We're still in Afghanistan. Stan McChrystal has been relieved because of an ostensibly unintentionally offensive (to the People's Administration) Rolling Stone Article. Gen. Dave Petraeus has taken over / been put in charge. We've implemented a temporary surge, at least until 2011... or until military prudence dictates, depending on who you listen to, and when.
So what exactly are we doing in Afghanistan? If you listen to popular wisdom, we're in it to either a) improve US national security or b) build a peaceful, stable Afghanistan by improving their armed forces and government.
Here's my take. We did Objective A a while ago, when we ousted the Taliban with our horse-soldiers. We've been dilly-dallying around for the past 9 years. We have achieved little concrete progress on Objective B.
A little background: Afghanistan is comprised of a variety of peoples and cultures in a Biblical landscape that has historically been ungovernable for any length of time over the majority of the country. Ask the British, Indians, Pakistanis, Russians, or the Afghans themselves. That is, if you can find any who identify themselves as Afghans as opposed to Hazaras, Pashtuns, etc.
So Objective B is a mighty formidable task. We're just getting around to it after dealing with Iraq (which was doing pretty well until they had to do that little transition-of-power thing, just as we're doing our transition-the-hell-out-of-there thing). We have neglected Afghanistan, for a variety of reasons, for most of the past decade. But it's now on the front burner because of an essential need to polish certain foreign-policy credentials.
Let's look at the future and past, past first. We have what economists might call a series of sunk costs in Afghanistan--considerable time, effort, funding, and lives lost in the country. In determining what our future course of action should be, these considerations should be... absolutely 0. Sunk Costs should have no bearing on our future course of action.
I'm going to say that again, because it's important--just like you wouldn't throw good money after bad (because doing so makes good money bad), and like you should learn to fold in poker before losing your chips on a mediocre hand, it's vitally important that we learn that sunk costs have no bearing on our future success. They do have an important psychological effect, but one that most financial psychologists/analysts is detrimental to investing success. Make no mistake about it, we're investing in Afghanistan--but what kind of returns are we trying to get?
So now, the Future. What SHOULD have bearing on our future course of action is this question: Does staying in Afghanistan to build a nation improve our own national well-being? That is the ONLY question we should be asking, and it's the only basis that we should be evaluating our strategy on.
Here are considerations in answering that question:
Question: Does a stable, secure Afghanistan, in fact, improve our national security significantly past where we already are? Does it warrant staying versus just going back to kick Taliban butt if they re-organize later? I think the answer is no, personally--we could achieve some great results leaving a few A-team advisors in country with Dept of State doing its liaison/advisory thing. One argument for staying is that we need to prevent the resurgence of Al-Qaeda. I don't buy it. For one thing, Al-Qaeda is a global organization, hardly based in Afghanistan. We'd be better off focusing on the problem of Iran, or Pakistan, or... well, pick your poison. Afghanistan is not the key to combating Islamic extremism.
Question 2: What is our end-state? Afghanistan is centuries behind Iraq. Most of the country is still working through the 10th century. Do we want to make it look like France? I don't think we can. I think Anne Coulter and Mike Steele may have a point. I think Afghanistan is worth getting out of, yesterday. We are not going to make it into a stable, secure state. It is simply not configured for a central government outside of the major urban centers--and even those have historically been trouble spots. I'd be interested to see where we can succeed after everyone else has decided to give up on it, but I feel that we're throwing good money, lives, and time after bad at this point.
The only argument that I see holding water for staying in the country is this--that the US may suffer a blow to its reputation or credibility on foreign affairs. That's a legitimate concern. I also figure it'll make a good weekend assignment to the diplomatic corps to craft an intelligent statement that shows that we're not idiots, and we know to quit when our goals have in fact been achieved. It can be done in a thoughtful, deliberate way that doesn't signal weakness or stupidity to the Chinese and Iranians.
But in the meantime, let's marshal our resources and will to use where they matter--and that isn't in Afghanistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment