This was published by Douglas MacGregor on September 28, 2009 in the publication Defense News. http://www.defensenews.com

Illusions of Victory

There’s No Strategy To Win in Afghanistan


By DOUGLAS MACGREGOR

Douglas MacArthur is regarded as a great commander because he got some very important things right, most famously the Inchon landing. He also got some things wrong, such as his push to the Yalu River.

His catchy statement, “there is no substitute for victory,” was also wrong, though not so wrong as the armchair strategists who quote it out of context. In fact, “victory” is often an illusion, a will-o’-the-wisp that can lead nations and armies deeper into the bog of history until they disappear.

Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan had the foresight to avoid the bog, to halt inconclusive military operations in Korea and Lebanon before they consumed America’s strength. Such men are rare, and even more rarely honored for their actions.

Slightly amended, however, MacArthur’s statement applies to most politicians — presidents like Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. Both were men whose fear of political defeat made retreat from unsound policy pronouncements on Vietnam impossible even when they no longer made sense. They hoped commanders in the field would compensate with combat forces to turn hope into reality. Johnson and Nixon discovered the hard way that “no defeat on my watch” is not a strategy or the basis for one.

Once again, an American president is under pressure to commit American forces to action in the hope the generals can salvage a failed effort. His military advisers are telling him this will o’-the-wisp will lead him safely through the swamp of muddled conflict to green pastures and still water. Unfortunately, the generals are urging him to look for victory in the wrong places, forgetting that American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan serve the interests of Iran and Russia far more than they do the interests of the United States.

When the problem of U.S. casualties in Iraq was dramatically reduced in 2007 with massive cash payments and political concessions to the Sunni Muslim Arabs fighting the U.S. military occupation, new problems arose for the United States that cash, concessions, airstrikes and gunfire could not solve: Iran expanded its national power in Iraq and consolidated its grip on Baghdad.

Today, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Arab dictatorship dominates most of central and southern Iraq, and Iraq’s Kurds are also reaching their own accommodation with Tehran. Iran’s leaders are free to focus on the elimination of American, Israeli and gulf Arab influence throughout the Middle East.

Our large and pervasive military presence in Iraq alienated both the Sunni and Shiite Arabs while giving the Kurds an addictive taste of independence, a development with ominous consequences for their future survival in close proximity to Turkey.

Our impact on Afghanistan is similar with even more profoundly negative strategic effects in Pakistan.

Anyone sitting in the Kremlin must be delighted. After watching the United States squander a trillion dollars in Iraq while grinding its ground forces into ruin, Moscow can now celebrate the diversion of precious U.S.
military and economic resources into Afghanistan while it turns its attention to the goal of controlling Ukraine and returning Russian military power to NATO’s eastern border.

None of these developments is surprising. What we in the United States and Britain have done in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknowingly illuminate the clash not between civilizations, but between modernity and antiquity. That clash is more acute in Afghanistan than Iraq, but it’s an insurmountable obstacle to nation-building in both places. We proclaim moral principles when justifying our actions, but we wreak havoc and destruction on a backward, ancient world we do not understand.

Our troops are not anthropologists or sociologists, they are soldiers and Marines who have been sent to impose America’s will on backward societies. The result is mutual hatred — not everywhere, but in enough places to feed what American military leaders like to call an “insurgency,” the same word the British Army applied in 1920 to the Irish rebellion.

What’s happening today in Afghanistan and what has already happened in Iraq is the application of questionable tactics without strategy, or what Sun Tzu called “the noise before defeat.” Vapid phrases such as “population-centric” or “killing is not primarily what we do” are the noise before defeat. The Muslim world does not want the United States to be its savior, nor does it want to “Westernize” through military occupation, regardless of the vaunted material benefits.

President Barack Obama’s real goal should be to make the Islamist terrorist bleed while the United States expends as little blood and treasure as possible.

We want to secure our interests; not to repeat the folly of Iraq in Afghanistan. ■

I gave a talk on counterinsurgency at the National Defense University today and it led me to think a bit more about this, so I wanted to weigh back in.

What has led us to involvement in Afghanitan is the merging of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Simply put, large scale, direct counterinsurgency might be the more effective means of counterterrorism, but it is far from the most efficient.

During the Clinton and George H. Bush administrations America lost sight of the fact that we were not immune from the historic laws of strategy--that we too must weigh the costs of an action against the expected benefits. We must move beyond that and re-insert the notion of affordability and efficiency in our strategy.

So where does that leave us in Afghanistan? We say we are concerned with Afghanistan so that it does not become a terrorist sanctuary. Fine, but not all sanctuary is created equal. Currently FATA is an al Qaeda sanctuary, but it is not the type of sanctuary that gives al Qaeda a power proejction capability--i.e. the ability to strike the United States. And we have done this without undertaking large scale, direct counterinsurgency in FATA.

Even if Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and even if the new Taliban again provided sanctuary to al Qaeda (something that I find inconceivable since it assumes that the Taliban are total morons and did not learn that providing bases to al Qaeda is a very bad idea), we could prevent it from being an effective sanctuary without the long term presence of tens of thousands of American troops.

We could, in otherwise, develop a counterterrorism strategy which is acceptable effective and simultaneously efficient. In contrast to our current strategy which might be effective but is disasterously inefficient.

Whether we "go big" or stay with some version of the current military approach, economic development needs to be a pillar of our national strategy for Afghanistan. Contrary to doctrine that assigns civilian agencies the primary role in relief, reconstruction, and development, these aspects of USG strategy are too often being pushed into the realm of military counterinsurgency operations. The objectives of USG-funded humanitarian and development programs are being expressed in terms of military outcomes. This is a mistake and quite possibly will prove counterproductive. U.S. strategic objectives in Afghanistan are more likely to be achieved if the US Government recognizes the value of allowing independence of action and the impartial delivery of aid by humanitarian groups. Humanitarian agencies cannot be effective and locally accepted if they are obliged to operate under military counterinsurgency guidelines.

I would suggest four needed changes. First, the US Government needs a comprehensive and coordinated strategy on development in Afghanistan, distinct from its counterinsurgency strategy. U.S. strategy must respect and support Afghanistan's own development aspirations. Second, development assistance planning in Afghanistan must look at the country as a whole for long-term success, rather than leaving vacuums of vulnerability. Concentrating reconstruction and development in areas of military priority is a short-sighted approach. Third, clarity in differentiating the roles of development agencies and the military (including PRTs) is needed. Fourth, the USG should scale up development programs that are producing positive outcomes, regardless of whether these programs appear to be contributing to U.S. military objectives in the immediate term. Many programs currently underway are contributing to economic empowerment of Afghan communities and providing breakthroughs in maternal/child health. They are contributing to the U.S.-Afghan partnership in ways that military measures cannot. The independence and integrity of these efforts need to be respected, and they should be accorded the resources necessary to reach a greater proportion of the Afghan population.

