The War in Afghanistan

1.      The UN Charter was meant to prohibit use of force by one state on another without authorisation by the Security Council, except for self-defence, i.e. defence against an attack actually in progress, or (perhaps) one that is imminent [update: see discussion over contemplated attack on Iran]. This has not worked out. The great powers expect one another to veto security council authorisation for  military action, so they ignore or stretch the provisions of the Charter (as in Iraq (and see here) and earlier the bombing of Serbia). The UN Security Council condemned the 9/11 bombings and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice, and it recognised that the US had a right to self defence; but it did not explicitly authorise the US to take military action in Afghanistan. The US invoked self defence even though there was no attack in progress. Australia joined the invasion, ostensibly in accordance with the ANZUS treaty, but, as Article I of the treaty makes clear, obligations under this treaty are subject to obligations under the UN Charter. Later decisions of the Security Council might be interpreted as giving retrospective authorisation, but it seems that at the time it took place the invasion of Afghanistan was not legal. See http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/anzac/afghanistan.htm.

2.      Even if the invasion was legal, it may well have been a mistake, i.e. not likely to achieve the stated goals or anything much like them at any reasonable cost (cost to the invaders and to the Afghans).

3.      But even if the US and its allies invaded unlawfully and are unlikely to achieve their stated goals, it doesn’t immediately follow that they ought to withdraw. Maybe they should continue their involvement until they at least repair some of the harm they have done to the people whose country they have invaded and/or achieve other good results or avert bad results. This is a possible line of argument for staying in Afghanistan (and Iraq).

4.      It is necessary to consider not just the two options, fight on as at present or withdraw, but also other possible lines of action, e.g. the partition of Afghanistan. Various possibilities have been suggested. Some such suggestions may be unrealistic: e.g. foreigners training Afghans or administering civil aid will need protection, and this might require military action as at present. Others have suggested that US effort be concentrated in the areas of Afghanistan (e.g. non-Pashtun areas) where the population welcomes their presence. For discussion of possibilities see Gitlin, Rashid, Dalrymple (also here), Blackwill (criticised here), Haass, Froomkin. With some of these suggestions it is not clear that they really are different from what the US is already doing. 

5.      Commentators are advocating withdrawal because of rising American, British and Australian casualties. But cost in lives and money is inevitable in any military intervention, indeed in any kind of government action. More lives will be lost even in withdrawing. Afghan lives also count, and there may be significant costs to Afghans if we withdraw too soon. It may be wrong to withdraw suddenly because we have belatedly realised there will be casualties.

6.      The justification for being there most often given by politicians is that the security of the US and its allies requires that there be no sanctuary for Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups in Afghanistan. (Richard Holbrooke: “We’re in Afghanistan because if we fail in Afghanistan, it will have a direct, immediate danger to us. It will increase al-Qaeda’s worldwide reach. They will come back with the Taliban in all likelihood, and they will gain a worldwide success which will be very dangerous for our national security interests.” Julia Gillard: “We pursue that mission because Afghanistan has been a safe haven for terrorists, for terrorists who have wreaked acts of violence against Australians in 9/11 and in Bali.”) This seems a weak justification. The CIA director recently estimated that there may be fewer than 50 Al Qaeda operatives remaining in Afghanistan. The 9/11 attackers planned and trained in Germany and in the US. Terrorists do not need a state, or a failing state, or a badly governed part of a state, as a safe haven—or, if they do, there are other places besides Afghanistan (e.g. parts of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia). If our security requires good government throughout Afghanistan, then it requires good government throughout the world, which will never happen.

7.      A weightier argument is this: If the US withdraws from Afghanistan precipitately, it will abandon many people to whom it implicitly promised protection. (This argument can’t justify the original invasion, but it might justify persisting.)

8.      But in considering such justifications, the precise question is not, “What would we like to achieve by staying in Afghanistan?”, but “What can we realistically expect to achieve, with the resources we are realistically likely to commit and using the best methods, within the time we are realistically likely to stay there?”.

9.      The questions of time and resources are political, and no expert opinion is available. Military experts can, at best, recommend the best methods and estimate what is likely to be achieved under given circumstances. Whether the likely achievement justifies the original invasion or persistence in intervention is an ethical question for which, again, no expert advice is available. 

10.  My guess (based on reading US newspapers online) is that US political will is running out, that no further resources will be made available, and that the Obama administration’s review scheduled for the middle of 2011 will lead to a US withdrawal (perhaps not precipitate). (On Obama's determination to exit Afghanistan see here and here.) I guess that Australia will withdraw rapidly as soon as the US decides to begin withdrawing, since we are there (I believe) only to support the US. The US and NATO have just announced that 2014 is the target year for the Afghans to take over the military responsibility: my guess is that 2014 will be the end of the intervention that began in 2001, though some sort of foreign involvement will continue at a low level for perhaps a long time (as in Iraq).

