FOREIGN POLICY JUNE 22, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
“When you go to protect people, the people have to want you to protect them,” General Stanley McChrystal recently told reporters. “It’s a deliberate process. It takes time to convince people.”
The remark, notable for its defensive tone, provides a small but telling indication that things are not going well in Afghanistan. If there were any doubts on that score, Rolling Stone’s profile of the “Runaway General” and his eminently quotable staff have quashed them.
The wheels are starting to come off the Afghan Victory Express. Media reports suggest that McChrystal will arrive at the White House today with resignation in hand. If true, this may prove to be the odd case where the captain of a ship in distress is the first to go over the side.
The counterinsurgency campaign designed by McChrystal and approved by President Obama is clearly falling behind schedule. NATO’s Marja offensive, launched with much fanfare in February and intended to demonstrate the alliance’s ability to deliver “government in a box,” has yielded disappointing results. Last month, McChrystal himself described Marja as a “bleeding ulcer.” Worse, the start date of an even more ambitious effort to pacify Kandahar has slipped by several months. Given the president’s publicly stated (and recently reaffirmed) promise to begin withdrawing U. S. troops beginning in July 2011, time is running short.
What’s going on here? To keep the air from completely leaking out of the Afghan balloon, the senior U. S. commander needs to provide answers. Expressions of contempt for the U. S. ambassador in Kabul, for the president’s special representative to “AfPak,” for the national security adviser (a retired Marine four-star!), for Vice President Joe Biden, and for the commander-in-chief himself—McChrystal reportedly retains a modicum of respect for the secretary of state—won’t suffice.
McChrystal’s above characterization of the core problem is accurate as far as it goes: Persuading Afghans to entrust their security to a bunch of foreigners is no simple task. Yet the formulation is incomplete and therefore inadequate. In describing NATO’s mission solely, or even largely, as one of offering protection, the general is either being disingenuous or, more worrisome still, he has not yet grasped the enormity of the task that he and the forces under his command confront.
For the United States military, the catchphrase “protecting the people” has become a mantra of sorts. Within the ranks of the present-day officer corps, it has assumed a prominence akin to that enjoyed in an earlier day by “winning hearts and minds.” Yet if “protecting the people” has become a cliché, it is also shorthand for a larger body of thought. This short phrase contains the distilled essence of the counterinsurgency doctrine, or COIN, which is the latest and hippest version of the American way of war (following “shock and awe”).
“Protect the people and they will help you.” This precept lies at the heart of “Counterinsurgency 101,” a briefing prepared at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Vatican of military orthodoxy. The key to getting people to accept your protection, this army presentation says, is to “make them an offer they can’t refuse.” Enlivening this particular PowerPoint slide is a picture of Tony Soprano backed up by Sal “Big Pussy”Bonpensiero, Paulie Walnuts, and Silvio Dante.
Crude perhaps, but refreshingly honest. Strip away the euphemisms and counterinsurgency is inherently a coercive enterprise. Moreover, the counterinsurgent objective—and this is true in spades when it comes to the Western mission in Afghanistan—is not simply to keep the people from harm, but to change the way they live.
Sure, NATO forces are attempting to rescue Afghans from the clutches of the Taliban.Yet that ranks as hardly more than an interim objective. The real purpose of McChrystal’s campaign is to engineer a radical transformation of the Afghan political economy, Afghan society, and, whether the United States and its allies will admit it or not, Afghan culture.
Here is what “protecting the people” signifies. We will tell Afghan farmers what crops to grow and how to grow them. We will instruct Afghans in the proper way to educate their children. We will redefine the relationship between the sexes. We will institute good governance. We will introduce new technologies. We will select and assign government officials who meet our approval and fire those who do not. We will drag the Afghan people into modernity, certain that our motives are pure and oblivious to the possibility that Afghans might prefer to exercise their collective right to self-determination in their own way. We will insist on their cooperation.
As our agents in this undertaking, we will rely on 19- and 20-year-old youngsters, indelibly marked with a postmodern, post-Christian sensibility as vivid as their tattoos and as proudly displayed as their eclectic musical tastes. As they rotate through the country on eight or twelve month tours, these Western troops—well-meaning infidels—will offer Afghans the promise of salvation: “We’re here to protect you, my brother.”
Should Afghans find that convincing? If the tables were turned, would Americans be convinced?
Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of, most recently, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.
11 comments
"...The real purpose of McChrystal’s campaign is to engineer a radical transformation of the Afghan political economy, Afghan society, and, whether the United States and its allies will admit it or not, Afghan culture. ..." Are you serious? Is the objective not to insure a strong enough central government to provide enough security in order to at minimum recover the stability Afghanistan had between 1933-1978? The Army Area Handbooks have been revived and renamed as COUNTRY STUDIES, and the one for Afghanistan takes their history quite seriously. One thing I do know is that the Taliban ban on music and Bollywood is their true Achilles heel.
