Rural Ruminations

[Originally published on AmericanDiplomacy.Org.]

A retired intelligence professional gives his candid assessment of what would constitute “success” in Afghanistan and the chances for reaching this goal.-The Editor

Two successive U.S. administrations have said we must “win” in Afghanistan.   David Kilcullen, one of the world’s leading counterinsurgency experts and preeminent advisor to the US government, says that we must meet certain markers if we are to “succeed” in Afghanistan:  We must face the realities of historical and contemporary Afghanistan.  There must be agreement between Afghans and Americans on our goals.  We must eliminate the Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan.  There must be a solid, long-term US commitment including a flexible timeline.

Defining the issue

However, before those markers can even be discussed, the Obama administration must define the words “success” and “win.”  As the leading free enterprise democracy in the world, we habitually insist that any enterprise in which we are inclined to invest be prepared to show us that it is making progress that will profit us.  That is no less true for the Afghan war than it is for Microsoft, yet our goals have never been clearly defined by either the Bush or Obama administrations.

As a result, there is no way for anyone in this country to measure progress in this war.  Without that ability, we will predictably become more easily disenchanted with our Afghan war than we would if we knew fairly precisely what it was that America is fighting for.

Having once defined our goals or what constitutes success, Kilcullen’s four markers come into play before we can declare any progress, let alone success.  Our willingness and ability to deal with them will be crucial to the result.

Afghanistan’s historical and present realities

Afghanistan is a geographically inhospitable, tribal country whose people are corruptible, indomitable, bellicose and armed to the teeth.  The tribal Afghans have never had or wanted a strong central government.  They have often been invaded by foreign armies and as a result are strongly xenophobic.  Throughout the centuries they have successfully resisted all attempts at foreign invasion and occupation.

The governing ideals for the Pashtun people are embodied in their “Pashtunwali” or “Pashtun way” which sets forth a complete code for life.  It emphasizes self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, revenge and tolerance toward all people. The main principles of Pashtunwali include freedom and independence, justice and forgiveness, honesty and keeping promises, ethnic unity and equality, support and trust within the Pashtun family and love for and defense of the Pashtun nation and culture.

In short, the “Pashtun way” is designed to motivate its followers to support their way of life and resist by force of arms all attempts by anyone, particularly foreigners, to change it either by force or subterfuge.  It is clearly the product of a people who have pretty much always been under the gun from foreign cultures and who have evolved their own very efficient way of dealing with such incursions.

The Pashtunwali is the guiding word, subscribed to wholeheartedly by Pashtuns around the world.  That should give us some notion of how welcome our armies are in Afghanistan, regardless of the purity of our motives.

That is Afghan history and if we are wise we will acknowledge it as such.

Trust in Afghanistan

We must get to the point where the American administration and people believe that the Afghan political establishment and people share with us a common definition of “success,” whatever that proves to be.  We are, after all, fighting this war for the people of Afghanistan, not for ourselves.

In the process of formulating our definition of “success”, we need to keep in mind that there is little in Afghanistan that argues in favor of any readiness on their part to accept democracy as we know it.

In order to proceed and persist, we have to be able to trust that we are on the same page as the Afghan population, accepting the fact, as Afghans do, that the election that put Karzai in power was massively fraudulent.  We must understand that that fact does not make Karzai or his government widely popular in Afghanistan.

In order to be “successful” in Afghanistan, we have to share a vision with the Afghan people.  Without that, it will never work.

The Taliban Sanctuary in Pakistan

As long as there is a sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan, we will never “win.”  The Pashtun people, who basically comprise the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, straddle the border between the two nations.  In that fact lies one of our most difficult problems.  If we are to “win” over the Taliban in Afghanistan, we will have to deny them sanctuary in Pakistan.

The Pakistan military establishment has long supported the Taliban, seeing it as a potential counterbalance or lever in its conflict with India, its only true enemy on the face of the earth.  They are reluctant to commit resources to the fight against the Taliban in Pakistan because of its perceived role in any future battle with India.  Further, the more we involve ourselves directly in the struggle within Pakistan with drones and special operations, the more support we loose within Pakistan.  It is a true Hobson’s Choice.

Commitment of American Resources

Our commitment to Afghanistan is very expensive in human life and resources, yet, since the surge of our troops in Afghanistan, we have clearly not realized any breakthroughs in reaching our “goals” there.

When we invaded Iraq in 2003, the Army Chief of Staff told us that we would need half a million troops to successfully occupy that country.  The post-invasion period in Iraq showed clearly that he had a point.  We are now dealing with our Afghan problems with just over 100,000 troops.  
       
