America’s Strategic Burden America’s THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY AT THE NYU SCHOOL OF LAW THE NYU SCHOOL OF LAW AND SECURITY AT LAW THE CENTER ON COUNTERINSURGENCY:

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The transcripts herein have been edited – the original audio from the conference is available for free download via the Center on Law and Security’s podcast series on iTunes.

The speakers herein do not represent the Center on Law and Security.

Cover image: Department of Defense, U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Lindsay L. Sayres

Image accompanying Executive Director’s introduction by Guido Mannucci

copyright © 2010 by the Center on Law and Security CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 3

THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY AT THE NYU SCHOOL OF LAW

COUNTERINSURGENCY: America’s Strategic Burden

November 20, 2009

Editor in Chief: Karen J. Greenberg Editor: Jeff Grossman Design: Wendy Bedenbaugh

Special thanks to Vincent Viola and Virtu Management for making this conference series possible CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 4 CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 5

America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan and in Iraq has been the topic of many Center on Law and Security conferences and meetings – micro- cosms of the larger debate that the nation at large has been having both inside Washington and in the public arena. At the core of these discussions have been several questions – not only military but also historical, philosophical, and political. And in each area, the topic of security and how to assess and define it going forward has been a centerpiece of discussion. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke summed it up well at a conference held here in the fall of 2008:

If there is no security, or insufficient security, the insurgents can intimidate people by blowing up a school, blowing up a bridge, or beheading teachers . . . . The rest of the people would say that they cannot build anything if we cannot protect them. This is the pattern in every insurgency that I have seen in the world. Security must come first.

A year later, the Center convened a day-long conference to brief security experts, policy experts, and government officials on the history of counterinsurgency theory and practice and on the progress of the current U.S. and international counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. Overall, the participants expressed a wide range of disagreement about both the definition of counterinsurgency and whether it is the appropriate means of accomplishing the nation’s goals in the region. One point of consensus, however, among those who spoke about counterinsurgency in Vietnam and among military and counterterrorism experts, was that the U.S. policy in Afghanistan had not yet achieved notable successes in more than a handful of disparate locations.

There was also, however, one important takeaway from the conference. It was that the U.S. COIN policy still has much work to do in order to operate effectively within the context of the complex political realities, however anticipated, that are so often associated with governmental dealings in Afghanistan – whether involving the fight against drugs, or infrastructure projects, civic projects or police training. Future policy discussions, our panelists urged, will depend on ever more creative, ever more open-minded ideas about the potential mix of diplomatic, military, and devel- opment initiatives that collectively define the territory encompassed within COIN doctrine.

Karen J. Greenberg, Executive Director CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 6 CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 7

Table of Contents

COUNTERINSURGENCY: America’s Strategic Burden

Participant Biographies 8

Counterinsurgency Today: Theory vs. Reality 18

Panelists: Conrad Crane, Janine Davidson, Montgomery McFate, John Nagl, Adam Silverman Moderator: Peter Bergen

Lessons from the Past: Counterinsurgency throughout History 40

Panelists: Thomas Johnson, W. Patrick Lang, Michael Sheehan, Martin Stanton Moderator: Stephen Holmes

Assessing Afghanistan 56

Panelists: Lt. Gen. David Barno, U.S. Army (ret.); C. Christine Fair; David Kilcullen; Joanna Nathan; Nir Rosen Moderator: Steven Simon

What Lies Ahead 74

Panelists: Peter Bergen, Roger Cressey, Steve Fondacaro, Ken Silverstein, Steven Simon Moderator: Karen J. Greenberg

About the Center on Law and Security 93 CounterInsurgecy 12/16/10 1:12 PM Page 8

Participant Biographies; November 20, 2009

Lt. Gen. David Barno, U.S. Army (ret.) is the Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The director of the Near East South Asia Center Times, The Daily Telegraph, El Mundo, and for Strategic Studies at National Defense Die Welt. He has worked as a correspondent University. Lt. Gen. Barno has served in a for National Geographic Television, Discovery variety of command and staff positions in the Television, and CNN. From 2003-2007 he continental United States and around the taught at the School of Advanced International world. Subsequent to his selection to Major Studies at Johns Hopkins University and at the General in 2001, he served as Commanding Kennedy School of Government at Harvard General, United States Army Training Center University in 2008. His most recent book, The and Fort Jackson. During this assignment, he Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of deployed to Hungary in 2003 as the al Qaeda’s Leader (Free Press, 2006), was Commanding General of Task Force Warrior named one of the best non-fiction books of with the mission to train the free Iraqi forces 2006 by The Washington Post. CNN produced in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. a two hour-documentary, In the Footsteps of General Barno deployed in October 2003 to bin Laden, based on it. Bergen was one of the Afghanistan, commanding over 20,000 U.S. producers of the documentary, which was and Coalition Forces in Combined Forces named the best documentary of 2006 by the Command-Afghanistan as part of Operation Society of Professional Journalists and nomi- Enduring Freedom. For 19 months in this nated for an Emmy. He is also the author of position, he was responsible to U.S. Central Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Bin Command for regional efforts in Afghanistan, Laden (Free Press, 2001), a New York Times most of Pakistan, and the southern parts of bestseller named one of the best non-fiction Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. His duties involved books of 2001 by The Washington Post. A doc- close coordination with the United States umentary based on it, which aired on National Department of State, the government of Geographic Television, was nominated for an Afghanistan, the United Nations, NATO Emmy in 2002. International Security Assistance Force, and the senior military leaders of many surround- Conrad Crane is the Director of the U. S. ing nations. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, PA. He joined the Strategic Studies Peter Bergen is a print and television journal- Institute in September 2000 after 26 years of ist; a Schwartz senior fellow at the New military service that concluded with nine years America Foundation in Washington, D.C.; a as Professor of History at the U.S. Military research fellow at New York University’s Academy. He has written or edited books on Center on Law and Security; and CNN’s the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and national security analyst. He has written about Korea, and has published articles on military al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and issues in such journals as The Journal of counterterrorism for newspapers and maga- Strategic Studies, The Journal of Military zines including The New York Times, the Los History, The Historian, and Aerospace Angeles Times, The New Republic, Foreign Historian, as well as in a number of collec- Affairs, The Washington Post, The Wall Street tions and reference books. Dr. Crane holds a

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B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy and an Janine Davidson was appointed as the Deputy M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans in is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Command April 2009. Dr. Davidson joined the Defense and General Staff College and the U.S. Army Department from the faculty of George Mason War College. University, where she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy, and Roger W. Cressey served in senior cyber the Brookings Institution, where she was a security and counterterrorism positions in the non-resident fellow for the 21st Century Clinton and Bush administrations. He has Defense Initiative. As Director, in the Office been a crisis manager in Africa, the Middle of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense East, and the Balkans. He currently advises for Stability Operations, she oversaw the clients on homeland security, cyber security, implementation of DoD Directive 3000.05, and counterterrorism issues and is an on-air “Military Support to Stability, Security, counterterrorism analyst for NBC News. Transition, and Reconstruction.” She was the Previously, he served as Chief of Staff to the Department of Defense lead for the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative and Board at the White House from November was the head of the Consortium for Complex 2001 to September 2002. From November Operations, an interagency project to enhance 1999 to November 2001, he served as Director education, training, and performance in com- for Transnational Threats on the National plex emergencies, including conflict preven- Security Council staff, where he was responsi- tion, peace operations, stabilization, recon- ble for coordination and implementation of struction, and counterinsurgency. Dr. Davidson U.S. counterterrorism policy. During this peri- previously served as Director, Counter- od, he managed the U.S. government’s insurgency Studies with the Center for response to the Millennium terror alert, the Adaptive Strategies and Threats at Hicks and USS Cole attack, and the September 11th Associates, Inc. Prior, she was an Associate attacks. Prior to his White House service, Mr. and consultant at DFI Government Practice in Cressey served in the Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., where she directed projects including as Deputy Director for War Plans. for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of From 1991-1995, he served in the Department Defense for Reserve Affairs and for the Air of State working on Middle East security Force Directorate of Strategic Planning. Dr. issues. He has also served overseas with the Davidson served in the U.S. Air Force as an U.S. Embassy in Israel and with United aircraft commander and senior pilot for the Nations peacekeeping missions in Somalia C-130 and the C-17, and she has taught flying, and the former Yugoslavia. While in the former aerodynamics, and navigation at the U.S. Air Yugoslavia, he was part of a United Nations Force Academy. team that planned the successful capture of the first individual indicted for war crimes in C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor in Croatia. He has taught a graduate course on the Center for Peace and Security Studies, U.S. counterterrorism policy at Georgetown within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. University, and is a recipient of the State Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Department’s Meritorious and Superior Honor she served as a senior political scientist with Awards and the Defense Department’s the RAND Corporation, a political officer to Exceptional Civilian Service Award. the United Nations Assistance Mission to

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Afghanistan in Kabul, and as a senior research United States Forces, Korea, and has directed associate in USIP’s Center for Conflict numerous focused studies for the Analysis and Prevention. She is a senior fel- Commanding General of U.S. Army Training low with the Counter Terrorism Center at West and Doctrine Command, the Army Chief of Point. She is a frequent commentator on tele- Staff, and the Secretary of the Army. His final vision and radio, including CBS, BBC, Al assignment was commander of the Joint IED Jazeera, CNN, Voice of America, Fox, Task Force-Iraq in 2006. Mr. Fondacaro’s Reuters, and NPR. Her research focuses upon awards include the Legion of Merit (3 political and military affairs in South Asia. awards), Bronze Star Medal, Defense She has authored, co-authored, and co-edited Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious several books, including Treading Softly on Service Medal (7 awards), Army Sacred Ground:Counterinsurgency Operations Commendation Medal (4 awards), and the on Sacred Space (OUP, 2008), The Madrassah Army Achievement Medal (4 awards). He also Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education has been awarded the Iraq Campaign Medal, in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), and Fortifying Global War on Terrorism Medal, Overseas Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Service Medal (10 awards), and the National Assistance (USIP, 2006), and has written Defense Service Medal (3 awards). He holds numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a the Army Master Parachutist Badge, Military range of security issues in Afghanistan, Freefall Badge, British Jump Wings, and Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Ranger Tab. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director Foreign Relations, serves on the editorial of the Center on Law and Security at the NYU board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, School of Law. She is the author of The Least and is the Managing Editor of India Review. Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days (Oxford University Press, 2009), co-editor Steve Fondacaro has been the Program with Joshua L. Dratel of The Enemy Manager for the Human Terrain System since Combatant Papers: American Justice, the its inception in 2006. He has over 30 years of Courts, and the War on Terror (Cambridge active duty military service, and has served in University Press, 2008) and The Torture wide variety of Infantry and Special Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge Operations assignments in Korea, Panama, University Press, 2005), editor of the books and Iraq. He has performed duties as a unit The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge leader and commander in operational Infantry University Press, 2006) and Al Qaeda Now and Ranger units from platoon through Major (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and edi- Army Training Installation levels. In addition, tor of the NYU Review of Law and Security. he has been assigned as the Operations Her work is frequently featured in The New Officer in operational units at all levels from York Times, The Washington Post, the Los battalion through Field Army, and served on Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Joint Staff J3 (Special Technical The Nation, The National Interest, Mother Operations) section. He has served as the Jones, TomDispatch.com, and on major news Chief of the CINC’s Initiatives Group for the channels. She is a permanent member of the Commanding General, United Nations Council on Foreign Relations. Command/Combined Forces Command/

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Stephen Holmes is the Walter E. Meyer mentaries have appeared in media outlets Professor of Law at NYU School of Law and including The Washington Post, Atlantic a faculty advisor at the Center on Law and Monthly, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Security. His fields of specialization include Baltimore Sun, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, the history of liberalism, the disappointments Newsday, Newsweek and on Jim Lehrer of democratization after communism, and the NewsHour, Christiane Amanpour Show, BBC, difficulty of combating terrorism within the CNBC, KCBS, KQED, National Public limits of liberal constitutionalism. In 2003, he Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning was selected as a Carnegie Scholar. From Edition, and Voice of America. Johnson has 1997 to 2000, he was a professor of politics at taught at the University of Southern California Princeton. From 1985 to 1997, he was profes- and the Foreign Service Institute, and fre- sor of politics and law at the Law School and quently lectures at Service Academies. Before Political Science Department of the University joining the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate of Chicago. From 1979 to 1985, he taught at School, he served on the faculty of George the Department of Government at Harvard Mason University. He spent much of the sum- University. He was also the editor-in-chief of mers 2008 and 2009 in southern Afghanistan the East European Constitutional Review from conducting field research for a book manu- 1993-2003. He is the author of Benjamin script on the culture and implications of the Constant and the Making of Modern Taliban narratives as expressed through their Liberalism (Yale University Press, 1984), The shabnamah or “night letters,” poetry, and Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Harvard University music. Press, 1993), Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (University of David Kilcullen is a globally recognized Chicago Press, 1995), and co-author (with expert on counterinsurgency and counterter- Cass Sunstein) of The Cost of Rights: Why rorism. He is the author of The Accidental Liberty Depends on Taxes (Norton, 1999), and Guerrilla (Oxford University Press, 2009), most recently, The Matador’s Cape: America’s which analyzes the complex interplay between Reckless Response to Terror (Cambridge local guerrillas and global terrorists in con- University Press, 2007). temporary war zones from Africa to Southeast Asia. He has appeared widely in both print Thomas H. Johnson has conducted research and TV media, including Fareed Zakaria GPS, and written on Afghanistan and South Asia for The Charlie Rose Show, MSNBC, and others. over two decades. His publications have His contributions to U.S. foreign policy in Iraq appeared in the American Political Science are also cited in Thomas Ricks’ book The Review, International Security, Journal of Gamble. Dr. Kilcullen joined Crumpton Group Politics, Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs, after a distinguished tenure as Special Advisor Central Asian Survey, Military Review, China for Counterinsurgency to the Secretary of and Eurasian Forum Quarterly, Small Wars State. He also served as senior counterinsur- and Insurgencies, Strategic Insights, Public gency advisor to General David Petraeus, the Opinion, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq, Strategic Review, Politikon: South African and has been widely credited for his contribu- Journal of Political Science, and Journal of tion to designing the Iraq “surge” and for his Modern African Studies, as well as numerous on-the-ground advice to the military, diplo- scholarly edited volumes and texts. His com- matic aid, and intelligence communities. He

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worked in the Middle East, South Asia, Institute of Peace. She has also worked at the Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia in his role U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research from as chief counterterrorism strategist at the U.S. 2003-2005, where she was awarded a State Department. Dr. Kilcullen helped design Distinguished Public Service Award by the and implement the Regional Strategy Secretary of the Navy. Before coming to Initiative, the policy that drives U.S. countert- ONR, Dr. McFate was a social scientist in errorism diplomacy worldwide, and wrote the RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center. She counterterrorism strategy for the 2006 U.S. received a B.A. from University of California Quadrennial Defense Review. He is a former at Berkeley, a PhD in Anthropology from Yale Australian infantry officer with 22 years’ serv- University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law ice, including operational deployments in East School. Her PhD dissertation concerned Timor, Bougainville, and throughout the British counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland. Middle East. Dr. McFate’s legal background includes a clin- ical internship on the United States Attorney’s W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of Office Organized Crime and Drug U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Enforcement Task Squad, a fellowship at Special Forces (Green Berets). He served in Human Rights Watch, and experience as a liti- the Department of Defense both as a serving gation associate at the law firm of Baker & officer and then as a member of the Defense McKenzie in San Francisco. She has published Senior Executive Service for many years. He in such journals as Journal of Conflict Studies, is a highly decorated veteran of several of Military Review, and Joint Forces Quarterly. America’s overseas conflicts, including the war in Vietnam. He was trained and educated John Nagl is the President of the Center for a as a specialist in the Middle East by the U.S. New American Security. He is also a member Army and served in that region for many of the Defense Policy Board, a Visiting years. He was the first Professor of the Arabic Professor in the War Studies Department at Language at the United States Military Kings College of London, a life member of Academy at West Point, New York. In the the Council on Foreign Relations and the Defense Intelligence Agency, he was the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and a member of Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle the International Institute of Strategic Studies. East, South Asia and Terrorism, and later the He was a Distinguished Graduate of the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. United States Military Academy Class of 1988 For his service in DIA, he was awarded the and served as an armor officer in the U.S. Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive, Army for 20 years, retiring with the rank of the equivalent of a British knighthood. After Lieutenant Colonel. His last military assign- leaving government he was a business execu- ment was as commander of the 1st Battalion, tive for 10 years in a company operating in the 34th Armor at Fort Riley, Kansas, training Middle East and South Asia. Transition Teams that embed with Iraqi and Afghan units. He led a tank platoon in Montgomery McFate is the Senior Social Operation Desert Storm and served as the Scientist for the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain operations officer of a tank battalion task System. Previously, she was a Research Staff force in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He earned Member at the Institute for Defense Analysis his doctorate from Oxford University as a and a Jennings Randolph Fellow at U.S. Rhodes Scholar. He served as a Military