No More Vietnams

I agree with every leftist, isolationist, and anti-war activist who ever chanted “no more Vietnams.” Where we part company is the battle cry (ironic term) of ‘bring the boys home.” That’s because we read the lessons of the Vietnam War very differently. They see the war as a tragic mistake, a wrongheaded unwinnable conflict. They think the anti-war movement saved the nation. They think the right lesson learned is to walk away. They think that is the right answer for Afghanistan too.

I disagree.

Here is what I think history really has to say about Vietnam. Vietnam was a winnable war. When General Abrams took over MACV after the Tet invasion, he implemented a strategy that succeeded in stabilizing the country; winning back the countryside; crushing the Viet Cong; and building up the South Vietnamese military. Then, abruptly in 1975, Congress walked away from our Vietnamese allies and grasped defeat from the jaws of victory. Lesson #1: Don’t let Congress run wars.

Americans can fight long, unpopular wars. In fact, all of our long wars except WW II have been unpopular. What is the big deal. History says that Johnson lost the support of the American people in 1968 after TET. We stayed in Vietnam till 1973. We didn’t abandon Vietnam until 1975. That seems pretty long to me. If Nixon had not been impeached, he could easily have kept the US in the war till the end of his term in office too. Bush fought almost his whole second term with the war being unpopular. Lesson #2: Don’t fight wars by opinion polls.

What made Vietnam so intractable was President’s Johnson’s incremental strategy of dedicating sufficient resources to support a reasonable strategy to begin with. Going “tit for tat” with the North was stupid. Johnson tried to fight Vietnam like a poker game. That was dumb. We made incremental investments. So did our enemies. All they had to do to win was not give up. The second idiotic strategy was putting a “timeline” on strategy. If they can’t get it right in a year…we’ll pull the plug. That is what Congress did in 1975. Lesson #3: Adopt a reasonable strategy, resource it adequately, stick it out.

Worst of all, anti-war activists think we paid no price for walking away from Vietnam. They are wrong. The world got more not less dangerous after Vietnam. The Soviets got more aggressive starting insurgencies across Africa and in our backyard in Latin America. They embarked on a massive conventional and nuclear build up and field a fleet of biological weapon tipped ballistic missiles that were the ultimate doomsday lessons. Lesson #4: intentionally losing wars is a bad idea.

Is winning in Afghanistan in our interest? You bet, if we walk away right now the Taliban and al Qaeda will be back…and that could lead to another 9/11. Taliban and al Qaeda are a threat to regional stability. This last thing we want in nuclear armed India and Pakistan at each other throats, the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda would love that. Is the war winnable? You bet. We need a better strategy and adequate resources, but we can stand up a stable Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis to do their part (which they won’t do if they think we won’t stick it out.) Can we win without breaking the bank or the military? You bet. That requires more responsible fiscal policies and more realistic defense budgets.

We tried walking away from Afghanistan before. That did not work out so well. We should not repeat that mistake again.

Permit me two further comments on the Afghan dilemma. I think them worth raising because they pertain to our other interventions in the Greater Middle East as well.

One is the unstated notion that we have the intelligence and skills to manipulate the politics of foreign peoples to our advantage. The fallacy lies not just is the cavalier oversight of cultural and social complexities that, as several contributors have noted, characterize Afghanistan. Even more insidious is the subliminal belief that we are smarter, cleverer, just better than they. They are ‘they’ – we are Americans. A look at the recent record should disabuse us of that conceit.

· In Iraq, al-Maliki et al have run rings around Petraeus, Gates, Crocker, etc. They still can’t figured out what happened. Before and during the SOFA talks, and subsequently, the Iraqis have pursued a complicated, subtle strategy that we didn’t even recognize, much less move to counteract. Some folks in Washington have yet to catch on to the ignoble fact that we were used and now discarded. The Iranians also outmaneuvered us in Iraq from the days of Ahmed Chalabi (the largest piece of whom they owned) onwards.

· In Pakistan, the army leadership have succeeded in a precarious balancing act – dictated by their own self-defined interests – to which we first were blind and now are impotent to alter. Our crude attempt to rig internal Pakistani politics via a shotgun wedding between Musharaff and Bhutto (whom we sought to blackmail into being our instrument) while exiling Sharif literally backfired before it became completely unstuck as Sharif has outplayed them all – including us.

· In Somalia, we cleverly used Ethiopian Christians to suppress Islamist groups in bolstering an Interim Government that ruled downtown Mogadishu. Now that both the Ethiopians and that government’s leaders have fled, we are trying to prop up a ‘moderate’ Islamist government (since relabeled ‘good guys’) against even ‘worser’ Islamists who are besieging the latest Mayor of Mogadishu.

· As for Palestine, and our all-out campaign to boost Fatah against the democratically elected Hamas government, let’s just say that it fits this pattern of politico-diplomatic incompetence.

The second is the notion that you can fine-tune interventions. Send in ‘X’ number of troops for ‘X’ number of months, rejigger the military/civilian teams, then do a reassessment and adjust the modalities. The real world simply doesn’t permit experimental occupations. There are dynamics that deny us those luxuries. Dynamics at home, dynamics in the military, dynamics in country ‘A,’ dynamics in the region, etc. As one cynical commentator sourly remarked: “I sometimes think that when adolescents addicted to computer games grow up they become counter-insurgency experts.” That caricature is unfair to a corps of able and dedicated persons who have taken on onerous responsibilities. Still, it is no more inaccurate than postulating an ability to calibrate – and recalibrate - strategy/tactics for controlling the affairs of a place like Afghanistan.

cheers

Quite simply, there is no moral dimension to our Afghan War other than to protect the United States and the American people. That moral obligation was ignored by Bush and is detested by Obama, being Harvard educated and the good student of Rev. Wright, Saul Alinsky, and Bill Ayers. Those who believe we should, in Afghanistan, be creating a democracy, rebuilding the economy, providing women's rights, and protecting human rights are, I am sure, good people in their own way and minds. But they are, to a monstrous extent, selfish, unrealistic, and patently unconcerned with America's security. If they really want to ensure that all of the things just listed come to pass, they ought to join an NGO, become a religious missionary, or join the Afghan army. Such people are at all times entitled to waste their lives in any manner they choose. They are not ever, however, entitled to spend the lives of America's soldier-children in anything other than America's defense. No U.S. soldier or Marine should ever be called on to be maimed or killed to make sure Mrs. Muhammad can vote or little Ibrahim can go to a secular school; they should be called on to make such sacrifices only in an effort to decisively defeat America's enemies on the battlefield or to defend its borders. In other words, if Mrs. Clinton wants to install women's rights in Afghanistan; and if Senator McCain wants to become involved in the civil war in Darfur; and if most members of the Congress want to do everything possible to defend Israel, let them all resign their official positions and go and take up their "sacred" causes as private citizens following their personal beliefs. They would all be likely to get their butts shot off, and America would be no poorer for their loss. Indeed, all Americans would be better off because we would stop intervening in other peoples' wars and we would preserve the lives of our soldier-children for the few occasions where the application of overwhelming military power is necessary to defend America. Our moral obligation in Afghanistan is framed solely by the requirement laid down by the Founders: America first.

