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The New American Afghan Strategy and Pakistan
It is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. intends to speed up the withdrawal
of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. It is also clear that U.S. relations with Pakistan
are deteriorating to a point where what cooperation there was is breaking down.
These are two intimately related issues. A more rapid withdrawal from
Afghanistan will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government
will not be able to fill. Afghanistan is Pakistan’s back door, and its evolution is a
matter of fundamental interest to Pakistan. A U.S. withdrawal means an
Afghanistan intertwined with and under the influence of Pakistan. Therefore, the
current dynamic with Pakistan challenges any withdrawal plan.
There may be some in the U.S. military who believe that the United States might
prevail in Afghanistan but they are few in number. The champion of this view,
General David Petraeus has been relieved of his command of forces in
Afghanistan and has been promoted (or kicked upstairs) to Director of the CIA.
The conventional definition of victory has been the creation of a strong
government in Kabul controlling an Army and police force able to impose its will
security forces at least able to hold the line throughout Afghanistan. With
President Karzai being increasingly uncooperative with the United States, as he
realizes that one way or another, over time his American protection will be
withdrawn, and understanding that the Americans will blame him for the
withdrawal because of his inability or unwillingness to control corruption, the
likelihood of this sort of outcome is evaporating.
There is of course a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush
Administrations approach to Afghanistan. The goal here was the disruption of al
Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan, and the prevention of further attacks on the
United States emanating from Afghanistan. But didn't this mission already begin
to change even under the Bush Administration? Wasn't it even Bush who began
to define win in Afghanistan as a stable Kabul? This definition did not envisage
the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan free of corruption and
able to control its territory. It was more modest and in many senses it was
achieved in 2001-2002. It defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda
in Afghanistan while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other
countries, and in particular, did not deal with the movement of al Qaeda
personnel to Pakistan. Nor did it address the Taliban
(<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/taliban_withdrawal_was_strategy_not_rout_0>
<which was not defeated in 2001-2, but declined combat on Amercian
terms>) and began to re-emerge as a
The mission creep from denying Afghan bases to al Qaeda to the transformation
of Afghan society had many roots, but none as important as the attempt to
transfer the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan. The surge in Iraq, importantly
coupled with a political settlement with the Sunni insurgents wasn’t it this
political settlement that was defining and decisive? The surge wouldn’t
have worked without it. [I thought our assessment was that the troop surge
changed the commonly held perception of the American commitment
enough to convince the Sunni insurgents that a political accommodation
would be more expedient than waiting out the Americans?] that bought
them into the American fold, obviously reduced the insurgency. It remains to be
seen whether it produces a stable Iraq not hostile to American interests. Iraq
was a political settlement whose long-termsuccess was never clear. The belief
was that the surge, not the political accommodation with American enemies was
what happened in Iraq and the Pentagon and the [the Pentagon took the
White House a demand for 40,000 additional troops for Afghanistan when
he was elected] Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt. The
logical progression above seems to imply that the most important driver of the
US decision to use this tool (surge) was simply that they had it and that, as a
result, the new goal became social transition. This could be true, but given the
profound costs of the surge and a continuation of the war, it seems that mission
creep had already been underway and that possession of the tool was not what
drove mission creep itself.
However, the United States found that the Taliban was less inclined to negotiate
with the United States [was/is the US even sure who to negotiate with?] and
certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because they
felt that in the long run
<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winni
ng><they were likely to win>. More importantly, the Taliban did not face the
threat of a major opposing neighborhood force, as the Iraqi Sunni
insurgents did with Iran. The military operations that framed the search for a
political solution, turned out to be a frame without a painting. In Iraq it is not clear
that the Petraeus strategy actually achieved a satisfactory political outcome and
its application to Afghanistan does not seem, as yet, to have drawn the Taliban
into a the political process that made Iraq appear even minimally successful. If
you want, you could make the argument that the surge, being tied to an exit
strategy as it was, only emboldened them to fight on and hold out…
Actually, Petraeus himself and many other senior admin officials back in
2008-09 said that the Iraqi model can’t be grafted on to Afghanistan and if it
is to serve as a template it will have to heavily modified.
As we pointed out after the death of Osama bin Laden, his death coupled with
the transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan offered two opportunities. The first
was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan, in which the goal
was the disruption of al Qaeda. Second, with the departure of Petraeus (the
principal architect and its most politically savvy and ardent defender of the
strategy) and his staff, removal of the ideology of counter-insurgency, in which
social transformation is seen as the means toward a practical and radical
transformation of Afghanistan. These two events opened the door to the the
redefinition of the goal and the ability to claim mission accomplished for the
earlier, more modest end, framing the basis for terminating the war.
