Hope is Not a Foreign Policy » Afghanistan

Mattis is a Great Pick to be CENTCOM Commander

Tom Skypek — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:23:27 +0000

U.S. Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, who currently serves as the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, has been selected to lead U.S. Central Command. This is an outstanding pick by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Mattis is an exemplary general officer and a true strategic thinker. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is beating up on Mattis for some comments he’s made in the past about warfare. His remarks were candid and, unfortunately, have been taken out of context. One misleading headline reads: “James Mattis: ‘It’s fun to shoot some people.’” Here’s the context for the quote:

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years, because they didn’t wear a veil. You know guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot ‘em.

I know this might come as a surprise to some people but our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan are not good people. They intentionally target and kill civilians. They are the types who think it’s okay to slaughter innocent men, women, and children. They hold the nineteen hijackers who killed nearly three-thousand Americans on September 11, 2001 in high esteem. They treat women as second-class citizens and view it as their duty to kill Christians and Jews.

So Mattis isn’t politically correct; he’s a warrior and he’s exactly the type of man I want defending this country. It’s a blessing that we have men like James Mattis and it’s a travesty that his reputation be marred in anyway by a handful of so-called journalists. The Senate should waste no time in confirming General Mattis.

Steele’s Failed Critique Highlights Division Among Conservatives on War Strategy

Tom Skypek — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:18:38 +0000

In 2006, I was really pulling for Michael Steele in his battle to win a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. Unfortunately, Ben Cardin won and Steele wound up running the Republican National Committee. Steele’s odd remarks about the war in Afghanistan have led to a growing number of calls for his resignation among prominent conservatives. The war in Afghanistan was definitely not a war of President Barack Obama’s choosing, as Steele suggested in his remarks at a Connecticut fundraiser. This factual inaccuracy made the rest of Steele’s comments seem off-the-wall, but it appears as though he was trying to challenge the president’s strategy for prosecuting the war. He just failed miserably:

Well if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan. Alright? Because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan without committing more troops.

To an extent, Steele is right: historically, Afghanistan is where great powers go to die. Some conservatives view the current strategy for the war in Afghanistan as fundamentally flawed–myself included. Our political objectives in Afghanistan are unclear and it is unlikely that we have the long-term political will to stay in Afghanistan for the time that’s required, nor the will to allocate the requisite number of troops. George Will wrote a great op-ed last year in which he argued that airpower, rather than land power, may be sufficient to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan. Steele, however, failed to present clearly a viable alternative to a land-based, counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy for Afghanistan. His hollow critique lacked credibility because of his factually inaccurate statement about the genesis of the war. Conservatives are split on the issue of Afghanistan and the Steele flap highlights this division. At face value, the conservative uproar is focused on Steele’s bogus suggestion that America elected to fight this war, unprompted. The real issue is the division on strategy among conservatives. Because Steele did such a poor job of communicating this alternative viewpoint, this division remains largely unexplored.

Very simply, the RNC needs a chairman who can raise lots of money and who can present clear, and viable policy alternatives to the current administration. The RNC chairman doesn’t need to be a foreign policy expert, but he/she needs to present his/her ideas in a clear and unambiguous manner. Steele has been unable to do this on several occasions.

What I care about most are the November elections. Right now, conservatives are tracking to make impressive gains in the House and Senate. The Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration are imploding politically. Their liberal ideology is simply incompatible with an electorate that is, at the end of the day, center-right. So while Steele is an imperfect chairman, selecting at a new high-profile chairman at this time could become an unnecessary distraction from November. Every minute spent on Michael Steele is less time that’s spent thinking about how to win in November. Steele’s definitely no Lee Atwater or Haley Barbour, but I don’t have any better suggestions at the moment. Mitt Romney is an outstanding administrator and would do well, but the legacy of his government health care program in Massachusetts would render his opposition to nationalized medicine impotent. Plus, he would probably view the gig as a demotion–going from serious presidential candidate to party chairman. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Part of me thinks that Romney could be a powerhouse at the helm of the RNC. I’m just not sure how he would be able to handle the health care issue. This is the same issue that could potential hobble his 2012 ambitions.

Karzai’s Ingratitude

Tom Skypek — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:02:01 +0000

From the AP:

President Hamid Karzai urged NATO to do more to protect civilians during combat operations to secure Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold and scene of the biggest allied ground assault of the eight-year war.

