By Dr Sharifullah Dorani*
‘Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs, and David Petraeus all endorsed McChrystal’s COIN strategy in its entirety; anything less, they argued, was likely to fail and would signal a dangerous lack of American resolve to friends and foes alike. Hillary and Panetta quickly followed suit.’[1] President Obama
Introduction
In the complex and critical 2009 debate over US strategy in Afghanistan, two distinct camps emerged within the Obama Administration: one led by Vice President Joe Biden and the other by General David Petraeus. While a previous analysis explored the Biden camp’s rationale for a counterterrorism-plus approach, this article focuses on the powerful counterarguments advanced by General Petraeus, the military, and their supporters. This influential group championed a full-scale counterinsurgency strategy, presenting a multifaceted case built on four core pillars. They argued that Afghanistan held ‘compelling relevance to US national security interests’, directly countered the efficacy of a counterterrorism-plus strategy with ‘multiple anti-counterterrorism-plus rationales’, addressed concerns about Pakistan with ‘anti-three-Pakistan-related-problems’ arguments, and refuted historical parallels by asserting that ‘Afghanistan was not a Vietnam and America was not the Soviet Union’. By examining these four key counterarguments, this article provides a comprehensive overview of the military’s strategic vision, its direct challenge to the alternative plan, and the foundation upon which the eventual troop surge was built.
The article contains four sections, each covering a counterargument. The article ends with a brief conclusion.
The ‘Afghanistan-having-compelling-relevance-to-US-national-security-interests’ counterargument
If the United States (US) retreated, or if the counterinsurgency strategy was not approved, Afghanistan would slowly but surely fall into the hands of the Taliban,[2] resulting in a US defeat with severe consequences: a destabilised Afghanistan would become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda (whose members would return to Afghanistan and plot against the US and allies) and other terrorist groups; a destabilised Afghanistan would feed insecurity in the nuclear Pakistan that could result in a destabilised Pakistan, making it possible for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to topple the fragile Pakistani Government and obtain access to its nuclear weapons and a destabilised Afghanistan would lead towards instability and bloodshed in the region, Pakistan included, and terrorist groups would be able to significantly expand their numbers and the areas they controlled. The US would have no choice but to enter once again, this time, though, a less hospitable environment.
To stop this from happening, and to prevent the future of NATO and US from being put in jeopardy, Afghanistan, the only country the US had a great deal of leverage to freely operate to target Al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan, was strategically very important to the US, and, therefore, the resources the US were spending were worth it.
It was inaccurate to compare Somalia and Yemen with Afghanistan and the tribal areas, because in the former countries Al-Qaeda was not in close proximity to nuclear weapons.
For the military leaders and their supporters, both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were allies, impossible to separate, and therefore both constitute one enemy. Al-Qaeda provided the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, with funding and other assistance ─ such as help with suicide bombing, improvised explosive devices, and propaganda techniques. Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in turn received safe haven, a training ground and other support from the Taliban. Almost all extremist groups, Al-Qaeda included, recognised Mullah Omer as their religious leader and they all had one ideology and purpose: to topple the governments in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the entire subcontinent and instead establish pure Islamic regimes. Therefore, one’s winning would strengthen the other and one’s victory would naturally be considered the victory of the other.
Efforts to persuade them to join the national government would remain futile. The only way to bring out a healthy and effective state to the the Taliban insurgency was to defeat them, even if it took more years. The only strategy that was capable of defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was the proposed counterinsurgency strategy, not the suggested counterterrorism-plus-strategy.
The ‘multiple-anti-counterterrorism-plus-rationales’ counterargument
The military leaders told Obama that a counterterrorism-plus-strategy was a component of a counterinsurgency strategy, and, without a counterinsurgency strategy, a counterterrorism-plus-strategy was impossible, ineffective, incorrectly interpreted, useless, capable of creating more enemies than friends (or self-defeating), detrimental to Pakistan, and unable to provide security and thus reverse momentum.
It was impossible because the US needed intelligence on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban leaders, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and without what Petraeus called ‘enormous infrastructure’ in Afghanistan, they were unable to acquire it; ineffective as US forces killed leaders in Iraq but the violence continued to intensify; incorrectly interpreted by Biden to argue that a counterterrorism-plus-strategy required fewer troops ─ it could only come into motion with the existence of a counterinsurgency strategy; a counterterrorism-plus-strategy by itself was useless, since it would neither remove sanctuaries in Afghanistan, nor prevent Al-Qaeda from establishing bases in Afghanistan; a counterterrorism-plus-strategy alone was unworkable and short-sighted because it would not leave Afghanistan in a stable position (as it had not done in the past seven years), but offer endless killings to the Afghans, and thus had the potential to create more foes (terrorists) than friends; an intensified counterterrorism campaign could turn Pakistanis (and even the Afghans) against their government, making the collapse of the Pakistani Government possible. Then no drone programme would be able to save the situation; and, most importantly, a counterterrorism-plus-strategy was one of many pieces (improving governance, protecting the population, providing economic development) of a counterinsurgency strategy, and it alone would fail to reverse momentum[3] because it did not address the factors that had caused the crisis of confidence among Afghans.
