's the case, shouldn't that be something the President mentions to the American people?

NSN Daily Update: 7/10/09 Posted by The National Security Network

For today's complete daily update, click here.

What We're Reading

David Haight, a top U.S. colonel in Afghanistan, warned that should Hamid Karzai win in next month’s presidential elections, apathy from ordinary Afghans may turn to violence.

Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, alarming American and Iraqi official who fear for the country’s unity.

North Korea has so far delayed sending two convicted U.S. journalists to a prison labor camp, in a possible scheme to seek talks with the U.S. on their release. Instead, they are being kept in a guest house in Pyongyang.

A new form of the Ebola virus has been discovered in the Philippines. Experts are concerned that it could mutate and pose a new risk to humans.

Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa has carried out a string of killings, bombings and other attacks on Westerners and African security forces in recent weeks, leading counterterrorism officials to speculate that foreign fighters are returning home from the Iraq war with a wider range of bomb-making skills.

Commentary of the Day

Joe Cirincione pushes back against Charles Krauthammer’s Washington Post piece that calls the U.S./Russia nuclear deal “plumage” and asserts that Russia should build more nukes. Cirincione says the “Post's promotion of this fantasy could lead to global disaster.”

Nicholas Bequelin argues that the eruption of ethnic violence in Xinjiang reflects the failure of the Chinese government’s policies towards national minorities.

The LA Times calls the Senate climate-change bill a “test of this country’s commitment to deal with the problem.”

Jon O’Brien says a meeting between Obama and the Pope will be one of symbolism, not substance.

Fred Kaplan writes that Obama’s deal on weapons could win Russia’s cooperation on toughter issues later.

Now, The Arms Control Hard Part Posted by David Shorr

In a New York Times op-ed today, Philip Taubman directs our attention toward a nexis of politics and bureaucracy that could make or break the bold nuclear policy outlined in President Obama's Prague speech. The Nuclear Posture Review is a periodic reassessment of how US nuclear forces fit into our overall security strategy -- i.e. the strategic objectives for which the weapons, their deployment, and their disarmament should be tailored. As Taubman points out, the combination of inertia and vested interests can doom major policy shifts before they even get started, a problem President Reagan encountered when he tried to set ambitious disarmament goals in his second term. It is crucial, therefore, for President Obama to "make sure it reflects his thinking," as Taubman stresses.

As the president has made clear, a primary strategic objective is to keep additional countries from acquiring nuclear arsenals, and upholding the United States NPT obligation to disarm is essential. Here's how he put it during his Moscow visit this week:

This is not about singling out individual nations -- it's about the responsibilities of all nations. If we fail to stand together, then the NPT and the Security Council will lose credibility, and international law will give way to the law of the jungle. And that benefits no one. As I said in Prague, rules must be binding, violations must be punished, and words must mean something.

In other words, the United States' insistence on compliance from non-nuclear weapon states like Iran is undermined if the US itself temporizes. The thrust of US nuclear policy should be to downplay the usefulness of nuclear weapons and reinforce a stigma that they are too horrific to serve any valid military purpose but deterence. A 2008 summary report from former Stanley Foundation colleague Matt Martin's extensive project on US nuclear policy captured the problem well. Noting that the last Nuclear Posture Review by the Bush Administration in 2001 focused on freedom of action and leaving options open, the Stanley Foundation project saw many counerproductive consequences:

In a strategic environment that should seek to lower the salience of nuclear weapons, this deliberate vagueness and imprecision could be interpreted in ways that prove destabilizing and counterproductive. It continues to entrench nuclear weapons as fundamental to state security, reinforcing this notion among other nuclear and nonnuclear weapon states. It removes the distinction given nuclear weapons as a special “class” of weaponry, putting them on a continuum with other instruments of military power and inviting perceptions that the nuclear use threshold has been lowered. It raises the possibility that new nuclear missions and capability could be developed by the United States, encouraging others to consider the same, and thus increasing, rather than decreasing, the overall salience of nuclear weapons.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that nuclear arms are too desructive for any military purpose other than deterrence or retaliation. Let's hope that the posture review keeps sight of this simple moral reality and doesn't cloud the picture with tortured and technical rationalizations.