After prodding from my friend Doug MacDonald of Colgate, I wanted to add a few more words on my dismissal of moral obligation as a rationale for continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Three points:

1) Obligation flows both ways. An argument can be made that we have an obligation to support Afghanistan if and only if the Afghan elite fulfills its part of the deal--controlling corruption and narcotrafficking and taking all of the other steps necessary to build a stable political system and economy. If they do not, our obligation is void. And the burden of proof is on them.

2) To the extent the United States stresses its moral obligation and persisting commitment, it diminishes its leverage. This is a perpetual dilemma of counterinsurgency: our partner regime and elite do not want to make major changes in a system that benefits them personally, yet such major changes are necessary to eradicate the sources of conflict. The problem, then, is finding a way to compel our partners to do what they do not want to do. That requires leverage. And leverage requires making our partners understand that if they do not make major changes, we will disengage. Hence we can only succeed in Afghanistan if we are willing to abandon it.

3) A moral obligation does not necessarily imply attempting to re-engineer the Afghan economy and political system. It can be met by humanitarian assistance.

Breaking news on this subject:

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post are now reporting that the UN's Independent Election Commission has ordered widespread recounts of the Afghan vote.

Other contributors already have described the strategic and tactical neglect during 2003-2007 that has generated a situation now confronting us ranging somewhere from extremely challenging to perhaps insoluble.

Those advocating a policy of staying the course considerably more robustly, one way or another, for a span of time that might reach beyond 10 years probably are being unrealistic. It is somewhat questionable to assume that the American body politic would sustain such a prolonged, bloody and costly slog. Public sentiment, unlikely to change markedly for the positive and then hold for such a long stretch, probably would not support such an effort. Rachel Kleinfeld's advocacy of an approach that would be forged around an attempt to address energetically the situation over a finite period of time and then to assess the results at the end of a more limited testing period appears more realistic than simply trying to soldier on without any end in sight.

Before I comment further on Rachel's recommendation, something should be said about the surge strategy around which the current American way forward has been centered. It is true that comparisons are inevitably flawed, but since our unfolding strategy in Afghanistan is so often compared to the supposedly successful surge in Iraq--especially by many of its most ardent advocates--some points must be underscored.

First, the limited surge in American troop strength in Iraq during 2007 was not the main element behind the improvement in the Iraqi security situation in 2007-2008. A wide-ranging truce between US forces and most elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency coupled with an alliance of convenience with them against al-Qaeda in Iraq was the key factor in this success. Without it, the Iraq surge might well have have failed to restore the situation on the ground to anything like that which has prevailed during much of 2008-2009. Those most skeptical back in 2006 about the limited Iraq surge (myself included) were unaware that the Administration had finally made the decision--in the face of bitter objections on the part of the largely Shi'a central government--to engage in the separate truce that many Sunni Arab insurgent leaders had been actively seeking since at least 2004.

Additionally, it shoud be noted that in Iraq the surge was the means to an end, not really an end in itself: it was aimed at creating the stability necessary for Iraq's various feuding political forces to effect a thoroughgoing, broadbased reconciliation and to place the overall Iraqi political environment on a more solid, sustainable footing. That process remains incomplete. Similarly, in Afghanistan, even if an acceptable measure of security could be restored, developments such as the unexpectedly ugly recent election could undermine the political underpinnings of security to a degree that gains made on the ground could prove unsustainable over the long-term.

Also, with the ethno/sectarian/tribal situation so complex in Afghanistan and the Taliban-dominated resistance itself such a factionalized and varied entity, an Iraq-style truce of sorts would likely prove to be far less sweeping and reliable. Additionally, Iraqi insurgents sought a truce out of a perception of weakness and loss: despite inflicting heavy casualties on US and Iraqi forces and gaining considerable power within central and western Iraq, US forces especially had been inflicting terrible casualties on them, and their communities had incurred tremendous damage. And when, in 2006, vicious, largely Sunni Arab-Shi'a sectarian strife broke out, Sunni Arabs were very much on the losing end in the greater Baghdad area in which vast Sunni Arab neighborhoods were subjected to Shi'a sectarian cleansing. In Afghanistan at present and in the near-term, the Taliban and its allies do not and are not likely to feel they are on the losing end of the balance sheet and presumably would not be dealing from a position of weakness.

In view of the sheer size of Afghanistan, it also is difficult to see how increased troop levels along the lines of those currently under discussion would be capable of getting a real grip on the security situation. To make matters worse, unlike in Iraq, the terrain in Afghanistan, particularly much of the Pushtun south, is forbidding. If that weren't enough, practically the entire length of the most troublesome stetch of the border is a vast, rugged safe-haven and recruiting area for Taliban elements moving in and out of the embattled south.

In the face of this rather grim picture, it would appear more reasonable to throw the resources that can be mustered across the board into an effort meant to be scrutinized thoroughly for some measure of success or reasonable promise of same at a point in time far short of the many years bandied about by some observers--say 12 to 18 months from now. If some real progress has been made by then, efforts could be worth sustaining. But, if not, serious consideration should be given to an alternative, withdrawal-centered approach.

I wrote up a proposal for the Iraq Study Group along these lines which involved an even larger surge with a hard-nosed assessment of the results to follow after one year. Without significant progress by that benchmark, a major withdrawal would have been initiated. As it turned out, had that approach been adopted, by early 2008, significant progress would have been registered (at least on the security front and even that mainly the result of the US deal with most Sunni Arab insurgents, not so much the more limited US military surge).

It can be argued that such an approach would be naive because the Taliban and other elements opposed to the NATO effort in Afghanistan could thow all they have against us during the testing period in an effort to make sure the results would be disappointing, compelling us to opt for some sort of withdrawal. I am aware of this risk. However, as I said when offering my parallel proposal on Iraq to the Iraq Study Group principals, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous comment on democracy: in view of the situation, what I am proposing may be the worst of all options, except for all the others.

