Infographic: Major Conflicts in the Middle East

I decided to try my hand at an infographic to get everyone caught up in all the major mayhem in the Middle East currently going on.

If everyone likes it, more will come to try to give the big picture on some individual conflicts.

Enjoy! (Click here for bigger version of the infographic)

Afghanistan War Update, 2015: More Fighting, But Negotiations Coming

Afghanistan has been largely forgotten (including by me) as the rest of the middle east has erupted, in large part because Afghanistan is in a surprisingly "stable" stalemate--not that the country has stabilized, but that there isn't much movement one way or another.

I decided to finally get back to writing about Afghanistan after reading that the US is now planning to keep troops in Afghanistan through 2016--right up until President Obama leaves office.

The decision seems to come in response to two things:

• Fighting with the Taliban is up big time in 2014, with the most civilian casualties on record.
• Obama claims to have great faith in president Ghani, who seems to be less of a strongman and less corrupt than Karzai.

The good news, at least through 2013, is that the total Taliban deaths per year--as well as their percentage of total combat deaths--increased steadily...

...even as the NATO coalition pulled out and got less involved in operations (and thus its casualty rate has dropped precipitously). This means that, indeed, the Afghanistan National Army is getting comparatively stronger and more capable compared to the Taliban. Unlike the Iraqi army forces, there isn't much worry of the Afghans simply splitting and running.

The bad news is that corruption is still a major problem, and that opium production has gone through the roof since the British withdrawal--it's higher than it's ever been. This means lots of money for the Taliban and a sign of very little government control in southern Pashtun regions (Helmand/Kandahar).

In the end, I hold by my 2013 prediction (it's a bloody good article--go read it) that in 2015 the Taliban will attempt an offensive, fail to take over the country, and negotiate.

Those negotiations are coming, in large part due to Ghani's charm offensive to get Pakistan to pressure the Taliban into making the talks happen. I think this is the real reason Obama wants to keep some troops around--to apply pressure during the negotiations. I don't think it's because of just blind faith that Ghani is going to make the situation better before Obama is out of office--that would be naive in the face of recent history.

In the end, Afghanistan is a comparatively simple story of an ethnic (largely Pashtun) insurgency...

caused in large part by arbitrary colonial boundary-making (the infamous Durand Line).

This means, I think, that it'll end as most of these do: slowly, painfully, and with an awkward peace deal that'll have many hiccups down the line. The good news for the Afghan army is that even though fighting is intensifying (to be predicted as NATO troops withdraw and Taliban forces try to use the opportunity to beat up the ANA and win bargaining power), the Taliban are consistently losing in these fights 4:1 or 5:1. That continued losing means they are likely hurting and more eager for a deal.

The rest of the middle east may remain such a mess that the Taliban will be considered almost reasonable by comparison once they make a peace deal. I'm not kidding.

Some other interesting notes:

• There are over 100 ISIS/ISIL fighters in Afghanistan--20 of them have been killed by the Taliban, who apparently want nothing to do with them. No surprise--at best, they're competitors for power (as they want to make Afghanistan part of the Caliphate and the Taliban are ultimately a nationalist/ethnic insurgency). I doubt they'll gain a major foothold.
• The number of Afghan children attending school has increased 7x since 2001, including now 3.2 million girls (versus 5 million boys), up from 10,000 girls.

Criticisms of the Obama Administration's "Halfway" Strategy on Afghanistan, From the Inside

Vali Nasr, a former State Department official under the Obama Administration, is writing a book (titled "The Dispensable Nation") that is a pretty wide-ranged critique of the Obama administration's handling of foreign policy as a whole. I'll focus on the Afghanistan portion that I know so far as I think it resonates well. An excerpt from the NYT review of the book:

[But when Mr. Obama gave a speech during the American election campaign in June 2011 and announced that he was beginning to remove the reinforcements, Mr. Nasr asserts, the president undercut the leverage the United States would have needed to effectively pursue negotiations with the Taliban.

“As we went from ‘fight and talk’ to ‘talk while leaving,’ the prospect of a good outcome began to grow dimmer,” he writes.

Instead of taking risks in war or to pursue a peace settlement, he writes, the White House “was happy with the narrative of modest success in Afghanistan and gradual withdrawal.”]

Though not personally vested in a victory in Afghanistan, the approach the Obama administration has taken to Afghanistan drives neither effective negotiations with the Taliban (and thus the end of the war) or real protection for US troops--and certainly not cost-savings for the US government.

The surge could only be used for some sort of negotiating leverage, as it was clear to most diplomatic & military leaders that military defeat of the Taliban (due to its haven in Pakistan) was not possible. The fact that the surge was quickly reversed and a gradual withdrawal was publicly announced, the Taliban now actually have an incentive to wait rather than negotiate, as they know they will have a future advantage after US withdrawal. The very purpose of the surge was quite undermined.

To be fair, the announcement of the withdrawal has some advantages, including putting some urgency into the wider Kabul administration to get its act together, and acts as a reassurance to foreigner-weary Afghanis that NATO will be gone soon and Karzai won't become a complete puppet.

Afghanistan's Future in the Face of NATO Withdrawal

The excitement around the Arab Spring, including relative madness in Libya, Syria, and Egypt over the past few years has pluged America's forgotten war (need I mention that it's Afghanistan?) into even deeper obscurity.

Even I know quite little, but a discussion that exposed how little I know prompted me to become a responsible citizen and learn a bit more. I'll share what I've learned (and some of what I knew already) here.

What I must first state is that this post is, for me, far and away my most researched, and most painfully considered, but it shall be far from a triumphant magnum opus. I say "painfully" with literalism. I have found Afghanistan to be inscrutable, and trying to figure out what is truly going on in the country has proven completely elusive. At this point, I can only provide many contradictory leading indications and try to provide some guidance on which ones are most worth paying attention to. I hope it provides some clarity, but I must insist on managing expectations: one is likely to walk away from this post at least as frustrated as one is enlightened.

I mostly wish to answer the following question that my girlfriend sharply engaged me on for the past week or so: "What's going to happen after NATO withdraws from Afghanistan in 2014? Will it all fall apart; was it all for naught?"

After incredible amounts of frustration, spiraling pessimism, blips of hope, and some near giving up, a consensus is building in my mind. I'll state, tentatively, thus: "It won't be pretty, but the Afghan government will hold and the country will move forward."

Let's start digging into why.

Some Key Supporting Facts About Afghanistan

I first want to start by painting some broad brush strokes and then back these brush strokes up with facts (Asia Foundation is source of all polls unless stated otherwise):

1) The Taliban are surprisingly strong, and many are fighting as "nationalists." Despite being outnumbered 35,000 (or so) to 485,000 (of which 380,000 are Afghan National Security Forces [army and police]), the Taliban maintain extensive influence & administrative control over the southeast of the country (but I have found no reliable estimates of territorial control since 2011) and can be found making trouble of some sort nearly everywhere except the  most central and north-central parts of the country. Of the Taliban interviewed by the Asia Foundation, over half said they were fighting primarily to expel foreign troops from the country.

