Presidents Speech on Afghanistan

The President of the United States gave an important speech Wednesday night on the way forward in Afghanistan. If you wish to review or read the speech, a transcript is available on the White House website. As has become common with this President, the speech was well written, but the delivery didn't seem to connect with the audience as authentic. If you viewed the speech, I would be curious the impression you had - because my impression sitting in a room with several friends was this President is perhaps one of the first US Presidents in American history who could not independently articulate the strategic objective of the war in Afghanistan he has committed the military to fight on behalf of the nation.

I find myself in 100% support of the direction President Obama has chosen for Afghanistan, and see the drawdown of 33,000 US forces in that country as a positive first step. The death of Osama bin Laden; regardless of whether it was symbolic or substantive, achieved the last important strategic objective a large, prolonged military presence in Afghanistan needed to achieve. The future of Afghanistan will be largely decided by the government of Afghanistan, and American strategic interests in any future of Afghanistan at this point can be achieved through sustained, persistent engagement - an engagement that does not require a large land Army in Asia. As Libya has reminded us, persistent use of limited military power cannot defeat weak or failed states, but it can contain them while preventing bad guys from gaining power.

What disappointed me most about the announcement of drawdown of US military forces from Afghanistan was not the Presidents speech, rather much of the incoherent political reaction by various political leaders and pundits. Strategic thinking appears dead in defense policy today, and tactical thinking prevails in the political dialog. Below are a few notes to consider when contemplating what tonight's first step towards drawdown in Afghanistan actually means.

Obama's War

Barack Obama's bold move was to draw down 33,000 US military forces by summer of 2012, which will still leave about ~70,000 US military forces in Afghanistan. By comparison, the Bush administration high mark for total US military forces in Afghanistan was ~35,000, meaning even after this drawdown the United States will still have around twice as many military forces in Afghanistan than at any point during the Bush administration.

Strategic Victory

The political arguments crying foul because President Obama failed to discuss what victory looks like in Afghanistan is perhaps the most incoherent political argument of them all. Not only is it impossible for a single pundit discussing victory to articulate strategic victory in the context of strategic national interests, but they would be all alone even trying to articulate what victory in Afghanistan is because nobody can articulate it coherently. 70% of the defense think tank community is retired US Army, and across the entire right to left spectrum of credible Afghanistan analysis and discussion - every single one of those folks articulate or public articles and papers discussing strategic victory in Afghanistan in the context of avoiding strategic defeat.

The US Army shouldn't have to articulate in public what strategic victory is, and to prove it - they don't, but they do often discuss the danger of strategic defeat. The President of the United States didn't mention strategic victory in his speech and I don't believe for a second he could define it - much less articulate it in a speech. Political pundits who complain about the lack of a discussion regarding victory in Afghanistan cannot themselves articulate what victory is in Afghanistan, so why exactly is this considered a strong political criticism?

Credibility

There is concern that if the United States pulls out of Afghanistan, American credibility is diminished and it suggests somehow that America is in decline. In my opinion, any super power that fights a land war in Asia without a coherent strategic objective that can be articulated to the nations population is the mother of all signs that a nation is on a course of diminished credibility and declining power, and is certainly a bigger sign of serious trouble than a tactical adjustment like troop numbers on any military battlefield could ever be. When you believe that America cannot afford to "lose" a war in Afghanistan of all places, then you are the declinist who lacks confidence in America's position in the world today. Credibility for Afghanistan is primarily a domestic concern by politicians and pundits who believe it is retreating if you walk away from any fight, including fights where victory has limited strategic value. Credibility is not a legitimate battlefield concern.

Taliban Victory

The political argument that suggests the Taliban wins because they outlast us in Afghanistan unless we kill absolutely all of them doesn't make much sense to me. We overthrew the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan with less than a battalion of US forces in 2001, and somehow we now require a dozen brigades to prevent them from taking power? There is no evidence that suggests a small military presence couldn't keep the Taliban out of power, because there is already evidence that suggests it only takes a small military presence to remove the Taliban from power. No matter what the United States does from now until 2012, 2014, or even 2020 - tribal power will still be the dominating political power in Afghanistan. Whether the United States politically exploits unified tribal power or divided tribal power against the Taliban, the Taliban will have serious trouble consolidating power in Afghanistan as long as the US remains engaged. Even if the size of that engagement is far less than a dozen brigades, as long as it is bigger than a single battalion - I like our chances in preventing the enemy from achieving victory.

Let's Talk Strategy For a Change

There will be political criticism that President Obama broke ranks with certain Generals in regards to policy for Afghanistan. This audience is smarter than that, because we all know there are always Generals and Admirals on both sides of every debate. After 9+ years of following the advice of certain prominent Generals, the nation is still at war in Afghanistan. The suggestion that breaking the trend indicates a political mistake by the President is unsupported unless one believes it was always the plan to fight the longest US war in history in Afghanistan.

There are strategic arguments related to the use of military power in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and even Somalia that have not been articulated as US political policy, and I believe that issue as part of a broader discussion of defense policy is just waiting to jump into the public debate as election season approaches. I strongly believe that many US military leaders would welcome a public defense policy debate, indeed would feel more empowered if they were unleashed in advocating strategic justification arguments on behalf of their service instead of defense budget arguments focused on winning their portion of the administrations budget pie.

For 16 of the last 22 years the United States has been fighting wars on the ground around the world, but over that same period since the cold war the world has changed considerably. The President has a real opportunity to turn the defense budget debate into a public policy and strategy debate that guides difficult spending choices in defense. As we move into election season, I think there would be enormous value to the President to move the defense discussion away from budget and towards policy, because I think he will find his policies are more congruent with the likely direction of a strategic discussion than they will be in a political defense debate framed in the context of government spending priorities.

This analysis doesn't focus in on the fine print of the Presidents speech, rather my take on some of the finer points I witnessed discussed as a result of the speech. Feel free to add your thoughts on the speech or my commentary in the comments below.