G8 As Multilateral Prism Posted by David Shorr

There's an interesting theme running through the latest posts on the excellent L'Aquila Summit blog of Centre for International Governance Innovation and Chatham House. Watching the choreography of the leaders gathered in Italy, the most important questions for the future of international cooperation look quite tangible. 

First there is the problem of the dueling Gs. As my Stanley Foundation colleague Keith Porter points out in a video interview, the overlapping agenda items of the G8 and G20 effectively make the two groups part of the same "rolling process."  Whether the leaders continue to see value in two such sets of meetings is an open matter. And even within the L'Aquila summit itself, there are so many different combinations meeting that "G8" may be a misnomer; the eight members are meeting for only a portion of the summit. CIGI's Andrew Cooper examines whether so much variable geometry packed into a few days is a drag on effectiveness. 

Chinese President Hu Jintao's hasty exit to go back and deal with the unrest in Xinjiang raises obvious points about China's major domestic challenges. But the immediate diplomatic task of representing China at L'Aquila also highlights the question of precisely what these presidents and prime ministers actually do at these meetings, which Gregory Chin (also of CIGI) delves. As Chin points out, the fact that the summit communique was largely written even before the leaders arrive prompts doubts about whether they are really wrestling with the tough questions. And then there is the matter of how key rising powers want to play, which is the focus of this Andrew Cooper post.

For me, the bottom line question for any multilateral forum is whether it delivers effective action. With the Gs -- organized, as they are, around summit meetings -- the question is all the more vital. As I argue in the latest issue of Courier (the Stanley Foundation's magazine) top-level political attention is a terrible thing to waste.

The 800 Pound Gorilla in the Room Posted by The Editors

This post is by NSN intern Luis Vertiz

The Wall Street Journal recently published an op-ed by John Nagl and Daniel Rice, discussing their plans for an Iraqi Enterprise fund. Their concern revolves around counterinsurgency [COIN] doctrine exhorting stability operations to focus on winning the hearts and minds through security and economic partnerships. However, the majority of defense spending up to this point in Iraq has focused on military operations. This is a genuine concern that cannot be easily dismissed. However, their prescription for offering long-term development aid, an Iraq Enterprise Fund, is couched in language which leaves doubts as to how the aid is to be administered. Nagl and Rice write:

Yet current development programs in Iraq -- like the Commanders' Emergency Response Fund, which lets senior military officials spend money on "urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction" projects -- focus largely on short-term job creation, not on sustainable economic development that reduces unemployment in the long term. A more appropriate weapon would be an enterprise fund to help Iraqis invest in long-term growth.

This description is misleading for a few reasons. First, the current use of Commanders’ Emergency Response Funds, or CERP, was never intended to be used as a long term development tool. Projects tied to CERP funding were expected to help with local stability operations, and were not necessarily tied to a larger, national economic development program. Because projects were paid for on an emergency basis, overall economic growth appears random and CERP spending undisciplined, causing understandable concern amongst auditors and the development community. The use of CERP funds as an example of poor development tool is neither apt nor fair.

The bigger issue, however, is the implicit characterization of development aid as a weapon. That is sure to raise a red flag within civilian agencies like State and USAID, and within the NGO community, which strenuously opposes the militarization and politicization of aid. COIN is an inherently hybrid effort, not a purely military or civilian effort. Therefore, it wouldn’t be difficult, if not implausible, to conclusively characterize Nagl and Rice’s argument as an argument for the militarization of aid.  While they make an offhand remark about how the Iraq Enterprise Fund could be profitable to USAID [assuming it is administered by them], the authors did not state the obvious: because of the preponderance of uniformed military personnel and DoD personnel in Iraq [and Afghanistan], the military would be the natural conduit by which this Iraqi Enterprise Fund, or development aid in general, would be administered, not USAID.

In order to win over the support of civilian agencies and the NGO community, Nagl and Rice should have unequivocally stated that this Iraqi Enterprise Fund would be administered by USAID. Civilian agencies and NGOs would like to portray their work as non-combative in nature and more likely to draw in persuadable Iraqis. Firmly putting USAID in the lead would also be more likely to gain the support of the military, which would prefer to focus their training and resources on war-fighting rather than allowing their responsibilities in Iraq to suffer from mission creep.