NATO forces have repeatedly said they want to prevent civilian casualties but acknowledged that it is not always possible. On Saturday, the alliance said its troops killed another civilian in the Marjah area, bringing the civilian death toll from the operation to at least 16.

Addressing the opening session of the Afghan parliament in Kabul, Karzai held up a picture of an 8-year-old girl who lost 12 relatives in a NATO rocket attack during the second day of the Marjah assault, which began Feb. 13.

This type of ingratitude from Karzai is unacceptable. 979 Americans have died fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. Obviously, NATO forces are working to limit civilian casualties. Karzai, who is essentially a corrupt thug himself, should be happy the Taliban isn’t still ruling his country. Why don’t his countrymen step up to the plate and fight these bastards? The only reason the United States is there in the first place is because his backwards nation ran itself into the ground. They let Islamist pigs, known as the Taliban, take over and the Taliban let Usama bin Laden and Co. set up shop.

NATO is trying to secure his country so that the Afghan people can enjoy liberty but they refuse to fight for themselves. President Obama should remind Mr. Karzai that the only reason he still has a head is because of American security. Remember, Islamists are the civilized folk who cut the heads of off those with whom they disagree.

How the Obama administration’s lack of credibility is weakening U.S. national security

Tom Skypek — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:28:32 +0000

Since January 20, 2009, American credibility has taken a back seat to the Obama administration’s quest for international popularity. During his trips to the Middle East and Asia last year, President Obama seemed more interested in bolstering his approval ratings abroad than advancing American interests. Last week it was reported that the Obama administration downgraded the priority placed on intelligence collection for China in an effort to increase cooperation with Beijing. This move was made despite the fact that Chinese cyberattacks against the U.S. are on the rise and the leadership in Beijing remains reticent about its massive military modernization program.

Unfortunately, U.S. national security is more dependent on the credibility of American power—and the words and policies of its commander-in-chief—than international popularity. In foreign affairs, credibility matters. Hollow threats and naïve policies embolden our adversaries while broken commitments lead our friends and allies to question our resolve. During the first year in power, the Obama administration has damaged American credibility with its mishandling of American national security policy.

Ft. Hood Terrorist Attack and Northwest Flight 253. The President’s sluggish response to both incidents was unfortunate, but what was far worse was his failure to identify both attacks for what they were—part of an international campaign by Islamic extremists to kill Americans. After Army Major Nadal Hassan murdered 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood last November, President Obama cautioned against a rush to judgment—despite immediate and overwhelming evidence that Hassan was indeed a jihadist. Obama would later refer to the Nigerian man who attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day as “an isolated extremist.” This message of obfuscation is not one of strength and only serves to weaken American credibility. If we’re too timid to identify our adversaries, then how can we effectively prosecute a war against them?

The Afghanistan Decision. It took President Obama three months to make a decision on whether or not to increase troop levels in Afghanistan after his commanding general in Afghanistan (whom he selected) appealed to him for additional troops or risk a mission failure. Obviously, it is incumbent upon a commander-in-chief to carefully weigh all of his options when the use of force and American lives are at stake. But dawdling for three months after the commanding general has communicated, in no uncertain terms, that a failure to provide additional troops may jeopardize the mission is unacceptable. Such dithering only serves to paint the picture of an indecisive commander-in-chief. Indecision hampers American credibility.

Nuclear Weapons and a START Follow-On. The dramatic reduction of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the movement toward a nuclear-free world quickly became one of President Obama’s signature foreign policy issues. In a speech in April 2009, he pledged to reduce significantly the U.S. nuclear stockpile as a first step toward a nuclear-free world. The problem is that his lofty policy ideas are simply incompatible with the U.S.’s need to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. While the United States nuclear weapons complex is deteriorating in every respect, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are investing heavily in their own nuclear weapons complexes. Without credibility, deterrence will fail.

Missile Defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. Warsaw and Prague learned the hard way that under the Obama administration sometimes adversaries are treated better than allies. President Obama’s decision to scrap a missile defense agreement negotiated by his predecessor with the Polish and the Czech governments was yet another credibility-busting policy maneuver. Both Poland and the Czech Republic bent over backwards to support Washington; both countries wanted the European missile defense sites to defend against Iranian ballistic missiles. The message to U.S. allies: Don’t count on the United States to keep its word.

