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The current state of affairs in Afghanistan provides a fresh example of the importance of understanding a state’s history and structure in designing policy and military strategies. The following excerpts from November 2009 (http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...his-war-options-changed-2.html#post1058360373) offer a starting point:
… a full discussion needs to examine, among other things, the past experiences concerning Czarist, British, and Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the failure of earlier "surges" to bring about a stable outcome, and Afghanistan's historically decentralized framework in which tribal leaders/local institutions play a larger role than its central government. Former Soviet President Gorbachev's warning, while unpleasant, goes to the heart of the convergence of Afghanistan's history and lack of governance structure. The Soviets had much greater manpower and much freer operating constraints and still failed to pacify Afghanistan.
Currently, Kabul is defined by corruption, cronyism, and incompetence, if not leadership that may not adequately represent all of Afghanistan's various ethnic or tribal groups. Afghanistan remains closer to a failed state than a viable national unit. The leadership issue is one that the military planners need to address. In the wake of previous failed strategies, they have a genuine burden to address the issues as to why the previous troop surges in Afghanistan, including one from earlier this year, proved ineffective, why their earlier plans failed to foresee how events unfolded to date, why one should have confidence that the outcome this time around will be different given Afghanistan's historic experience and current dynamics. They need to identify who specifically will be the key tribal leaders whose efforts will be leveraged in implementing the plan and how reliable have they been in the past. They need to identify what local institutions will be relied upon to complement the efforts of the additional troops, among others.
The historic experience, failure of earlier troop surges, and, arguably worst of all, previous strategies' failure to come close to anticipating the overall evolution of events does not inspire much confidence. Neither do the realities associated with failed or failing states.
With the passage of time since then, the eerie parallels between the Soviet debacle and U.S./NATO experience in Afghanistan have increased. Initially, the Soviets pointed to development that they believed were indications of progress. As those hopes of progress proved illusory and the pace of deterioration quickened, the Soviets engaged in an increasingly desperate battle to shape international perceptions so as to avoid the outcome’s being viewed as a failure. At the end of their withdrawal, they took particular pains to differentiate the outcome from the U.S. outcome in Vietnam.
At a June 26, 1986 Politburo session, President Gorbachev hailed indications of progress. “The Afghan society has…come through a whole stage, gained some experience, the processes will get straighter,” he told the Politburo. Exaggerating the competence and capabilities of the Afghan central government, Gorbachev added, “The road is open for them to act independently, and the new leadership there is ready and willing to do just that. They have shown themselves to be both wise and skillful and able to shoulder these important political decisions.”
In a January 21, 1987 Politburo session, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze declared, “Many [rebel] bands—although they are not big—stopped armed struggle. Najib [Mohammed Najibullah, who had been elected Afghanistan’s President in November 1986] leaves a very good impression… I think that the leaders of the mojahadeen made a miscalculation having declined reconciliation.”
On May 12, 2010, President Obama pointed to progress in Afghanistan in joint remarks with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. He observed, “There is no denying the progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years -- in education, in health care and economic development, as I saw in the lights across Kabul when I landed -- lights that would not have been visible just a few years earlier.” He also suggested that the Karzai government was making progress declaring, “In his inaugural address, and at the London Conference, President Karzai committed to making good governance a top priority. And I want to acknowledge the progress that has been made, including strengthening anti-corruption efforts…”
Recently, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that he had seen no evidence that hardline Taliban elements “are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al Qaeda, where they would truly try to become part of that society."
Public support for the war was declining among the Soviet people. Remarkable for a government that paid little heed to popular opinion, Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov told the Politburo in that January 1987 session, “Our people do not understand what we are doing there [Afghanistan]. Why are we sitting there for seven years.”
Over the past three years, U.S. public sentiment has swung against the Afghanistan war. A February 2007 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that respondents felt that the war was “worth fighting” by a 56%-41% margin. In contrast, a June 2010 poll showed that respondents said the war was “not worth fighting” by a 53%-44% margin. A June 23-24, 2010 Newsweek poll indicated that 26% of respondents believed that the U.S. was winning the war in Afghanistan and 46% believed it was losing. Reflecting those increasingly pessimistic sentiments, a June 25-26, 2010 USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that Americans favored the July 2011 timetable for troop withdrawals by a 58%-38% margin.