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Assistant to two Deputy Secretaries of Nir Rosen spent over four years reporting Defense and later worked as a Senior Fellow from Iraq, focusing on the Iraqi side of the at the Center for a New American Security. He story, particularly on the various religious also earned a Master of the Military Arts and movements and militias that soon formed, and Sciences Degree from the Command and on the civil war and crisis of internal and General Staff College, where he received the external displacement. He was most recently George C. Marshall Award as the top gradu- in Iraq in March 2009 and most recently in ate. He was awarded the Combat Action Afghanistan in July 2009. His work on Iraq Badge by General James Mattis of the United has been published by The New Yorker, The States Marine Corps, under whose leadership New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Rolling he fought in Al Anbar in 2004. Dr. Nagl is the Stone, and others. Rosen has also worked on author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: documentaries in Iraq, including one for Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and British Channel 4, and he filmed the scenes in Vietnam and was on the writing team that pro- Iraq for the groundbreaking documentary No duced the U.S. Army/Marine Corps End in Sight, which won an award at the Counterinsurgency Field Manual. His writings Sundance film festival and was nominated for have been published in The New York Times, an Academy Award. He has also consulted for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the advocacy group Refugees International, and Foreign Policy, among others. Dr. Nagl and wrote reports for them about Iraqi has appeared on The NewsHour with Jim refugees and the internally displaced. His Leher, NPR, 60 Minutes, Washington Journal, book In the Belly of the Green Bird: The and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq was published in 2006 and republished in soft cover under Joanna Nathan was the Senior Analyst for the title The Triumph of the Martyrs in 2008. the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan Rosen has also reported from Afghanistan, from May 2005-July 2009. Based in Kabul Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, the with fieldwork around the country, she Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, focused on elections and the new representa- Kenya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Turkey tive institutions, security sector reform, and and Egypt. His new book on the civil war in the growing violence and counter insurgency Iraq and its impact on the Arab world will be efforts. Drawing on her ICG work on Taliban published in 2010. He is a Fellow at the New propaganda, she has a chapter, “Reading the York University Center on Law and Security. Taliban,” in the new volume, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field. Michael A. Sheehan is a Distinguished In 2003/04, she worked on a media develop- Fellow at the Center on Law and Security, a ment project in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif, security consultant, and author of the recently which later evolved into Afghanistan’s first published Crush the Cell (Crown, 2008). He is independent news agency. She is currently best known for his work in counterterrorism, undertaking a Master of Public Policy at the peacekeeping, and law enforcement opera- Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton tions. Sheehan was the Deputy Commissioner University while maintaining ties to Afghan of Counterterrorism at the NYPD from 2003 issues as a member of the Afghanistan to 2006. Prior to this he was the Assistant Analysts Network. Secretary General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN, where he

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was responsible for mission support to UN Ken Silverstein is the Washington Editor for military and police peacekeeping forces Harper’s Magazine and writes Washington around the world. In the late 1990s, Sheehan Babylon for Harper’s online. A former served as the Ambassador at Large for reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Silverstein Counterterrorism and Deputy Assistant has covered such topics as intelligence collab- Secretary of State in the Bureau of oration between the CIA and controversial for- International Organizations. Sheehan served at eign governments in Sudan and Libya, politi- the White House under three National cal corruption in Washington, and links Security Advisors and two Presidents (George between American oil companies and repres- H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton). He is a retired sive foreign governments. His 2004 series LTC of the U.S. Army Special Forces and was “The Politics of Petroleum,” co-written with T. awarded the Combat Infantry Badge among Christian Miller, won an Overseas Press Club other decorations for his service in the Army. Award. His stories on ties between the govern- ment of Equatorial Guinea and major U.S. Adam L. Silverman was the Field Social companies – including Riggs Bank, Scientist and Team Leader for Human Terrain ExxonMobil, and Marathon Oil – led to the Team Iraq 6 assigned to the 2BCT/1AD from convening of a federal grand jury, and to October 2007 to October 2008. Upon his rede- investigations by the Senate and the Securities ployment to the U.S., he served as the U.S. and Exchange Commission. His report, co- Army Human Terrain System Strategic written with Chuck Neubauer, on a lobbying Advisor through June 2009. During 2008 and business opened by Karen Weldon, daughter 2009, Dr. Silverman has conducted a number of Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, led to of briefings for high-level military and civil- the opening of an investigation by the House ian personnel from the Department of Defense Ethics Committee. Silverstein had been a con- and Department of State. He served as a tributing editor to Harper’s before joining the socio-cultural subject matter expert for the Times. One of his pieces for the magazine, U.S. Central Command Af/Pak Working “The Radioactive Boy Scout,” became a high- Group in spring 2009 and has also lectured on ly acclaimed book of the same title published COIN, Iraq, and Afghanistan at the U.S. by Random House in 2004. He has also writ- Military Academy, the University of South ten for Mother Jones, Washington Monthly, Florida, the University of Miami, Florida The Nation, Slate, and Salon. From 1989 to International University, Cambridge 1993 he was a correspondent for the University, and Seton Hall University. He is a Associated Press in Brazil. regular contributor on COIN, U.S. foreign pol- icy, Iraq, and Afghanistan to Sic Semper Steven Simon is adjunct senior fellow for Tyrannis: A Committee of Correspondence, as Middle Eastern studies at the Council on well as a regular guest columnist at Informed Foreign Relations and the Goldman Sachs vis- Comment, and is working on two books: iting professor in public policy at Princeton Voices of the Mada’in: A Tribal History and University. Prior to joining CFR, Mr. Simon Social Study and Mapping the Human Terrain: specialized in Middle Eastern affairs at the Conceptualizations and Applications of Social RAND Corporation. He came to RAND from Science Research for Policy Making and London, where he was the deputy director of Practice. the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Carol Deane senior fellow in U.S. security

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studies. Before moving to Britain in 1999, Mr. and Desert Fox serving as the commander of Simon served at the White House for over five U.S. Army Forces Qatar; Operation Enduring years as director for global issues and senior Freedom serving as the senior ground forces director for transnational threats. During this liaison to the Pakistan Army; and Operation period, he was involved in U.S. counterterror- Iraqi Freedom serving as the senior civil mili- ism policy and operations as well as security tary planner for 3rd U.S. Army (ARCENT) policy in the Near East and South Asia. These from July 2002-July 2004 and as the assignments followed a fifteen-year career at Reconciliation operations chief for Multi the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Simon is the National Corps-Iraq from June 2007-June author of the February 2007 Council Special 2008. From July 2004-June 2007, he worked Report “After the Surge: The Case for U.S. as the ARCENT liaison to CENTCOM. After Military Disengagement from Iraq.” He is the returning from Iraq in 2008, he was assigned coauthor of The Age of Sacred Terror to the commander’s initiatives group of (Random House, 2002), which won the CENTCOM and served as the team chief for Council on Foreign Relations 2004 Arthur the Afghanistan Pakistan team for the CENT- Ross Book Award, and coeditor of Iraq at the COM Theater Strategic Assessment Team Crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow from November 2008 to March 2009. Colonel of Regime Change (Oxford University Stanton retired from the U.S. Army on Sept. Press/IISS, 2003). He is also the coauthor of 30, 2008, after 33 years of service. He is Building a Successful Palestinian State (Rand employed as the senior analyst for the Corporation, 2005) and The Arc: A Formal Afghanistan-Pakistan Intelligence Center of Structure for a Palestinian State (Rand Excellence at USCENTCOM in Tampa. He is Corporation, 2005). Most recently, he coau- the author of two books (Somalia on Five thored The Next Attack (Henry Holt, 2005), Dollars a Day and The Road to Baghdad) and which was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber over 40 magazine articles on military subjects. Prize in 2006. He is working on a new book, with Daniel Benjamin, on Muslim integration in Europe. Mr. Simon has published in Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and others. He is a frequent guest on CNN, BBC, ABC, 60 Minutes, Nightline, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Fox, and NPR.

Martin N. Stanton is a retired Infantry/ Foreign Area Officer with 20 years of working almost exclusively in USCENTCOM and the USCENTCOM AOR. He has participated in Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm serv- ing as an advisor to the Saudi Arabian National Guard; Operation Restore Hope in Somalia serving as an infantry battalion oper- ations officer; Operations Desert Thunder I, II

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The Panels

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Counterinsurgency Today: Theory vs. Reality

Panelists: going? How well does it serve us? I think we Conrad Crane, Janine Davidson, Montgomery are all going to learn something today. McFate, John Nagl, Adam Silverman On an episode of 60 Minutes in September, General Stanley McChrystal faced Moderator: his troops at a meeting and said, “The ques- Peter Bergen tion is not whether we’re making progress. The question is whether we’re making enough progress fast enough.” He contin- ued by saying that if progress is made, but not quickly enough, “then people come visit, I come visit you, and every time I visit you, you say ‘We’re doing good. We’re doing better. We made progress.’ It doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day you lost. At some point you lost.” That struck me because we do hear, “it’s getting better, it’s getting bet- Janine Davidson, Peter Bergen, Conrad Crane, and Adam Silverman. ter.” The real issue is not whether Photo by Dan Creighton. it is working but what it means for it to be working. We all want it to Karen J. Greenberg: come out right in the end, but we need to Our last conference, which was on civilian- know what that would mean and what the U.S. military relations in the broadest sense, role in it would be. focused on the ways the military deals with I think one of the most significant lessons civilian communities, social services, and civil that the Center has taken away from its study society building. of the war on terror for the past seven years While the audience was listening to the concerns how our categories and our under- people on the panels, I was standing as I standing of things keep changing. Essentially, always do in the back of the room and heard when our children and grandchildren have the the discontent: What do these guys know luxury of looking back on where we have about counterinsurgency? They are too young been, they are going to see that there was a to know. They haven’t read their history theoretical football being passed back and books. They don’t know enough about forth between the courts, the executive, and Vietnam. They don’t know enough about the military, and that it has not stopped. Every small wars. I think that was probably a little time it gets passed, the definition of such overstated, but the discontent was interesting. things as “military commissions,” “counterin- So we are having this conference today to surgency,” “insurgency,” and maybe even “ter- think about the issue of counterinsurgency. rorism” get tweaked a little bit. You should What is it? What has it been? Where is it consider this conference an attempt, for

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starters, to get a handle on group that included aca- the language that we are “In this type of war, demics, historians, sol- using, and beyond that to diers, Marines, and media perception is more important begin to understand not personnel. The Petraeus only how hard it has been than reality. approach was of inclusion. but also how exciting it is Anybody who criticized It is not what you have to have the opportunity to the manual became part of rethink so much of what done that is most important; the team. I agreed with we do in this country. it is what people the general that we should have a vetting conference Peter Bergen: think you have done.” and suggested that we Arguably the most knowl- Conrad Crane bring in 30 smart people edgeable group of people to talk about the doctrine. in the country on the issue of counterinsur- He brought in 150. It was quite a three-ring gency will be speaking throughout the day. We circus at Fort Leavenworth, but I think the end begin with Dr. Conrad Crane. product fits the Michael Howard definition of military doctrine, which is basically not to be Conrad Crane: so wrong that the soldiers in the field cannot In November 2005, I got a call from my old make the adjustments they need to be success- West Point classmate David Petraeus, who ful in combat. said, “I’ve got a mission for you.” It included Doctrine, as the American military sees it, John Nagl and Montgomery McFate, too, with is not a substitute for the commander’s judg- Janine Davidson on the periphery of the ment. It is not law. Innovation is always efforts as well. So, in some ways this panel is encouraged, and much of what has happened a gathering of the usual suspects. But one in Afghanistan and Iraq has gone beyond the thing I want to mention about the writing of doctrine. Many smart soldiers and Marines the counterinsurgency (or “COIN”) doctrine is have come up with better ideas than we could that it was part of a much broader process. think of. General Petraeus gets a lot of credit for the Now I’ll put out one caution about the idea of rewriting the doctrine, but so should manual because there are an immense number General James Mattis of the Marine Corps. of straw men out there to be knocked down. The purpose of the doctrine was not to win You need to buy it and read it. Do not mistake the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but to create execution for doctrine; there are different better learning organizations from both the ways to apply it. The Petraeus approach in Army and Marine Corps as part of a much Iraq is one way, but there are other ways as broader process of change, based on the per- well. Doctrine is always an attempt to balance ceptions of those two distinguished soldier insights from the past with contemporary best scholars. practices and visions of the future. However, This was a true joint process between the the way the doctrine is processed and proofed Army and Marine Corps. Most chapters had always tends to pull it back toward contempo- both an Army and a Marine author. My role rary best practices. So, there is not as much resembled that of editor in chief, while John future in there as I would like, there is not as was a kind of managing editor and Monty much past in there as I would like – there are concentrated on intelligence. It was an eclectic many influences from Iraq and Afghanistan,

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but that is the nature of the process. For get this done. We need more on carrots and instance, one of the paradoxes I wrote about sticks. How do you get your friends and allies was that most important decisions in coun- to do what you think they need to do? We terinsurgency are not made by generals. Guess need more options when there are not enough who the last people to review a doctrinal man- resources to do clear, hold, and build, which is ual are? That particular paradox did not sur- a resource-intensive approach to counterinsur- vive as I initially intended; it ended up as gency. We need to do some more on other many important decisions in counterinsur- approaches when there aren’t the same num- gency are not made by generals. At least they ber of resources. We need a better discussion kept it, but they magnified their role a bit. about how to sequence events. One of the In some places I think the doctrine has worst things you can do in a situation with been very right, as I watch it play out in Iraq many sectarian divides is hold elections soon and Afghanistan: the emphasis on “clear, hold, because all you do is lock in all those divides, build” and not “clear and leave;” the synchro- which is exactly what we did in Iraq. We also nization of multiple lines of effort; the impor- need better definitions, which is a problem tance of sociocultural intelligence, of which throughout the field. I am commuting between Dr. McFate was the pioneer in the manual; the this conference and a conference on irregular need for campaign design to disaggregate ene- warfare at West Point. It is a great conference mies in a mosaic war. You have to figure out with many sharp cadets and scholars but, of your problem set. This is not your grandmoth- course, nobody really knows what irregular er’s insurgency. These are loose coalitions of warfare is. different approaches and players. Some you The joint publication 3-24, can turn, some you cannot; some you can talk Counterinsurgency, which just came out, has to, some you have to shoot. You have to figure started to redress some of these faults and that out. shortcomings. The FM 3-24 will be rewritten Because of that you need decentralized to adjust to some of those changes and to command and control – you have to empower adapt from what we have seen in Iraq and down. I would say that it is a colonels’ war in Afghanistan. Perhaps the best and most Iraq. They can control the key assets, the key important part of the manual is Dr. Nagl’s battle space. In different places it may even be great contribution: the theme of “learn and a lower-level war. It is very rarely a generals’ adapt,” which is really the theme for the whole war. The military has to be prepared to do manual. It also gives us an excuse if we got nonmilitary tasks, and information operations something wrong. dominate. In this type of war, perception is I am concerned that the doctrine is not more important than reality. It is not what you being read in the field. The manual has been have done that is most important; it is what out for three years, but people are just too people think you have done. That is where I busy, I guess. They are learning it from the think the emphasis of the manual is right on education process, but they just do not seem the mark and has been very important. to have the time to read it themselves. There are some things that need fixing. Monty McFate’s stuff was revolutionary This was done in less than a year, which is but I hate the term “human terrain.” People light speed for military doctrine. We had to are not terrain. I think we have to be careful get it out to the field. One of John Nagl’s key how we approach it. I am also concerned roles on the writing team was as our prod to about the soul of Special Operations forces.

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What is wrong with this and the government in scenario? If you want to “We organize, train, and equip general have come, and do counterinsurgency or then about some of the train host-nation forces, the military to be ready remaining obstacles. you get conventional to do the nation's business, First of all, to piggy- forces; if you want to kill back on Dr. Crane’s dis- somebody, you get a spe- but we only let them do cussion, doctrine is either cial operator. What is a lagging indicator of it when Congress approves. wrong with this? We have learning or it can be an reversed roles. I am wor- That check creates an engine of change – once ried about the Special you put it down, the lead- Operations community inherent "short-termitis" ership endorses it, puts it getting too wrapped up in that is incompatible into training and educa- direct action and losing tion, and everybody starts many of the things that with counterinsurgency to learn it. In this case I make them unique in think it is sort of both. We in and of itself.” these environments. Has are writing what we are the reform pendulum Janine Davidson learning because we are in swung too far or not far a period of protracted con- enough? There is a big debate within the flict, and then we are kicking it back out to Army. How much counterinsurgency do we teach people how to do it. But what doctrine is do? How much do we not do? I am concerned not – and I think this is really important, given about the continuing lack of interagency capa- the title of today’s conference – is grand strat- bility. egy. We may have a grand strategy gap, but I I am also concerned that FM 3-24 is not a would contend that we always have a grand national security strategy, but in a vacuum it strategy gap. It is a perennial problem. seems to have become one. The Afghanistan Doctrine tells us how to do stuff but does not decision has to be made under the auspices of tell us why, where, or when we are going to do a much broader strategy that answers certain it. So it is a conundrum. questions: Can we afford to do counterinsur- I see doctrine as sort of like the Bible; not gency? Can we afford not to do counterinsur- everybody reads it, but for some reason they gency? How does Afghanistan fit within broad all quote it and somehow figure out what is in strategic interests? There is a big question that it. That happens through the training and I have not heard anybody ask about the surge through our institutions, which have done a in Afghanistan: What is the rest of govern- pretty good job. So let me talk a little bit ment other than the military going to do? We about some of the things that we have learned are going to send 40,000 troops; how many so far as an institution, but then also about foreign service officers are we going to send? what the challenges are. How many USAID people are we going to We have two obstacles to some of these send? pieces that we have learned. One is knowledge in and of itself, and the other is the bureaucra- Janine Davidson: cy and the politics in and of itself. So first is Let me start out by talking a little bit about the competing theories: We are developing all doctrine, about how far I think the military these new theories and we are writing some of

