The Assumptions behind a Strategy that Has Been a Long Time Dying
The reality, however, is that the strategy developed under General Stanley McCrystal has been dying for a long time and for many more reasons than the growing distrust between U.S. and ISAF personnel and the Afghans. It was already clear in 2009 that the odds of success were no better than 50 percent.
The key reasons shaping uncertainty as to whether the mission could be accomplished—whether it would be possible to create an Afghanistan that could largely stand on its own and be free of any major enclaves of terrorists or violent extremists—went far beyond the problems created by the insurgents.
It was clear that there were four roughly equal threats to success, of which the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar were only the first. The second was the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. The third was the role of Pakistan and its tolerance and support of insurgent sanctuaries. The fourth was the United States and its allies.
This fourth threat was compounded by years of failing to focus on Afghanistan while the United States focused on Iraq. It was compounded by the weak, underfunded, and grossly undermanned effort to build Afghan forces, by the corrupting flood of unmanaged and unaudited military spending and aid, and by the lack of effective civilian aid workers and well-managed and coordinated efforts.
The response was to hope that the problems in the administration of President Hamid Karzai, and throughout the Afghan government, could be corrected after what was assumed to be an Afghan presidential election where Karzai would glide to power without major incidents. It was also assumed that aid and training to the Pakistani forces, and the growing internal threat they faced from the Pakistani Taliban, would lead Pakistan to clear the sanctuaries held by Afghan insurgents, as much out of their own interest as a result of U.S. and allied prodding.
It was to build up enough U.S. forces to clear and hold the critical populated areas and districts in the south and east, while keeping allied forces at least at their existing level. It was to rush in trainers and advisers in sufficient numbers to build an effective mix of Afghan security forces. It was to reform the aid and spending process to create integrated civil-military efforts and to deploy enough new aid workers to allow the Afghan government to hold and build in the same the critical populated areas and districts that were the focus of the military campaign.
The critical underpinning assumption behind all of these efforts was that they would be properly resourced for as long as it took to determine whether the new strategy could work. It was that the timing of U.S. and allied efforts would be “conditions based” and not subject to some arbitrary deadline.
The Reasons for a Slow Death......
