What Now in Libya?

The international community, armed with a United Nations Security Resolution (UNSCR) authorizing Chapter VII force, has endorsed a military campaign against Libya, and the christening blows were sent yesterday as French jets and American Tomahawk cruise missiles rained down on the forces of Muammar Qadhafi. In defiance, Qadhafi has promised the coalition arrayed against him a “long war” and has characterized the intervention, predictably enough, as a “colonial crusade,” presumably in the hope of rallying indigenous anti-colonialists and intervention-wary Arab states to his aid.

It is, of course, entirely too soon to predict where all this will lead. Those who have joined the “coalition of the willing” have stated modest goals for their actions. Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the JCS, has specifically said the purpose of military action is not to overthrow the Qadhafi regime, but simply to protect those attempting to overthrow Qadhafi from retribution. This, arguably, is a distinction without a difference, but it at least rhetorically gets the United States off the hook of intervening (illegally) to affect a civil conflict and on the morally higher ground of preventing a humanitarian disaster. Hopefully it is that simple; probably it is not.

Although it is escessive to predict where this whole adventure is going to head, it is not so improvident to raise questions about that direction in the hope that the answers will in some way inform and even direct policy. For lack of better labels, I think the questions can be characterized as political, military, and precedential.

Politically, there are at least two important, sequential questions to ask. The first is about who it is we are now supporting. Although the French quickly recognized the “rebels” as the legitimate government of Libya last week, it is not at all clear who these people are in political terms. They are anti-Qadhafi, but we don’t know who they are or what they are for. Qadhafi says they are Al Qaeda, an interesting stretch, and they almost certainly are not that. They indicate they favor democracy (what else can they say?), but at least publicly, there has been no indication we have a clue what these people would do if they gained power. Some people might argue that if one is going to put American lives at risk, it would be nice to know in what cause.       

The second political question flows from the first: what political objective do we seek to achieve in what we are doing? Is it merely to save Libyans from slaughter by their leader? If so, when can we say “mission accomplished” and quit? The potential for what the military calls “mission creep” (an original mission gradually enlarging until it bears little resemblance but much greater commitment than it originally had) is omnipresent. Think Somalia in 1992, or Operation Provide Comfort (Iraq) in 1991, or, for that matter, Afghanistan in 2002. If replacing Qadhafi is the objective, that may mean a much longer commitment (as he promises) and could still leave unanswered the first political question (e.g. Who are these masked men?).

The second concern is military. What is the United States (and the rest of the UN deputy countries) willing to do to achieve against Libya whatever objective we have? Is it “limited” to creating and enforcing a no-fly zone? If so, how long a commitment is that? The Kurdish no-fly zone,as pointed out here a couple weeks ago, suggests a possibly open-ended commitment that would certainly constitute mission creep. But does the mission go beyond that? Are we going to provide close air support of rebel activities on the ground? If so, we are going to kill Libyan armed forces and incur casualties ourselves, thereby raising the stakes of the game. If that doesn’t work, are ground troops next? We say and doubtless believe the latter answer is no, but once processes are engaged, they sometimes develop a dynamic all of their own.

The final question is about the precedent that is being set. Clearly, the underlying principle here is that the international community will not permit the concerted slaughter of a population by its political leaders. As a principle, that is pretty unassailable, but its implications are not. First, there is no shortage of such potential situations for the world to stick its nose into, and the history of these efforts is that sometimes the world acts, and sometimes it does not. How is Libya an obvious instance of the kinds of things we do involve ourselves in? The United States, one might add, has been decidedly ambivalent about its personal involvement in these matters. Humanitarian intervention is a universally appealing principle, but executing it is not.

There are two more precedential matters to ponder. In this case, the Arab League has endorsed military actions, but it is on the horns of dilemma here. By turning on one of its members, it is saying there are limits to Muslim brotherhood, but how much outside help are they willing to accept or embrace? There is also lots of anti-colonial, anti-Western sentiment in the region, and a prolonged military action (particularly if it involves putting Europeans/Americans on the ground) is going to precipitate a negative reaction. There is a fine line here somewhere that is probably as yet undefined but over which we do not want to step.