11.  Military experts can perhaps estimate what is likely to be achieved under given circumstances. The present circumstances seem to be these: there will be no increase in resources, the Afghans (on all sides of the conflict) believe that the US is likely to begin withdrawing from mid-2011, no change is likely in the behaviour of Pakistan (important elements of the Pakistani government support the Taliban), and the Karzai government will continue to be regarded with contempt in large areas of Afghanistan. From what I know of military opinion, it seems that, given these circumstances, they do not expect anything that could be called victory or success. (Let’s not care about such descriptions as “victory” or “success”: the point is to achieve the best outcome, whatever it can be called. Under present circumstances, it seems that the best achievable outcome won’t be very good.)

12. The US seems now to be thinking of continuing the fight until they get into a position of strength from which they can negotiate a withdrawal. The danger is that they may not be able to get to such a position. As in the closing stages of the Vietnam war, the US might try to get into a position of strength before negotiating, not get there, try again, not get there... ["where I worry, is that we might stay there and just do enough to continue spending a lot of money, losing a lot of lives but actually not get any closer to victory", David Kilcullen]

13.  Does the unlikelihood of a good outcome mean that Australia and the US should withdraw even more quickly—get out now? (“Each additional American life sacrificed to a goal we know we won’t reach is a moral outrage”, Rachel Maddow). But getting out takes time, during which more lives will be lost (Afghan as well as American). Withdrawing in defeat should not be done precipitately. Whether we call it success or failure, it seems we won’t get out much sooner than 2014. The major Australian political parties are not offering “get out now” as an option. (The Greens have unsuccessfully sought a Parliamentary debate on their motion that Australian forces should be withdrawn. Update: a debate will be held.)  [Note: The Wikileaks documents cover the period before the extra troops and change of strategy under McChrystal; they do not strengthen the arguments for withdrawal now.]

SOME MORE GENERAL REFLECTIONS:

14.  Afghanistan is part of a larger picture, along with Palestine, Iran, Pakistan, Kashmir, and various Muslim parts of the former USSR. Note the subtitle of David Kilcullen’s book, The Accidental guerrilla: fighting small wars in the midst of a big one. The “big one”, what many Americans refer to as “the long war”, is between the US and its allies, on the one hand, and Islam. It seems clear to me that this is a war we must do everything we can to avert. (For how not to do it, see the controversy on the so-called "Mosque at Ground Zero".) Action on Palestine would be a step in the right direction (see remarks by Petraeus), but, in view of Obama’s domestic and foreign political  difficulties, that seems less likely than ever—the Obama administration cannot afford to antagonise the pro-Likud element in the US (see here).  (On reaction to Petraeus's remarks see here and here.)

15.  For the future, the US must avoid mistakes like Iraq and Afghanistan. In particular, the US must resist demands from Israel and the pro-Likud element in the US for war with Iran. Another attempt should be made to reform the Security Council and get the UN Charter to work as intended.

16. If  the US and its "allies" continue to act by "coalition of the willing", mutual dissatisfaction is inevitable. The US will feel that its allies do not pull their weight. The allies will resent US pressure to contribute more, since it is the US that decides whether there will be action, when it will begin, what form it will take, when it ends and on what terms. Insofar as these countries are democracies, their governments must justify their action to their electorates. The US spends more on defence than the rest of the world put together (almost), its military contribution will always be the biggest, the US electorate will not be willing for other countries to have much say on how the force is used. The electorates in the allied countries will not long support more than token contributions to a US dominated enterprise. Military actions, if any, should be within the UN framework.

17.  Australian Liberal and Labor politicians don’t seriously concern themselves with questions about whether the US should engage or continue in military actions. (See Hartcher.) We know the US won’t be influenced by Australian views, so the only question for us is whether we will send a token contribution. Usually we make a contribution, without much discussion, because there is general agreement that we need the goodwill of the US. When the action is drawing to a close, Australian forces are withdrawn as soon as possible, but there is little or no discussion afterwards about whether the action was justified. We just “move forward”. (Contrast British and US practice, where there have been Congressional/Parliamentary or other inquiries into controversial decisions. See Iraq Inquiry.)

18.  We must change our relationship with the US. We must stop sending our armed forces to kill and be killed for the reason that we want to cultivate US goodwill. Our service-people are not mercenaries. When we send forces overseas it must be for reasons that would be good enough even if the US were never grateful. It should be one of the axioms of our foreign policy that the US government will never do for Australia anything it wouldn’t have done anyway for reasons of its own. Democratic governments don't do things that don't benefit their electorate. The US did not come down to rescue us in WWII (see David Day, The Politics of War), and they won’t protect us in future unless incidentally to action for the benefit of the US. In WWII their interests in SE Asia (especially MacArthur's interest in retaking the Philippines) and the technical requirements of fighting and logistics at the time meant that the US wanted to use Australia as a base. Technology and interests have changed since then.

