Transition in Afghanistan: Losing the Forgotten War?
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burke chair in strategy Transition in Afghanistan: Losing the Forgotten War? The Need to Reshape US Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia By Anthony H. Cordesman January 26, 2015 Request for comments: This report is a draft that will be turned into an electronic book. Comments and suggested changes would be greatly appreciated. Please send any comments to Anthony H. Cordsman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, at [email protected]. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy [email protected] Cordesman: Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia January 2015 ii On December 29, 2014, the US President and Secretary of Defense announced the formal end to Operation Enduring Freedom, its combat mission in Afghanistan, which had begun in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. They also stated that the US would begin its follow-on mission, Operation Freedom's Sentinel, at the start of 2015. The President and the Secretary of Defense made these announcements with all the usual rhetorical flourishes and statements about success, future commitments, and host government progress of the kind top US officials made at the end of the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts. The President also implied that this Transition had ended America’s longest war, although Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made it clear that relabeling the mission did not fully end America’s military role: 1 Operation Freedom's Sentinel, the United States will pursue two missions with the support of the Afghan government and the Afghan people. We will work with our allies and partners as part of NATO's Resolute Support Mission to continue training, advising, and assisting Afghan security forces. And we will continue our counterterrorism mission against the remnants of Al-Qaeda to ensure that Afghanistan is never again used to stage attacks against our homeland. US officials announced this Transition in Afghanistan without issuing any meaningful assessment of what some thirteen years of war had accomplished. They did so without any public attempt to provide a meaningful strategic assessment of the future US role and commitments in Afghanistan or the region, and without providing any meaningful public analysis or metrics of the combat situation. They did not issue any assessment of the political and economic prospects for Afghan security, and did not make any attempt to link its posture in Afghanistan to what was happening in Pakistan and Central Asia. Their announcements came after the US had completed the withdrawal of almost all of its combat forces from Afghanistan. They came after the US had also announced that it would reduce its troop presence some 10,800 personnel in 2015, plus a small counterterrorism force, then cut that total in half that by the beginning of 2016, and finally reduce it to a few hundred men in a small office of military cooperation by the beginning of 2017. Ignoring Costs No mention was made of the cost of the war in terms of casualties and dollars. The US Department of Defense reported that the total number of US dead had reached 2,356 – including 1,846 killed in action -- and the total number of wounded had reached 20,066.2 Other allied dead included 453 British dead and 676 other allied dead – for a total of 3,486 US and allied dead -- but comparable estimates of the wound were not available.3 While some estimates are available of Afghan killed and wounded, and are discussed in Chapter IV of this analysis, there are no estimates that cover length of the war that have any credibility. As for the dollar cost, no estimates exist for the total cost to all allied forces or the Afghan government. The US government has never published an official estimate of the direct costs of the war at point from 2001 to 2014, but an estimate by Amy Belasco of the Congressional Research Service put the direct costs at $557 billion from FY2001 to FY2012, with $523.5 billion for the Department of Defense, $29.4 billion for the State Department and US Aid, and $4.2 billion for Veteran’s Administration. 4 US budget Cordesman: Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia January 2015 iii documents indicate that the US spent at least an additional $167 billion for the Department of Defense, $4 billion for the State Department and US Aid, and $3 billion for Veteran’s Administration.5 This would put the total cost of the Afghan War to the US alone at a minimum of $724 billion through the end of FY2014, but this does not include the full calendar year for Transition, the cost of destroyed equipment and equipment transfers to the Afghans during the US withdrawal, the cost of reequipping US forces for many combat losses, and the years of additional medical expenses for military personnel with lasting medical issues and disabilities.6 Some estimates that include the cost of the added federal debt, opportunity costs, and lifetime costs of those requiring continuing medical are in the trillions. As might be predicted, no US official addressed any of these issues, or addressed the full nature of the strategy the US was pursue in Afghanistan after 2014. No attempt was made to explain or justify the future expenses called for in the FY2015 budget submission that was still before Congress at the time of Transition, or projected in the FY2015 to FY2019 defense program. And, as usual, no one in the Congress chose to ask. Understating Risks Both the President and the Secretary of Defense sharply understated the risks inherent in the US approach to Transition. Secretary Hagel did not mention the risks involve at all, and President Obama made claims that the war had succeeded in “devastating the core al-Qaida leadership, delivering justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupting terrorist plots and saving countless American lives,” and “helped the Afghan people reclaim their communities, take the lead for their own security, hold historic elections and complete the first democratic transfer of power in their country's history.” His only reference to the threat was a short comment that, ““Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, and the Afghan people and their security forces continue to make tremendous sacrifices in defense of their country.”7 No mention was made of rising Afghan civilian and security force casualties, expanding areas of insurgent influence, the lack of government control and influence in many parts of the country, the continuing Taliban and Haqqani Network sanctuaries in Pakistan, or the overall trends in the fighting. No mention was made of the fact that US intelligence experts felt that the key insurgent factions had quickly recovered from any losses to their leadership, had reemerged as a major threat in Helmand and the south, and had expanded their influence and control in the eastern border areas and the north. As was the case in Vietnam -- and Iraq in 2011 --, the US ended its combat presence at a time when Transition involved a serious risk that the war would fail to achieve any form of security and stability. The combat situation was intensifying rather than declining, and the Afghan government was still partially paralyzed by the crisis growing out of the 2014 Presidential election, and Afghanistan did finally have newly elected leaders and had signed a bilateral security agreement (BSA) and a status of forces agreement. For all the bursts of favorable political rhetoric that followed the political compromises that came out of grossly corrupt election and signing a BSA, Afghanistan had virtually become a “forgotten war” at a time when the Taliban was making steady gains, civilian casualties were rising, and the Afghan forces were experiencing major problems. Afghan governance remained weak, corrupt, and ineffective. It was unclear that the political Cordesman: Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia January 2015 iv compromises made following the corrupt election could work; the Afghan budget faced a massive deficit and was dependent on equally massive US and donor aid indefinitely into the future. The Afghan economy was in crisis, and there were no public plans or meaningful efforts to provide official transparency on any major aspect of post-2014 Transition. A Lack of Meaningful Strategy Afghanistan was only part of the story. Pakistan was in near-political chaos, had not eased its tensions with India, faced rising challenges from terrorism, had made uncertain progress in its latest military campaign, and had made no progress in dealing with the mix of economic and educational reforms that were critical to a stable future and shaping its broader strategy in South Asia. While US forces have effectively left Central Asia, the US had not announced any strategy to deal with Central Asia in the future, or to adjust to the impact of its growing tensions with Russia. And help try to shape the future of the region. The end result is that United States failed to define meaningful future strategies for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. More than that, setting a fixed deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan has meant cutting its overall presence in Afghanistan so quickly that its Transition efforts may well fail. As for Pakistan, Central Asia, and South Asia, the US had decoupled transition out of Afghanistan from any visible attempt to shape a future posture in the region. In all four cases – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, and South Asia -- the US needs to come to grips with the fact that strategy does not consist of concepts, good intentions, or public statements that will not be implemented in any meaningful form. It consists of making realistic assessments that shape US options, building on the policies and actions that are already in place, and developing practical plans that can be – and are – actually implemented.