At the June 1986 Politburo meeting, Gorbachev also worried about perceptions. “We just need to be sure that the final result does not look like a humiliating defeat: to have lost so many men and now abandoned it all.” At the January 1987 session, even as the Soviet foreign minister highlighted what he had seen as progress, Soviet military leaders were painting a dramatically different picture, all the while complaining about the Soviets’ rules of engagement that were being exploited against them “The military situation has deteriorated recently. The number of shelling of our garrisons has doubled,” Marshal Sergei Sokolov informed the Politburo, “They are mainly shooting from the hamlets, calculating that we would not fire at the settlements in response.” In addition, Sokolov bluntly told the Politburo, “This war cannot be won militarily. He warned that unless the Afghan government reached out under a program of national reconciliation, “the army will not achieve anything” in Afghanistan.
Things continued to worsen for the Soviets. Finally, on April 7, 1988 the USSR Defense Minister signed an order to bring about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Defense Ministry then issued a statement on February 14, 1989 after the last Soviet soldier had left Afghanistan. That statement was aimed at framing history in a desperate bid to avoid the withdrawal’s having been seen as a defeat along the lines of the Vietnam withdrawal. In part, the statement proclaimed:
It is important to note that some people are trying to create an analogy between the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the American actions in Vietnam. It is not only unfair but even absurd to draw such parallels. There cannot be any comparison here, because these two missions are diametrically opposite both in their objectives and tasks as well as in their content and results. Starting with the fact that nobody had invited the Americans in Vietnam, whereas the Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan after numerous requests from the legitimate Afghan government. Completely different forms and methods were used [in Afghanistan]. We came in not with the goal to occupy and split the country, as it happened as a result of American actions, not with the goal [of] capturing foreign territory, but with the goal of providing internationalist assistance in the defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. We never pursued any selfish goals or set any conditions.
The recent Rolling Stone article depicted U.S./NATO Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal’s senior staff as being very much concerned about perceptions. The article stated:
Even those who support McChrystal and his strategy of counterinsurgency know that whatever the general manages to accomplish in Afghanistan, it's going to look more like Vietnam than Desert Storm. "It's not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win," says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal. "This is going to end in an argument."
In terms of the rules of engagement, the June 22, 2010 edition of The New York Times reported:
But the new rules have also come with costs, including a perception now frequently heard among troops that the effort to limit risks to civilians has swung too far, and endangers the lives of Afghan and Western soldiers caught in firefights with insurgents who need not observe any rules at all.
Young officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.”
Often, in situations of decline, leaders confronted with a host of ever worse alternatives and psychologically unprepared to ignore the high costs (money and manpower) poured into the endeavor hesitate. They vacillate hoping that some breakthrough brought about by their persistence or unforeseen development alters the trajectory of their project. In February 1987, senior Soviet leaders took such a course. Former Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko criticized the Afghan government wagering, “I would not bet a dime that they can create their own Afghan army, no matter how much resources we invest in it.” At the same time, confronted with the alternative of abandoning the effort, he complained, “And yet, we have no alternatives but to supply it.” President Gorbachev added, “And [let us] not rush with pulling back the advisers, otherwise everybody will think that we are running away.”
Why then did the Soviets ultimately fail?
In a sometimes blunt assessment, Soviet senior leaders pointed to a failure to understand Afghanistan. Shevardnadze explained, “t is a fact that we went there absolutely not knowing the psychology of the people, or the real situation in the country.” A month later, he reiterated, “Once again we made a mistake [in intervening]—did not foresee what was in store for us.” Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov complained, “The past information [provided to the Soviet leadership] was not objective… The society is illiterate. The revolution resulted in the deterioration of the situation for the people.” President Gorbachev noted that the USSR intervened with idealistic assumptions. “When we went into Afghanistan…we assumed that is was possible to jump up three stages at once—from feudalism to socialism.”
At this time, even as I do not believe that the U.S./NATO have reached a pivotal turning point where the only likely outcome is a decisive failure, I do believe that the risk of such an outcome has increased on account of the present Kabul/Karzai-centric strategy. Not unlike the Soviets, the U.S. appeared to assume that Afghanistan could make a revolutionary leap in governance, from Taliban-led feudalism to democracy. Like the Soviets, the U.S. centered its strategy around a central government, rather than the all-important and still influential tribal leaders who have a better chance at making a difference. As had been the case in the Soviet Union, public opinion has now turned against the war. In a democratic society, that raises genuine questions about sustainability, especially if significant progress is not achieved and costs mount, particularly in an increasingly hostile fiscal environment.