The central battle was in the United States military, divided between conventional
warfighters and counter-insurgents. especially the likes of Petraues adviser
David Kilcullen who in ’09 said Pakistani state would collapse in six
months. So much for a PhD in COIN and years of trying to apply theory into
practice with DoS and DoD engaging. Counterinsurgency draws its roots from
theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s. It
argued that victory in these sorts of wars depended on social and political
mobilization and that the purpose of the military battle was to create a space to
build a state and nation that could defend itself. Don’t know your feelings on
citing others, but a paragraph briefly summarizing Harry Summers’ On
Strategy could be particularly powerful in here somewhere.
The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose to defeat the enemy
military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power. This
faction has bitterly opposed Petraeus’ view of what was happening in
Afghanistan, and which? viewed the war in terms of defeating Taliban. In the
view of this faction defeating Taliban was impossible with the force available and
unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this.
First, Taliban was a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability able
to withdraw from untenable operations (such as the battle for Helmandland
amidst U.S. and allied operations to pacify Helmand and Kandahar
provinces) and re-engage on more favorable terms elsewhere. Second,
sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed Taliban to withdraw to safety to reconstitute itself,
thereby making their complete? defeat in detail impossible. The option of
invading Pakistan remained, but the idea of invading a country of 180 million
people with some fraction of the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied troops in
Afghanistan was militarily unsupportable and woefully insufficient even just
for the task on the Afghan side of the border. Indeed, no force the U.S. could
field would be in a position to compel Pakistan to conform to American wishes.
What is clearly emerging on the American side is a more conventional definition
of war in which the primary purpose of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is to create a
framework of special operations forces to attack and disrupt al Qaeda in
Afghanistan and potentially Pakistan, but not to attempt to either defeat Taliban
strategically nor transform Afghanistan politically and culturally Let us link to
your piece that you wrote within days of Obama taking office in which you
said that in order to fight aQ one doesn’t have to fight the Talibs.. And with
the death of Osama, an argument can be made—at least for political purposes—
that al Qaeda has been sufficiently disrupted that the conventional military
framework in Afghanistan is no longer needed. If al Qaeda revives in
Afghanistan then covert operations can be considered but the problem of al
Qaeda is that it does not require any single country but is a global guerrilla force.
It will go wherever U.S. forces are not Actually they also go wherever there
are U.S. forces, e.g., Iraq. The presence of U.S. forces on Muslims lands
allows it to mobilize fighters, just as Taliban withdraws from areas of U.S.
operations without being defeated. Afghanistan, in this sense, is simply one of
many theaters in which it might operate and therefore the United States has no
greater interest there than in Yemen or Somalia.
The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic
disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan. It therefore cannot leave its border
with Afghanistan nor can it evade the reality that Pakistani ethnic groups –
namely the Pashtun that straddle the border and form the heart of the
Taliban phenomenon -- --It is a borderland with an arbitrary border dividing
ethnic groups, so it is really hard to call the Pashtun a Pakistani ethnic group.
That is like calling a Kurd an Iraqi, Iranian or Turkish ethnic group. live on the
Afghan side of the border as well. Therefore, where Afghanistan is a piece of
American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s
national strategy. This is the asymmetry in interest that is now the central issue.
Pakistan joined with the United States to defeat the Soviets after their invasion of
Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia provided financing and recruits, the Pakistanis training
facilities and intelligence, the United States [provided?] trainers, modern
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other support. For Pakistan, the
Soviet invasion was a matter of fundamental national interest. Facing a hostile
India supported by the Soviets, the Soviet presence to their west threatened
Pakistan on two fronts. Therefore, deep involvement with the Jihadists in
Afghanistan was essential to Pakistan as it tied down the Soviets. It was also
beneficial to the United States.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan the United States became
indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent and
remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets
and would govern Afghanistan, and helped facilitate the emergence of the
Taliban as the dominant force in the country. The United States was quite
content with this in this in the 1990s and accepted the fact that Pakistani
intelligence had become intertwined not only with the forces who fought the Jihad
Soviets, but with Taliban in particular which, with Pakistani support, won the civil
war that followed the Soviet defeat. Intelligence organizations are as influenced
by their clients as their clients are controlled by them. Consider the CIA and anti-
Castro Cubans in the 1960s and 1970s might be worth clarifying and
anchoring, briefly in a parenthetical, what you mean by this. The Pakistani
ISI became entwined with their clients. As the influence of Taliban and Islamist
elements increased in Afghanistan, the sentiment spread to Pakistan, which
along with native Islamists, create a massive Islamist movement in Pakistan
(including some elements that began to set their sights on Islamabad) and
obviously within the government and intelligence services.
