Afghanistan indeed has been the graveyard of empires, most recently Osama bin-Laden’s Islamist mini-empire, which was destroyed primarily by Afghans fighting on the ground (backed by American air power), and pushed over the border into Pakistan. Now he and his allies (Taliban, Haqqani network, Pakistani Islamists, narco-gangs and other opportunistic groups) are seeking to revive and rebuild that empire. A minimal “win” for the U.S. would be to preclude the re-establishment of that radical emirate, which would pose a threat to Americans, Afghans, and a wide spectrum of other allies.

But merely seeking to prevent the resurgence of such an empire is not enough, because only the Afghans can do this in the long run and they must have a vested interest in the outcome or they will not make the sacrifices necessary to defeat the coalition of Islamist insurgent groups and criminal gangs that they face. The Afghans also have seen the U.S. turn its back on them after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, leaving them exposed to the violent dictates of the Taliban, backed by Pakistan’s ISI and financed by Saudi and other gulf moneymen. If the Afghans sense that the U.S. is merely settling for a minimally-embarassing “exit plan” then the tribal kaleidoscope will quickly twist into an unfavorable position as they scurry to align with the winning side.

The U.S. must offer patient and determined long term help in building a nationalist Afghan government that serves Afghan interests, provides benefits and services that raise their living standards and provide the hope of a better future. If U.S. troops are deployed merely to kill Al-Qaeda members and their allies, then the Afghan people soon will revert to xenophobia and increasingly will conclude that they have little stake in the fighting. U.S. troops cannot execute a successful counter-terrorist campaign against Al-Qaeda without mounting an effective counter-insurgency campaign against Al-Qaeda’s allies. We cannot use smart bombs smartly without good intelligence, which Afghans (and Pakistanis) will be reluctant to provide unless they have some assurance of security after they provide it.

While more U.S. troops can help in the short run, in the long run only the Afghans can win the war against the Taliban/Al-Qaeda. To do so, they must have strong motivation to fight and a government worth fighting for. The U.S. must press the young Afghan government to root out corruption and help it to build up its capacity to serve and protect its own people. The Afghan army needs to be greatly expanded and trained to fight a counter-insurgency campaign. The police, which often are the frontline defenders against insurgents, need to be purged of corrupt elements, reorganized, paid better, and retrained to serve local communities, not extort bribes from them.

The U.S. is unlikely to get more military help from its NATO and other ISAF allies. But those allies can and should step up their economic assistance, in a coordinated fashion to reduce redundancy and waste, to raise Afghan living standards and employ Afghans rather than foreign contractors wherever possible. Our allies, and even China, can join us in increasing aid to the Pakistani tribal areas, to reduce the dominance of Pakistani Islamist groups and induce greater Pakistani cooperation in reining in the Taliban and other groups that operate from Pakistani sanctuaries.

Ultimately, the U.S. can “win” in Afghanistan, only if it creates the conditions under which the great majority of Afghans can “win.” This means helping them to build a more secure, more prosperous, and more hopeful society. The ultimate form of the state that is developed to help build this society should be left up to them, but it is likely to be a decentralized, pluralist, and fiercely independent one.

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Michael Scheur's response confuses key tasks with end states. I said we want a decent country in control of itself and able to deal with AQAM, and the Taliban and its associated movements. Of course, we have strike a devastating blow against the enemy, if no other purpose than to be able to transition from us securing Afghanistan to them doing it for themselves. And as far as the definition of "decent," I am wise enough to leave room for Afghan culture(s) and Islam. I don't insist on Western democracy, but without a decent and legitimate government, A'stan will remain a ward of its international benefactors. jjc

We want a "decent country"? Gee, I thought we wanted to annihilate our enemies and come home. A "decent country" is just another term for imperialism of the British 19th Century variety, but an emasculated one because we will not even use the force necessary to create an environment where our defintion of a "decent" society would be a remote possibility. Democracy, Afghans don't want it. Women's rights, ditto ad infinitum. Secularism, ditto. Neutered Islam, ditto. Strong and effective central government, triple ditto. Moroever, the forces that are for most Afghans fighting for Afghan sovereignty -- except in the minds of new-age Washington policymakers and the corrupt, Westernized, minimally-Afghan Afghans we keep in power via the bayonet -- are the Taleban and its allies.

No, our goals in Afghanistan are to: (a) destroy those who can attack inside the United States and (2) eradicate the heroin industry despite the flow of revenue it supplies to our buddy Karzai's family and no matter what it does to the sainted but ultimately completely expendable Afghan farmers. Better all Afghan farmers dead than the continuing flow of heroin to our kids in North America.

A "decent" Afghanistan is, quite simply, an entity the Afghans will decide for themselves -- and the Islamists will win this one -- and one that having been chastised by U.S. military power will think twice about hosting those of our enemies we have not killed.

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A victory in Afghanistan is easy to define, even if a bit gray. In Afghanistan, we seek a decent country with a representative government, and a decent legal economy. Victory means an Afghanistan that essentially controls its own territory, and thus, is able to control Taliban and Al Qaeda encroachments on its sovereignty. It is vitally important for the United States to pursue this goal because of the need to block an Al Qaeda sanctuary --- one far more rewarding to them than their tenuous one in Pakistan --- and to carry out our commitment of blood and treasure made in 2001. As Sec. Gates has reminded us, a loss in Afghanistan would be a devastating blow to our security and our prestige.

While experts tell us that a decent state never existed in Afghanistan, they are wrong. For just one example, a very decent country existed from the end of World War II to the communist coup in 1978. While the central government was not strong outside the major cities, governors were tied into local and tribal power structures. There was law and order, even with a modest amount of narcotics production. The government was viewed as legitimate by its people. Tourists treked the countryside with little fear or trepidation.

