In Afghanistan, ‘strategy-free time’ offers no easy choices
Defense Secretary James Mattis offered a disturbing assessment this week of America’s involvement in Afghanistan, its longest running war.
“We have entered a strategy-free time,” he told Congress, sobering words given the 8,400 U.S. troops at risk there and Mattis’ further acknowledgement that the United States and its Afghan and coalition allies are “not winning.”
Mattis said a fully formed strategy should be ready by mid-July, and every indication is that it will involve adding at least a few thousand more U.S. troops. Under any other administration, this would be the commander in chief's decision to make. But Mattis said Wednesday that President Trump has given the Pentagon authority on troop levels.
Whether that is a wise delegation of authority, or merely setting up a retired four-star general to take the fall should the new strategy fail, is debatable. But there’s no question that 16 years after the 9/11 attacks were plotted in Afghanistan, the war is a stalemate teetering toward loss.
A gruesome illustration occurred on May 31, when a sewage tanker-truck filled with explosives was detonated outside a diplomatic compound in Kabul, killing 90 and leaving hundreds wounded.
In the absence of a focused and coherent strategy, coupled with a determination to carry it through without an artificial withdrawal deadline, the Trump administration might just as well cut American losses, save tens of billions of dollars per year and pull out.
To do that, however, would put national security at risk by allowing Afghanistan to again become a launching pad for attacks by Islamist extremists. There is a long, arduous way forward in Afghanistan that offers the last best chance of salvaging success, or at least stability.
Military leaders have discussed some of the outlines. It would mean adding 3,000 to 5,000 more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers. They’d filter down into Afghan security forces to assist with combat operations and logistical support, and help regain the initiative against the Taliban. The message must be clear: America is steadfast in its resolve and open-ended in its commitment, much like the longstanding U.S. engagement in South Korea.
This would have a twofold effect. It would admonish the largest insurgent group, the deposed Taliban leadership based across the border in Quetta, Pakistan, that it can no longer wait out a U.S. withdrawal and cannot win.
The strategy would require negotiating with neighboring countries and the more moderate, regionally oriented elements of the Taliban. It would also require significant anti-corruption reform by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who would have to demonstrate measurable success in improving the courts and government services.
Afghanistan forces the Trump administration to choose between conflicting goals: focusing on nation-building at home and fighting international terrorism abroad. Intelligence agencies are convinced that al- Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and a rogue’s gallery of deadly others would flourish under a Taliban regime. That’s a risk the United States cannot afford.