Winding Down in Afghanistan?

With the deficit ceiling crisis dominating the headlines (copmpeting with the Anthony murder trial and Murdoch family travails), events in Afghanistan have taken on a diminished level of public attention. Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, the poster child of corruption in the country, is murdered with scarcely a ripple, an apparent business-as-usual occurrence in the war (and country) that the United States has chosen to forget. But change may finally be in the wind, a breeze that will, with some luck, fill the sails for the American desert schooner to make its way out of that country’s morass.

The symbol of that change in the past week has been the changing of the guard at the Interntional Security Assistance Force/US Forces in Afghanistan (ISAF/USFOR-A) from General David Petraeus to Marine General John R. Allen. The move has enormous potential symbolic value. Petraeus has been the symbol of the American commitment to graft an apparently successful (apparently because the success will only be determined sometime in the future) counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy from Iraq to Afghanistan. For a variety of reasons, that application has been less than a total success; if anything, it more closely resembles the path to total failure. By hanging up his uniform and hopping aboard the plane for Washington and the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus has successfully extricated himself from the apparent impossibility to succeeding in Afghanistan, and the United States government can now quietly shelve the entire facade of COIN there and concentrate on the more pressing and realistic task of sneaking out of that country with minimal loss of face. General Allen has been given the unenviable task of overseeing this operation. He must have wanted the work pretty badly to have taken it.

Allen arrives with only a little COIN baggage, having served in Anbar Province in Iraq as part of the Sunni Awakening project that converted (or bought off) Sunni rebels who had been fighting the United States to fight Al Qaeda instead. Otherwise, he has held a variety of posts in the field, in Washington, and at Special Forces Command in Tampa. One of the most interesting notes on his resume is that he was the first Marine officer to command the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, a rare honor given the Navy’s proprietary attitude toward its academy. Accepting his new command, he has shown no illusions about the difficulty he faces which, in essence, is to try to preserve the illusion of progress with diminished resources as the American government quietly folds its tent and writesd off this particular quixotic adventure.

The official position of the Obama administration is that the United States will retain forces in Afghanistan through 2014, but don’t count on it, for several reasons. First, by now virtually everyone knows that Afghanistan is a mission impossible and that any real “victory” there is impossible regardless of how long we stay. Secretary Gates’ warning about abandoning the effort when we are “on the two-yard line” and ready to punch the ball in for the touchdown has virtually no resonance anymore; there is no indication gthat successor Leon Panetta has any particular passion for the Afghan task. Instead, the pressure, largely driven by negative public opinion fueled partially by wanting to get rid of the expense of Afghanistan (and Iraq) militates toward a faster withdrawal as long as the economy suffers. The last ditch of rationale for staying is that if we were to bring all the veterans home tomorrow, we would have no jobs for them, and they would contribute to the unemployment crisis. That is true, but unemployment benefits are cheaper than combat pay and support if we choose to extend any benefits to them (not to be taken as a given).

Given the polar positions of the parties on the deficit and debt, the only way to continue supporting the war is to find new money to pay for it. Paul Ryan and his hardy little band of libertarian fanatics, is not going to allow added taxation for such purposes, and AARP would have something to say about raiding entitlement programs to pay to kill Afghans. No new money in this case probably means the war effort is the victim. RIP.

Moreover, next year is–gasp!–an election year. It is hardly prescient to argue that the economic mess will dominate that event, and the war will only enter into it in small ways. For one thing, virtually everybody will argue that winding it down will save money that can be invested better domestically. Unfortunately, think of the peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. For another, the country is turning inward, and overseas involvements–especially expensive ones where Americans get killed for dubious gain–are not high on the agenda any candidate is likely to want to defend. Obama is stuck with the war because he escalated it (a decision I suspect he would like to have back), and thus must put on the brave face that we are actually accomplishing enough so that we can withdraw without abandoning our goals and admitting we have done all this essentially for nothing (which, arguably, we have). Even very conservative, pro-defense Republicans are not going to tie their fate to the war. The war has become a political pariah, and will likely be so treated in the 2012 campaign.

These dynamics suggest to me that the “schedule” for drawing down the American commitment will be accelerated between now and November 2012. The war, quite frankly, has no voting constituency and can be abandoned without short-term political consequences (the only kind that are really important in an election year). By election day, look for an American troop commitment about half what is projected today and an Obama pledge (which the GOP nominee, whoever that may be, will not publicly contravene) to get it down to zero combat troops sometime in 2013.

General Allen, of course, gets to oversee all this, while David Petraeus hunkers down in his Washington lawyer pin-striped suit at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Wish Allen well; he’s going to need all the help he can get.

