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Afghanistan and the Prospects of World Order
Henry A. Kissinger
Ongoing war in Afghanistan
(c) M. Ryder
The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in
This is the inextricable anguish of the presidency, for which Obama is entitled to respect from every side of the debate. Full disclosure compels me to state at the beginning that I favor fulfilling the commander's request and a modification of the strategy. But I also hope that the debate ahead of us avoids the demoralizing trajectory that characterized the previous controversies in wars against adversaries using guerrilla tactics, especially
Each of those wars began with widespread public support. Each developed into a stalemate, in part because the strategy of guerrillas generally aims at psychological exhaustion. Stalemate triggered a debate about the winnability of the war. A significant segment of the public grew disenchanted and started questioning the moral basis of the conflict. Inexorably, the demand arose for an exit strategy with emphasis on exit and not strategy.
The demand for an exit strategy is, of course, a metaphor for withdrawal, and withdrawal that is not accompanied by a willingness to sustain the outcome amounts to abandonment. In
The most unambiguous form of exit strategy is victory, though as we have seen in Korea, where American troops have remained since 1953, even that may not permit troop withdrawals. A seemingly unavoidable paradox emerges. The domestic debate generates the pressure for diplomatic compromise. Yet the fanaticism that motivates guerrillas--not to speak of suicide bombers--does not allow for compromise unless they face defeat or exhaustion. That, in turn, implies a surge, testing the patience of the American public. Is that paradox soluble?
The prevailing strategy in
A decision not to increase current force levels involves, at a minimum, abandoning the strategy proposed by General McChrystal and endorsed by General Petraeus; it would be widely interpreted as the first step towards withdrawal. The second option--offered as an alternative--would shrink the current mission by focusing on counter-terrorism rather than counter-insurgency. The argument would be that the overriding American strategic objective in
This theory seems to me to be too clever by half. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are unlikely to be able to be separated so neatly geographically. It would also imply the partition of
This is not to exclude the possibility of defections from the Taliban as occurred from Al Qaeda in
Those in the chain of command in
President Obama, as a candidate, proclaimed
The military strategy proposed by Generals McChrystal and Petraeus needs, however, to be given a broader context with particular emphasis on the political environment. Every guerrilla war raises the challenge of how to define military objectives. Military strategy is traditionally defined by control of the maximum amount of territory. But the strategy of the guerrilla--described by Mao--is to draw the adversary into a morass of popular resistance in which, after a while, extrication becomes his principal objective. In
This is of particular relevance to
In a partly feudal, multi-ethnic society, fundamental social reform is a long process, perhaps unrelatable to the rhythm of our electoral processes. For the foreseeable future, the control from
Concurrently, a serous diplomatic effort is needed to address the major anomaly of the Afghan war. In all previous American ground combat efforts, once the decision was taken, there was no alternative to America leading the effort; no other country had the combination of resources or national interest required. The special aspect of
The summit of neighboring (or near-neighboring) countries proposed by the secretary of state could, together with
For the immediate future, it is essential to avoid another wrenching domestic division and to conduct the inevitable debate with respect for its complexity and the stark choices confronting our country.
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Afghanistan - Afghanistan and the Prospects of World Order
(c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.