[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
Trial Balloon? President Obama has reportedly decided to limit our involvement in Afghanistan to a counterterrorism program. If this is true, he is on the right track.
In order to sort out Afghan and Pakistan policy, Americans need to better understand both terrorism and insurgency, because those are the key issues we are facing today in those countries. Our problems with this stem from the constant Bush administration policy of conflating the two, probably for its own political reasons.
It’s helpful to look at the results of a recent Rand Corp. study that examined 648 terrorist groups that existed briefly between 1968 and 2006. The study found that, on average, terrorist groups last around 10 years, whereas insurgencies can literally go on for decades. Compare the German terrorist Bader Meinhof Gang that lasted about 10 years to the Tamil Tigers’ insurgency that lasted 33 years in Sri Lanka. Effective insurgencies normally have a broad popular support base, since they share ethnic, linguistic and religious roots and often, goals, with the population. Local populations seldom support terrorist organizations because they normally do not have close ties to or much in common with the terrorists and their goals.
Most interesting in the Rand study was the finding that 75 percent of those terrorist groups were absorbed into the population, where 18 percent were defeated by police/intelligence operations and only 7 percent by the military. In short, terrorist groups are most productively confronted by police/intelligence operations, and least effectively by military operations.
The $64 billion question in Afghanistan and Pakistan is: Where are we dealing with terrorism and where with insurgency? This really matters, because you confront the two absolutely differently. If you do not, and get them confused, you will lose. Military operations against insurgencies usually spawn more insurgents than they kill. All insurgencies have to do to “win” is avoid total defeat, which makes them extremely difficult to eliminate. However, terrorist organizations can be far more easily selectively targeted and defeated, largely because of their lack of support from the indigenous population. Al Qaida is no exception to this.
Even the U.S. military concedes that Afghanistan is a battle against the Taliban insurgency and that there are few, if any Al Qaida terrorists in that country. Afghanistan is not center stage in our struggle with terrorism.
It is claimed, particularly by those who favor military action in the region, that Al Qaida has holed up in Pakistan and that they could easily return to Afghanistan if we were to leave. That may be, but U.S. Special Operations have decimated large numbers of Al Qaida’s leadership, leaving the organization a pale image of its former, potent self. Al Qaida has become a franchise operation with spontaneous, discrete groups springing up in England, Spain, and most recently in the United States — probably under neither the command nor the control of Al Qaida Central.
Quite apart from that, Al Qaida doesn’t need Afghanistan and can operate, plan and train from an infinite number of places around the world.
Unfortunately, our stepped up military activities in the region have enhanced our growing reputation in Islam as the “new Crusaders,” which does not help us in any way.
Afghanistan is not a terrorist problem. It is an insurgency and in taking the Taliban on, we are deviating 180 degrees from our original (and stated current policy) of combating terrorism. In addition, we will be in the middle of a nation-building operation, which, when combined with military-based anti-insurgency operations is likely to keep us involved there for decades.
Pakistan is an entirely different matter. As the only regional nuclear power with sufficient internal instability to provoke major concerns, it is and probably will continue to be of major importance to the United States. In fact, with the increasing instability of that country and our need to preclude seeing its nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, it is in relative terms far more important for our security than anything that could possibly happen in Afghanistan. Pakistan is, however, a Pakistani problem of which the Pakistanis are rapidly growing aware, which we should fully support, but to which we need not contribute troops.
Unfortunately, it may not matter what the facts are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As has often been true in American history, politics will more than likely rule the day. The real question is whether or not President Obama will be able to overcome his insecurity and lack of experience in military matters and his concerns about being labeled “soft on terrorism” by his nemeses in the military and the political right if he goes ahead with any solution, however creative and promising, other than a stepped up war against the Afghan insurgency.
Whatever decision is made in the White House, it seems unlikely that the American people will support any protracted military effort in Afghanistan, not only because of memories of Viet Nam, but because it is not in our national interest to do so.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.