The Iranian Nuclear Program. President Barack Obama’s December 31^st deadline for Iran to accept the terms of the UN-crafted deal over its nuclear program has come and gone, without any real consequences for the regime in Tehran. After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly mocked the year-end deadline, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs warned on December 22^nd that Washington’s ultimatum was “a very real deadline.” This latest deadline should not be confused with the very similar deadline President Obama set in July of last year that called for Iran to show “good faith” efforts toward disarmament by September 2009. The Iranians have faced no substantive consequences for failing to comply with these deadlines. The real consequence of these hollow threats? A deterioration of American credibility.

Closing Gitmo and the Prosecution of CIA Operatives. Days after taking office, President Obama made clear his commitment to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. In August 2009, President Obama tasked Attorney General Eric Holder with investigating CIA operatives who used enhanced interrogation techniques during the Bush administration. Of course, both policy reversals were meant to assuage international opinion about perceived American “excesses” in the fight against Islamic extremism under the administration of George W. Bush. The message to the rest of the world: this is not the Bush administration. While this message might have pleased the Davos crowd and certain constituencies within the United States, this made clear that the Obama administration viewed the struggle against Islamic extremism much differently than its predecessor.

Trying Terrorists in Civilian Courts. The administration’s decision to try terrorists in civilian courts may placate the American Civil Liberties Union but at a tremendous cost to U.S. national security. As Charles Krauthammer recently noted, individuals who do not wear the uniform of a nation-state and launch direct attacks on civilians are enemy combatants and should not be afforded the same rights as American citizens. The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that the prosecutions of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspirators created a false impression that the U.S. criminal justice system was the proper venue in which to deal with terrorists.[i]

These decisions, taken individually or together, have only served to weaken American credibility abroad—not to mention they’ve been wholly ineffective. Have these policies convinced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to abandon his nuclear weapons program, Osama bin Laden to renounce terrorism, or Russia and China to support a comprehensive sanctions package against Iran? Hollow threats and obfuscation embolden our enemies, weaken our bargaining positions and leave Washington with fewer policy options. What is more, a continued reduction in American credibility may lead our friends and allies to reassess their defense and security relationships with the United States. It’s not too late for a course-correction but unless the White House begins to place a greater commitment on building American credibility rather than tearing it down, President Obama runs the risk of becoming another Jimmy Carter.

[i]The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 72.

The Best and the Brightest v2.0

Tom Skypek — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:28:46 +0000

President John F. Kennedy and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, 1962

David Halberstam’s 1972 book, The Best and the Brightest, chronicles the origins of the Vietnam War in the Kennedy administration and the conduct and escalation of the war during the Johnson administration. More specifically, it examines how Camelot’s “best and the brightest” got U.S. policy in Southeast Asia so wrong. After all, how could so many smart and capable individuals make such poor foreign policy decisions?

Haunted by the specter of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the perception that the Democrat’s were responsible for “losing China” to the communists in 1949, the Kennedy administration drew a line against communism in Southeast Asia. However, the policies of minimalist incrementalism that prevailed throughout the 1960s in the conduct of the war resulted in a strategic defeat for the United States.

Today, President Barack Obama must make what is most likely the toughest decision of his life in deciding how to proceed in Afghanistan. Will he fully fund the war effort and provide General Stanley McChrystal with the 40,000 additional troops he’s requested or will he withdraw all ground forces and opt for an offshore counter-terrorism strategy advocated by George Will? He’ll probably do neither. He’ll probably split the difference and provide a few more combat brigades, but not what his commander’s requesting. Unfortunately, this will be tantamount to placing a band-aid on a laceration.

As I’ve said in previous posts, you can conduct strategy reviews until you’re blue in the face but at some point, if you’re the commander in chief, you need to make a decision. This is not a new issue for the White House or the Obama team. Obama railed against John McCain and George W. Bush during the 2008 presidential campaign on the issue of Afghanistan.

In Vietnam, Washington’s policy of minimalist incrementalism failed. Today, that same policy is failing in Afghanistan. Either Afghanistan is vital to U.S. national security or it’s not. If it is, then the war effort should be fully resourced and not fought on the cheap. If Afghanistan is not vital to U.S. national security, then U.S. strategy could be revamped. Obama’s foreign policy team is filled with many capable and talented individuals such as General Jim Jones and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, but the Obama administration is running the risk of repeating the mistakes made by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

A middle-of-the-road approach is the most politically palatable option for the White House. Many Americans are tired of the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan and do not want to send more troops. On the other hand, many Americans would perceive a withdrawal as “cutting and running.” Neither course of action would be popular politically. Unfortunately, the most politically tenable option is arguably the worst policy choice when you consider its long-term prospects for achieving a satisfactory outcome in Afghanistan. Right now, the military is trying to fight a war with one hand tied behind its back.