Finally, what kind of precedent does the UN action set for others out there who want to overthrow their governments? Does the UN action means that if one rises up against a tyrant (and, to repeat, they are not in short supply, especially in the Middle East), begins to lose, and has worldwide media coverage of the carnage, that you can expect an international intervention to help accomplish your goals? If the outside forces indeed push the situation decisively against Qadhafi, it certainly would be possible for someone to think that way.

These are probably not all the interesting, potentially important questions that should be asked about the Libyan operation, and one hopes they are indeed being asked in official circles as we speak. The answers to these and other questions not raised here will help inform what to do next and whether any or all of it is a good idea.

An Aiken Solution in Afghanistan?

This week marked a dubious watershed in the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the number of American forces in Afghanistan passed the troop total in Iraq. The Iraq side of the ledger is the result of the continuing withdrawal of American combat forces from that country, and Admiral Mike Mullen promised today on CNN that theschedule by which all American combat troops will be out in Augustis right on track (50,000 “support” troops will remain). The Afghan total, of course, reflects the buildup authorized earlier by the Obama White House to over 100,000.

These are developments of differing attraction. The Iraq total suggests the United States is following the spirit of the late RepublicanSenator from Vermont, George Aiken, and declaring victory in Iraq, leaving the final definition of what that means to the Iraqis themselves. At any rate, when the last American combat forces leave, the American direct military role will effectively be over, since no political leader lacking a highly developed suicidal streak would suggest reinserting troops in Iraq once they are out. Would that the situation be similar in Afghanistan.

As reported repeatedly here, the drums keep beating in Afghanistan, if the tune is uncertain. We will soon have over 100,000 troops there, are attempting to liberate Kandahar without hurting anybody or breaking anything, and are committed to the official notion that the Karzai kleptocracy has somehow seen the light and is reforming. It must be hard to see the sky in Kabul for all the flying pigs in the sky!

Maybe this is the time for an Aiken solution in Afghanistan as well. As will be recalled, the Vermonter suggested in 1966 that the United States declare military victory in Vietnam, because the enemy had largely quit the field and the United States controlled the physical ground. His reasoning was that the war could then return to being an internal political struggle between factions in Vietnam itself, allowing the United States to return home with some sort of pride intact. He favored the solution because he could not see any other way out. American historyof the late 20th century would cdertainly be a lot different had his advice been taken.

The situation in Afghanistanis not quite the same, of course, since the United States does not control the country physically. We might, however, simply declare that the situations is as stable as it can be and that only internal political discussions will move toward a lasting solution. This, of course, would be partly fictitious, since a permanent, stable situation is not one of the normal parts of Afghan existence, but if one could be maintained long enough for us to depart, it might be worth the twisted analogy.

An Aiken solution is a good idea if one assumes (as I do) that there is no truly favorable outcome for the United States in this conflict no matter how long we stay. If you believe that our staying will produce a “victory” over whatever our enemy is there, then you probably don’t want much to do with old George Aiken’s idea. But it sure is worth thinking about.

Common Sense and COIN in Afghanistan

As the Obama administration’s internal debate over what to do in Afghanistan has publicly clarified, two prerequisites for the success of the American effort have risen to the top–good governance and the emegence of effective Afghan security forces. Both represent the triumph of simple common sense over the supposed arcane details of COIN  strategy, and their consideration leaves one with the question, Why did someone not think of this in the first place, because if they had, the whole scenario might look very different today.

Examine each premise of the formula for success. “Good government,” as it is discussed in the basic U.S. COIN document, FM 3-24, refers essentiallyto legitimate governance. The key elements in legitimacy, which more or less translates as citizen acceptance of the government as its own, has two basic elements, honesty on the part of government officials and representativeness, which means citizens must feel the interests of whatever group of which they are a part is fairly represented in governmental decisions. The Afghan government as now constituted basically fails on both counts: its lack of honesty (measured in terms of corruption) is legendary and widely derided within Afghanistan itself. Representativeness in the Afghan sense means that various tribal factions are proportionately represented as in the case of the traditional loya jirga system in the country. Pashtuns in particular apparently feel their interests are not adequately present, and they, of course, form the large popular base for the Taliban. One might add to these two criteria that the government must be independent of outside influence, in this case such as that provided by the U.S. and its ISAF partners.

What is commonsensical about these distinctions is that they are also a checklist for why the insurgency got started in the first place. The Taliban, after all, came to power in1996 largely on the basis of their promise to clean up the notoriously corrupt government that had evolved after the Soviet occupation, and their resurgence starting in 2003 was partly based on a return of corruption in Kabul, this time generously sprinkled with drug money.  Moreover, although President Hamid Karzai is himself a Pashtun, many Pashtuns view the current government as essentially an extension of the Northern Alliance, which was essentially an anti-Pashtun coalition. Saying that remediating these conditions will end the insurgency is essentially saying that if the conditions for insurgency had not been present in the first place, there would not have been an insurgency. Wow!

The other prerequisite for a successful mission is the emergence of an effective ANSF. From an American COIN perspective, the reason is that such a force will supplant the Americans who are “clearing and holding” former Taliban strongholds, thereby creating the conditions for an American withdrawal–an exit strategy, in other words. The same criteria can be applied to this requisite as to the need for good government. The ANSF must be honest, which means they treat the population well, do not extort or suppress them, and do not devote their efforts to protecting the poppy trade. More importantly, they must be tribally representative if they are to be accepted as protective forces for the population. It would not, for instance, do to replace the departing Americans in a Pashtun region with primarily Tajik ANSF members. Since ethnicity is the basis of much of the internal conflict, that would be part of the problem, not its solution.

Once again, saying this is an exercise in common sense. The other great reason for the insurgency was the perception that the old civil war was a Pashtun-anti-Pashtun contest and that that condition did not change after the triumph of the Northern Alliance in 2o01. One again, stating the need for a frepresentative ANSF is also saying that had there not been the basis for insurgency in the first place, there would not have been an insurgency.

Then there is the common sense aspect of the continuing American presence. It should be obvious to all concerned that the United States armed forces are as much part of the problem as they are the solution in Afghanistan. Why? Because we are foreigners, or more precisely, foreign occupiers. That outsiders who overstay their welcome (which we certainly have to many Afghans) become the “enemy” rather than the “liberators” (the way we like to think of ourselves) only makes simple sense. If it does not to you, consider what you would think if your hometown were suddenly ruled by Pashtun tribesmen. Think you’d like that? 

The continuing presence also means two perverse dynamics that have been raised in earlier postings. One is that they become the poster children for Taliban recruitment, since the Taliban openly appeal for Afghans to join their ranks to throw out the occupiers. When Admiral Mike Mullen (chair of the JCS) referred to the “apparently inexhaustible” supply of Taliban recruits in the country, he failed to add that our presence helped make that supply available. The other is that the dependence the regime has upon the occupying forces to confront the insurgency and to survive is also testimony to the lack of independence the government has; to some, the government that collaborates with the outsiders is no more than a puppet at best, a quisling at worst. Our presence, one of the intended purposes of which is to promote legitimate government, does just the opposite to the extent that independence is part of the definition of good government held by the people.

One of the difficulties of the debate over the insurgency is the oft-repeated claim of privilege by its supporters–the problems are too technical and complicated for the public to understand and for public debate to inform. At the level of tactical operations, that may be true. At the more fundamental level of underlying goals, objectives, and strategy, however, much of the basis is really no more than an extension and application of commonsensical principles. And those of us on the outside do not demonstrably possess less of an understanding of common sense than those inside. Indeed, based on some of the advocacies and decisions being made, a case could be made that those inside the system suffer from a shortage of common sense.

Lipsticking Pigs in Afghanistan?

Two events over the weekend have dominated news from Afghanistan. One involves voting in the presidential election, results of which will not be final for several weeks but which have aroused much passionate rhetoric anyway. The other is the not very surprising conclusion by the  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the situation is going from bad to worse and that the only apparent solution is–gasp!–more American troops to save the day. In both cases, attempts to put the best possible face on events has borne a strong resemblance to lipsticking the pig.