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them down, but we are cation? Is it about alterna- still debating them. I am “Until we start lining up tive crops? Is it about going to go through my something else? What do our words with our execution, five favorites for this we do about the transna- week. until we are focused on tional linkages? We tend The first is about gov- deeds rather than just to focus on Afghanistan ernance. We agree that or focus on Pakistan or counterinsurgency is about words or slogans, focus on country by coun- governance. It is a compe- stability in Afghanistan, try because we are a tition for governance, but nation- state and that is we disagree over the level economic development, how we look at things. at which we should inter- and legitimacy are But they bleed over and vene and where it is the have transnational links. not going to be possible. most important. Should ” Number four is transi- we concentrate our efforts Montgomery McFate tion. We talk about the at the local and formal endgame as turning it level, or should we concentrate our efforts at over to the host nation, that the end of the the state/national level? Some people say that intervention is not the same as the end of the we should obviously do both. But then the conflict. Our role is to get the country on a question is how to link the two. We are still path to something better, a new normal. But it debating, and while we debate it is hard to tell is not clear that we know what that looks like military guys in the field and their civilian or how to do that, and we are experimenting counterparts what to do and how to act. with it right now in Iraq. It is not a perfect sci- The second is the sense that it is all about ence – we know what we are supposed to do the economy. Everybody sort of agrees about but we are not sure how. that, but then again we disagree or are still Along with that, metrics. How do we debating or just really do not know how to know that our efforts are working? What do apply our normal development models in a we look for on the ground? What do we meas- conflict zone. On the conflict side, in Iraq for ure? How do we measure it? How do we example, there is a big debate where you have know? How do we know when it is time to had some of the military guys saying, “Get leave? And all that wraps into the transition these guys off the street. Give them jobs and piece as well. So there is progress being made they’ll stop shooting at us.” The economists intellectually and academically, but then how and the development experts will say, “It’s not are we going to translate that while we are in a that easy. You can’t just mess with the econo- period of conflict? my like that. For a short-term gain you are Along with these academic and intellectu- going to have a longer-term problem.” al debates reverberating into our doctrine, we The third is corruption and crime. We have very real bureaucratic and institutional have different standards about them. We all barriers as a government. Some of our partner agree that it is a problem, but we do not nec- nations have similar problems, but let me just essarily have an idea what to do about it as an highlight my five favorites this week for this outside force. We agree, for instance, that the category as well. drug trade is fueling the fight, but we disagree The first is the perennial mismatch about what to do about that. Is it about eradi- between military and civilian agencies in

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terms of capabilities and capacities. It is most- there. That is a problem. ly a capacity issue, and people focus on things The third is the need for institution build- like the fact that the U.S. Agency for ing. We all know that there is such a need in International Development does not even have counterinsurgency, but our institutions are not enough personnel to man an aircraft carrier. built for that. We do not have institutions that That is just one indicator. USAID and the are designed to build ministries of agriculture. State Department are much smaller just in We have an Agriculture Department that numbers. People often talk about the numbers focuses on our agricultural goods overseas. and the capacity, but they do not talk about The Justice Department, Treasury the capability. While there are development Department, and Commerce Department also experts in USAID doing amazing work on the do not function abroad as people might think ground, we still have intellectual debates they do. If you talk to the small group of offi- about how to apply their models and how to cials in the Commerce Department who have work together with the military. Moreover, I been working in places like Iraq and think there is a huge misperception on the Afghanistan, they will say that they are dedi- military side about what the State Department cated to the task, but it is what they call an actually does – that if we could just get the unfunded mandate. They are not geared for it. State Department in there, things would be So if we expect other agencies to do this kind better. But you have to ask yourself, what do of work, we need to structure them for it. you want those diplomats to do? Dig wells? I The fourth problem is sustainment. We think we really need to be more realistic about know that counterinsurgency is a protracted what we expect from our civilian agencies and kind of a conflict, and that if we as a nation what we expect the military to do. decide to intervene in such a situation, it is You could make the case that the military going to take a long time. But our systems are should do everything, but I do not think that is not set up for long-term anything. Our fund- necessarily the answer either. Even if we ing mechanisms run in two-year cycles, and decided that, there are laws in the military when we are deployed oversees for the mili- against some of these activities, for instance – tary, as many of you know, we have to operate and that is my second point – legal authorities on supplemental funding, which is by design. that have the military and civilians fighting We organize, train, and equip the military to over not only what they can do but what they be ready to do the nation’s business, but we should do, what they are allowed to do. There only let them do it when Congress approves. is a big debate about the authorities to train That check creates an inherent “short-termi- and equip security forces, which, if you read tis” that is incompatible with counterinsur- Con Crane’s manual, you will know is proba- gency in and of itself. Trying to get multiyear bly one of the most important things in a funding is definitely difficult. This sort of counterinsurgency. And there are legal short-termitis leads to what I call a “cheap restrictions on having military forces, our coat of paint” civil–military dynamic, where- most capable branch, training police forces. by savvy senior military officers whose job it Again, if you read the doctrine, police forces is to come up with the plan and the strategy are what matters, and so we have an institu- for certain operations are cognizant of the fact tional problem there. If it is not part of the that the clock is ticking back home. So their Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Defense, challenge is to remain focused on their task then the military is not supposed to be in while telling their civilian bosses that it is

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going to take a certain number of years. They want to call attention to the word “legitimate,” know they won’t get that sort of time, so they which you could quickly define as a govern- create a strategy that is shorter term, even ment that meets the needs of the people for though they know in their heart of hearts that security, for services, for economic and politi- realistically it is not going to work. It is like cal participation, and for the possibility of a putting on coat after coat of cheap paint that future for their children. you know is not going to work. By the time I do not think it will surprise many people you finally try invest in the good stuff, you are here that in Afghanistan, the issue is that rep- out of money or the Washington clock has run resentatives of the central government and the out. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. I central government itself are generally not think we really need to considered by the Afghan watch for that in civil- people to be legitimate. So “[T]he issue becomes not military relations. here is a story that actually The last obstacle to whether the doctrine makes touches on some of the America’s participation in important themes that Dr. sense or not as a counterinsurgency is the Davidson mentioned: the very ambivalence about conceptualization for an problems of corruption the U.S. role in general. end state. It does. and crime – how we define This gets back to the them and how they affect grand strategy piece. It is The issue becomes, in the people in the countries hard to sustain support for places where we are where we are engaged in a such an operation if there variety of operations; the trying to apply it, is great debate over problem of institution whether we should be whether that end state building in somebody doing it in the first place. else's country and also can ever be achieved.” This has been a perennial building institutions in our debate in American Adam Silverman own country that are capa- national security about ble of carrying out the how far forward we want to put our troops, mission that we have set for ourselves; prob- how far into other countries’ business we want lems of stabilization and what that actually to get, and whether or not that is actually means; and the role of other entities of the linked to our national interests. United States government beyond the military. In a place called Afghanya Valley, where Montgomery McFate: there was heavy fighting during the Soviet I want to touch on the difference between the war, there are many angry villagers now theory and reality of counterinsurgency by whose homes have been destroyed in order to describing something I witnessed in widen a road. We all know how important the Afghanistan about two weeks ago – the roads in Afghanistan are from reading David famous firefight in Kapisa. Kilcullen’s book. What you have here is a situ- One of the central points of counterinsur- ation in which a U.S. Provincial gency theory is that the goal is to move a Reconstruction Team issued a contract to a host-nation population from active or passive local contractor worth about $4.4 million. The support of an insurgent group to active sup- contractor has a good reputation. It is owned port of a legitimate host-nation government. I and run by a Tajik and a Pashtun, both of

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them European trained and educated. construction business and wants the contract. Unfortunately, the contract was written with Furthermore, the local ANA commander, who no oversight – that is, no way to actually is a colonel and was trained and educated by monitor it and no contract design – meaning the United States in the United States, is the that there was no attention given to how the governor’s nephew, so he has no incentive contract would be executed and delivered. whatsoever to help this road to be built. In (That is a whole other story having to do fact, he has every incentive to help the Taliban with how we as a government build institu- prevent it. tions and how we implement our own The people who live there know that the processes in other countries). governor of the province and the ANA and all There is no more money in the contract to of the henchmen who work for the governor pay people for their houses that are being and the ANA are corrupt. The contractors destroyed, so it is a question of eminent here, who are trying to do the right thing and domain. First of all, does the government of do a good job, are basically perceived as vic- Afghanistan have the right to take people’s tims of the government. And the United States property? There are many interesting legal is perceived as a behemoth that has absolutely questions there because at least three different no clue whatsoever about what’s going on and legal systems are operating simultaneously in is driven by the zeal to get things done, to Afghanistan and there is little resolution about build things like roads, without really thinking which one is supreme. That has not been about the context, especially the political con- resolved. Another question is who is responsi- text, in which the construction projects are ble for the payment. Is it the contractor? Is it taking place. the U.S. government? Is it the government of There are many issues that you can tease Afghanistan? There are many open issues in out of this story. There are many platitudes at this story. the ISAF level about enabling the legitimacy The fact of the matter is that the road is of the local government, as well as slogans not being built and people are not being paid about stability and development at the district for their houses that have been destroyed. Why or local level. When you talk to Afghans, the not? We are trying to do the right thing, which reality is that the government is not legitimate. is to build a road for the people of Afghanya Until we start lining up our words with our Valley, but it is not happening, so why isn’t it? execution, until we are focused on deeds Well, it is in part because local government rather than just words or slogans, stability in officials want to do everything they can to Afghanistan, economic development, and prevent this road from being built, including legitimacy are not going to be possible. looking the other way from Taliban activity, The whole structure of the state of such as the emplacement of improvised explo- Afghanistan is basically engineered to enable sive devices. And the Afghan National Army this type of corruption. First of all, in the is complicit, either turning the other way and Afghan constitution the governors are not not doing anything about the Taliban activity elected. They are appointed by Hamid Karzai. there or participating directly when off duty in So it is not a representative government, and the destruction of the project. Again, why the people who live there know that. They are doesn’t the local government and the ANA aware of what the constitution says. They want this particular road to be built? It turns know that the governor is not representing out that the governor of the province owns a their interests. Furthermore, there are no con-

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flict-of-interest laws. In the United States, if given day, but because that is how it affects you are a general officer in the U.S. Army, the greater discussion about the policies and you can neither own nor even serve on the what the policymakers, both elected and board of a company that sells military equip- appointed, do. ment that you might be responsible for pur- I want to talk about three areas. The first chasing. In Afghanistan, there are no such one is the conceptualization of insurgency. laws. So there are people who use their posi- Everybody else on this panel, who were all tions of authority, whether appointed or elect- involved in creating the manual, were con- ed, in order to enable the extraction of money strained by the fact that there was already a from government opportunities. So in the end, definition of “insurgency” in Joint Publication what have we done? In my opinion looking at 3-05 (Doctrine for Joint Special Operations), this particular situation, we have created one which originated in Joint Publication 1-02 more thing for the Afghans to fight about. (Department of Defense Dictionary of Second, the residents of Kapisa are homeless, Military and Associated Terms): An insur- and it is very cold in Afghanistan in the win- gency is “an organized movement that seeks tertime. Third, government officials of the overthrow of a constituted government Afghanistan own 32 percent of the Palm through the use of subversion and armed con- Islands in Dubai. So there is a tremendous flict.” That conceptualization largely covers amount of money in Afghanistan. every form of political violence short of inter- Unfortunately, that money is leaving the coun- state war. If looked at in terms of conceptual- try. It is being extracted and invested else- izing political violence, it is like an inverted where. That does not bode well for the future triangle. Interstate war is at the top, and you of Afghanistan. will often see examples of all the lesser forms Until this issue of real legitimacy rather in it. Then, depending on who is doing the than the slogans that you hear at ISAF is dicing, the next two are revolution and civil addressed, I am not sanguine about the war, in either order. Then there are rebellion, prospects for peace or stability there. insurgency, and at the bottom terrorism. You will not see an insurgency, civil war, or inter- Adam Silverman: state war in terrorism, but in an interstate war My field is the social behavior of political you may perhaps see examples of all of the violence, specifically identity, religious, eth- lower ones. nic, and so forth. How do people learn the If you have this overly broad conceptual- behaviors? How do we come to understand ization, it is an insurgency unless you are those behavioral pathways so that we can try fighting what we think of as an army in the to retard them, either in ways that are predom- field in interstate war. And if it is an insur- inantly nonlethal before they become a prob- gency, we have a manual for that. The problem lem and then in ways that would be driven is not necessarily the military personnel deal- either by law enforcement or the military once ing with that manual and that doctrine but they do become a problem? So when I look at rather the policymakers. In many cases, it is the doctrine, I start by asking what we are not even the appointed policymakers, because actually dealing with. What is the conceptual- they know better. It is the elected policymak- ization? Not because that has a direct impact ers, so there are problems with oversight. in terms of what the strategic specialist or ser- Some of the elected officials are lawyers, a geant or lieutenant or colonel is doing on a few are doctors, and some are businessmen. A

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Human Terrain System. (I agree that none of us really like this term – we are stuck with it. You were stuck with the definition of insurgency and we are stuck with the fact that we go to war with the euphemisms we have. That is just the way it works). When you look at the classical conceptualizations of COIN, it is political warfare. The key is to secure and stabilize the population by bringing them John Nagl and Montgomery McFate. Photo by Dan Creighton. economic, social, and political stability, and at the same time couple of them have Ph.Ds. By and large, this neutralizing the red layer – the insurgent is certainly outside their fields of expertise. forces. That is one way to conceptualize it. The conceptualization here has the ability to What sort of underlays that – what we often warp the policy debate, and that is important. talk about in the Human Terrain System As Dr. McFate and Dr. Crane said, the because we work the nonlethal side – is COIN end state essentially is to reconcile the empowering the lowest level so that the focus societal elements to each other and to the state is on the population: work from the bottom up (the state here being the de facto term for gov- and focus on the population. Nonlethal opera- ernment) and then to tether or retether govern- tions get you farther than lethal ones, and this ment to the societal elements. You have to all creates the space to make the tethering and have a legitimate government to do that. So reconciliation happen. the issue becomes not whether the doctrine We saw what happens when that space is makes sense or not as a conceptualization for created. It is sometimes created by the force, it an end state. It does. The issue becomes, in the is sometimes created by facts on the ground, places where we are trying to apply it, whether and it is usually a combination. That is what that end state can ever be achieved. If it can- happened in Iraq between 2006 and 2008. We not, I would argue, you shouldn’t assign the know the opening was squandered in the military a task and define victory as some- diplomatic quest for this oversized Status of thing that is unachievable. I don’t want to say Forces Agreement that the Iraqis rolled us on. that it is unethical; it is unrealistic. It is not The space that was created in the combination because the military people or their civilian of the Anbar Awakenings and the other agency partners – whatever they are actually Awakenings, the ethnic cleansings or reorder- chartered to do – won’t try. It is not that they ings in Baghdad, and the surge was not capi- won’t do it well. It is that, at the end of the talized on because the leverage was used on day, there is a problem if it cannot be questions that were important to what happens achieved. after the mission is done, such as how many This brings me to the third point. Whether troops we can keep and where they can be you are talking about COIN or population- based. That is not an unimportant discussion, centric COIN, the population is important. I but if the key is to reconcile the elements and want to take a tack from my role within the then the elements to the state and the state to

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the elements, you do not use your leverage conflict or phase four after a conflict – they when you have it for something that can wait are going to let you know if they are angry. until later. They are not going to let you know by coming So, the focus on the population cannot just and yelling at you but by blowing up your gun be on securing and stabilizing them. It has to trucks, the interstate, or the road being built. be on what we talk about as mapping the But there is another portion of this. If you human terrain – the sociocultural element. are the external counterinsurgent force – if This has to be robust. It cannot simply be you are the second or third party, if you will – making map products with colored overlays you have to pay attention to your own socio- showing where groups of people, mosques, cultural elements. This is where the problem and government facilities are. That is one part comes in. of it, and it is important to We all know the big know where everything is “[A] a host of trends, counterinsurgency suc- in time and space. It is cess of Malaya. There are from globalization essentially sociocultural many good arguments for location. to population growth to the actual counterinsur- The second component gency efforts in Vietnam, weapons proliferation, is what is often talked which were either work- about as the network ele- suggest that an era of ing or had worked. What ment, which is every- persistent conflict against did not happen were other body's holy grail of solv- things going on policy- ing terrorism and every- lethal nonstate wise – other changes thing else – we are just irregular foes will not going on both back in the going to social network United States and in analyze it enough, and end any time soon.” Vietnam. In the case of then we will know who is John Nagl Algeria, the Algerians connected to whom and really could not withstand then there will be a solution. Questions related the French onslaught. Charles De Gaulle to the sociocultural dynamic – the network – changed policy, and, depending on the inter- include: Who is related to whom? Is it hierar- pretation, the Algerians basically forced the chical or nonhierarchical? Is it kinship? What French to face the fact that in order to com- is it? pletely defeat the insurgency they would have The third and final element is sociocultu- to become something in their national con- ral context. All three are important for under- sciousness that they did not want to be – standing the population, whether you are Nazis. Remember that the French today really doing population-centric COIN specifically or still have not reconciled their Vishy collabora- anything else. tionist past. That was the mirror the Algerians As Dr. McFate laid out in her remarks, the held up. So the problem was not the COIN population was basically telling us what the operations on the ground; it was the sociocul- problem was. In cases in which you are deal- tural context, the human terrain, back home. ing with high-context communicators – which That is the other element that has to be is the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most of paid attention to in terms of both Iraq and the places where we are doing stabilization Afghanistan, which is really where our focus reconstruction, whether in phase zero before a is now. If you look at good reporting from two