Security or the protection of the ordinary Afghans, McChrystal’s main objective, meant securing Afghans not just from increasing insurgency, but from all the evil forces, such as the tolerance of corruption, criminality and abuse of power by Afghan officials and other power brokers, a weak state, mistakes made by the coalition forces (including overreliance on aerial bombardments, collateral damage, lack of oversight on huge contracts that facilitated corruption, failures to deliver on promises, and lack of respect for the culture), and, most importantly, lack of resources. It was these evil forces that had caused insecurity, allowing the momentum to sway in the the Taliban’s favour.
Petraeus and McChrystal told Obama what Petraeus had told President Bush: security was the foundation for all other progress. Without security, nothing could be improved. It would be impossible to achieve McChrystal’s ends to train and increase the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to 400,000 (the already 100,000 ANA or the Afghan National Police to 240,000, and the 80,000 ANP to 160,000) to eventually take responsibility in their own country, improve governance, reduce corruption, and persuade the Taliban to reconcile themselves with the Afghan Government ─ due to the lack of security, many of the the Taliban reconciled were practically under house confinement in order to be protected from the Taliban retaliation.
The military leaders admitted that there were shortcomings within the Afghan Government and the ANSF, but with the application of a counterinsurgency strategy, both would be improved, as it did in Iraq once conditions changed.
The ‘multiple-anti-counterterrorism-plus-rationales’, ‘anti-three-Pakistan-related-problems’ counterargument
It was further admitted by the Petraeus camp that the Pakistani safe havens were a problem, but once Afghans saw the benefits of a counterinsurgency strategy (security and the betterment of the Afghan Government) the camps in Pakistan would lose their significance, since their support base in Afghanistan would evaporate; the Afghans would stand against those who fostered insecurity among them once they saw real improvement in security and governance. Pakistan would remain with no choice but to accept the Afghan Government and persuade the Taliban to join it.
Perchance, Petraeus and McChrystal had in mind how the support provided by Iran and Syria to the Iraq insurgency had become fruitless once the counterinsurgency strategy began to show results. Iran and Syria both had to jump onto the winning train to have close relations with the Nouri al-Maliki Government; at least this way they exercised some influence.
Secondly, Pakistan did not hold the key to the Afghan conflict. If the US established security, Pakistan’s role (like the role of Iran in Iraq) would be minimised. However, for the military, Pakistani and US interests in Afghanistan were not incompatible ─ insurgency in Pakistan and Afghanistan was equally a serious threat to Pakistan’s stability. That was what Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had recently told Petraeus. Kayani had added that Pakistan would not only cooperate with the US in Afghanistan, but also take action in the near future against Al-Qaeda and its Pakistani associates in Swat and South Waziristan. A counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, the military leaders believed, would encourage/strengthen Pakistan to fight against a common enemy which posed a risk to both countries.
Thirdly, a strong US presence in Afghanistan would ensure stability in the country, which would equally help Pakistan’s security and stability. It would keep Al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Pakistan, especially in its tribal areas, under severe pressure through counterterrorism operations (enabled through a large US footprint in Afghanistan), considerably reducing the chances of Pakistan getting sucked into a civil war or falling apart, or the Pakistani Government succumbing to Pakistani insurgents, or, worst of all, nuclear weapons getting into the hands of Al-Qaeda and its followers.
Stability in Afghanistan would also ensure Pakistan did not suffer from the blowback of terrorism and refugees. Thus the fate of Pakistan was linked to the fate of Afghanistan.
Pakistan, however, was not as important as Afghanistan, since the war was all about gaining the initiative, and the military leaders were eager to gain the initiative on the ground in Afghanistan, the centre of conflict, where the fighting was happening. The only way to eventually defeat Al-Qaeda was to keep a strong presence in Afghanistan, as the US could not employ the strategy in Pakistan anyway due to Pakistan’s negative view of the US, and the sheer impossibility of the applicability of the strategy in Pakistan: approximately 3.6 million counter-insurgents were required for Pakistan, compared to 600,000 for Afghanistan if a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy was applied. Therefore, if a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan meant more allocation of resources, so be it!
Finally, Petraeus did not seem to be in agreement with the viewpoint that if the US did not get Pakistan right, it would fail no matter what it did in Afghanistan. The US did not get Iran or Syria right, yet it brought the Iraq War to a successful end.
