Download The war in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan — the American war — has been under way for almost nine
years. By its 10th anniversary, on Oct. 7, 2011, Operation Enduring Freedom will have
proved to be an enduring operation, the longest major military effort by the United States
since the Vietnam War. Launched four weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the Afghanistan
campaign removed the Taliban from power and pushed al Qaeda into mountain
sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border. This did reduce the ability of groups like
al Qaeda to operate on Afghan soil, but it did not create a secure and stable Afghanistan
that could no longer serve as a launch pad for terrorist attacks against the United States.
Leading up to the U.S. invasion, when the world’s sole superpower demanded
that the Taliban surrender al Qaeda, the Taliban refused. Although today the two groups
are less intertwined, at the time the Taliban — as Islamists — could not surrender another
Islamist entity they had grown close to through ideological affinity and loyalty dictated
by Pashtun cultural norms. (In any case, in October of 2001, many Afghans did not
believe that al Qaeda had perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, and many Muslims do not believe
that to this day.)
And despite American perceptions of a quick victory in Afghanistan in the fall of
2001, in reality the Taliban largely declined to fight. There were battles in places like
Tora Bora that resulted in significant Taliban losses, but they essentially retreated to their
core turf in the south and refused to engage the U.S. war machine on American terms,
returning instead to their insurgent roots.
The history of Afghanistan is one of strife, and this history has done much to
shape the nation the United States invaded in October 2001. Afghans are more
accustomed to perpetual conflict than many cultures — certainly more than the
Americans are. The Soviet occupation and war lasted for nearly a decade, throughout the
1980s, and the country quickly descended into an intra-Islamist civil war following the
Soviet withdrawal. Even when the Taliban came to power they did not completely rule
the country, with the Northern Alliance defying Taliban rule. Nevertheless, the Taliban
can be tough and tenacious fighters, and they are working from a well-worn playbook as
the United States tries to devise a new solution to a perennial problem.
Indeed, after 9/11 it would have been hard enough for the United States to wage a
concerted counterinsurgency against the Taliban even if it had not become so
preoccupied with Iraq. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Afghanistan turned
into a backwater theater in the “Global War on Terror.” It seemed that the worse things
got on the ground in Iraq, the more ground the Taliban regained in Afghanistan. Only
after the “Sunni awakening” and U.S. surge in Iraq in 2007 was the United States able to
start drawing down its forces in Iraq and refocusing on the Afghan front, where an
understrength U.S.-led coalition had been trying to contain the Taliban for years. In 2008,
near the end of his presidency, George W. Bush initiated the shift in focus back to
Afghanistan, appointing the architect of the Iraqi surge, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus,
head of U.S. Central Command and putting him in charge of both wars.
A year later, under new U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley
McChrystal was given his fourth star and command of both U.S. forces and the U.S.-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Although a new strategy
for Afghanistan would not be publicly announced until near the end of 2009, McChrystal,
who previously had been the longest-serving commander of the Joint Special Operations
Command, began to make sweeping changes that summer. Then on Dec. 1, 2009, Obama
outlined the revamped strategy in a speech at West Point. The plan had three main
elements: to maintain pressure on al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, to turn back
the mounting Taliban offensive by sending 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan
and to train and build up Afghan military forces and civilian structures to assume
responsibility after a U.S. withdrawal, which would begin in July 2011.
With Obama’s West Point speech and the surge that followed, the war in
Afghanistan entered a decisive phase. Gen. McChrystal and the ISAF had an ambitious
set of goals — and about 20 months to realize some degree of progress on the ground.
The U.S. objective was still to destroy al Qaeda and create a stable and secure
Afghanistan, but the strategy was different. Recognizing that the Taliban were an
inherent part of the country’s political landscape and could not be militarily defeated any
time soon, war planners were now distinguishing between reconcilable and irreconcilable
elements of the militant movement, in hopes of persuading the former to come to the
negotiating table. Meanwhile, the renewed counterinsurgency would focus on key
population centers and critical territory while trying to protect and win over the
population rather than engaging the Taliban primarily in direct, kinetic operations.
The new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan — perhaps for the first time since 2001 —
defined an endgame and exit strategy. Similar to “Vietnamization” under U.S. President
Richard Nixon, the Afghanistan plan also emphasized the building up of indigenous
security forces and setting them up for success over the next few years, with the explicit
intention of handing over responsibility for security to the Afghans. But the goals and the
timeline are ambitious and the hurdles are high. The crux of the challenge is time and
patience. In his West Point speech, President Obama did not elaborate on the magnitude
of the U.S. withdrawal or the date when it would conclude. He made it clear that it would
all depend on the situation on the ground. However, he also made it clear that the U.S.
commitment to Afghanistan is finite and that there is a limit to how many U.S. lives and
dollars will be spent in the legendary graveyard of empires.
The Taliban, on the other hand — patient and persevering — seem to have all the
time in the world. And their goals are much more directly obtainable. First they must
simply survive, i.e., outlast the United States and its allies. They must also prevent the
United States from undermining their support base. To these ends, they will exploit their
natural strengths — guerilla warfare, tribal and filial ties with the people and a common
interest in a greater role for an ultraconservative brand of Shariah (Islamic law) in the
country’s governance. As with any insurgent entity, internal cohesion is an important
challenge for the amorphous Taliban, but its leadership considers the movement’s
position stronger today than it has been since 2001. Mullah Muhammad Omar, the most
prominent leader of the Afghan Taliban, is not strictly opposed to a settlement with
Kabul, but he firmly believes they can expect some serious concessions in any political
reconciliation.
And the ambitious goals the United States has set for itself — the destruction of al
Qaeda and the stabilization of Afghanistan — cannot be achieved by coalition forces
alone. The U.S. objective in Afghanistan is not the complete destruction of the Taliban’s
will and ability to resist. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the idea is to use military force to
reshape the political landscape. And the United States cannot do this without working
with other countries outside of the NATO mainstream. In addition to Pakistan, which has
long been involved in cultivating a jihadist militancy in the region as a hedge against
Indian power, the United States must work with Iran, India, Russia, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, China and Central Asian states, all countries that have interests and/or leverage in
Afghanistan. Sooner or later, of course, the Afghan people will have to decide which way
they want it to go, and the ISAF has a limited amount of time to provide them the
security and space to make that decision.
While a 2011 deadline looms, the military campaign will likely extend beyond
that. Any drawdown would begin in mid-2011 and be carefully phased, depending upon
the security situation. So there will probably be a sizable American military presence in
Afghanistan well into 2012, and perhaps longer. Meanwhile, the United States will be
turning its attention to other global matters while the Taliban — a diffuse group of
jihadists fighting on their own embattled turf — will be facing some decisions of their
own. The Taliban have begun to recognize their strengths just as the Americans have
recognized their limitations. It is a critical juncture in the war, and as they prepare to play
the long game, the Taliban certainly have time on their side.
STRATFOR
Austin, Texas
May 10, 2010