U.S. policy towards Afghanistan

See also: Afghanistan War (2001-)

See also: Afghanistan War (1978-92)

There are two broad schools of thinking about U.S. policy towards Afghanistan in 2009, with various intermediate options. Until recently, policy has been defined by relations with other states and non-state actors, but nation building has become part of that mission, in cooperation with the NATO International Security Assistance Force, with the approval of the United Nations. Nevertheless, Afghanistan remains a failed state, a source of much of the world's opium, and a potential sanctuary for trans-national terrorists.

George W. Bush ordered the original attacks into Afghanistan to deal with the perpetrators of the 9-11 Attack. Barack Obama termed the continuing involvement a “war of necessity” to prevent it from being used again by terrorists. The term "war of necessity" was used by Richard Haass to contrast it with a "war of choice" in Iraq. Stephen Biddle has described the risk of al-Qaeda reestablishing itself in Afghanistan as relatively low, but still a concern: “It’s like buying life insurance for a 50-year-old,...The odds of a 50-year-old dying in the next year in America are substantially less than 1 percent. And yet most Americans buy life insurance.” The two schools are:

• Population-centric counterinsurgency: Make Afghanistan a viable state such that it will take over responsibility for security, preventing it from being used as a terrorist base and also ensuring human rights and economic development. Economic development would also give an alternative to the drug trade.
• Enemy-centric counterterrorism: Conduct operations principally directed against terrorist groups that present an external threat, which use Afghanistan as a staging area.

Background

In the Afghanistan War (1978-92), the U.S. conducted a proxy war with the Soviet Union, as a foreign policy goal of the Reagan Administration.

Cordesman said that the George W. Bush Administration had given priority in resources to the Iraq War, both for security and humanitarian purposes, and did not respond to problems of corruption in the government of Hamid Karzai. "It treated Pakistan as an ally when it was clear to U.S. experts on the scene that the Pakistani military and intelligence service did (and do) tolerate al-Qaeda and Afghan sanctuaries and still try to manipulate Afghan Pashtun to Pakistan's advantage." Aside from political considerations, reinforcement has been questioned as possibly provocative to Afghan culture. One of McChrystal's advisers, Frederick Kagan, wrote that the sensitivity to the Soviets had little to do with force size.

Counterinsurgency

"Afghanistan is not Iraq." One counterinsurgency plan cannot cover both situations:

• Iraq: "mostly urban, largely sectarian, and contained within Iraq’s borders.
• Afghanistan: "intrinsically rural, mostly confined to the Pashtun belt across the country’s south and east, and inextricably linked to Pakistan.

Iraq was a conventional war with no significant support of Saddam Hussein. Although foreign fighters later infiltrated, they had no sanctuary, as in the Vietnam War or as with several countries surrounding Afghanistan, most importantly Pakistan. A Iraq War, Surge will not solve a regional conflict. Two myths permeate the view of Afghanistan:

• "the notorious border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan is ungovernable." It may be ungovernable in the sense of a Western central government, but "the Pashtun tribes along the border have a long history of well-developed religious, social, and tribal structures, and they have developed their own governance and methods of resolving disputes. Today’s instability is not the continuation of some ancient condition; it is the direct result of decades of intentional dismantling of those traditional structures, leaving extremist groups to fill the vacuum."
• Afghans are committed xenophobes, obsessed with driving out the coalition, as they did the British and the Soviets." They wrote that Afghans want security, but they "cannot understand why the coalition fails to provide the basic services they need. Afghans are not tired of the Western presence; they are frustrated with Western incompetence."

Nagl and Fick insist the U.S. needs to follow, in Afghanistan, what may be paradoxical guidance from the manual:

• Paradox 1: "Some of the best weapons do not shoot." Economic development and infrastructure, of roads above all, is the most important factor in stabilizing Afghanistan
• Paradox 2: "Sometimes the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be."
• Paradox 3: "The hosts doing something tolerably is often better than foreigners doing it well."
• Paradox 4: "Sometimes the more force is used, the less effective it is."
• Paradox 5: "Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction."

Before the August 2009 Afghanistan presidential election began, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry reflected on the policy elements announced by President Obama in March, involving both additional civilian and military personnel, plus financial resources, for work, in partnership with the new elected goverment, to:

• field capable and sufficient Afghan National Army and police units
• support effective government personnel systems
• help combat corruption
• provide financial assistance to key Afghan institutions
• promote agricultural development
• address detention issues
• support Afghan-led reconciliation efforts
• fix contracting practices

The effort must be accountable on both sides.

Considerable changes in policy, if not operations, came with the Obama administration and the change of commanders to GEN Stanley McChrystal. Anthony Cordesman, after a visit in August 2009, wrote

The United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan in the next three months -- any form of even limited victory will take years of further effort. It can, however, easily lose the war.

Humanitarian assistance

When President Obama presented initial strategy towards Afghanistan in March, he said civilian experts would be as critical as the tens of thousands of additional U.S. military personnel being sent. "We need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers," he said. "That's how we can help the Afghan government serve its people, and develop an economy that isn't dominated by illicit drugs. That's why I'm ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground." It was proposed that 450 civilians from several branches of the government by March 2010, and then by December 2009. By September, however, only a fourth had been sent.

Corruption and foreign aid

A new anti-corruption partnership was announced, described by Assistant Ambassador and Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs E. Anthony Wayne as the first under the "Afghan First" principle. It joins the Afghan Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission with U.S. and U.N. assistance. . U.N. envoy Kai Eide participated in the plan to train Afghan civil servants in governance.

Counterterror

In the counterterrorism strategy, the American military would concentrate on eliminating the al-Qaeda leadership, primarily in Pakistan, using Special Operations forces, Predator missile strikes and other tactics of limited area, not holding land except as needed for force protection. The Americans would also accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban.

This strategy, sometimes called "Pakistan first", reportedly backed by Vice-President Joe Biden, is predicated on the theory that the real threat to American national security lies in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, saod “Pakistan is the critical focus, the greatest security risk for the United States... And all of this exercise, after all, is about our security.”

GEN David McKiernan, who had been commanding US forces and ISAF, was relieved, somewhat abruptly, with GEN Stanley McChrystal. McKiernan was a distinguished combat arms officer, having successfully led the conventional attack in the Iraq War, while McChrystal's background is in special operations.

McKiernan's approach had been "enemy-centric", pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaeda, where McChrystal is believed to be taking a more "population-centric" counterinsurgency approach.