Getting The Hell Out Of Dodge--Or Kabul

In a perfect world an outside power supporting a host government threatened by insurgency would find itself in complete agreement with the host. On matters ranging from tactics and operations to governance, reform and power sharing with the insurgents, there would be a total meeting of the minds between the heavy hitters inside the Beltway and the local politicos and generals.

The problem comes in that the world is far from perfect. Nothing shows the vast gulf between the perfect universe of theory and the messy complications of reality better than the evolving relations between the US and Afghanistan, between the rhetoric of "nation-building" and the realties of not-losing a war.

When the neocon ninny Deep Thinkers of the Bush/Cheney administration rejected the doable option of a punitive expedition in which the sole goal would be the killing or capturing of the maximum number of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders (and followers) in a minimum time, it embarked on a mission impossible. Instead of going in, killing the bad guys and getting out, leaving any idiocy of nation-building to the High Minded folks at the UN, the Bush/Cheney crowd decided to engage in the most silly of efforts--creating a modern, western style nation-state from the sow's ear of Afghanistan.

In practice this meant the US and its feckless allies jumped into the morass of Afghan politics of both the armed and unarmed sort. The transformation of American forces from a role of punishment and vengeance to one of counterinsurgency in support of our chosen government in Afghanistan assured that the US would lose influence over the actions, policies, and rhetoric of the Kabul government.

We had traveled that road before. In South Vietnam the decision by the Johnson administration to use air and later ground combat forces in direct action against the insurgent Viet Cong and their presumed sponsors in North Vietnam effectively told the Saigon government that the US was fighting a war of its own choosing for its own goals. The subtext was simply that the regime in power on any given day could ignore American advice, guidance, demands, and threats with impunity as the US had no choice but to ride the tiger it had mounted until it could dismount safely on the day of victory.

No matter how much American politicians and military commanders may blather about "partnering" with the Afghan government and military, the reality from Afghan eyes is that the US and the other foreigners are fighting a war which they must win for their own reasons. As a consequence the locals can stand back, do the minimum, and ignore (or, politely, simply pay no attention to) the demands, advice, counsel, and threats coming from time to time from Washington.

The only way to avoid this emasculation is to possess a credible capacity to decommit from the "joint" effort against the insurgents. The only way to assure that advice, guidance, and demands will not be met with silence at best and noisy rejection more commonly is having the believable political will to pull the troops out and cut losses.

Not until the final months of the war between South Vietnam and both the insurgents and the North did the US have a capacity to get the hell out of Saigon. Only then, confronted with the "date certain" actions of the Democrats in Congress did the South Vietnamese government and military start functioning effectively and efficiently. But, by then, it was too late.

The conundrum for the US has been that of creating a credible capacity to decommit from the Karzai government so as to gain the leverage necessary to reduce the probability of losing while not simultaneously encouraging the Taliban. We have not solved this conundrum. At least we have not solved it in an effective way.

There are (no surprise here) correct and incorrect ways to maintain a credible capacity to leave without benefiting the enemy at the same time. That means the Obama administration had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

The tragedy is that they got it wrong.

The right way to create or maintain a believable capacity to end interventionary support for an insurgency threatened host government is the setting of specific, mission, and context relevant milestones. These milestones should focus on two broad areas: the capacity and will of the local forces to enter into effective combat against the insurgents; the capacity and will of the government to expand its perceived functional legitimacy in the estimate of the uncommitted majority of the population. A third set of milestones would be of value. These should measure the will and ability of the government to settle for operational dominance rather than unquestioned authority over the insurgents.

The difficulty for Americans in the use of these types of milestones resides in the difficulties of assessing achievement. The most critical milestones are subjective. They deal with political will. They focus on perceptions. Very few are susceptible to the mathematical measurements so loved by bureaucrats both in and out of uniform. Being admittedly imprecise, these milestones are open to interpretation, inspire uncertainty, and allow a very large error bar.

Nonetheless, an examination of both armed domestic political turbulence and the role of outsiders shows these forms of assessment provide the best guide as to the progress made by the host in meeting both the military and perception challenges presented by insurgents. In short, sloppy and uncertain as these features might be, they are the most reliable way to assess when and how the outsider might leave with goals achieved.

The use of milestones which focus sharply, even solely, on the host government's will and ability to provide security, enhance its perceived legitimacy, and share power assures that the war will remained "owned" by the host regime and not the outside supporters. The host government is reminded constantly of two critical truths. The war is its sole property. The outsider will leave if the government does not meet the milestones.

The second crucial truth allows the intervenor to leave at a time and in a way of its own choosing. Should the host regime meet the milestones, the consequent success in countering the insurgency allows the intervenor to leave with a light heart, a happy smile, and a "mission accomplished!" banner held high. Should the host regime fail to meet the milestones, then the intervenor must leave before defeat is too apparent. No smiles this time, but rather the grim certainty that the host government was responsible for and owns the failure.

So much for the correct way. Now for the incorrect way, also known as the Obama Way.

In this simple, emotionally satisfying, politically expedient approach, the president of the United States simply announces a "date certain" on which the withdrawal of American troops will commence. The president's "progressive" political base (this is the group who sincerely believes the US has never been in a war which it did not deserve to lose) will cheer. The opposition will shake their collective heads in disbelief.

Other stakeholders will respond in their own unique fashions.

The host government will respond with shock, frustration, and bitterness. At least one senior US commander will dissent publicly, asserting the "date certain" will encourage the opposition by giving them hope that hanging on for a little bit longer will result in victory.

The dissent is well founded, even if Taliban has not yet taken a specific open stance. The weight of evidence shows the insurgents have a great degree of both patience and unexhausted political will.

At this point it is worth recalling two ground truths about insurgency. At root insurgency is a contest of political wills and not military forces per se. Secondly, the side with the greater ability to take casualties and expend time will be the side which wins.

Those two points are in explicit play with the Obama Pronouncement. No matter what qualifiers may be introduced later, the governing reality is the "date certain." Once announced, that date will encourage the insurgents to believe that there is a light visible from their end of the tunnel. On the other side there is a belief that unless the war has been won, absolutely and without any chance of mistake, by that "date certain," it will be lost beyond any shadow of a doubt. The "date certain" becomes by its very existence a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

For ideological reasons the Bush/Cheney administration condemned the US and its allies to an expedition without realistic goal. Now Mr Obama, again for ideological reasons alone, has compounded the felonious blunder by waving the white flag.

The last time a president waved the banner of surrender it was on 31 March 1968 when LBJ walked away from his war on national television. It took several more years and tens of thousands of American deaths for his act of capitulation to involve the entire country, but this was akin to the time lag between the infection and consequent death.

Mr Obama probably did not intend to announce a forthcoming American defeat. Quite the contrary, he was most likely trying ineptly to give the American public a reason to hope the war in Afghanistan would come to an end if only we could hang on for a little while longer.

But, as the old cliche has it, "the road to hell (or defeat) is paved with good intentions." Good intentions are not enough to ensure success; they are more than enough to ensure defeat.

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