19.  In case of attack (including attack anywhere in the metropolitan territory of the parties, e.g. New York), ANZUS art. IV obliges each party “to act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes”. This means that if Australia were attacked the US government could plead lack of congressional approval, but an Australian government could make no such plea: in our political system, war and peace belongs to the Royal Prerogative, in practice exercised by the Prime Minister, not Parliament. Our Parliament should enact our own version of the “War powers act”, i.e. legislation to require Parliamentary approval for overseas deployments, so that an Australian government is not obliged to respond automatically to an attack on the US. (Such legislation has been proposed by the Democrats and Greens, and on various occasions by the ACT ALP International Affairs Policy Committee and by the ACT ALP Branch, also by George Williams, General Leahy (the former head of the Australian Army), and by Melissa Parke, but the proposal has always been ignored or rejected by the ALP leadership. They don’t seem to realise that legislation tying the government’s hands may strengthen its hand in negotiating with the US. The same goes for treaties.)

20.  In asymmetric warfare the concepts of winning and losing need redefining. The conventionally dominant power unambiguously loses if it withdraws and allows its opponent to occupy the territory (the US lost in Vietnam). But what can it mean for the conventionally dominant power to win? Did the British ever win in Ireland? There has been conflict in Ireland since the sixteenth century. There have been lulls, but so far no complete and permanent cessation of insurgency.   "Winning" must mean something like achieving a situation in which for a considerable period conflict is at a low level.  (Has the US won in Iraq? See "5 Myths".) "Obama  told Woodward in the July interview that he didn't think about the Afghan war in the 'classic' terms of the United States winning or losing. 'I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?' he said."  We must give up talking about winning in Afghanistan, and talk rather about what sort of situation is likely to result if we follow this or that course of action.

21. Can democracies fight long wars? “Successful counterinsurgency, on average, takes about 12 to 15 years” (Kilcullen). "This is the commitment needed, and this is what people in America and Britain should be told, and they should be told that there will be a cost involved” (Kilcullen). On the other hand:  "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War," Gen. George C. Marshall, quoted Bacevic. Twelve-fifteen years is three or four presidential terms, i.e. at least two presidents. Will the US electorate back a military intervention that takes as long as this? The "draft" in Vietnam had widespread political effects, the "all volunteer army" is coming under great strain, e.g. through multiple deployments (here and here), "stop-loss" (also here), suicide.  To put it another way: it takes only one  military action on the part of one imprudent President  (such as Bush's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) to entangle the US and its allies in wars that may take up to four presidential terms to "win". Is the US political system capable of the collective wisdom needed to avoid the election of such Presidents? Is the Australian political system capable of  avoiding the committment of Australian forces to long-drawn-out wars under US leadership?

Links 

David Kilcullen: Papers, interviews, reports
David Kilcullen confines himself to the military questions—what methods are most likely to have good effects (or least bad effects), what are the likely consequences of certain kinds of military actions under the prevailing circumstances. His knowledge of the circumstances is based on fact-finding teams he has led into Afghanistan and on his network of well-informed contacts. In November 2008 he thought that the Afghanistan war was “winnable, but only just”. Since then there have been two important changes in the circumstances: (1) the corrupt Presidential election, and (2) a statement by President Obama seemingly setting a deadline for withdrawal. At present David's view seems to be that the best possibility is to get into a position to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban. If this doesn’t work, “we leave on the same timeline [2014]... but unsuccessfully”. On two major problems he has been pointing to, corruption in Afghanistan and support for the Taliban from Pakistan,  there seems to be little or no progress. The state of affairs in Pakistan is a particular worry.

**“Don’t confuse the ‘Surge’ with the strategy”, Small Wars Journal, 19 Jan 2007. (On the change of strategy when Petraeus was appointed to Iraq, Jan 2007. Since the appointment of McChrystal, these ideas have been guiding US action in Afghanistan also. See also Hartcher.)

PBS Charlie Rose program, 5 Oct 2007 (video, transcript)

George Packer, “Kilcullen on Afghanistan: ‘It’s Still Winnable, But Only Just‘”, The New Yorker, 14 November 2008.

**”Crunch Time in Afghanistan-Pakistan”, Small Wars Journal, 9 Feb 2009 (statement to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee--note the section on Pakistan.) (Written at a time when it was still hoped that the Afghan Presidential election would be run fairly.)

PBS Charlie Rose program (video) 23 June 2009

Kim Sengupta, “David Kilcullen: The Australian helping to shape a new Afghanistan strategy”, The Independent, 9 July 2009 (“We are looking at ten years at least in Afghanistan, and that is the best case scenario and at least half of that will be pretty major combat. This is the commitment needed, and this is what people in America and Britain should be told, and they should be told that there will be a cost involved.”)

Anne Gearan, “Adviser David Kilcullen: US Has 2 More Tough Years In Afghanistan”, Huffington Post, 6 August 2009

David Kilcullen, "National Press Club address", 31 August 2009.

 [Afghanistan presidential election: August 20-November 7 2009.]

 “Taliban could be victor in Afghan elections”, PM, 3 Sept. 2009.  (“as far as people in the south and the Taliban and others are concerned, it’s kind of ‘back to the future’, where there’s this exploitative, unrepresentative government made up of warlords and I think that could lead to an increase in the insurgency. So I think it’s probably the most serious political crisis that we’ve had in Afghanistan since really the start of the war.”)