How do we get to such a victory in Afghanistan? I have written recently on this and I invite the ambitious to review the article in January issue of Armed Forces Journal (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/01/3846067). In the article I argue that we have lost ground since 2004, primarily because we have failed to keep pace with the efforts of our enemy, the Taliban and associated movements. Our efforts at building security forces have been checkered, with the Afghan National Army (ANA) getting a passing grade and the police advisory effort a low "F." We have also foolishly let the production of narcotics get out of control, thereby yielding hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban and its friends each year. We have also failed miserably in building government capacity. We are adept at providing fish and incompetent at teaching our friends in weak states how to fish. Even in the military field, we have done a very good job at providing troops and a half hearted, less than professional job at providing advisors. Our allies --- with the UK, Canada, and a few others as exceptions --- have proven to be more burden than asset.

In my article, to regain the initiative, I recommend more troops, more aid, and a greater emphasis on protecting the population. The military need to do more counternarcotics work, w/o getting involved in poppy whacking. I am wary of drastically increasing the size of the ANA and also wary of a reliance on independent local militias, which could painfully increase the tendency toward war lordism. Most of our NATO allies need a serious kick in their psychic butts. (I now think our efforts might prosper more as a coalition of the willing and not a NATO-directed effort.) We also need to build capacity in the central and local government structures. Finally, there is a crying need for a regional approach. We must do more for Pakistan and ensure that they end their long term affair with the Taliban and radical elements. I do believe that we could profit greatly by more cooperation in Afghanistan with Taliban-hating Iran.

In the end, victory in Afghanistan is important and achieveable. The Taliban have no political program and are not popular in Afghanistan. They are not anywhere near as formidable as the Viet Cong. We can only lose if we quit.

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While the way forward is easy to describe, it is not clear this administration can get there. They are already losing the support in their party for the war effort....Democrats are war weary and it doesn't matter which war. Where will Obama get his support…from the Republicans? What has he done for them lately? The President seems to be trying to run a middle course making the war as least painless as possible...only 17,000 more troops, less than the Pentagon wanted...if things don't get better maybe he'll send a few more. This is beginning to sound a little like Johnson in Vietnam who adopted an “incremental” strategy…just keep adding as little as you can get away with…but the problem with that is when you add a little at a time the enemy adapts…and you never get ahead of the problem (that’s why the surge worked - it leaped ahead of the enemy who could not adapt fast enough to keep up)…in two or three years Obama could well find himself with a much bigger commitment and no support from the right or the left…and the alternative failure…an al Qeada win in Afghanistan, an unstable nuclear power, an anxious India, a nervous China, a meddlesome Iran, and host of “stans” turning into the wild west….not a happy outcome. So what Obama needs is both a sound strategy and a full commitment now, not later, to put in all the resources needed to get the job done…or it could be hello 1968.

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Regarding Larry Korb's comment that we ought to "reassure" the Pak and Afghan people that we are not going to leave. What those folks are looking for is an assurance that we are going to leave. They are not, after all, French, and so have no love of being occupied by foreign forces. Indeed, foreign occupation always increases their ferocity and imposes a transient unity directed against the occupier. And for the limited number in both countries who want us to remain -- Westernized Muslims whose non-Islamic aspirations can only be installed by U.S. bayonets and a semi-permanent occupation -- they are already booking tickets to Europe or the Gulf because they know that the impact of 17,000 new troops (maybe 6,000 shooters?) won't be worth a bucket of warm spit.

Troops are not enough. We must recognize that Afghanistan is very different from Iraq. It is not just a matter of topography, or even that the society is nowhere nearly as modern as that of Saddam's Iraq. It is also that we fought the Afghan War primarily in a support role. We did not send in thousands of troops; the war was fought by the Northern Alliance and some Pashtu allies. We have slowly evolved into occupiers--too much American (and Western) military presence, too little targeted economic assistance. So now we are back to having win hearts and minds--but it is harder because we had won them once and then lost them in 2005-2008.

The Northern Alliance was an alliance of warolords. We have preferred to deal with the central govenrment, even though Afgfhanistan has, with very few exceptions, never been governed by strong central rulers. It is not simply a matter of "tribes" as in Iraq, but, like Iraq, it is a matter of spending money to buy allegiance. It is said that one cannot buy an Afgfhan, one only rents an Afghan. Well, if that be the case, then we need to develop a fiormula for a long term lease.

We cannot expect that our troops will remain in Afghanistan for decades. No one has ever remained in Afghanistan for decades. We need to rethink the purpose of our forces. We need to rethink what we want from the allies and coalition partners. Perhaps the Bosnia model, to which Secreatry Gates indirectly alluded, is the right one: the allies provide the civilian contributions, as well as majotr ecpnomic assitance, while the US probvides the military muscle. And that muscle does not to continue to expand. The currently planned plus up should represent the upper limit of the forces we send; it may be too high, in fact.

We need to rethink what we expect from the central govenrment, and what we are prepared to do with regional warlords. I would recommend expecting less from Kabul and (though this will certrtainly upset many readers) coming to terms with the warlords. And we should not try to create a democratic Afghanistan; let the Afghans create what they want to create.

We have blown this one, thus far. By 2004 some two million Afghan refugees had returned home. Small businesses had sprouted. There was a freely elected government. And the Taliban was nowhere to be found. Let's try to get back to 2004 before we try anything more ambitious. Just doing that will be hard enough.

A word about Pakistan. The country's leadership, whether military or civilian, has a vested interest in maintaining the country as a moderate Muslim state. Paksitan is still a feudal society; the great landowners in the Punjab and the Sind (including, indeed especially, the Bhutto clan), and the retired miitary who have joined the ranks of landowners, still control most of the firepower. And they have the most to lose in a Talibanized Pakistan. They are therefore our natural allies. We need to recognize,however, that, as with Afghanistan, Pakistani support will cost us money. A lot of it, and even so there will be pockets, maybe large pockets, within the Paksitani military that will not support us. In the main, however, those who oppose us pose an even bigger threat to the nation's elites than they do to us.

