Spencer has a great piece at the Washington Independent that includes a bunch of interesting nuggets on the progression of Afghanistan strategy (which, contrary to recent reports, has apparently not been decided). Spencer introduces us to two top Navy officers, Admirals Robert Harward and William McRaven, who are deep in the wonderful world of counterterror special operations. Despite this, it seems like Vice President Joe Biden's favored small-footprint counterterror approach to Afghanistan isn't on the menu anymore: JSOC veterans like McRaven, Harward and [Afghanistan Commander Stanley] McChrystal favor an overall counterinsurgency [COIN] strategy with a counterterrorism component demonstrates that the military no longer believes distinguishing between the two is tenable in the Afghanistan war. ....The two admirals are also said to be influential with Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser. McRaven, at least, worked with Jones in a previous assignment, commanding Special Operations Forces in Europe in 2006 while Jones was ending his tour of duty as NATO commander. “A lot of people think Jones is not taking military counsel, that he’s anti-surge, he’s this, he’s that,” said the NSC staffer. “In reality, he’s taking counsel from pretty much a purely military palette of people, including McRaven.”The melding of COIN and CT isn't an outrageous thought. During the Iraq surge, hunter-killer operations (run, at the time, by McChrystal) played a very large role. What's concerning me, however, is the idea that the military is pretty united in pushing for more troops -- not too surprising, given institutional imperatives -- combined with the fact that Jones is talking "purely" to military people. Jones' military background is useful, but only if he uses it in conjunction with varied perspectives from diplomats and regional experts. Groupthink is the last thing U.S. policy needs, especially from a tightly knit fraternity of special operations officers. They may be right, in that the U.S. approach to COIN and CT is evolving appropriately, but a decision to commit significant resources to Afghanistan shouldn't be made in a vacuum. Elsewhere, Spencer observes that breaking news about the Afghan strategy review is hard. It is! So read his whole piece.
-- Tim Fernholz