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or three years ago, people were saying that 75 if what we learn from studying the popula- percent of the country was in the hands of the tions tells us that the end state may not be Taliban (however you define the Taliban on achievable, at what point then do we need to any given day since there are at least five dis- sit down and say that this is not the approach? tinct groups for which we are using the term, It is not that the ideas that nonlethal works if not more) or the warlords (some of whom better than lethal and of working from the bot- are also listed as Taliban). It is only now that tom up and empowering the lowest level do suddenly everybody is saying that something not make sense, but if doing all of that consis- new has happened. It hasn’t. If you are follow- tently is not going to get us that end state, ing the good media reporting, this isn’t any- then the question becomes, How much of that thing new. So now we have our own sociocul- do we do before we redefine our end state and tural element that is going to affect the policy- come up with something else to work on? making. That is why there is this whole debate over John Nagl: whether President Obama is or is not taking The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have enough time. This is really our own popula- spurred long-overdue changes in the way the tion-centric focus that we have to consider. If Department of Defense prioritizes irregular he is going to make these life-or-death deci- warfare. These changes have been paid for at sions, I would prefer that he nail it down, do it an enormously high price in money, materiel, right, and take the time he needs. But the and the lives of our courageous service mem- issue becomes what our own population is bers. But as Dr. Crane indicated, they are not going to allow. This all comes back and universally applauded. What I would like to affects the policymaker and affects the end do today is talk about why these changes state. should continue, with particular reference to We also know what the human terrain of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. the sociocultural elements in Afghanistan is Today the United States is not winning a telling us, which is that Afghanistan is largely counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, not tribal the way Iraq is. It is driven by soli- and Dr. McFate indicated some of the reasons darity ties. These are socially constructed, why. We have at great cost just over the past contextual, layered, and change depending on two and a half years, and very much in the context. It is ethno-linguistically broken down. nick of time, managed to turn around a coun- It is ethno-regionally broken down. There are terinsurgency campaign that was on the verge at least 136 different societal elements, some of catastrophic collapse in Iraq. A continued of whom cannot actually communicate dialec- American commitment to both campaigns will tically with each other because they are com- be necessary for some years to come, and a pletely isolated. There is no history of coher- host of trends, from globalization to popula- ent, legitimate, or centralized government. tion growth to weapons proliferation, suggest How do you achieve that end state in which that an era of persistent conflict against lethal the elements are reconciled to each other and nonstate irregular foes will not end any time to the legitimate government and the govern- soon. For all these reasons, the security of the ment is reconciled to them? nation and our national interests demand that So if the concept behind the doctrine caus- we continue to learn and adapt to counterin- es a policy debate, then that has to be kept in surgency and irregular warfare and that we mind while we are working on that focus. And institutionalize these lessons so that they are

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not forgotten again. With some notable lower-level exceptions, Our military capability to succeed in the we did not adapt to these conditions until we wars we are fighting today can only be were perilously close to losing two wars. U.S. explained in light of our experience in forces faced with insurgencies had no doctri- Vietnam. In the wake of that war, the nation nal or training background in irregular warfare opted to focus on large-scale conventional and reacted in uncoordinated and often coun- combat and forget counterinsurgency. Studies terproductive fashion to the challenges they criticizing the Army’s approach to the Vietnam faced. Many of these early ad hoc approaches War were largely ignored, and the solution was to counterinsurgency failed to protect the pop- to rebuild a military focused exclusively on ulation from insurgent attacks and alienated achieving decisive operational victories on a the people through the excessive use of force. conventional battlefield. The military’s Although some units did deploy and employ superlative performance in Operation Desert effective population-centric counterinsurgency Storm further entrenched the mindset that techniques independently, such improvements conventional state-on-state warfare was the were not emulated in a coordinated fashion future while counterinsurgencies and irregular throughout the force until 2007. It was at that warfare were but lesser-included contingen- time, partly as a result of the work of Conrad cies. The saying in the Army at the time was Crane and the team he pulled together, that the that if you could skin the cat, you could skin United States finally adopted a unified the kitten. There was no appreciation that the approach that effectively secured the popula- kitten was actually an alligator. The nation did tion and co-opted reconcilable insurgent fight- not adjust to the fact that its peer competitor ers in Iraq. We are currently attempting to had collapsed, spending a decade after the end make that same leap in Afghanistan, a cam- of the Cold War continuing to prepare for war paign that we have neglected in order to focus against a Soviet Union that no longer existed. on the war that was viewed as the more impor- After the wake-up call of September 11th, tant of the two. The price for that neglect is our lack of preparedness was exacerbated by now coming due, and I would like to com- our failure to adapt fully and rapidly to the mend the Center on Law and Security for demands of counterinsurgency in Iraq and assembling this afternoon’s panel on the way Afghanistan. By early 2002, the Taliban forward in Afghanistan and the heavy price we appeared to be defeated and Afghanistan firm- are going to have to pay for neglecting that ly under the control of our Afghan allies. The fight for the past eight years. fall of Baghdad in April 2003 after a three- Saint Augustine taught that the purpose of week campaign initially appeared to be anoth- war is to build a better peace. We have not as er confirmation of the superiority of American a nation built the capacity to create that better military capabilities. But in both instances, the peace in our national security establishment. A enemy had other plans, and we forgot perhaps close look at the historical record reveals that the most basic precept of strategy of any com- the United States engages in ambiguous coun- petition against a thinking enemy – the enemy terinsurgency and nation-building missions far has a vote. Inadequate contingency planning more often than it faces large-scale war. by civilian leaders and military commanders Similar demands will only increase in a glob- to secure the peace contributed to the chaotic alized world where local problems increasing- conditions that enabled insurgent groups to ly do not stay local and where, to quote establish themselves. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “The most

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likely catastrophic threats vative strategies to counter to our homeland, for “One of the things that American power by example an American city exploiting widely avail- you will find in the poisoned or reduced to able technology in rubble by a terrorist counterinsurgency field manual weapons and by integrat- attack, are more likely to is the notion that if you are ing tactics from across the emanate from failing spectrum of conflict, so- states than from aggressor going to engage in governance called hybrid warfare. states.” This, I think, is activities … it has to be done This is the kind of war one of the primary conclu- we are struggling to sions of the field of inter- in conjunction with locally understand in Afghanistan. national relations devel- existing institutions and It is the kind of war we oped in the wake of World are most likely to face in concepts. If it is not, War I to deal with the the future. The learning problems of states that it will be very hard to execute, curve is not going to get were too strong: Germany any easier, but discussions implement, and sustain.” twice in the first half of like the ones we are hav- the twentieth century, Montgomery McFate ing here today are going Russia in the second half to help. of the twentieth century. In the first half of this century – of our Peter Bergen: century – the primary challenge of internation- We heard much about legitimate government al relations will be states that are too weak, as being the end goal. It seems to me that and this is why Admiral Mike Mullen, the Afghans actually want something much sim- chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said pler because they have never really had any that the greatest threat to U.S. national security experience recently of a particularly legitimate today comes from the weak state of Pakistan, government – security. We are not really offer- not from one of the strong or rising powers ing them this rather basic good. The last gov- that attract far more of our national security ernment that did offer it was the Taliban. resources. Both state and nonstate enemies Second to that, it seems that we are ignoring will seek more asymmetric ways to challenge lessons that we have already learned in Iraq. the United States and our allies. Our conven- When we did the counterinsurgency, the surge, tional military superiority, which remains sub- in Iraq, the Interior Ministry at the time was stantial, will drive many of them to the same essentially a Shia death squad on steroids. So conclusion: When they fight America conven- this was a very illegitimate government, and tionally, they lose horribly in days or weeks, yet we did deliver this security piece eventual- but when they fight unconventionally by ly. We do not seem to have yet reached the employing guerilla tactics, terrorism, and point in the Afghan discussion where we information operations – all in an attempt to decide that what we actually need to be doing erode our national will, our strategic center of is the security piece and not worrying about gravity in the wars we are now fighting – they whether Hamid Karzai received 49 or 54 per- have a far better chance of success. The devel- cent of the vote, which seems to me to be oping strategic environment will find state and details. I was wondering if anybody has a nonstate adversaries continuing to devise inno- comment on that.

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Adam Silverman: I was assigned in Iraq. We spent a lot of time talking to local elites and notables as well as regular folks and internally displaced per- sons. We consistently heard them discuss the government using a term that we would translate as “nonlegitimate.” What is interesting about this sociocultural concept of legitima- cy is that when you read both Arabic literature about leadership and especially the Islamic litera- John Nagl and Montgomery McFate. Photo by Dan Creighton. ture, which is going to be more of a bridge, it talks about a social contract. It is not quite our social contract; I Conrad Crane: would argue that it is probably closer to what Let me talk about genesis of the focus on some of the people on the Mayflower had in legitimacy in the manual. The first time we mind. It has theocentric aspect; God plays a wrote the paragraph on legitimacy in the first role. It is never going to be the Mayflower draft, it came right out of John Locke. It Compact, but it is closer in that sort of con- talked about representation and the contract text. We heard much about this from internally between the governed and the government. displaced persons. They told us that they went Many of the regional experts who read it said to places where their relatives were, because that that’s not legitimacy in their part of the their relatives said that they follow a sheik world. So the definition of legitimacy talks there because he protects them. They thought more about security than anything else. It says they would be protected too. We would hear that in some areas, legitimacy may be based from some of the tribal leaders that people just on security. It might be based on a theo- wouldn’t follow them if they didn’t do specific cratic definition of legitimacy. It is not always things. That was coming not only out of the a Western definition. So one of the first things Arab context, regardless of Sunni or Shia, but you have to do, using the sociocultural intelli- out of the Islamic context. gence, is to figure out what legitimacy means An important thing to keep in mind is that in that part of the world. So it may not be our the legitimacy does not just have to be the definition, and legitimacy may be based on security. There is a way to tether that back to security. There is that great John Paul Vann the local sociocultural context dealing with quote. When asked how important security is leadership and society. Two Afghans who were in counterinsurgency, he thought about it and many miles apart told me independently that said – of course, in the Vietnam context – tribal law is a constitution. That floored us. “I’m not sure if security is 90 percent of coun- terinsurgency or 10 percent of counterinsur- gency. I know it’s the first 90 percent of the first 10 percent.”

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QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION ent situation in Afghanistan. What General Stone did in Iraq was an immensely successful Scott Horton (from the audience): program that he called “counterinsurgency Could you please discuss the relationship behind the wire.” He had 20,000 people in between counterinsurgency doctrine and detention in Camp Bucca. When he first got detention policy? I look at General Douglas there, he found out that many of them had Stone’s proposal to set up what looks like a been there for three or four years for trans- long-term detention system in Afghanistan, set gressions that under Iraqi law were punishable up according to American rules with American by a maximum detention of two years. The review standards, perhaps with planning for problem was that there was no court system to some sort of habeas review, and I wonder what process them. So he had to set one up. He also the implicit message is about Afghanistan, its figured out that not all of them were irrecon- criminal justice system, its law, and its courts. cilable people. He divided the camp, with It strikes me as operating in contradiction with about three-fourths of them being reconcilable counterinsurgency policy. and one-fourth not. You barely could go into the part of the camp for irreconcilables and Montgomery McFate: survive. The guards were being shot at all the My understanding is that in Afghanistan, time with slingshots – little rock balls made detention – that is, restraint on freedom of out of the local soil. For the other 15,000, he movement – is not part of their concept of jus- brought in teachers to teach them to read and tice. Justice is something that is administered write and moderate imams to teach them a swiftly and can be punitive, restorative, or any moderate form of Islam. Then he would take other type, but it generally involves payment them to the court system to have their cases of money or extraction of blood. It does not adjudicated, and he would release them back involve detention. So there is somewhat of a into Iraqi society as what he called “moderate mismatch, in my personal opinion, between missiles.” the idea of setting up prisons, regardless of the When I was there in late 2007, his recidi- system or how well we are able to administer vism rate was two out of 2,200. Any prison in the policies and laws regarding incarceration, America would be proud of numbers like that. and Afghan notions of justice. One of the It was a very successful program, but again things that you will find in the counterinsur- this worked in Iraq. Although I am not famil- gency field manual is the notion that if you iar with the whole program, it sounds as if he are going to engage in governance activities – is trying to take what he did in Iraq and put it and indeed legal systems and legal processes, in Afghanistan. It goes back to what Monty including incarceration, are a part of gover- said: If it does not fit over some of the current nance – it has to be done in conjunction with legal constructs and if it does not fit the socie- locally existing institutions and concepts. If it ty, it might not work. is not, it will be very hard to execute, imple- ment, and sustain. John Nagl: Let me just say one quick word in defense of Conrad Crane: the program in Afghanistan. The rule of law is I am not fully aware of the program, but this obviously essential. To succeed in a counterin- may be a case of trying to take something that surgency, there has to be justice. Maslow’s worked well in Iraq and putting it in a differ- hierarchy of needs applies in a combat zone

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better than it does anywhere else. The first the Coalition Provisional Authority decided to thing you need is security and the next thing is keep many of those governmental institutions contract law – some belief that work will be intact. They just cleaned out the people they rewarded and that crime will be punished. didn't like and then handed them back over to The effort to create justice and the rule of the Iraqis with people we did like. Nobody sat law in Afghanistan is being overseen by a down to figure out what it is that the Iraqis lawyer and enormously talented man, conceptually get. Brigadier General Mark Martins. There is an This is going to be the issue in interesting piece on the front page of today’s Afghanistan. In the cities, the more educated USA Today in which he talks about the prob- population will take more easily to the official lem he is trying to solve in Afghanistan, which governmental rule-of-law system, whereas in is the extraordinary number of “accidental the remote areas things are going to be han- guerillas” (he uses that term, Dr. Kilcullen) dled by a council of elders or tribal leaders. detained in Afghanistan who have, in many That is the nightmare system – the nightmare cases, been in prison for a number of years – transition is at the end. in a sort of jihad university – that he wants to push out. He thinks that perhaps only 10 per- David Phillips (from the audience): cent or 15 percent of the people who we are The conventional wisdom is that the surge and currently holding are in fact long-term prob- the counterinsurgency approach between 2006 lems. We have one of the smartest people and 2008 was successful. It did establish a currently wearing a uniform at work on the modicum of security during that period. I problem. wonder if you think that that approach, while successful in the short term, actually laid the Adam Silverman: seeds for deeper divisions today and going The immediate problem that you are con- forward? Do the problems that we see over the cerned with is an issue, but the real problem is electoral law actually have their roots in the the transition when we are done or close to strategy that we had during those years? If that completion. is the case, how do we fix it? The rule-of-law system in Iraq does not line up with the societal notions of justice and John Nagl: conflict resolution. There are many people The situation in Iraq in 2006 was low-grade from outside the cities in Iraq who are used to civil war between the Sunnis and the Shia. dealing with a traditional or tribal model. They That was the culmination of al Qaeda in Iraq’s do not understand the formal – the official – strategy, and the precipitating event was the model, and they are distrustful of it and the bombing of the Samarra mosque in February people running it. They know people who 2006. The surge, as shorthand for population- have gone into the system and who have never centric counterinsurgency, as well as General come out. So the problem is that there is this Petraeus’s support of the Sunni Awakening – sort of disconnect. We want to push people the so-called Sahwa movement – along with using the traditional system into the formal multiple other factors for success, including, system, but they do not line up. There is no frankly, some ethnic cleansing, and some sep- tether there. Part of that is a problem inherited aration between the Sunni and the Shia, partic- by successive waves of military and civilian ularly in Baghdad, all resulted in a dramatic allied personnel. During the initial transition, diminution of violence. There are still fault

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lines in Iraqi society, but the primary one now Question (from the audience): is no longer Sunni/Shia; it is actually It seems as though those who think that Arab/Kurd. What we are seeing now is negoti- Afghanistan is important are losing control of ations over the distribution of scarce the narrative in Congress, with the administra- resources. We are seeing politics, but politics tion, and with the American public. It also conducted through negotiations and lawfare seems that the Taliban is controlling much of rather than warfare. That is a huge step in the the narrative in Afghanistan about whether right direction. Iraq, I would like to say, is they are winning or losing, and that those two well on its way to becoming a normal Middle things are related. I am interested in this as a Eastern country. That’s not great, but it is a theoretical question, but I am also interested whole lot better than it used to be. It is my in how the authority and intelligence of all belief that, although it is not impossible, it is these people can leveraged to start turning that extraordinarily unlikely that the remnants of al situation around. Qaeda in Iraq can reignite the Sunni/Shia fault line. There are things we can do to minimize John Nagl: tensions between the Kurds and the Arabs, in I think that is the right question. I was very particular by kicking issues down the road – pleased to see the op-ed piece in yesterday’s agreeing to negotiating on them later. So I am New York Times laying out what the president cautiously hopeful for the future of Iraq. needs to say in the address to the nation that I I do believe that a continued American expect he will give in the next several weeks. I security presence in Iraq, in particular the Air think it is true that we have in some ways lost Force, will be essential for long past the cur- control of the narrative, but I do not think it is rent withdrawal date of December 31, 2011. I irretrievable. I think we can get it back and I expect to see elections in Iraq early next year. think that this president can get it back. There They may not be in January. They may be in are a number of factors in our favor. The February or March. That’s okay. I believe that biggest is that the people of Afghanistan have the first thing the new government will do is been ruled by the Taliban before, and they do reopen Status of Forces Agreement negotia- not particularly want to go that route again. tions, because what the Iraqis should be con- Increasingly I think that the key leaders on the cerned about in 2012, and increasingly are, is Hill understand many of the key parts of the the fact that they will not be sovereign over problem. Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the their own airspace. The best thing we have Senate Armed Services Committee, came back going for us in Iraq is its neighbor Iran. So I from his last trip to Afghanistan two months see a long-term security relationship between ago convinced that we do need to build an the United States and Iraq for the rest of the Afghan National Army of 250,000. That is next decade. incredibly helpful. Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is a Peter Bergen: very strong supporter of General McChrystal Civilians are still four times more likely to be and of an expanded Afghan National Army. killed in Iraq today than in Afghanistan. Last Public support in the United States for an year there were 9,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, increased commitment to Afghanistan, which has a smaller population, compared to although tottering on the edge at 50/50, is not about 2,000 Afghan civilians killed. deep. Only about two percent of the American people think that Afghanistan is the most