First, the Presidential elections were held on Saturday. The issues going in were how many Afghans would vote, how effective the Taliban would be in suppressing the vote, whether the elections would be held fairly, and, of course, who would win. Each question was and remains a matter of controversy open to wildly different interpretations.

The first two questions are related: the more people voted, the less Taliban influence could be inferred, and vice versa. Early results have elicited contrasting interpretations. Apparently, about five million Afghans voted, out of 15 million registered and an overall population of 33 million. There was apparently great regional diversity: basically, very few people voted in the Pashtun, Taliban-dominated south, whereas there were comparatively large turnouts in parts of the country with a non-Pashtun majority (notably areas formerly controlled by the largely defunct Northern Alliance). The percentage of Afghans voting will certainly not send thrills up anyone’s spines, at one-third resembling the turnout for American local elections. Where the Taliban was not in control to threaten retaliation, it was better, but the very low turnout in Taliban-controlled elements suggest the Taliban is a force. I have not seen estimates of turnout from Helmand Province, the Taliban stronghold which the Marines sought to liberate to allow a large voter participation: the numbers of voters from Helmand should tell us quite a bit about the effectiveness of our strategy in the country.

The third and fourth questions are also related. There are already indications of voting irregularities, and Abdullah Abdullah, Hamid Karzai’s principal opponent who apparently lags in the vote, has accused the government of massive vote fraud. Sounds a lot like Iran. Two points might be noted. Karzai is a Pashtun (although one with whom rural Pashtuns do not much identify), voting was very low in Pashtun areas, and yet Karzai is apparently winning. Abdullah, on the other hand, is of mixed ethnic background (Pashtun father, Tajik mother), is closely associated with the Northern Alliance (he was their foreign minister for a time), voting was relatively high in those areas, and he is apparently losing. Draw your own conclusions. As to the winner, it will clearly not be western-style democracy.

While all this was going on, the military side of the war was proceeding along its increasingly Vietnam-like course. Mike Mullen announced on Sunday morning talk TV that the war continues to go poorly, that the Taliban are getting better and better at what they do, and that unless things change, the situation could become even more dire. The solution: more American troops! Moreover, expect General Stanley McChrystal (whose role has an increasingly William Westmoreland-like feel to it) to come back to the United States, hat in hand, and ask for more troops. Do not expect him to specify how a few more (e.g. 10,000 or so) will make any real difference, because a) they won’t make any real difference, and b) he knows it but wants to form the foundation for yet some more troops a little way down the road. Anyone who can find a happy ending in all of this is welcome to share it with me.

Are we putting lipstick on a pig that is inherently homely and is getting uglier by the minute? In other words, are positive interpretations about what is happening and what we are doing honest appraisals or wishful thinking? Politically, does this election, regardless of who wins, signal a real movement forward for Afghanistan, or is it mere kabuki for the American television audience? Probably a little of both, but which part predominates? Militarily, what would it really take for the United States to make a significant difference in the war in Afghanistan? Are 10,000 troops going to make a difference, or is a more realistic number more like 250,000? Once again, the answer is probably somewhere in between, but probably toward the high side.

In the end, it is my fear–and reluctant conclusion–that yes, we are slapping the Revlon lip gloss on the pig, and while it may make the pig look a little prettier for awhile, it will eventually wear off, and underneath, we will still find a swine.

Winning and Losing Counterinsurgencies

The current debate about President Obama’s decisions regarding troop levels and lengths of tenure in Afghanistan and Iraq have reopened the stunningly confusing and ill-conceived debate about whether the United States is “winning” or “losing” either or both of these conflicts. At one level, this debate is basically irrelevent; at another, it distorts what the key terms–synonyms for victory and defeat–mean in these kinds of wars.

The irrelevance comes from the recognition that it is the Iraqis and Afghans who will ultimately win or lose these wars, not the Americans. The side we back may prevail or be vanquished, and that may be conflated with victory or defeat for the United States, but that is a scorecard calculation. It is the Iraqis and Afghans, who will have to live with the outcomes and thus for whom winning and losing has real meaning. Ask yourself these questions: how will I, and by extrapolation, the American people be personally affected regardless of how either war comes out? how will the Afghans and Iraqis be affected by those outcomes? To the former question, the only positive answer has to be couched in terms of some heightened or lessened vulnerability to terrorist attacks that may or may not ever occur and which, if they do, may or may not be directly attributable to the wars’ outcomes. To the latter question, the answer can be a literal matter of life and death.