Christiane Amanpour, “A Discussion with David Kilcullen on Counterinsurgency Strategy” (video, transcript), CNN, 9 October 2009. (“I see it as sort of a five-step thing. You know, corruption, which is just massive across the Afghan government system, creates anger and disillusionment, bad government, and that creates space for the Taliban. The Taliban insurgency promotes poppy cultivation. The poppy creates vast amounts of money, and that drives the corruption, so you’ve got this kind of cycle of instability. And the Taliban’s part of it, but they’re not the whole problem.”)

“Barack Obama ‘risks Suez-like disaster’ in Afghanistan, says key adviser”, The Guardian, 12 November 2009. (Written while Obama hesitated to reinforce in Afghanistan.) (“'Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go' .... Kilcullen argues there is a need for Obama to exert leverage over the Afghan president by issuing a credible threat to pull out all US troops unless he cleans up corruption.")

 [1 Dec. 2009: Obama said: “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home”. Other members of the administration offered interpretations  intended to alter the force of these words (but see here); but in Afghanistan the statement was taken to indicate that the US will begin to pull out whatever the situation.]

[23 June 2010 McChrystal replaced by Petraeus as Afghanistan commander.]

 **”Kilcullen on the faltering war in Afghanistan”, 7:30 Report, 1 July 2010 (audio, transcript). (“the principal political problem is the Karzai Government - both the credibility of President Karzai himself and the viability of the Government structure and its delivery of Government services. At the strategic level the big problem is the timeline, the so called withdrawal deadline of the middle of next year, 2011. At the operational level we’ve got the problem of the on go[ing] safe haven in Pakistan and at the tactical level it is a problem of lack of resources. ... [The argument that Afghanistan is an al Qaeda “safe haven” doesn’t hold water:] there just isn’t a significant al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. And there hasn’t been really since 2001. ...  [Negotiation needed with the Taliban:] But you usually win through a negotiated solution and therefore there is nothing necessarily wrong with negotiating some kind of outcome with the Taliban. In fact, that’s how you usually win these kinds of campaigns. But you have got to be negotiating from a position of strength rather than from a position of weakness so what that means is the overall campaign objective is to get out of Afghanistan and leave it stable. The overall military objective is to get ourselves into the strongest possible negotiating position so that we can negotiate a political settlement ultimately to allow ourselves to exit.”)

Doyle McManus, “Petraeus advisor predicts changes in Afghan strategy: David Kilcullen says the new commander is more likely to push President Hamid Karzai for reform”, Los Angeles Times, 4 July 2010. (“‘Successful counterinsurgency, on average, takes about 12 to 15 years,’ Kilcullen warned. ‘It’s inherent in the time it takes to build government institutions.’ ‘We’ve already been there nine years,’ he noted. How much more time is needed? ‘About four and a half years,’ he estimated — meaning the end of 2014. Of course, Kilcullen added, there is an alternative — but it isn’t any faster. ‘If we don’t get it done, we leave on the same timeline,’ he said. ‘But unsuccessfully.’)

“David Kilcullen: ‘Crisis’ of Afghan pullout deadline”, BBC HARDtalk, 9 July 2010. (No transcript. The interviewer asks the hard questions! The “deadline” turns the difficulties into a crisis.)

“Petraeus Considers Expanding Afghan Village Forces”, NPR, 14 July 2010. (“It’s much easier to convince somebody who’s under threat to pick up a weapon and protect their own community than it is to convince them to go and serve in the national army in some district somewhere else or put their weapon down and expect the government to protect them”. On the village forces see comment by Thomas Ricks.)

"Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on Afghanistan", 27th July 2010

ABC Lateline, 26 August 2010 (video, transcript) ["I think that what we're going to see is probably this year and next year of reasonably significant combat action in Afghanistan. And I would anticipate some time towards the end of next year or in 2012 that we'll begin a process of drawdown. .. I think you can make a very reasoned argument for pulling out of Afghanistan. You can say 'Look, we don't have the time and we don't have the resources to get it done to the level that we need to do'. I think you can make that argument. I think you can also make an argument for staying there and doing it properly. And I think either of those positions - stay there with enough resources and enough time and willpower to get it done, or commence a careful withdrawal - either of those standpoints is valid. Where I disagree, or where I worry, is that we might stay there and just do enough to continue spending a lot of money, losing a lot of lives but actually not get any closer to victory. And I think it's that middle course where we're just doing enough to continue to struggle ahead. That's where we need to be careful... Frankly I don't know whether we're going to have enough and we won't know until we see how the Taliban react... The big issues are strategic. Are we doing the right thing being there in the first place? Do we have a viable local partner? Can we get it done in the time available? Those kind of questions which affect the whole Coalition, not just Australia.... I've been complaining for a number of years now that we needed to focus a lot more on fixing and reforming the Afghan government, countering corruption and dealing with these Mafia-like networks of illegal patronage that exist throughout the structure of powerbrokers in the country. If we were to get rid of the Taliban tonight but do nothing about those other issues there'd be a new Taliban in a couple of months. And in fact that's what's happened over the last decade of the war in Afghanistan. .. So it's a complicated picture but unless we see a change in the calculus of those members of the Pakistani military structure that are currently continuing to back the Taliban it's unlikely that we're going to get particularly far in the long term."]

