During a panel discussion of the Center for a New American Security's latest report on Afghanistan, Boston University Professor Andrew Bacevich was brought in to question the assumptions underpinning that strategy and the one proposed by the Obama administration.
Bacevich raises the question, not uncommon among those skeptical about the War in Afghanistan, of whether or not the country represents an actual national security interest to the United States. He pointed out that, whatever the nature of the safe haven Afghanistan provided to al-Qaeda, the real failures that led to the 9/11 attacks were found in the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that didn't prevent terrorists from traveling into the United States where they could prepare for and carry out their mission. In terms of national security interests, Bacevich observes, Mexico is much more important to the United States and much nearer, but has developed serious problems of violence and government legitimacy. Yet no one would suggest sending 30,000, or 60,000, American troops to the country to solve these problems. (Here's an op-ed where Bacevich argues against involvement in Afghanistan).
It's an oversimplification, to be sure. Afghanistan and Pakistan are both much closer to failing as states than Mexico, and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal adds a deep complication to an already difficult calculus. Further, and this isn't a concern for realists but should be for liberals, the anti-democratic, anti-human rights Taliban, alone or as part of a coalition, could end up returning to power in Afghanistan and destabilizing Pakistan in the event of international departure from the region. That, alongside the problems created between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India after the U.S. government more-or-less abandoned the region in the late 1980s and early 1990s, should give us pause.
Colonel Christopher Cavoli, who also spoke on the panel and will be returning to Afghanistan for another tour as a combat commander in the near future, offered a sobering prediction about the new strategy in that conflict: "We would know it worked because fighting will increase dramatically." He explained that effective counterinsurgency would separate the population from insurgents, forcing the latter group to violently confront American troops already seeking to engage them.
It doesn't bode well for the success of the president's campaign in Afghanistan: Already on a short lease from congressional leaders and public opinion, this sign of success will also be perceived domestically as a sign of failure. Cavoli did observe, though, that the levels of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq today are roughly similar -- that is, despite their objective equivalence, in Iraq we see success and Afghanistan we see failure because of the relative trends of instability in Afghanistan and stability in Iraq. These converging indicators suggest that the ambiguity of this conflict -- both on the ground and strategically -- will confound American policy-makers for a long time to come.
-- Tim Fernholz