2) The Taliban manage to keep on recruiting. 75,000 Taliban or allied fighters have been killed since 2001--but their numbers have largely grown over time (from some 400 in 2002 to 10,000 in 2004, etc).

3) The people of Afghanistan are shockingly confident in their government and their future. Between 2008 and 2012, the proportion of Afghan poll respondents that believes the country is going in the "right direction" has actually increased steadily from a low of 38% to a recorded high of 52%. Additionally, 93% have a "confident" or "very confident" view of the country's security forces (though we'll see later that this optimism might be a bit unsubstantiated). Survey-reported access to electricity, security (!), drinking water, and education have improved, fueling this optimism. This satisfaction has led to 75% of respondents giving the central government's performance a "positive" assessment.

4) Many parts of Afghan life have improved, but corruption is a major risk for the Karzai government. On the other hand... about 80% of respondents say that corruption is a "major" problem in Afghanistan and over half experience it in their daily lives. Over 1/3 have had to give bribes for various services, including healthcare, justice, employment, and education.

5) Numbers don't tell the whole story on Afghan national security forces--and the rest of the picture isn't very pretty. The Afghan National Army (ANA) has a highly varied level of readiness. Only 14% of Afghan soldiers are literate to a first grade level (Source: GAO), and desertion sits at 30% or so for the year of 2011. Drug use amongst soldiers may be about 50%. There are multiple anecdotes of ANA soldiers fighting well against the Taliban, and many others attesting to whole units being paralyzed by fear and American advisors being unable to rouse them to fire their weapons. Generally, the Afghan National Army, despite being much larger than its Taliban counterparts, is less disciplined, less experienced, less skilled, less hardened, and far less zealous in many patches, meaning that there is a risk that certain brigades of the ANA could be quickly routed by smaller Taliban forces in a post-withdraw civil war.

6) Afghans want the Taliban and foreign troops out of their lives. 81% of Afghans are in favor of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. 65% "oppose" the Taliban and 30% are "sympathetic" to or "supportive" of the Taliban. 75% of the same respondents said they felt fear when meeting ISAF troops--this is about the same percentage as those that are afraid of the Taliban. In 2009 (BBC Poll) only 4% of Afghanis wanted the Taliban to rule the country and I don't believe it's changed much since.

7) Things have gotten quieter in Afghanistan than they've been since 2007. The late fall/winter of 2012/2013 have been the least deadly to ISAF Coalition troops since 2007. February (as of the 17th) has had zero fatalities on record, which would be only the second month in the history of the war (July 2002 being the other) in which no ISAF members died, if the trend continues. (source: icasualties)

8) Afghans are surprisingly liberal and progressive in their politics. 84% of Afghans believe that democratic elections are the most just way of choosing leadership; 83% believe that all people (regardless of ethnicity, religion, or gender) should have equal rights under the law. Almost 90% believe that women should have equal education opportunities (but only 2/3 believe women should be allowed to work outside the home).

Why the Taliban's Strength is So Puzzling

When we think about an insurgency succeeding or failing, we usually think of 2 primary elements:
1) Military capacity/capability
2) Support among the population

In some ways there's a lot more to it than that, but most things are variables under those (like "understanding the terrain," "cash on hand," "determination," etc, might all be a form of military capacity/capability).

As we see in our facts above, the Taliban don't have the military advantage at all (they are vastly outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched across the board by NATO troops and consistently fail quite miserably in open battle). No doubt, their sanctuary in the Pashtun parts of Pakistan has been critical to their ability to organize and avoid destruction at the hands of NATO, but they must ultimately be in Afghanistan in order to have as much influence as they do.

We see also that they're just plain not supported. While some are sympathetic to the Taliban (as they're the primary anti-foreigner/nationalist group in the country), Afghanis don't want them back in charge. Thus they should not have the ability to "swim among the populace" as successful insurgencies in the past have done (China's Red Army, Vietnam's Viet Cong, US Revolution, etc). Given such low levels of support, we'd expect the Taliban to have to exert influence through very overt measures, and through force, and thus be unable to "hide" from NATO/ANA troops.

So the Taliban just plain don't have the usual strengths that contribute to success, even though they've been a persistent and partially successful insurgency. This has bothered me to no end and, sadly, I do not have any silver-bullet answer, but there are a number of unconventional factors and strategies that may contribute to the Taliban's strength.

Key Contributors to Strength

The Taliban fight their war these days largely through targeted killings. Despite their seemingly low support rate, their intelligence is quite good, and they are able to intimidate citizens away from overt government support by credibly threatening to painfully murder them and their families. IEDs are going to be threatening to NATO troops but ultimately won't win the war against the Afghan government, but successfully coercing people to act on their behalf can. To beat this, the Afghan government's police force must become credible enough that people feel much safer reporting intimidation than following its lead.

Geography helps the Taliban rack up lots of "territory" if we look at maps of where they act. Rural areas are incredibly sparse and NATO/ANA forces can't track the Taliban through cave networks/etc in rural areas. The Taliban are able to hide here and exert influence in nearby villages while avoiding patrols whenever possible (and using IEDs to disrupt them). It makes elimination a very difficult proposition... but ultimately, it can keep them around and can drive out foreign troops, but this alone won't allow them to take the country back on its own (as urban centers do count for a significant portion of the population).

Obviously the Taliban have sanctuary in Pakistan--without this, they would have been quickly destroyed in late 2001 and simply never been able to mount a comeback. The US drone program is designed to target this but obviously Taliban leadership like the Quetta Shura (the top leadership council), Mullah Omar, Haqqani, etc enjoy sanctuary there. Additionally, Pakistan allows for the funneling of foreign troops to keep Taliban/ally ranks full. 

Pakistan's ISI is probably funding/supporting the Taliban (though this is a bit of an "unholy alliance"). The ISI's actions seem to be highly self-contradictory (sometimes funding and sometimes attacking/arresting), but if we recall that there are many faces of the Taliban and that it is largely a cell-based organization, the ISI will support some cells and be angered by others. The ISI is very interested in maintaining influence in Afghanistan and in the past did this quite directly through the Taliban. Thus the Taliban has intelligence, training, funding, and other organizational advantages from the ISI that allow it to frequently outsmart NATO/ANA troops.

Determination: the Taliban have an edge in determination that the ANA does not, and this has a chance at being the decisive factor in a 2015 civil war. The Taliban will easily fight to the death, where ANA troops lack the fervor or zeal of religious extremism--and the discipline of Western troops--and thus are prone to give up in a fight more easily.

Finally: the gap between 4% (want the Taliban in charge) and 30% (sympathetic) is large, and is due to some other appeal the Taliban have besides their monstrous form of rule. But statistics above give us the numbers: 75% of Afghanis are afraid of Western troops and over half the Taliban see themselves as primarily fighting against foreign troops. This nationalist appeal gives them some tentative support where they might otherwise have none.

