(The Truth In Blogging Act requires the Geek to note that the Pentagon has taken the position that the WSJ misinterpreted the General's remarks. It prefers the version attributed to McChrystal in USA Today in which he says it matters not if the US is winning, losing or stalemated, but "Taliban has the initiative which we are trying to reverse." In war, the side having the initiative is the side which is winning.)
Right now, the general avers, Taliban is winning. It has the initiative. The momentum. It has moved out of the traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to carry the war to formerly quiet areas in the country's north and east. In these assessments, General McChrystal is correct.
In one area he is wrong. The general insists that Taliban has forced a change in strategy and tactics upon the US and other International Security Assistance Force members. While it is true that the US and its allies have changed their approach to fighting and defeating Taliban, the change was not so much forced upon us by Taliban as by the belated recognition that the war-on-the-cheap method favored by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld had handed Taliban the opportunity first to recover and next to go on the effective offensive.
There is no more destructive a notion than that of fighting a counterinsurgency campaign without sufficient strength on the ground. No matter how much technology may enhance the counter-insurgent's capacity to collect information, develop intelligence, move forces quickly, and coordinate the efforts of widely dispersed small units, success demands a large number of boots on the ground. The more boots, of course, the greater is the likelihood of more casualties.
General McChrystal does not minimise the brutal reality that US and other friendly casualties will continue to be high in the months to come. The necessity of wresting and maintaining the initiative from Taliban requires that risks be run and losses accepted. McChrystal's correct emphasis upon our troops interposing themselves between the trigger pullers and suicide bombers of Taliban on the one hand and the civilian population on the other also assures our loss rate will be high.
The fact remains that even more US and allied combat forces are needed in Afghanistan if we are going to achieve even the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing." To be certain that there will be no chance for Taliban or al-Qaeda or any other Islamist jihadist group claiming to have defeated the Americans and their allies militarily regardless of what happens eventually in Afghanistan is and must remain the minimum goal.
Right now, even considering the 21,000 additional troops approved by the Obama administration, there will not be enough combat and support forces in theater to assure the gaining of even the minimum goal. National Security Advisor and former general, James Jones, strongly implied that in the Sunday talk show circuit. While he carefully hedged his statement by noting that further deployments depended on a number of imponderables including the success or failure of Pakistani efforts in the FATA, Jones made it clear that the administration was not averse to sending more troops to Afghanistan.
The highly respected defense intellectual, Anthony Cordesman, no doubt would approve. Cordesman, who is, among other things, an advisor to NATO on Afghanistan, argues in the Times of London that the US and its allies must dispatch anywhere from three to nine combat brigades above the currently authorized level. Cordesman also maintains that the Afghan National Security Force must be nearly doubled from the currently envisioned levels of 134,000 for the army and 82,000 for the constabulary.
It might be noted that Cordesman's numbers are still lower from the obviously quite theoretical figure given by the Director of National Intelligence Admiral, Dennis Blair, to the Senate Intelligence Committee last February. It also deserves mention that the increase in the Afghan National Force called for by Cordesman would require a substantial ramp up in the number of trainers provided by the US and its partners.
Most importantly, the military options in and of themselves will not win the war in Afghanistan in any meaningful way. All that can be accomplished by the military is the achievement of the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing." Ultimately, this is what the widely criticised "surge" did. The additional boots on the ground--and bodies in bags--forestalled any possibility of the US being defeated in the field by the assorted insurgent groups.
Victory in an interventionary operation is a far more elusive critter. First, and most basic, the definition of "victory" is inherently subjective. Obviously, victory in the eyes of the locals may--probably will--mean something quite different from victory as seen from Washington. When the shooting stops, both the former insurgents and the former indigenous counter insurgents have to live together. This means power-sharing with the one time counter insurgents having operational dominance perhaps but not anything resembling total authority.
This means the deals, compromises, and practical details of inventing political and social stability may not meet with the approval of either the US government or We the People. At nightfall both may wonder what we made the sacrifices for. What was the use of spending lives and treasure for the benefit of a lot of ingrates?
We best get a grip on the fact that the most we can hope for from the use of military force in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, or in some future war against the Islamist jihadists, is simply "not-losing" and denying a safe haven to the hostile forces of the Islamists and their armed component, the jihadists. We cannot--and should not try--to plant American values, institutions, norms, structures, and practices at bayonet point. It simply cannot be done.
"Nation building" is done by those most personally and directly involved. This means, quite self-evidently, the people who live there. And, in particular, those who are the most politically engaged. The most politically engaged come from two camps--the government and its supporters and the insurgents. These two antipodal groups ultimately will have to make the peace, build the nation, live together in whatever degree of harmony or rivalry organically emerges once the active hostilities have stopped.
General McChrystal and Anthony Cordesman are experienced and realistic enough to recognize and accept this fact. Now all that can be hoped is that the agenda driven Obama administration and its ideological soulmates in Congress as well as We the People can equal this degree of realism.
Not likely, to be sure. But, still one can hope, because the alternative is so much worse.
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