To defeat the Taliban we will have to pay a price: it can either be a combination of increased, but carefully targeted economic assistance, true cooperatiion with allies and partners (as opposed to ur calling all the shots) and recognition of the less than democtractic realities in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, be they Afghan warlords or Pakistani feudal lords. Or we can pay in blood and in the treasure that goes with that blood. I prefer the former.

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President Obama has been roundly criticized by both his supporters and his opponents for deciding to send 17,000 more American troops to Afghanistan over the next six months. Many of his supporters accuse him of reneging on his campaign promise to withdraw American troops from George Bush’s misguided wars and rely more on diplomacy and development than military force. Others argue that the President is jumping the gun by increasing American troop strength by more than 50 percent, before deciding what American goals are. Still others feel that by sending more Americans into this “graveyard of the empires,” the United States will meet the same fate as the Soviet and British occupiers.

But these criticisms are misguided and in fact, miss the full impact of this decision. In the presidential campaign, Obama promised to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq in 16 months and send two to three brigades to Afghanistan, the central front of the war on terrorism. The 17,000 troop increase consists of exactly two combat brigades, plus 5,000 troops to support those forces. Moreover, the units that will go to Afghanistan were originally scheduled to go to Iraq to replace units completing their tours. In effect, this means that Obama is fulfilling his pledge to begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq.

In making the announcement for the troop increase, Obama made it clear that our objectives in Afghanistan cannot be achieved by military means alone. And, in the next 60 days, he will decide what the end game is, because neither the military or civilian leadership of the Pentagon could answer that question for the President when they asked for 30,000 troops, despite the fact that they have been waging this war for more than seven years.

Diverting 17,000 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan at this time accomplishes two goals. First, it assures the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan that the new administration is not preparing to withdraw. Many people in these countries, who initially supported our operations in Afghanistan, are hedging their bets and throwing in their lot with the Taliban insurgents, not because they support their goals or see us as occupiers, but because they are not sure that the U.S. will stay the course.

Second, by beginning the withdrawal from Iraq, Obama sends a message to the Iraqi people that the U.S. is committed to leaving Iraq within three years, as demanded by the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the Bush administration and the Maliki government concluded in December 2008. This is critical because there will be a referendum on the SOFA this summer. Many Iraqis are dubious that we will actually withdraw and, without seeing concrete steps, likely will refuse to approve the SOFA. This would mean all U.S. troops would have to leave by the end of 2009, instead of 2011.

Obama also accompanied the troop increase with a request to our NATO partners, who provide half the troops in Afghanistan, to provide their input on what the end game in Afghanistan should be. If we and our NATO allies can agree on an endgame, the President will be in a much better position to seek more help from them, and get more support from the American people for what is likely to be a long and costly operation. Without the support of the American people and our allies, we will not be able to achieve our goals of a stable Afghanistan that is not a haven for terrorists.

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Why do so many people have such a hard time defining what the word "victory" means? Victory comes from the overwhelming application of military force which results in no enemies -- or their civilian supporters -- remaining (any skull-stacking jaunt by Genghis Khan), or when you have killed so many of the foe and their civilian supporters that those remaining do not believe the game is worth the candle (Germany and Japan).

Now, having the definition squared away all we need to do is to decide whether we want to achieve victory. Mr. Bush had about a 15-month window for savagery in Afghanistan during which the American people would have supported -- if you will forgive the term -- a military victory. Instead, he decided to pull our military punch and line up all of our effete European friends (?) and go nation-building. As a result, Afghanistan is lost and 17,000 more troops will only extend the time it takes for us to admit defeat. (NB: The tragedy of the 17,000 is that no U.S. general had the courage to stand up and tell the president not to bother with such a cowardly and hare-brained measure, and then resign and tell the American people the truth so no more of their kids get killed in an already lost war.)

Finally, how are Pakistan and Afghanistan linked? They are linked in the mutual march toward disaster they are now walking because of Washington's insane attempts to create democracies where they are not wanted. Afghanistan is gone, but if the Pak generals take over soon that country may yet be stabilized. Pray God, send Pakistan a coup soon.

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Here is why the very idea of “winning” or “losing” in Afghanistan is irrelevant.

Counterinsurgency ideology — COIN — is infinitely extensible both in practice and objective. Not to forget, it is infinitely extensible even in its definition, which extends especially to its definition of success.

But COIN also suffers from — no, it inflicts — an almost irresistible seduction on all who circle its flame.

COIN you see is a way of life. Once you enter its narcotic precincts, you never want to leave. But this is not the old “war of the flea.” Surely there was the “Old COIN” that had its plague-taint in Vietnam and so many other places whose rotting loam is now half-forgotten lore.

Its changeling is a New, Improved COIN, stainless and failsafe. It offers our Defense Tribal Confederacy a visionary prospect of what is all at once sustainable, necessary, and accommodating: A perfect, if secret recipe.

This perfect secret recipe for a military way of life is what COIN does for us. But what does it do for them? Yes, I am talking about those named but always somehow nameless communities that we fight. Communities? We see only convenient “bad guys.” Well then, tell me please just what all those wedding parties are doing, inconveniently in the way of a JDAM?

We are fighting real communities, and in some cases even, emerging societies. How (twisting John Newton) do we see, but yet are blind?

Those we fight are our dark mirror. Like us they too are not about “winning” or “losing.” They too want to play this out. It is not war — but rather something else that no one can name. But it’s not the naming that is important: it is seeing the thing itself.

That would be identity realized. What they seek above all can be realized only through mythic struggle with us, where we are the essential legitimator of their sacred story still unfolding. We are there to make their narrative of identity happen. We are essential: we are thus most truly valued.

If their narrative takes awhile, even years and years, then that’s all right too. But unlike us they do not seek such struggle as a way of life. They seek life, however despicable that realization seems to us.

