I’m honestly a bit puzzled about why the Obama Administration is negotiating a status of forces agreement with the Afghan government to enable the U. S. to maintain forces in Afghanistan after 2014 at all. There are probably fewer than 100 Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan at this point and they’re incapable of mounting serious attacks within Afghanistan let alone elsewhere. Most of our military activities for years have been against the Afghan Taliban who pose no threat to us, at least as long as they don’t decide to support Al Qaeda actively.
I recognize that without foreign troops Afghanistan is incapable of protecting its borders. It will also be incapable of protecting its borders next year, five years from now, or twenty years from now. And there will be Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan next year, five years from now, or twenty years from now. That’s as sure as saying “there will be people with brown eyes in Afghanistan”.
At the very least I think we should ask what his intentions are with respect to Afghanistan. Colony? Outpost a la Germany from 1945 to the present? Outpost a la Fort Apache?
British-style garrison, a la The Great Game. A base to conduct counter-terrorism activities and to deter another Taliban revolt.
So, Fort Apache. That was what I was arguing for years ago. I’d like to hear it from the administration.
Pakistan, duh. Pakistan won’t let us station Predators and SEAL teams in their country, so we base them next door.
The most recent estimate is that there are around 100 Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Michael. Most of our drone operations there are against Taliban.
How big a presence in Afghanistan? One major base? Several? 20,000 troops? 50-80,000? How long? Forever?
Does this mean that the president lied about about the troops being out by 2014?
TB, do bears shit in the woods?
The reality is, the President is going to keep troops in Afghanistan because he doesn’t want to catch hell for having “lost” Afghanistan. It’s a bad reason, but perfectly understandable, and I expect the next President will probably do the same thing for the same reason.
The reality is, the President is going to keep troops in Afghanistan because he doesn’t want to catch hell for having “lost†Afghanistan.
This president’s decisions are almost universally made around political outcomes, not for what’s necessary good for the people or the country. It’s all about Obama’s legacy and the ability to place the blame for failure onto someone/something else, while retaining any glory for himself.
Jan, I used the phrase “the President” rather purposefully. I don’t think this has much to do with Obama as an individual as it does the office itself. I don’t think Romney or McCain would do much differently, nor do I believe the likely candidates for office in 2016 will behave differently.
Icepick,
Here I disagree, as I think the president does serve as more than just a figurehead — at least thus far. He creates the tone and the direction of policy-making, as well as surrounding himself with like-minded people as consultants. Actually, it was reported that Bush didn’t do this as much as Obama has — liking a more robust and confrontational inner circle.
One can only speculate what Romney would have done differently or better. However, given his history of regularly meeting with all members of the MA legislature, of hiring consultants based on their experience not their politics, I think his administration would not have been as mired down in ideological mud, as the current president is.
I just read this commentary, though, by Victor Davis Hanson, who also discusses the Obama legacy as being one of The Politicization of Everything.
Jan, if the most left-wing president in the nation’s history isn’t willing to fulfill a campaign promise to get out of Afghanistan, why believe that any other likely president would?
Icepick,
Not getting out of Afghanistan is less about Obama’s left-wing ideology, and more about wanting to save-face for his legacy. If Afghanistan falls to it’s knees while he’s president, it will reflect poorly on him. Many military experts have already rated his ME decisions in Afghanistan as being poor, including his half-hearted, look-alike Bush surge. This latest gesture of keeping troops there is based more on keeping the country glued together until after his presidency is over, then keeping them to serve any humane or other worthwhile purpose.
We tend not to leave places where we’ve set up shop. We’re still defending Germany from countries that no longer exist.
From Afghanistan we can fly drones into Pakistan and other failed or soon-to-fail states. Not to mention Iran. We don’t need that big a force to accomplish that, but current doctrine puts a lot of weight on force protection so that means a larger footprint. I have no idea what the magic number should be. But do I want us to have resources near Pakistan and the other Stans? Absolutely.
Back in the real world, Romney had chosen (mostly) the same group of neocon advisors who worked with Bush and would have worked with McCain. With Romney we likely keep a larger force, but I think we still get a drawdown, even if it is later. We dont know how to turn Afghanistan into Sweden. Bush and his neocons were wrong and we have figured that part out. Keeping a base there for future CT operations makes sense if you think we might need them in the area in the future. It may also have some value if you wan tot keep Iran nervous. You can also make the case that we have some responsibilities to the Afghans, but I think that a weak case. I would rather just leave.
Steve
Steve,
If large oceans were protective geographic spaces, like they once were, then simply leaving and reverting to an isolationist standard would be fine. However, the world is different. Homeland threats are not contained by great distances. Consequently I tend to agree (in theory) with Michael about having small military niches in troubled areas, acting as a convenient U.S. springboards to either prevent or respond to brewing or real untowards actions.