Continued...
… a full discussion needs to examine, among other things, the past experiences concerning Czarist, British, and Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the failure of earlier "surges" to bring about a stable outcome, and Afghanistan's historically decentralized framework in which tribal leaders/local institutions play a larger role than its central government. Former Soviet President Gorbachev's warning, while unpleasant, goes to the heart of the convergence of Afghanistan's history and lack of governance structure. The Soviets had much greater manpower and much freer operating constraints and still failed to pacify Afghanistan.
Currently, Kabul is defined by corruption, cronyism, and incompetence, if not leadership that may not adequately represent all of Afghanistan's various ethnic or tribal groups. Afghanistan remains closer to a failed state than a viable national unit. The leadership issue is one that the military planners need to address. In the wake of previous failed strategies, they have a genuine burden to address the issues as to why the previous troop surges in Afghanistan, including one from earlier this year, proved ineffective, why their earlier plans failed to foresee how events unfolded to date, why one should have confidence that the outcome this time around will be different given Afghanistan's historic experience and current dynamics. They need to identify who specifically will be the key tribal leaders whose efforts will be leveraged in implementing the plan and how reliable have they been in the past. They need to identify what local institutions will be relied upon to complement the efforts of the additional troops, among others.
The historic experience, failure of earlier troop surges, and, arguably worst of all, previous strategies' failure to come close to anticipating the overall evolution of events does not inspire much confidence. Neither do the realities associated with failed or failing states.
With the passage of time since then, the eerie parallels between the Soviet debacle and U.S./NATO experience in Afghanistan have increased. Initially, the Soviets pointed to development that they believed were indications of progress. As those hopes of progress proved illusory and the pace of deterioration quickened, the Soviets engaged in an increasingly desperate battle to shape international perceptions so as to avoid the outcome’s being viewed as a failure. At the end of their withdrawal, they took particular pains to differentiate the outcome from the U.S. outcome in Vietnam.
At a June 26, 1986 Politburo session, President Gorbachev hailed indications of progress. “The Afghan society has…come through a whole stage, gained some experience, the processes will get straighter,” he told the Politburo. Exaggerating the competence and capabilities of the Afghan central government, Gorbachev added, “The road is open for them to act independently, and the new leadership there is ready and willing to do just that. They have shown themselves to be both wise and skillful and able to shoulder these important political decisions.”
In a January 21, 1987 Politburo session, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze declared, “Many [rebel] bands—although they are not big—stopped armed struggle. Najib [Mohammed Najibullah, who had been elected Afghanistan’s President in November 1986] leaves a very good impression… I think that the leaders of the mojahadeen made a miscalculation having declined reconciliation.”
On May 12, 2010, President Obama pointed to progress in Afghanistan in joint remarks with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. He observed, “There is no denying the progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years -- in education, in health care and economic development, as I saw in the lights across Kabul when I landed -- lights that would not have been visible just a few years earlier.” He also suggested that the Karzai government was making progress declaring, “In his inaugural address, and at the London Conference, President Karzai committed to making good governance a top priority. And I want to acknowledge the progress that has been made, including strengthening anti-corruption efforts…”
Recently, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that he had seen no evidence that hardline Taliban elements “are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al Qaeda, where they would truly try to become part of that society."
Public support for the war was declining among the Soviet people. Remarkable for a government that paid little heed to popular opinion, Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov told the Politburo in that January 1987 session, “Our people do not understand what we are doing there [Afghanistan]. Why are we sitting there for seven years.”
Over the past three years, U.S. public sentiment has swung against the Afghanistan war. A February 2007 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that respondents felt that the war was “worth fighting” by a 56%-41% margin. In contrast, a June 2010 poll showed that respondents said the war was “not worth fighting” by a 53%-44% margin. A June 23-24, 2010 Newsweek poll indicated that 26% of respondents believed that the U.S. was winning the war in Afghanistan and 46% believed it was losing. Reflecting those increasingly pessimistic sentiments, a June 25-26, 2010 USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that Americans favored the July 2011 timetable for troop withdrawals by a 58%-38% margin.