What's Going to Happen in 2015

The Taliban have made clear that they'll negotiate after Western forces withdraw. There are ultimately two scenarios: one in which they fight-and-talk, and one in which they try to take over the country. Let's look at the latter scenario first:

Taliban attempt full takeover: Outnumbered some 11:1, the Taliban would have to fight their way through huge ANA forces entrenched in towns/cities throughout the country in order to make serious headway. The ANA is equipped with some elite offensive capability that should be able to counter-strike against any towns that might fall to a larger Taliban force, so the Taliban would have to move with relative speed. The Taliban would have some major successes, and likely establish a working influence over significant swaths of the country in the south and east. But ultimatley, if they can't suppress the ANA's ability to launch offensives, they may be in trouble. They don't enjoy much support outside of their homelands, and much of the support (and manpower) they have is dedicated to booting foreign troops, who will be gone after 2014. ANA troops will likely be more welcome in a village than Taliban for most of the country, giving them a real leg up. The ANA might even be able to hold on to the vast majority of the country, and relegate the Taliban to the southern 10-20% (like the FATA in Pakistan).

Taliban negotiate: Fighting will continue, along with the fiercest spring offensive yet, but it will be due to the Taliban "going all in" rather than suddenly becoming a lot stronger. They will go all-in in order to maximize bargaining power at the negotiating table. They will likely demand constituational changes in addition to some guaranteed representation. They want Karzai out, but there will have been a new election in 2014, and if that president enjoys lots of Pashtun support (as Karzai did at least in 2004), the Taliban will have trouble convcincing him that he needs to step down. Ultimately, the ANA won't be able to clean up the Taliban (if they can't with NATO support, they certainly won't be able to on their own), so a negotiated settlement is really the only way to end the war. The Taliban know this and also know that they have more tolerance for continued war and death than the citizens of Afghanistan, so they'll have suprisingly strong bargaining power and will likely walk away with a frustrating amount of concessions.

Why The Taliban Ultimately Won't Be Able to Take Over the Country

I decided that, despite many contradictory indicators (on one hand, Taliban strength/wide influence vs ANA lack of discipline; on the other hand, low Taliban support and high optimism for the future), I would give the final say on the likelihood of the future to the people of Afghanistan. At the end of the day, if people feel more secure, it's because the police and military forces are becoming more effective and trusted, which in turn means that they'll be sufficiently integrated with the Afghani population to be able to cooperate in security matters.

Security has improved for Afghanis, and they are becoming increasingly attached to their government, thanks in part to better education, infrastructure, and health, and increasing security (and thus real protection of some basic freedoms and rights). If the Afghani people really buy into their government and work with their police force, the Taliban simply won't be able to take serious root--they don't have the manpower to overwhelm the ANA, even if it is very shaky in many patches. They'll lose recruiting power as foreign troops leave, as many of their fighters just aren't as interested in extremist Wahhabism as they are an Afghanistan free of foreign occupation. The government is actually making progress in "building the state" and creating a "critical mass" of security and support to weather the Taliban storm. 

Afghanistan isn't Vietnam. In Vietnam, the NVA enjoyed overwhelming popular support, the population was fully part of the war (against the South), and the Saigon government was seen for what it was--a  weak puppet. The Saigon government could not have administered the country even if it could have fought off the NVA. In Afghanistan, the picture is different. The insurgents are unpopular, the people of Afghanistan are fairly liberal, and they approve of their legislatures at over 70% (compare that to the 11% of the United States' approval of its own congress). The government risks being a long way from being able to administer large parts of the country, but it doesn't mean the Taliban have a heck of a lot better chance outside of their traditional homelands.

When NATO leaves in 2014, more blood will shed, but the long-term picture for Afghanistan looks... not so bleak. By 2020, there will be many worse places to live in the world (sadly), and I think the territorial control line between the ANA and Taliban will have stabilized enough that the fighting will be minimized, and the Taliban won't be able to run the country.

The Changing US Strategy in the AfPak Region

There is writing that is moving from the walls directly to the Oval-Office-sealed paperwork: the United States will be removing the vast majority of its presence from Afghanistan, and soon.

A few pretty obvious signs are pointing to this:
-Defense Secretary Gates is stepping down
-The extremely popular General Petraeus has been moved to the position of CIA Director
-The President is making it clear he plans to accelerate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
-The US and Pakistan are finally working together to hunt down a list of Al-Qaeda / Taliban leadership using CIA/ISI resources

These signs are indicative of 2 major changes:
1) The US strategy in Afghanistan is becoming one that focuses on anti-leadership attacks
2) The US has discussed this strategy with Pakistan--and finally gotten real cooperation

As we discuss this strategy, we must keep in mind the US' overall goal: to prevent jihadist groups from being able to either unite the Middle East against the West, and from being able to organize and launch coordinated trans-national attacks.

The US has largely succeeded in its first goal. The Arab Spring is (mostly) a relatively liberal-democratic movement, rather than a jihadist one. The US has won the "hearts-and-minds" campaign; al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack support from large populations, except perhaps in Yemen and Somalia.

In the second, the US has largely succeeded in all places but Yemen and the AfPak region. Yemen poses a different problem, but the AfPak region can be managed without the total collapse of the Taliban.

In fact, much of the Taliban these days consist of a Vietnam-style nationalist movement. Yes, they're still unsavory folks that want to bring a twisted form of Sharia to Afghanistan, but that is largely not the US' problem, as much as we may cringe to say it. There's little indication that much of the Pashtun Taliban know much about al-Qaeda or, if they do, care for the trans-nationalist doctrine.

On the other hand, much of the hardened leadership of the Taliban and other associated groups pose the bigger threat to the US' interests. These leaders can and sometimes will coordinate strikes, as we've seen in Pakistan and India. The new strategy calls for their systematic elimination by drones or CIA/ISI strike teams coordinating both tactics and intelligence. So far, it looks like it stands a chance at being relatively effective.

In the general push for Afghan security, a few benefits arise:
1) Focusing on the leadership hampers the Taliban's ability to coordinate, resupply, etc, when facing offensives
2) Withdrawing troops hurts the Taliban's nationalist message
3) The Taliban actually do want a negotiated settlement, and seem to be willing to do so once the US withdraws. Yes, they will have much more bargaining power then, but a negotiated settlement (at this point) is a much more palatable option than continued warfare for either side. They have reached a "painful stalemate," and are ready to talk.

Ultimately, we must remember that most of the Taliban are folks with very well-defined and limited aims, that don't include attacking the US (as angry as they may be). To a large extent, we can use the NVDA/Viet Cong as an analogy for most of these fighters, even if international interests are involved in funding them.

The most important part, though, is finally getting Pakistan's full help. Pakistan is shifting for 2 reasons:
1) US promises of quick withdrawal have now made helping the US politically palatable. The Taliban are not popular in most of Pakistan, and carry out attacks against the Pakistani people all the time. If Pakistan can help the US in a way that is politically palatable, it will--the US has just given it that opening.
2) With the US withdrawing, Pakistan is now legitimately worried about the Taliban threat growing, and is going to take higher responsibility to deal with it, and take control of the Waziristan region. The US withdrawal has been a bit of a "wake-up" moment for both the Pakistani leadership and its people.

