An American Lion

I have used that as a Category around here, but never was it more appropriate than this evening:

As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, truth is ridiculed, then denied, and then “accepted as having been obvious to everyone from the beginning.” So let’s start with the obvious: There isn’t the slightest possibility that the course laid out by Barack Obama in his Dec. 1 speech will halt or even slow the downward spiral toward defeat in Afghanistan. None. The U.S. president and his advisors labored for three months and brought forth old wine in bigger bottles. The speech contained not one single new idea or approach, nor offered any hint of new thinking about a conflict that everyone now agrees the United States is losing. Instead, the administration deliberated for 94 days to deliver essentially “more men, more money, try harder.” It sounded ominously similar to Mikhail Gorbachev’s “bloody wound” speech that led to a similar-sized, temporary Soviet troop surge in Afghanistan in 1986.

But the Soviet experience in Afghanistan isn’t what everyone is comparing Obama’s current predicament to; it’s Vietnam. The president knows it, and part of his speech was a rebuttal of those comparisons. It was a valiant effort, but to no avail. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again.

In his speech, the president offered three reasons why the two conflicts are different. And all are dead wrong. First, Obama noted that Afghanistan is being conducted by a “coalition” of 43 countries — as if war by committee would magically change the outcome (a throwback to former President George W. Bush’s “Iraq coalition” mathematics). The truth is, outside of a handful of countries, it’s basically a coalition of pacifists. In fact, more foreign troops fought alongside the United States in Vietnam than are now actually fighting with Americans today. Only nine countries in today’s 43-country coalition have more than 1,000 personnel there; nine others have 10 (yes, not even a dozen people) — or fewer. And although Australia and New Zealand have sent a handful of excellent special operations troops to Afghanistan, only Britain, Canada, and France are providing significant forces willing to conduct conventional offensive military operations. That brings the coalition’s combat-troop contribution to approximately 17,000. Most of the other 38 “partners” have strict rules prohibiting them from ever doing anything actually dangerous. Turkish troops, for example, never leave their firebase in Wardak province, according to U.S. personnel who monitor it.

In Vietnam, by contrast, there were six countries fighting with the United States. South Korea alone had three times more combat troops in that country (50,000) than the entire coalition has in Afghanistan today. The Philippines (10,500), Australia (7,600), New Zealand (500), Thailand (about 1,000), and Taiwan also had boots on the ground. So the idea that Afghanistan’s coalition sets it apart doesn’t hold water.

Here’s my response to that, and I left it there as sort of the turd in the punchbowl.

The Petraeus/McChrystal method of fighting this war will make 2010 a quiet enough year in Afghanistan to easily refute the opinions emphasized above.

First, there will be truckloads of cash spread about, and it will fall in the hands of people who will talk to their dumb little buddies about how “we’re taking the year off” from fighting the Americans. This will buy loyalty, temporarily, and ease the attacks on coalition forces.

Second, there will be a change in the rules of engagement, and U.S. forces will not be out front practicing “COIN” because they will be moved to larger bases and will not patrol as much, nor will they use the roads as much, because that would increase casualties.

Third, all Petraeus and McChrystal have to do is not lose the media war (they’re not going to try to do COIN with National Guard troops), and that means they have to eliminate as much of the violence as possible AND reduce American casualties. Never mind that what constitutes an attack today will suddenly not be a data point or a recorded event next year—they control the metrics, they control the numbers, and they will show progress.

Now, I could very well be wrong, but that’s what I think will happen next year. Afghanistan will quiet down, everyone will take the year off and regroup, and then, when the media have lost interest and the public attention is focused elsewhere, we will quietly withdraw, stop paying people to not attack us, and the real sorting out of who will run Afghanistan will happen as we roll out of town. If the Taliban really were about ideology, and not about money, then there wouldn’t really be a worldwide heroin trade right now, now would there? Of course they can be bought off. They’re being bought off now.

The theories presented above presuppose that everything will continue as is; American money is going to buy us a year off and everyone will simply sit on their hands and wait for the drawdown to start. Just as the American people are getting ready to pick a new President, this President can trot out his new National Security Adviser (Petraeus) and his new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (McChrystal) and we can have medals for everyone.

That’s my guess anyway, and, for what it’s worth, mine is as good as anyone else’s guess, since no one knows what the hell is going to happen anyway. Anyone who tells you that they know what will happen is lying.