NSN Daily Update: 7/09/09 Posted by The National Security Network

For today's complete daily update, click here.

What We're Reading

Iranian security forces confronted protesters chanting “Death to the dictator” during another wave of demonstrations in Tehran. Authorities had warned that protests would be met with a ‘crushing response,’ and have banned all gatherings.

A double suicide bomb attack killed at least 34 people in Iraq.

Saudi Arabian special security courts convicted 331 people of al-Qaeda-related terrorist activities in the first known trials of members of the group in Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland. Since May of 2003, Saudi Arabia has pursued a U.S.-backed anti-terrorist strategy.

The IMF said the world economy is pulling out of the recession, marking up its growth forecasts for next year and hinting it might reduce its estimates for bank losses.

Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya vowed not to negotiate in the discussions planned for Thursday.

Commentary of the Day

Joe Cirincione writes in the Huffington Post that after speeches in Prague, Cairo, and now after the summit in Moscow, we are witnessing the emergence of an Obama Doctrine.

The Washington Post argues that the best way to defeat Manuel Zelaya and preserve democracy in Honduras is to allow the deposed president to return.

Wu’er Kaixi, a Uigher living in exile in Taiwan, writes that Beijing wants to send a brutal, zero-tolerance message to the Uighers, the greater Chinese population, and the outside world that dissent will be met with force.

Philip Taubman urges the White House to assert its position on arms reductions in the face of potential opposition from the Pentagon and Congress.

Nicholas Kristof wonders why humanitarian aid has been so ineffective.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch Posted by Michael Cohen

In today's edition of the AMCW we highlight yesterday's New York Times article about the lack of Afghan Army support for the current offensive in Helmand province:

One week after several battalions of Marines swept through the Helmand River valley, military commanders appear increasingly concerned about a lack of Afghan forces in the field.

“What I need is more Afghans,” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand Province. He accompanied the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, during a visit with troops at Patrol Base Jaker here on Monday.

General Nicholson and others say that the long-term success of the operation hinges on the performance of the Afghan security forces, which will have to take over eventually from the American troops. General Nicholson said the American force of almost 4,000 had been joined by about 400 effective Afghan soldiers.

Um, isn't the response to this "Duh?" Isn't an essential element of population-centric COIN, which the US military has apparently mastered, having host country support? How exactly is this mission extending the legitimacy of the Afghan government if the operation is being conducted almost solely by US troops? And how will any security gains be maximized and exploited in lieu of a capable and effective Afghan security service? These seems particularly critical when reports indicate that the Taliban has wisely (from their perspective) chosen not to engage in offensive actions against the Marines.

Now I know one response to this will be that the Afghan security services are not yet up to speed. Well then why the hell did we launch this operation? As is his wont, Joshua Foust makes the smart point that the level of planning put into this operation is just piss-poor and that the goal for this mission is not even close to being matched by the resources allocated: ***

I’m not aware of anyone who suffers under the illusion that a 4,000-man push into central Helmand is sustainable for the years it will take to properly develop the areas institutions and remaining infrastructure—that is literally a massive investment on a time scale far behind the terrible 12-month window Barack Obama’s advisers have allowed.

This point is further made by retired Australian general, Jim Molan over at Lowly Interpreter:

The pitiful lack of Afghan troops involved in KHANJAR (4000 Marines deployed but only about 650 Afghan troops) indicates that the hope of producing an Afghan force numerous and capable enough to take over counterinsurgency from the coalition is five to ten years away. Most of the Marines won't have nearby Afghan troops to provide them with local knowledge.

It's beginning to feel like this operation is a bit of a dog-and-pony show to demonstrate to American domestic audiences that we are 'doing something' in Afghanistan and making some sort of limited progress - even when we're really not. If we don't have Afghan support for this operation it means that the continued face of the war in Afghanistan will be that of a US soldier. In other words, to paraphrase LBJ, American boys will be doing what Afghan boys ought be doing for themselves. 

*** BTW, if you're at all interested in Afghanistan you need to be reading Joshua Foust's blog every day - registan.net. Rarely a day goes by that I don't learn something from Josh.

Not Saddam's BFF's Posted by The Editors

This post is by NSN intern Katherine Aizpuru

Mark Krikorian at The Corner expressed dismay at the State Department announcement that around 1,350 Iraqi Palestinian refugees, whom he delicately characterized as “Saddam’s BFF’s”, will be resettled in the U.S. 

