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There is a military adage, "Don't tell military people to 'do' something; tell them what you want done." Give commanders a mission and they can tell you what resources, strategy and tactics they need to carry it out. The Obama Administration's inability to formulate a coherent military mission in Afghanistan was blindingly exposed in Sunday's Washington Post.
It is best to quote:
In June, [McChrystal noted, he had arrived in Afghanistan and set about fulfilling his assignment. His lean face, hovering on the screen at the end of the table, was replaced by a mission statement on a slide: "Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population."
"Is that really what you think your mission is?" one of those in the Situation Room asked... (T)hat was precisely his mission, McChrystal responded, and it was enshrined in the Strategic Implementation Plan-the execution orders for the March strategy, written by the NSC staff.
"I wouldn't say there was quite a 'whoa' moment," a senior defense official said of the reaction around the table. "It was just sort of a recognition that, 'Duh, that's what, in effect, the commander understands he's been told to do.' Everybody said, 'He's right.' "
"It was clear that Stan took a very literal interpretation of the intent" of the NSC document, said [NSC Adviser James] Jones, who had signed the orders himself. "I'm not sure that in his position I wouldn't have done the same thing, as a military commander." But what McChrystal created in his assessment "was obviously something much bigger and more longer-lasting . . . than we had intended."
Whatever the administration might have said in March, officials explained to McChrystal, it now wanted something less absolute: to reverse the Taliban's momentum, deter it and try to persuade a significant number of its members to switch sides. "We certainly want them not to be able to overthrow the government," Jones said.
On Oct. 9...the "mission" slide included the same words: "Defeat the Taliban." But a red box had been added beside it saying that the mission was being redefined, Jones said. Another participant recalled that the word "degrade" had been proposed to replace "defeat."
Military commanders execute the mission they are given. It is not their responsibility-indeed it seems out of place to expect them to "interpret" the "intent" of the Commander in Chief. As a retired four-star general, NSC Director Jones knew that. Gen. McChrystal's decision to apply a counterinsurgency strategy, with its accompanying troop request, was based on the requirement of the March mission to defeat the Taliban and secure the population.
What appears to have happened is that the Obama Administration constricted its vision on Afghanistan at some point after the March strategy document and didn't tell Gen. McChrystal. Monday's Post confirmed that Defense Secretary Gates told the House Armed Services Committee the U.S. effort in Afghanistan would be more focused and limited. "A good part of the debate and the discussion," he said, "revolved around ways to narrow the mission."
From "Defeat the Taliban and secure the population," to what?
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President Obama's speech at West Point was a study in isolationism. There was a blueprint for ending our deployment in Iraq, leaving Afghanistan to Afghan security forces and pushing the Pakistani government to fight extremists. We will "surge" for 18 months and then "ebb."
It wasn't sounding especially isolationist when the President enunciated two goals for American policy in Afghanistan:
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To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and;
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To prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.
It didn't sound terribly isolationist when he put forward three elements of strategy:
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A military effort to create the conditions for a transition (to Afghan security control);
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A civilian surge that reinforces positive action, and;
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An effective partnership with Pakistan.
But, said the President-"Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. And now, we must come together to end this war successfully." A retired Army general noted that "success" was used as an adverb to modify "end the war." At least grammatically, the goal was not to succeed in Afghanistan, but to end the war.
That presaged the withdrawal phase of the speech. The President declined to engage in "a nation-building project (in Afghanistan) of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests."
"Too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children... we can't simply afford to ignore the price of these wars." He talked about a balance between domestic and military spending and said, "We must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That's why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended-because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own."
It cannot be done. America and the West are not at war only with something called "al Qaeda," and "al Qaeda" itself defies quantifiable description. There is loose in the world a fascist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Western political agenda that is spreading through schools, the Internet and, in many dictatorial countries, closed media. It appears in Sunni form in al Qaeda and its offshoots and wannabes, but appears as well in Shiite supported forms-Hezbollah and even Sunni Hamas take money, arms and ideology from Iran.
The battle against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them will be long. If we're only planning to give it 18 months and then go home, the "surge" will squander America's most precious domestic resource-our soldiers.
Even if we grant the President that in 18 months Afghanistan and Pakistan will be ready to police themselves-and will agree to our definition of who needs to be policed-by then al Qaeda will have moved on. American military reports say it is already established in eastern Syria affecting security in Iraq, and it is in Somalia. Other groups, allied with the goals and ideology of al Qaeda though not "card carrying" members, have established themselves elsewhere-including in Europe. Iran supports another whole raft of groups and organizations with ideology, training arms and money.
Contrary to the President Obama's apparent expectation, his election did not change facts on the ground. America remains as it has for decades, at war with terrorists and the states that harbor and support them. Terrorists need what they can only get from states-money, room to hide and train, arms, passports and diplomatic cover. States often want what they can only get from terrorists-the ability to sow mayhem without a return address. It is that symbiotic relationship that must be broken.
This is not a war against Islam, and certainly not against Muslims. It is a war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan-but not against Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is a war with Iran, but not in Iran. It is a war against al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Ansar al Islam, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al Shabaab and others-wherever they are operating. It is a war for Turkey. The war is in Europe, in Indonesia and in the United States. It is in the United States Armed Forces.
The President was right when he said the Taliban must be degraded so that al Qaeda cannot use Afghan territory to plan and execute attacks against the United States or our allies. And he was right when he said the Pakistani government had to take on its own radicals and the Pakistani Taliban. But that's not all and that's not enough, and it won't be done in 18 months.
It sounds hopeless; it is not. And it is not a call to fight or occupy countries. It is not a war only of military and intelligence battles-although those clearly must be fought and won. It is a war for the 21st Century, for individual liberties, consensual government and the rule of law. And in this war, the United States has allies all across the globe-the millions, or billions, of men and, most assuredly, women who do not want to be foot soldiers in someone's war, who don't hate and don't want to kill-or be killed. Millions for whom liberty and personal security would enable material, spiritual and social progress.
They are the audience to which President Obama must offer hope that the United States will not turn away. It is important to bring economic growth to the United States-he is, after all, our president-but the President of the United States is more than that.
President Kennedy said in 1961, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
The "survival and success of liberty" will win the war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them. It is military, it is economic, it is political and the United States has to be the engine of its success. Starting, but not only, in Afghanistan.
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