Goldilocks and Afghanistan: How Big a Withdrawal?

President Obama’s stated promise to begin the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by July 2011, a commitment he made when he committed 30,000 additional troops to the war early in his presidency, is coming near. The major question is how large a withdrawal he will order, and what the consequences of whatever size drawdown he chooses, will be. He is, of course, suffering from no shortage of advice on what his decision should be, much of it tinged liberally with partisan political and iedological/strategic underpinnings. When one thinks about the prospects, an analogy between the situation and Goldilocks assessment of the three bears’ porridge may not be inappropriate.

What to do about Afghanistan has, unsurprisingly in this era of foreign policy hyper-partisanship, become a political fight that divides those who support continuing the war and those who do not (the latter being the preference of the majority of Americans in polling results). The arguments against the war–and thus for a large withdrawal that is the first step toward a total pullout (at least of ground combat forces)–tend to come from liberal Democrats, although parts of their arguments appeal more broadly. Supporters of the war and thus opponents of any substantial troop withdrawal tend to be conservative Republicans who believe either that the mission is too vital to be abandoned or compromised or who believe there has been adequate progress that a successful conclusion may be within reach. 

The two positions deserve at least some elaboration. The opponents, whose chief spokesman increasingly is Massachusetts senator John Kerry (chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Democratic nominee for president in 2004), make at least three separate arguments for pulling back. The first is that the United States cannot afford to continue to drop $10 billion a month into Afghanistan given current economic conditions at home. The expenses are particularly odious because they are inflated by the costs of “nation-building” associated with the Petraeus strategy of counterinsurgency, a cost that could be reduced with a smaller commitment with smaller troop numbers. Second, they argue the situation can be handled with a more concentrated effort aimed at the remnants of Al Qaeda, which requires neither large numbers of “muddy boots” on the ground nor the levels of financial resources currently being expended. Third, the scaling back is further justified by the successful elimination of Usama bin Laden (and subsequently his heir apparent), leaving the terrorist organization is some level of disarray. Not so openly discussed are the further assumptions that the war is probably unwinnable under any circumstances and that the Karzai government does not really warrant continuing American support (part of the reason the war is unwinnable).

Supporters, of course, disagree with this assessment. Their arguments are most sharply made by active participants in the war itself, notably Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General Petraeus. Both of these officials have argued that progress has been made but that it is, in a phrase first used by Petraeus but adopted by Gates, “fragile and reversible.” The heart of the argument is that real progress is being made and that a precipitous drawdown would endanger what has been accomplished. In Gates’ own words, “Far too much has been accomplished, at far too great a cost, to let the momentum slip away kust as the enemy is on its back foot.” In an interview with 60 Minutes, Gates drew a football analogy, warning against abandoning the field when the U.S. was on the enemy’s “two-yard line.” Critics, of course, find these descriptions of progress to be overblown.

It may be instructive that neither Gates nor Petraeus will be in their positions as the decision, whatever it may be, is being implemented. Leon Panetta, the current Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), has already been nominated to replace Gates as Secretary of Defense, and when questioned by senators (notably John McCain) about whether he agreed with the Gates assessment in confirmation hearings, he was noticeably circumspect in his answers. Petraeus has been tapped to replace Panetta to head an agency that has historically had a more jaundiced view of the Afghan adventure; his appointment also takes the general off the hook as the commander of what may be a sinking ship.

So what will the president decide? As usual in the hyper-partisan atmosphere that dominates Washington, it is a “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t” set of choices. He cannot avoid withdrawals altogether, because to do so would be politically too injurious, reneging on a public promise and alienating his natural constituent base on the left. He cannot order a massive withdrawal, because doing do runs the risk of the entire enterprise going south before the 2012 election, and certainly inflaming the core of the GOP right. That leaves him with options inside the extremes, ranging from a token to a moderate to a sizable reduction. So what will the President choose to do?

The pressures are both strategic and political. Strategically, it boils down to a dichotomy that favors the extremes. If the war is important, progress is being made, and a favorable outcome is within reach (essentially the Gates argument), then it makes sense to continue and thus order only a token reduction (say 10,000 of the 30,000 added previously by Obama). If who governs Afghanistan is not important to the U.S., progress is not really being made, and the prospects are endlessly indecisive, then it makes equal sense to cut our losses and get out as fast as possible. Thus, a maximum withdrawal is the answer. The problem is that there is not great agreement on any of the conditions (importance, progress, end state), making a decisive strategic decision difficult to make.

