Back To The Old Who-Is-Winning Question Again

The NYT, which as desperately wants to declare defeat in Afghanistan as it did in Iraq, has brought up the issue of just how much in the current estimate of success given by the US military should be believed.  With the upcoming review of American progress or lack thereof in Afghanistan the topic is both timely and important.

The military has a rather positive view of developments such the introduction of more boots on the ground due to the Obama surge approved a year ago.  The intelligence community is not so sure, some of its reporting is at sharp contrast with the military assessments.

This is not new.  The same dynamic occurred during the Vietnam War.  Repeatedly, and, as it turned out, accurately, CIA was the odd man out, the naysayer in the optimist's club.  CIA was so much of a "non-team player" that its reports were shuffled to the bottom of the pile throughout the administration of LBJ.  Not until a new Director of Central Intelligence demanded a "shading" of reports so that they might be read during the years of Nixon did anyone at the highest levels of the US government take a look at the findings of the lads in Langley.

Based on experience the Geek has a tendency to side with the gloomy bunch in the intel shop.  In the world, particularly in the war part of the world, all surprises tend to be bad ones.  Pessimism is a realistic way to view uncertain and highly flexible events.  Certainly the state of play in Afghanistan is filled with potentials for surprise as well as vast numbers of Rumsfeldian "unknowable unknowns."  No responsible intelligence analyst would be given to donning rose colored glasses when taking a dekko at Afghanistan.

Of course, the first order of business is defining what constitutes success.  As the experience in Iraq has made crystalline, success is not easy to define.  If the goal is overly expansive--as American goals tend to be--success will prove illusive or illusionary.  There was--and is--no way that the US or any coalition could succeed if the goal was that of producing a fully functioning Western style nation-state with all the requisite features thereof in either Iraq or Afghanistan.  Even though Iraq was at one time a reasonable facsimile of a modern, authoritarian nation-state with a reasonably advanced and complex economy supported by a similarly advanced technological base, the reality underneath the surface was far different, a fundamentally primitive society based on tribal and religious identifications further riven by decades of unsettled scores.

The best the US could hope to accomplish in Iraq was a temporary imposition of stability sufficient to allow nascent domestic institutions to take shape and root.  This was accomplished.  But it was all that was accomplished.  The later, internally driven political stasis and violence is not the responsibility of the US; it was not an American failure.  Insofar as any outside party is directly involved, it is Iran, and Iran is no ally of stability or peace in Iraq.

The situation is similar but not quite identical in Afghanistan.  The best that can be expected is the US and associated forces will reduce the violence to a point where indigenous institutions might survive and prosper.  Long term success is out of our control.  We cannot make the central government or the local ones legitimate, non-corrupt, and efficient.  Nor can the US and its allies in country assure that the Afghan security forces are fully up to the task of extending and maintaining internal security.  Neither can the US and its partners cleanse the FATA of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Haqqani network commanders and trigger pullers.

If we define success in seeing Afghanistan a fully functioning nation-state of the Western sort, failure might as well be declared right now.  Given that Afghanistan is tribal in its social and political nature, riven by linguistic, religious, and provincial differences, and considering the evil hand played by Pakistan, there is no way that a mere military defeat short of total obliteration of the jihadists will lead to peace and stabiliity.

It deserves, even requires restatement, that the goal laid out by George W. Bush of "nation-building" in Afghanistan with all that implied was totally unrealistic in all respects.  That goal should not be used in assessing the relative success to date of the new American operational doctrine set forth barely more than a year ago.  Rather the correct base for evaluation is the degree to which the efforts of the US and its partners have neutered the capacity of the assorted groups to wage war effectively and to mount out of country operations.

On the more limited basis the indicators are all positive.  That does not imply success.  The advocates of violent political Islam have demonstrated tactical flexibility and high recuperative powers.  The cross border sanctuaries of the FATA as well as other assistance provided by the Pakistanis have gone a long way in assuring the hydra headed nature of the anti-government groups.

The uncertainties involving the Afghan government, the Afghan National Forces, the role of Pakistan all combine with the basic nature of the Afghan human terrain, its cultural values, and norms; the nature of tribal society and understandings of loyalty; and the deeply divided nature of the polity to make any but the most limited and pessimistic assessments of success the most rational and credible.  While it is possible, even probable, that General Petreaus, a man who is a PR genius but limited as a fighter of wars, has massaged the data: the recent trends in initiative, refugee generation, civilian collateral casualties and enemy tactics as all swinging in the favor of the US and its allies, including Kabul.

The takeaway?  Caution is appropriate as is limited, controlled scepticism but anticipations of American failure to achieve the limited goal, the goal of "not-losing" are way premature.  Much as the NYT and others of that ilk are chomping at the bit to announce one more US defeat, they are not likely to gain that goal.  If the US and its partners can keep on keeping on along the course plotted in recent months, success is far more likely than not--even with continued Pakistani pertinacity.