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The Afghan Paradox
By Judah Grunstein
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18 Feb 2009
In the immediate aftermath of President Obama's announcement of an American troop increase in Afghanistan, Germany has signaled a troop increase (600 additional troops) and French planners are formulating contingencies for a troop increase (up to 800 troops) as well (both items via Secret Défense).
Both moves represent token increases compared to the 17K Obama just
announced (12K in combat troops, 5K in support troops), although the
French increase, if ultimately agreed to, would solidify an upcoming
reorganization of French forces into a unified brigade. The increases
are also significant political gestures that reflect Obama's political
capital here in Europe. So the Afghan "surge" is not a dead letter, as
I'd previously speculated. (To paraphrase Rob at Arabic Media Shack, I probably should have held that thought).
I
mentioned last night that despite my skepticism regarding our prospects
in Afghanistan, I'm not terribly dismayed by the news. One thing the
Iraq Surge taught me is that the optics of stopping the momentum of
violence and disorder -- which in Afghanistan now, as Iraq then, seems
to have approached a disastrous tipping point -- is as important as the
likelihood of ultimate strategic success. There will be plenty of time
to eventually withdraw from Afghanistan, and it makes sense not to do
so under duress or in the face of an obvious breakdown of our military
deterrence. So insomuch as Obama's move is meant to function as a
temporary levee against the tide of an emboldened insurgency, one that
provides cover for a scaling back of our objectives and priorities in
Afghanistan, then it's a good idea.
If, on the other hand, it represents the initial steps in a longterm escalation, then I'm back to being dismayed. Here's why.
If
you think of the Afghanistan War as a cross-border balloon,
insufficient pressure has been applied on both sides of the
Afghan-Pakistani border. We've been half-squeezing one side of the
balloon, the Pakistanis have been half-squeezing the other, and the
result has been to increase the risk of the balloon bursting on both
sides.
But for obvious reasons, the balloon bursting on the
Pakistani side of the border is a much worse outcome than the converse,
which is why regardless of the optics, Pakistan's periodic truces with
militants in the FATA and now Swat, by relieving dangerous levels of
pressure, make sense. Everyone agrees that there is no military
solution to the insurgency without an accompanying political solution.
In addition to strengthened nation-building and reconstruction efforts,
that has increasingly meant proposals of the same kinds of political
accomodations on the Afghan side of the border as Pakistan has been
making on its side. Which is why we should probably get used to these
kinds of deals, because we'll in all likelihood be making a bunch of
them in the midterm future.
Now, a lot of smarter and
better-informed people than myself have argued that with a bolstered
military presence, a stronger commitment to the political components of
counterinsurgency, and a broader regional approach, Afghanistan can be
stabilized to the point where we leave behind a viable nation state
capable of maintaining security and order for itself. I'm not sure we,
or our allies, have the resources or the commitment level to achieve
those goals.
But the task is further complicated by the fact
that it depends on best-case scenarios on both sides of the border,
whereas we only have liberty of action on one. Worse still, if we
succeed in Afghanistan, thereby applying more pressure on one side of
the balloon, we run the risk of bursting it in Pakistan, with
everything that implies. That risk is only elevated by our "hands off,
drones on" approach to counterterrorism in the Pakistani FATA, with
recent developments in Swat raising the question of just how far into
Pakistani territory we'll be willing to go to chase after Taliban
militants.
By all indications (see Seth McLaughlin's WPR subscription feature
on Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan advisor, Bruce Riedel), the Obama
administration will begin pressing Pakistan to conduct a viable
full-spectrum counterinsurgency on the Pakistani side of the border.
But in the absence of one (and I'm not sure how realistic it is to
place much hope in the idea), that leaves even more accomodation as
Islamabad's only option. In essence that means we will have succeeded
at great cost in transferring the strategic threat posed by instability
in Afghanistan to Pakistan, where the potential costs are far greater
and we have far less liberty of action.
There are obvious
strategic costs to Afghanistan remaining a vector of instability. But
if the cost of a stable Afghanistan is an unstable or Talibanized
Pakistan, an unstable Afghanistan might be the lesser of two evils.
There's also something to be said for the idea of "managed instability"
in Afghanistan, which would allow a safety valve for pressure in
Pakistan, while drawing the actual threat to American interests --
al-Qaida -- back into a country where we have some liberty of action.
For
now, Obama has done what in many ways he had to do. The upcoming
Afghanistan strategic review will reveal what he plans for the future.
I'm adopting a position of guarded pessimism, with the hope that, as in
Iraq, I'm proven wrong.