Diminishing Returns

A U.S. soldier instructs Afghan soldiers in Kandahar Province on Sept. 10

Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images.

The latest news from Afghanistan only underscores what?s been clear for quite some time: that there is no light at the end of the tunnel in this war, no noble way out, not much point to staying in.

In the 11 years we?ve been fighting there, our official war aims have been ratcheted down to adjust for what?s possible, and now it seems even the minimal goals may have slipped out of reach.

At the start, President George W. Bush envisioned not only ousting the Taliban but transforming Afghanistan into a Western-style democracy. President Obama discarded that fantasy for the more practical objective of dismantling al-Qaida, degrading the Taliban, and training the Afghan army.

But Obama was also persuaded by his top advisers that the best way to do this would be through a counterinsurgency strategy. That would mean not only fighting the Taliban militarily but boosting the Afghan government politically: helping it provide basic services to the Afghan people, thus gaining their loyalty and undermining their support for the Taliban. In short, it would mean nation building.

That was the rationale for Obama?s decision, in December 2009, to deploy 33,000 more American troops, beyond the 68,000 already there (21,000 of whom he?d agreed to send six months earlier). Eighteen months later, in June 2011, he decided nation building wasn?t working and probably never would work, so he announced that all 33,000 of those extra troops would be pulled out?and not replaced with a new rotation?by the following summer. (The last of those troops left this week.) By good fortune, a month before this announcement, he?d ordered a team of SEALs to raid Osama bin Laden?s compound in Pakistan, severely weakening al-Qaida. Meanwhile, the Taliban were weakened on certain fronts as a fighting force, and the Afghan army was performing a bit better. So Obama was able to present his decision as the product of success. And it was a success, under his newly defined standard; but if all he?d ever meant to do was to kill bin Laden, slightly push back the Taliban, and push up the Afghan army, he wouldn?t have needed all those extra troops from the outset.

Now, though, even this measure of success seems unsustainable. Two big pieces of news this week tell the story. First, the U.S.-led coalition announced that it was sharply curtailing joint operations with Afghan army and police forces. Specifically, there will be no more joint patrols?or any other interaction?at the level of battalion or below (a U.S. battalion has 800troops, an Afghan one about 400) without the approval of a two-star general. (Since nearly all patrols are conducted by units smaller than a battalion, the edict applies, in effect, to nearly all patrols.)

The reason for this ban was obvious. There?s been an outbreak of ?green-on-blue? killings?Afghan soldiers murdering their American advisers. More than 50 coalition troops have been killed in this manner this year, about one-sixth the number of total fatalities. The problem isn?t just the deaths. It?s that training and joint patrolling require trust, and if the American trainers have to worry about not just the enemy they?re pursuing but the ?partners? they?re training, trust vanishes.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ff1c117a69ba3ac6331bbed62c63ea3b

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