President Obama’s Afghan Strategy Has Risks

In his speech before the “Long Gray Line” last night at West Point President Obama outlined his way forward in Afghanistan but he needs to know he has sown his own minefield to clear.

In escalating the U. S. effort in Afghanistan President Obama has made it his war.  This is altogether fitting and proper given the fact he campaigned incessantly on Afghanistan being the right war.  He often said during the campaign we needed more troops there and he has made the committment to send more.  An additional 30,000 will be joining a like number he has already sent.  This falls short of the 40,000 to 80,000 that Gen. McChrystal requested but both McChrystal and Gen. Petraeus seem, at least for the moment, willing to salute and be content to make it work.  But other portions of the President’s strategy contain potential seeds for its own failure.

President Obama is relying heavily on our allies, especially those in NATO, to contribute more troops as well.  Recently Great Britain announced they would send an additional 500.  Prime Minister Brown may not be willing to send more; he is not Tony Blair.  It is well known he wants out and opinion in England is running against more troops.  The President’s delay in announcing his strategy only undermined his position there.  Overall, the President would like NATO to send at least another 5,000 troops and there is speculation they could send as many as 7,000 but it is far from a done deal.

The Polish seem to be considering another 600 but it still needs to be approved.  It might have been helpful if the President hadn’t pulled the rug out from under the Polish government by killing the missile defense deal President Bush had worked out.  Spain is considering another 200.  France and Germany refused to commit any new troops.  They are waiting until after a January 28 conference on Afghanistan to decide.  Of course German troops are almost totally useless because they are under rules of engagement that don’t allow them to fight unless attacked.  These are excellent troops who reportedly are chafing under these rules because they are forced to stand by helplessly unless fired upon.  All told, it would seem President Obama has a long way to go to get the international help he wants.

It should also be pointed out that these small numbers of troops are nearly useless from a larger tactical stand point.  While another battalion of Polish troops may be able secure a fairly peaceful province, the same number of troops not organized in a fighting unit but spread out as engineers, military police, doctors, etc. will not add significantly to combat power.  They may have useful work to do, but it still leaves the fighting to organized combat units like the U. S. forces.

The President has also set himself up for failure with his promise to begin withdrawal by July of 2011, 18 months from now.  It will take about six months to get the total surge in place leaving him just 12 months to effectively stabilize Afghanistan.  Some of those months are winter months which make for very difficult combat operations in the mountainous country.  It might be a nice target for internal planning, but to announce it to the world tells the Taliban all they have to do is lay back, regroup, rearm, retrain, recruit and be ready to launch a final offensive after the Americans leave.  The Afghan army will not be ready to deal with it.

In that amount of time it is probable that we will only be able to train 40,000 to 60,000 Afghan soldiers.  This training will be only the basic infantry or artillery training.  New platoons, companies and battalions of troops can’t be effective without the corporals, sergents, and officers to lead them.  It takes longer to find and develop those leaders, train them in organization and tactics, and teach them to develop a plan of battle and how to press the attack once the plan is in a shambles.  Battle plans seldom survive the firing of the first shot because combat is about confusion and chaos.  It is being an effective unit in the chaos that is difficult.  The Afghan army will not be ready to stand on its own in the time frame the President has announced to the world.  The President said this is not another Vietnam, but he has laid the seeds for the same ending.

President Obama was careful to distance his strategy from our history in Vietnam.

First, there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we are better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. Yet this argument depends upon a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border.

But by signalling our intended withdrawal date to the enemy, a date when it is clear the Afghans won’t be ready, he is setting the stage for the Taliban to lay back, wait for us to leave and then renew the offensive.  It is unlikely at that time, facing a reelection campaign, this reluctant warrior will have the stomach for a renewed war effort.  The Afghans will be left to sink or swim and they will sink.  Does that not sound like exactly what we did to the South Vietnamese government when we left southeast asia?  Millions paid the price for that with their lives.  What will be the cost in blood in Afghanistan?

There was one part of the President’s speech that gave a little glimmer of hope.

To abandon this area now – and to rely only on efforts against al Qaeda from a distance – would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.

The strategy the President is saying is unacceptable is the precise strategy Vice President Joe Biden advised.  It comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched Joe Biden over the decades that he is giving bad advice to the President.  Joe Biden, for all his supposed “experience” on foreign policy, has been wrong about every major foreign policy question for the last 30 years.  It does, however, come as a welcome surprise that President Obama knows this.  If he listens carefully to the Vice President’s advice and then does the opposite, his foreign policy will be the better for it.

The President has set himself a war to win.  He didn’t use the word, but failure to win it will be noticed.  He has left himself some wiggle room on withdrawal, but he seems reluctant, at best, to fight this war.  He should steel himself for the possibility of still further troop needs, higher casualties, and a longer stay.  Afghanistan has never been a country.  It is largely a tribal society.  The mountains and tribes of Afghanistan have tarnished the dreams of conquest of armies from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union.  The President should really begin reading more history, and fast.