The political pressures all point to the 2012 election. What decision will most help/least hurt the president’s reelection prospects? Since almost no one publicly argues the war will be over (especially favorably) between now and then, the question is what action today will have the least injurious effects on the election then? Since we cannot ramp up an instant victory, that means adopting an approach that will result in the smallest possible losses and, most critically, that insures the situation will not have visibly deteriorated between now and election day 2012. That suggests a moderate withdrawal–enough not to look entirely like a token, but not enough to throw the situation into peril. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a porridge that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right. How does a reduction of 15-20,000 sound?

“What Is America Waiting For?” in Libya

The question cited in the title is a quote from today’s (3/13/11) Washington Post attributed to a civilian in one of the Libyan cities now anticipating an attack by the forces of Col. Qadhafi. It is a plaintive plea for help in a situation that may be starting to unravel, as forces loyal to (or bought by) the Libyan strongman seem to have slowed or stopped the momentum of the populist uprising against it and may be starting to reverse that momentum.

The situation could become bleak indeed if there is no outside assistance to the rebels, a point they seem to understand. They want, even need, assistance if they are to have any chance to continue to contend for power; right now, the preponderance of brute force is not on their side. The Libyan government has the country’s armed forces on its side, and unlike Egypt, their support has not wavered nor have they shown any reluctance to use force to put down the rebellion. The armed, essentially disorganized youth who make up the resistance seem to understand this and vow to fight on to the death. That determination reflects their idealism and hatred for the Qadhafi tyranny, but it probably also a realistic assessment that they will be treated harshly if the government wins; rebels are rarely treated with equanimity when they lose, and Qadhafi is likely to be particularly brutal if given the chance.

By now, it should be clear that Libya will not turn out like Egypt (however, in the long run, that turns out). That being the case, simply standing on the sidelines and yelling encouragement is not enough for the United States and Europe, if we are truly convinced, as President Obama has said, that Qadhafi must go. But what can we, or should we, do?

The intervention option is being touted increasingly from predictable quarters: neo-conservatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz, reflexive hawks like John McCain, so-called “liberal interventionists” like John Kerry, for instance. All want the United States to lead the international imposition of a no-fly zone, the semi-response of choice. The argument is that it is a low-cost, high-yield solution; it is also wrong. As already noted in this space, such a commitment is open-ended in an environment wherein the U.S. hardly needs additional military commitments. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also calmly pointed out that such an action means effectively declaring war on the Libyans, since establishing the zone would require first attacking and destroying Libyan air defenses–an act of war. Could the United States really sustain what could become another long, convoluted military commitment in that part of the world?

Any proposed response must answer three questions. The first is to whom assistance is to be rendered. As far as I can tell, no one has an answer to that more specific than to “the people.” Sorry, that is not enough, and it is unclear that there is anything coherent enough about the resistance to Qadhafi to form a force with which one could coordinate a military effort. We know who we might fight AGAINST; it is not clear we know who we would fight FOR.

The second question is what outcome we would be fighting for. That question also goes back to the nature and objectives (if any beyond overthrowing Qadhafi) that the insurgents hold. They say they are fighting for freedom, and the Arab League has endorsed them as the “legitimate” government of Libya, a move that could prove awkward if Qadhafi prevails.But what will freedom look like? Will it be a fully democratic regime? An Islamist religious state (e.g. Iran)? A new Arab dictatorship? Chaos? Since the movement lacks any coherent leadership, it could be any of the above, and that makes American assistance an effective act of Russian roulette. That may be enough for Joe Lieberman, but is it enough for the rest of us?

The third question, assuming the first two can be answered positively, is what kind of aid would we provide? The United States can provide naval and air support from the U.S. fleet in the Mediterranean, but much more would require European participation–even leadership–that the European members of NATO would have to put up. To this point, they have shown little enthusiasm for the endeavor; it may be that it will take the first boatloads of refugees washing on shore in Sicily after their 170-mile voyage to convince the Italians that maybe they really should think this through. Taking charge of Libyan air space (the no-fly zone) is certainly part of that, but is it enough in the face of the imbalance between Libya’s organized armed forces and a motley crew of rebels? If it isn’t, what is the West prepared to do?

There is another concern that must be faced if the uprising falls apart, as is at least possible. What if Col. Qadhafi turns the rout of the rebels into a recriminatory bloodbath the results of which inevitably leak into Western public attention (which they almost certainly would)? The pressure at that point to “do something” would be very difficult to resist, but would it be too late?  The precedent of Kosovo in the late 1990s comes to mind, and it is cautionary. The United States took essentially unilateral action and stopped the slaughter, but Kosovo has hardly been anybody’s idea of a big success since.

