2010 Elections, Political News

Thought a political settlement to the insurgency in Afghanistan was going to be hard to come by? Should be a cakewalk compared to negotiating a ceasefire to the firefight that’s been going on this week between the authors of the Afghanistan Study Group report and its critics. But since I hate to see people I like and whose work I admire engaged in such a bitter argument, I’ll give it a try. The initial withering assault by Joshua Foust can be found here, as well as more constructive criticism from Michael Cohen here , and Andrew Exum here . This follow-up post by Foust has links to all the principals’ responses, as well as further criticism from other informed observers. In the interests of transparency, my professional editorial relationship with Foust, Exum and Cohen has developed into friendships with all of them, and I’ve also edited and ran articles on the WPR front page by Justin Logan, Bernard Finel and Steve Clemons (and gladly would again). Also in the interests of transparency, I’ve only read excerpts of the ASG report, mainly because I, like most of the report’s critics, am in agreement with regard to its broad conclusions (i.e., the excerpts I have read): The current approach to Afghanistan is not working, and there is a mismatch between resources applied and strategic interests involved. The major criticism of the report has been that its analysis is based more on Washington tropes than on ground-level knowledge of Afghanistan and the war effort, and that as a result, its policy recommendations do not offer a realistic or effective alternative to the current failed approach. Its authors defend themselves and the report against these charges by either denying their accuracy or arguing that the report is meant more to influence the current policy debate on a “big picture, grand strategy” level than to present a detailed action plan. Unfortunately, as Exum already noted, this bruising debate is taking place out in the public arena, instead of in a conference room during an early draft stage of the document, because it seems clear to this sympathetic (to all sides) observer that these differences are not only reconcilable, but potentially complementary. To my mind, the problem that the debate reveals, and that no one has addressed so far, is the degree to which Afghanistan now represents policy paralysis: We cannot achieve our goals with our current approach, but we can neither afford the costs that a fully resourced approach would entail, nor accept the risks that a more limited approach would expose us to. What’s more, because of the uncertainty of outcomes in Afghanistan, you could interchange the verb clauses of that sentence in all the various permutations, and it still holds up. Unfortunately, that paralysis, combined with the kind of internecine fighting going on now over the ASG report, favors the default position, which is the current approach. And that’s before Gen. David Petraeus has even begun his anticipated campaign to either postpone the July 2011 troop drawdown or request even further U.S. troop commitments. Clearly, the ASG report was an effort to shore up the argument that the risks involved with downsizing our footprint in Afghanistan are manageable. I happen to agree with that premise, even if I probably could not defend it to the satisfaction of the report’s critics any better than the ASG report did. My hunch, though, is that everyone is partly right here. The report’s authors underestimated the degree to which this kind of document has to win over the issue and area experts in order to enjoy credibility among the non-experts (like myself) who follow this debate. And its critics overestimate the degree to which the “in the weeds” reality on the ground is going to influence either the political debate in Washington or public opinion in general. In U.S. politics, as in counterinsurgency, perception and narrative are the most powerful tools to drive fence-sitters into picking a side. Petraeus understands that when it comes to COIN tactics, both in-theater and domestically. Until opponents of the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan demonstrate a similar understanding, it will be very difficult to transform popular dissatisfaction with the war into support for ending it.

Original post:
Negotiating a Ceasefire to the Afghanistan Study Group War

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (AP) — Laure Rondeau, an 82-year-old Catholic, supports Providence Mayor David Cicilline for Congress because he wants to get the troops out of Afghanistan and says Washington is losing sight of what’s happening to regular people.

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Gay candidates for Congress draw interest

This is a good point by Galrahn at Information Dissemination, on the disconnect between trends in European military reform and trends in U.S. strategic thinking: We will have to wait and see what Germany ultimately decides to do, but in reading military reform arguments from various nations across Europe, including Russia, the 21st century army models of expeditionary forces most often include discussions regarding amphibious lift capacity and numbers of medium and heavy lift helicopters. In other words, the capabilities that most mimic the U.S. Marines are more desired by the rest of the world than the capabilities of a large standing army. It is a noteworthy contrast of strategic thinking how in the U.S., we seem to have this in complete reverse as we debate what the U.S. Marines will be in the future while speaking of the enormous challenges towards recapitalizing the Army in DoD budget discussions. With Iraq combat operations now over, it is time to keep an eye on what narrative emerges in Washington. At a time when many are rightly asking what we’ve learned from Iraq, it’s important to contrast that with what our main defense partners have learned from Afghanistan. European defense planners are clearly concerned by their lack of expeditionary capacity. Having available troops might not have affected their ultimate refusal to send more of them to Afghanistan. But they would have preferred to say no by choice, not simply because they don’t have the ability to say yes. At the same time, they have become even more convinced of the importance of the political component of any intervention, and in particular, the need for an exit strategy before entering the field. The EUFOR Chad mission is a case in point: The mission’s end date was written into its deployment authorization and was — to most observers’ surprise — respected. Along these lines, another indicator to watch, both for decision-makers and public opinion, will be the EU participation in the UNIFIL mission in southern Lebanon, should that ever become a hot zone. It’s too early to tell what Washington policymakers have learned from the Iraq war. I don’t think it’s fair to extrapolate from the Obama administration’s time-limited escalation in Afghanistan, for instance, to conclude that we have learned nothing, as Michael Cohen and Andrew Bacevich have done. But in terms of defense thinking, we might be risking a role reversal in the division of labor between the U.S. and its European allies, whereby their militaries become more apt at short-term expeditionary interventions and ours more geared toward long-term stabilization operations. In other words, they would become the peacemakers, and us the peacekeepers. It’s far from a certainty that things will play out this way in Europe. Such an expeditionary capacity is in pretty sharp opposition to the European mindset regarding power projection. And I suspect, like Andrew Exum , that even if the U.S. does end up with a boot-heavy, COIN-focused Army, it would go largely unused for the 10 years to come. But that just represents a waste of resources, and another case of “last-war-itis,” on both sides of the Atlantic.