Without repeated the excellent explanations for both sides of the argument already made by my colleagues here, I'll cast my lot with the "go home...sort of" school. I've long held that an approach to counterinsurgency that is contingent on re-engineering societies that does not want it is folly. That is, I believe, more true in Afghanistan than anywhere I can think of.

If the true strategic objectives are to prevent Afghanistan from providing bases for terrorists who might attack the United States or the West, and to prevent Pakistan nuclear weapons from falling into their hands, there are much more efficient and effective ways to do that than attempting to re-engineer a medieval society.

In terms of moral obligations, I subscribe to the argument Mike Scheuer makes in Marching Toward Hell: the only moral obligations of America's leaders are to the American people.

Successful great powers must be able to distinguish between threats which can be eradicated through decisive victory and those which must be managed. In both the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations, America lost that ability. The combination of Afghanistan and the economic crisis will force us to relearn it.

This week’s question is an apt one to follow the discussion on summer reading. Summer was once the time when adults indulged in beach reading that allowed them -- in a child-like fashion -- to escape the hard realities and simple right-and-wrong choices of adult life. The books chosen allowed the sea-side reader to create his own reality for a few days and to intellectually experiment and wrestle with creating the world he or she would want to exist.

Sadly for America, virtually all of our ruling elite -- politicians, generals, teleprompter-reading news “experts” like Stewart, Hannity, and Olberman; print commentators and pundits, and most especially the great bulk of the thoroughly pagan, ahistorical, and anti-American academy -- now live the beach-reading experience the year round with no time off for reality, or for right and wrong. Although examples of this are legion -- witness the child-like world conjured by the communist/ultra-green/felon-loving/9/11-truther that our president wanted to advise the White House -- there is no better example of the nature of our perpetually child-like elite than those who offer us the vision of a world where there is legitimate reason for hope on the issue of Afghanistan.

Quite simply, there is no hope. The Afghan war is lost beyond recall, and all the young men and women who have died there since 9/11, and all those who will die from today forward, have died in vain. Their lives have been wasted by those in both parties who have governed us since 2001. These are men and women who find the idea of fighting to win repulsive and inhumane, but do not mind a lick wasting our kids lives for such non- essentials as human rights, women’s rights, secularism, and democracy for non-Americans, most of whom want no part of them and will fight them to the death. The simple reality is:

--Bush had a window for savagery for the first 12 or 15 months after 9/11; he could have done anything in using the U.S. military to achieve the only mission that could -- or can -- be accomplished in Afghanistan-- the annihilation of al-Qaeda and the Taleban. He and his tough-talking but always effete Neocons advisers and pundits did not have the courage to effectively destroy America’s enemies in Afghanistan. Obama’s team, on the other hand, has a clear affinity for America’s Islamist enemies and has dismantled most of the U.S. intelligence and covert-action programs that helped hold the Islamists at bay without having anything to put in their place.

--Rumsfeld and his clique fielded a tiny force in Afghanistan; foolishly believed George Tenet‘s lie that Afghans would sell their families and faith for money; assigned the task of closing the Pak-Afghan border to the Taleban’s tribal brothers in the Pak Frontier Corps; and so allowed most of al-Qaeda and the Taleban escape to regroup, refit, and fight another day. That day has arrived.

--Bush and Obama have starved Afghanistan of military resources and manpower; 21,000 new troops are a drop in the bottomless Afghan bucket. So much so that one wonders if Obama has ever reviewed a topographical map of Afghanistan.

--The Republicans with nearly unanimous Democratic support turned the entire Muslim world against America by invading and occupying Iraq, and thereby ensured that the Afghan war -- as another case of perceived U.S. imperialism -- would stay center-stage for the ummah.

--Both administrations have tried to Westernize and secularize Afghans, ignoring the fact that to be successful they will have to destroy tribalism and Islam in Afghanistan -- an impossible and ignoble task. One might wonder if anyone in the Bush or Obama administrations has ever mulled the question: “Why would any religious and family-oriented people like the Afghans willingly trade their faith for contemporary American paganism, death-loving, and libertinism?”

--We have imposed an utterly corrupt, unpopular, and incompetent president -- Hamid Karzai -- on the Afghan people through multiple rigged elections, and our governing elite is now taking orders from him that put our soldiers and Marines at risk in the name of protecting the Afghan civilians who are rendering essential support to the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

--We are on the verge of destroying nuclear-armed Pakistan both as an ally and as a viable political entity by insisting on the return of democracy and urging Islamabad and Pakistan’s generals to wage war a civil war in their country. We have created a situation in which Pakistan’s survival depends on the Pakistani generals actively assisting those intent on driving the U.S., NATO, Karzai, and India out of Afghanistan.

--We have allied the U.S.-NATO Afghan war effort with the Russians and their barbarous, atrocity filled Afghan record. The Taleban and al-Qaeda can have no better Western foe than one publicly allied with the Russia that in the 1980s murdered 1.5 million Afghans and made refugees of more than 3 million others. Our cooperation with the Russians ensures that all Afghans -- save Fahim, Dostum, and others on Moscow’s payroll -- will end up fighting the U.S.-NATO occupation.

--We have marooned an American field army in a country surrounded by our enemies and through whose lands our only supply line runs. The entry points through Pakistan’s tribal lands at Chaman in the south and the Khyber Pass in the north are untenable. Thirty cargo/tanker trucks were burned last weekend at Chaman, and the Pakistani army is engaged again this week in trying to clear the Khyber route. The entry points from the CIS states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan merge at a place called Pol-i-Khomri and then travel on the only road to Kabul through the Salang Tunnel. This stretch of road could not be kept dependably open by the Soviets' using the utmost barbarity; we and NATO have neither the troops nor the will to keep it open.

--We have proven to America’s enemies -- state and non-state actors alike --that America’s top military leaders are incompetents who are unable or unwilling to use the vast and talented military force Americans have paid for and manned with their children to bring the United States victory anywhere in the world. These conscienceless generals are cheered on by embedded reporters who have to toe the line and mislead Americans with their reporting to stay in the field.

--Our bipartisan leadership has, on the eve of the eighth anniversary of 9/11, permitted al-Qaeda to remain as Admiral Mullen -- that truth-telling Washington rarity -- has said, fully able to attack again in the continental United States.

All told, the end in Afghanistan is fast approaching. It is therefore time to lay it on the line for the American people. If the Obama administration and Republican leaders are not willing to put 500,000-750,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan to win a military victory by annihilating in a fixed-and-limited time frame any and all who oppose us -- as well as their civilian supporters -- and then leave immediately without any try at nation-building, we should admit defeat and leave now. We should come home before we waste untold resources and the lives of more our soldier-children -- each of who’s live is far more valuable than that of anyone in our governing elite -- in a war our bipartisan leadership does not intend to win. This will be a catastrophic defeat for America; the Islamists will have defeated the second superpower in both Afghanistan and the now unraveling Iraq. But it will for now slow the country’s economic and human bleeding until Americans can decide how -- whether by political means or rebellion -- they intend to rid themselves of the self -serving, effete, and pestilential ruling elite which is bent on destroying the United States.

