By Dr Sharifullah Dorani*
Introduction
After the Taliban was defeated and al Qaeda was on the run, the National Security Council (NSC) of the George W Bush Administration held a meeting in February 2002 in the White House Situation Room to discuss their Afghan strategy. The meeting resulted in the making of the counterterrorism strategy.
This article focuses on the making of the counterterrorism strategy: that is, how the policy was made − who said what, how and why. It will study the policy opinions of the State Department, National Directorate, Defense Department, the neoconservatives and, of course, the President.
The article shows that a deep schism emerged on the path forward. This internal conflict pitted two opposing visions against each other: one advocating for a commitment that almost amounted to nation-building and stabilisation, and the other favouring a limited, counterterrorism-focused approach.
The NSC debates the counterterrorism strategy after the collapse of the Taliban regime
Every policymaker in the White House Situation Room in the NSC meeting of February 2002 agreed that the Taliban was a ‘spent force’ and ‘so decimated’ that they no longer posed a threat.[1] However, a deep divide existed among the policymakers as to how to proceed in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Colin Powell recommended that the American forces join the international peacekeeping forces in Kabul and help extend the Hamid Karzai Administration’s authority beyond the capital. Powell aimed to pursue a similar policy to that of the Bush Senior Administration in the post-1989 invasion of Panama, where United States (US) forces spread around the country after ousting the Noriega Government to take charge of the whole country. Part of the Powell Doctrines required that American forces, when deployed overseas, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the forces used by the enemy, especially during stability operations. Richard N. Haass, then the director of policy planning at the State Department, had held informal talks with the European allies of the coalition of the willing, and he believed that the US and coalition could recruit 20,000 to 40,000 peacemakers for the task ‒ half American, and half from Europe.[2]
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, generally wary of nation-building operations, did not want to cause confusion because some European allies might see their task as peacekeeping, while the US saw it as fighting terrorists. She was concerned that, if the US deployed more troops, the ‘coalition of the willing’ (US allies participated in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan) might place the responsibility of fighting on the shoulders of US forces. Consequently, she took the middle position, leaving the issue unresolved.[3]
While Rice took the middle position, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld took the opposite position to Powell, because neither did he buy the message that the European allies would provide more troops for peacekeeping operations, nor was it advisable to deploy more troops, since more US troops would ease pressure on the allies to contribute. Rumsfeld ─ and his main civilian advisors, namely, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith ─ opposed the deployment of more troops, who would be required to take part in nation-building and peacekeeping for the purpose of creating a stable and democratic Afghanistan. They had a number of reasons.
The main goals ─ the defeat of the Taliban/Al Qaeda and making Afghanistan an example of supporting terrorism risked paying a price ─ were achieved, so the Pentagon civilian leadership wanted to move on to the next target for its the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Rumsfeld in his memoir states:
‘My position was that we were not in Afghanistan to transform a deeply conservative Islamic culture into a model of liberal modernity. We were not there to eradicate corruption or to end poppy cultivation. We were not there to take ownership of Afghanistan’s problems, tempting though it was for many Americans of goodwill. Instead, Afghans would need to take charge of their own fate. Afghans would build their society the way they wanted. With our coalition allies we would assist them with reason where we were able.’ [4]
For Rumsfeld, committing the US and its troops to nation-building and peacekeeping to create a stable and democratic Afghanistan, though desirable, was not a US goal. It was not necessarily within US powers to achieve such an Afghanistan, since nation-building and peacekeeping, such as the Bill Clinton Administration’s engagement in Bosnia (1996) and Kosovo (1999), required a large number of troops and billions of US dollars.
The global task, the GWOT, that lay ahead was ‘too big’, ‘too broad’, and ‘too multidimensional’ for the Bush Administration, so it could not afford to deploy a large number of troops to every country it was going to ‘liberate’ to rebuild.
A large commitment would limit the Defense Department’s ability to act quickly in case another surprise like 9/11 took place (at the time, the policymakers feared the occurrence of another major terrorist attack)[5] ─ the terrorists would act against the US if they believed that the US was entrenched in Afghanistan and could not act elsewhere.
Worst of all, large numbers of troops would make it easier for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to portray the US as an occupier like the Soviet Union. Such a portrayal would provoke Afghans’ historic resistance to invaders, thus diverting the US focus from hunting terrorists. The Defense civilian leadership was of the opinion that never had a foreign invader managed to govern the country. So it was appropriate that Bush left the governing of Afghanistan to the Afghans (mainly warlords, as they held most of the high-profile positions in the government) and instead focused on chasing terrorism, which required a light footprint.[6]
Leaving a light footprint was equally consistent with Bush and Rumsfeld’s ‘transformation’ agenda, which placed more reliance on technology and less on traditional ground forces. The Defense Department wanted US ground forces to be ‘lethal, light…mobile’, easily deployable, and organised in small numbers rather than in cumbersome divisions. Accordingly, the Defense Department’s war plan for Afghanistan had two new dimensions to it: fighting unconventional warfare (fighting a guerrilla war in the mountains), and, fighting ‘smart’ (using as few soldiers as possible with speed and mobility).