At the June 1986 Politburo meeting, Gorbachev also worried about perceptions. “We just need to be sure that the final result does not look like a humiliating defeat: to have lost so many men and now abandoned it all.” At the January 1987 session, even as the Soviet foreign minister highlighted what he had seen as progress, Soviet military leaders were painting a dramatically different picture, all the while complaining about the Soviets’ rules of engagement that were being exploited against them “The military situation has deteriorated recently. The number of shelling of our garrisons has doubled,” Marshal Sergei Sokolov informed the Politburo, “They are mainly shooting from the hamlets, calculating that we would not fire at the settlements in response.” In addition, Sokolov bluntly told the Politburo, “This war cannot be won militarily. He warned that unless the Afghan government reached out under a program of national reconciliation, “the army will not achieve anything” in Afghanistan.
Things continued to worsen for the Soviets. Finally, on April 7, 1988 the USSR Defense Minister signed an order to bring about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Defense Ministry then issued a statement on February 14, 1989 after the last Soviet soldier had left Afghanistan. That statement was aimed at framing history in a desperate bid to avoid the withdrawal’s having been seen as a defeat along the lines of the Vietnam withdrawal. In part, the statement proclaimed:
It is important to note that some people are trying to create an analogy between the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the American actions in Vietnam. It is not only unfair but even absurd to draw such parallels. There cannot be any comparison here, because these two missions are diametrically opposite both in their objectives and tasks as well as in their content and results. Starting with the fact that nobody had invited the Americans in Vietnam, whereas the Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan after numerous requests from the legitimate Afghan government. Completely different forms and methods were used [in Afghanistan]. We came in not with the goal to occupy and split the country, as it happened as a result of American actions, not with the goal [of] capturing foreign territory, but with the goal of providing internationalist assistance in the defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. We never pursued any selfish goals or set any conditions.
The recent Rolling Stone article depicted U.S./NATO Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal’s senior staff as being very much concerned about perceptions. The article stated:
Even those who support McChrystal and his strategy of counterinsurgency know that whatever the general manages to accomplish in Afghanistan, it's going to look more like Vietnam than Desert Storm. "It's not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win," says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal. "This is going to end in an argument."
In terms of the rules of engagement, the June 22, 2010 edition of The New York Times reported:
But the new rules have also come with costs, including a perception now frequently heard among troops that the effort to limit risks to civilians has swung too far, and endangers the lives of Afghan and Western soldiers caught in firefights with insurgents who need not observe any rules at all.
Young officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.”
Often, in situations of decline, leaders confronted with a host of ever worse alternatives and psychologically unprepared to ignore the high costs (money and manpower) poured into the endeavor hesitate. They vacillate hoping that some breakthrough brought about by their persistence or unforeseen development alters the trajectory of their project. In February 1987, senior Soviet leaders took such a course. Former Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko criticized the Afghan government wagering, “I would not bet a dime that they can create their own Afghan army, no matter how much resources we invest in it.” At the same time, confronted with the alternative of abandoning the effort, he complained, “And yet, we have no alternatives but to supply it.” President Gorbachev added, “And [let us] not rush with pulling back the advisers, otherwise everybody will think that we are running away.”
Why then did the Soviets ultimately fail?
In a sometimes blunt assessment, Soviet senior leaders pointed to a failure to understand Afghanistan. Shevardnadze explained, “t is a fact that we went there absolutely not knowing the psychology of the people, or the real situation in the country.” A month later, he reiterated, “Once again we made a mistake [in intervening]—did not foresee what was in store for us.” Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov complained, “The past information [provided to the Soviet leadership] was not objective… The society is illiterate. The revolution resulted in the deterioration of the situation for the people.” President Gorbachev noted that the USSR intervened with idealistic assumptions. “When we went into Afghanistan…we assumed that is was possible to jump up three stages at once—from feudalism to socialism.”
At this time, even as I do not believe that the U.S./NATO have reached a pivotal turning point where the only likely outcome is a decisive failure, I do believe that the risk of such an outcome has increased on account of the present Kabul/Karzai-centric strategy. Not unlike the Soviets, the U.S. appeared to assume that Afghanistan could make a revolutionary leap in governance, from Taliban-led feudalism to democracy. Like the Soviets, the U.S. centered its strategy around a central government, rather than the all-important and still influential tribal leaders who have a better chance at making a difference. As had been the case in the Soviet Union, public opinion has now turned against the war. In a democratic society, that raises genuine questions about sustainability, especially if significant progress is not achieved and costs mount, particularly in an increasingly hostile fiscal environment.
Continued...
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