If the Taliban were a propaganda rather than a killing force, we wouldn’t be sending soldiers with automatic rifles. We are in a war and haven’t decided how to fight. We have invented four counterinsurgency principles: 1) protect the population; 2) provide free services; 3) institute the Western rule of law; and 4) roll out an uncorrupt and caring government. Under this model, the population is treated as a passive blob that is expected to do nothing of its own accord. The population is not asked to sacrifice. They may dislike the Taliban, but they are not asked to stand up to them.

While there is scant historical evidence that those four principles actually were followed in previous guerrilla wars, the press now accepts them as “classic”. Hence the Journal’s question: go big or go home?

“Big” doesn’t seem big enough. 150,000 coalition soldiers manning at least 40 battalions plus 400,000 Afghan security forces is a more reasonable number. The vastness of the border and the sanctuary on the Pakistani side are bedeviling. On the other hand, going home abruptly would be a geopolitical disaster.

At this point, it is unknown whether Gen. McCrystal’s review did include a range of operational/strategic alternatives, or whether is focused exclusively on a military mission based on the four purportedly “classic” counterinsurgency principles. An alternative, for instance, would be for each coalition battalion to recruit, deploy and lead a dozen local Afghan militia platoons under coalition command. My Combined Action Platoon in Vietnam was one of 120 (~60,000 Vietnamese and 10,000 Americans) deployed over a span of 18 months. On average, the American Marines in a CAP left after about 16 months, and not one village fell back to the Viet Cong.

So it’s not just the numbers of Americans soldiers in Afghanistan; it is what they are doing, and when they complete the task. We can reduce our numbers faster, after the current “surge”, if we take more direct control in operational matters and accept higher risk that we will not succeed in nation-building as defined by the four enshrined principles set forth in the first para above.

However, the crux of the matter remains the execrable behavior of the Karzai clique, and the difference between Karzai and other cliques may be only a matter of who has more power for self-aggrandizement, while the coalition does the heavy lifting. Our definition of a nation and of responsible senior leadership have been contradicted by behavior of Afghan leaders over the past eight years. We are dealing with tribes across a cultural divide.

Hopefully the NSC has asked for a range of operational strategies as well as a range of numbers of US troops. Once the president has made a decision, he has to sell it firmly and repeatedly to the Congress and the public. Whether sending over a few hundred diplomats and engineers will channel the tribal and cultural energies of Afghanistan in a different direction is problematic. What is not problematic is the capability of Petraeus and McCrystal to carry out a military campaign once the president sets the marching orders. The president is the commander-in-chief. He must lead.

Updated at 12:00 p.m. on Sept. 8.

"Go big or go home" is simply the wrong question, and it begs the question of "for what?" If the two primary objectives in this war are to inflict a mortal wound on al-Qaida, and to prevent the Taliban's return to power, then "big" is excessive for the former and insufficient for the latter. A half million troops did not prevent our defeat in Vietnam, nor did a roughly equal number enable France to hang on to Algeria.

To ensure that the Taliban becomes a fringe player of little consequence, we must supplement our troop strength with sufficient civlian support to enable whatever government operates in Kabul to provide some degree of stability and a minimal level of governance for a country that has a long tradition of decentralized govenrment. At the same time we must rid ourselves of grand nation-building and nation-transforming dreams, with which a minimalist governance approach is incompatible.

To undertake even a minimal level of Afghan reconstruction requires mandatory contributions by our civilian civil servants, however. The United States cannot leave this effort in the hands of the military, diplomats and assorted volunteers. The Office of Personnel Management should enable agencies to order civil servants to serve in Afghanistan for up to a year, if their capabilities are required there.

In undertaking some degree of reconstruction in Afghanistan we need, indeed should not, not push for democratic forms of government there any more than we do, for example, among our Gulf allies. We must also recognize that what we term "corruption" is not necessarily viewed the same way in Afghan culture. Unfortunately, we staked too much on the Afghan elections; now we have to back off.

We must also recognize that a decentralized government is unlikely to have a strong army; tribal and ethnic leaders will command as much force as Kabul, at least internally, probably more so than any police force.

The focus of training for the Afghan National Army should be on preventing external penetration, manning borders and the like. We should be prepared to live with the reality, which has a long basis in Afghan history, that local leaders provide for internal security.

The insertion of as many as twenty thousand more troops may well be warranted to ensure that al Qaida never again rears its ugly head. But massive deployments, or successive deployments that will bring our levels well over 100,000, will not defeat the Taliban. Only the Afghans can do that, their own way, with their own form of governance, however they prefer to constitute it. We can be helpful, nothing more.

AMERICA’S AFGHAN ELECTION

The White House is upset by the Afghan election. Celebrated at first by Obama on the south lawn as a signal success marking the country’s progress on the road to democracy, it now looks like a monkey wrench thrown into the already stuttering engine of our mission there. The turn-out in Taliban intimidated areas was only about 10%. Voter fraud seems to have been endemic. And President Karzai, our wayward protégée, may be further weakened as a result. So Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke flies to Kabul for the umpteenth time and screams at Karzai that he should do an election rerun. Karzai instead bolsters his standing among his own people by thumbing his nose at Washington. At the same time, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen decries continued deterioration in the war while calling for the deployment of more American troops beyond those already pledged by Obama. He is seconded by General McChrystal and Secretary Gates. All are now hard at work on a list of 50 performance measures which the administration can manipulate to show that things are improving – no matter what. Meanwhile, our mercenary private security hirelings run amok and we are forced to call on real security personnel to guard the guardians. Ambassador General Eikenberry pronounces himself innocent of any knowledge about the year-round spring break revels next door to the embassy. Earplugs – actual and figurative – now must be standard issue for American diplomats.

All this in what Obama calls “a necessary war” to advance vital national interests. Exactly why that is so remains obscure. Richard Holbrooke, our turbo-charged point man on AfPak, cannot say what the objective is or define success. Here is his comment before a select audience at the Center for American Progress on August 13:

“The specific goal…..is really hard for me to address in specific terms. But I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we’ll know it when we see it.” The unwitting reference is to a comment by a Supreme Court Justice in an opinion on a landmark pornography case. How apropos.

This is what passes for grand strategy in Washington these days.