More:
European Military Reform and American Power Projection

This is a good point by Galrahn at Information Dissemination, on the disconnect between trends in European military reform and trends in U.S. strategic thinking: We will have to wait and see what Germany ultimately decides to do, but in reading military reform arguments from various nations across Europe, including Russia, the 21st century army models of expeditionary forces most often include discussions regarding amphibious lift capacity and numbers of medium and heavy lift helicopters. In other words, the capabilities that most mimic the U.S. Marines are more desired by the rest of the world than the capabilities of a large standing army. It is a noteworthy contrast of strategic thinking how in the U.S., we seem to have this in complete reverse as we debate what the U.S. Marines will be in the future while speaking of the enormous challenges towards recapitalizing the Army in DoD budget discussions. With Iraq combat operations now over, it is time to keep an eye on what narrative emerges in Washington. At a time when many are rightly asking what we’ve learned from Iraq, it’s important to contrast that with what our main defense partners have learned from Afghanistan. European defense planners are clearly concerned by their lack of expeditionary capacity. Having available troops might not have affected their ultimate refusal to send more of them to Afghanistan. But they would have preferred to say no by choice, not simply because they don’t have the ability to say yes. At the same time, they have become even more convinced of the importance of the political component of any intervention, and in particular, the need for an exit strategy before entering the field. The EUFOR Chad mission is a case in point: The mission’s end date was written into its deployment authorization and was — to most observers’ surprise — respected. Along these lines, another indicator to watch, both for decision-makers and public opinion, will be the EU participation in the UNIFIL mission in southern Lebanon, should that ever become a hot zone. It’s too early to tell what Washington policymakers have learned from the Iraq war. I don’t think it’s fair to extrapolate from the Obama administration’s time-limited escalation in Afghanistan, for instance, to conclude that we have learned nothing, as Michael Cohen and Andrew Bacevich have done. But in terms of defense thinking, we might be risking a role reversal in the division of labor between the U.S. and its European allies, whereby their militaries become more apt at short-term expeditionary interventions and ours more geared toward long-term stabilization operations. In other words, they would become the peacemakers, and us the peacekeepers. It’s far from a certainty that things will play out this way in Europe. Such an expeditionary capacity is in pretty sharp opposition to the European mindset regarding power projection. And I suspect, like Andrew Exum , that even if the U.S. does end up with a boot-heavy, COIN-focused Army, it would go largely unused for the 10 years to come. But that just represents a waste of resources, and another case of “last-war-itis,” on both sides of the Atlantic.

Continued here:
European Military Reform and American Power Projection

I didn’t get to enjoy a full-fledged media fast during the three weeks I was away, as I managed to do last summer. But I did limit myself to urgent e-mails, the occasional online news item, and some print magazine reading. And I consider that kind of break from the information onslaught a vital exercise for the way it allows you to focus back in on the big stories that are sometimes obscured by the radio static of day-to-day international news and debate. Not that the latter is unimportant, just that the former is essential. The first thing that struck me as I waded back in was this East Asia Forum piece on the great rebalancing in Southeast Asia. And the upshot echoes with yesterday’s WPR briefing by Fabio Scarpello about the U.S.-China-Indonesia “three-way dance”: After a decade of China making enormous advances in terms of its regional influence, the U.S. is regaining some of the ground it lost, and even once again taking a bit of a lead. The explanation is obvious enough, and has to do with lingering regional anxieties about China’s sheer size, as well as recent Chinese overreach. Thomas P.M. Barnett hit upon it before I left, too, with his WPR column titled, “Putting the Brakes on China until Beijing Can.” The U.S.-China rebalancing in Asia is clearly the most significant ongoing development in global geopolitics. And it looks as if structurally, we happen to be in pretty good shape moving forward. Credit the Bush administration with establishing a sound policy framework to work from, and the Obama administration for both approaching China pragmatically and paying closer attention to the concerns of our regional friends and allies. Credit also goes to Beijing, for its hamhanded approach to the South China Sea, the Cheonan sinking and a variety of other global issues. It’s significant, too, to take note of this on the day that President Barack Obama is marking the shift in the U.S. role in Iraq, which despite being largely a case of sleight of hand in terms of nomenclature, is a major symbolic milestone. For all our initial failings there, Colin Powell’s famous “Pottery Barn” rule has officially reached its expiration date. Hopefully the same will soon be true of our misadventure in Afghanistan, something that seems increasingly probable. At that point, the U.S. will have emerged from its self-inflicted wounds of the past decade in much stronger shape, in geopolitical terms, than appeared likely as recently as 2007, when the sky appeared to be falling on U.S. power and global influence. I’ll have more to say later this week about where, besides Asia, I think we should turn our priorities in the “post-Pottery Barn rule” era. (Hint: Africa). But for now I just wanted to point out what seems like an emerging trend: The U.S. claim to being the indispensable power is an enduring one.