The ‘fighting smart with few troops’ aspect of the plan was contradictory to the Powell rule of deploying an overwhelming number of US forces and then engaging them to maintain security. A light footprint, as well as the lengthy aspect of the GWOT, was also incompatible with the Powell Doctrine of avoiding a long-term commitment without a clear plan for when to end the operation.
Unlike the Powell Doctrines, the Defense Department’s ‘transformation’ plan and its views in general showed much interest in how to run the war and defeat terrorists, but showed little interest in what happened (especially the political process) after the war. It was to be left to the indigenous people. This way, the US was able to avoid creating dependency. For the Defense leadership, US strategic policy should be to provide military, financial and other logistical support to the Afghans, Iraqis, Sudanese and others to rid themselves of the common enemy, and, once they did so, the indigenous people needed to take the lead role in peacekeeping and nation-building.
The Vietnam lesson taught Rumsfeld to push US indigenous allies to do more for themselves from the outset of the war. Rumsfeld wanted the US in Afghanistan to play only a supporting role rather than a leading role. Giving the allies the leading role would carry additional benefits: the US would come across as a liberator, not an invader; it would prove to the Afghans that the US was not fighting the Afghans but only those who supported terrorism; the Northern Alliance would continue to fight the remnants of Al Qaeda to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist base once again ─ the main US goal after ousting the Taliban regime – and the US could achieve its main goal with fewer numbers of troops. In short, the Northern Alliance, or what the Pentagon civilian leadership called the ‘regional leaders’, could both fight terrorists and keep the peace on the streets, so Rumsfeld and his two civilian advisors, unlike Powell, saw no need for additional US forces. If the US was to do more, believed Wolfowitz, it would undermine the Afghan culture of ‘regional power with a great deal of autonomy’.[7]
Finally, there was a specific reason that Rumsfeld refused a bigger commitment. Before Operation Enduring Freedom began in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld visited Afghanistan’s neighbours and found that Pakistan did not trust India, Russia and Iran, and saw the Northern Alliance as the latter countries’ ‘proxies’, India did not trust Pakistan, Russia distrusted US relations with Central Asian states, and almost every state did not trust Russia. In short, the region was full of suspicion and intrigues, and Rumsfeld did not find a ‘straight shooter’, as every neighbouring country had an agenda for Afghanistan, often conflicting, and every country was prepared to jockey for influence in whatever government was going to be established in Kabul.
Based on this, as well as Afghanistan’s own complexities ─ such as decades of civil war, poverty, religious extremism, drug trafficking, and different ethnicities ─ Rumsfeld told Bush that he believed they would not be able to bring about stability, let alone democracy. He did not see a future in which Afghanistan’s different ethnic groups would come together to create a central government based on the will of the people. He advised Bush to only limit the mission to dealing with the terrorists (counterterrorism) and get out as soon as possible, or else, like Beirut, Afghanistan would become a ‘swamp’ for the US. Rumsfeld’s Beirut experience had taught him that it was easier to get into something than it was to get out of it. Beirut had also educated him never to use US troops as a ‘peacekeeping force’ ─ they were too big a target.[8]
In short, against what Powell and the State Department wanted, the Defense civilian leadership and Vice-President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that the US would fight the foes and liberate the country, but not occupy or engage in peacekeeping or nation-building operations.[9]
If one goes by Bush’s campaign speeches, he, too, was of the same opinion as the Defense Secretary and the Vice-President.[10] Bush had made it clear during the election campaign that US ground forces were there to win wars, and consequently should not be used for ‘open-ended deployments and unclear military missions’, and certainly not for nation-building.[11] Bush and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called nation-building ‘unfocused’, ‘ill-judged’ and a waste-of-resources activity.[12] When Afghanistan was in the process of being ‘liberated’ from the Taliban and al Qaeda, Bush told his War Cabinet that US ground forces would not stay to do the ‘police work’;[13] he wanted to pass policing and other similar tasks on to the coalition of the willing. During the same period, the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer made it clear numerous times that Bush did not want US troops to be engaged in nation-building and peacemaking.[14]
As for the decision in question, Bush saw that the Taliban and al Qaeda were defeated, so he accepted the military advice that the 5,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and 8,000 US troops in Afghanistan were the right number to hunt terrorists. He and the military were ‘wary of repeating the experience of the Soviets and the British, who ended up looking like an occupier’.[15]