Obama Hits Links for 24th Time, Still No Decision on Afghanistan

Tom Skypek — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:23:18 +0000

Hopefully President Obama also budgeted some of his time on Sunday to thinking about Afghanistan. President Obama went golfing for the 24th time since taking office yesterday. Former President George W. Bush was in office almost three years before reaching the same milestone. Maybe a little less golf and a little more decision-making is in order for the Commander in Chief. What’s the big story for the media? President Obama went golfing with his Domestic Policy Advisor, Melody Barnes. Glad to see the media has their priorities straight.

Ian Bremmer on Afghanistan, China’s Recovery

Tom Skypek — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:20:43 +0000

Some interesting points from Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, on U.S. foreign policy and the global economy. A couple of key takeaways from the interview:

1. Bremmer thinks that Obama will indeed support some type of troop surge in Afghanistan. However, he notes that while a “consesus” approach might work in Washington it won’t work in Afghanistan.

2. China’s economic recovery has been impressive, recently posting third quarter GDP growth of 8.9%.

“Dithering” from the Commander in Chief

Tom Skypek — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:35:15 +0000

Not only is the The White House dithering in its war-time decision-making, as former Vice President Dick Cheney noted the other evening, but it’s also being downright disingenuous about Afghanistan. General Stanley McCrystal delivered his recommendation to the White House at the end of August. He was frank in his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan: Without additional troops, the U.S. will be unable to achieve its mission objectives in Afghanistan. A satisfactory outcome in Afghanistan will be out of reach for Washington.

Clearly, it is important for decision-makers to understand fully each potential course of action. However, you can do strategy reviews until you’re blue in the face but at some point you need to make a real decision. In the highly acclaimed HBO television series Band of Brothers, Sgt. Lipton, commenting on his inept commanding officer, explains, “Lt. Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions, he was a bad leader because he made no decisions.“ How many troops have lost their lives since McCrystal asked the White House for more troops? I think upwards of 100. Sure, at the end of the day history will judge Obama by the outcome of the conflict and not by his decision-making process. At the same time, he can’t vote “present” like he did so many times in the Illinois Legislature to avoid taking a position on a contentious issue. This is the biggest decision of Obama’s life and probably his presidency.

Here’s where the disingenuousness comes into play, during last year’s presidential campaign, Obama argued that Afghanistan was the forgotten war and that he’d remedy eight years of neglect, so it’s not like this is a new issue for Obama and his team. The Obama team made this a core theme of their campaign and took every opportunity to slam George W. Bush and John McCain. Obama has said that Afghanistan was in dire straights for more than one year, so to act like our current problems in Afghanistan are new just isn’t accurate. What’s more, the Obama administration conducted a major strategy review on Afghanistan in the spring–and to what end because here we are six months down the road hemming and hawing about what exactly to do.

Obama should either fully support McCrystal’s troop request or we should pull out of Afghanistan altogether because half-measures won’t work and keeping our troops in harm’s way without fully resourcing the war effort is immoral. Our objective in Afghanistan was to destroy al Qaeda’s ability to plan and launch attacks on the U.S. and its interests. This campaign has morphed into an underfunded nation-building effort. If you’re going to engage in nation-building, it must be fully resourced. Half-measures simply will not work when it comes to nation-building. George Will recommended adopting more limited objectives in Afghanistan and an approach requiring fewer land forces “… using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikesand small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.” There are advocates of both the Will school and the McCrstyal school. These seem to be the most viable courses of action.

But the decision should rest, ultimately, on our national strategy. How does the Afghanistan campaign fit into Washington’s overarching national strategy? Our grand strategy? Weren’t these questions asked during the strategy review conducted in the spring? What exactly did the review analyze? The domestic political implications of the Afghanistan campaign and their impact on the 2012 re-election campaign? The White House is clearly afraid of a volatile reaction from the far left if he agrees to support McCrystal’s request. But the far left seems to have given a pass to Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan (save for Cindy Sheehan who’s still going strong, but not getting the media coverage she once enjoyed. I’m sure it has nothing to do with who’s currently president…)

At the end of the day, Obama cannot vote “present” on Afghanistan. He’s going to need to make a decision sooner or later.