Ultimately, total defeat of the Taliban is unlikely. Unlike Iraq, where the there was a small group of "irreconciliables" that were systematically destroyed, the Taliban represent a large group that is afraid of marginalization (much like the Sunnis in Iraq felt), and it must be negotiated with and brought into the government in some way.

Focusing on strikes against the leadership is likely the way that the US can bring this negotiation to the forefront, while keeping the Taliban as weak as possible, and ultimately preventing any transnational attacks from occuring.

My Skepticism and Optimism Over Reports of Progress in Afghanistan

One of the tough parts about an anti-insurgency campaign is that it's a pretty tough operation to measure with hard data. That drives people like myself quite crazy, at times. We depend largely on reports from mid- and high-level commanders, who have a bias to over-report success and under-report failure. But we do what we can.

There are a few reasons to be optimistic from some recent news. The first is that an (apparently) relatively large and relatively influential Pashtun tribe in Helmand, the Alikozai, have agreed to deny support to the Taliban in exchange for international aid and development.

It might be a key advance in an attempt to break a vicious cycle in the area, in which the local population doesn't support the Afghan government due to lack of services & security, and the lack of support from the local population bars the Afghan government from taking a foothold. The long-term strategy is to wash the Taliban out of stronghold areas (like Sangin), build government services and security, and thus not allow the Taliban to effectively move back in.

I'm mostly cautiously optimistic, though it'll depend entirely on whether the US is able to capitalize on this (and get more local allies), about which I'm rather skeptical. The US' only serious hope is in the brutality and unpalatability of the Taliban alternative.

I'm more skeptical about fact-lacking reports from senior US military leaders about the success of the North Waziristan campaign. A recent press release about "many, many" fighters/leaders killed or sent into hiding due to drone attacks brings only raised eyebrows. How many dead; what have the effects been? Where do we see relief of attacks? How are we entrenching the gains? None of it's there, and the risk is that, if out leadership is using these reports as signs of success, then we'll fall into the same traps as we did in Vietnam: mis-use our resources, mis-count victories, and ultimately lose.

A Petraeus-Style Plan Emerges in Afghanistan

It's being called "Inteqal," which is both Pashtu and Dari for "Transition." It's the NATO / Kabul plan (masterminded by General Petraeus) for a phased transition of military control, by province, to the Afghan military and police force.

The fact that there's a plan doesn't necessarily mean that it will work. Even if it's a good plan, it needs excellent execution to achieve "victory" (where "victory" is a very difficult and vague definition, anyway). But, holy smokes, it's a plan, which is something the Afghan War has seriously lacked for the last 8 years.

The concept very closely maps the Iraqi transition plan (my blog posts in 2008 focused largely on tracking the progress of this transition plan). Similar to Iraq, Afghanistan's map will now be colored red, orange, yellow, light green, dark green (indicating, respectfully: Not Ready for Transition, Partially Ready for Transition, Ready for Transition, Transitioning Within Six Months, and Transition Complete). The idea is that NATO develops capability internally in the "easier" provinces, transitions them, and consolidates its forces to progressively more "difficult" provinces.

This kind of plan has two advantages: first, it gives the Afghan Army and Police (as well as civil administrative) forces "practice" in these early-transition provinces, such that the kinks can be worked out in a lower-risk environment. Second, it gives NATO forces an opportunity to progressively consolidate, which allows them to maintain security forces in more hotly contested provinces, even as the troop draw-down begins. the plan has some merit.

Unfortunately for the sake of my curiosity, Petraeus is not keen on publishing the transition plan right now, lest it arm the Taliban with a document around which to develop a detailed strategy. But we can know a few of the provinces coming soon (like Herat), as well as some of those definitely not being transitioned for a while (like Helmand and Khandahar).

Small outposts and bases have already been transitioned--in part as a trial for the strategy, and in part due to the need to show progress.

The plan is good--though progress may need to be measured with some skepticism. The fact that a province is "transitioned" does not necessarily mean it's secure. With a pullout schedule looming over US forces, Petraeus will be under the gun to move quickly with the transition. The risk, of course, is that the "early" provinces are transitioned quickly in order to maximize security presence in Khandahar, Helmand, and Zabol.

Furthermore, NATO has to define the end-game. The Taliban are not going to disappear before NATO leaves. There is much talk of negotiations, but it's not clear whether those are actually happening.

In the end, this plan needs to be able to pose the following threat: "The Taliban cannot reach a sweeping victory after NATO leaves. A continued civil war will be a bloody stalemate." If such a threat is credible, negotiations can begin in earnest. Therefore, while Petraeus cannot divulge the details of the transition plan, results and progress will need to be publicized impressively, to put the Taliban in a position where it makes sense to seriously consider collaboration.

What the Afghan Endgame Looks Like

The Taliban don't want a protracted civil war in Afghanistan. This seems difficult to comprehend, given the last 30 years or so of fighting.

But it should be made clear right away--fighting an invading power is much different from fighting a full-on internal civil war. Defeating an occupying power requires great patience, but the Taliban can largely avoid losing major resources and manpower by avoiding a NATO army that is not large enough to cover the entire country.

Fighting a civil war is much different. No waiting will do--fighting against the central government and its own Warlord allies will be a knock-down drag-out war of attrition, and one the Taliban may well not win, if US intelligence and drone attacks remain on Kabul's side. Such a civil war would be devastating, even if the Taliban won.

This scenario is very unlike the complete power vacuum left when the Soviet Union withdrew--the Soviets had not conducted in massive, extensive state-building that NATO has. The central government may not have driven the Taliban out of much of the country, but it does not mean the Taliban is close to secure.

The other point worth keeping in mind right now is that a player in a war or other disagreement wants most to negotiate when its relative advantage is peaking--that is, the point that it's going to be able to squeeze the most out of the other side. After peaking, time erodes the advantage, and less can be won.

Thus, the Taliban are coming to negotiate. Not the big-wigs (like Mullah Omar), but some of the elite near the middle that are feeling the pinch and the pain. Omar himself can't afford to appear to be willing to negotiate with an occupying power for an instant--too large a proportion of his followers (as well as is Pakistani ISI patrons) oppose such negotiations, and are likely to outright kill him if he becomes a collaborator.

The same risk applies to the leaders coming to negotiate. That said, they are not nearly as safe as they used to be in Pakistan, given the uptick in the frequency and success of US drone attacks against leadership of this level.

NATO is doing an excellent job of promising and reliably giving safe transport and harbor to those coming to negotiate--it might be personally safer for many of these leaders to come to talk, rather than hide in Pakistan.

But, ultimately, the top Taliban leadership is not declaring any readiness to negotiate--even if they may be leaning towards it. But in the end, the Taliban will not be able to sweep through Afghanistan and claim victory as NATO leaves. There will either be a negotiated settlement or a crippling civil war, and the former is more likely.

The biggest deciding factor for the top Taliban leadership will be whether they actually think their advantage is going to grow into the future. If it becomes obvious that their bargaining position is declining, the hard line against negotiations from the top will begin to soften--and many of the middle-level elite leaders will already have the initiative in talks.