ABC Lateline, 4 October 2010 (video, transcript)  ["I think we've seen some pretty good success though in the last few months in taking apart the middle level and some pretty senior leaders within the Taliban structure, particularly in the south. And I think that's what the military calls a kinetic success and we've seen some pretty good progress, actually, against the Taliban. Where I would have greater concerns would be in the governance and the corruption issues that are still ongoing. Afghan people feel that the Taliban fill a gap, and the gap is created by abuse and corruption.... [S]ome of the moves in the anti-corruption sphere in the last month or two show that both the Afghan government and ISAF are working very hard to deal with those, but there's still a lot more to be done. And that, to my mind, is actually the critical problem.... The Afghan Army's actually had some pretty good growth this year and I think we've seen that growth translated, particularly in the Australian sector, into greatly improved performance and effectiveness on the part of the guys that our people are training...  I'm sorry to say that the effect of the stated withdrawal date has been entirely negative on the Afghan population. President Obama made the statement in a very carefully nuanced way last December when he said that we would begin a considered withdrawal based on conditions on the ground starting some time around July of 2011. What Afghans heard was "Americans are leaving", and in fact some of my Afghan friends who I've spoken to recently have said that out in the countryside, the general interpretation is that all foreigners will be leaving by some time around the end of next year. Now we all know that that's not the case, but while the local population think we're leaving, it's unreasonable to expect them to partner with us against an enemy who comes from here. So, we need to really work hard to redress that view, and I think that's only gonna happen when July next year comes around and people realise that we are actually staying.... I think that one of the upsides of drone attacks is that they do do a lot of damage to the enemy in Pakistan, but the downside is that they also create a very strong anti-American and anti-Western feeling, not so much in the frontier part of Pakistan, but in the Punjab, in Lahore, in the big cities, and that's a long-term strategic problem. So I think there's a tactical advantage to the drone strikes, but there's certainly a strategic downside also. I think the critical hub is in Pakistan where the main leaders are and also of course 100 nuclear weapons. And I think that's why we're here. We're not here because we simply want to kill the Taliban. We're here because the Taliban pose a threat to regional stability. And in Pakistan we have 100 nuclear weapons, Al-Qaeda headquarters and a very strong Taliban movement, and that's the threat that we're really focussing on, that regional threat which could have very significant implications if we fail.... The problem in Afghanistan is one of instability, corruption, bad behaviour by powerbrokers and the existence of the Taliban insurgency. The Al-Qaeda problem is something that really exists more significantly in Pakistan rather than here in Afghanistan."] [For a defense of drone strikes in Pakistan, see Anthony Cordesman, "Attack of the Drones", 4 October 2010: "If these numbers are even roughly accurate, no other form of modern war has come close to being this lethal against the enemy and this humane in terms of civilian casualties."]

ABC 7:30 Report, 8 Dec, 2010. (video, transcript) ["... a lot of Afghans interpreted President Obama's speech of December last year as saying that all the foreigners are going to be out some time in 2011, and so it was very hard to get people to take action on things like corruption and governance if they thought that we're all leaving. But what happened in Lisbon was that the Afghan Government and the partner nations all agreed on a timeline from now to the end of 2014 for full transfer to the Afghans. And that basically bumps the commitment out by at least another three years. And there've been subsequent statements by officials of both governments that even the 2014 deadline is the deadline for handing over to the Afghans, not a timeline for the international community to withdraw. I'm not sure that that's actually filtered through to Afghans yet; in fact I'm pretty sure a lot of Australians and Americans haven't picked up on the change. .. I am actually more sorta glass-half-full than I've been at any time in the past. This is the best military trend line that I've seen for a while. But I would just caution you by saying it's very important to get the military piece right, and we haven't done that very much in the past. So it's a big step forward that we're starting to improve, but that's only the first 20 per cent of the problem. You've then gotta do all the other hard work on government reform, civil society development, the dealing with corruption, and that's the part that I think we are gonna struggle with, perhaps even more than the military piece."]

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, Oxford UP, 2009. [See especially Chapter 5. “We must recognise that against the background of an AQ strategy specifically designed to soak up our resources, paralyze our freedom of action and erode our political will through a series of large-scale interventions, counterinsurgency in general is a game we need to avoid wherever possible. If we are forced to intervene, we now (through much hard experience) have a reasonably sound idea of how to do so. But we should avoid such interventions wherever possible, simply because the costs are so high and the benefits so doubtful.... And should we find ourselves (by error or necessity) in a similar position once again, then the best practices we have rediscovered in current campaigns represent an effective approach”; pp. 268-9. “The threat is that a zero-risk approach to terrorism... might cause Western countries to take well-intentioned precautionary or reactive measures that would be so divisive internationally, and so repressive domestically, that we would end up destroying our way of life in order to save it”, p. 273. For author's own summary of the "boring" parts of the book, see here.]