According to Refugees International and Amnesty International, the small Palestinian community in Iraq dates to the founding of Israel. Beginning in 1948, Palestinians driven from their homes found sanctuary in Baghdad. The community grew in 1991 when Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait after the Gulf War. After the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Iraqi Palestinians became the targets of arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, rape, and killings. Many tried to flee, but were denied entry by Syria, Jordan and other Arab nations. Over fifteen-hundred Palestinians now live in the al-Tanf and al-Waleed camps along the border with Syria, whose living conditions Amnesty International characterized as “appalling.” Human Rights Watch refugee policy director Bill Frelick, who has visited a camp outside Jordan, says that the Iraqi Palestinians are “apolitical,” and “basically desperate, scared, miserable and ready to just get out of Iraq.”

These people are not “Saddam’s BFF’s.” Their parents and grandparents resettled in Baghdad because it was the only place available to them when their own homes were destroyed. Now, they are forced to leave Iraq because of more violence, and Arab nations are still refusing them. The U.S.-led war in Iraq disproportionately exposed Iraqi Palestinians to violence, torture, and murder. While know-nothings like Krikorian may think that all Palestinians present terrorist threats, the rest of us should recognize that the U.S. has a responsibility to ensure that the people driven out by our war have the opportunity to resettle somewhere stable and begin a new life. Iceland, Sweden and Canada have already accepted several hundred Iraqi Palestinians. It is time for the U.S. to step up.

NSN Daily Update: 7/08/09 Posted by The National Security Network

To read today's complete Daily Update, click here.

What We're Reading

Chinese troops arrived in Urumqi, the capital of its far western Xinjiang province, which has been wracked by ethnic violence in recent days, and Chinese President Hu Jintao left the G8 meeting to return to China and deal with the violence. The government has vowed to execute the instigators of the rioting. Authorities are blaming Uigher exiles for masterminding the violence. Despite the restrictions of the “Great Firewall” used by the Chinese government to censor the internet in the country, as well as apparent new censorship on Twitter and Chinese rival Fanfou.com, the Chinese are venting their anger over the violence via the internet.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadjinejad, calling Iran’s elections a “great event,” claimed they were the “most free” elections anywhere in the world. New protests are planned for Thursday.

South Korean news agency Yonhap attributed recent crippling cyberattacks on U.S. and South Korean government websites to North Korea or pro-North Korea groups. Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il appeared at memorial services for his father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the communist state. North Korean citizens continue to defect to South Korea in search of a new life.

International aid and advocacy group Oxfam demanded the “triumph of the rule of law” over the Gaza barrier. On Tuesday, former Georgia Rep. and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney arrived in the U.S. after being detained in an Israeli prison for trying to break the Gaza naval blockade and deliver supplies.

Commentary of the Day

Rebiya Kadeer, doubting the impartiality of an official Chinese explanation, presents an alternate explanation of the Uigher riots.

The LA Times expresses concern that a comeback by the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico’s recent elections may reflect a longing to return to a one-party state.

The NY Times calls on Obama to lead the way at the G8 summit.

Martin Wolf opines about how India can become an affluent nation.

The Thinnest of Reeds Posted by Michael Cohen

Stephen Biddle has an interesting piece on Afghanistan in the most recent issue of American Interest. There he tries to answer the question of whether the US war in Afghanistan is "worth it." Kudos to Biddle for trying to answer this difficult question: unfortunately I don't think he he comes up with the right answer. Biddle argues:

The danger of a nuclear al-Qaeda should not be exaggerated, however. For a U.S. withdrawal to lead to that result would require a networked chain of multiple events: a Taliban restoration in Kabul, a collapse of secular government in Islamabad, and a loss of control over the Pakistani nuclear arsenal (or deliberate transfer of weapons by sympathetic Pakistanis). These events are far from certain, and the compound probability of all of them happening is inherently lower than the odds of any one step alone. But a U.S. withdrawal would increase all the probabilities at each stage, and the consequences for U.S. security if the chain did play itself out could be severe. During the Cold War, the United States devoted vast resources to diminishing an already-small risk that the USSR would launch a nuclear attack on America. Today, the odds of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan yielding an al-Qaeda nuclear weapon next door in Pakistan may be relatively low, but the low risk of a grave result has been judged intolerable in the past and perhaps ought to be again. On balance, the gravity of the risks involved in withdrawal narrowly make a renewed effort in Afghanistan the least-bad option we have.