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important thing happening in the world today. hard way: Who controls the ground controls So I believe that this is a case where clear the message. In so much of Afghanistan we presidential leadership backing up a very tried to fight with long-range precision strikes capable chain of command in the field can and with Special Operations raids where peo- buy that team in the field 12 to 18 months to ple hit and left. Something happens in this demonstrate progress. Then it is up to them. part of the world called the “solatia effect,” which is basically that the dominant economic Peter Bergen: activity in some areas is collecting solatia pay- The Afghans are the world’s greatest fighters ments for people who are hurt in combat. If but they have the world’s worst army. So if you are not there immediately to see what the Senator Levin is talking about a 250,000 man results of these strikes are, then by the time army, how do you get there? Or even halfway anybody shows up the whole village is in there? slings and everyone there has been wounded, and they are all waiting for solatia payments. John Nagl: The Taliban has also been very skillful at Let me push back against you Peter, which I arraying all kinds of atrocities as soon as these do with some trepidation. The Afghans have things happen. the world's worst police force, I’ll agree with Craig Charney has done some polls in that. The Afghan army, which I have worked Afghanistan that show how important security with, will fight. They are not particularly liter- is. People’s attitudes about the performance of ate but they are the most respected institution both the Afghan government and NATO forces in Afghanistan. So if we are going to build an greatly depend upon two things: who they Afghan state, the only pillar that it makes think is causing civilian causalities, which is sense to build it on is the Afghan National shaped very much by these poststrike scenar- Army. This is a mission that we have all but ios that are set up, and whether they actually criminally neglected over the past eight years. see boots on the ground in their area. You can- We still had just 50 percent of the American not fight these wars from 20,000 feet, and we advisers that we said were necessary for the have learned that the hard way. I know Afghan army in country in August of this year. General McChrystal has tried to adjust to that. We have not put the resources into building So there are some things in the information the army that it deserves. I believe that this is arena we could do a lot better to help control good raw material for fighting, and I draw a the narrative that comes out of any kind of comparison with the Iraqis. In my last job on combat actions that we do. active duty in the Army, I worked to train the training teams that supported both the Iraqi Judy Miller (from the audience): and the Afghan militaries. The Iraqis are very We have read much about a revised strategy literate and very smart, but not natural fight- being contemplated of securing 10 cities and ers. You had to teach them to fight. The leaving the countryside. How do you evaluate Afghans are not particularly literate but natu- that proposition? ral fighters. Question (from the audience): Conrad Crane: Dr. Davidson, assuming that President Obama At more of an operational level, there is one decides to deploy 34,000 to 40,000 troops to thing that we have learned in Afghanistan the Afghanistan in the near future, what do you as

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a planner think the consequences would be for think that we are going to withdraw back to readiness? the cities, because that cedes a whole lot of ground that then can be used to do things not Kevin Sheehan (from the audience): only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan. Could you please say a little bit about the When you talk to Pakistanis, they say that if internal institutional trade-offs for the Army you fix Afghanistan then things will be okay. and perhaps the Marine Corps of a relatively When you talk to the Afghans, they say that if greater emphasis on irregular war and coun- you fix Pakistan then things will be okay. terinsurgency compared to conventional capa- Obviously the answer is both. Eventually you bility? I assume that there is no free lunch have got to go back out and control the coun- here, and that greater time, resources, and tryside again or you are conceding base areas efforts to the one will result in a degrading of to your enemy. the capabilities in the other and the acceptance Regarding the trade-offs, General George of greater risk. Casey is convinced that if he gets 18 months between deployments, he can maintain both Question (from the audience): skill sets. He actually has a plan to do that. What roles do you see for the UN and NATO? There is a dilemma if you talk about creating specialized forces – let’s say you have two Janine Davidson: constabulary divisions to do stabilization for The Department of Defense is doing a instance. Once they have completed their Quadrennial Defense Review right now. I deployment, who goes in for the next rotation? think the report will be due out in February, so You never have enough specialized units, so I cannot really comment on exactly how it will you have to have the general-purpose forces. end up. But the secretary has made it a point You have to be able to do it all. Again, to say that the department needs to balance General Casey is convinced that with 18 itself, and not just on conventional and irregu- months – which would be six months down- lar types of missions but also for the present time when they get back, three months to do a and for the future. So he is very focused on full-scale conventional deployment, and then succeeding in the current fight, whatever that nine months to get ready to go back to COIN takes, and then also balancing for what we – he can maintain the skill set for the force. will need for the future. The department is On the roles of NATO and the UN, NATO working really hard on that process. is now trying to come up with their own coun- To the Afghanistan point, it is still being terinsurgency doctrine very much like ours. I determined. What the department has is a have listened to them and actually helped global force management process that stands monitor some of their discussions. Hopefully, ready to support whatever the president's deci- that will create some kind of uniformity, but sion is. as David Kilcullen and others have written, your enemy flows to your weak spots. So Conrad Crane: NATO has a role, but we just have to incorpo- Regarding the 10 cities approach, in some rate them better and create some uniformity. ways you can see that as a variation of the old The UN obviously brings legitimacy. They oil spot strategy, as long as you are planning have a role to play, but they have to be protect- to spread out from there. I know from working ed and there are also many other security con- with the Pakistanis that it bothers them to cerns that come with them as well.

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John Nagl: the United States and the Soviet Union in On the question of balance, although you can- regard to staffing the Secretariat and some of not have enough specialized units to do every- the other units within the United Nations. So thing, you can have some specialized units to what we see is that the UN is unable to help be the first to flow in either at the high end or out – either fortunately or unfortunately, the low end, and then you can swing the rest depending on your view of the UN at any of the force in two different directions. Our given time regarding any given situation. The friend Andrew Krepinevich has written very result is that they tend to be used as a sort of well about this subject at the Center for cover. In some cases you can get substantive Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. expertise, but you may not get numbers in Assuming the president were to send let’s terms of assistance because of the institutional say 35,000 additional U.S. forces, that would constraints. probably consist of four or five brigades and then a whole lot of enablers. The single Montgomery McFate: biggest thing we need more of in Afghanistan We have talked a lot on this panel about the is actually helicopters, and so there would be a provision of security to the population and its lot of support in addition to those brigades. importance as part of a counterinsurgency I am concerned with the long-term health strategy. I think we – not just this panel but of the Army. We are seeing many strains on it. the government of the United States – are We have decided this year to increase the size working under an unexamined strategic of the Army by about 22,000, and we may assumption here, which is that the increase of need further increases in the size of the Army American forces into Afghanistan is going to if we increase in Afghanistan. provide security to the Afghan population. Regarding NATO, the French are an inte- This is a model that comes to us from Iraq, grated part of NATO again – that is a fantastic where troops were pushed out to the joint thing for the security of the world. The French security stations and combat outposts in are doing some pretty good fighting now. remote areas. The question is, would this actu- They have improved. The Canadians have ally work in Afghanistan? You see towns and done extraordinarily well, and the British are villages that are safe during the day, but the taking Afghanistan enormously seriously. So Taliban come at night. They leave night letters. this is a learning process. The American mili- They cut down the cell phone towers. So you tary has made the turn first and turned far- are talking about putting a permanent presence thest. The civilian agencies of the U.S. govern- in remote rural areas. Is there really the toler- ment and our NATO allies and friends around ance in the United States for the level of casu- the globe are trailing behind. We have come a alties that that would involve? Is this an long way, but we have a long way to go. acceptable level of violence? Could we sustain Discussions like this help. this? Because the more people you put out there, the more targets you create, and that Adam Silverman: raises a question of national will and policy Part of the issue with the UN has to do with objectives. institutional constraints that are left over from its creation post – World War II and a tremen- dous amount of institutional constraints that were the result of Cold War politics between

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Lessons from the Past: Counterinsurgency throughout History

Panelists: establish the legitimacy of the government, Thomas Johnson, W. Patrick Lang, which the rural population preferred as an Michael Sheehan, Martin Stanton alternative to the National Liberation Front, enough to risk their own lives for, and the fail- Moderator: ure of American troops to protect and isolate Stephen Holmes them from the insurgents by pursuing basical- ly a war of attrition instead. I believe that the same fatal axes of failure loom before the United States now in Afghanistan, that time is running out, and that it might be already too late. In fact, I think there are eerie similarities at the structural, political, and military levels that the United States is engaged in that are almost an exact political and military reenact- ment of Vietnam. I find this lack of awareness of the repetition of events deeply disturbing. There are some superficial and structural issues that I would like to discuss before the Michael Sheehan and Stephen Holmes. more important military and political issues. Photo by Dan Creighton. Both wars obviously are on an Asian land- mass thousands of miles from the United Stephen Holmes: States, which requires superefficient logistics Dr. Johnson, would you please begin the con- lines. Unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan is land- versation? locked, and I do not think enough attention has been paid to the strain going through the Thomas Johnson: Khyber Pass. We are now sending much more What I would like to do this morning is com- through the Bolan Pass down in the south. pare Vietnam and Afghanistan. I believe the Eighty percent of the population in both coun- two conflicts are remarkably similar at the tries was and is rural, with national literacy strategic, operational, and tactical levels. hovering around 10 percent – in the rural Many of my comments this morning are based Pashtun areas of Afghanistan, maybe one per- on an article that my colleague Chris Mason cent for females and 5 percent for males. Both and I published, “Refighting the Last War: countries were racked (and this is very impor- Afghanistan and the Vietnam Template,” in tant) by decades of European imperial aggres- the November/December issue of Military sion – by the French in the case of Vietnam, Review at Fort Leavenworth. I am pleased that and by the Soviet Union in the case of they published it because, as you will see, I Afghanistan. Both improbably won their am very critical of the Big Army. I think most David-versus-Goliath wars against the historians today would agree that the conflict invaders that resulted basically in a in Vietnam was lost because of the failure on north/south civil war afterward, but what is two deadly intersecting axes: the inability to important here is that they produced genera-

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tions of experienced and mated that. highly skilled fighters and “I think there are eerie As to the enemy, there combat commanders. The are also very close com- similarities at the structural, last superficial point that I parisons between the two will mention is that both political, and military levels conflicts. In both cases, I countries have spectacular- think we have vastly mis- that the United States ly inhospitable and impas- understood the enemy. In sible terrain and few roads, is engaged in that are Vietnam, the United States limiting the value of U.S. almost an exact insisted on casting the war superiority in motor vehi- as a fight against the cles and making artillery political and military spread of communism, but immobile in many respects reenactment of Vietnam. the Vietnamese were not On the political side, fighting for communism. South Vietnam had and I find this lack of awareness The North Vietnamese Afghanistan has a regime of the repetition of events army and the Vietcong that is viewed as illegiti- were motivated by the per- deeply disturbing.” mate by the vast majority vasive narrative of nation- of the population. This is Thomas Johnson alism and reunification. In important because studies Afghanistan, similarly, the on counterinsurgencies suggest that they are enemy has created a pervasive national dis- probably going to fail without a stable politi- course, in this case a religious jihad. Senior cal partner viewed by the population as being U.S. and NATO officials, however, continue to legitimate. Many people have recently talked misread the fundamental narrative of the about legitimacy, but I think that we have it enemy. They are determined to wage a secular wrong relative to Afghanistan. Max Weber, the campaign against an enemy fighting a reli- father of modern sociology, spoke about three gious war. basic dynamics that are related to regime legit- I think this is very important relative to imacy. He talked about traditional, legalistic or notions of using money to peel off the Taliban rational, and religious causes. For millennia in and of actually being able to negotiate. In my Afghanistan – or the area that Afghanistan opinion, the Taliban represent true believers in makes up – legitimacy was based on patriar- the sense of Eric Hoffer’s book The True chal and dynastic dynamics, as well as reli- Believer, written in the the 1950s. I think the gious. The United States and the flawed Bonn Taliban foot soldier of 2007 is very different process thought that we could paint a coat of from the foot soldier of 2009. I have tremen- democracy on Afghanistan in a short time. I dous respect for my friend David Kilcullen, believe that one of the reasons that President but I do not believe that the majority of foot Karzai is illegitimate is because he was elect- soldiers in the south – most of my research is ed. Democracy is not a form of legitimacy in in Kandahar and Helmand – are accidental Afghanistan. Just as I could not declare myself guerillas. I think that in most instances they king and be viewed as legitimate in the United are committed jihadists. States, where dynasty is not a form of legiti- In the cases of both Vietnam and macy, I think the same holds true for demo- Afghanistan, poorly equipped guerillas lived cratic elections and the president in and hid among the people. I constantly get Afghanistan. I think that we have underesti- messages from my students in Helmand,

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Marines who are upset that they are not meet- virtually identical in my mind to that pursued ing the Taliban in face-to-face conflict, and in Vietnam. Instead of clear, hold, and build, haven't been for a couple of months, because what we have done in Afghanistan is clear, the Taliban melted into the population, much return to Forward Operating Base; clear, as the Vietcong did. Both insurgencies were return to FOB; clear, return to FOB. and are ethnically cohesive and exclusive. In Counterinsurgents cannot take a taxi to their both cases, the insurgents enjoy a sanctuary job. They have to be living and operating behind a long and rugged border that cannot where the Taliban are operating, 24/7. I think be closed. Neither the Vietcong nor the that we need many more things like the CAP Taliban were or are popular. Support for either program that we had in Vietnam and parts of to be the national rulers was and is probably the CORDS program. But clearing operations below 15 percent, if not even lower. Foreign and compound searches are not necessarily the support for the insur- way to go. The purpose is gents/jihadists is also sim- the same, but to find easily ilar. North Vietnam “In regard to establishing a replaced weapons or to received money, weapons, large footprint with U.S. forces clear a tiny, arbitrarily cho- and support from the sen patch of worthless in Afghanistan, I would caution Soviet Union. The Taliban ground for a short period receives it from the everyone that the bigger the and then turn it over to an Pakistani army, the ISI, indigenous security force footprint is and the more and wealthy Saudis. who cannot hold it and I would like to talk a evident it is to the American then going to do it again little about our military people, the shorter their somewhere else is almost strategy and the compar- like the movie Groundhog isons between the two patience gets in terms of how Day. conflicts, because I think much it costs and how much Another comparison this is where the rubber between Vietnam and really hits the road. The blood is shed on both sides. Afghanistan that we have failure of American troops Eventually you get to a not quite understood is that to protect the people and in both instances we are situation in which the public isolate them from the fighting and prosecuting insurgents is true in both decides that we're through the war at the provincial instances. Up until four level. The province in over there and you months ago, body counts Vietnam was meaningless were still one of the offi- are ordered to withdraw.” and the province in cial metrics in W. Patrick Lang Afghanistan is meaning- Afghanistan. General less. All of Afghan identity McChrystal stopped that bubbles up from the dis- upon coming to command, but body counts, I trict and subdistrict levels. We have not quite believe, are still in the institutional memory of understood that. the Big Army. I think that the Big Army likes I am very concerned about the 10 city to fight an attrition warfare and is not very strategy because it is basically a mirror image good at fighting static campaigns. The implied of what the Soviets did. This is a rural insur- strategy of attrition via clearing operations is gency. The Soviets controlled 20 percent of

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al force, has about 32,000 combat troops. That’s it. Trying to Afghanize this war is absurd – thinking that we can have 120,000 soldiers in the ANA by the end of 2010 or 250,000 in three, four, or five years is delu- sional. The Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth a couple of years ago briefed senior Army leadership and suggested that they could never have much more than a 50,000-person army because the salaries alone would exceed the Afghan budget. So the Thomas Johnson. Photo by Dan Creighton. Pentagon continues to put forth true but irrele- vant figures of 90,000 ANAs. To paraphrase the population too, controlling the provincial John Paul Vann’s statement on Vietnam, we capitals in the urban areas, but they did not haven’t been in Afghanistan for eight years. control the most important aspect of the coun- We have been in Afghanistan one year eight try during their time, which was obviously in times. the hinterlands and the rural areas. I would like to end with a quote from my In both countries, I believe that we have current paper on the comparisons of Vietnam been heavy-handed and in many respects cul- and Afghanistan. Let me read it. “In 1983 turally offensive. The U.S. and NATO troop Arnold Isaacs summarized the reasons for behavior with indiscriminate use of fire sup- failure in Vietnam in his history of the final port has turned rural villages into enemy years of the war as follows.” I quote from recruiting centers. Collateral damage in Isaacs’s Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam Afghanistan means something because of the and Cambodia: culture. We understand and the Afghans understand that collateral damage will take From start to finish American leaders place, but when you kill an Afghan innocent, remained catastrophically ignorant of especially a woman or a child, and you do not Vietnamese history, culture, values, own up to it, you lose that village forever. motives and abilities. Misperceiving both It is critically important, and I disagree its enemy and its ally, and imprisoned in vehemently with John Nagl on this point, that, the myopic conviction that sheer military just like in Vietnam, we have overestimated force could somehow overcome adverse the size of the indigenous Afghan armies. If political circumstances, Washington stum- you ask the Pentagon what the size of the bled from one failure to the next in the Afghan National Army is, they will say that continuing delusion that success was there have been 92,000 troops trained and always just ahead. This ignorance and equipped since 2002. That does not take into false hope were mated, in successive account the reenlistment rate, AWOL figures, administrations, with bureaucratic circum- and a number of different instances. When stances that inhibited admission of error Senator John Kerry came back to the United and made it always seem safer to keep States a few weeks ago, he mentioned a figure repeating the same mistakes, rather than of 50,000 troops, and he is correct. The risk the unknown perils of a different Afghan National Army, which is a profession- policy.