In the absence of a convincing answer to these elementary questions of purpose, the growing Afghan fiasco looks to become a tragic farce. Tragic for the United States, tragic for the cause of containing the spread of violent jihadist groups, and tragic above for the people of that war ravaged land. Just as on Iraq, the conclusion that we had to escalate our intervention preceded the assessment of why and how.

Three unspoken premises underlie that judgment. All are dubious. First is the notion that the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda itself are our enemy. Their supposed hostility toward us means that they will lend their active support to terrorists targeting America, and may join in themselves. Second, the implication is that their eradication as a political force in Afghanistan is essential to our national security. Finally, the Taliban must be eliminated across the border in Pakistan, too. In short, a grand project for remaking the political life of two countries where favorable views of the United States are low and sinking (6% in Pakistan).

Here is the more complex reality. The Taliban agenda is an Afghan one (or Pakistani one). Their credo and program sets no ambitions beyond its borders. No Taliban ever has been implicated in actions outside his homeland. Today, their movement is fueled by a Pashtun sectarianism aggrieved by a government In Kabul dominated by their traditional Tajik and Uzbek rivals whom we installed in power – except for our Mr. Karzai, himself a Pashtun. The Taliban’s political neutering is therefore an impossibility. Fellow Pashtuns in Northwest Pakistan are pushed into the Taliban fold by American airstrikes that enrage tribes whose members are victims, often innocent ones – as occurred last Thursday near Kunduz in Afghanistan under the new ‘hearts and minds’ strategy. (That strategy is the supposed invention of Stanley McChrystal who, previously, was best known for his term as commander of Camp Cropper where the torture of Iraqis was institutionalized in May 2003). Our prodding of the Pakistani leadership to abandon their policy of containment for one of military intrusions in conjunction with American airstrikes has led to unprecedented upheaval that is further destabilizing that country’s roiled politics. The Islamabad political elite are no more ready to risk civil war by complying with American demands than is Mr. Karzai to kow-tow to Richard Holbrooke at the risk of his political future.

The simple truth is that we do not have the power (hard, soft or half-baked) to transform the minds and behavior of entire peoples with whom we have no affinity and who view us as aliens. Our own self-declared virtue, good intentions and self-interest do not change that one iota. We should have learned that lesson in Iraq. We want absolute security – zero threat from the Greater Middle East. We cannot get it – no matter what we do. Our costly, pointless wars only increase whatever real risk exists.

Our leaders cannot stomach that irritating truth. And if they could, they still don’t have the guts to tell it to the American people.

So, Americans returned from the slumber of our summer vacations to find we have a mess on our hands in Afghanistan. The mess has been around for the last few years. It is simply has gotten to the point now we can no longer shunt it aside.

A George Will editorial shoved the issue back into the spotlight for we of the chattering classes. In essence, Will said we cannot “win” and we need to pull back to a position of containment. Will as the Cronkite of his generation. The ugly American boogey man of Vietnam once again thrown up – the long slogging war, unwinnable at any price of lives and money against an implacable enemy. The American public will force the Obama Administration to throw in the towel. Mr. Obama or Mr. Gates’ war is turning into a disaster. Our ever-quavering European allies hand wringing over the potential disaster. Enough already.

We are not anywhere near a Dunkirk or a Saigon in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan of today is not the one of the Great Game or Alexander the Great or whatever other historical analogy someone pulls from their college history book. We are, however, finding out that the relative neglect we proceeded with in Afghanistan – always second to the situation in Iraq – is becoming painfully apparent. We have time and we have resources, if they are applied wisely, swiftly and with the understanding that this is going to take awhile.

First, someone in this vast Administration of envoys needs to define what we are doing there. It is a mess, but a resolvable one, provided we have some clue about we expect to gain and what can be realistically done there. For my money, it is not about winning or losing – it is about achieving a state of stability to let the Afghanistan government grow into a nation state and control its borders.

And now a quick reality check --we cannot abandon Afghanistan. A radical Taliban government with Al Queda drifting in and out of it into a nuclear Pakistan is unacceptable. Moreover, Afghanistan is not Iraq – it is a much more primitive country, a witches’ brew of ideology, tribalism and drug trade. Kabul needs help building itself that will be a long-term commitment that requires boots on the ground and some unique thinking. We are the only ones who can do it. We also need to engage in the ugly business of getting some backbone into our nervous European allies. A clue about our goals will help, at least, salve that wound.

This is war that will be pursued by inches and individuals. We need to continue our work building the country’s infrastructure. We need to continue the ugly battles that will take place. This is guerilla war and we are far more adept at it than we give ourselves credit for. Gates and McChrystal are well aware of the kind of troops and military actions that they need to put forward. Let them do their job. And stop dredging up histories that only tangentially relate to the current reality. Not every troop increase puts us further into the “Big Muddy.” We, the great chattering classes, need to shut up and think about what we are saying.

The Administration must also continue its work with Pakistan – messy and confusing as the politics and administration of Islamabad may be. They are not going to want a radical Taliban government on their doorstep rattling the borders of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The Swat Valley was a warning of that potential disaster.

In short, we are stuck in Afghanistan because to leave it would mean an ugly mess for us and Southwest and South Asia. It is going to be a war of missiles and aid. The goal needs to be strengthening the central government and showing strength to the Taliban. It also means getting some guts regarding time and casualties.

The American public can tolerate a lot if they see a goal or at least some idea of what we are doing. Kindly remember -- Euro communism did not happen. We hung in on Vietnam for seven years after Dear Uncle Walter said we should bug out. We are still in Iraq after five years. We are a pretty stubborn people and that’s what it is going to take.

Obama has picked up the pieces of the Af-Pak war after 8 years of utter neglect from President Bush. This is the war we needed to fight, to keep al Qaeda from rooting itself in Pakistan—a nuclear state with good enough infrastructure to allow international planning for more attacks on the U.S. and Europe – and from using Afghanistan as a big backyard in which to train.

After 8 years of neglect, the situation is much, much worse than it would have been if Bush had done the job right. Bush squandered the window of opportunity we had when US troops first entered in 2001. He failed to finish the job against the terrorists, win the trust of the population, or ensure that President Karzai stayed on the initial, positive path he was on. Now, Obama deserves a full year to try out his strategy and see if we can reverse the situation. The outcome is too important to America to give up just as we are beginning to try.

That does not mean it will be easy, and it does not mean I am sanguine. But it does mean we are not yet in a South Vietnam situation. There are three reasons for giving Obama time.

First, recent polls show that while Karzai has lost much support in the population, he had not lost it all—at least, not in polls just prior to the election. And the Taliban are not gaining actual support: in 2006 polling by Charney Research, 90% of the population had an unfavorable view of the Taliban; even in in the “Pashtun heartland” only 1 of 10 approved of them. The Taliban upsurge is a result of power and force, not winning the hearts of the population. That means it can be uprooted.