Neocon is a word pejoratively inserted in people’s descriptions of republicans. However, even Obama’s 1st term in office filtered in Hillary Clinton, a supporter of the neocon Iraq invasion, as well as Robert Gates, and David Patraeus who were directly involved with implementing and directing Iraqi military policy during the Bush administration. Romney had people with neocon histories in his circle as well. That, however, does not seal any conclusions as to how he would have ultimately managed foreign policy. Like I earlier said, Romney’s conference table, in business as well as when he was governor, included diverse skills and opinions. That’s a trait I thought indicated a possibility of an open mind presiding over WH decisions and policy making — something far different than we have today. .
“Romney had people with neocon histories in his circle as well. That, however, does not seal any conclusions as to how he would have ultimately managed foreign policy. Like I earlier said, Romney’s conference table, in business as well as when he was governor, included diverse skills and opinions. That’s a trait I thought indicated a possibility of an open mind presiding over WH decisions and policy making — something far different than we have today.”
Damn you, jan, talking sense again. Careful, Michael and sam have had a couple rough weeks. They have devolved to cornered rats and are lashing out.
As you point out. Any competent executive, whether he heeds the advice or not, welcomes every last bit of it. No one has all the answers.
@Icepick
I am trying to remember who assured us that one of President Obama’s was going to get troops out of Afghanistan by 2014. Stock market up, housing prices up, health costs down, …
@jan
Few people who use the term Neocon have no idea of what it means. Neo-conservatives were hawkish liberals. They want to save the world through democracy. After McGovern, the Democrats went dovish, and these liberals were no longer welcome in the Democratic Party. They made an uneasy pact with Republican hawks.
Neocons are liberal interventionists, and they are very uncomfortable with Republican social issue positions. They are often classified as “squishy” or RINO Republicans. During the Culture Wars, they were the moderates, but they have never pushed the Republican positions on social issues. Bill Kristol is a typical Neocon. Notice him discuss any of the social issues.
Donald Rumsfeld & Dick Cheney are straight hawks, and they do not care about saving the world. If bringing democracy to Iraq makes the US safer, they are for bringing democracy to Iraq. Otherwise, they would bomb Iraq into rubble.
I am surprised that President Clinton and the DLC never won them back.
We don’t know what a President Romney would have done. But we know that on the domestic political scene, any President that decides to pull out of Afghanistan is going to catch Hell if things go wrong in post US Afghanistan. (Which seems to be as sure a bet as one can make at the moment.) No President is going to want to be accused of “losing” that particular shit hole because of 21st Century US history. I don’t see Romney or any other likely President to be immune to these considerations. So I don’t see any President pulling the troops out until it becomes absolutely necessary.
There’s no great political down side to ‘losing’ Afghanistan. We ‘lost’ Iraq and no one cares anymore.
Obama has always been a big fan of drone war, going back to his first campaign. It’s one of the reasons I supported him. And if you’re thinking I ever supported complete withdrawal of counter-terror forces from Afghanistan, as usual, wrong. Dave is the one who argues – compellingly – that our involvement there is futile at best.
I take a more aggressive position. I like being able to strike where necessary.
We only have one president, and that ONE is Barrack Obama, not bush, not Romney, not yogi bear, so when I read criticism directed at the President of the United States, I know it comes from racists who cannot accept the fact that they lost, and President Obama won.
jan- He also “wrote” editorials for Foreign Affairs (or was it National Interest?) . Completely out of the neocon handbook. His circle was dominated, same as Bush’s, with neocon thinkers. I can think of no better way to judge his foreign policy intentions than both his own words, and the advisors he had chosen. (Bush was hardly in the neocon crowd when he took office, however he chose advisors, or Cheney chose them, who were. We know how that ended.)
As to staying in Afghanistan, it has some benefits, but I think the negatives now outweigh them. We will be targets or irrelevant. We will be manipulated by whoever retains power in Afghanistan. We jsut aren’t that good at understanding the internal politics of the country.
I think Michael is mostly right except the part where he says we tend to stay in places where we’ve set up shop. The trend over the last several decades is reduce our presence overseas.
Germany? We’re down to 1 brigade there (about 4k troops), a shadow of what we used to have. That unit isn’t there to defend Germany, it’s merely a show of political support for NATO. The rest is support, logistics, and other functions. That’s down from an average of about 250k troops in Germany during the Cold War. The only other major ground unit in Europe is another brigade in Italy. Eventually, those two units will become rotational assignments for training with NATO forces.
Anyway, WRT Afghanistan a lot of people want to maintain a presence there for counter-terrorism and also to continue to support and train Afghan security forces. I’m not one of those people and think we should GTFO.
Romney? Who freaking cares what Romney might have done?
And, of course,
a) we have no strategic interest in Afghanistan (or Pakistan)
b) we do have strategic interest in Germany and Japan
c) it costs about three times as much to supply a soldier in Germany or Japan as it does in Afghanistan (about $2 million per soldier per year)
d) whether we maintain 20,000 troops or 80,000 there is of vital economic, political, geopolitical, and strategic importance
Romney? Who freaking cares what Romney might have done?
Thinking about what another person might have done is like sipping good wine, and dreaming about another candidate who had significant possibilities of being a better leader, in order to get away from the nightmare of the current administrative policies. That’s all.