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I believe that one could substitute the ship, so it became all mixed up for us with the word “Afghan” for “Vietnamese” in Isaacs’s idea of the Cold War, and so we decided to assessment and apply it with exactly equal participate in these things everywhere. precision to the United States efforts in I was in one such outfit in South America, Afghanistan from 2001 to 2005. The current the 8th Special Forces Group. We had varying dual-prong strategy of nation building from degrees of success in little countries all over the nonexistent top down and a default war of South America applying the rule that Bernard attrition is leading us down the same tragic path. Fall had written on the blackboard. We gener- ally found that if the job was not so big as to W. Patrick Lang: intrude itself on the consciousness of the I am not a scholar; I think of myself as a sort American public, did not cost too much of time traveler. I started in this counterinsur- money, and did not get too many of us killed, gency business in 1964. The Army, probably you could do something with it. There were despairing of making a real infantry officer always problems because, when it came to out of me, sent me to the Special Warfare things like political reform, the elites did not School at Fort Bragg where I studied coun- want to give up their power, and when it came terinsurgency under such people as Bernard to economic development, the latifundistas Fall, Roger Trinquier, and others. I also took did not want to give up their land. So there the Special Forces Officer course there, which was only so much you could do with it, but is an interesting trip out in the woods for five you could achieve some success. months. I heard an awful lot during that peri- Then we got to the big one in Vietnam. I od of time about what counterinsurgency was was in Vietnam for two years and 10 months. I supposed to be. I remember seeing Bernard was variously in Special Forces, Military Fall write on a blackboard that counterinsur- Intelligence, and an outfit called MACV/SOG gency equals political reform plus economic (Military Assistance Command Vietnam, development plus counterguerilla operations. Studies and Observations Group), which was That kind of sums it all up, doesn’t it? really a derring-do outfit. The war that I This was a very active doctrine in the remember is not exactly the same war that I United States. It was not popular with the Big often hear people talk about. When I first got Army, which wanted to fight armored battles there in early 1968 during the second phase of in Europe against the Russians if it ever came the Tet Offensive, I was assigned to go and to that, but there was a small band of enthusi- meet John Paul Vann, who was mentioned a asts who had taken it up. Most of them were few minutes ago. I ended up participating in in Special Forces, some were in Psychological his organization of the III Corps Tactical Zone Operations, and others were contract civilians. into one giant counterinsurgency operation They were sent across the world during the with the acronym CORDS, for Civil Kennedy period and immediately after during Operations Revolutionary Development the Johnson period to implement this doctrine Support. It provided advisers for every con- against what was called at that time “revolu- ceivable aspect of the Vietnamese government tionary warfare.” The colonial powers had all and civic society life at the national, provin- experienced a surge of enthusiasm among cial, district, and often the town level. We had their former subject peoples for independence advisers for things such as how to run a boy after World War II. These movements often scout troop and how to make water buffaloes had communist or extreme left-wing leader- give more milk.

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There had been a lot of money in South Vietnam. emphasis on counterinsur- “The question that the Well, the North gency in the early days of Vietnamese were not stu- the Vietnam War, but then McChrystal report answers is pid and they had a fine the North Vietnamese army. So after a year or how to win an insurgency. brought their major-force so of thinking about it units into the country in That is not the question. they decided that they 1965. President Johnson The question goes back to would use their army. basically had a choice, They went over to the which was to either bring the initial purpose of offensive and conquered our main-force units to our being in Afghanistan – the country in a conven- fight them or leave. So that tional campaign. Anyone to prevent another went on for two or three old enough who cannot years, and counterinsur- strategic terrorist attack remember seeing North gency took a back seat. Vietnamese tanks in the within our borders. Then, in 1967, people streets of Saigon does not reckoned that they had the In that regard, we have been have a very good memo- situation sufficiently under enormously successful ry. control to reemphasize In regard to establish- counterinsurgency. So, for for the past eight years.” ing a large footprint with the next three or four Michael Sheehan U.S. forces in years, while Nixon concen- Afghanistan, I would cau- trated on withdrawing tion everyone that the American forces in that awful thing called bigger the footprint is and the more evident it Vietnamization – which I understand that we is to the American people, the shorter their hope to do in Afghanistan, withdrawing one patience gets in terms of how much it costs step at a time – this counterinsurgency activity and how much blood is shed on both sides. was going on all over the country. CORDS Eventually you get to a situation in which the had 10,000 people in it, including 7,500 public decides that we're through over there Americans and 2,500 others, including and you are ordered to withdraw. So I would Filipinos, Australians, and others. It was the be careful. Maybe smaller is better, as in the biggest counterinsurgency effort in history. It Montgomery McFate approach – having high- had lots of money, and a tremendous amount ly skilled teams of people who really know of time was spent training all these people, what they are doing, small numbers of sol- including the military advisers at the county diers, and a subtle and sophisticated approach level, in languages and all of the other kinds to dealing with these very different societies, of things that they needed to. So, by the time rather than a great big troop presence all over we got all our troops out and there was a the country. cease-fire with the North Vietnamese, the sit- uation hung in the balance. Michael Sheehan: It stayed that way for two years until some The next few minutes are going to be difficult hiccup on the world scene caused the U.S. for me. I spent the better part of my military Congress to defund the war by law, and they career involved in counterinsurgency – as a said that we could never again spend any Special Forces adviser like Pat Lang in Latin

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America, in the Philippines, studying it as a cadet at West Point through two graduate degrees, and as a policy guy in the White House in the late 1980s, where I advocated that the Army try to understand “irregular warfare,” which is the term I used. The term they used was “low-intensity conflict” because they did not consider irregular warfare to be a part of their mission. Low-intensity conflict was a sub-mission that included insurgency, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, W. Patrick Lang and Martin Stanton. and a host of other things that they had to do Photo by Dan Creighton. for politicians every once in a while but wouldn’t distract them from their primary mis- of the McChrystal report. Then I will circle sion of fighting and winning the nation’s wars. back to discuss the Army’s counterinsurgency “Wars” at that time meant conventional wars – doctrine and a terrible misreading of the histo- wars fought by the Army doctrine at the time, ry of insurgency and counterinsurgency. the air-land battle. I spent a lot of time battling The question that the McChrystal report that issue and imperiling my military career, answers is how to win an insurgency. That is getting into trouble with the senior Pentagon not the question. The question goes back to officers while I was on the White House Staff. the initial purpose of our being in Afghanistan I was trying to implement the president’s poli- – to prevent another strategic terrorist attack cy and the policy of the Goldwater-Nichols within our borders. In that regard, we have Act, which was to try to force this issue of been enormously successful for the past eight Special Operations and low-intensity conflict years. It is hard for people to get their heads onto a reluctant military. around how successful we have been, because Now, however, as I closely read and reread the success of that policy is not just about an the McChrystal report and the Army’s coun- insurgency in eastern Afghanistan. It is about terinsurgency doctrine, I have a deepening a global strategy to debilitate the strategic conclusion that both of these documents are capability of al Qaeda. The first question they drastically, tragically flawed. should have asked is why we have we been As a cadet at West Point, I wrote a paper successful since September 2001 – and to try about the food crisis in South Asia. I had con- to build upon that counterterrorism success. cluded that we needed to grow more food Another assumption of report is that you because people were starving. My professor have to have stability in order to achieve your told me that I had asked the wrong question counterterrorism objective. I am not sure that’s by assuming that the problem was caused by a been tested. There is no stability in Somalia. lack of food rather than being an issue of dis- There is no stability in Yemen. There is no sta- tribution. My paper never recovered and I got bility in western Pakistan, and there really has a bad grade on it, but I learned from it that if not been any stability in most of Afghanistan you ask the wrong question, you are never even since we threw out the Taliban. going to get to the right answer. I would like Nevertheless, for eight years, we have been to begin my comments by discussing the successful in debilitating al Qaeda’s strategic wrong questions and the wrong assumptions reach. Does al Qaeda have capability? Yes, of

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course, in pockets. Their strategic capability to make western Pakistan a beautiful place but has been debilitated extraordinarily because to debilitate al Qaeda’s strategic reach from we have done many things right. So the study there. It has been working for eight years. should have first looked at that. Instead, we They have none. That doesn’t mean they never went off on a tangent about how to win a will, but let’s think about what we need to do. counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. I think that The report envisions a strategy that includes may even be irrelevant. no U.S. soldiers on the Pakistan side of that Also, there is a misreading of insurgency amorphous border but requires an enormous history. It is very easy in troubled countries, American military footprint on the which is most of the world, to start and sustain Afghanistan side. an insurgency. But it is an entirely different Another question that they did not ask thing to win, which is really hard. As strong as themselves in the report was the extent to the Taliban are, the prospects of their winning which your presence, the strategy that you are are miniscule – almost zero. They have no dictating, and the soldiers you have on the support. When I was beating the drum about ground contribute to the problem you are try- the Taliban in 1998 and ing to solve. 1999 when I was the They also misread the “We are having a real problem ambassador for countert- difference between different errorism at the State as a nation developing types of warfare – conven- Department, they were strategic leaders who can tional battle, the air–land recognized by the United battle that the Army is very Arab Emirates, Saudi look at something, see it for comfortable with; an occu- Arabia, and Pakistan. what it is, and make pation force; counterinsur- They were supported by gency forces; and countert- Pakistan and Saudi the kinds of decisions in terms errorism forces. It is an Arabia. That will not of commitment of resources, occupation in Afghanistan. happen again. Even if When the U.S. military is time, and national prestige they were to take charge providing the primary secu- again, we kicked them that will bring us to rity throughout the country, out in six weeks in 2001 it is an occupation. No mat- success on a clear objective. with 400 people of the ter how much counterinsur- U.S. Air Force and a rag- Ambiguity in these things gency doctrine you sprinkle tag Northern Alliance. is just killing us.” on top of it, no matter how Do we really need to many Ph.Ds and sociolo- reinvent Afghanistan in Martin Stanton gists you train in the Army, order to achieve the no matter how many clinics counterterrorism objectives that sent us there you build and roads you pave, it is still an in the first place? occupation strategy, and it has been for eight Another question that General McChrystal years. That occupation is, in my view, con- should have asked himself was how we can tributing to the problem they are trying to envision a strategy across the border in solve. It is a never-ending loop that they have Pakistan that has no U.S. permanent troops on put themselves in. I do not know what the the ground. We have a strategy for that, which solution is at this point. I have reread the is working for our purpose. Our purpose is not McChrystal report 10 times in the past week.

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Every time I read it, I find problems with Martin Stanton: every paragraph in it. I am like the Forrest Gump of the past 20 Regarding the counterinsurgency manual, years of U.S. military foreign policy because I it is great in many respects, but it misses the have participated in all of it at a planning most fundamental point. If you were to switch level. I would like to talk about something that everything it says about what the U.S. military was mentioned earlier – the idea that the should do to what the host country should do, COIN strategy has fundamentally changed with the U.S. military footprint as close to what we are doing. The manual and all the zero as possible in order to achieve success, good work that has been done since 2007 has then you would have a manual that might be been excellent and has codified some best useful. practices within the Army and the military in When I was in El Salvador as an adviser, general. I would not try to detract from its there were two U.S. military advisers for each importance, but I want to dispel the notion it of the six zones that represented the whole may engender that previously people were just country – 12 guys in the field for the entire lockstep and did not really know what to do. Army. It would have been the wrong answer I will give you an example from my per- for me to have a Ranger sonal experience. I was platoon in my zone rather part of the first Army bat- than letting the “[T]he thought that we could talion into Somalia. That Salvadorans fight their draw down while was at the height of the war. After I went to the time period in which were Philippines in 1987, while the enemy is in their present still preparing to fight the the Philippine army was state and not expect nonexistent Soviets, as floundering against the John Nagl referred to ear- them to further encroach communists, I came back lier. We were still feeling with a recommendation. I or further expand good about Desert Storm, said that the worst thing which I had also partici- their power in Afghanistan we could do would be to pated in. Desert Storm was introduce U.S. forces. is just not realistic.” the last truly neat war, but Even though our forces Martin Stanton we will never see the like would be better, even if of it again. Within a week our forces built roads, of our being in Somalia, fixed schools, and handed out Meals Ready- we were given control of Humanitarian Sector to-Eat to children, our presence would unify Marka. We had an infantry battalion minus the opposition and cause us deeper problems one company, so we had a little less than 500 than it would solve. guys all told for an area the size of I think we need to dramatically reconsider Connecticut. our entire strategy in Afghanistan, starting We were there to facilitate humanitarian with the original reason for our being there, relief, but people really did not need that and a counterinsurgency doctrine that seems much humanitarian relief because the lower to give the Big Army a mission. In actuality, Shabele Valley looked much like Ohio. There counterinsurgency is done by stepping back were cornfields, banana plantations, and crops and allowing the host country to do its job. everywhere. We were taking truckloads of relief rice to refugee camps through an hour’s

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worth of cornfields. Finally, Sean Naylor, the where we failed. I was assigned as the senior reporter who was with us, asked why we were civil military operations officer to Army doing it. Kirk Haschack, who was a little Central Command (ARCENT) to be part of quicker on the draw than I was, said, “Well, the staff that planned the invasion of Iraq. I hell, I don’t know Shawn, maybe they don’t had no background. I was just thrown into it. eat corn.” That made the papers and we both We were going to invade this country and got a talking to. But the point is that we were basically take it down. The last time we did thrown in without a lot of guidance, and so we this was World War II. Every other time, we wondered what to do. It came down literally to were working with a host nation that existed three of us – myself the operations officer, the on the ground. So I got the green book, executive officer, and the battalion command- Eclipse: The Occupation of Germany. I started er – sitting with a butcher paper chart in a reading through it and taking notes. I called in building without a roof just brainstorming on my planning staff, and they showed me the about what we should do. We came up with first draft of what they had already worked on. suppress banditry, keep the roads open, get I was looking for things like military govern- commerce going again, reinstate the tradition- ment, zones of occupation, and terms of refer- al elder leadership, and facilitate the non- ence for working with civil authorities. I went governmental organization projects. There down the list of the things that I had read were a few other things too, but that was the about and I did not see any of them. And these gist of it. We just kind of figured that out on were smart kids. So I brought them all in and our own. asked them what was going on. They told me The point I am trying to make is that that’s that they had been told not to use the terms I what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan before had written down because this was not going 2007. Units that were there would take a look to be an occupation; it was going to be a liber- at what was around them and figure out what ation. to do. It was not systemic nor was it stratified I asked them who had told them that, and in a clear plan that came down from on high, they said the planners at U.S. Central but I would tell you to have some faith in the Command (CENTCOM), all of whom were general smarts and inventiveness of subordi- my friends. If you get old enough in the Army, nate tactical units because they will surprise it becomes a pretty tight little pyramid. So I you with how good and how quick they can called them up. John Agoglia, whom I had be. Much of the material that made its way known since we were captains, told me that it into the manual came from the bottom up as had come down from the Office of the lessons learned from the guys on the cutting Secretary of Defense. I asked him what we edge. So, the fact that we did not have it were doing, and he told me to do the best I before was not quite as big a deal in terms of could and to plan for basically higher-level our failures as perhaps some of you may have tactical civil affairs. That is basically refugee been led to believe. We have had failures in control, of which there weren’t any to speak of these campaigns, monumental failures, but in the invasion. they were not really at a tactical level, because The next question was what was going to at a tactical level the bottom line is that the come afterward, who the phase four guys were kids kind of figured it out. going to be. I was told not to worry about But where have we failed? I will give you that, that the phase four guys were going to be another personal example, an anecdote of the ORHA (Office of Reconstruction and

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Humanitarian Assistance). We met the guys did not have a good idea as to what we were who were going to be working phase four at there for, so we did not do the proper intera- National Defense University three weeks gency coordination, and so we did not get the before Line of Departure, three weeks before proper people lined up to do what we wanted we actually got started. I to do in country. Then was the senior representa- when we got there and we We can do this right, tive of the Army’s civil- “ owned it, we just tried to military affairs and the although time is running wing it, and nothing good senior planner, and that will come of it. out drastically. was the first time I met I wish that I could tell them. To give you some It is not a question of the you that we got there and I perspective from the green number of troops; was as successful as I was book, the guys who were as a battalion S3 in going to be the military it is a question of how the Somalia. I longed for government of Bavaria troops are being utilized.” those days. Being the knew who they were in civil-military guy and 1943. They were going to Thomas Johnson working with the ORHA, school to learn about the transition to the Office Bavaria a year before D-Day. They knew what of the Coalition Provisional Authority the power infrastructure was, how the mail (OCPA), setting up an Iraqi interim govern- worked – just soup to nuts. It was all set up. ment immediately, going to elections after that And we were just meeting each other three – it was just so fast, so ill thought out. weeks before LD. As an alternate history, think about what The point I am trying to make is that when would have happened had we had gone into you have strategic leadership that is operating Iraq with the same force as with Desert off of those kinds of delusions (I just cannot Storm. We went to Iraq in 2003 with basically find another word for it) as to what is going to four divisions, only one of which was a heavy be happening, the fact of whether you have a division. What if we had deployed the Desert COIN manual or not is the least of your prob- Storm force package under the understanding lems. that we were going to take down that country The problem is that it is not just one and occupy it for five years? What if we had administration. I wish that you could just turn declared to the Iraqis that after five years with the rock over and point to Donald Rumsfeld an interim government working side by side as and Dick Cheney and have it all go away, but a junior partner to the international coalition it is something that has been growing for there would be elections, there would be a decades. We are having a real problem as a parade, that the international guys would leave nation developing strategic leaders who can and the Iraqis could go forth and do well? look at something, see it for what it is, and What if we had made this investment at the make the kinds of decisions in terms of com- beginning, both to ourselves and to the Iraqis? mitment of resources, time, and national pres- We kept changing the goalposts on them. They tige that will bring us to success on a clear did not really know what to think. objective. Ambiguity in these things is just As to the Afghans – what’s going on this killing us. It just runs all the way downhill. year? Are the Americans saying the same We did not do the proper planning because we thing as last year? Maybe not. What do they

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think? That is one of the key problems. We experience of building, as John Nagl said ear- just do not want to make the investment to do lier this morning, the rule of law under such these things. We have to start demanding of circumstances, or anywhere? Are there exam- our strategic leaders that they do the planning ples in our history of our ever having done and that they think of the second- and third- that successfully that we could learn from? order effects. You have great executors, but if you are beginning with assumptions that just Thomas Johnson: are not particularly true, no good will come I would like to talk about the civilians. Let me of it. read something from my most recent publica- We confuse everybody around us in the tion, in Military Review: international community. We confuse the enemy. We confuse our friends. I’ll give you a In Vietnam, there were hundreds of perfect example. I work quite a bit with the Foreign Service officers deployed in coun- Pakistanis. They are led by classically trained try at any given time after 1968. In south- generals who are more lockstep than the ern Afghanistan today, there are less than Soviets were and who are very rigorous in 20. Six hundred to 800 Pashto-speaking their thinking. They and their leadership State and U.S. Agency for International looked across the border into Afghanistan and Development Foreign Service officers dis- saw us sitting there with sometimes less than tributed among the 200 district reconstruc- two brigades, squirreling around, and we tion teams would be commensurate with would look them in the eye and tell them that the level of effort required. In eight years we are serious about fixing Afghanistan. They since the start of Operation Enduring know that Afghanistan cannot be fixed with Freedom, only 13 foreign service officers two brigades. So until we commit the forces to have been trained to speak Pashto, and do something, until we start acting a little bit only two of them are apparently in more rationally along those lines, we cannot Afghanistan today, a pathetic counterinsur- expect people to take us seriously. It is just not gency effort by the State Department by going to happen. any reasonable standard.