The Fascinating CIA-Army Campaign in AfPak

As the US looks to spin down its campaign in Afghanistan (looking towards draw-downs in 2011), it has two current objectives towards which it is racing:

1) Eliminate and prevent the resurgence of al-Qaeda links in the AfPak region that can contribute to worldwide terror attacks.

2) Sufficiently reduce the influence of the Taliban that it cannot take hold and later become a stable harborer of terrorism / Global Jihad.

Unfortunately, these two objectives stand in some conflict, particularly where Pakistan is concerned. Pakistan largely lacks the capacity to hit al-Qaeda targets in its northwest on its own, so the United States has been sending "covert" drone attacks over the border to eliminate them. This alone seriously increases tensions, but worse was that a drone attack recently killed 3 Pakistani soldiers by mistake--US-Pakistani relations are often strained, and should they break the US would lose what intelligence and military support it has against militants in northwestern Pakistan, which serves as a "safe zone" for the Taliban to retreat, regroup, reorganize, refresh, and re-enter Afghanistan anew.

The US is pursuing its two objectives with two very interesting campaigns.

The first: Petraeus is launching a full-scale Counterinsurgency campaign, actually much different from the combined COIN/civil war stabilization/insurgent-hunting programme used in Iraq. The strategy is a full "take-and-hold" style campaign, in which the US simply "moves in" to Taliban-heavy areas and tries to install a local government and security force--area by area (rather than seeking out and killing the Taliban). The campaign has met limited force-to-force resistance so far, mostly because full battles against NATO forces fare poorly for the Taliban--they continue to use hit-and-run or booby-trap tactics to wear down NATO as NATO tries to win hearts & minds with security & handouts.

The second: The CIA (with the President's go-ahead) has stepped up drone attacks on Pakistani soil to new highs--in its most recent publicized attack, the CIA killed 5 German militants, just after news broke that European citizens were part of a planned string of Mumbai-style attacks in Europe (this particular attack not only disrupts al-Qaeda in Pakistan, but likely does well to partially shore up confidence from the US' European allies that its presence in the AfPak region has the potential to make them safer). This campaign is likely tactically very effective--it is diplomatically extremely costly, and would be an unlikely direction for the Obama administration to take if it didn't seem to have a military effect.

To be fair, Pakistan is still looking towards a full campaign into the Waziristan area (after a relatively successful campaign in the Swat area), but it is not ready. Floods throughout the country have tied up much of its military (in relief efforts) and drawn attention away from the Taliban threat. If-and-when Pakistan moves north towards the Taliban strongholds in Waziristan, the tide of the battle may turn. Sadly, I've been saying this for a long time.

The Struggle Between Two Bad Options in Afghanistan

The Tension of Two Bad Options in Afghanistan

The War in Afghanistan remains in a frustratingly ambiguout state; the US is neither decisively winning, nor losing.

Colin Powell says that he is "not sure" whether the US is winning or not. General Petraeus is fighting a number of "soft" offensives, attempting to take-and-hold Taliban-dominated regions and build an Afghani security presence, rather than attack and decisively defeat the Taliban (which may not even be necessary, if they maintain a large political base).

Of course, success depends in part on Pakistan's ability (and willingness) to contain the Taliban on its side of the border. Islamabad's inability to recover from the floods in the Northwest not only strengthen the Taliban's presence there, but have brought murmuring rumors of a military coup.

Afghanistan remains in a bad, but ambiguous state.

This is one of the more politically difficult situations a leader can be in--the President can be blamed either way given a decision. If the US "doubles down" and commits heavily to Afghanistan, it might become a classic "quagmire," and will smear him (and would be a more costly defeat).

Unfortunately, politics are getting in the way of what might be the right decision (This being Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars").

Obama's military aides have been pushing for a larger, longer commitment--one of the risks identified is that if the US nails down a withdrawal deadline while the Taliban are strong, then there's no incentive for the Taliban to deal--only to sit back and avoid major conflict until the US departs (along, surely, with the rest of ISAF).

Obama's tenuous political position has brought out some (if accurate) potentially damning quotes about his motivations behind his strategy, including:
"I have two years with the public on this," and
"I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."

Domestic motivations in a war effort are nothing new--indeed, they're often the primary motivator in many war decisions (unfortunately), including staying in Vietnam (where there was no real threat to the United States' national security). Interestingly, it may be domestic politics that will drag the US out of Afghanistan.

The infighting amongst Obama's aides and the power of domestic politics in war strategy will be a boon to the Taliban. This is a classic case of the "war burnout" from which many Democracies suffer.

US Flood Aid to Pakistan: PR Success.

The US continues to directly aide Pakistan's flood victims (and, by the way, is expanding the operation), just as UN officials decry the rest of the world for not helping more.

It's a crucial part of the fight against the AfPak Taliban. With the Pakistani government struggling on its own to send aide, the Taliban might well be the primary provider of aide were it not for the US intervention.

Now, many northwestern Pakistanis are seeing US troops and Pakistani government officials / Army troops distributing aid and rescuing flood victims. It's going to have huge PR impact, and reduce the legitimacy of the Taliban, and win more "swing voters" over to the pro-Government side.

It'll also help perceptions of the US, which will make it much, much easier for Washington and Islamabad to work together against the Taliban in the future.

US Seizing an Opportunity in Pakistan

The Pakistani floods have given the US army an opportunity to counter the Taliban's influence in the Northwest (and bring increased legitimacy to US operations in the area).

US troops are dropping emergency supplies and evacuating civilians with military helicopters--with Pakistan's blessing.

It's a good PR opportunity, and a great way for the US to work together with the Pakistani Army. Furthermore, it gets US troops in the region--no doubt spies and commandoes have been dropped into the region to learn as much valuable intel as possible.

It's unlikely the US will use the opportunity for any immediate offensive or disruptive operations, but odds are good this opportunity will influence future plans for either US commando/spy forces, or for cooperation with the Pakistani Army against the Taliban.

Potentially Negative Repercussions of the Wikileaked Afghanisan Logs

Disclaimer: I haven't even started to pour through these. That said:

There can be a lot of debate over certain leaks--a good example is the video of an attack helicopter mistakenly gunning down a group of civilians in Iraq. Whether that's good for the country or morally sanctioned is a bit of a back-and-forth game.

I don't think the Afghanistan Logs (or at least some portion of them) fall into such a gray area. The biggest issue: Anti-Taliban informants have been compromised. The Taliban has begun hunting them down.

This is going to seriously discourage future cooperation in any areas that aren't under full Afghan government control. It's a major setback for the war that we're already losing.

Frustrations of the Westphalian Model of Sovereignty

President Karzai expressed some frustrations with the Westphalian model of sovereignty in dealing with the Taliban:

"BreakingNews>
Afghan Pres. Karzai asks at news conf: Why is NATO unwilling to hit Taliban bases in Pakistan?"

In the AfPak region, Westphalian Sovereignty is, frankly, no more than an abstract concept. Tribalism, ethnic territorialism, and warlordism cut up the landscape. The line between Afghanistan and Pakistan is very arbitrary (see the ethnic map and map of "Pashtunistan").

