I’ve just published a foreign policy-related post at Outside the Beltway:
The massacre of civilians by a U. S. soldier in Afghanistan was inevitable.
I continue to be amazed at how rapidly people are re-writing the history of the invasion of Afghanistan. There were always broader objectives than punishing the Taliban and hunting down Osama bin Laden. That was true from the outset. Fog of memory, not paying attention, wishful thinking?
The re-writing of history, or not remembering it is endemic. Pick a topic, and few people remember what happened when we tried the same thing before. Pick a politician, and people remember what they want to remember.
Steve
Dave, air-dropping supplies isn’t my view of a broad mission; if anything, its an attempt to deny occupying status under the Conventions, so that security would not be required. I think if you look at the language of our goals in Iraq, at the same time the statements of our objectives were more limitted. In one there was a democracy agenda, and in the other we were going to build schools for girls.
I think there were several steps to where we got to the broad objectives we have today:
1) The quick hit on Tora Bora failed
2) Afghanistan turned over to NATO
3) Negative domestic fallout of Iraq War
4) Obama becomes President.
I interpret events a bit differently. I think that the available evidence suggests that removing the Taliban (which had certain implications) and nation-building were always on the menu. More than a raid was always on the menu. That’s how I read the word “sustained”.
What’s been revealed about Tora Bora suggests that it was always a red herring—I think that’s a consequence a inadequate human intelligence. The most that could ever have been there was a pitstop.
As to the impact of Obama’s becoming president I think that President Obama actually believes what candidate Obama said which was that the reason for the failure of the strategic mission in Afghanistan was inadequate resources put there by the Bush Administration. My view, contrariwise is that the reason for the failure of the strategic mission in Afghanistan was the strategic mission in Afghanistan.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Here’s the short version:
The long-term goal from the beginning was to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safehaven for AQ or other global terrorist organizations. To do that required “stabilizing” Afghanistan to remains one of the major strategic goals.
There are, obviously, several methods which could be employed to achieve that goal and nation-building is but one. Nation-building actually didn’t really take off until 2007, but one could make a case for 2005. Early on our operational strategy to bring stability to Afghanistan was much more limited.
Although liberals like to believe that GWB “lost” Afghanistan because resources were diverted to Iraq, the reality is that a large ground force and “armed nation building” was never originally part of the plan. Military planners feared Afghan xenophobia and they believed that large numbers of conventional ground forces would generate a cultural and religious backlash against such an “occupation.” Planners sought to avoid the appearance of a Soviet-style invasion and occupation, so there was originally no intention to commit large forces to Afghanistan.
Secondly, planners looked at the 1990’s and saw how the post-Soviet militia armies tore the country up and provided fertile ground for the Taliban to come in (with Pakistani backing) and put the militias down and bring some semblance of stability to the country. So, the thinking was that we would have to prevent the militias from reforming and demobilize those that still existed in order to bring stability to Afghanistan. This was called “DDR” (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration) and DDR was the major reason why NATO was originally brought in (along with demining). Those efforts were, for the most part, a great success.
Things began to change in 2004-2005 with the emergence of a more capable Taliban, the adoption of a completely flawed constitution which centralized power and the failure of various efforts to create a national police and defense force. It was from those things and the so-called “surge” in Iraq that “nation building” became the means to achieve stability in Afghanistan and we’ve been going downhill ever since.
I was responding specifically to a claim at OTB that our objectives in Afghanistan were limited to ousting Al Qaeda and getting Osama bin Laden. In my view that’s historical revisionism pure and simple. Our objectives weren’t secret and they included much broader objectives (in my view unachievable objectives) that implied some degree of nation-building right from the get-go.
I thought that the limited troop presence from 2002-2006 was the best approach (given the objectives) for reasons along those you’ve outlined and that the Democrats’ claims that the Bush Administration had dropped the ball on Afghanistan were either political posturing or just plain wrong.
As far as things being more complicated than what I’d said, I think that things are always more complicated than can be described in a blog post. I probably should put “this is not a doctoral dissertation” in the banner.
I agree, but I was responding to the claim that “nation building was always on the menu.” It wasn’t. “Stability” was always on the menu as a strategic goal. “Nation building” isn’t a goal – it’s a method used to reach a goal. It’s possible I’m forgetting something, but I don’t recall that “nation building” was our operational policy for achieving stability the first 4-5 years of the war and we certainly didn’t actually do much nation-building during that period. The COIN fanboys would argue that our failure during that period was because we didn’t do the kind of COIN and nation-building we’re supposedly doing now and supposedly did in Iraq.
One way to come at this is in terms of ways, means and ends where Ends = Ways + Means. The desired end-state (“Ends) is stability in Afghanistan. The “ways” changed to nation building and population-centric COIN after about 2005. The “means” are the resources necessary to achieve the “ends” via the “ways.” Means include any and all resources to include troops, political will, available time, etc.
As an aside, this will hopefully better explain my nitpicking with regard to “success” and casualties in the other post. Casualties are one part of the “means” and while they obviously influence the whole picture they can’t be used as a gauge of success anymore than we can use troop levels or aircraft sorties or fuel burned as gauges of success. It’s a small but important point.