See the original post:
America in the ‘Post-Pottery Barn Rule’ Era

Breathe easy, Mr. President. You won’t have to kick Rep. Dennis Kucinich again. The Ohio congressman tells ABC’s George Stephanopoulos he won’t be running against his party’s sitting president in the 2012 Democratic Party primaries. “I think what we have to do is focus on coming together for the purposes of getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan,” the former presidential candidate said. — Katherine Rizzo

Read this article:
Kucinich Not Running

Omar Khadr was only 15 years old when he threw a grenade in an Afghanistan firefight that killed an American soldier. Today, more than eight years later, jury selection begins in his military trial at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, moved with

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First Military Commission of Obama Administration Set to Start

In his assessment on how things could have been different in Afghanistan, David Sanger in Sunday’s New York Times repeats one of the fixed assumptions about America’s longest war to date: we wouldn’t be in the current mess in Afghanistan “if only [the Bush administration] had not been distracted by Iraq, or averted [its] eyes from the Taliban’s resurgence.” That’s almost certainly the case. But it turns out that without the Iraq war, the U.S. could well have found itself fighting in Afghanistan without NATO. It was the rapid U.S. advance across Iraq, particularly the fall of Baghdad, that turned opposition against entering the Afghan conflict into consensus within NATO, writes Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, who was the alliance’s deputy secretary-general at the time, in his new book “The Road to Kabul: The International Committee and the Crisis in Central Asia.” (You can read a review of the Italian diplomat’s fascinating memoir, which is now available in an English version by Duke University Press, here .) Several NATO members had been opposed to supporting the U.S. in Afghanistan, notably the French and the Dutch. But after the swift U.S. defeat of Saddam Hussein, “everyone thought that Pax Americana would prevail without question in Afghanistan,” as seemed to be the case in Iraq, and that the Afghan action would be short and successful, writes the former No. 2 civilian in Brussels. Anticipating a quick operation, Paris set aside its objections, if not its own rules of engagement, and the other dissenters followed suit. After NATO deployed in Afghanistan, it was Minuto-Rizzo’s task to figure out what the alliance was supposed to be doing there. But a year later, “the Atlantic Alliance still did not know what strategy to follow in Afghanistan. . . . It was even difficult to recall for what strange reason it had been considered necessary to go to Kabul.” Traveling around Central Asia, the author also realizes “the political weight that Turkey enjoys, not only for historical reasons but also by virtue of the continued priority it gives to this part of Asia.” In Islamabad, the Turkish ambassador boasts to him of his high-level contacts. Yet there are no Turkish troops serving in Afghanistan, to avoid possible clashes with fellow Muslims. One wonders why Ankara’s good offices have not been given more prominence in efforts to resolve differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But if nothing else, Turkey’s standing in the region helps explain its willingness to become involved in the joint initiative with Brazil to finalize the Iranian fuel swap deal — an action promptly squashed by the Obama administration.

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Early U.S. Success in Iraq Removed NATO Objections to Afghanistan Mission

Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman has decided not to attend the Republican National Committee’s summer meeting following speculation that he is interested in becoming RNC chairman, CNN reported Monday evening. Coleman spokeswoman Liz Maruggi did not tell CNN why Coleman will not be at the meeting later this week in Kansas City, as he had originally planned. Speculation that Coleman might challenge RNC Chairman Michael Steele began late last month. RNC members will decide early next year whether to re-elect Steele, who resisted calls to resign after he said in early July that the war in Afghanistan was of President Barack Obama’s choosing and insinuated it could not be won.

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CNN: Coleman Will Skip RNC Summer Meeting

The troops are not leaving next year, and we’re staying as long as the terrorists do. Those are easy conclusions we can draw from what President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said about Afghanistan over the weekend. Calling it “modest,” Obama restated his goal in keeping so many troops on the ground: “Don’t allow terrorists to operate from this region. Don’t allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impunity.” That’s not so modest, when you think about it. Not allowing terrorists to operate in the whole region does not seem achievable in time for Obama’s call to begin withdrawing troops next summer. And that’s what Gates himself said . “My personal opinion is that drawdowns early on will be of fairly limited numbers. As we are successful, we’ll probably accelerate.” Unless you assume the terrorists just give up and head for the poppy fields, the “modest” goal of disbanding them forever with massive troop deployments will take forever. The Trail Mix Afghan Plan: Bribes and Drones