Karzai wants NATO to take the fight to the Taliban, and believes the most effective military targets are in Pakistan (which makes sense--the Taliban keep more secure bases in the relatively safer region). Karzai is actively challenging the Westphalian model.

He's not the first to do it. Woodrow Wilson challenged the old European concept of territorial stability by suggesting that "a people" should have autonomy (though what defines "a people" is a vague concept, at best). The Israelis have constantly struggled in Lebanon where they have an enemy of extremist Hezbollah, but attacking Hezbollah in its own base means going to war with "Lebanon," where there are many neutral parties and even some allies.

Many Pashtuns want a "Pashtunistan," and many Baluchis want a "Baluchistan." Creating these areas would re-set the Westphalian territorial boundaries in the Afpak region to something more ethnically sensible, though obviously Pakistan and Afghanistan have little interest in giving up these large territories (unless they become so troublesome to hold onto that they are let go). The geopolitical need to hold onto them is relatively powerful, especially for Pakistan.

The Western dedication to the Westphalian Model may become a big contributor to the fall of the Afghan state, should it fall. But right now, the West has few alternatives. There is not another viable alternative to take Westphalia's place.

An Afghan Exit Strategy

A conference in Kabul was held today about the international exit strategy from Afghanistan. A few things came out of it:

1) There's a goal date for Afghan Army leadership of every province in the country for 2014. Karzai and international forces are agreed on it (though it's non-binding).
2) The US will still keep drawing down forces in 2011. It will probably start slow--it's not the optimal time to draw down, but Obama has domestic promises he'll need to keep.

That said, let's think about the strategy itself.

First, what's the minimum goal of ISAF? To prevent an al-Qaeda (or other anti-Western international terror force) from taking hold. Certainly, if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan (or controls a large portion of it in a stable way), the risks of this will be very high--the war will be a failure.

The more control that the Kabul government has over Afghanistan, and the weaker the Taliban is, the higher the chances a pro-Western stable equilibrium will arise. Thus all the focus on state-building.

But at the end of the day, Afghanistan does not even have to be as strong and stable as Iraq to be a "success." That said, they're very different situations--Iraq was mostly a sectarian civil war, and Afghanistan is mostly an ideological insurgency (a la Vietnam, as much as that's a scary thought).

The strategy suddenly sounds a lot like the Petraeus strategy in Iraq. It includes:
1) Get the troops out onto the ground. Have them standing side-by-side with Afghani soldiers as patrollers in the streets. This not only trains the Afghani soldiers, but helps keep NATO soldiers looking like the good guys.
2) Focus on handing over one province at a time. Kabul will need to slowly and gradually develop its statecraft. Readers from 2006/2007 may remember Foggofwar's close tracking of the progress of province handover. I continue to believe this will be an important performance indicator. The strategy will allow NATO to continually consolidate troops into more and more troublesome provinces, as "easier" provinces are taken by Afghani troops. The "easier" provinces will provide areas to build experience for the Afghani Army, so that veterans can be cycled to "tougher" provinces that fall under Afghani control after stints in these "easier" provinces.
3) A focus on aggressive raids. The trick here will be to continually deny safe haven to the Taliban. Special forces should be employed at night to make it as scary for the Taliban to sleep as it is for pro-Western collaborators. Constant raids in Iraq against al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups went a long way in eliminating the actual insurgent part of the war.

Some new parts of the strategy:
1) A high reliance on Pakistan. The US needs to continue to be very diplomatic with the Pakistani people. Luckily for the US, it has managed to make drone bombings in northwest Pakistan enough of a status quo that it doesn't seem to be making the Pakistani people angrier. The US will almost certainly be sending special ops to assist Pakistan in offensives in Northern Waziristan and other hot spots to deny the Taliban cross-border support and organization. We'll continue to stress here at Foggofwar the importance of making sure there aren't "safe zones" for the Taliban to fall back, regroup, heal, resupply, organize, command, communicate, etc. It must be made into a fractured and confused force if it can be broken.
Pakistan also has a fair amount of success in breaking the Pakistani Taliban, though the Pakistani Taliban is generally considered to be "softer" and less experienced than its Afghani counterparts (who have been fighting a tough guerrilla war for most of the last 25 years). That said, lessons can be learned by the thoroughness of the Pakistani offensives.
2) Dealing with supply problems. Iraq really had few supply problems for the US. Basrah, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia all provided easy entry points for supplies. As news of attacks on NATO supply convoys in Pakistan/Afghanistan suggests, NATO must sometimes operate with fewer supplies than it would like. This can easily hamper offensive efforts.

That said, conditions in Afghanistan are currently terrible. Roadside bombings in Q1 2010 are double those in Q1 2009. June was the deadliest month in the 9-year war for ISAF forces. A previous post of mine suggests that this may be a better sign thatn one would immediately think, but it does indeed still risk running ISAF (or parts of it) out of Afghanistan. For every country that breaks and peels away, the Taliban strikes a victory.

They also have control of most of the southwest of the country--it's a big territory with a fair number of people. Getting potential sympathisers to work with the Afghan government will require such a massive and sustained disruption of Taliban operations there that they cannot hunt and kill the sympathisers at night--one of their most effective terror tactics.

Going forward, NATO will have to keep drone missiles, special ops, and the occasional small offensive in the Pashtun region (along with brilliant cooperation with Pakistan into the north) as it consolidates northern provinces under Afghani government control, in order to prevent the Taliban from mobilizing into a full offensive itself. As the Afghani Army grows, NATO will need to prepare a full invasion force--prepped by special operations, spearheaded by the Marines & Army, and then garrison by massive numbers of Afghani police and army, to take control of the Pashtun region. It will need to be huge, swift, and incredibly costly.

The exit strategy is a tough one. This is a much more difficult war than Iraq ever was. Ultimately, it will depend on being able to win over parts of the Taliban, and breaking the top-level leadership to prevent sufficient collaboration by the various Taliban factions for a full takeover.

Afghan War Intensity Up--A Sign of Hope?

100 ISAF servicemen died in June--the most since the Afghanistan war began. it's a terrible number and a tragedy, absolutely.

But: there is a sign of hope in the increased intensity of the Afghan war.

The Taliban is increasingly on the offensive--bold (and sometimes reckless) attacks against American and Afghani targets are well on the upswing.

What's this mean? Why the change? The easy answer is to say, "they're getting stronger, and want to deal a finishing blow." This is, certainly, what the attacks are meant to imply.

But the story is more complicated.

The question to ask is: what is the Taliban's winning strategy?

The answer, by the way, is to wait out the US. The US will leave eventually. It will not stay there forever. If the Taliban can slowly swell its safe base of operations, it will win, as the US will eventually grow tired and fade away.

Three series of events are happening in parallel:
1) The US is stepping up drone/special operations in Taliban strongholds in Southern Afghanistan (like Helmand).
2) Pakistan is stepping up full-scale military assaults in Taliban strongholds in northern Pakistan (like Swat and Northern Waziristan).
3) The Taliban is stepping up bold offensives against the Pakistani Government, the Afghani Government, and ISAF.