A look at a topographical map of Afghanistan will tell even the dullest among us that Afghanistan is a far more geographically complicated and challenging country than Iraq and that if we are to “win” there, we will probably need more troops than we needed in Iraq.  In fact, Afghanistan, with its valleys, mountains and lack of infrastructure is a military nightmare.

America’s Timeline

Finally, if we decide to try to “win” in Afghanistan, we will have to back off the 2011 withdrawal deadline given by President Obama and be prepared to extend our involvement there, perhaps by additional decades.  The most optimistic estimates from General Petraeus now range around a military commitment of at least seven years.

America will have to back that commitment at the ballot box.  Given our inability as a nation to commit to anything much farther out than the next election, we will clearly have to be convinced that such a commitment is in our national interest.

That will not be an easy task to accomplish.

Conclusion

It is impossible to find real experts on counterinsurgency who believe we can “win” without meeting the above requirements.

Can we really expect Americans to get behind an effort that has so many internal contradictions?  Can we trust Karzai?  Would we settle for anything less than democracy in Afghanistan?  Would we accept stability, irrespective of the Afghan form of government?

Pro-war voices in our country are those profiting politically, emotionally, militarily or economically from our involvement in the Afghan counterinsurgency program.  It is hard to find academics and other experts and truly well informed people on Afghanistan realities who believe that we can meet all of the requirements for “victory” in Afghanistan.

Even the most optimistic supporters of the war acknowledge that the Afghan Army and Police, two elements absolutely critical to our “success,” are a major problem.  After eight years of prodding, support and training, they are still not fit to do the job for which they have been trained.  Returning troops from Afghanistan roll their eyes when asked about such Afghan readiness.

And can we expect the Afghan people to get behind an illegitimately elected Karzai government?  Will the Pashtun Taliban support a Pashtun President (Karzai) whose government is complicit in killing his own people (the Pashtun Taliban)?  How does that fit with Pashtunwali?

Do our military leaders, intelligent and schooled experts in the history and practice of warfare, really believe that they can somehow change historical and current Afghan realities and successfully invade that country and change its governance and culture?  That is repeating the same act, yet again, while hoping the outcome will change.   Isn’t that the clinical definition of insanity?

And then, Americans were sold both Iraq and the second invasion of Afghanistan as part of the “war on terror.”  Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism prior to our invasion.  Al Qaida exited Afghanistan during our first invasion and has not since returned in significant numbers.

Additionally, given our exceedingly difficult economic circumstances, is it objectively important to continue to pour our treasure into the Middle East when that treasure may well be the only practical answer to our problems at home?  Are our real problems ever going to come first?

That, in turn asks whether or not we are prepared to “stay the course” in Afghanistan, or for that matter, in Iraq which now appears to be in ethnic and sectarian gridlock.

The now-abandoned military draft ushered in our professional, all-volunteer military establishment, thereby removing from voters the most effective way they had to object to the conduct of specific wars.  We removed the check and balance of the vote as it was wielded during the Viet Nam War.  That makes it relatively simpler for any given administration to wage war unfettered, particularly if it is dealing with a supine Congress, as was the case of Iraq in 2003.

Finally, there is the question of US national interests.  Terrorism is a problem for us.  It is in our national interest to deal with it.  However, terrorism has nothing to do with Afghanistan.  There are few if any terrorists there.  If we want to go after terrorism right now, Yemen would offer far greater rewards.  Can we afford another such adventure?  Because if we undertake it, the people we seek to “beat” will simply move to another venue.  That is the nature of mobile, unfettered terrorism.  Such is not the case for the well equipped and armed military.

But do we want to try to “wipe out” terrorism with our military power?  Can we even hope for that to succeed?  Every time we have confronted Middle East terrorism with our military power, we have watched it morph into insurgency.  Insurgencies are far more difficult to defeat than terrorism.  It can be argued that for that reason, we need to carefully review our counterterrorism strategy, perhaps considering less reliance on our military resources.

Unfortunately, with the advent of the new, professional military, we have politicized that establishment as never before.  Whatever his reasons, if President Obama chooses to continue in Afghanistan, he can probably do so without fearing Congressional intervention.

What he cannot escape are Afghan historical, cultural, tribal and political realities.   Even though he and his advisors may be inclined to dismiss them, they are there to be dealt with. It seems highly unlikely that, given all our own economic and political realities, he will be able to continue our Afghan military involvement sufficiently long to achieve any sort of “successful” conclusion.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief. A graduate of Dartmouth, he served in the Army Security Agency, undertook Russian regional studies at London University, and then joined the CIA. He served in Prague, Berlin, Langley, Beirut, Tehran, and Washington. During those 25 years, he worked primarily in Soviet and East European operations. He was also chief of the counterterrorism staff and executive assistant to Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Frank Carlucci. Since his retirement in 1980, he has lived in Vermont.