We are there, engaging them: and yet seamlessly, intimately, working with them too. We are helping them build their future. Everyone of them — even as we slay them.

Don’t look over your shoulder: the Shi’a Republic of Iraq and the Kurdish Republic and the sad Sunni who killed us, now on the dole — in ways we hardly understand we tore down their world and set them all on a new narrative road, to which they are now committing and investing the entirety of their human energy. Is this Iraqi outcome so different in Afghanistan? Sure Afghanistan is different, but when it comes to sacred identity — maybe not so different. They too share the grand, sacred narrative that rises out of the fighting.

If you don’t believe me, look at the historical track record. Look at the big ones.

Like the Dutch: The Spanish Superpower made them, tested them and brutally reified and then, to their own Hapsburg horror: legitimated them. The Spanish counterinsurgency took 80 years, and Spain’s great gift to the world was:

The Netherlands.

The not-so-solid 18th century British Union took on their own 13 American colonies in what became a true “hybrid war” (and extended counterinsurgency) when they moved an army to Charleston in 1779. The Crown’s grand operational maneuvers across the colonies had already created in New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies a fiery and even sacred American identity. Yet the British it seems wished to make this emerging collective self even stronger. How wonderfully Cornwallis succeeded!

The Crown not only ended up anointing a new nation, they managed to achieve this by building with new Americans an almost perfect narrative, culminating with an English band playing “The World Turned Upside Down.” Thank you Georgius III Rex!

These same beneficent British also wanted to build Boer and Kenyan identity. They conducted “victorious” COIN campaigns in which “security” for the “populace” was achieved through the creation of concentration camps. Sadly, many tens of thousands perished within them. But here the Crown won … only then to hand full authority and rule over to the “defeated” insurgents.

Do we need to demonstrate in Afghanistan how perfect is our fidelity to the Spanish-British model?

You can check out this argument in full in my new book, Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change.

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It is easy enough to describe the main points of the right strategy. It would:

• Have the Pakistanis deal with the terrorist threat in their tribal areas, while Coalition forces defeat them in Afghanistan.
• Work to lessen tensions between Pakistan and India, so that Pakistan focuses on the internal threat.
• Help the Pakistanis develop the capacity to conduct effective, full spectrum counter-insurgency campaign.
• Continue to rely on unilateral military action in the tribal areas to protect troops fighting across the border in Afghanistan as well as to prevent a potential future catastrophic international terrorist attack, but calibrate military action (recognizing that each unilateral strike—especially involving civilian casualties—undermines U.S. broader goals).
• Develop the capacity of Afghans to become self-reliant in security, governance and development.
• Integrate coalition efforts (e.g. CENTCOM, NATO), programs (e.g. development assistance, military operations) and regional strategies (e.g. for Pakistan, Afghanistan, India) into a coherent effort.
• In the end, al Qaeda’s network and leadership in the region need to be destroyed and there needs to be a security-political settlement that deals with the long term future of the tribes that stride Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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“Winning” a counterinsurgency is anchored in two bedrock assumptions: 1) there is a local and legitimate governance structure that the counterinsurgency can support; and 2) the counterinsurgency has the educated and trained personnel to engage the culture and community.

A big deal has been made about the “Swat ceasefire” with some disagreement between Ambassador Holbrooke (who understands it as tantamount to surrender) and Secretary Gates who thinks that “Swat” might offer elements of a model that could be applied in Afghanistan. Certainly the threatened “Talibanization” of Pakistan should not be underestimated, but nor should it be oversimplified. Unfortunately, the only TV images we receive are monolithic men of ragged beards calling for “Shari’a,” confirming the worst stereotypes of Islam and nuclear Pakistan being taken over by extremists.

The key question: What does “Shari’a” mean to the Pashtun people of Northwest Pakistan (and by extension, eastern Afghanistan)? Foremost, Shari’a is a response to the incompetence of the local and national government and its perceived and real inability to provide justice (good schools, sanitation, etc). Shari’a means justice first, not extremism. Second, as I understand it, the “Shari’a” agreed to in Swat included secular judges.

Whether you like it or not, get used to “Swat.” This is the religio-cultural-political context of the AfPak border areas. While the way forward to sufficient stability is not clear, the path to instability is. That path requires the US leadership to engage in monolithic stereotypes where all conservative Pashto Muslims are terrorists.

Among the Pashtun Muslims I know from that part of the world, none like the terrorist stereotype associated with their region and people. All want al-Qaeda out of the region. Most are sympathetic to the “Taliban” that took power in 1996—not because of the austere “Shari’a” that was imposed, but because the Taliban brought stability to a ravaged land that the world left to its own devices in 1989. All are hospitable. All share common values and desires for justice, compassion, mercy, and peace.

If we are to entertain notions of sufficient stability, this is the sea that the counterinsurgent policy-maker and policy-implementer must swim in…or drown. Because there simply is no alternative to Swat-like/Loya Jirga deals—the Pakistani government, military and civilian, will be incapable of imposing its writ for the foreseeable future along the border—then we’d better deal with the world as it is, take a long-view, and try to work within the cultural context. What should the US do?

- Understand the micro-nuances of the situation, especially how common values and interests might work against the common threat of terrorism;

- Educate/train US/NATO people appropriately…establishing a NATO training center for “cultural engagement” in Termez, Uzbekistan, would do much to prepare those who were about to serve in PRTs, and it would do much to build bridges back to a bilateral relationship that needs to return;

- Support robust “good governance” programs that are sensitive to culture and consistent with the rule of law…programs that parrot US clichés about “building democracy” and define “civil society” as more NGOs will only make the situation worse;

- Ramp up the counterinsurgency training of the police and military in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, perhaps jointly;

- Undergirded this approach with the attitude of respect and ‘relational diplomacy’ that Admiral Mike Mullen called for recently in his Washington Post op-ed; and,

- Set this strategy in a regional context that actively engages Iran, Central Asia, and, above all, India (beginning with a revitalization of the almost deal on Kashmir).

