It is nice to see the insurgency in Pakistan getting more news coverage. Today I want to pull out some points made in a recent AP story, Suspicion, terrain are foes for US in Afghan surge).
The general point of the story is that “surging” troop strength in Afghanistan might be counterproductive. Before I go through the high points, let me make a general point: I think it is interesting how different opposition is framed for this surge than when the same discussion began for Iraq: opponents then said that the surge would waste resources in an unwinnable war; now opponents (at least in this article, an admittedly small sample size) are assuming that there are more efficient ways to go about winning.
An Inevitable Surge?
Both the major presidential candidates favor increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, as do senior members of the Bush administration. In fact, they have increased troops from about 10,000 in 2003 to 60,000 now (36,000 of these are American). This allows ISAF to put more bases and patrols out in areas that would benefit from their presence (a lot of time goes into selecting sites, despite the criticism surrounding the recent loss of a new base in Nuristan). The assumption is that more troops would allow us to mitigate insurgent traffic in more areas, to include along the Afghan – Pakistan border. It would also allow us to support the economic and political aspects of our COIN strategy (both directly, through PPT’s etc., and indirectly by making areas secure enough for NGO’s and local workers to work without interruption).
So who could possibly be against this?
History leads me to be ambivalent. The Soviet failure in Afghanistan is overdetermined (meaning that there are a lot of good explanations of why they lost), but increasing the number of troops there did not allow to overcome both their own lack of legitimacy and the strength of the insurgency. We are better of than the Soviets thanks to our training, our support of a reasonably legitimate system and regime, better weaponry, and the fact that no super powers are actively working to defeat us through their Islamist proxies (whatever conspiracies might exist in Pakistan pale in comparison to the work we did with the Saudi’s and the Pakistan intelligence service).
I do not think local Afghan leaders ran the numbers, but local Afghan leaders shared the widespread perception there that “more foreign troops will only make matters worse”.
Ann Marlowe, argues against the surge in a recent Wall Street Journal article. While I don’t agree with some of her assumptions (she says that “the Afghan insurgency has no broad popular base and doesn’t mirror an obvious religious or ethnic fault line”, but I think that given more space, she would admit that the Taliban has strong popular support in many areas of the Pashtun belt. She also oversimplifies with regard to Pakistan, writing that “[the Afghan insurgency] is more linked with Pakistani support than the Iraqi insurgency”. Her general point is true – the Afghani insurgency benefits more from cross-border support than the one in Iraq does, but calling it “Pakistani support” is misleading and dangerous. I will cover her later accusation that Pakistan is “playing footsie with the Taliban” in a later post. It is true, but not the same as having her as a mistress.), her general point that the Afghan mission is designed more for special operators is worth considering (and this doesn’t just mean elite – think back to the disaster last year soon after the best of the best were deployed to Jalabad), as is the point about the real way forward laying in continuing to improve the size and capability of Afghan police and army forces (easier said than done, no matter how many people we throw at it… the problem is attrition and the supply of recruits).
So is it worth doing?
As always, the devil is in the details. At the very least, I don’t think anyone would be against that having more PRT’s with the man-power to help locals deliver security and facilitate local economic and political development. And I bet that the commanders there could find all kinds of good uses for more units. But Murphy’s Law, the instinctive Afghan distrust of foreigners, and the usual Machiavellian warnings, will only get worse as the number of units deployed and operations conducted increase. Military leaders are extremely skilled at risk management and have become at least as well versed in the sociology of insurgency and counterinsurgency (for example, see Admiral Mullen’s statements below). Let’s hope that our politicians have the wisdom to defer to them when it comes to right-sizing our deployed forces. A certain candidates willingness to make policy proclamations prior to his fact-finding tour does not make me optimistic (nor is the other candidate known for his listening skills). What you are likely to get is more people telling you what you want to hear (or policy-makers who only listen to folks who tell them what they already think they know), and I think we know that this doesn’t always get the best results.
Reassuring Highlights from a July 2nd Briefing with Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
What I believe exists in the FATA is the kind of situation with respect to tribal control, tribal rules, a very complex set of governance structure there that fundamentally gets to the same kind of classic counterinsurgency challenges that we’ve had. And I think the government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan are going to have to address that issue. I’m anxious to assist wherever I can in that regard, from a training perspective, from an equipment perspective….
They’re a good friend, a good ally. This is a critical part of the world. And that’s why my view is this is also for the long term. And I think it’s going to take some time.
This also is a sovereign country, and we just don’t send troops into sovereign countries, as the question suggests. So I think it’s important that our assistance be as robust as it can possibly be and that the Pakistan government and military move as rapidly as they can against this problem…
I think there are — one of the — again, the end state is going to be, I think, the border’s going to have to be controlled by the Afghans and the Pakistanis. And there are border coordination centers there that are being stood up. I think that’s important.