I think you might be able to see where I am going.

Why the boldness, if the Taliban wants to wait for the US to leave?

The obvious guess is that the wait-it-out strategy is not currently viable.

ISAF and Pakistan are working together on an offensive. As we saw in Iraq, offensives cost lives. They hurt, the numbers look bad, and the American public grows quickly impatient.

But, potentially, they work. Certainly, a lack of offensives will fail. Preventing at all turns a stronghold for the enemy is a necessary (though not sufficient) part of COIN. It seems like this costly measure is starting to pay off: bold Taliban attacks on ISAF sites imply that there may be a desperation on the part of the Taliban to pressure NATO out of Afghanistan quickly. If that's the case, then the Taliban thinks that waiting is no longer in its favor.

The alternative hypothesis is that the Taliban is so strong that it's trying to deliver the "final blow." First, this doesn't make particular sense, strategically--the Taliban is traditionally quite terrible against ISAF in straight-up gun battles, as the past month has shown. If the waiting-game is a winning strategy, then there's no reason the Taliban would grow impatient and start putting its fighters at higher risk. It's been fighting a 25-year war for Independence. Its time horizon is much longer than a few months.

Second, the US is already scheduled to start pulling out of Afghanistan--there is no particular need or reason to try to "hurry" them. This is the perfect situation to, if possible, keep the "wait-it-out" strategy going.

If the Taliban is on the offensive, it's because it can't be on the defensive. Its strongholds and safe areas are being threatened and broken up. For sure, we know its lines of communication are being disrupted--making its attacks decreasingly coordinated and effective.

There is hope. There is a whole lot more to do than disrupting the Taliban's footing in the AfPak region to ensure victory in Afghanistan. But it is necessarily the first and most important step in winning the war (creating a stable, functional, credible central government to take its place is another story altogether).

Keep your eyes up in the next few months for Petraeus to continue to apply his modified strategy from Iraq--potentially successfully.

NATO's Persistent Karzai Problem

It's tough propping up a government when said government seems to want to fight you every step of the way.

Hamid Karzai has gone on a recent bender of accusations against, in particular, the United States, but also the UN and NATO in general. The particular meat of the accusations is that Western powers have "meddled" unjustly in Afghan elections, undermining the legitimacy of said elections and giving the Taliban a political talking point (specifically, the most recent rants mention the throwing out of 1/3 of the votes for Karzai in the first round of presidential elections).

The accusation is probably rather preposterous, but I might be wrong. Either way, the lower house of the Afghan parliament unanimously (that being everyone) voted against Karzai's decree that the UN can no longer hold 3/5 majority of the electoral fraud commission--instead, Karzai would himself appoint the entire body. Unfortunately, the upper house (1/3 of which are hand-picked by Karzai) decided that, procedurally, they could not vote on the matter within a year of the elections. Unfortunately, this means the decree will stand. for the indefinite future.

This isn't the first worrisome think Karzai has said about his relationship with the West. Recently, a visit by Ahmedinejad prompted Karzai to call him a "brother" and otherwise generally cozy up to Tehran. Karzai occasionally has fits about throwing out the Western occupiers, despite his dependence on them to keep his government afloat.

Karzai is, no doubt, a very frustrating character for the West. Somehow, the US has managed to build a relatively rosy relationship with a country that it is illegally invading and drone-missile-attacking to squash a Taliban force that said country has some interest in maintaining (this, of course, being Pakistan), but has not managed to keep on good terms with the tinpot dictator it's trying to support. I'm not quite sure whether Clinton has muttered the words, "Well, if you really don't want us..." but Karzai might just understand that the US (and in particular, the administration) has so much to lose that unilateral withdrawal is just not an option--and if that's the case, Karzai has a great bargaining position, despite his relatively flaky power.

It's not actually all that uncommon for a propping state to have trouble keeping its client state's leadership in line. al-Maliki has been a mostly excellent partner to work with, but this is the exception. The US and UK often fight bitterly with Israel; the US leadership groaned famously over the Saigon government in Vietnam, the KMT/GMD in the Chinese Civil War, etc.

But the question that comes to mind is this: why should Karzai be such a darn pain the butt? What incentive does he have to make the lives of the US leadership as difficult as he does? Wouldn't his life be easier if he wasn't publicly ripping into his supporters? Can't we all just get along?

Well, as you probably know, Karzai's in a pretty tricky position. As much as he loathes the Taliban at a very personal level, Afghanistan is obviously a very long way from being a Taliban vs. anti-Taliban kind of show. All those pesky warlords, tribes, ethnic groups, and what have you make Iraq look like Disneyland in terms of being able to reach a unified consensus and build a unified state.

At the end of the day, Karzai's got to make a lot of rather unsavory people happy enough that they won't directly challenge his claim to power. He's also got to build legitimacy with the general population, so they'll throw support behind him directly (meaning that the other power players in Afghanistan also have to side with Karzai to keep their own popularity and legitimacy). Karzai's in a rather precarious position.

And so, of course he's going to be rather cross when a little election fraud here and there (which he may not have even ordered personally) gets dragged out of the gutter and displayed for all to see--it's going to cast a whole lot of doubt on his personal legitimacy that he probably believes would not be cast if everything looked peachy. At the same time, of course he's going to get friendly with the Iranians--Iran and Afghanistan share a border, and Afghanistan's got a non-trivial Farsi-speaking minority that Karzai needs in his opus-coalition in order to keep power.

And it makes sense that Karzai would call Clinton right after to apologise--there may be a frustrated understanding that Karzai has to look tough against the US in order to try to build legitimacy among (the winnable) tougher nationalists or Islamists, and to show that he isn't implicitly condoning the prevailing impression of election fraud (without selling out the ground-level loyalists that worked so hard to stuff ballots and intimidate voters--such a rebuke would seem like an implicit betrayal).

So the guy's in a pretty tough position. Combine said position with a truly maniacal obsession with defeating the Taliban, a slightly-bigger-than-healthy paranoia, and a penchant for micromanaging that verges on power-obsession, and you've got the Karzai we know and groan today.

But what can be done about it? Well, this is the tough part. Ultimately, the leadership positions of Afghanistan need to be shored up without turning them into tyrants in order to do so.

The big win is probably going to come in developing the Afghan army. When regular folks in Afghanistan see the friendly neighborhood soldier keeping them safe and helping them out, there will be a lot more state buy-in. This can, in theory, be done in time (the New Iraqi Army was mostly built from scratch after the US de-Ba'athification... but it was tough). Furthermore, said army will make the local warlords a decreasingly viable alternative and decreasingly important force in the new Afghanistan.

Second, NATO has to show that the Taliban is a losing alternative. To this end, first, NATO needs big, flashy, high-profile victories in places like Marjah (which haven't yet been delivered, because they are militarily difficult). Second, NATO needs to win the PR war by showing that the Taliban are actually baby-killing extremist nutbags, and won't make life better for the average Afghani. Somehow, this is easier said than done.