Second, Pakistan’s military finally seems to be understanding that their clear and present threat is local terrorism, not India. That is a sea-change in their defense thinking, and they deserve credit for starting to change—something only occurring this year. With Richard Holbrooke masterfully pushing them – something else President Bush neglected to do for 8 years as he gave them billions in aid – we have a chance for the first time of having a partner on that side of the border. A deeply flawed partner, and one that has supported the terrorists as much as it has fought them… but more of a partner than we’ve ever had before.

Third, we finally have a strategy that understands the nature of the enemy we are fighting. Gen, McChrystal, Sec. Gates, and President Obama all have a deeper understanding that we need to stop creating insurgents before we can stop the bleeding. That means a classic, population-focused counterinsurgency campaign, like that outlined by Dave Kilcullen, the brilliant Australian counterinsurgency strategist who helped turn around Iraq after 2006 (and is not coincidentally advising our government). We are just gearing up with the troop strength to execute now – it takes a while to get those troops in theater.

It is of crucial importance to stopping future terrorist attacks in Europe, America, and even Nigeria that we stop al-Qaeda from having safe haven in Af-Pak. That means I think we must give Obama and his generals room to fight. And we cannot set a solid date to leave: that simply emboldens the enemy, who can tell Afghans that they will be there to cut heads of our supporters when we go.

But we do need to have some bright lines. This recent election was not good. We cannot afford to back another South Vietnamese government that lacks the support of its own people—even if a cause is just, it must also be winnable to justify the lives of our troops. We should give the new strategy a solid year from when troop strength is full and on the ground to work. We should institute some clear lines with the Karzai government: including locking up his brother, the narco-trafficker of Kandahar, reducing corruption, and polling more favorably among his own people. We should set some clear, quantifiable metrics. And if we don’t see the population supporting their government a year from now, we should admit that we can’t win, and should leave. But let’s not give up before we try.

Afghanistan is vital to American and global security for three reasons. Foremost, Afghanistan will determine whether the world's most stabilizing and practical alliance -- NATO -- remains relevant. If NATO countries cannot coordinate an ordered unity of effort -- among their political leaders, among their military and civilian components, between them and the NGOs, and between them all and the Afghan government and people -- then there is not much hope of addressing the other complex global security challenges that our planet faces. Afghanistan-Pakistan also happens to be the ongoing point of origin for terrorist training and resulting attacks on the U.S., Europe, and the world. Finally, after eight years, we are morally responsible to the people of Afghanistan for the current situation. Put differently, if Afghanistan is about more military troops, not only will we lose Afghanistan, we will lose all the future "Afghanistans." But if Afghanistan is about how the US leads -- through NATO, building coalitions and communities of the willing that help Afghans decide their own fate -- then there is much more to "win" than Afghanistan. Indeed, a new model of engagement will be established that will have the potential to be applied to the other critically complex situations and issues of this century.

This perspective, however, begs some tough questions:

• If NATO can't defeat an enemy that enables and/or makes possible continuing terrorist attacks against its citizens, what purpose does it really serve? And if NATO is unable or unwilling to provide for the basic security of its citizens, then what structure will?

• Will NATO governments finally make a generational commitment to educating and operationalizing their civilian agencies to engage the world as it is, so their militaries don't have to do everything?

• Will the U.S. and its allies understand that this enemy is not motivated by an "ideology" or any other secular descriptor, but considers itself to be religious? Only the best of faith will defeat the worst of religion. But we still can't talk about religion and politics in polite company, let alone policy circles, even if our security is at risk. We need to better prepare our military and civilian personnel to engage an environment where religion is the prism through which the rest of life is understood and experienced.

• When will the U.S. recognize that the post-modern technological advantages of killing people via video game (too often mistakenly), has a tendency to make the situation much, much worse in the pre-modern culture of Afghanistan where relationships and trust are all that matter? Who honestly believes that the off-shore-way-of-war has worked so far?

• Will international NGOs self-coordinate and not duplicate? Instead of showing their donors what they have done to help people, will they take pride in demonstrating and educating their donors about how much more they accomplished because they worked with other NGOs, and the host government, and the NATO militaries?

• Will Afghans at the national and provincial level -- men and women -- step forward and claim this moment, doing all they can to evolve toward a more transparent governance system that, according to the very best of Islam, respects and includes other faiths and other ethnic minorities?

• Nevertheless, the window of opportunity is very small, given the domestic political realities in the U.S. So let's resource the strategy that the circumstances require (General McChrystal's plan). Or, let's get on with it and abandon Afghanistan for the second time in twenty years; so we can face the threefold consequences again, in much less than twenty years.

From the beginning, U.S. efforts to secure and stabilize Afghanistan and provide security for the Afghan people——the fundamental preconditions to thwarting terrorism and insurgency——were always woefully inadequate. It is not surprising therefore that America today is reaping what its previously parsimonious policy in Afghanistan has sown: an alienated population, sclerotic government, and deteriorating security situation.

It was the Bush Administration’s preoccupation with Iraq that accounts for the dire straits in which we find ourselves in Afghanistan today. Worse still, that misplaced focus also allowed neighboring Pakistan to descend into the chaos and violence that now threatens its security and stability along with Afghanistan’s.

Afghanistan is larger both in terms of population (31,056,947 versus 26,783,383) and geography (647,500 square kilometers compared with 432,162) than Iraq. Yet, until about a year ago there were more than four times as many U.S. military forces stationed in Iraq than Afghanistan. The repercussions of this imbalance affected vital non-kinetic as well as kinetic military efforts. In addition to the inadequate forces that allowed the Taliban to regroup and reorganize, this neglect also meant that the U.S. military’s civil affairs planning cell for Afghanistan——an ineluctably vital arm in the prosecution of any effective counterinsurgency strategy——would comprise just nine persons in 2008 compared with a staff of 80 in Iraq. Hence, because of this manpower deficiency, while the U.S. military, other coalition forces, and the Afghan army to date have often been able to clear and build——they generally cannot hold: the third, and most critical leg, of that storied counterinsurgency dictum.

“Live among the people. You can’t commute to this fight,” was one of General David H. Petraeus’s pivotal command emphases that accounted for the Iraqi surge’s success. A successful counterinsurgency, embodying the same principles that worked in Iraq, however, cannot be prosecuted in Afghanistan without sufficient troop strength. Thus, a surge of U.S. forces to Afghanistan is not an option, but a necessity. “We’re like the Pacific theatre in World War II,” a U.S. Army officer told me when I visited Afghanistan last year. “We will get more resources after we defeat Berlin.” His hope now appears increasingly forlorn as a nation wearied by the wrong war in the wrong place (Iraq), beset by its own economic travails, and now dangerously complacent about the prospect of any new terrorist attack against the U.S. emanating from South Asia, increasingly questions our mission and purpose in Afghanistan.