For more of our work on this subject, please see my May 2006 trip report to the NWFP/FATA region: https://www.globalengage.org/pressroom/ftp/476-from-the-president-practical-steps-in-northwest-frontier-province.html; or please read our recent monograph on “Pakistan’s Islamist Frontier” (by Josh White) at: http://www.cfia.org/ArticlesAndReports/ArticlesDetail.aspx?id=11124&hId=3672.

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I was in Afghanistan in May, walking past mined hills and the skeletons of weapons left by Taliban, Russian, and other armies--back to Genghis Khan. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires--it is not terrain we are going to "win" by military strategy alone. But if we care about our own security, we also cannot abandon it again. We tried that once, when the Soviet threat disintegrated. It didn't go so well.

There's no need to outsmart ourselves here. Clearly, Pakistan and Afghanistan are connected: irregular forces living in Pakistan are crossing the border, killing our troops in Afghanistan, then crossing back into Pakistan where they can hide within a sovereign country and a supportive population. These same forces are working with tribal compatriots in Afghanistan to destabilize that country--against the wishes of the majority of the Afghan population. One faction recently forced a "peace treaty" in Pakistan's Swat Valley, further undermining the Pakistani state.

Our strategic purpose is fairly clear: we need to ensure that Pakistan's democratic government regains control of its territory, and retains control over its military, intelligence services, and nuclear weapons. We cannot allow Pakistan to become a sovereign shell eaten out from inside by a parasitical, violently anti-American organization that will then once again have the protection and power of a sovereign state. Afghanistan is ironically the easier side-show to that main theater: in Afghanistan, we need a stable state that also does not host terrorist forces. And since it does no good to trade one security threat for another, it would be helpful to stop its descent into a narco-state as well.

So what do we do in Afghanistan? Well, first, we could give it a try. From 2003 onward, we've starved Afghanisatn of troops, money, and strategic thought. We didn't even do serious police reform until 2005--four years after toppling the Taliban. Security is the currency of power in Afghanistan, and while Afghans don't like the Taliban, they like them more than 30 more years of war. We have to promise more security than the alternative if we are going to create a stable country. Dedicating more troops is a necessary first step. But they must be the right kind of troops, doing the right things.

First our troops need to be eliminating the Taliban in Pakistan, and along the border--but that war won't be won with our troops fighting fire fights. It will be won when the population trusts our security umbrella enough to flush the outsiders out themselves. As long as the population thinks we're going to pack up and go home, they're hardly going to endanger themselves by helping us. Meanwhile, indiscriminate killing of civilians and bombing from UAVs is the best possible way to lose trust, and to undermine our efforts. If we can't train our troops to better avoid civilian killings, and we can't be more careful with our air fire, we shouldn't deploy them. Nothing undermines our mission like civilian deaths: it weakens our trust among the population, and it weakens the Afghan government, which is seen as helpless at protecting its people. The means to our end is strengthening the government, and building trust among the people.

Second, we need to invest serious effort in training and equipping the Afghan National Army and the police. Afghanistan is a country that has been at war for decades--it's men are a hardened fighting force. They are nationalistic--there is a real sense of being Afghan, not just of tribal belonging-- that country is not just a colonial construct. And they want to fight for their country. In Afghanistan, our main mission needs to be helping them to do that better. Ultimately, only they can secure their country. But they need our help to get there--help they've been starved of for six years.

Finally: we need a better plan for working with Pakistan. It is the nightmare state--and it is where the fight will be won or lost.

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Our first moments in Afghanistan were spectacular – we went in with the world on our side, guns blazing, quickly toppling the Taliban government.

Unfortunately, eight years later the word has watched as what seemed like a sure victory has turned into chaos in a nation long plagued by war.

While the situation in Afghanistan sounds dire, I for one am not ready to throw in the towel. It wasn’t that long ago that many of the same naysayers screaming about our situation in Afghanistan were screaming about our so-called defeat in Iraq.

Thanks to the right leadership, the right strategy, and the right coordination, even writers at the New York Times are now talking about our progress in Iraq – now that’s a turnaround!

My point is that our success in Iraq shows us that we can succeed in our fight against terrorism if we have the right plan.

Last year I began talking to officials in the new Administration and our military commanders about my roadmap to victory, stabilization, and security in Afghanistan.

Most important, to succeed our plan in Afghanistan must be a comprehensive and regional strategy. Our problems in Afghanistan are not confined to just that country – instead they span the border with Pakistan.

Look no further than Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas – where so many terrorists have found sanctuary – to understand the need for a regional strategy.

In addition to outlining a regional strategy, it’s critical that President Obama’s Washington-based Special Coordinator have the clout to carry out the plan and deal with Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s leaders.

There are a number of critical components to my Roadmap to Success in South Asia –such as strengthening the local military and police to increase security for the people and providing the economic assistance local leaders want like our National Guard teams are providing to farmers – that are critical to long-term victory.

The worst thing we can do is let the situation in Afghanistan lead to rash decision making.

There is just too much at stake for our own national security for us to give up or head down the wrong path just because we want a quick resolution.

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The Pakistan and Afghanistan problems are not as closely linked as one might think. From the point of view of the United States there are two separable problems involved:

- How do we prevent the use of Afghanistan as a planning and support base for further attacks on the United States and NATO? The answer to this question lies in the fractured nature of Afghanistan "society." The Taliban and various factional elements are nothing like monoliths. These collections of people can be disaggregated and many of the people now thought of as enemies can be used against Al-Qa'ida and other hard core "takfiri jihadi" groups. How does one do that? It is done with money and a modicum of sympathetic listening. This is how it was done in Iraq and that is how it can be done in Afghanistan as well. Will the ensuing situation be "messy?" Certainly. Will a new and shining Afghanistan emerge from application of this method? No. So what! The citizens of the United States should not be the self appointed "guardians" of the inhabitants of the world. The United States is fast becoming a poor country. If we launch a full blown COIN driven nation building effort in Afghanistan, that effort will be paid for with borrowed money or with fiat money. One path probably leads to a deflationary spiral and the other to massive inflation. We can afford neither eventuality. Let us restrict our efforts in Afghanistan to a minimalist focus on disrupting our enemies.