Stephen Holmes: W. Patrick Lang: I would like to start with a set of questions I mentioned CORDS before – that is absolute- about lessons from the past concerning the ly right about the hundreds of Foreign Service civilian side of counterinsurgency. What can officers. Some of them were people like we learn from past experiences about the Richard Holbrooke as junior officers, but requests that General McChrystal was making there was a huge number of other people who for civilian help? He says in his report that the were hired specifically as Foreign Service Afghan government is not connected to reserve officers for specific jobs under con- Afghan society and that he is going to bring tract for a wide variety of governmental and over from Washington the civilian experts who commercial functions. It was just an enormous know how to connect government with socie- task. I have read General McChrystal’s esti- ty. Have such individuals ever existed and if so mate as well. You cannot just say what it is when? Who are the experts who know how to that we are going to have. You have to figure turn two-handed corruption into one-handed out how you are going to generate that force, corruption in a combat zone? What is our how you are going to maintain it, and how you

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are going to continue to have replacements for EXCERPTS FROM THE QUESTION the people you send over there so that there AND ANSWER SESSION will be some next year and the year after that. It is a huge undertaking and I do not see any- Question (from the audience): body actually doing that. Is it not deeply misleading to think that through notions such as the Human Terrain Martin Stanton: System we can produce the social scientific Regarding the number of Foreign Service offi- knowledge that can somehow be operational- cers, it comes back to the excellent question ized to generate legitimacy? This seems like that Janine Davidson asked earlier – What do something beyond anything we have ever been you want them to do? Would their function be able to achieve with social science. something that you need a Foreign Service officer to do, or do you merely need a sentient Thomas Johnson: life form? Do you need someone with authori- I think the real tragedy of Afghanistan is that ty over monies, which is where many of the there is a political solution but we keep ignor- Foreign Service requirements come from? If ing it. NYU’s Barnett Rubin and I have argued you are trying to grow them inside the Foreign about this for many years, but I think that we Service, that is a very thin pipeline – it takes a have to reconstruct the traditional village elder long time and you are probably not going to system that existed before the Soviet invasion get there from here. But if you are just looking in 1979. Kabul has always been a symbolic for a body, you can hire a body, sprinkle fairy regime. In fact, when you try to extend the dust on them, and make them a temporary reach of the central government, it is the thing Foreign Service officer, and that might work of insurgencies rather than a cure of insurgen- better. cies. So I think that we have been 180 degrees wrong with our macro approach. What we Michael Sheehan: have to do is reestablish the traditional legiti- I think it is a really bad idea to even think macy of the village system, which I recognize about that approach. This has to be an Afghan is going to be very difficult. solution. As I said earlier, and I could go on Lastly, you don’t rebuild the walls when indefinitely about this, I would stick to the the roof is on fire. Obviously, this isn’t going adage that less is more in counterinsurgency. to last for long, but right now trying to build a Less American, more Afghan. The more Jeffersonian democracy in Afghanistan is Americans you put in, the more probable that absolutely absurd. you foul it up and displace Afghans who are eventually going to have to figure out a way to Michael Sheehan: move forward themselves. With all due respect, when I hear you say that we are going to reconstitute a tribal village system in Afghanistan, to me this is absolute insanity. I spent 10 months in Mogadishu with many of the experts. One thing I learned about experts is that the more they learn about a society, the more they know that they do not understand it at all. So the idea that we are going to have smart people, even if they speak

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a little bit of the language, go out in these big disadvantage to my approach, but it is an remote areas and reconstitute what are going imperfect world. to be legitimate local governments is ridicu- lous. It has to be Afghan. Martin Stanton: These ideas about not having U.S. forces Ken Silverstein (from the audience): there, not sending more, drawing down U.S. Ambassador Sheehan, if you are right that we forces, or that we are part of the problem all have had a great deal of success in debilitating deal with a flatlining enemy. The enemy is not the enemy’s strategic capabilities, what is the flatlining in Afghanistan. The enemy is grow- exit strategy? Can we walk away without con- ing in numbers and capabilities. You might sequences? Can we just say enough is disagree with the concept of introducing more enough? What happens then? U.S. troops, but introducing more U.S. troops even in a surge situation is more of a stabiliza- Michael Sheehan: tion measure while we ostensibly grow the I am a fairly conservative person, so I would Afghan army, its capabilities, and the capabili- not recommend doing anything dramatic in ties of their government than it is a war-win- Afghanistan right away, but I would certainly ning measure. It is a measure to keep us from move toward downsizing in a very steady way. losing. That is the theory behind it. You can I would keep enough force structure there and agree with it or disagree with it, and there are enough American assistance to prop up the smart people here on both sides, but the Afghan government, but I think that can be thought that we could draw down while the done with a fairly minimal presence. Both enemy is in their present state and not expect sides of the equation are Afghan. We and all them to further encroach or further expand of our allies are going to support them, and we their power in Afghanistan is just not realistic. are the largest, strongest country on the planet. The objective is not to reinvent Afghanistan – Adam Silverman (from the audience): it is just to hold it together. We are not going Afghanistan seems to be the place where the to go in and reinvent Somalia. We are not notion of the modern nation–state, the going to go in and reinvent Yemen or the tribal Westphalian state, goes to die. It is really not areas of Pakistan, and I do not think we need workable because of the society, the history, to reinvent Afghanistan either. and all of dynamics that we have been talking about this morning. At the same time, one of W. Patrick Lang: the arguments about why Afghanistan was I have had an ongoing argument with John hospitable to groups like the Taliban or al Nagl about whether or not there can actually Qaeda relates to the idea of a failed state. So if be a true endgame in Afghanistan. In my view, you cannot build a state, and you do not want if you follow the large COIN footprint model, to leave a failed state, where do you go from eventually you reach the point that I men- here? tioned earlier, where you leave altogether and you leave a sweltering mess behind you. But Thomas Johnson: in order to manage the counterterrorist threat, I think you are right that we have to think out- it may be necessary to have some small, high- side the box of the Treaty of Westphalia. I ly specialized American presence in country think that the problem in Afghanistan is not a for quite a long time. He says that that’s the quantitative manpower problem; it is a qualita-

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tive manpower problem. I do not think that we 2000, I beat the drum about the sanctuary of need 40,000 more troops. I think that we need impunity that we allowed al Qaeda to enjoy in to use the troops that are in country right now Afghanistan. We cannot allow that to happen, efficiently. Let me give you an example. but that does not mean you have to occupy Things have changed, but when I was a cultur- and change a country to deny them that. We al adviser at a Forward Operating Base are proving that that’s the case in western Salerno in Khost in 2007, less than five per- Pakistan. We are not occupying western cent of the people ever left the base. That is Pakistan. We never will because we can’t. I the problem in Afghanistan. What we need to wish that we couldn’t in Afghanistan either, do is work with the Afghans to reconstruct the because we would find another way to prevent traditional system. How do we do that? I al Qaeda from having that capability. We need wrote an article in The Atlantic in October to figure out a strategy in Afghanistan like in 2008 called “All Counterinsurgency Is Local.” western Pakistan where we do not have tens of I talked about setting up 200 district recon- thousands of conventional forces occupying struction teams. We have the answer. The the country in order to achieve our basic answer is Provincial Reconstruction Teams, objective. Al Qaeda is a global organization – but they are a grain of sand on the beach its base matters, but there are many other parts because we have one PRT for every 1.2 mil- of it that matter as well in order for it to con- lion Pasthuns. duct an attack in the United States. We have to move the PRT concept down to Let me say one thing about the Whac-a- the district level. It would consist of about 100 Mole strategy. The problem with the analogy U.S. or international personnel complemented is that when you hit the Whac-a-Mole, it pops with 100 Afghan soldiers in concentric circles up somewhere else. We are hitting the moles living at the village level rather than in a com- and killing them in western Pakistan so they bat outpost on a hill. They might be compli- cannot pop up again. We can keep doing that, mented with maybe 25 members of the and it is working. Afghan National Police and development That is really my fundamental point – that specialists. the notion that you have to fix failed states in We can do this right, although time is run- order to defeat strategic al Qaeda is flawed. ning out drastically. It is not a question of the number of troops; it is a question of how the W. Patrick Lang: troops are being utilized. It is not just failed states. It is failed coun- tries, failed national entities. The idea that Michael Sheehan: we can repair these societies and by improv- Our entire counterinsurgency mindset, which ing their situation in life change their behav- is taking over the U.S. military and the U.S. ior and their attitude toward things is an government thinking in Afghanistan, is based enormous task. It is too expensive. It is on the premise that you cannot have a failed much better to do what you and Professor state or else al Qaeda will be strategically Johnson suggest, which is to work with the attacking us. That premise should be tested. I local tribal entities and people like that in do not think it holds up to close scrutiny at all, order to effect what you want, which is to and it is a gross misunderstanding of the reduce the terrorist threat to the United nature of al Qaeda and how it functions glob- States. ally. Yes, sanctuary matters. From 1998 to

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David Phillips (from the audience): eigners and in many ways a lack of sympathy Colonel Stanton, you talked about a failure of for them is reflected in the Special Operations strategic leadership. In Iraq, wasn’t it really a force. When I went into the Green Berets in failure of political leadership? the early 1960s, it was a band of characters I was a part of something called the Future who were devoted to interacting and living of Iraq Project. We spent many millions of with foreigners, and learning to deal with dollars. We uncovered lots of problems that them on their terms. It included people with the United States would encounter when we many language skills and there were many for- got into Iraq. So my question is, Is this a tech- eigners by birth in the ranks. Now the system nical problem or is it really a failure of politi- has been twisted around so that what you have cal leadership? is increasingly a bunch of counterterrorist commandos. Those people do not work too Martin Stanton: well with the tribal people that Dr. Johnson Well, in our country, political leadership is was talking about. We need to do something strategic leadership. about that. When you look at the 1990s and at the decisions being made now, the problem is Thomas Johnson: deeper than any of the personalities involved. I think that we have to stop mirror-imag- Look at the people whom we have been put- ing onto the other societies of the world. We ting into elected office, and at the decisions continually get into trouble with that. What is they have made about the world and why. This good for us is not necessarily good for the rest is the problem for America. Your military will of the world, and I think that has to be reflect- do just about anything but stand up on its hind ed in our strategy, operations, and tactics. legs and bark, but when you have strategic I also think that we have to stop wishful leadership with crippling delusions about the thinking. Just because we want to wish a reali- way the world is or about the ability of our ty doesn't make a reality. That is what I am military power to create effects on the ground, concerned that we are doing in Afghanistan. we are just not going to get there from here. Our failures are failures of policy, and our pol- Michael Sheehan: icymakers are elected. I think the Army should be very careful about I am trying to get my head around how we blaming civilian politicians for its failures. educate our policymakers. How do we make When the Army wins, it is very good at taking these people better? They are beholden to con- credit for victory. They deserve the victories stituencies that elected them. Too many of the they win on the battlefield. When it loses, it is elected leaders that we have now, and have quick to blame bad intelligence or a bad poli- had previously, have neither the background cy framework. Unfortunately, it is not so sim- nor frankly the proclivity to learn what is real- ple in either case. Our national policies are ly happening. It is a deep problem for the created by civilian leaders in conjunction with United States, and from my study of history it the military leadership. The military has an is probably the worst it has ever been. obligation to understand the business that it’s in and to give good advice to its political lead- W. Patrick Lang: ership to try to formulate the most effective That is projected into the Army as well, policies it can to achieve our national objec- because this kind of willful ignorance of for- tives.

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Assessing Afghanistan

Panelists: Lt. Gen. David Barno, U.S. Army (ret.): Lt. Gen. David Barno, U.S. Army (ret.); I was the commander in Afghanistan from C. Christine Fair; David Kilcullen; October 2003 until May 2005. My time coin- Joanna Nathan; Nir Rosen cided with that of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. We arrived within a few weeks of Moderator: each other, and we made some fairly dramatic Steven Simon changes pointing toward a unified effort between the embassy and the military there. We left within a few weeks of each other 19 months later, which says more about our personnel systems than our priorities. Today I want to talk a bit about the broader picture, maybe the strate- gic picture, of Afghanistan. I would note up front that as you look around this panel, as well as at the earlier panels, it is unfortu- nate that we do not have any Afghan representation. The per- spective of the Afghans them- David Kilcullen; Lt. Gen. David Barno, U.S. Army (ret.); Nir Rosen. selves is crucial to this discussion, Photo by Dan Creighton. and we can only imperfectly approximate it based on the expe- riences of the panel members Steven Simon: today. Their perspective on much of what we I would like this panel to assess Afghanistan hear today might be quite a bit different, and here and now as a baseline for understanding we have to keep that in mind. how the United States and others might go The other thing that I would like to talk forward. We are not going to talk about all the about is the regional perspective and how analogies that have preoccupied us so far Afghanistan fits into a broader context, partic- today – Iraq, Somalia, and other places. We ularly in South Asia, with regard to long-term will probably get a Rashomon-like picture of U.S. policy objectives. As I listened to the place, which we will have to assemble in Michael Sheehan earlier, I noted that he is the course of our discussion into something very critical of General McChrystal because like a coherent understanding of Afghanistan General McChrystal is so focused on coun- and, therefore, of the possibilities and con- terinsurgency in Afghanistan, but that is the straints of making progress there, including as charter that he has been given. When I was the United States, as a member of a coalition, there, I was responsible for four countries: all and as a partner with the Afghan government of Afghanistan, all of Pakistan except in trying to straighten things out. Kashmir, and parts of Tajikistan and

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Uzbekistan. General muddied the water quite a McChrystal has one “The heads of state have to be bit, in part by focusing on country and one country Afghanistan alone without able to talk clearly about only – Afghanistan – so considering the that drives him to an what the importance of Afghanistan/Pakistan/ operational focus and India dimension, all three this mission is, what the costs below, not a strategic of which are closely relat- focus on the region. of failure are, and what ed to each other. We have General David Petraeus can be achieved. That has been also muddied the water by has that broader responsi- confusing the idea of our bility, on the military side muddled and uncertain, goal as being exit rather at least. certainly over the past year. than success, delivering on At the beginning of the policy objectives that some of the articles that I Unless that changes, there will the president articulated on have written, I talk about be simply no way to defeat March 21st and has not yet a Sun Tzu quote that I recalibrated. When we the Taliban strategic objective think is apropos to this begin to talk about exit as discussion: “Strategy of letting the sand being our goal, that without tactics is the becomes our strategy, and run out of the hourglass.” longest road to victory. it undercuts our ability to Tactics without strategy is Gen. Barno actually achieve our stated the noise before defeat.” objectives. We have to be Much of our effort in Afghanistan, even to cautious about that. this day, has been hampered by a lack of strat- After leaving Afghanistan in 2005, one of egy and an excessive focus on tactics. Much my greatest concerns was about a lack of con- of the debate in Washington and in the coun- fidence in American staying power that I per- try right now is about tactics. It is about how ceived while travelling around the region. My many soldiers and Marines to send to concern about that is far greater today than it Afghanistan, about counterinsurgency “strate- was then. The question I heard most often gy” but really about the tactics – certainly from Afghans during my time there was, “You nothing above the operational level. But the Americans are not going to abandon us again, strategy, which includes the policy objectives, are you?” They have a very keen sense of the is open to question and needs to be refined a bit. history that we (in their view) left them In an interview the other day, President behind lock, stock, and barrel after the defeat Obama, for the first time I think, used a term of the Soviets and that (in their view again) that is part of my focus as well: What is the much of their trouble over the last 15 years or endgame for the United States in the region, so, including the rise of the Taliban, came and not just in Afghanistan? What is our goal from the U.S. decision to leave. They are very set for what we want the region to look like if leery of seeing that occur again. we are successful in achieving our policy By the same token, the dilemma that our objectives? We have to be able to clearly uncertainty has posed in Pakistan is that much answer that question, and we have to devise of their national security decision-making our approach based upon an understanding of rests, I am convinced, on the question of what what that endgame is going to be. We have the decision will look like the day after the

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U.S. is gone. This again concerned about where it gets to the issue of what “It is not Afghanistan's stands today, given the our regional set of goals failure that makes events of the past two and objectives is and how weeks – is to achieve true Pakistan nasty; it is the fact our policy in Afghanistan, unity of effort in which is part of the broader that Pakistan is truly Afghanistan. We have context, fits and supports been crippled for almost nasty that makes Afghanistan those goals and objectives. our entire time there by To talk more specifical- doomed to fail.” having a fragmented ly about Afghanistan, I C. Christine Fair approach. We have had think we have four major fragmentation in the mili- challenges at this point and looking ahead for tary effort, in many ways induced by bringing the next 12 months. They are fairly simple but NATO into the fight in 2006 with 41 – now 43 will be very complex to address. The first is to – countries involved in the military enterprise. defeat the Taliban strategy. We are fighting an We have fragmentation and disunity between active enemy that has a robust strategy. I have the military and civil efforts, most recently a great deal of respect for their strategic think- showcased earlier this month by the leaked ing, having fought them for 19 months there. cable from Ambassador Karl Eikenberry that In my judgment, they have a simple strategy was absolutely at cross-purposes to the that in American terms would be described as approach General McChrystal was suggesting. running out the clock. If this were a football So clearly the two most senior Americans cur- game, this would be the fourth quarter, they rently in country fundamentally disagree believe they are ahead on the scoreboard, they about the road ahead. We have a great deal of are controlling the football, and they are sim- disunity between the international effort and ply going to run out the clock. They are fight- the Afghans, on both the security side and the ing a strategic insurgency aimed against the development side. We cannot achieve any of popular will in the United States, North our objectives unless we heal these rifts, and America, Europe, and our NATO allies. They the most important place for that to occur is at are convinced that they simply have to let the the local level, where it impacts ordinary sand run out of the hourglass. We have to think Afghans. through what it is going to take to defeat that. The final challenge, which I think con- Secondly, in the wake of the recent frag- nects the others, is for President Obama, mented and problematic Afghan election, we Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Chancellor have to work hard with President Karzai to Angela Merkel, and President Nicolas rebuild trust between his government and his Sarkozy to reframe the narrative of why we people in the next 12 months. That will not be are in Afghanistan to their populations at our task directly, but the trust and confidence home. The heads of state have to be able to of the Afghan people not only in their national talk clearly about what the importance of this government, which is distant from the average mission is, what the costs of failure are, and Afghan, but also in their local government is what can be achieved. That has been muddled going to be crucial to any ability to achieve and uncertain, certainly over the past year. success and to rebuild some sense of legitima- Unless that changes, there will be simply no cy in the country. way to defeat the Taliban strategic objective of The third challenge we have – and I am letting the sand run out of the hourglass.