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

Shortly after his spring 2009 arrival in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the following statement: “(Afghanistan) is complex in terms of geography; it’s complex in terms of demographics, of resources, or more specifically the lack of resources, to include what I normally like to refer to as the lack of human capital, the lack of — the availability of people that can provide governance in Afghanistan, and that’s probably a fact of education in many years to come.”

What we have done in our 2001 invasion and subsequent 2008 reinvasion of Afghanistan is completely disrupt the patterns of governance that have existed there for centuries. Those patterns, whether or not we like, admire or approve of them, are the instruments that have made past life in Afghanistan workable.

Anyone who optimistically sees any sort of democracy as a logical destination for Afghanistan is self-delusional. Regardless how our policy evolves, we are not going to successfully turn Afghanistan into anything that would be appealing to the American or western mind. To be stable, Afghanistan will need to essentially revert to what it was in the pre-Taliban era.

Afghanistan has been at its workable best when it has had a weak central government surrounded by a strong and independent tribal system. A quick look at Afghan history will show that outsiders mess with that system at their own peril.

How, then, do we resolve this endless and unproductive Afghanistan struggle without “losing”?

First we must acknowledge the salient realities of the Afghan people. They are largely illiterate, xenophobic, bellicose, corrupt and independent. True warriors, they don’t negotiate, they shoot. The last thing they want is to be invaded and occupied by foreigners.

Tradition and human raw material in Afghanistan do not lead to anything we could think of as a desirable government, yet we must acknowledge that Afghans should and will choose their own form of government.

We can facilitate that in two ways: We should remove our military forces which, as a provocative and rather blunt instrument, represent one of the few unifying factors against us in present day Afghanistan. Having done that, we should support the old Afghan system by funding (or buying off, depending on your level of cynicism) the tribes and, by talking to them, find out what sort of a central government they would like to have. That will almost certainly include some element of the Taliban.

Since its birth in 1994, the Taliban’s brutal fundamentalism has alienated so many people that they do not enjoy great popular support. With appropriate U.S. support for Afghan tribes, there is no reason the Taliban will ever approach the power it enjoyed before 2001.

In arranging tribal funding, we will have to make a number of stipulations. This is a flexible list, subject to the needs of the US Administration, but which could include; an absolute ban on the return of Al Qaida, universal education and no further poppy cultivation. Those stipulations can be supported by an appropriate long-term commitment of U.S. Special Operations troops.

By doing this, we restart the attempt to return to the only model that has ever provided stability for the Afghan people. The simple drawdown of American military involvement will begin the change in today’s Afghanistan. Our military approach has brought us a major insurgency which is aimed primarily at us as a foreign power, and only secondarily at our lapdog, the Karzai government.

This sort of effort will not be cheap. However, if you stack it up against the $73 billion we are spending annually in the Afghan war, it all becomes relative.

There are 12 major tribes with hundreds of subdivisions in Afghanistan. The U.S. administration should be able to figure out precisely how to apportion funds to those tribes based on sub-tribes, population, need and politics.

If you start with the fact that we are now spending $200 million a day, it would seem we could easily settle an average of $100 million a year on each of those 12 major tribes. That would total up to $1.2 billion per year, a far cry from today’s costs of $73 billion. That, in itself, gives us great flexibility in setting subsidies. When you add in the costs to us of dead and wounded, it looks even more favorable.

We will never “win” in Afghanistan, whatever that may mean. However, getting out as planned can mean reduced financial and time commitments as well as sharply reduced military casualties.

All in all, a cheap solution.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.

[Originally published in Nieman Watchdog.]

The American effort in Afghanistan is doomed if the Afghans don’t share our goals, and if the Taliban have a sanctuary in Pakistan. Are we prepared to stay there as long as it takes?

We will not reach our goals in Afghanistan unless the Afghans share those goals, and until the Taliban are denied sanctuary in Pakistan.

But these two preconditions raise possibly unanswerable questions.

Q. What has led the Obama administration to believe that there is anything in the history or present realities of Afghanistan that suggests we will ever be able to convince Afghans that our goals, particularly as foreigners, have anything in common with theirs?

Afghanistan is a geographically inhospitable, tribal country whose people are corruptible, indomitable, bellicose and armed to the teeth. The governing ideals for the majority Pashtun people are embodied in the ”Pastunwali” or Pashtun Way, which motivates its followers resist by force of arms or subterfuge all attempts by anyone, particularly foreigners, to change their way of life. Afghans have often been invaded by foreign armies and are strongly xenophobic. They have never had or wanted a strong central government. And most Afghans believe that the recent election of Premier Hamid Karzai was massively fraudulent.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan military establishment has long supported the Taliban, seeing it as a potential counterbalance in its endless conflict with India.