There is a short answer to the plaintive plea, “What is America waiting for?” It is that we are trying to figure out what we can and what we should do. What we ideally should do is turn the whole thing over to Europe, as argued here last week. That answer is certainly defensible, but it runs into the objective that Europe’s answer is essentially to do nothing. Maybe that is the right answer, but it certainly leaves the Libyan rebels at the potential mercy of Qadhafi, who is unlikely to show much compassion to those who would have him deposed.

That leaves a quandary. We can intervene (the U.S., the U.S. and Europe, or Europe alone), help overturn Qadhafi, and hope his successor regime is a creation of which we can be proud–or at least tolerant. Lots of uncertainties there. Or, we can all stand on the sidelines and hope for the best. At worst, the result is a humanitarian disaster; at best, it is a successful revolution whose victors are less than grateful to us for we did not do. Neither is a very attractive alternative. Is there another solution somewhere in between?

Remembering Ike: Deficits and Defense

In his farewell address to the country shortly before leaving office, President Dwight D. (“Ike”) Eisenhower warned of the pernicious effects of a defense establishment that becomes too large and too powerful. He described this problem in terms of the “military-industrial complex,” the relationship between the Department of Defense, large military contractors, and their Congressional and retired military supporters. His basic warning was that unless controlled, this complex would swallow up American resources at an unacceptable, pernicious rate and actually endanger rather than reinforce national security.

The basis for Ike’s assertions regarding the effect of large defense spending on national security was his belief that the necessary underpinning of a strong national security environment was a healthy economy, and that a healthy economy in turn required a balanced budget, which out-of-control defense spending undermined.

Eisenhower’s words were, of course, uttered slightly over a half-century ago, but they still have resonance, possibly particularly so in an era of enormous, and growing, government debt fueled by enormous budget deficits that everyone in Washington decries but no one in Washington seems to have any serious interest in reining in. We are all familiar with the laments about current trends in projections, and nothing I can add would do much to improve the general sense of expressed malaise. I can, however, add a dissident perspective on how to approach the problem.

As politicians from both parties have put forward what pass as plans to reduce the deficit, one area that has consistently ignored or underanalyzed is the budget of the U.S. Department of Defense and the other governmental budgets (e.g. Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs) that contribute to expenditures on generic national security. Certainly, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (whose tenure will, sadly, end this year) has proposed minor cuts: $78 billion over five years. These cuts, he quickly adds to avoid howls of weakening national security and leaving us at the mercy of our predatory enemies, are not savings, however, but really only ways to shift spending from less to more productive means. Calls for real cuts remain outside the mainstream of discussions.

The exemption of defense cuts from proposals to reduce government spending and thus reduce deficits is notable, since it is hard to conceive how any meaningful deficit reductions can occur without major DOD (and associated agency) reductions, for two reasons. First, the amount of government resources devoted to defense is huge: the base budget for FY 2010 was $533 billion, and when “overseas contingency operations” (OCOs or spending on overseas operations like Afghanistan and Iraq not totally encompassed in the base budget) are included, that number jumps to $664 billion. Requests for FY 2011, on which the Congress has not yet acted, are larger: base budget plus OCOs have a price tag of $721 billion. If one adds all the other budgets that are arguably attached to national security (Homeland Security, Vaterans Affairs, etc.) that number approaches $1 trillion. Add to that the interest on debt accumulation for past defense deficits, and the number is between $1.1 and 1.5 trillion,depending on where borrowed money is accounted). This is not chump change. Second, over half the so-called federal “discretionary budget” that everyone agrees should be the first object of cutting is for defense, and proposals (especially from the GOP) almost uniformly exclude these from the budget cutter’s axe.

These numbers return us to Eisenhower’s contention. Those who defend huge defense budgets generally do so on the basis that they are necessary to keep the country safe from our enemies, and that any large cuts would leave us unacceptably, even unconscionably,vulnerable to the predators out there. Setting aside that these arguments may not stand up to close inspection across the board, they ignore Eisenhower’s entreaty, which suggests, to paraphrase Walt Kelly’s words spoken through Pogo, that he has met the enemy, “and he is us.” The essence of this argument is, I think, that the enormous budgets devoted to defense are actually HURTING national security rather than helping it because of their contribution to the deficit. If you do not believe that defense is making an impact, figures for last year conclude that while defense made up only 19 percent of US government expenditures, it constituted 28 percent of government revenues. The remaining 9 percent, by whatever accounting, is deficit spending.

