The no-timetable for withdrawal logic

[JoeTheJuggler]

I just heard a sound bite on the radio of Romney saying he's opposed to any timetable for withdrawal. I wish I could find the exact quote, but it sounded like his reasoning was that he didn't want our enemies to know even that we would leave ever.

I'm not sure what the logic to opposing a timetable is. The bad guys will simply wait until we're gone before doing whatever it is they want to do. Why is that a bad thing? Making the bad guys wait seems like a good thing to me.

And doesn't thinking suppose that the bad guys won't do whatever it is they want to do after we're gone, whether or not we leave without announcing a timetable? So isn't this no-timetable criticism the same thing as saying we're contemplating a war that will never end, no matter what?

I wonder if people like Romney are just as opposed to a withdrawal that's based not on a time table but on the achievement of a set of specific goals. For example, some measure of readiness on the part of Afghan forces. If we announce that we will begin withdrawing US troops when that goal has been attained, won't the bad guys still just wait until we're gone to do whatever they're going to do?

At heart, isn't Romney's criticism nothing more than saying whatever Obama does is wrong (without offering any plan of his own)?

 

[funk de fino]

At heart, isn't Romney's criticism nothing more than saying whatever Obama does is wrong (without offering any plan of his own)?

Yes

 

[hgc]

Yes, I think we should withdraw without a timetable, as long as we do it by the end of 2013.

No, but seriously folks, we could totally do this. Get out in the middle of the night. The Taliban will wake up one morning to find foreign forces gone. They'll never know what hit them. Their plans for domination will be in tatters.

 

[Augustine]

The difference between a timetable for withdrawal and conditions-based withdrawal is not purely "what the bad guys do when you leave". It is how an announced timetable can alter the insurgents strategy, and the IO campaign that they can use. The issue of how the approaches impact the neutral or passive segment of the population (the largest segment of the population) in choosing to back a side or not, or to remain neutral or passive is also a question.

I did a tour in Afghanistan prior to the announced timetable, and I did a tour after the announced timetable. I'm ambivalent about it. If it works, it works, but that remains to be seen over the next two years.

On the plus side, I will say that the timetable can be used to motivate Afghan partners - as in, hey, make your mistakes while we're here to help or face a very rough learning curve when we're gone. We're leaving, we know it, you know it, and we may leave sooner rather than later. Take risks now.

The downside: as they say, "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics". The real impact of the withdrawal date is the effect it will have this fighting season and the next as we have to consolidate bases and infrastructure and begin the long haul of government equipment out of Afghanistan. This muscle movement is significant, and affects our ability to project combat power in a sustained manner into remote areas, or to have a sustained presence in outlying areas. There are some areas that we will wind up ceding to the insurgents for this reason. The movement of materiel and equipment out of Afghanistan, or consolidating it within Afghanistan, is significantly more difficult than Iraq.

IO. An announced timetable for withdrawal is an IO defeat. On a microcosm level, we experienced this with remote bases. We knew we had to leave, we knew we were going to leave eventually, and better to do it on our terms and while we had the assets to do it, but we still faced resistance because of the IO impact (and I am talking at the national level from the Afghans).

A maxim of the military is "train to standard, not to time" - which inevitably gets reversed by a cynical soldier as "train to time, not to standard" to refer to those "check the block" style training events. As I referred to in the other thread, the buzzwords lately are "Afghan good enough" and "Afghan sustainable". With the announced withdrawal, there are regions that we are essentially marking as "good enough" because we recognize that we can't do anything more in the short time left.

I think there's room for legitimate disagreement over timetable versus conditions-based withdrawal. Like I said, I'm ambivalent. I think there are a lot of conversations at the senior officer level discussing this; I know we had a lot of bull sessions at our level. A hybrid approach is possible. At the end of the day, what will be judged is whether it worked or not.

 

[hgc]

One of the main problems with the conditions-based withdrawal in Afghanistan is that the conditions, whatever they would be, are unattainable. If the condition is that a publicly announced withdrawal must be achievable without threats to force security, that's a condition without a point to it.

I'm curious about how a high level withdrawal timetable being public would impact localized conditions of that withdrawal. Wouldn't each post's schedule for desertion remain a secret, at least until very near the time of the event?

 

[Augustine]

The conditions that I've seen proposed are not unattainable.

The scheduled closings of bases are not secrets and cannot be kept as secrets. I won't go into the specific timelines, but the initial preparation for closing bases happens well in advance of the actual closure, and the indicators are impossible to conceal.

 

[hgc]

To what conditions do you refer? Why have they not come about in the last 10 years?

 

[theprestige]

I just heard a sound bite on the radio of Romney saying he's opposed to any timetable for withdrawal. I wish I could find the exact quote, but it sounded like his reasoning was that he didn't want our enemies to know even that we would leave ever.