Counterinsurgency, Oxford UP, 2010.

Other US TV interviews/panels

Articles etc. by others on US in Afghanistan

Tom Hayden, “Kilcullen’s Long War”, The Nation, 22 October 2009. [“The central flaw in Kilcullen’s model is his belief in the ‘accidental guerrilla’ syndrome. Drawing partly on a public-health analogy, he defines Al Qaeda as a dangerous virus that grows into a contagion when its Muslim hosts face foreign intervention. The real enemy, he thinks, is the global network of hard-core Al Qaeda revolutionaries who want to bring down the West, overthrow Arab regimes and restore a centuries-old Islamic caliphate. Like Obama, Kilcullen hopes to ‘disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda’ without provoking the contagion of resistance from the broader Muslim world. The ‘accidental guerrillas’ who fight us, he writes, ‘do so not because they hate the West and seek our overthrow but because we have invaded their space to deal with a small extremist element that has manipulated and exploited local grievances to gain power in their societies. They fight us not because they seek our destruction but because they believe we seek theirs.’ But of course, these accidental guerrillas are no accident at all. They inevitably and predictably emerge as a nationalist force against foreign invaders. Their resistance to imperialism stretches back far before Al Qaeda. In fact, Al Qaeda was born with US resources, as a byproduct of resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and earlier oppression of hundreds of Islamic radicals in Egyptian prisons.” My comment:  Hayden seems to think that David Kilcullen advocates military interventions and the “long war”. See above. Hayden also misunderstands the concept of "accidental": see The Accidental Guerrilla, ch. 1, section "The accidental guerrilla", p. 28ff.]

Sam Sedaei, “The United States Must Stay in Afghanistan”, The Huffington Post, 7 October 2009. [“Leaving Afghanistan will lead to a surge of violence on the part of Taliban against those Afghans who will defy their rule. ... . The United States was responsible for strengthening and even perhaps the eventual rule of the Taliban following their war with the Soviets... For that, we now owe it to Afghans to do what we can to help them build their own country. The United States cannot intervene in other countries to the detriment of those countries and then withdraw at exactly the time when the people that we have done harm with our policies need us the most.”]

Frank Rich, "Two wrongs make another fiasco", New York Times, 10 October 2009. ["If you listen carefully to McCain and his neocon echo chamber, you’ll notice certain tics. President Obama better make his decision by tomorrow, or Armageddon (if not mushroom clouds) will arrive. We must “win” in Afghanistan — but victory is left vaguely defined. That’s because we will never build a functioning state in a country where there has never been one. Nor can we score a victory against the world’s dispersed, stateless terrorists by getting bogged down in a hellish landscape that contains few of them."]

“After McChrystal: Barack Obama has sacked his commander in Afghanistan. But the real worry is that the war is being lost”, The Economist, 24 June 2010. [The best statement I have found of an argument for persisting: “Were so much not at stake, it would be tempting to give up and call the troops home. Yet, although Western leaders have done a poor job at explaining the war in Afghanistan to their voters, a defeat there would be a disaster. The narrow aim of denying al-Qaeda a haven, already frustrated by the terrorists’ scope to lodge in unruly parts of northern Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, would become impossible to achieve. A Western withdrawal would leave Afghanistan vulnerable to a civil war that might suck in the local powers, including Iran, Pakistan, India and Russia. Sooner or later, the poison would end up harming America too: it always does. Defeat in Afghanistan would mark a humiliation for the West, and for NATO, that would give succour to its foes in the world. And do not forget the Afghan people. Having invaded their country, the West has a duty to return it to them in a half-decent state. It would be idle to harbour such dreams if they were unattainable. Yet, grim as it is, the violence in Afghanistan even now pales beside Iraq at its worst. In the pit of that conflict tens of thousands of people were dying each year, at least ten times more than in Afghanistan today. The ranks of the Afghan army and police force are slowly filling with recruits. There are reasons to think that many Afghans would like to be rid of the Taliban, if only they could believe in an alternative. That is where the appointment of General Petraeus comes in. A losing cause does not automatically have to become a lost one: Iraq showed that. ... Mr Obama owes it to the West and to the Afghan people to determine whether COIN can in fact succeed under his best general. The Afghan war may yet end in an ignominious retreat. But nobody should welcome such an outcome.” For criticism of these arguments see Todd Gitlin, below.]

Todd Gitlin, “Least-Bad Options”, The New Republic, 16 July 2010

Andrew Bacevich, “Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance”,  The Washington Post, 27 June 2010. [Long wars are incompatible with democracy, especially if citizen soldiers have been displaced by professionals (a “standing army”, in the 18^th century phrase). A critique of US overall strategy.]

Ahmed Rashid, “It is time to rethink the west’s Afghan strategy”, Financial Times, 25 June.