I have no specific plans for reducing the defense budget, which is beyond my personal area of expertise. I do, however, believe that if the country is serious (and it is not at all clear to me that it is beyond the purely rhetorical level) about returning to an area of fiscal responsibility defined in terms Ike would approve, then Defense must play a meaningful part. Such participation would require some major rethinking of American priorities in such things as the extent and quality of American overseas power projections (English translation: deciding that maybe we can’t afford wars in places like Iraq or Afghanistan): funds for OCOs would almost certainly be a victim. Overseas spending reductions are just an example, of course, if one really questions how the United States spends money on defense. The alternative is to ignore Ike, which is to say to raise the white flag over serious attention to Ike’s advocacy of balanced budgets. At the risk of putting words in the general’s mouth, budgetary restraint may be among the higher forms of patriotism, not unfettered defense spanding. Readers’ views are welcomed!

Afghanistan and the Election

David Wood’s Politics Daily column today is worthy of the Halloween day 2010 in which it was published: a scary tale. In the column, Wood points out that among all the “issues” (such as they are) being debated in this off-year campaign, one is conspicuously missing: the war in Afghanistan. Despite public opinion polls that show a solid majority of Americans oppose continuing the contest and the fairly obvious lack of military progress against the Taliban, what to do about American presence in the mountainous Asian country long the grave yard of invaders does not seem to be an electoral matter at all.

Why not? At one level, it reflects simple political reality in this country. Americans may quietly oppose the war, but giving voice to that opposition is politically explosive, especially from the political right. If one supports ending the war, that person risks the wrath of the John McCain conservative wing of the GOP, which will scream appeasement, “cut-and-run,” and other incendiary epithets intended to raise serious questions about the opponent’s loyalty and patriotism–whether such criticism is justified or not. If one supports the war, libertarians likes the Pauls join hands with progressive Democrats to offer equally scathing invective about the futility of the war or minding our own business. A Democrat (Obama) can oppose the war, satisfy the party base, and be labeled a leftist pinko soft of terrorism. If the same Obama supports the war, the base is alienated and does not turn out on Tuesday. These are two losing hands to be dealt, and the politically prudent response has been to quietly fold, hope for the best in the nascent peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban, and continue a status quo that pleases no one but also does not create much electoral rancor, as the current apathy demonstrates.

This division as the basis for apathy is a kind of insider Washington basis and evades the more basic possible cause for voter indifference, and that is the detachment the American people have toward the war (which is the real gist of the Wood piece).

The simple fact is that Afghanistan is NOT the American people’s war. It is, in the increasingly bitter language of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (as quoted in the article), “a distinctly unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them (the public) personally.” And he is right. As Wood points out, less than one percent of Americans agree to do military service, and since no American has been compelled into involuntary military service since 1972 (when the selective service system of conscription was allowed to lapse), that means that over 99 percent of the public never faces the prospect of being forced to come to grips with the question of whether participation in that war is worth their personal prospect of possible death in the name of the cause. Moreover, Wood asserts that less than 12 members of Congress currently have children in the military, meaning they do not have to face the prospect that their support may entail sending their own progeny to their deaths on Rudyard Kipling’s “Afghan plain.”

Would the issue be more salient if Americans had the ultimate prospect of service in Afghanistan hanging over their heads? If the Vietnam memory has any salience, those most vulnerable to induction certainly would express an opinion: 18-24 year-old males were the only demographic category that opposedVietnam consistently during the war. College campuses were, of course, the hot bed of that opposition, and weekly anti-Vietnam rallies were an ongoing part of campus existence. Try to find or organize an anti-Afghanistan rally on a campus today, and the response will be massive numbers of stifled yawns. The students who provided the involuntary cannon fodder of previous wars know they are in no danger of being used in that role. So who cares?

This situation is, in my view, appalling. As argued consistently in this space, there are abundant good reasons for the United States to get out of Afghanistan. The lack of any realistic prospect of success and the killer economic burden of the war are the two most obvious, but neither of these have sufficient resonance politically to cause us to change course. Why? On one hand, the smallest imputation of opposition raises a bevy of self-styled patriots who will call the opponent every right-wing name in the book. On the other, the natural opposition–those who might be forced involuntarily to carry out the continuing madness–know they won’t be forced to make any sacrifice in the name of the cause.

Is there a way out of this? Possibly the Afghans, sick to death as they all seem to be with their American guests who are incapable of realizing they have overstayed their welcome, will agree to enough of a peace agreement to give the administration a graceful excuse to exit. The other possibility is American opinion rising in opposition. For that to happen, some means of personalizing the war must be found. The most obvious candidate is reviving the draft, but if one thinks opposing the war causes a political firestorm, trying grabbing the conscription tiger by the tail and see what happens.

The voters will speak on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they will have nothing to say about the war in Afghanistan. What a shame.