The al-Qaeda of 2009, it must be said, is a mere shadow of its pre-9/11 self. It does not have the freedom of movement, massive personnel numbers, robust network of training camps and operational bases, functioning international infrastructure, and considerable largesse that it possessed eight years ago when it was comfortably located in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It’s key operatives and senior commanders have been relentlessly hunted and, over the past 13 months, no fewer than 11 have been sighted, fixed and killed across the border in Pakistan by U.S. Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial drones. But, despite these comparatively far more modest amenities and reduced capabilities, al-Qaeda has incontrovertibly been able to reconstitute its global terrorist reach. Indeed, every major terrorist attack or plot against the U.S. or our European allies since 2005 has emanated from either al-Qaeda or the Taliban or its affiliates and associates.

Anyone who doubts that the continuing terrorist threat to the U.S. and the West would be well advised to read the annual report for 2008 of the Netherlands’ General Intelligence and Security Service (Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst, or AIVD). The AIVD is among the most professional and prescient of the world’s intelligence and security agencies. The report paints an alarming picture of the growing dimensions, capabilities, and subversion of Western societies by existing, identifiable terrorist organizations——and specifically by al-Qaeda and its South Asian jihadi allies. “Al-Qaeda’s ability to commit and direct terrorist attacks has increased in recent years,” it unambiguously states. “The AIVD received a growing number of indications that individuals from Europe are receiving military training at camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.” (The full report can be accessed here.)

Al-Qaeda has thus consistently proven that it has deep bench of well-trained, experienced, and battle-hardened veterans from which continually to draw from and continue to replenish its ranks despite the inroads made by the U.S. Predator and Reaper strikes. Accordingly, the threat that even a weakened, diminished al-Qaeda still poses——as Dutch intelligence warns——cannot be discounted. Indeed, it is exactly when we are lulled into complacency and our defenses are lowered, that al-Qaeda will strike. Thus, every day that the U.S. allows the unsatisfactory situation along both sides the lawless border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to continue is another day that al-Qaeda and its allies have to regroup, reorganize and marshal their strength to plan and plot terrorist attacks on a global scale.

As Seth G. Jones and I wrote in The National Interest a year ago (“Cell Phones in the Hindu Kush,” July/August 2008), “Defending Afghanistan will not eradicate a terrorist network based in Pakistan, but failing to defend Afghanistan will almost certainly give that terrorist movement new momentum and greater freedom of action. In concrete terms, succeeding in both Afghanistan and Pakistan will require embracing . . . the holy trinity of counterinsurgency: security, governance and development.” Accordingly, a necessary critical first step is to clear territory held by militant groups and ensure the security and safety of the civilian population. This is the “secure and serve the population” dictum that is the essential foundation of any effective counterinsurgency campaign and was the guiding principle of General Petraeus’s successful strategy in Iraq. In Afghanistan at present there are simply too few American, coalition, and Afghan military forces, to achieve this.

The question Americans have to ask themselves is not whether our expanding commitment to Afghanistan is worth the price but whether we are willing to pay the costs of another 9/11.

The question is the wrong one, as it manipulates the alternatives down to only two. The more sensible question is: What do we want, and how do we get it? This is the oldest question of grand strategy: about means and ends, and how to get both of them in line.

For the U.s. and the West the purpose of the War is, first, to prevent Afghanistan from turning into a terror base again. Second, to keep the conflict from spilling into Pakistan. Third, from drawing in outside meddlers like Iran or Russia. Note that democracy does not show up in this grand-strategic trio.

(Nonetheless, no matter how corrupt or incompetent Karzai and cohorts are, we ought to take a moment to doff our hats to the Afghan peoples. I can't think of many Germans who would have gone to the polls after WW II if the SS were still around to slaughter them on arrival.)

Note also that the defeat of the Taliban does not show up in this list. It could be done, but more at the costs of 250 000 additional U.S. troops than the 40 000 General McChrystal is suggesting. (BTW, the moaning and groaning of the generals, according to which we might be losing, should be seen as healthy egotism of an army that does not want to suffer another Vietnam rather than as totally dispassionate analysis of force goals.) The country will never stand for such numbers in a war that represents only an abstract, diffuse and remote threat to the national security. And hence, ambitions must be reduced.

To repeat the key point: grand strategy is about bringing means and ends into equilibrium. So if you don't have the means, scale down the end - or add non-military arrows to your quiver. See what force-multipliers you can find in the political process. In the post-9/11 war, the U.S. could not have won so economically without the Northern Alliance, a bunch of not exactly loveable warlords. That entailed bribery by cash and concessions. Why not cast the net wider, all the way to those Taliban groups that are more attached to power and position in the Afghan scheme than to the Quran? Think Sunni Awakening, which helped to turn the tide in Iraq after the Sunni Insurgency of 2006. Loyalty to the tribe mattered, not to the State.

Afghanistan will not be a state for a long, long time. So take a page out of the British book in Malaya when, after 12 long years, the Britons won by fighting as well as by coopting the very forces they had been trying to rout. Talk, but keep them off balance in order to hold out both promise and peril. Or as Al Capone said in the Eliot Ness series: You can get a lot farther with a smile and a gun in your hand than with a smile only. Keep up the pressure economically, using the best weapons in the Western arsenal: space-based and aerial surveillance, special forces, stand-off precision weapons. Don't fight where the Taliban can use their stuff to their best advantage - from IED to hit-and-run. This is a lot cheaper than controlling every bit of inaccessible Afghan territory. Meanwhile, keep throwing out incentives to those who might be ready to take them. The harder you hit them on terms advantageous to yourself, the more you change the enemy's tally of gains and losses. And his expectations.

This is not very original. It is the oldest strategy in the panoply of counter-insurgency warfare. It scales down ambitions and so joins limited means to the ends outlined above. It is also sustainable for a long time as limited Western losses will not awaken domestic dogs to the point of a Vietnam-type revolt. The current public opinion polls are as ambiguous as ever. Well, yes, we don't like the war. But Americans reject two-to-one that it was a mistake to take on the Taliban. When it comes to "Will we win?", "Not sure/don't know" is around 40 percent. This is fairly permissive, and will remain so if casualties are low.

Tuck tail and run is the worst alternative, for it will embolden Taliban, al-Qaeda et al. and risk further destabilization of the region. Adding politics to power, though, will add incentives to injury - and allow the West to pursue the fight without risking certain defeat at home. Counter-insurgency is open-ended. So keep the costs low in order to keep spirits high.