The chain of events that Biddle presents are a very, very long shot, beginning with a possible Taliban take-over of the country AND the collapse of Pakistan's civilian government. Even more remote is the chance that a Pakistani nuke would fall into the hands of jihadist terrorists and even if it did, it seems a bit far-fetched to assume that such groups would have the ability to deliver this weapon and use it against the United States? Indeed, it seems worth reminding folks that a similarly unlikely chain of events was presented as a rationale for going to war with Iraq in 2003.

Moreover, while the the risk to the United States of such a remote possibility is as Biddle suggests "severe;" doesn't the continuation of a 5-10 year military intervention also represent a severe risk to US interests? At a rate of $65 billion a years, we're looking at spending between $325-$650 billion, not to mention the ultimate price being paid by US soldiers. Is this a worthwhile price to pay on behalf of a counter-insurgency mission where as Biddle acknowledges there is "no guarantee" of success?

But perhaps what is most frustrating about Biddle's analysis is that he actually takes the time to survey the political landscape and draws the right conclusions about America's lack of political will for the mission in Afghanistan:

If the conflict proves as long and arduous as many counterinsurgencies have, votes on many budgets over several years will be needed to bring this war to a successful conclusion. These votes will take place against the backdrop of mounting casualties, increasing costs and growing pressure to restrain Federal budgets in the face of unprecedented deficits. The result could be a slow bleeding of support as a protracted COIN campaign goes through its inevitable darkest-before-the-dawn increase in casualties and violence.

So basically what you have is a counter-insurgency mission that will be very long, very difficult and will involve the expenditure of billions of dollars and countless lives - and is still not guaranteed to succeed. You have a growing anti-war coalition in Congress and a diminishing political window of opportunity to make real progress. Combine all these drawbacks with a mission that is grounded on assumptions of unlikely worst-case scenarios and it's very hard to see why Biddle thinks the mission should continue.

Part of the problem is that Biddle presents the US options as two extremes: continuing the current counter-insurgency mission or withdrawal. Frankly, this is a bit of a strawman. American options in Afghanistan are not this extreme; and in fact there is a middle ground option here. In the most recent issue of the Atlantic, Andrew Bacevich offers one:

Better to acknowledge and build on the Afghan tradition of decentralized governance. Let tribal chiefs rule: just provide them with incentives to keep jihadists out. Where incentives don’t work, punitive action—U.S. air strikes in neighboring Pakistan provide an illustrative example—can serve as a backup. Denying terrorists sanctuary in Afghanistan does not require pacification—and leaving Afghans to manage their own affairs as they always have will reduce internal instability, while freeing up the resources to allow our own country to tackle other challenges more pressing than the quixotic quest to modernize Afghanistan.

In Steven Simon's recent must read in Foreign Affairs he argues for another possible approach:

The more efficient measures for defending against a devastating terrorist attack are killing al Qaeda's operational leadership in Pakistan and continuing to improve homeland security -- as opposed to nation building in Afghanistan.

I would add to both these suggestions a ramped-up effort to train and equip Afghanistan's police force and military so that they can take responsibility for waging war with the Taliban while actively working to degrade the Taliban's core group of fighters. At the same time the US needs to focus more energy on goading the Pakistani political and military establishments to commit more resources to internal nation-building.

But really which policy of these you endorse is irrelevant; the larger point is that the US has a multitude of options about what to do in Afghanistan. And considering the lack of strong political support for the mission wouldn't it make more sense to examine options that are as Biddle says not "expensive, risky and potentially unpopular?" Waging a full counter-insurgency is as Biddle argues, in part, the worst possible option. Ultimately the question in Afghanistan cannot be framed as a choice between "staying or leaving;" it's about making ruthless cost-benefit analysis and gaming out all possible scenarios. But above all, its about upholding America's vital interests with a policy that is realistic and achievable. It's hard to see how the course Biddle recommends achieves that goal.