I'm not sure what the logic to opposing a timetable is. The bad guys will simply wait until we're gone before doing whatever it is they want to do. Why is that a bad thing? Making the bad guys wait seems like a good thing to me.

And doesn't thinking suppose that the bad guys won't do whatever it is they want to do after we're gone, whether or not we leave without announcing a timetable? So isn't this no-timetable criticism the same thing as saying we're contemplating a war that will never end, no matter what?

I wonder if people like Romney are just as opposed to a withdrawal that's based not on a time table but on the achievement of a set of specific goals. For example, some measure of readiness on the part of Afghan forces. If we announce that we will begin withdrawing US troops when that goal has been attained, won't the bad guys still just wait until we're gone to do whatever they're going to do?

At heart, isn't Romney's criticism nothing more than saying whatever Obama does is wrong (without offering any plan of his own)?

The logic, as I understand it, goes something like this: Belligerents who believe they will be left in possession of the battlefield within six months or a year or whatever will plan accordingly. They may adopt a defensive strategy, avoiding direct confrontation or decisive battle. They may even give up some previous gains, secure in the knowledge that if they can simply keep their heads for the determined period of time, they will emerge as de facto victors.

On the other hand, belligerents who believe their enemies will never give up the battlefield except grudgingly, and who give all appearance of continuing the fight indefinitely, will also plan accordingly. Every confrontation avoided, every offensive opportunity lost, every gain conceded, is another defeat in a growing history of defeat. The only path to victory is to meet the enemy in decisive battle, and defeat him. The only other option is defeat, either by decisive battle or by steady attrition.

Similarly--and this is probably critical in counter-insurgency--civilian populations will also plan accordingly. If they know in advance which side will be the victor, they will be much less likely to cooperate with the withdrawing force. After all, they have to live with the force that remains, long after the other has left the battlefield. If your goal is to win the hearts and minds of the civilian populace, and turn them against the insurgent force in their midst, telling them you'll be abandoning them to your enemies in a few months' or years' time is probably counter-productive.

The bottom line is, once you establish a withdrawal date, you are bound to win the war by that date, or else lose it. If you seek victory through decisive battle, your enemy only has to avoid decisive battle until that date, and they have won. If you seek victory through steady attrition, your enemy only has to preserve its core elements--a few key leaders, a small cadre of veteran troops--until that date, and they have won.

That's the logic, anyway. I think it's fundamentally sound, as far as it goes. But of course the war in Afghanistan was never going to be won by the coalition anyway, not the way it's being fought.

Announcing a withdrawal date may be good politicking by the president, but it's probably bad Commander-in-Chiefing. It certainly won't make the Afghan people any more likely to support and cooperate with the coalition troops over the next few months.

 

[leftysergeant]

To what conditions do you refer? Why have they not come about in the last 10 years?

Do you think that having a gaggle of utter morons at the very highest, civilian level dictating over-all strategy for eight of those years might have had something to do with it?

 

[Howie Felterbush]

Yes, I think we should withdraw without a timetable, as long as we do it by the end of 2013.

No, but seriously folks, we could totally do this. Get out in the middle of the night. The Taliban will wake up one morning to find foreign forces gone. They'll never know what hit them. Their plans for domination will be in tatters.

It worked for the Baltimore Colts.

 

[Bikewer]

If the timetable includes a functioning Afghani military and police force, and a functional government that has the support of the people.....You're golden.

The chances of that happening in a couple of years....

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

On the other hand, belligerents who believe their enemies will never give up the battlefield except grudgingly, and who give all appearance of continuing the fight indefinitely, will also plan accordingly.

Does anyone think the U.S. will continue the war in Afghanistan forever (that is, "never give up the battlefield")?

Is that what Romney's campaign position is--that we ought consider remaining at war in Afghanistan forever?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

as they say, "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics".

It's the "amateurs" who get the bill (in treasure and in lives).

To what conditions do you refer? Why have they not come about in the last 10 years?

This.

I've been asking for some time what our continued mission in Afghanistan is. I'd put the burden on saying what our reason for being there is rather than on saying what reason we have for leaving. (In other words, completing the mission should be enough of a condition for leaving.)

Add to that the fact that the government of our host country (the one we more or less put in place when we defeated the Taliban and drove them from power) has asked us to withdraw to our bases immediately and to withdraw from the country asap. If we recognize Afghanistan as a sovereign nation, I see no justification for refusing to honor that request.

 

[hgc]

I keep hearing that we can't have a announced timetable withdrawal. But what does that mean? Can we not have a withdrawal at all? Can we withdraw without announcing it? Apparently not. Can we please, then, hear the conditions for withdrawal?

 

[theprestige]

Does anyone think the U.S. will continue the war in Afghanistan forever (that is, "never give up the battlefield")?

Of course not, and that's not the logic behind "no timetable".

Anyway, you cherry-picked my post. The actual statement was "never give up the battlefield except grudgingly". I would expand on the idea of "grudgingly" by saying there are generally only three* good reasons to give up a battlefield: if you are defeated, if doing so will enable a decisive victory elsewhere, or if doing so will prevent a decisive defeat.

