Tough times and choices ahead for the next President, whoever it is.
THE BOTTOM LINE: SIX ASSERTIONS.
1 Afghanistan is in misery. 68% of the population has never known peace. Life expectancy is 44 years. It has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world: One of six pregnant Afghan women dies for each live birth. Terrorist incidents and main force insurgent violence is rising (34% increase this year in kinetic events.) Battle action and casualties are now much higher in Afghanistan for US forces than they are in Iraq. The Afghan government at provincial and district level is largely dysfunctional and corrupt. The security situation (2.8 million refugees); the economy (unemployment 40% and rising, extreme poverty 41%, acute food shortages, inflation 12% and rising, agriculture broken); the giant heroin/opium criminal enterprise ($4 billion and 800 metric tons of heroin); and Afghan governance are all likely to get worse in the coming 24 months.
2 The magnificent, resilient Afghan people absolutely reject the ideology and violence of the Taliban (90% or greater) but have little faith in the ability of the government to provide security, justice, clean water, electricity, or jobs. Much of Afghanistan has great faith in US military forces, but enormous suspicion of the commitment and staying power of our NATO allies.
3 The courageous and determined NATO Forces (the employable forces are principally US, Canadian, British, Polish, and Dutch) and the Afghan National Army (the ANA is a splendid success story) cannot be defeated in battle. They will continue to slaughter the Pashtun insurgents, criminals, and international terrorist syndicates who directly confront them. (7000+ killed during 2007 alone.) The Taliban will increasingly turn to terrorism directed against the people and the Afghan National Police. However, the atmosphere of terror cannot be countered by relying mainly on military means. We cannot win through a war of attrition. The economic and political support provided by the international community is currently inadequate to deal with the situation.
4 2009 will be the year of decision. The Taliban and a greatly enhanced foreign fighter presence will: strike decisive blows against selected NATO units; will try to erase the FATA and Baluchi borders with Afghanistan; will try to sever the road networks and stop the construction of new roads (Route # 1 -- the Ring Road from Kabul to Kandahar is frequently now interdicted); and will try to strangle and isolate the capital. Without more effective and non-corrupt Afghan political leadership at province and district level, Afghanistan may become a failed state hosting foreign terrorist communities with global ambitions. Afghan political elites are focused more on the struggle for power than governance.
5 US unilateral reinforcements driven by US Defense Secretary Bob Gates have provided additional Army and Marine combat forces and significant enhanced training and equipment support for Afghan security forces. This has combined with greatly increased US nation-building support (PRT's, road building, support for the Pakistani Armed Forces, etc.) to temporarily halt the slide into total warfare. The total US outlay in Afghanistan this year will be in excess of $34 billion: a burn rate of more than $2.8 billion per month. However, there has been no corresponding significant effort by the international community. The skillful employment of US Air Force, Army, and Naval air power (to include greatly expanded use of armed and reconnaissance UAV's : Predator, Reaper, Global hawk, and Shadow) has narrowly prevented the Taliban from massing and achieving local tactical victories over isolated and outnumbered US and coalition forces in the East and South.
6 There is no unity of command in Afghanistan. A sensible coordination of all political and military elements of the Afghan theater of operations does not exist. There is no single military headquarters tactically commanding all US forces. All NATO military forces do not fully respond to the NATO ISAF Commander because of extensive national operational restrictions and caveats. In theory, NATO ISAF Forces respond to the (US) SACEUR...but US Forces in ISAF (half the total ISAF forces are US) respond to the US CENTCOM commander. However, US Special Operations Forces respond to US SOCOM.....not (US) SACEUR or US CENTCOM. There is no accepted Combined NATO-Afghan military headquarters. There is no clear political governance relationship organizing the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations and its many Agencies, NATO and its political and military presence, the 26 Afghan deployed allied nations, the hundreds of NGO's, and private entities and
contractors. There is little formal dialog between the government and military of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
Whoever sits in the Oval Office next year will have to be a War Leader and a Diplomat. War Leader because we have to work Iraq to continue to allow a drawdown and still find a way to keep Afghanistan from unraveling. Diplomat - because he's going to need to get our NATO partners to step up to the plate - and as Senator Obama found out in Berlin, that doesn't go over all that well over there... And that's leaving aside all the economic issues they'll be facing.
