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A Response to NSN on Afghanistan |
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NSN’s recently released “Principles for an Afghanistan Strategy” attempts to build progressive consensus on the war on Afghanistan, but has failed to do so. I and many of my colleagues in the progressive community disagree with NSN’s characterization of the situation in Afghanistan as well as many of its strategic recommendations.
We commend NSN for not explicitly promoting troop increases as the solution to the conflict,* and for embracing diplomatic approaches, but we are concerned by the assumptions their document unquestioningly embraces.
NSN addresses various factors at work in Afghanistan and rightly states that US strategy “must make a clear break with the past by announcing our intentions and objectives” and “must place direct responsibility for Afghanistan’s future with its people and their government.” Nonetheless, NSN does not articulate a coherent strategy. NSN is seemingly torn between the project of nation-building in Afghanistan and the more limited endeavor of protecting American security by containing Al Qaeda. This lack of clarity implicitly favors a continued and potentially deepening American military involvement in Afghanistan.
If “national security interests are at stake in Afghanistan,” then we must define them more clearly than NSN has done. What NSN does not ask is who precisely threatens the United States. Their document evades the question of the present relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and suggests that the United States must build a functioning Afghan government that excludes the Taliban in order to contain the threat from Al Qaeda. Such nation-building efforts, in NSN’s view, would include an “Afghan state [that satisfies] baseline economic and security requirements,” “an Afghan police force that better protects citizens and enforces laws,” investment in development, and a strategy for dealing with the opium trade. Here NSN parts ways with the many experts who believe that the US could effectively contain the threat from Al Qaeda even if Taliban elements participated in governing Afghanistan.
NSN’s omission of any reference to the possibility of an Afghan government that includes Taliban elements is all the more glaring because of suggestions to that effect by General David Petraeus and American allies such as Britain and Saudi Arabia. If NSN rejects the idea of talking with Taliban elements, and insists that the US must stabilize a Taliban-free government in Afghanistan, they are not only promoting the idea of a long-term military campaign in Afghanistan, but are also rejecting the advice of prominent NATO military and civilian leaders.
Additionally, NSN, like many other policy outfits, has offered no historically viable model for successful insurgency, nor have they considered the limits on American capacity to “win hearts and minds” including logistical difficulties with supply routes, lack of requisite non-military personnel, experience and concepts, and the Karzai government’s lack of legitimacy, accountability, and competence.
Finally, NSN believes that the US must stabilize Afghanistan in order to prevent the destabilization of Pakistan. NSN helpfully recommends de-emphasizing military approaches toward Pakistan, yet fails to acknowledge that the US military presence in Afghanistan is itself a source of destabilization across the border, and becomes a greater threat to Pakistani stability as we add more troops. If, as NSN says, preventing Afghanistan “from being a source of instability” for Pakistan is one of our greatest priorities in South Asia, then we must recognize our own role in that process.
*UPDATE: NSN does favor troop increases, though they don’t say so in their principles statement. (h/t Tim)
OPPS HE FORGOT TO MENTION THE PASHTUNE LAND GOES TO WESTERN PAKASTAIN..IT WAS THE ENGLISH THAT MESSED UP THERE BOUNDRYS AFTER WW.I..THEY HAVE HAD THERE LAND FOR 1000′S OF YEARS..lets hurry up and pour millions of our troops over there..hdtv fox news will tell us how were wining..