Thomas E. Ricks, “In Afghanistan, Petraeus will have difficulty replicating his Iraq success”, Washington Post, 27 June 2010.

Ross Douthat, “One Way Out”, New York Times, 27 June 2010. [“... if the current strategy proves ineffectual, the alternative that the Obama administration falls back on won’t be remotely antiwar. Instead, it will be a recipe for still more dead Afghans and a near-permanent military presence... The bleakness of this Plan B is the best argument for giving our military the time it needs to try to make a counterinsurgency succeed. .. So this is what General Petraeus will be fighting for, across the next year and more — not to keep us in forever, but to seize what may be our last chance at getting out.”]

“Our moral duty to stay in Afghanistan -- or get out?”, Washington Post “on faith” discussion, 29 June 2010. [Various people, various opinions.]

George Packer, “Team Effort”, New Yorker, 5 July 2010.

“Maddow: The hard choice in Afghanistan”, The Maddow Blog, 15 July 2010. [“If we think there is a future in which the Afghan government is real and it runs and controls that country to the exclusion of the Taliban, and it’s there because we have made that possible, then there is an American national security interest in us still being there. But if that’s not possible, no matter what we do -- if, no matter how much we hope for that to happen, we can’t make that happen – then... we will have given them the best chance they’ve ever had. If we can’t make the outcome we want come to fruition, then we should fund and train and support the Afghan government all we can. But each additional American life sacrificed to a goal we know we won’t reach is a moral outrage -- a moral disaster -- that we have a responsibility, in this life during wartime, to stop.”]

Robert Greenwald, “Movement to Rethink the Afghanistan War Gains Traction”, Huffington Post, 17 July 2010 [US public opinion: 60 % want to “stick to the plan to start withdrawal of forces in July of next year, even if the country is still as unstable as it is today.” Only 37 % are “open to keeping the current number of forces in Afghanistan -- or even adding more -- if the country is still unstable in July of next year.” 58 % think the war is a lost cause, compared to 36 % who think that winning is even a possibility.... 42 % want to remove troops ASAP.]

Peter Preston, “Back to square one in Afghanistan”, The Guardian, 18 July 2010 [Opinion among Afghans: 70% think that the military operation in their area is bad for local people; 68% believe NATO can’t protect them; 59% don’t want another big offensive; 61% believe that more are joining the Taliban now than a year ago; 74% reckon that working with international forces is wrong; 65% believe Mullah Omar should join the government. My comment: perhaps opinion varies from one part of Afghanistan to another.]

Jon Boone, “US military build-up in Kandahar will bolster Taliban, warns security monitor: Nato’s counterinsurgency tactic shows no signs of success, says Afghanistan NGO Security Office”, The Guardian, 18 July 2010. [The report by the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, which monitors trends in violence on behalf of aid organisations, said Nato’s counter-insurgency strategy was not showing any signs of succeeding amid rising violence, the unchecked establishment of local militias and a huge increase in attacks on private development workers across the country....At the same time the number of civilians killed by both sides of the conflict rose by 23%, despite the efforts of Nato forces to avoid killing innocent bystanders. The organisation also said attacks on private development organisations working on projects designed to win the support of ordinary Afghans had shot up, with more than 30 workers killed in the first three months of the year. ... It said the effort to dislodge the Taliban from Marjah, a former Taliban stronghold in Helmand, had failed to deliver security to local people, allow refugees to return to their homes or given credibility to the local government.... It also raised concerns about the increasing use of local people to defend their own villages – a strategy that David Petraeus, the US commander of Nato forces in the country, is strongly in favour of expanding. There were already cases of the so-called “militias” causing the same problems as the 1963 South Vietnamese Self Defence Corps, including partnering with insurgents to steal from the local population, the report said.]

Robert Baer, “Protecting U.S. Supply Lines in Afghanistan”, Time, 29 June 2010. [“in paying off Afghans to protect our supply lines, we have created a vast slush fund for bribery, extortion, heroin trafficking and murder. And it’s all but certain that some of the money ends up in the pockets of the Taliban. In other words, we’re paying for the bullets and bombs that kill our own soldiers.” See also here.]

George Friedman, “The 30-Year War in Afghanistan”, Real Clear World, 29 June 2010.

William Dalrymple, “This is no Nato game but Pakistan’s proxy war with its brother in the south. The Taliban’s refusal to talk underlines the west’s irrelevance in Afghanistan: only the regional players can deliver lasting peace”, The Guardian, 1 July 2010. [“we unwittingly took sides in the Afghan civil war that began in the 1970s – siding with the north against the south, the town against the country, secularism against Islam, and the Tajiks against the Pashtuns... Externally the war has now turned, like Kashmir, into an Indo-Pak proxy war in which Nato is really a bit player. Under Karzai, India has established increasing political and economic influence in Afghanistan... The Pakistani military establishment... has always believed it would be suicide to accept an Indian presence in what they regard as their strategic Afghan backyard.” See also interview. Highlights the relevance to the Afghanistan conflict of Pakistani views of India.]