The ‘Afghanistan-was-not-a-Vietnam-and-America-was-not-the-Soviet-Union’ counterargument
The military camp was likewise optimistic that the US would not meet the same fate as the Soviet Union due to several factors: more than ‘90 percent’ of Afghans did not support a the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as the Afghans had seen the Taliban’s ‘barbaric’ and ‘repressive’ rule in the 1990s in which half of the Afghan population (women) were practically imprisoned, minority rights were infringed, and the country social, economic and political systems were shattered to pieces; more than two-thirds of Afghans supported the US presence in Afghanistan, as they understood that a lack of US presence would lead to either a civil war of the early 1990s, or a the Taliban takeover of the late-1990s; the Soviet Union never used a counterinsurgency strategy, and thus, instead of protecting the civil population, the Soviet Union barbarically and indiscriminately bombed villagers, killed or imprisoned its inhabitants, and, at the end, burned the entire place, thus leaving hardly any living species; US forces were equipped with weapons suitable for military theatres like Afghanistan, but the Soviet soldiers had not been; there were approximately 150,000 (some even claim 250,000) Mujahedeen fighting the Soviet Union and its ‘puppet’ government in Kabul, but in 2009 the the Taliban number was much smaller ─ 25,000 to 40,000, and, unlike the jihad era of 1980s, two-thirds of insurgents fought in order to survive or make a living, or were even forced to join the insurgency and hence they could be targets of reconciliation.
The military leaders, particularly Petraeus, argued that once the US applied a counterinsurgency strategy, they would win over the population, and the strategy would produce the same outcome in Afghanistan as it had done in Iraq. Afghanistan would not turn into another Vietnam, maintained the military, because similar false assumptions had been there about the Iraq War. Nor was the escalation of war in Afghanistan similar to the ‘domino theory’, which hugely influenced the thinking behind US escalation in Vietnam, because terrorists would cause another 9/11 from the region if they were given a breathing space.
For the military leaders, the Vietnam argument was based not on facts but on idealism: those who had opposed the Iraq War now turned their idealism against the Afghanistan War. If Obama listened to those arguments and did not approve the surge, or approve a strategy of ‘instrumentalism’ (marginal shifts in strategy and resources), then Afghanistan would become a ‘quagmire’ for the US.
These were the views of the military leaders and Hillary Clinton,[4] Blair and Peter Lavoy from the Directorate of National Intelligence,[5] the military’s supporters in Congress,[6] the press,[7] and other outside actors (area experts) who gave testimonies to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or wrote articles in influential foreign policy journals and magazines.[8]
Conclusion
The arguments presented by the Petraeus camp and its allies were a significant force in the contentious public and political debate that surrounded the 2009 Af-Pak review. By emphasising Afghanistan’s strategic importance, critiquing the inherent flaws of a limited counterterrorism approach, downplaying the primacy of Pakistan-based problems, and refuting the spectre of Vietnam, the military presented a comprehensive and compelling case for a troop surge and a full-scale counterinsurgency strategy. These views, along with those from the Biden camp, not only reflected a deeply divided American government and public but also forced President Obama to confront the true complexities of a war he had inherited. For years, he had been blaming President Bush, but now he might have felt sympathy for the 44th President of the United States.
Moreover, these views questioned the very nature of the Afghanistan War, raising a very serious question that had not yet been realised: most probably, the US was in the wrong country, fighting the wrong enemy; actually, fighting a group that in fact was not the enemy, nor connected to the enemy. The enemy, Al-Qaeda, was in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Had Obama been mistaken all along by saying the Afghanistan War was a war of necessity? As is seen in one of my articles, these views seriously challenged Obama’s views on the Afghanistan War.
References
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Boot, Max, ‘Anyone but Karzai?’, The Washington Post, February 13, 2009.
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[1] Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. Viking, p. 432.
[2]However, Biden did not think that a Taliban takeover would materialise with the presence of already 100,000 coalition and US forces in Afghanistan, Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 231; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, p. 299; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 210.
[3] By momentum McChrystal meant ‘momentum in the mind of the Afghan people’: the confidence level among the ordinary Afghans in both the Afghan government and the international community was very low.