Accordingly, the decision was made to deploy 8,000 US troops with the mandate to hunt the Taliban and Al Qaeda members (a solely counterterrorism strategy) and not to engage in peacekeeping and reconstruction,[16] a decision that essentially set out US Afghan policy for Bush’s remaining years in office. 5,000 international forces only remained in Kabul, as the extension beyond Kabul to villages would foster resentment among ‘a proud population’ and provide more targets for the Taliban to attack.[17]
Rumsfeld also successfully persuaded the other policymakers not to let Karzai ‘threaten the use of the United States military against an uncooperative and potentially threatening Afghan leader’. According to Rumsfeld, President Karzai should learn to use political incentives/disincentives and patronage to continue to govern.[18]
Rumsfeld and his light footprint camp believed that a combination of a small number of US troops, Afghan forces (mostly belonging to former Mujahideen commanders also known as ‘warlords’), US air power and other modern technology would suffice to establish security in Afghanistan.[19] Thus the Defense Department turned out to be the obvious winner. Richard N. Haass, director of policy planning for the State Department and a close advisor to Powell in the Bush Administration, said that Powell ultimately failed to persuade the others. The President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, the national security staff, ‘all of them were skeptical of an ambitious project in Afghanistan’, said Haass.[20] According to James Dobbins, who was US Ambassador to Afghanistan during the transitional period in late-2001 and early-2002 and led the negotiations that resulted in the Bonn Agreement, Powell ‘seemed resigned’. Dobbins told him that it was not going to be satisfactory. ‘Well, it’s the best we could do’, replied Powell.[21]
Conclusion
The debate in the White House Situation Room in February 2002 was a pivotal moment that determined the course of US involvement in Afghanistan for years to come. There was a consensus that the Taliban was a spent force. However, a deep divide emerged over the US role in the country’s future. Secretary of State Powell and the State Department advocated for a commitment to peacekeeping and (and something closer to amount to) nation-building, believing that a significant troop presence was necessary to secure the country and solidify the new government’s authority. This approach aligned with the Powell Doctrine’s emphasis on using overwhelming force and avoiding open-ended missions.
However, this vision was decisively rejected by the opposing camp, led by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice-President Cheney, and with the tacit support of President Bush. They argued for a ‘light footprint’ strategy focused exclusively on counterterrorism, fearing that a larger presence would embroil the US in a costly and unwinnable nation-building effort, provoke an Afghan nationalist backlash, and divert resources from the broader GWOT. Rumsfeld’s civilian leadership believed that the Afghans, specifically the warlords or regional leaders, should take primary responsibility for their own security and governance.
Ultimately, the light footprint camp, which also included the neoconservatives, prevailed. The decision to deploy only 8,000 US troops with a narrow counterterrorism mandate, while confining the 5,000-strong international force (ISAF) to Kabul, defined the US Afghan policy for the remainder of the Bush administration. This choice, driven by a desire to avoid the pitfalls of past interventions like Beirut and to prioritise agility in the GWOT, effectively left the security vacuum outside the capital unfilled and placed the onus of stabilising a war-torn country on a nascent government and local warlords. (In doing so, as I explain in another article that deals with how the counterterrorism strategy was based on false assumptions, the US sowed the seeds for a resilient Taliban insurgency and a prolonged conflict that would eventually force a reconsideration of the very strategy so vehemently adopted in 2002.)
References
Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bush, George W. 2010. Decision points. New York: Crownpublishers.
Bush, George W, Address at the Citadel, December 11, 2001,
<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf>.
Bush, George W, State of the Union Address to the 107th Congress, January 29, 2002,
<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf>.
Cheney, Richard B., and Liz Cheney. 2011. In my time: a personal and political memoir. New York: Threshold Edition.
Desch, Michael C., ‘Bush and the Generals’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2007, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2007-05-01/bush-and-generals>.
Dobbins, James, Afghanistan: Time for a New Strategy?, ‘Ending Afghanistan’s Civil War Before the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relation, March 08, 2007, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DobbinsTestimony070308.pdf>
Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Dorani, Sharifullah, ‘The milieu in which the Bush Administration made the decision to intervene in Afghanistan: the ‘fear’ of another 9/11’, CEPSAF, 23 April 2025, <https://cepsaf.com/the-milieu-in-which-the-bush-administration-made-the-decision-to-intervene-in-afghanistan-the-fear-of-another-9-11/>.
Feith, Douglas J. 2008. War and decision: inside the Pentagon at the dawn of the year War on terrorism. New York, NY: Harper.
Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Marshall, Joshua Micah, ‘Remaking the World: Bush and the Neoconservatives’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59380/joshua-micah-marshall/remaking-the-world-bush-and-the-neoconservatives>.
Mann, Jim. 2004. Rise of the Vulcans: the history of the Bush’s war cabinet. New York: Viking.
