No Way Out

After recapping the many strategies that have been attempted and failed in Afghanistan, in his column at the New York Times Bret Stephens outlines the alternatives for future actions:

What can we do? With relatively modest troop increases, we can provide the elected Afghan government with sufficient military support to reverse some of the Taliban’s recent gains and ensure that it cannot seize Afghan cities or control entire provinces. With relatively modest troop numbers, we can also try to keep U.S. casualties relatively low over time, avoiding the political race to the exits when combat fatalities rise.

Bottom line: We need an approach that’s Afghan-sufficient, from a military point of view, and America-sustainable, from a political one, for the sake of an open-ended commitment to an ill-starred country from which there is no way out.

Now he tells us. Everything Mr. Stephens describes was apparent in 2001. Every decision by each president since then has been politically motivated and ignored the facts on the ground. President Bush invaded Afghanistan because he had to do something. The situation absolutely required a really futile and stupid gesture on somebody’s part and the somebody was us. The consequence of President Obama’s “Afghan surge” was that thousands of Americans were killed pursuing an unachievable objective or at least an objective unachievable with the level of force the president was willing to apply.

Now President Trump is reincreasing the number of American troops in Afghanistan, changing the rules of engagement to strengthen our military’s hand, not offering the Taliban the option of running out the clock, and brinksmanship with respect to Pakistan. It will be no more successful than the strategies of his predecessors.

As I wrote 15 years ago there has only been one successful invasion of Afghanistan in the history of the world and that was by Alexander. He settled a population there. Can you see our doing that? Me, neither.