If anything - as GEN(R) McCaffrey sees it - there is at least as hard a slog ahead in Afstan as we've seen in Iraq, and we're going to need our friends and allies to step up with money, guns, and people, and the intent to use them. That provides the security environment for the most important piece - establishing a functional civil government, and that is going to take more people, more money, and more time. Which will probably give the runners the excuse they'll be looking for to escape that, too. Hopefully, it goes the other way - and the civil agencies of the US Gov, NATO governments, and the UN step up to the plate. Heh. We're going to be paying for it, regardless.
Sigh. All the costs of empire, without any of the benefits.
The whole report can be had by clicking here. H/t, Mike L.
Unless and until NATO countries experience horrific terrorist attacks on their own soil - larger than the ones we saw on 9/11 or in Spain and Britain, since even those didn't change their ROE - we are unlikely to see a substantial increase in the willingness of those NATO countries not currently committed to actively engaging the Taliban and AQ.
Much, much harder. Unfortunately.
I think it matters a LOT who is our president so far as committing America to the task of accomplishing the mission in Afghanistan.
True enough, Frank - diplomat won't work. He's going to have to be a *statesman," since being able to do the seemingly impossible is the distinguishing mark between the two.
As has been mentioned here before, I believe by Kat, and perhaps others in comments... if what McCaffrey says is true, those who want to run (after the election is safely secured, of course) will point to things like that to justify it.
And if they succeed at that, we'll have so spent our moral capital that you could make the argument to me that we have become such an inconstant ally, that we simply should disestablish the capability for offensive action and retreat to our own shores.
Not that it would work. The busybodies would still be busy telling us what to do. Feh. I wish I was young and optimistic again. Facing down the Russkis was simple work.
GEN McCaffrey, you have made sense out of this insane asylum. Thank you.
Almost 1/3 of Muslim students in a recent British poll said that killing in the name of religion can be justified:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9ce_1217469047
As native European birthrates decline and the population ages, they're going to rely more and more on immigrants - most likely Muslims - to help prop up their socialist welfare states. Coupled with latent European anti-Semitism, antipathy toward Christianity, and their multicultural fetish for accommodating the unassimilating Muslims in their midst at the expense of everyone else, I don't think we're going to be able to depend on NATO.
If that's true, Frank, according to McCaffrey, we're doomed. If we're doomed, we should pull out now.
If we're doomed, we should take everybody down before hand.
I'm not sure if I should take that in the tone of The Joker fromt he latest Batman, Al Capone, or Denethor the Steward of Gondor, but anyone who pours oil on me while I'm sleeping is going to see how cranky I can be.
Really, so we can't win totally so let's just burn it all down? Okay, I'm playing Bill Buckley here and shouting stop. That way leads madness. Come on, Ymar. You're a gamer. You know how useless such things are. That's the play of a gamer who can't think of anything better to do than attack because he sees his position as hopeless. It isn't hopeless. It's just freakin' insanely difficult. We turned Iraq around with people jumping off the ship(SPain, Aus quit, UK is quitting). So some Euro-weenie is scared of pissing of Moslems in his country? Fine, we'll do it without them. The Brits left Basra a $hithole with their COIN strategy(which sounds rather like strategies some are pushing, people we don't like), and yet it's now on a positive path.
It's much harder without them, it means we can't go elsewhere, but it can be done if we don't despair and go ona death ride because we can't think of another good play at the moment.
Tsk, tsk, Kat.
I suppose you just don't understand the difference between "losing" and being doomed. The South lost the war, badly given the sacrifices men had given and the suffering both suffered and caused. But they weren't doomed. They actually had a better future by losing, than if they had won with a Disunited States of America that practiced slavery. Europe could easily have pitted one America against the other, just l ike the Democrats and John Edwards have tried to do.
Come on, Ymar. You're a gamer.
That's not a wise tactical ploy to open your argument out with.
That's the play of a gamer who can't think of anything better to do than attack because he sees his position as hopeless.
No, that's when you reload, like Jeffrey mentioned over at Grim/Cassandra's place.
