Taking ownership of war
More than half a year into his presidency, Donald Trump finally offered broad strokes Monday for a way forward in Afghanistan. Most important, he took ownership of the nation’s longest war after a period of strategic drift.
The plan Trump offered in his prime-time speech was longer on aspirations than details. It appears workable and yeoman-like — unremarkable, really. It gives Defence Secretary James Mattis buy-in from the Oval Office to add a few thousand more troops to the 9,800 uniformed Americans already there in an effort to boost battlefield performance of Afghanistan’s security force.
There should be no illusion that outright victory is in the offing, notwithstanding Trump’s conceit Monday night that “we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily.” The conflict is a stalemate at best. The Taliban is resurgent, and the strategy will be more about not losing than about winning, in the short term.
Counterterrorism strikes can continue against terrorist hideouts; a strategic partnership is to be forged with India in order to solicit more economic-development money for Afghanistan; and greater pressure is to placed on Pakistan to finally force reduction of cross-border havens for Taliban chieftains. Trump, meanwhile, will lean on the Afghan government to fight corruption and implement reforms.
These are not new or even particularly creative ideas. Versions of them have been tried repeatedly without great success.
What is new is the commitment from Trump, a striking contrast from his “let’s get out of Afghanistan” tweets of a few years ago. In the end, the president appears to have settled on the best of a lot of bad options.
The issues are complex, the stakes high. The message to the world is clear. There’s no withdrawal and, usefully, no predetermined drawdown dates. The United States is committed to supporting the struggling Afghan government, so long at it makes progress.
The Taliban must now know that the United States isn’t going away any time soon.
This daunting commitment might well persist through the balance of Trump’s term in office and require the president to keep making the case to the American people that the sacrifices to come are worth the cost.