-The larger issues involved in the Indo-Pakistani hundred years war and the stability of Pakistan's nuclear armed forces are the most important foreign policy problems facing the Obama Administration. The tribes in the FATA do not have nuclear weapons and neither do their Al-Qa'ida acquaintances. The Pakistan Air Force has them. Pakistan hovers on the perpetual brink of instability not because of Islamist agitaion in Waziristan or Swat, but rather because of the unending threat of war with a much stronger India. This is Pakistan's birth legacy, the result of the artificial creation of a state founded in the idea of religious exclusivity. Richard Holbrook is a famous diplomatist. The resolution of the Indo-Pakistani situation is a suitable field for his efforts. He clearly relishes the prospect.

We seem to have a problem linking the economic tragedy now developing in the United States to the limits of our real options overseas.

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President Obama ought to ban the words "win," "lose," "victory," and "defeat" from all discussions of Afghanistan. He should ask his advisers for a list of the desired outcomes in that country that would be in the national interest of the United States, in order of priority. Each should be accompanied by a discussion of 1/ the strategy to achieve the outcome, with the possibilities of success accompanied with a discussion of the uncertainties and their possible and probable consequences 2/ the likely costs, 3/ reasonable guesses as to the time required, and 4/ the possible unintended consequences.
He should then show the list to several experts on the country and the region from inside and outside the government, and listen to them discuss the list among themselves and with his national security advisers. Then, after consulting trusted advisers in Congress and perhaps elsewhere in his administration, he could make some wise decisions for the long term.

If any commitment ever defined "mission creep," it’s Afghanistan. As I recall, we began by exploiting an existing civil conflict to punish the Taliban government for its refusal to surrender Bin Laden & Co. Having merely displaced the latter and their Taliban hosts to Pakistan by failing to commit enough ground forces from the outset to entrap and destroy them, we then cheerfully adopted Colin Powell’s "Pottery Barn" principle without troubling to consider whether "owning" an Afghanistan that was "broken" long before we showed up made any more sense for us than it had for the British and the Russians. Finally, just to add insult to injury, having committed NATO to that quixotic effort, we ourselves promptly shifted our attentions to Iraq.

It would be hard to devise a more feckless misuse of military power. Not least of the reasons why we’re failing in Afghanistan is that none of the other parties involved -- Afghans, Pakistanis, our NATO allies, or the Taliban -- has much reason to trust (or fear) our strategic competence.

Since no president would relish a replay of Saigon 1975, and given the damage that outright abandonment likely would inflict on perceptions of NATO’s efficacy elsewhere, we’ll be engaged in this exercise for awhile yet. In the circumstances, however, adopting a more modest and realistic definition of success would no more than restore to the enterprise the strategic purpose for which we originally intervened in the first place. For the unfortunate reality that achieving it now will be much more difficult and costly, we have only ourselves to blame.

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Andrew Bacevich has asked the right question: what is the current role of the U.S. in the world? Sadly, I think the new administration is not asking this question, at least not yet. Instead, they're walking into a trap in Afghanistan, and soon, Pakistan, as well. The "experts" have gathered around this question, filing reports, doing analyses, appearing on the talk shows, shoveling "win" scenarios at the policy-makers. The risk for Obama is that Afghanistan (and Pakistan) become his Iraq or, to go further back, his Vietnam

I was most struck by the juxtaposition of two stories in Sunday's Washington Post. One of them talked about the emerging victory of the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil guerillas. The other spoke of the growing hostility in Afghanistan to the U.S. military presence and actions. The difference?: the local administration and people want to settle the civil war in Sri Lanka, and the "win" is being carried out by Sri Lankans.

I wonder when we will realize that trying to "win" in these situations, as the outsider - dragging our vaunted expertise in "counter-insurgency warfare" into another country, tampering with their politics, bringing in our experts, applying our forces, research the issue, applying our technology, and thoroughly disrupting the local structures - is almost certain to generate a blow-back that directly frustrates our ability to achieve our objectives. We become the enemy, the party everyone wants to leave, and we have done little to incentivize the local population to deal with their crisis in the local context, messy as the outcome might be. I was struck again, this morning, listening to NPR talk about the "players" in Afghanistan - and they were all non-Afghani. Only at the very end, was there any mention of Karzai and the local government.

We need to debate the broader mission. Doing onesies and twosies, where we impose ourselves to fix things, or "win," is counter-productive. It has already destroyed America's ability to lead or set an example, over-developed a set of military missions that are decidedly non combat-related, militarized our foreign policy (as Adm. Mullen recently pointed out at Princeton), and weakened our civilian statecraft. Yet another "buildup" in Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to exacerbate all of these ominous trends.

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I, too, am puzzled by what the word "win" means.

Afghanistan is a witches' brew of a failing nation -- a terrorist state combined with a narco state combined with tribal loyalties and combined with a government confined primarily to urban areas. So, with this combination of Vietnam, Lebanon, and Colombia, what exactly does "winning" mean. Taking off on Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon's famous phrase, the best we will do in Afghanistan is "satisfise" -- meet a criteria for adequacy rather than obtain an "optimal" solution.

It is up the Obama Administration to determine how the US can "satisfice" in Afghanistan. History shows the number of different empires who have literally broken their swords over the place doing otherwise. Let's take a lesson from that and, after eight years of our own sword bending, think about what we can realistically do there.

