Afstan: The glass more than half-full view

Just in case this was too depressing, another take from Max Boot (via tomahawk 6):

Afghanistan Is Better Than You Think [one sure hopes so]

I have just returned from Afghanistan shocked by the depth of the disconnect between reality and reporting.

The coalition officers that I spoke with expressed confidence that with the U.S. reinforcements now flowing into the country, they will be able to score victories against insurgents who have been given free reign in some areas because of a paucity of NATO resources. But even before the 17,000 additional U.S. troops arrive, the situation is hardly critical. Kabul and the other major cities are safe, and even large swathes of the countryside are hardly infested by insurgents.

That is the reality. This is the reporting:

Here's a scary thought. The United States could be walking in the Soviet Union's shoes.... The United States went in there in 2001 to crush Al Qaeda and push the Taliban from power so Afghanistan would never again be used as a staging area for terrorist attacks.... The problem is that America is now in danger of falling short of that limited goal, and even losing the war. Sending more U.S. soldiers is not the answer.

That's the lede of Celestine Bohlen's "Letter from Europe," in the International Herald Tribune. The dateline, I note, is Paris, not Kabul, which reinforces a point for which I've seen evidence many times in Iraq -- it is easier to be panicky from afar.

Bohlen writes that "history tells us that increasing troop levels to fight an insurgency is not a winning formula. The Soviets learned this after 10 years in Afghanistan; the French learned it in Algeria, and the United States had its lesson in Vietnam."

Actually, if anything, history tells us the opposite -- that it is impossible to do good counterinsurgency unless you reach a critical mass of security forces to population. That figure is generally estimated, according to the U.S. Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, at somewhere around 1 counter-insurgent per 50 population. We have never been close to that ratio in Afghanistan.

There are currently about 58,000 foreign troops in the country. The Afghan National Security Forces (police and army) number about 150,000, but only the 80,000 Afghan National Army soldiers are considered to be reasonably effective. That's a total of about 208,000 security personnel in a country of 30 million, or a ratio of 1:144, even if you include the troubled Afghan National Police in the tally. That's well short of the 400,000 to 600,000 soldiers and police that Afghanistan will ultimately need, most of whom will be, as in Iraq, locals, not foreigners.

The additional troops don't get us to the right ratio in the country as a whole but if properly employed they will make a huge difference in key areas of insurgent activity. That is, after all, what happened in Iraq, another place where sages like Bohlen were telling us that no amount of additional troops could make any difference.

Bohlen acknowledges this inconvenient fact and tries to explain it away as follows:

Yes, the one-time infusion of 30,000 U.S. combat troops into Iraq in January 2007 succeeded in improving security in Baghdad and other cities. A top component, known as the Anbar Awakening, was a political effort to reach out to local Sunni leaders who, after three years of violence, were ready to back the U.S. against the insurgents.

But, as I and other analysts have tried to explain many, many times, the reason the Sunnis were willing to turn on Al Qaeda was because they were confident that U.S. troops weren't going anywhere [emphasis added--I'm sure Kandaharis are looking forward to those Americans coming - MC]. If we had been withdrawing rather than surging troops, the Awakening would have been stillborn. It's pathetic and puzzling that so many people still fail to understand this elementary fact about what has transpired in Iraq since 2007.

Bohlen tries to bolster her weak case with an off-base analogy to the Red Army's war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. She writes:

This is where the Soviets met their match 20 years ago, and not surprisingly, they have some advice on that score, as painful as it may be to hear."Afghanistan taught us an invaluable lesson," a former Soviet general, Boris Gromov, said on the anniversary of the withdrawal on Feb. 15, 1989. "It has been and always will be impossible to solve political problems using force."

Actually the Red Army -- excuse me, the Russian army -- has more or less managed to solve the Chechen insurgency by force [emphasis added--insurgencies can be "defeated", not that one would advocate Russian methods] but that wasn't possible in Afghanistan because it is a much bigger country and the insurgents were receiving far more outside aid [so the Soviets simply gave up and left--with, I suspect, a quiet assurance from the Americans that they would stop their aid]. But that should hardly be cause for undue concern because there is very little overlap between what the Russians did in Afghanistan and what NATO is doing today.

The Russians did try to use a blunt-force strategy of killing civilians more or less indiscriminately to terrorize the population. They also failed to garrison much of the countryside, confining their troops to large bases in the cities from which they ventured in periodic search and destroy missions. Even so, they might have prevailed were it not for the Stingers and other weapons shipped to the mujaheddin -- a level of support that far exceeds what Pakistan, Iran, or any other country is giving to the Taliban today.

Luckily, NATO is not emulating Soviet tactics. Our troops use force sparingly and they are making an effort to win over the population. Far from trying to win by force alone, they are putting major resources into economic, political, and social development programs.

Bohlen doesn't seem aware of what the U.S. and its allies are doing on this front. She writes:

Maybe ‘the stability side' is where the United States should be putting more of its money and manpower, rather than spending the extra $7.3 billion the Pentagon has requested for troop reinforcements.

Actually a good deal of the spending on our troops will result in operations designed to bolster "the stability side." Troops spend heavily, for instance, as part of CERP (Commander's Emergency Response Program) to fund local schools, hospitals, roads, and other worthy initiatives. The international community commits billions more. The problem in Afghanistan hasn't been a paucity of spending but a lack of coordination, which badly needs to be remedied.

The other major problem has been a lack of security in key areas of the south and east that would allow development funds to be spent safely. Progress on the security front is necessary before substantial progress can be made in any other area.

I may be attaching undue importance to this one article but I think it has been worth deconstructing because it is such a perfect reflection of the emerging zeitgeist on Afghanistan, which bears scant relation to what is actually happening in Afghanistan.

About the Author

Max Boot is a senior fellow in national-security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a regular contributor to COMMENTARY's blog CONTENTIONS, and the author most recently of "War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World" (Gotham, 2006).

I suspect that as the Americans become ever-more preponderant amongst ISAF's fighting forces that strategy and coordination problems between the allies will become less, er, relevant.