September 11, 2001 posed a profound threat to Pakistan. On the one side,
Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support
against both al Qaeda and Taliban. On the other side, they had a massive
Islamist movement hostile to the United States, and an intelligence service that
had, for a generation, been intimately tied up with Afghani Islamists, first with
whole-hearted American support, then with America’s benign indifference. The
American demands involved shredding close relationships in Afghanistan,
supporting an American occupation in Afghanistan and therefore facing internal
resistance and threats in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani solution was the only one they could find if they were to both
placate the United States and placate the forces in Pakistan who did not want to
cooperate with the United States. The Pakistanis lied. To be more precise and
fair, they did as much as they could for the United States without destabilizing
Pakistan over the course of ten years, it did destabilize Pakistan, though -considerably while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative
to the Americans, and far less cooperative to their public. As in any such
strategy, the ISI Islamabad? found itself in a massive balancing attack.
U.S. and Pakistani national interests widely diverged. The U.S. wanted to disrupt
al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of
their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals. At the same time the
United States and Pakistan needed each other. The United States could not
possibly operate in Afghanistan without some Pakistani support, ranging from the
use of Karachi and the Karachi-Khyber and Karachi-Chaman lines of supply,
some support on the border, some collaboration on intelligence sharing, at
least with al Qaeda. The Pakistanis badly needed American support against
India. If the U.S. simply became pro-Indian, the Pakistani position would be in
severe jeopardy.
The United States was always aware of the limits of Pakistani assistance. They
accepted it publicly because it made the Pakistanis appear to be allies at the time
the U.S. was under attack for unilateralism. They accepted it privately as well as
they did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the
limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.
That game is now breaking down, not because the U.S. raided Pakistan and
killed bin Laden, but because it is becoming apparent to the Pakistanis that the
United States will be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan. This
draw down creates three facts. First, the Pakistanis will be facing the future of its
western borders with Afghanistan without an American force to support them at
least not a large, conventional force oriented towards a broad, nation-wide
dedicated to a protracted counterinsurgency. Pakistan does not want to
alienate Taliban not only for ideological reasons, but also for the practical reason
that it expects Taliban to govern Afghanistan in due course. Being cooperative
with the United States is less important. . [you make the case twice that
Pakistan has to cooperate with the US because it can’t survive against a
US-supported India, but then you say that being cooperative with the US is
less important than not alienating the Taliban, presumably so that
Islamabad can have strategic depth in Afghanistan against India. Is this an
issue of timing or events? The opportunity to re-establish influence with
the Taliban is now and Pakistan can deal with the US and India down the
line if that were to become an issue?] Second, Pakistan is aware that as the
U.S. draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically.
Afghanistan is not Iraq, and as the U.S. force draws down, it will be in greater
danger. The U.S. needs Pakistani influence. Finally, there will be a negotiation
and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI will be the intermediary.
The Pakistanis are preparing for the American drawdown. Publicly, it is
important for them to be as independent and even hostile to the Americans as
possible in order to maintain their domestic credibility. They have appeared to
factions in Pakistan as American lackeys. If the U.S. is leaving, they can’t afford
to appear so. There are ample, genuine issues separating the two countries, but
in the end, the show is as important as the issues. U.S. accusations that the
government has not cooperated with the U.S. in fighting Islamists are exactly
what the Pakistani establishment needs in moving to the next phase. Very
publicly arresting CIA sources that aided the United States in capturing bin Laden
similarly benefits them.
From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan—and elsewhere—was
not a failure. There were no further attacks on the United States on the order of
9-11 since 2001, and that was not for lack of al Qaeda trying. U.S. intelligence
and security, fumbling in the early days, achieved a remarkable success, and
that was aided by the massive disruption of al Qaeda by U.S. military operations.
The measure of military success is simple. If the enemy was unable to strike, it
was a success. Obviously, there is no guarantee against al Qaeda regeneration
or another group emerging, but a continued presence in Afghanistan at this point
doesn’t affect that, particularly as franchise operations like AQAP in Yemen
begin to overtake the old apex leadership in terms of both operational
innovation in transnational efforts and the ideological underpinnings of
those attacks.
In the end, the U.S. will leave Afghanistan (save possible for some residual
special operations capability). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its
sphere of influence. Pakistan will need American support against India (as China
does not have the force needed to support Pakistan over the Himalayas nor the
Navy to protect its coast). The United States will need India Pakistan? to do the
basic work of preventing an intercontinental al Qaeda from forming again. After
the past ten years Pakistan will see that as in their national interest. The U.S. will
use Pakistan to balance India will retaining close ties to India.
A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making
terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other. But now that the counterinsurgency concept is appears to be? being discarded and a fresh? military
analysis underway, the script is being written and we can begin to see the shape
of the end.