The logic is, if your goal is victory, declaring a timetable gives your enemy additional victory conditions to choose from, and undermines your support among the civilian population (which support is apparently critical in counter-insurgency warfare).

Giving your enemy a choice of victory conditions is never desirable (on the other hand, giving your enemy a choice of defeat conditions--e.g., surrender on favorable terms now versus unfavorable terms later--can be advantageous).

Ideally, your commitment in warfare should be to continue the war until you are victorious, or until you are defeated. At the very least your public commitment should be that. If secretly there are other factors that constrain your operations and afford advantages to your enemy in time or space, you should strive to keep those factors secret, to deny those advantages to your enemy. Establishing a timetable grants the enemy an advantage in time.

Is that what Romney's campaign position is--that we ought consider remaining at war in Afghanistan forever?

I doubt it. I think their actual position is, "We should stay until we win or until we lose. Setting a timetable is just another way of losing. We should focus on winning, instead."

But really, I think that everybody knows that the war in Afghanistan has already been lost. So all that's left to do is play the withdrawal for as much political and diplomatic point-scoring as possible. Obama probably isn't so much concerned about winning the war as he is about winning the upcoming election.















--
* A fourth reason to withdraw would be if decisive victory cannot be achieved. Of course, this is practically equivalent to defeat.

 

[Augustine]

To what conditions do you refer? Why have they not come about in the last 10 years?

I'm referring to milestones that I've seen on campaign plans.

Not sure what you mean by the last 10 years. Are you familiar with the history of the Afghanistan operations? The more relevant questions that can help me narrow my response are:

Do you think we have the right strategy in Afghanistan now? Why or why not?

 

[Augustine]

It's the "amateurs" who get the bill (in treasure and in lives).

No, it's amateurs and professionals who pay in treasure and in lives. I guess that was the only thing you found worth commenting on, and had no questions. Revealing.

I've been asking for some time what our continued mission in Afghanistan is. I'd put the burden on saying what our reason for being there is rather than on saying what reason we have for leaving. (In other words, completing the mission should be enough of a condition for leaving.)

Add to that the fact that the government of our host country (the one we more or less put in place when we defeated the Taliban and drove them from power) has asked us to withdraw to our bases immediately and to withdraw from the country asap. If we recognize Afghanistan as a sovereign nation, I see no justification for refusing to honor that request.

The mission in Afghanistan has been communicated by the Commander in Chief, President Obama, most notably in his March 2009 speech and his 2010 National Security Strategy. The campaign plans the military has developed are directly nested in those guiding documents, and linked with the efforts of the DoS under the overall guidance of the President.

If you're referring to Karzai's comments, he backed away from them following a phone call with President Obama.

 

[Augustine]

I keep hearing that we can't have a announced timetable withdrawal. But what does that mean? Can we not have a withdrawal at all? Can we withdraw without announcing it? Apparently not. Can we please, then, hear the conditions for withdrawal?

Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.

The options are a time-based withdrawal or a conditions-based withdrawal. The military has pushed for a hybrid time-based withdrawal that can be adjusted depending on conditions (because that was the best they were going to get). Under a time-based withdrawal, force flows out of Afghanistan regardless of conditions on ground. Under a conditions-based withdrawal, force flows out of Afghanistan based on the achievement of predetermined conditions.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Under a conditions-based withdrawal, force flows out of Afghanistan based on the achievement of predetermined conditions.

As long as you strain the definition of "predetermined" to mean conditions established years after we first went to war in Afghanistan.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No, it's amateurs and professionals who pay in treasure and in lives. I guess that was the only thing you found worth commenting on, and had no questions. Revealing.

What? I'm made plenty of other comments in this thread.

The mission in Afghanistan has been communicated by the Commander in Chief, President Obama, most notably in his March 2009 speech and his 2010 National Security Strategy.

Fair enough. Here's Obama's statement:

So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.

So how do we measure this? Since we're stuck in a situation where more and more Al Qaeda is taking refuge in Pakistan, do we either admit that it can't be done without invading Pakistan or decide that it's worth invading Pakistan to achieve this goal?

At any rate, as you point out, Obama is actually moving toward withdrawal based at least largely on a timetable (we're going to pull out before the complete defeat and dismantling of Al Qaeda--especially in Pakistan--is achieved). This is what Santorum is criticizing.

I think thePrestige is correct in saying that Santorum's concern seems to be about winning or losing. My main point is, does Santorum's criticism make any sense at all, especially since he hasn't offered much of any idea of what he would do differently?

Don't we have to admit at some point that we will never rid the world of terrorism or even of an entity that calls itself "al Qaeda"? Personally, I think we passed up a great opportunity to declare success (after the killing of OBL). I think winning or losing is going to be more about political spin than any thing very connected to reality.