Half-Measures in Afghanistan

Tom Skypek — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:35:52 +0000

Stephen Biddle has an outstanding piece in The New Republic today where he cautions against adopting a middle-of-the-road approach to Afghanistan. Biddle explains:

None of the usual middle-way proposals are thus likely to be effective as alternatives to reinforcement. Many are potentially important components of an integrated, properly resourced COIN strategy. But to pull pieces out of this integrated context and undertake them as substitutes for major troop deployments is to deny them essential preconditions they need to function. The pieces of orthodox COIN strategy interact: security enables development and governance, development and governance enhance security, governance facilitates counterterrorism, counterterrorism improves security, security enables negotiation and reconciliation. Each is a valuable complement to the others; none is a viable substitute. Integrated COIN is itself no guarantee of success. Social scientists have estimated its success rate at somewhere between 25 and 70 percent at best. But middle ways are even less promising because they lack the key enablers of an integrated strategy and the synergies that result.

Of course, the United States could in principle pursue the current COIN mission in Afghanistan with only the forces already committed. (At present, there are almost 68,000 U.S. troops, 35,000 non-U.S. foreign soldiers, 90,000 Afghan troops, and 80,000 Afghan police.) But muddling through a COIN strategy with insufficient resources increases the risk of failure, while leaving an already large and burdensome U.S. presence in place. Balancing cost and risk is central to the whole issue of U.S. strategy. General McChrystal‘s own troop request is reportedly framed as a choice between a large option offering the lowest risk, and a much smaller reinforcement with greater risks. No reinforcement at all would increase those risks accordingly. But, whereas many of the other proposed “middle ways“ would at least reduce the burden dramatically in exchange, muddling through with an under-resourced version of integrated COIN would increase the danger of ending up in the worst of all worlds, with enough force deployed to be a heavy burden on the military, the budget, and the patience of Afghans and Americans, but not enough force to succeed. In other words, we might fail expensively rather than cheaply.

In a world of probabilities rather than guarantees, no strategy can ensure success. But integrated COIN offers a higher probability of success than any of the proposed middle ways; middle ways are cheaper, but also likelier to fail. The result is not a single, analytically derivable right and true answer for U.S. strategy–instead, we face a hard value judgment in choosing between better odds at a higher price or worse odds at a lower cost. What analysis does show, however, is that there is no middle way that offers COIN‘s odds without its sacrifices. Years of neglect and error have produced a situation in South Asia where none of the available options offers an easy or palatable way out of a difficult set of dilemmas. It is understandable that Americans would like a cheaper way to secure U.S. interests in Afghanistan than reinforcement and COIN; it is far less clear that a middle way exists that can accomplish this.

At the end of the day, if Washington continues to fight the war in Afghanistan “on the cheap,” the risk of failure increases significantly.

Overseas Contingency Operation

Tom Skypek — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:05:23 +0000

Overseas Contingency Operation–that’s the Obama administration’s new name for the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Perhaps GWOT wasn’t the best descriptor for the global conflict against Islamic Extremism, but it seemed to capture the key elements (such as the scope of the conflict and adversary). If anything, it lacked specificity in that it did not identify the adversary as clearly as it could have. From FOXNews.com:

The Obama administration has ordered an end to use of the phrase “Global War on Terror,” a label adopted by the Bush administration shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

In a memo sent this week from the Defense Department’s office of security to Pentagon staffers, members were told, “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”

I can only speculate as to why exactly the Obama administration thought that this was a good idea. It probably has something to do with their desire to improve “the U.S. image abroad.” What this is, however, is political correctness. The U.S. needs to speak candidly and realistically about threats to our national security. Obfuscation and ambiguity is dangerous. The Secretary of Homeland Security has also stopped using the word terrorism, instead using “man-caused” disaster. As Conservative Punk notes, that probably won’t last too long.

James Carafano of The Heritage Foundation makes a good point:

By deliberately trying not to use the T word they run a serious political risk. If something does happen, they’ll be accused of taking their eye off the ball and no amount of explanation after the fact will suffice.

Overseas Contingency Operation? So much for calling a spade a spade.