First, we are not going to establish a stable democracy there by Western standards. The best we can hope for is a continuing series of governments more or less democractic and more or less dogmatically Islamic. The goal should be to set up a overarching workable framework of a government in Kabul that can play the game of balancing off the different tribes around the country.

Second, we need to recognize that we will have a long term presence in the area based on the simple premise that we cannot tolerate another Taliban regime that tolerates/enables an Al Queda presence. That does not mean a large scale troop presence. Instead, our policy should focus on special operations that clearly show occasional force to make the point stick -- such as the continued raids into the Federated (FATA) regions in Pakistan. And while they will complain publicly, Islamabad will accept this as part of our area strategy because it frees them from having to deal with it.

Third, focus on the policies that are working and have worked in places like Iraq and Colombia. Let's pay off the local officials in cash to stay on our side. Americans don't like this approach, but it is working in Iraq and it works fast.

In the longer term, as in Colombia, crop substitition is a way of ameliorating the poppy production and squeezing terrorist financing. This must be conbined with a larger presence of local troops in the area to make this change stick. And we must make sure Kabul is paying these troops enough to not fall into the oppositions pay.

Bottom line: all the US can do is stablize Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from coming back and keep picking on the remains of Al Queda. Anything more is waste of manpower and resources.

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President Obama has pledged “to stabilize Pakistan and win in Afghanistan.” Secretary Gates has said, ‘if we try for a Valhalla ,we will fail.’ So it seems the new strategy will quietly shelve the notion of robust nation-building and focus upon restoring security.

There are three tasks. First, create a local security system tied into the Afghan army to react to larger threats. Our military knows how to do this. It’s reasonable it can be largely accomplished within three or four years by 60,000 US and 30,000 other NATO forces, followed by a withdrawal of about half that number. The combined costs of Afghanistan and Iraq will probably hover above $100 billion for the next five years. If the Defense budget is cut while the services are asked to fight a slogging war, morale will be affected.

Second, reform the Kabul government. The Baghdad government was corralled and gradually shaped by inserting a mass of advisers who were also de facto auditors from the battalion/district level through the provinces to the ministries and the prime minister’s office. This took a ratio of about 20 or 30 US military officers to one US civilian. The Pentagon does not want to repeat that model in Afghanistan. The question is whether Ambassador Holbrooke has the influence and tenacity to drive the State Department to take up this mission. Many officers are skeptical that State will do so. If not, NSC Adviser Jones will likely tell the military that the president wants them to take on the job, again.

The third task is the hardest: preventing the raids from the FATA sanctuary. Obviously the preferred path is to block the major entry points, increase covert actions inside the FATA and persuade the Pakistani military and ISI to bribe, assassinate and play off the extremist factions against each other. While that has not been going well, the extremist insurgents have lacked the logistical heft to gather momentum and exploit Islamabad’s weakness. Still, the capitulation of Swat was disturbing as a harbinger.

Hence we are embarked on a multi-year effort, with all the uncertainties of war. Afghanistan can be stabilized if the president is determined and acts consistently, year after year, to persuade and to lead the Congress and the public.

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Choosing the question of the week is the prerogative of those who moderate this blog. With all due respect, I do not believe they are exercising their prerogative wisely. This has been my impression for some time now. This week's question illustrates the problem in spades.

For the United States at this point to fixate on how to "win" in Afghanistan (your quotes -- and they are indeed appropriate) is the equivalent of present-day GM executives devoting themselves to the cause of building a better Hummer.

The question serves little purpose other than to divert attention from other far more pressing concerns. Here are three examples:

1). It's become commonplace to describe the Afghan problem and the Pakistani problem as intimately linked. What exactly is that link? Are we dealing with two problems or with one? And if one, what exactly is the nature of that problem? Addressing this difficult question head on is a matter of considerable urgency lest our efforts to win in Afghanistan have the unintended consequence of making matters in Pakistan even worse. My own view is that covert US efforts in Pakistan intended to improve security in Afghanistan are quite likely to produce such unintended consequences. (It's hard to tell -- the defining feature of a covert war is that the enemy knows what's going on while it's the American public that is kept in the dark).

2). With the Bush administration now thankfully departed from office and its expectations of engineering a democratic transformation of the Islamic world discredited, what exactly is US strategy for the so-called Long War? Does some larger sense of purpose inform US policy? Or are decisions simply made as a response to events, e.g., when conditions deteriorate somewhere we send more troops in hopes of stabilizing things? Unless we can identify an overarching strategic purpose, it becomes exceedingly difficult to gauge how much we should be willing to spend in order to "win" in one particular and exceedingly distant theater of that war.

3). What are the implications of our current economic crisis for our basic conception of national security policy -- global leadership, global presence, global power projection? Our policies have now more than satisfied Walter Lippmann's definition of insolvency -- ends and means are wildly out of balance. If the economy rights itself next week or next month, the problem might solve itself. But that's not going to happen. Might it not make sense for the United States to consider at this point the value of reducing its commitments? If so, where should Afghanistan fit on the list of places that demand our continuing attention?

I know that you can have a lively and interesting exchange on Afghanistan as such. I simply believe that it will be largely beside the point.

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Can We Win in Afghanistan?

The principal US interest in Afghanistan is not related to the misbegotten hope of establishing a democratic system in a medieval society. Our goal in the region should be to destroy and prevent the re-emergence of a major terrorist group that has conducted deadly radical events against us in our homeland and threatens to conduct new operations against the US, Europe and allies in South Asia, especially including Pakistan. The objective should not be the establishment of a model democracy in a country where there is traditionally an unstructured tribal-based society, and now a supposedly elected central government that is irrevocably corrupt. There is little hope of cultivating democracy by imposing a military solution and no secure supply lines to conduct successfully its military aims. An American and NATO troop increase in Afghanistan will not defeat the principal terrorist threat from al Qaeda and allied Islamic militants. The group that has effectively carried out terrorist acts inside the US, mainly during 9/11, continues to be a danger to Americans, many of our allies and particularly to the nuclear-armed Pakistani government. The al Qaeda terrorist group and its operational command is no longer dependant upon the old Afghan Taliban now achieving success against a faltering western supported government in Kabul.