But in real life, you can't reload. If you don't take the chance, life, and time allotted to you to do as much damage as you can, you won't ever get a second one.
There's many ways to win and many ways to lose, but there's only one path left when doomed. Flight 93. Given that they thought there was a bomb on board and then they thought the airplane was going to be used as a bomb, either way they were pretty doomed. They kept fighting, though, because. Because they weren't like you, they didn't have the luxury of saying "hold on, we can't attack when our position is hopeless, let's think about this". Yeah, let's think about it. Thinking will make us undoomed, alright.
and go ona death ride
Did you ever see that one ride in Leyte Gulf conducted by the destroyers escorting America's escort carriers against the Japanese attack fleet (Northern and Southern forces)?
A destroyer, at the end, trying to run torpedo solutions on battleships and an entire fleet. Can you get any more doomed?
Scorn it all you wish, but it won't change the facts.
because we can't think of another good play at the moment.
As a parting shot, some people may be able to sit in their chairs and have all the time in the world to come up with alternatives. Other people might just have to play the hand they were dealt.
The other things you mentioned weren't really what I was interested in portraying, so I left them be.
P.S.
It doesn't really matter what you or I agree on or disagree on, there's always going to be an argument if you pick fights with something I wrote that you didn't like.
People can try to deconstruct my one liners or comments all they want, but don't be surprised when there's more coming if you choose to do so. Which means what? Which means that when I use one liners or short comments, I'm not making an argument. You will know when I'm making an argument.
i can't help it that I've been corrupted by my study of the military. You guys shouldn't have been so hardcore to begin with in Thermopylae, Leyte Gulf, Saipan, Italy, Flight 93, and the various other minor incidents in human history.
It's a gut reaction by now. Can't help it.
If you are going to get shot, no matter what you do, you might as well get shot from the front rather than the back. That way, at least your hands will be on their throat and your fangs exposed for the kill when you die. And who knows... maybe the horse will learn to sing.
That's what we do, when we have to.
The question is - will they let us stand by the Gambier Bay, as the Johnston did, or order us to flee...
A self-sustaining and non-expansionist Empire that doesn't need loot, foreign captives, slaves, prostitutes, or resource exploitation monopolies...
America sure does come up with weird things, John. Things nobody has ever seen done before.
I'm pretty sure America will also be the first one to detonate a 1 gigaton anti-matter warhead sooner or later. Preferably, not within one AU of Earth.
On a geopolitical scene, India is going to be critical if you wish to take out Pakistan.
Without India, slow going given Pak's pop and logistical constraints, from our side.
Without a central organization to defeat, we're going to have to get allied tribes in Pakistan. How's that going to work is a little tricky, when you are also trying to sustain a "central authority" in Pakistan by the name of Mushie.
<B>The changing demographics within Europe are a grave concern, also, John. Increasing numbers of unassimilated and radicalized Muslims will have a large impact, I think, on the willingness of NATO to effectively engage in the war against militant Islam.</b>
What I'm worried about is when they have enough power there to take control of France's nukes. Then what is going to happen to America's anti-missile defenses? The Arabs and Persians can adapt, if they can't get working nukes by building it themselves, even with stolen tech, then they'll just steal the capacity from somebody else. Or put their own leader in the position to launch them.
The single advantage America still holds, psychologically, is the posession and use of thermonuclear devices. If even that gets taken away and given to terrorists, then that means America's power will be easily challenged. They already have an advantage propaganda wise over us. Give them nukes, the ultimate propaganda weapon, even if it is like only one shot sometimes, and watch how many more people will realize that America is no longer the top dog to fear any more.
There is only one nation in the history of the damned Earth that has ever used nuclear devices on actual cities and targets. That is a legacy and tradition more valuable than most might guess. It's certainly more valuable than Russia and China simply possessing nukes. They may possess them. But you know America's works and will work on you.
That's why nobody would even think about invading America, toe to toe, on her own territory. But that's not a permanent state of things. If they lose confidence in America's response or if they gain greater confidence in another power, then nothing is off the table.
A fission or thermonuke bomb is a great negotiating and bargaining asset.
Just make sure those NGOs don't have children locked up for entertainment somewhere else around the world.