Q. Can we continue our special operations and drone activities in Pakistan without further angering and alienating Pakistanis? Is there any chance the Pakistani government will change policy and actively join our efforts to eliminate the Taliban safe haven in their country?

We are now dealing with our Afghan problems with just over 100,000 troops. Our peak commitment in Iraq was of over 150,000 troops. Afghanistan is a far more geographically complicated and challenging country than Iraq and if we are to “win” there, we will probably need many more troops than we ultimately employed in Iraq. That would entail backing off the 2011 withdrawal deadline set by President Obama and preparing instead to extend our involvement there for years. The most optimistic estimates from General David Petraeus now range around a military commitment of at least seven additional years.

Q. Given our precarious economic and fiscal status and growing, competing national priorities, will we be able to continue the level of support that will be required? Is an increasingly disillusioned America emotionally and politically prepared to commit its treasure to achieve a “successful” conclusion — even if we knew what that meant?

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

In today’s America, it is the exceptional, bright, educated, aggressive and politically aware warrior who gets promoted to four-star general.

Certainly, Gen. Stanley McChrystal fits that mold. West Point and Harvard educated, Rangers, Special Operations, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. Before running afoul of Rolling Stone, he had pretty much punched all the required tickets.

Successful military commanders from all nations can tell you about every notable military campaign in the history of mankind. They are, after all, students of warfare. Thus, Gens. McChrystal, David Petraeus and all their savvy peers are aware of Afghan history, even if our less well informed national civilian leadership of the last 10 years apparently has not been.

An examination of the history of foreign invasions of Afghanistan will not give comfort to those who believe that America will “win” in Afghanistan, even if it were possible to define the precise contextual meaning of that word. In modern times, many have tried and none has succeeded.

Why, then, would either Mc-Chrystal or Petraeus, both knowledgeable students of their trade, take on a mission that has never been successful? They are both intelligent, so the reason must lie somewhere between hubris and politics. Either our military leaders believe they are so good and so smart that they can accomplish the heretofore impossible, or they are reluctant or afraid to tell their commander in chief that the job never has been done and probably can’t succeed. Sadly, as our diplomatic policy is driven in the Middle East by internal American politics, so now is our military policy. Forget reality and past history. After 9/11 it became politically attractive (or, perhaps in Obama’s case, necessary) to invade Afghanistan.

In forcing McChrystal’s resignation, however righteous that act, Obama took a major political risk here at home. That risk was mitigated solely by his politically inspired choice of Gen. Petraeus, McChrystal’s boss, as McChrystal’s successor. In today’s divided and hostile American political world, any other choice, however highly qualified, would almost certainly have seen Obama attacked by the Republicans.

What can we expect from a new Petraeus era? Are we to believe that he is any less well-educated or informed than McChrystal? He was, after all, his commanding officer and shares with him in abundance all those qualities that successful senior American commanders have. Since he already has signed on with the American policy now in force in Afghanistan, it would seem we will see no changes.

On the other hand, what seems clear is that this unexpected change will create a dynamic which will make it difficult for President Obama to turn down any “reasonable” request from Petraeus for support for this Afghan counterinsurgency. Petraeus has already spoken of an “enduring” American commitment that could last years.

Of course, the critical issue is whether Gen. Petraeus believes we can “win” and how he defines that word. In that arena he has already shown flashes of understanding that are not overly politically acceptable in the United States. He has said that the lack of a fair and safe resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is having an ongoing negative effect on the success of our military operations in the Middle East. That is certainly a political no-no in this country.

More recently, the Marjah operation, which is the model to be used in Kandahar, has proven to be fairly effective during daylight hours, but not so great at night when the Taliban sneak back into town and maim or murder those who cooperate with the Americans.

Gen. Petraeus has acknowledged that our summer plans for Kandahar will be postponed until fall, because there is evidence that the majority of Kandahar residents do not want it to happen. More recently we hear that even Afghan children, who used to be quite friendly to our troops, now tend to throw stones at them.

The post-Iraq re-invasion of Afghanistan, which was cynically sold to the American people as part of the “War on Terror,” has now been belatedly acknowledged to be a counterinsurgency issue, as al-Qaida is no longer present there in any significant numbers.

The nature of counterinsurgency is winning hearts and minds. As either Gen. Petraeus or McChrystal will tell you, we will not be able to “save” the Afghan people if they don’t want to be saved.

Whose job is it to explain Afghan realities to the president? Or do the pressures of internal American politics trump those realities?

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.