Pull the plug on the Afghan surge
PakistanPal
Although the aborted electoral run-off in Afghanistan has further
weakened the country's already troubled government, the Obama
administration has little choice but to work with President Hamid
Karzai. Indeed, the electoral mess paradoxically makes it easier for
President Obama to decide on America's next steps in the war. The
turmoil in Kabul should convince the White House that General Stanley
McChrystal's plan to pursue counterinsurgency in the countryside is a
bridge too far.
The US commander in Afghanistan would have coalition forces adopt a
"population-centric" strategy in which they address "the needs and
grievances of the people in their local environment". In Iraq, a
similar strategy did succeed in undercutting the Sunni insurgency. But
Iraq's central government was in the midst of stabilising and
increasing its effectiveness, enabling it to rebuild the institutional
infrastructure of a functioning state. With an Afghan government of
questionable legitimacy and limited efficacy in control of only 30 per
cent of the country - and much of the rest under the sway of local
warlords - surging thousands of fresh troops into lawless rural areas
is a recipe for chasing after unattainable ends with insufficient
means.
Instead, Mr Obama should decisively scale back the mission in
Afghanistan. He should do so by focusing coalition operations on
consolidating control in strategically important locations as well as
more stable areas in the centre and north of the country. From these
secure and defensible zones, the coalition would focus on three tasks.
First, it would build up the political and economic infrastructure of
a rump Afghanistan, with the aim of establishing the robust
institutions and markets essential to a functioning state. This effort
is a critical priority: without a viable Afghan government, even
successful efforts at counterinsurgency would be little more than an
expensive palliative. Second, the coalition would carry out
counterterrorism operations throughout those parts of Afghanistan and
Pakistan where coalition forces would not regularly be deployed,
seizing opportunities to strike at militant Taliban and al-Qaeda
targets. Third, it would ramp up training of the Afghan army and
police, building an indigenous force that would eventually undertake
the countrywide counterinsurgency mission that Gen McChrystal now
envisages for coalition forces - but without the nationalist backlash
inevitably invited by foreign troops.
This three-pronged strategy has marked advantages over more ambitious
as well as less demanding alternatives. Rather than spreading itself
too thin, the coalition would focus its effort where it is most
needed: on creating a capable and legitimate Afghan state that can
gradually assume responsibility for governance and security throughout
the country. It would also contain the scope of the US and European
commitment without risking a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan - a major
downside of rapid withdrawal or an exclusive focus on
counterterrorism.
At the same time, the US would maintain access to bases needed to
carry out counterterrorism operations and collect intelligence in both
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Coalition forces rather than the Taliban
would be adopting hit-and-run tactics, striking against militant cells
that would be likely to seek to reconstitute themselves in areas from
which coalition forces had retrenched. By taking the initiative on the
battlefield, US and Nato troops would keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda on
the defensive and deny them the ability to construct training camps
and operational bases of the sort that existed prior to the US
invasion in 2001.
This revamped strategy would also yield benefits in Pakistan.
Coalition operations in Afghanistan have pushed the region's most
dangerous and hardened fighters into Pakistan, contributing to
increasing levels of insurgent violence and destabilising the nuclear-
armed country. These militants are also largely outside the reach of
coalition forces; Islamabad does not permit foreign troops to operate
in Pakistan, leaving the US to rely on missile strikes from drones
operating only in border areas.
Should coalition forces redeploy primarily to core regions in
Afghanistan, some of the militants who fled to Pakistan would be
likely to return, if only to escape Pakistan's ongoing offensive in
Waziristan. If they did, the threat to Pakistan would diminish and
coalition forces could pursue the militants in Afghanistan without the
restrictions they face in Pakistan.
The US cannot afford to let Afghanistan again fall under the sway of
parties with terrorist designs against the west. Neither can it
afford, however, to put additional resources behind a strategy that
risks drawing Nato into an ever-deepening quagmire. By pursuing a
strategy that combines counterterrorism with a focus on building a
functioning Afghan state and army, the US may well succeed in keeping
its means and ends in balance. Only then will Mr Obama be able to
sustain the steady US commitment needed finally to bring peace to
Afghanistan.
Charles Kupchan is professor of international affairs at Georgetown
University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Steven Simon is adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations
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