Gelb's Befuddling Afghan Rationale

By Steve Hynd

Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, has an op-ed in the WSJ today (where else?) touting for escalation of the occupation of Afghanistan. In it he, rightly to my mind, demands that President Obama clarify just what the strategy is in Afghanistan.

For myself, I'd like to know soon whether Obama is going to go with his original plan, the military's mission-creep plan or some new one that acknowledges the emergent reality in the wake of the catastrophic Afghan elections. But not all of that is entirely Obama's fault - if the military, ably abetted by think-tankers like Gelb, hadn't creepily pushed his original counter-terrorism strategy into being a full-on counter-insurgency nation building exercise there wouldn't be as much confusion. If Obama had controlled his commanders and kept them on-mission better then there wouldn't be as much confusion either. There's blame to share aplenty.

Where I get befuddled is Gelb's stated reasons why and how the U.S. should double down. The "how" first.

Gelb admits that "the United States does not have vital interests in Afghanistan" but writes that "the president has got to give Afghan allies a fighting chance to hold their own and prepare the ground to blunt the Taliban and al Qaeda." He then singularly fails to explain why a troop increase is required for that, rather than a reduced presence entirely focussed on blunting the Taliban (Al Qaeda, even Petreaus agrees, is no longer in Afghanistan). A force of 20,000 or so with air support, forward based rather than hunkering inside Bagram, would be sufficient to interdict the border, prevent most Taliban encroachments and provide a shield against any takeover for a few years while the ANA builds up and the Afghan government gets its act together - should they have the will to do so. That puts rescuing Afghanistan back where it should be  - in the hands of Afghans. 

He also fails to address the reality that training Afghan troops in American ways of war is counter-productive. These consumate light-infantry mountain fighters, people who taught the world ways of fighting that became integral to special forces ops, continually get their lunches eaten for them by their Taliban countrymen when they eschew their own best practises for luggng around American-style packs and for American-style infantry combat. And Afghanistan could never afford American style logistics or heavy equipment in its wildest dreams either. Once again, the counter-insurgency we have in Afghanistan throws out the manual. U.S. training of Afghan forces mainly suits those Afghans to be cannon-fodder for U.S. operations in a decades-long occupation with no exit ramp.

As to the "why", Gelb can only say that "The president's failure in Afghanistan would be America's failure, and we cannot allow this to happen". It's a rationale that has been echoed by other foreign policy heavyweights and politicians - that failure in Afghanistan would be too embarassing to countenance. But it's simply not enough of a rationale to justify a decades-long occupation of another nation. That's where he leaves me really befuddled. Is this the best the president emeritus of the CFR has for spending ever more lives and treasure on a foreign field? Gelb and others should remember as they write that the real Pottery Barn Rule is not "we broke it, we own it", it's "you broke it, so pay up and get the f*** out of our store before you break more stuff you ham-handed clunk!"

The perfect anti-thesis to Gelb's rationale is quoted by Bob Herbert today and comes from John McCain, of all people, in in a foreword that he wrote about Vietnam for David Halberstam’s book, “The Best and the Brightest”:

“War is far too horrible a thing to drag out unnecessarily,” he said. “It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay.

“No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.”

The nation has already come to the conclusion that continued escalation of the occupation of Afghanistan is not in its interest and the President seems to be teetering on the brink of admitting the same thing, if only to himself.  Embarassment, Mr. Gelb, doesn't come into it.

Comments

[JustPlainDave]

MHO, there is absolutely no way that the strategic aims that you put forward here:

interdict the border, prevent most Taliban encroachments and provide a shield against any takeover for a few years while the ANA builds up and the Afghan government gets its act together - should they have the will to do so.

...with the force level that you cite.

[Steve Hynd]

Hi JPD. If you're talking about the vast insurgency sea in rural areas we have right now, you're right. But that won't be accomplished by a Kagan-sized troop increase either. The country is too big and favors the insurgent too much. But if you're talking about "take over Kabul" kind of Taliban force movements, 20,000 is plenty.

Regards, Steve

[JustPlainDave]

It's the interdicting the border and preventing most Taliban encroachments that I object to. There's simply no way that either of those things can be accomplished in any meaningful way with 20,000 folks. Preventing the Taliban from massing for a conventional attack on Kabul, that you can do with 20,000 - but it means abandoning pretty much everything else, and it likely means a toll of civilian collateral that would make what we've seen thusfar post-invasion look tame.