- K2K
June 23, 2010 at 12:34am
Has Mr. Bacevich heard about what happened in Gizab? If anyone can look at that and claim the Afghans will not be willing to support us, I'd like to know what they base that on.
- sighthnd
June 23, 2010 at 1:01am
George Bush was an idealist who believed that Muslims are capable of becoming civilized. I wanted, and till want, to believe that, but the evidence is depressingly thin. We have three choices: the first is to continue President Bush's project and spend vast amounts of American blood and treasure in bringing the Islamic world from the Dark Ages to the 21st century. The second choice is to let the Mohammedan lands know that we will pepper them with hydrogen bombs unless they cut the crap. (Remember WW II.) The third is to becomes "Dhimmis" and submit to Muslim rule. Liberals, being cowards with no sense of honor, prefer the third alternative. The rest of us are torn between alternatives one and two.
- bulbman1066
June 23, 2010 at 2:37am
Facts have a liberal bias. Afghanistan has been a lost cause for years and no military strategy short of many hundreds of thousands of troops and a nation-building cost that might make even K2K, sighthand, and bulb gag will "win" Afghanistan. It is rapidly becoming Obama's Cambodia to Iraq's Vietnam. Obama need Google "Santayana: lessons of history" and "Afghanistan: British and Soviet Empires".
- drofnats1
June 23, 2010 at 6:57am
Terrific thread name, says it all. I have 10 bucks on the line that says McChystal survives. He should own his own policy, deal with his own fears of failure rather than projecting them on to everyone else. I can't help but think what he and his asshole toadies said wasn't so bad anyway. I grew up with very smart military guys as family - give them beer and they degenerate in to fools shocking quickly. There's a good case to be made for firing him as well. He has it coming even more than being made to stay in place and deal with his own mess.
- WandreyCer
June 23, 2010 at 9:08am
drofnats1: I would make Karzai king (he IS the hereditary descendant of the first Afghan king), and pay him enough to field those hundreds of thousands of Afghans to maintain order. (Today, Karzai would then hire McChrystal as his General?) and stop the US War on Drugs, which would bring more stability to both Afghanistan and Mexico. Obama did not bother to read Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars" until after he was elected. I still wonder if he thinks the First Anglo-Afghan War was just a fluke of history. There is no way to ever cut the head off Political Islam with COIN or other western military strategies. No one ever wins Afghanistan except the Afghans.
- K2K
June 23, 2010 at 9:11am
I suspect the picture Of MacChrystal in the media bears no resemblance to reality, for how could he simultaneously be a kick-ass general who won't let his troops kick ass. I suspect that this act of insubordination was intentional, for how could he attain the rank of 4-star general while being a political dunce. I suspect this is an act of high drama to force all concerned to reconsider the strategy, and either affirm it or prepare to move on to a different strategy. An odd way to conduct business, yes, but at least it got everybody's attention.
- rayward
June 23, 2010 at 10:40am
K2K's proposal makes a lot of sense. Bill Clinton sent the best US generals to advise Croatia in its war with Serbia, and the Croatians won. Why not send advisers, arms and money to whatever tribes in Afghanistan agree to fight the Taliban, but confine US troops to a training mission?
- bulbman1066
June 23, 2010 at 1:20pm
That is an astute comment by rayward.
- bulbman1066
June 23, 2010 at 1:22pm
I don’t think the General should be fired, this is not the issue for me, what is the issue is the utter senselessness of it, this whole celebrity gossip feel to it. It puts the President in a terrible position, if he does nothing to the General he will be viewed as weak and not willing to enforce the code (or so some Republicans will certainly say) if he fires the General he puts soldiers lives at risk while a new Commander gets up to snuff. In either case Obama, as C I C is weakened, and weakened leadership emboldens the enemy, perhaps there are suicide bombers even as we speak going out while the General is in DC. Even one soldier dying over gossip is too high a price, and you might say he would have gone out, if not today, next month. Maybe you are right, but to deprive a soldier of even a month of life is too high a price. Bulbman, amusing as usual, thanks for the laugh. We have other options, one is to build up the cities turn them into modern Meccas to represent the change progress can give them. Let the countryside be, except for occasional bombing of camps. Protect the cities. The Northern Alliance kept a nice chunk of the country for years. Counterinsurgency is useless if you build a school in the countryside and then watch as the Taliban kill girls who dare to go, and later turn the school into a munitions dump, which we then drop a ton of ordinance on.
- blackton
June 23, 2010 at 1:30pm
You are all posting on how to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. What's needed are generals and politicians with sufficient brains and courage to articulate and carry out an assessment made by von Rundstedt in such military circumstances: "make peace you fools".
- drofnats1
June 23, 2010 at 4:56pm