[4] Gates, Robert, Afghanistan: Assessing the Road Ahead, ‘Statement of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Senate Foreign Relations Committee’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 3, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GatesTestimony091203a1.pdf>; Mullen, Michael G., Afghanistan: Assessing the Road Ahead, ‘Statement of Admiral Michael G. Mullen, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Before the 111th Congress Senate Foreign Relations Committee’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 3, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MullenTestimony091203a1.pdf>; Petraeus, David H., ‘Statement of General David H. Petraeus to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’, Hearing Before Senate Committees on Foreign Relations, December 9, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/PetraeusTestimony091209a1.pdf>; Clinton, Hillary R., Afghanistan: Assessing the Road Ahead, ‘Secretary Of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Testimony Before The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington, DC’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 3, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ClintonTestimony091203a1.pdf>; McChrystal, Stanley, Commander’s Initial Assessment, August 30, 2009, pp. 1-1 to 1-4, 2-3 to 2-6, 2-8 , 2-9, 2-10, 2-11, 2-15, <http://media.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf?sid=ST2009092003140>; McChrystal’s Speech in International Institute for Strategic Studies; ‘Generation Kill: A Conversation With Stanley McChrystal’, Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2013, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/interviews/generation-kill>; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, pp. 213, 355-356, 364-365, 371-384, 496; Clinton, Hillary Rodham. 2014. Hard choices. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, pp. 25, 129-149, 151, 153; Gerson, Michael, ‘In Afghanistan, No Choice but to Try’, The Washington Post, September 4, 2009; Gerson, Michael, ‘Decision Time for Obama’, The Washington Post, September 30, 2009; Kaplan, Fred, ‘The End of the Age of Petraeus; The Rise and Fall of Counterinsurgency’, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138459/fred-kaplan/the-end-of-the-age-of-petraeus>; Barker, Peter, ‘Obama to Weigh Buildup Option in Afghan War’, The New York Times, August 31, 2009; Baker, Peter, ‘How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, December 5, 2009; Tyson, Ann Scott. ‘Mullen: More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed’, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009; Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 234-235; Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, pp. 54-61; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 34, 153-156, 162-165, 172-175, 187-190, 194, 202-227, 269, 299, 339; Woodward, Bob. ‘McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’, The Washington Post, September 21, 2009; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 119-120, 210, 218, 218, 251, 292; Singh, Robert. 2012. Barack Obama’s post-American foreign policy: the limits of engagement. London: Bloomsbury academic, pp. 78-79.
[5] Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 145, 162, 166, 171, 187, 189- 191, 202-203, 296-297.
[6] Graham, Lindsey, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, ‘Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan’, The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2009; Tyson, Ann Scott. ‘Mullen: More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed’, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 204-206.
[7] Kristol, William, ‘No Will, No Way’, The Washington Post, September 1, 2009; Boot, Max, ‘Anyone but Karzai?’, The Washington Post, February 13, 2009; Gerson, Michael, ‘In Afghanistan, No Choice but to Try’, The Washington Post, September 4, 2009; Gerson, Michael, ‘Decision Time for Obama’, The Washington Post, September 30, 2009; ‘Topic A: Is the War in Afghanistan Worth Fight?’ The Washington Post, August 31, 2009.
[8]Biddle, Stephen, ‘“Assessing the Case for War in Afghanistan” Statement by Dr. Stephen Biddle Senior Fellow for Defense Policy Council on Foreign Relations’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, September 16, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BiddleTestimony090916p.pdf>; Nagl, John A., ‘“A ‘Better War’ in Afghanistan” Prepared Statement of Dr. John A. Nagl President, Center for a New American Security’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, September 16, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/NaglTestimony090916p1.pdf>; Bergen, Peter, ‘Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign relations, October 7, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/confronting-al-qaeda-understanding-the-threat-in-afghanistan-and-beyond>; Crocker, Ryan C., ‘Countering the Threat of Failure in Afghanistan’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, September 17, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/countering-the-threat-of-failure-in-afghanistan>; Jones, Seth G. 2009. In the graveyard of empires: America’s war in Afghanistan, New York: W.W. Norton & C, p. 294-295; Elias, Barbara, ‘Know Thine Enemy; Why the Taliban Cannot Be Flipped’, Foreign Affairs, November 2, 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65639/barbara-elias/know-thine-enemy>;Dodge, Toby, and Nicholas Redman. 2011. Afghanistan: to 2015 and beyond, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, p. 54; Baker, Kim, ‘Letter From Kabul: Solving Afghanistan’s Problems; What the United States Must Overcome in Afghanistan’, Foreign Affairs, 2009, November 30, 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/letters-from/letter-from-kabul-solving-afghanistans-problems>; Frederick, Kagan, ‘We’re Not the Soviets in Afghanistan; and 2009 isn’t 1979’, Weekly Standard, August 21, 2009, <http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/854qadbb.asp>; O’Hanlon, Michael, ‘Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011’, The Brookings Institution, September/October, 2010 <http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2010/08/25-afghanistan-ohanlon>; Christia, Fotini, Michael Semple, ‘Flipping the Taliban; How to Win in Afghanistan’, Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65151/fotini-christia-and-michael-semple/flipping-the-taliban>; Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 231, 234-237; Mayor, Mark, ‘The L-Word in Afghanistan; Can the United States Provide What Kabul Needs’, Foreign Affairs, November 15, 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65681/mark-moyar/the-l-word-in-afghanistan>.
*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.