Finally, the local police & administration need to be developed. This will be toughest of all. As you've probably heard a bunch, Afghanistan is not used to having any sort of serious central authority. Current administration is underpaid and corrupt, either selling out the central government for cash (usually from the Taliban) or thugging on locals to help prop up their warlord, or even the state. (Step one here is clearly to use our vast sums of wealth to start paying police officers more, and hire cross-functional accountability officers).

But it's going to be tough. Karzai's going to continue to be a problem for the West, and the West is going to have to live with it and work with it, or lose Afghanistan. But the friction between Washington and Kabul shows that we've got a very, very long way to go.

Is Helmand Being Quietly Won?

I got up today rather early in my hotel (at a job that has thus far slayed any hope of me posting, for which I apologise. I am hoping to post more) and found a newspaper, perhaps a USAToday, that mentioned on the front page a few comments by General Mills about Helmand. I've heard little else (this limited to some poking around on Google News, CNN, BBC, and Fox).

Mills believes the Taliban have been all but driven out of Helmand. We're not "making progress," we've apparently won, and are now in a phase where we just have to hold and build. Though "just" may not be the right word, there. Offensives are always easier than defenses. And "building" may often mean "bribing effectively," which is not a sustainable practice.

Even if we're quietly winning Helmand, it means disappointingly little of the Afghani government and Army cannot get off the ground. But the US can extend its leverage using the Helmand victory in 2 ways:
1) it can use troops there to train/enforce the army and police, as well as actually build infrastructure, rather than fight Taliban;
2) it can focus its offensive attention elsewhere.

The danger ultimately lies in the Karzai government once again trying to step back and let the US fight its war as Karzai's cronies line their own pockets. The Obama administration seems to have put some pressure on Karzai with its promises of withdrawal, but the pressure will have to continue. The Helmand victory shows that the US can, given time and dedication, beat the Taliban out of any province that the US is legally allowed to operate within. Superior strategy will have to dictate how the US turns such victories into long-term results.

Tradeoffs and Wisdom in Obama's Afghan Strategy

You guys read the speech. If not, read the speech.

"Our resolve is unwavering." But, perhaps, only for the next 18 months.

Seems a strange message. And it is. But it may not be unsound.

(Quick summary: 30,000 additional troops, some begging for 5,000 more from NATO, will take a crack at the Taliban while other troops, particularly from NATO, train Afghan forces at absolutely breakneck speeds. Then, 18 months from now, we begin the drawdown.)

This looks quite a bit like the surge strategy in Iraq. And it is. General Petraeus, now in charge of CENTCOM, is probably relatively satisfied. McChrystal certainly is.

The major criticisms from the left are pretty simple--this is a waste of life, of money, we should be leaving. I think the counter-argument here is that there are a few serious points at stake: the first was brought up by the President. There is a serious security risk here. Certainly more than there was in Iraq. And certainly, this is something that we should weigh on its own as a benefit against the cost of the next 18 months, rather than succumbing to the tragedy of sunk costs. The second point is that the odds of winning are probably higher than the left probably thinks. Like it or not, Petraeus, Gates, and Bush showed that "doubling down" in a region has the potential to break the fighting will of folks that have spent the past many years slowly grinding and dying in the mountains to eek out momentum. Afghanistan will be harder than Iraq, due largely to an even-more-dysfunctional central government (and much less centralized society), but it can be done. Third, the cost of losing can go beyond simple security in the medium-term. Victory and defeat can significantly affect the relationships between the United States and other significant powers (Iran, Russia, etc); Vietnam and Afghanistan are both excellent examples. When the US lost Vietnam, its security was not threatened by Vietnam, but the Soviet Union gained a long momentum (as the US wallowed in relative misery and indecisiveness), and the momentum switched after the Soviet Union lost Afghanistan. So I think, as a whole, there is a lot to gain, and a decent chance to get it.

The criticism from the right is, as far as I can tell, centered around "sending the wrong message," as Senator McCain said. The worry, in essence, is that the US is not able to project the will necessary to break the will of the Taliban--they may simply spend the next 18 months hiding in wait, knowing the exact date at which they should spring forth to take down the Afghani government. It is not an entirely illegitimate claim. But if the Taliban does actually take an 18-month break (or relative break) from the fight against ISAF, then ISAF will have two luxuries: one, it will get to spend its massive resources in building up the Afghan Army and government (likely, the Army will have the bulk of the legitimacy of government forces, like in Iraq for some time). Two, it will allow the US to get aggressive and claim territory, hunt bad guys, etc, rather than play guard duty. Every force likes being on the offensive, and the Taliban will have to choose between actively seeking engagement with NATO troops or hoping that they can hide and be just disruptive enough to not give ISAF the luxury of relaxing and building.

Additionally, it will instill some urgency (and, frankly, panic) in the Karzai government. For all his corruption, Karzai is committed to beating the Taliban and holding onto his power base--he won't achieve his own objectives by sitting back and hoping. Knowing that the US commitment (and thus the NATO commitment) has a time limit is likely to motivate him to get his government in good enough shape to keep it together on its own, rather than free-ride off US and NATO efforts.

All in all, there is a trade-off between the message to the Afghan government and the message to the Taliban, but I think the trade-off is being managed pretty well. Furthermore, the trade-off management might actually make enough Republicans and moderate Democrats happy enough that he'll get the requisition he needs to pull it off.

My confidence here isn't quite as high as it was with the Iraqi surge, but it's probably about the best bet the US has right not to pull a win in Afghanistan (even if, yes, "win" was not a word Obama used. Deal with it.) and walk home with not only a safer Middle East, but a much-inflated geopolitical position compared to 2004.

Afghan Election Gets Key Legitimacy Boost

In an approximately-simultaneous announcement, the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan declared that no candidate in the election attained 50% of the real ballots cast, and Karzai rather generously agreed to the run-off.

The agreement is an about-face from his previous stance, which implied that he would dispute results that did not provide him an outright win. This, of course, would have been disastrous. Karzai may have, in fact, just facilitated the only route possible towards long-term governmental legitimacy in Afghanistan (though by no means, of course, did he guarantee it).

A number of obvious reasons are likely behind the decision:
1) Incredible international pressure, from NATO and the UN.
2) Fear of backlash, from Abdullah supporters and anyone else disaffected by fraud.
3) Hopes for increased legitimacy and popularity, by showing generosity and magnanimity.

Apparently, the run-off is scheduled for November 7th--only a bit over two weeks away. This will be necessary to make sure the elections are completed before Afghanistan's harsh winter hits, but will make logistics for ISAF, the UN, and Afghanistan's government incredibly complex.

More importantly: will Abdullah gain enough votes to make this a serious challenge? Karzai winning in the second round (with his cooperation) is certainly better than a "stolen victory" scenario, but it's unclear whether that can be avoided in the second round. Certainly, those working for Karzai have shown a ruthless desire to win (far beyond their desire to promote democracy). Will the scandal over the past weeks deter them from trying again?

It's unclear whether there is much hope to hold on to for this election. But if it should be "free and fair" and, most importantly, convincing, then the government may gain a new "boost" in confidence necessary to help the US "surge" in Afghanistan have a lasting effect.