WH ponders ‘privatizing’ Afghan war
The White House is considering turning to private military contractors to carry out the bulk of the war in Afghanistan, according to a report on Tuesday.
Erik Prince, an ex-Navy SEAL and founder of the security firm Blackwater, told USA Today that his proposal would involve about 5,500 private contractors — mainly former special-operations troops — to advise the Afghan military and a 90-plane private air force to provide support.
Prince (inset), like some inside the Trump administration, believe the 16-year-old war is at a standstill and requires a new strategy.
“At what point do you say a conventional military approach in Afghanistan is not working?” Prince told the newspaper. “Maybe we say that at 16 years.”
The US now has 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, compared to the more than 100,000 when the war reached its peak in 2011.
The White House is debating Prince’s proposal, but Trump’s military generals — National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary James Mattis — have their doubts. Other White House officials, including chief strategist Stephen Bannon, appear open to the idea.
Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, said the plan makes sense financially.
It would cost less than $10 billion a year, much less than the $40 billion the Pentagon expects to spend this year, he said.
In an interview with CBS, Prince defended the proposal against accusations he would be building an army of mercenaries.
“The way the United Nations defines mercenaries, by being attached to the Afghan army, they would not be mercenaries,” he said. “So they would be contracted people, professionals, former special operations veterans that have experience in that theater to go do that work.”
Prince called on President Trump to rethink how to fight the war.
“The present conventional strategy has proved ineffective. Repeating the prior troop surge also has appeal. The surge reduced Taliban influence, but the Taliban returned as troops withdrew. Furthermore, it is simply too expensive to maintain a longterm, large-scale military presence. Luckily, there is a another option,” he wrote in the USA Today piece published on Monday.
“The president can ‘restructure’ the war, similar to a bankruptcy reorganization,” Prince wrote. “By aligning US efforts under a presidential envoy, all strategic decisions regarding humanitarian aid, military support and intelligence become laser-focused on creating a stable, self-supporting Afghanistan.”