Robert D. Blackwill, “A de facto partition for Afghanistan”, Politico, 7 July 2010. [“The Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan seems headed for failure. Given the alternatives, de facto partition of Afghanistan is the best policy option available to the United States and its allies.”] For a reply to this article, see Ahmed Rashid "Divide Afghanistan at your peril", Financial Times 3 August 2010.

Richard Haass, “We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It. Here’s how to draw down in Afghanistan.” Newsweek, 18 July 2010. [Discusses various alternatives to the current strategy.]

Ewen MacAskill and Simon Tisdall, “White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban”, The Guardian, 19 July 2010.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen [NATO Secretary-General], “Moving On in Afghanistan”, New York Times, 19 July 2010

Seumas Milne, “Now Afghanistan too shows the limits of American power”, The Guardian, 21 July 2010

David E Sangar, “Afghan Deadline Is Cutting Two Ways”, New York Times, 21 July 2010.

Michael Gerson, "The Desperation of an Afghan Deal", Real Clear Politics, 27 July 2010. ["When asked last month about the possibility of an American settlement with the Taliban, CIA Director Leon Panetta responded: 'We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al-Qaeda, where they would really try to become part of that society. We've seen no evidence of that and very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation, unless they're convinced that the US is going to win and that they're going to be defeated, I think it's very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that's going to be meaningful.' This is the realistic alternative: Win first, then negotiate."]

Stephen M. Walt , “‘Peace with Honor’ in Afghanistan? The problem with historical amnesia”, Foreign Policy, 22 October  2010 ["By portraying the Iraqi and Afghan "surges" as victories, we fool ourselves into thinking that this sort of war is something we are good at fighting, that the benefits of doing so are worth the costs, and that all it takes to win this sort of war is the right commander, the right weapons, and the right Field Manual. And if we indulge in this familiar form of historical amnesia, we'll be more likely to make similar errors down the road. "]

Transcript: Nir Rosen 13 December 2010. [On the "surge", an alternative explanation for the reduction of violence in Iraq. Same technique not available in Afghanistan. Pakistan the real worry.]

Afghan war good, Iraq war bad

ALP leaders, then Obama, tried to discredit the Howard/Bush Iraq policy, without seeming "soft on Terrorism", by arguing that Iraq was a distraction from the more important Afghanistan war--thereby committing themselves to escalating the Afghanistan war: Beazley, Rudd ( here and here), Obama (here and here).

Should Australian forces stay in Afghanistan?

Rafael Epstein, “US says Diggers Aren’t in Fight Zones“, SMH, 9 March 2010. [“US General Stanley McChrystal, has ‘warned that the Rudd governments’ refusal to allow Australian troops to take the fight to the Taliban was impairing the US-led war effort’.”]

“Troops to stay in Afghanistan: New PM reassures Obama that she will stay the course in Afghanistan“, Jerusalem Post, 25 June 2010.

Kellie Tranter, “New PM misses the exit ramp on Afghanistan“, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 July 2010.

Nic Stuart, “Afghanistan Issues“, blog, 6 July 2010 [includes two articles of his in the Canberra Times].

Raoul Heinrichs “Flying the flag, not the coop”, Canberra Times, July 19 2010, p. 9 [Not online. “For Australia, this isn’t about terrorism, despite our leaders’ pronouncements.... Nor should we kid ourselves that we’re in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons.... That leaves the US alliance as the sole reason for being there.... There’s something disquieting about the thought of putting Australian lives on the line for a war in which we have no direct interest, simply to boost our credentials as a loyal ally. Yet that’s exactly what we do. But something’s gone wrong. Alliance management is meant to be cheap and easy. It involves weighing the benefits of a healthy US alliance and tailoring low-cost, low-risk military contributions which lend just enough political support to keep our ally happy. When the cost gets too high, when Australians are killed in increasing numbers, you know we’re not doing it right. The challenge Gillard now faces is twofold: she must reshape our deployment in Afghanistan to prevent further Australian casualties, and do so without jeopardising the alliance. This is not as hard as it sounds. Former prime minister John Howard was fervently committed to the alliance, yet he shaped Australia’s five-year deployment to Iraq in just such a way. Not a single Australian was killed in action in Iraq. This was not just good luck. It was because there were sharp limits on the tasks Australians performed. And so it should be with Afghanistan. It’s time for Australian troops to be withdrawn from combat duties. The sharp end of our deployment, the 300 or so special operations soldiers, need to be taken out of the line of fire and sent home for a well-earned rest. The bulk should stay on, but under a more restricted mandate, operating from inside the comparative safety of their base. Training the Afghan National Army is important, but that doesn’t mean patrolling dangerous roads with them or defusing roadside bombs. Leave that to the Afghans—it’s their country after all. Australia’s military role in Afghanistan has always been a symbolic one. It’s an expression of our political support for the US, and that’s what America really expects from us. ‘Flying the flag’ need not be deadly.” My comment: This is a cynical position, and its premise—that the US wants nothing but symbolic support—is false.]