Faith + Reason = Truth

Does the AP (Or Anyone Else) Know What "Victory" Is?

Slobodan Lekic has an AP story about the number of allied troops and security forces in Afghanistan outnumbering the Taliban 12 to 1.  In his words, "it hasn't led to anything close to victory."  Really?  By what definition?  I may be off, but I thought the intent of the mission in Afghanistan was to oust the Taliban from their rule in Afghanistan (check), deny them and Al-Qaeda a safe harbor in Afghanistan from which to conduct operations (check), establish a democratic process for the election of a representative government by Afghans (check), and raise and train an Afghan security force (a 200,000-strong Afghan security force has been raised and is still undergoing years of training - check).

What, exactly, does Mr. Lekic have in mind when he uses the term "victory?"  You'd have to ask him, because I'm stupefied by that opening statement.  The remainder of the article does contain some useful facts and figures, so it may merit a read.  And its closing, coincidentally, contains the figure of 600,000 as a potential correct number for an adequate security force in the country, given its population of 32 million (which is what any force should be based on with a security operation, as opposed to the number of insurgents operating within the population, which cannot be known, and which was used in the calculation of his 12-1 outnumbering ratio).

Readers of this site may recall that I had cited 600,000 as the number of U.S. forces sent to Iraq for the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, and that our current 68,000 troop level is woefully low for the task at hand - if, in fact, we want to be there at all, which I am still not convinced is the right action for these circumstances.  But if we are to be engaged there in a military capacity, then a number on the order of several hundred thousand allied forces above and beyond the 200,000 Afghan security forces is what we ought to be deploying, with a presence to last at least 10 more years and probably longer.

Win Or Go Home

No, this isn't a post about the NBA Playoffs.  It's about Afghanistan.

Right now, there are roughly 68,000 U.S. troops in that country.  Maybe 100,000 total "coalition" forces there.  Military leadership is asking for...a number that's higher than that.  Is it an additional 20,000?  40,000?  No, it's actually 80,000 more, if General McChrystal is to get his way (we think).

Sound like a lot?  That would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from around 70,000 to around 150,000.  But does anyone recall how many were sent to Iraq for the first Persian Gulf War, back in 1991?

According to Josef Joffe in a piece for Foreign Affairs, "Washington dispatched 600,000 soldiers to fight the first Iraq war -- without reinstating the draft or raising taxes."  How can that be?  How can we have 68,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, perhaps 130,000 in Iraq (or a combined 200,000 for both countries, 1/3 of the the total we sent to just Iraq 18 years ago), and expect to win?  General Norman Schwarzkopf had a philosophy about war:  if you're going to fight one, make dang sure you have the odds so overwhelmingly stacked in your favor that the other guy has no choice but to turn and run (or, as it turned out in Iraq, drop their weapons in the sand and run TOWARDS you to surrender as fast as they can, to avoid being killed during the retreat).

Stormin' Norman had a lot to like about him, but this may have been his most likable trait.  I can picture him telling the first President Bush something along the lines of "I don't want to go there, but if you're telling me I need to go, then I'm bringing a half million of my heavily-armed buddies with me, just to be on the safe side."  And better still, I can picture the President saying in return, "you got it - and while we're at it, why don't we throw in another 100,000 just to make sure?"

Maybe it's me, but I don't see that kind of dialogue taking place now.  Should it?  I think so.  And if not, they need to just pack it up and catch the first Navy boats back to America.

What Are We Fighting For?

The history of man is a history of taking things from others, or of protecting things from others.

In the case of Afghanistan, we're not trying to take anything, and we don't have anything over there that needs to be protected.  In that sense, it is exactly like Vietnam:  we don't want it, but we REALLY don't want the OTHER guy to get it.  In this case, rather than Communism, the "other" is the Taliban.  And unlike Vietnam, if it falls, then terrorists will once again have a protected home base in a sovereign nation from which to operate unhindered.

So it's worth fighting for, right?  I mean, if we pull out and let it fall once again to the Taliban (and make no mistake, it WILL fall to the Taliban, whether it takes a few weeks or a few months), then it will just be a matter of no time at all until al Qaeda backs up the U-Hauls to the caves and trucks all their stuff back over into Afghanistan.  And that can't end happily for America or Americans, not to mention the rest of the Western world.

There's just one problem with that rationale for fighting:  can you name the Evil Empire that employed that very same strategy in the decades following the close of World War II?  Yes, the Soviet Union.  They were not interested in "owning" East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, or other Eastern European nations.  They were interested in NOT owning them, NOT having them part of Mother Russia, but just as importantly, NOT being allied with the West.  Because, in the heart of Russia lies the conviction born of millennia of East-West conflict that the West wants to kill the East.  They want to own the East.  And Russia, in the eyes of the West, is the East.

Does the U.S. want Canada to buddy up to Iran?  Does it want Mexico to be chummy with China?  And non-hypothetically (since we already saw what happens when this is attempted), do we get all warm and fuzzy when the Russians try to park a bunch of missiles in Cuba?  No.  And Russia didn't want Eastern Europe to host an American presence for the very same reason.  The same reason that we won't allow Afghanistan to fall to the Taliban.

It's probably an impossible strategy to sustain in the long term due to lack of popular support in America.  And by long term, I mean longer than a generation or two.  That's how long the Soviets were able to sustain it in Eastern Europe, and even less than that in its own Afghanistan debacle.  We could only execute that strategy for roughly 10 years in Vietnam before crumbling under pressure from our own citizenry.

The question is, this time, can we stick around long enough for there to be no Taliban for Afghanistan to fall to?  Can our citizens' resolve outlive Osama bin Laden and his aging top lieutenants?  It can if it is presented in those terms.  It's taken 60 years, but we've outlasted Castro in Cuba, and could be on the verge of normalizing relations with the island nation 90 miles from our border.  If we take the long view instead of the 4-year election cycle view, I believe we can be successful in keeping Afghanistan out of the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda for decades to come, and therefore, forever.  But so far, the argument in favor of continued American heavy presence in that country has yet to be loudly or persuasively presented from this perspective.