What constitutes victory or defeat is also a convoluted and confusing issue, but one with considerable emotional baggage that prejudices the debate. I know of nobody who, offered the alternatives, prefers defeat over victory. Thus, when any situation is described in those terms, it  automatically prejudices the debate toward those who wrap themselves in the cause of “winning.” As just discussed, it is helpful to understand who exactly is supposed to be winning. It is even more important to specify what winning means. In conditions of insurgency-counterinsurgency, that is not as easy as toting up how many runs a baseball teams has scored.

The current confusion most clearly surrounds Afghanistan, which is both clearly an insurgency (making the United States the counterinsurgents) and a contest where the U.S. is clearly not winning. The most recent purveyors of obfuscation about what that means include Senator John McCain and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. Both agree that the United State is not winning and that in counterinsurgency, “if you are not winning, you are losing.” Huh?

Two things need to be said about this analysis of the Afghan situation. Both start from the recognition that indeed the United States is not winning by any measure and that, in any personal or even physical sense, the United States cannot win this war.

The first comment is that winning and losing in insurgent wars are primarily NOT military determinations. As Lyndon Johnson put it so well during the Vietnam conflict, the crucial “battle” in insurgent warfare is over the “hearts and minds” of the subject population, in this case the Afghan people. The battle for loyalty is overwhelmingly a POLITICAL contest about which side the people want to see prevail. The only military contributions that can be made are either convincing the people that your side is a “winner” who deserves support, or preventing the other side from trumping the discussion by imposing its will by force on an otherwise reluctant population. In this regard, outside, foreign troops acting as counterinsurgents may actually work against the likelihood of the side they favor prevailing, because they will be identified by parts of the population as foreign devils occupying the country. The insurgents, on the other hand, will gain support because they are attempting to expel the invaders. Anyone who does not believe this dynamic is present in Afghanistan has not studied much Afghan history.

The other comment is about who wins and loses. The only real objective the United States has in Afghanistan is whether the post-war country will serve as a sanctuary for Al Qaeda. We back a regime that opposes Al Qaeda, but it is not entirely clear the U.S. is backing a winner here. Afghans say they do not like the Taliban, but they also dislike the Americans. In turn, the Taliban gains some of its support because it supports the Americans. Who will rule Afghanistan, which is what the war is actually all about (at least if you are an Afghan), is an Afghan, not an American matter. The United State may be able to declare victory if the side we back prevails (however unlikely that may be), but what if the side we favor is not the side the Afghans prefer? Does that mean the Afghans could lose while we win? Is that winning?

In the end, the confusing assessments by McCain and Mullen amount to an admission that one loses in counterinsurgency if the battle for the hearts and minds goes to the opposition. That is certainly the interpetation most students of counterinsurgncy would attach to notions of winning and losing. If that is the case and we are losing, it means we are not winning the battle of loyalties.

Therein lies the rub and what makes counterinsurgency so sifficult and frustrating. Sir Robert Thompson, the British hero of the Malay counterinsurgency of the late 1940s, made the point that an insurgency can never be won by foreign troops, because only natives of the country in which it is occurring can win the crucial battle for hearts and minds. Foreigners will, to some extent, always make matters worse because they are aliens. Overcoming that conundrum has always been the sticking point in counterinsirgency doctrine, and it is not a problem that anyone has satisfactorily overcome. That includes the United State in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, who’s winning? Clearly not the United States, but that is not the point. It is the Afghans and Iraqis who ultimately must win or lose in both cases, and they will be the ones who pay the price depending on winners and losers. Furthermore, phrasing the whole thing in terms of the U.S. winning and losing simply raises emotional hackles for us (we don’t want to lose) that may make it more likely that the people for whom this really matters (the Iraqis and Afghans) will ultimately lose.  Then who wins and who loses? Senator McCain? Admital Mullen? Your answers?