There is little historical support for the theory of a foreign government having victory in transforming a tribal based society into an evolving democratic society. There is widespread corruption and inefficiency in the current Afghan government, and there is a political system in the country based on tribal and ethnic centers that dominate lands in underdeveloped regions. Those “political” leaders in Afghanistan are commonly known as “warlords” who maintain their own judicial system outside the central government in Kabul. Beyond the understanding that there is no such thing as a “win” in that country, there remains only a US objective to deny the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist training base.

It is al Qaeda and its Taliban militant allies inside Pakistan that are the foremost threats to an increased troop increase in Afghanistan. Another major impediment to US and NATO supply lines is the lack of secure and steady routes of supply for the forces. Currently there is an undependable supply line through Pakistan and little prospect of northern military supply lines with the imminent closure of the base in Kyrgyzstan. Alternative availability of non-lethal supply lines through Russia and other Central Asia nations does not resolve critical army supply problems.

Al Qaeda has transplanted its headquarters from Afghanistan to the border areas inside Pakistan while still maintaining its ability to profit by the Afghan drug trade. The terrorist group continues its alliance with the Afghan Taliban still led by Mullah Omar, but is now heavily dependent on the Pakistani Taliban forces as drone attacks have debilitated its medium level leadership. Inside the Pakistani frontier provinces mainly dominated by the infamous Baitullah Mehsud, al Qaeda maintains its influence on violence directed at the Pakistani government and successive attempts to destroy its alliance with the US. If the Pakistan government current agreement with the Taliban for a ceasefire in Swat actually occurs, it could result in another sanctuary where al Qaeda and Taliban militants move freely and promote terrorist operations. There is now evidence that Mehsud provides asylum to Usama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri. Mehsud, who was responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the wife of current President Zardari, provides training facilities and safehaven to al Qaeda militants. The objective of destroying the Pakistani Taliban militants and al Qaeda should take priority over attempts to enlarge an inchoate war in Afghanistan itself. The resolution of the terrorist threat puzzle will not be achieved by expanding the unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

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Losing and Winning in Afghanistan

The Obama Administration has commissioned a full-blown review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Here are some facts and observations on likely outcomes for the United States in that war.

First, U.S. policymakers correctly understand that Afghanistan and Pakistan now comprise separate components of a single theater of war, with the Taliban and Islamic extremists operating on both sides of the border. Because of previous U.S. neglect of this theater, Afghan security forces are not as capable as they should be at this stage of the war; on the Pakistani side, the Pakistani army has thus far proven itself incapable of containing the spread of Islamic extremism. Both governments are weak.

Second, U.S. aims in the region are that Afghanistan becomes capable of managing its own security against the Taliban, and that Pakistan not only be capable of doing the same, but also that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal remain secure. Goals for both countries appear attainable; neither the Afghan or Pakistani people support a return to Taliban or fundamentalist rule. But the combination of weak governments, corruption and inept U.S. and NATO strategy has opened the door for their return. In the ebb and flow of offense and defense in war, we have gone onto the defensive, much as we did in Iraq after the U.S. invasion.

Third, although “hard” does not mean “impossible,” reversing the course of the war will be hard. For President Obama, the U.S. economic downturn must be top priority, and it could restrict U.S. strategic options in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater. The pronouncements of the President’s top advisors are downbeat, about “reasonable” goals and lowered expectations. A strategy review now underway in Washington will probably produce a consensus-driven fig leaf that can be used to justify lowered U.S. aims. “Strategy reviews” seldom produce steely resolve. Recall that Iraq turned around because U.S. military officers, active and retired, made an end-run to the President to override a JCS consensus. No end-runs are likely now.

Fourth, even if U.S. aims are steadfastly maintained, achieving U.S. goals in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater will take years as we build competent security forces, assist host countries with economic development, and gradually transition away from providing front-line forces to a strategy of support and assistance. Though we are starting from behind already, the U.S. military and its allies can eventually defeat the Taliban, given sufficient time. The military equation is doable – U.S. advisors to the Afghans give them high marks for fighting, and the Pakistani army has a core of smart professionals – but all depends on U.S. staying power.

In summary, success in the Afghan-Pakistan Theater is possible. But turning U.S. strategy around balances on a knife’s edge and depends almost entirely on one man – the President himself. The U.S. present economic straits give him, and his advisors, ample justification to reduce expectations and look for a face-saving retreat. Ramifications of a U.S. failure, though, almost certainly lead to a series of possible disastrous outcomes, one of which is nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic radicals. Whether the President himself, personally, can find the steel to persist in this war, with its inevitable setbacks and downturns, will determine the outcome of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Now is the time to pull out of Afghanistan, not add troops.

There are no secure supply lines into that country. When Pakistan  collapses -- is it not inevitable? -- we are left with Iran and  Russia. Now is not the time to leave NATO forces hostage to either  country.

And then there's what I think is the blindingly obvious consideration:  No one has been able to define victory in Afghanistan. Force each and  every Afghan to denounce the Taliban? Disarm the civilian population?  Stay until Afghanistan has a stable working Jeffersonian democracy  with a writ throughout the country?

If the objective is to find bin Ladin it's not worth the candle. He's dead -- or might as well be dead. Anyhow al Qaeda as a centralized  organization no longer exists. Right now takfiri Muslims are more worried about surviving the depression or a rising Iranian hegemony than they are about a jihad on the West.

Keep the strategic bombers gassed up and the 82nd airborne in top shape in the event we need to remind the Taliban they can have any government they want but not go to war with the United States.