O’Hanlon, Michael E., ‘Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2002, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58022/michael-e-ohanlon/a-flawed-masterpiece>.
Rashid, Ahmed. 2009. Descent into chaos: the world’s most unstable region and the threat to global security. London: Penguin.
Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007.
Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel.
Tanner, Stephen. 2009. Afghanistan: a military history from Alexander the great to the war against the Taliban. Philadelphia: Da Capo.
Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster.
[1] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007; Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, pp. 115-120, 124; Desch, Michael C., ‘Bush and the Generals’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2007, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2007-05-01/bush-and-generals>.
[2] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007; Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, pp. 115-120, 124; Desch, Michael C., ‘Bush and the Generals’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2007, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62616/michael-c-desch/bush-and-the-generals>.
[3] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007; Mann, Jim. 2004. Rise of the Vulcans: the history of the Bush’s war cabinet. New York: Viking, p. 315.
[4] Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, p. 682.
[5] Dorani, Sharifullah, ‘The milieu in which the Bush Administration made the decision to intervene in Afghanistan: the ‘fear’ of another 9/11’, CEPSAF, 23 April 2025, <https://cepsaf.com/the-milieu-in-which-the-bush-administration-made-the-decision-to-intervene-in-afghanistan-the-fear-of-another-9-11/>.
[6] Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, pp. 297, 353-57, 373, 377, 386-7, 403, 682-683; Feith, Douglas J. 2008. War and decision: inside the Pentagon at the dawn of the year War on terrorism. New York, NY: Harper, pp. 20, 100-101; Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007; Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, pp. 23, 27; Rashid, Ahmed. 2009. Descent into chaos: the world’s most unstable region and the threat to global security. London: Penguin, pp. 137, 201; Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, p. 112-113; Dobbins, James, Afghanistan: Time for a New Strategy?, ‘Ending Afghanistan’s Civil War Before the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 08, 2007, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DobbinsTestimony070308.pdf>; Woodward, Bob. 2002. Bush at war. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 48; Marshall, Joshua Micah, ‘Remaking the World: Bush and the Neoconservatives’, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59380/joshua-micah-marshall/remaking-the-world-bush-and-the-neoconservatives>.
[7] Rashid, Ahmed. 2009. Descent into chaos: the world’s most unstable region and the threat to global security. London: Penguin, pp. 137, 201;Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, pp. 293-295, 360, 372-373, 386-387; Feith, Douglas J. 2008. War and decision: inside the Pentagon at the dawn of the year War on terrorism. New York, NY: Harper, pp. 102, 133; O’Hanlon, Michael E., ‘Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2002, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58022/michael-e-ohanlon/a-flawed-masterpiece>; Desch, Michael C., ‘Bush and the Generals’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2007, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2007-05-01/bush-and-generals>; Tanner, Stephen. 2009. Afghanistan: a military history from Alexander the great to the war against the Taliban. Philadelphia: Da Capo, p. 304.
[8] Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, pp. 21, 397-398.
[9] Cheney, Richard B., and Liz Cheney. 2011. In my time: a personal and political memoir. New York: Threshold Edition, pp. 323, 347; Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, p. 355; Feith, Douglas J. 2008. War and decision: inside the Pentagon at the dawn of the year War on terrorism. New York, NY: Harper, pp. 133-134; O’Hanlon, Michael E., ‘Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2002, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58022/michael-e-ohanlon/a-flawed-masterpiece> .
[10] Bush, George W, Address at the Citadel, December 11, 2001,
<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf>; Bush, George W, State of the Union Address to the 107th Congress, January 29, 2002,
<http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf>.
[11] Rashid, Ahmed. 2009. Descent into chaos: the world’s most unstable region and the threat to global security. London: Penguin,p. XLIV.
[12] Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 49-51.
[13] Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 94.
[14] Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, p. 113.
[15] Bush, George W. 2010. Decision points. New York: Crownpublishers, p. 207.
[16] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007; Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, p. 115-120; Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, p. 28; O’Hanlon, Michael E., ‘Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2002, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58022/michael-e-ohanlon/a-flawed-masterpiece>.
[17] Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, p. 684; Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, p. 28.
[18] Rumsfeld, Donald. 2011. Known and unknown: a memoir. New York: sentinel, p. 407.
[19] Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, p. 117.
[20] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007.
[21] Rohde, David and David E. Sanger, ‘LOSING THE ADVANTAGE; How the ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan went Bad’, The New York Times, August 12, 2007.
*Sharifullah has a PhD from Durham University in the UK on America’s Afghanistan War. He has authored several articles and two acclaimed books: The Lone Leopard, a novel set in Afghanistan, and America in Afghanistan, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Sharifullah is the founder of CEPSAF and the South Asia and Middle Eastern Editor at CESRAN International.