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This points out what has to occur in the C. Christine Fair: next several months. The fundamental ques- The fraudulent August 2009 elections in tion for the United States is whether we stay Afghanistan have really thrown into light – or go. How do we frame that? There is a fork certainly in the United States – a deep divide in the road. As my friend Ashley Tellis at the about what we are doing in Afghanistan, what Carnegie Endowment for International Peace our objectives are, what the costs of winning likes to say, one path is to “invest and endure.” might be, what the costs of losing might be, That involves looking at a long-term strategic and even the definitions of winning and los- partnership to help this region become stabi- ing. I think that the justification that we are lized, not only so that there are no more 9/11s there because of 9/11 is simply not adequate, but also to prevent a and that many Americans nuclear war on the subcon- “[C]orruption leads to bad share this confusion. I tinent between some of the certainly agree with other players, which in my government behavior, General Barno that the judgment is a very real which leads to popular rage leadership of the various prospect. That path takes countries involved in and disillusionment, us to a long-term invest- Afghanistan have not ment. It does not lead to which empowers the Taliban articulated why we are 100,000 troops for 25 there, and so I am going who push the poppy, years, but nor does it lead to turn this around on its down a road where we are which creates the cash head a little bit. no longer present as a sig- that drives the corruption. I am frustrated that nificant influence in the the discussion about what region, letting it drift along That is the cycle to do in Afghanistan has on its own. The other path, that we are trying to largely turned on how which is tempting but many troops to send or wrong, is to declare suc- deal with in Afghanistan.” not. I believe we focus on cess and leave. We may David Kilcullen this because it is the only camouflage it with other lever that we can actually terminology, but that is the stark choice we control. We cannot persuade our NATO allies have right now. to pick up the fight and get rid of their The signals that we are sending to the peo- caveats. We cannot make our own civilian sys- ple in the region are ambiguous. Neither our tem deliver aid better. We cannot produce friends nor our enemies are clear as to diplomats or USAID officers overnight. While whether we are committed to a long-term we talk about corruption in Afghanistan, no effort to help stabilize the region. That does one addresses the fact that the way we do aid nothing but undercut our ultimate objectives. is deeply corrupt. There is no transparency in There are some stark choices in front of us. how money is spent at Provincial The costs of failure are significant (as out- Reconstruction Teams. So we can howl at lined in a couple of good pieces this week, Karzai all we want about being corrupt, about including one by Steve Coll). This has to be being a be-caped klepto-narcocrat, but we do explained to the people of the nations support- not put transparency into our own system. ing Afghanistan with their treasure and with That being said, it is easy to talk about troops their blood. because everything else is so difficult.

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Yet corruption with the Karzai government think it can be won if winning means setting is absolutely important. It is not simply plati- up the kind of government that we have all tudes; we are not simply talking about what talked about – not because it isn’t a good idea legitimacy may or may not mean. Let me give but because I do not believe we have the mili- an example of why corruption matters. One of tary or civilian capabilities required, and cer- the most elemental things that we have been tainly not with this Afghan government. trying to do with various degrees of success is We have to be fair in taking responsibility. build the Afghan National Security Forces. Karzai did not come up because he was the One of my favorite programs to discuss is best man around; he came up because he was called Focused District Development (FDD). manipulable. We have not given him control Tom Johnson and I agree that it is the district of his own country. He does not control what and subdistrict that matter. Where I think we troops do, where they go, or what kind of disagree is about what we can do at that level, operations they conduct, and he does not con- especially with corrupt, problematic Afghan trol the budget. International donors do not partners. The whole notion of FDD is that the give money through the Ministry of Finance. police, which exist at the district level, are They do not want to give money to the gov- deeply corrupt. We all know that. (That is ernment because they rightly fear that it is actually how Taliban have sold themselves – corrupt. But there is a fundamental problem; that they can deal with corruption of the we hold him accountable for not being sover- police and other government officials quite eign but we actually do not enable him to ever effectively). In FDD, we pull all the police, be sovereign. who are illiterate and barely policemen to There was a time when I thought we begin with by any definition, out of the dis- should go big or go home, but I no longer trict. We give them eight weeks of training. believe that. I think we have made a concate- You could already question whether that will nation of errors and now have to come up be adequate, and then you have to consider with a Plan B. Plan B is not trying to refash- the fact that our police mentor billets are ion Plan A and make it sound better. It is time filled at about one in three. After we hose for a Plan B because the region has changed. them off, we put them right back in the same It is not the same Taliban that was there on district with the same corrupt district governor September 10th. This is a different Taliban, and the same corrupt chief of police who is and the regional dynamics are different. In my likely involved in timber smuggling, gem old days as a physical chemist, I learned that smuggling, narcotics trafficking, or smuggling when you observe something, you change it. young boys to the United Arab Emirates. What we have seen happening in Pakistan as a Even if we had the best-configured pro- consequence of 9/11 has changed the militant gram – and I am not going to say that the terrain in the region, setting off a cascade FDD is – we cannot succeed with it absent a whereby many of the goons who were once all government in Afghanistan that is committed on ISI’s leash aren’t anymore, and there are to weeding out corruption and other issues, dangerous consequences of that. not only at the national level but at the subna- I am dismayed that there are people saying tional level where much of this matters. And that we have to send more troops to everyone is surprised by police recidivism. Afghanistan because if Afghanistan continues I have come to the conclusion that coun- to go to hell in a handbasket, then Pakistan is terinsurgency is a fabulous goal, but I do not going to go to hell in an even bigger handbas-

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need the Pakistanis more, when, in fact, we should be thinking about ways of diminishing our footprint in Afghanistan to secure our true national security, which is not by making Afghanistan the Switzerland of South Asia. Rather, we need to think about how we can diminish our footprint in Afghanistan so that we can create space to compel Pakistan. If we were to get the Pakistanis to diminish their support for the Afghan Taliban, we wouldn't need a 400,000-member Afghan National Steven Simon and David Kilcullen. Security Force. Photo by Dan Creighton. I would also argue that Pakistan represents ket. I am going to argue that Pakistan is more intense national security threats than already a hell in a hand basket and that the Afghanistan ever could. Whether it is the causality is actually the reverse: It is not number of al Qaeda operatives, the number of Afghanistan’s failure that makes Pakistan international terrorism cells linked to Pakistan, nasty; it is the fact that Pakistan is truly nasty or nuclear proliferation, these are all happen- that makes Afghanistan doomed to fail. So we ing in Pakistan. The policy community tends have this puzzle that makes me as a taxpayer to stovepipe these things. What I think is want to jump up and down and holler. rarely appreciated is that these things happen The Department of Defense now wants to in Pakistan because they are deeply interrelat- create an Afghan National Security Force of ed. If you look at Pakistan’s policy of proxy 400,000. This is risible. However you want to warfare, which began in 1947, the first thing cast it, unless you make poppy a biofuel, it that it did as an independent state did was cannot pay for these security forces. All face- raise a tribal lashkar from Waziristan to go tiousness aside, how in the world are they into Kashmir to affect the ways in which going to pay? This is the biggest rentier state Kashmir would end up, be it with India or that Afghanistan has ever been, period. It can- with Pakistan. From 1947 onward, they con- not pay for itself. This is not remotely sustain- tinued to maintain this covert jihad. I am not able, and how ironic is it? Why do we have to going to dispute their reasons – the Pakistanis have a 400,000-member Afghan National in origin had a fairly good claim to make. The Security Force? It is because its neighbor irony is that we continue to focus our efforts insists upon supporting the Afghan Taliban. on Afghanistan, making it increasingly diffi- By the way, I do not believe there is any- cult to put our attention and resources on thing we can do. Pakistan is a self-licking ice Pakistan. cream cone. Whether we stay or go, it bene- I have come to believe essentially that six fits. If we stay, Pakistan continues to get bil- decades of giving money to the Pakistanis has lions of dollars a year in overt and covert not helped create a more stable Pakistan. It funding. If we leave, it continues to support has created a more difficult Pakistan in terms the Taliban and get money from the Saudis. of its lack of constitutionalism. In fact, the Pakistan wins no matter what we do. It is iron- United States has largely subsidized the lack ic that we are talking about putting more of constitutionalism in Pakistan. The more we troops into Afghanistan, which means that we have to put resources into Afghanistan, the

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more difficult we make it to deal with the most important security threat in the region, Pakistan. For those of you who doubt what I am talking about, consider its security compe- tition with India. Let’s remember that the biggest movement of military forces happened in 2001, when Pakistan-backed militants tar- geted the Indian parliament in December. We now know that both countries did many things vis-à-vis nuclear escalation that were quite scary. So while we are thinking about the Taliban and what they may or may not be Joanna Nathan and C. Christine Fair. Photo by Dan Creighton. doing, we have its neighbor to the east, which is investing ever more resources into the only rabbit hole in terms of two false dichotomies, tool it has to prosecute its foreign and domes- one between counterterrorism or counterinsur- tic policies – militancy. gency and the other between more troops or Those militant groups actually cause you less troops. I would like to suggest that what and I more problems than the Taliban ever we are doing in Afghanistan now is not a could. We have a diaspora. Militancy is supply counterinsurgency, if what you mean by coun- and demand, conditioned upon radicalizing terinsurgency is what we wrote about in the abroad. There are only a certain number of counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24. places you can go to become a militant. Instead of thinking about it in terms of the Where are those militant finishing schools? manual, we need to think about two things They are not in Afghanistan; they are in that we are not hearing much about: leverage Pakistan. and posture. It is not an FM 3-24 counterinsurgency. Steven Simon: The paradigm that FM 3-24 puts forward is Dr. Kilcullen, in your book Accidental the idea that there is a weak and ineffective Guerilla, you show how counterinsurgency state threatened by an internal armed chal- works on a retail basis. The book also has an lenger and not connected to its own popula- exhaustive roster of the things that the United tion. The appropriate response, according to States and presumably other outside actors the manual, is for us to strengthen that state would need to do to get it right, but with the and connect it more effectively to its popula- implication that it could be gotten right in tion. Our security operations are all designed some sense. That is very different from what to enable that to happen, basically pushing we have just heard from Dr. Fair. Could you back the armed internal challenger so that we square them? can do the work of strengthening the govern- ment and connecting it to the population. David Kilcullen: That is not the situation in Afghanistan. I don’t know if I can square them, but I have We do have an armed internal challenger, but seen the war in Afghanistan develop in ways we have a government that is riddled with cor- that I fundamentally agree with everyone who rupt and oppressive officials and institutions has spoken today. I think the debate about and that is exploiting and abusing its own peo- Afghanistan strategy has gone down a bit of a ple. So if your strategy is to strengthen the

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government and connect it more effectively to government behavior. I would elaborate slight- its population, the better you do at executing ly on General Barno’s description of the that strategy, the worse things are going to get. Taliban strategy. That strategy has three steps: So if it isn’t FM 3-24, then what is it? We discredit, exhaust, inherit. They have succeed- are looking at a stabilization operation based ed with step one. They have discredited the on a vicious cycle of five interlinked ele- Afghan government and the international ments. Because this is a cycle, you could start effort in the eyes of Afghans. The next step is anywhere, but I am going to start with the exhaustion, and then inheriting the wreckage issue of corruption. There is an absolute as we pull back. So that bad government tsunami of elicit cash washing through the behavior drives the popular rage and discon- Afghan government structure at every level tent, creating space for and empowering the from top to bottom. That corruption is so Taliban insurgency. ingrained that Afghanistan is now supposedly The Taliban insurgency is not just acciden- the second-most corrupt country in the world tal and it is not just generated by popular rage after Somalia (and if you recognize that on the part of people who hate the govern- Somalia does not even have a functioning ment. It comes from a number of other things government, it is the most corrupt place on as well, but what the rage and disillusionment earth). That corruption is the first big issue, do is create political space that allows the and we have talked about a number of exam- insurgency to eat into the fabric of Afghan ples already. society and take further hold. The corruption drives the second big The Taliban promote the poppy cultiva- issue, which is bad government behavior. I am tion. Taliban officials and Taliban technical not talking about bad governance; I am talking and agricultural advisers go out on the ground about bad government behavior – exploiting and help the Afghan farmer figure out how to the population, abusing adopt the world’s best cash people. Afghan police are “The corruption we hear crop, the poppy. There is raping hundreds of young absolutely no doubt that about today is not Pashtun boys in the from an economic and Pashtun parts of the coun- despite our best efforts; agricultural standpoint, the try where they are operat- it is because of poppy is just unbeatable. It ing because that is what is a winter crop. It does you do when you go into the way we engage.” not compete with food these areas, occupy some- Joanna Nathan crops. You can get three to one, and treat them as a four crops a year from the subhuman species. Many of these people do same piece of ground. It basically grows on not come from the areas where they are work- concrete. You do not need any fertilizer, which ing. We won’t even talk about what is happen- is expensive. You do not need a huge amount ing on the financial side in terms of exploiting of water. It takes a lot of labor, which is a and extracting resources from the population. good thing if you are an Afghan farmer So bad government behavior is the second big because it means you give jobs to your family. issue. The customer will pay you in full, up front, The third issue, popular rage and disillu- and pick it up from the farm gate, so you have sionment with the Afghan government and the no risk and no cost associated with getting it international community, is driven by that bad to market. Poppy is Taliban CERP – the

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Taliban use the poppy the it is time to get on board same way that we use the “Once you get down to with the effort or get out Commander’s Emergency of the way. That is basi- Response Program. We use the rifle squad, COIN does not cally what we did in Iraq CERP to win populations make any sense. during the surge. to our side; that is what The second option is It is hard for them to maintain they use the poppy for. The to convincingly demon- poppy generates the tsuna- the greater strategic strate to the Afghan gov- mi of cash that drives the ernment that we are leav- picture in their minds – they corruption and closes the ing, that they have circle. just don't want to die. screwed the pooch, and So corruption leads to They are being asked to be that they really need to bad government behavior, take certain key steps in which leads to popular Wyatt Earp and Mother Teresa order to avoid their own rage and disillusionment, at the same time.” destruction. I call that the which empowers the 12x14 solution, because Taliban who push the Nir Rosen what I suggest you do is poppy, which creates the get a 12x14 glossy photo- cash that drives the corruption. That is the graph of President Najibullah hanging from a cycle that we are trying to deal with in lamppost outside the presidential palace in Afghanistan. You won’t find that in FM 3-24. 1996 when the Taliban took Kabul. You frame It is not that kind of situation. It is a stabiliza- it in a nice gilt frame, give it to President tion operation. Karzai, and say, “This is going to be you. It To be fair, most classical counterinsur- might take one year. It might take two years, gency operations were not FM 3-24 operations but it is going to be you. If you want to avoid either. If you look at Vietnam, it was not a that, there is a list of things that you might counterinsurgency. It had a counterinsurgency want to consider doing.” That is the other way in it, but it also had a positional war on the to do it. I think that looking at this as a search Demilitarized Zone; it had a conventional war for leverage is much better than thinking against the North Vietnamese army. There was about how many tactical units we are going to an air war over North Vietnam itself. There put in. was a maritime component. There was a The other thing is posture. We know from regional dimension. It was just as complex as much study and research exactly how these the war we are fighting now. It was not a pure types of conflicts end, and, again, it is not counterinsurgency either. what you read about in FM 3-24. The evi- So how to address this cycle? We need to dence from the ground is not necessarily look at leverage and posture. Leverage is the aligned with the COIN manual. We know that critical issue and Dr. Fair already talked about in most cases where these conflicts actually this a bit. We need to arrest the cycle of insta- end, it is through a process of bottom-up bility. There are two ways that can be done peace building and the formation of legitimate that I can see. One is to put in enough troops and effective local governance structures that and resources to control the environment, to are aligned with a secure civil society that call the shots, to start to stabilize things, and feels safe enough to put the weapons down then to suggest to the Afghan government that and to engage in nonarmed or nonviolent

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political discourse rather than using violence ly one in his rather enviable position. to work out its political problems. We know that it usually involves a process of bottom-up David Kilcullen: rule-of-law mediation and dispute resolution We pay him $200,000 a month to look after mechanisms at the local level. We know there his household. We protect him and keep him is usually an element of reconciliation with alive. reconcilable elements of the enemy and there is always an element of destruction, violence Steven Simon: against the irreconcilable elements. Last but That is just one of his free rider benefits, but certainly not least, there is the reform of cen- it is not insignificant. tral government institutions, and provincial government institutions in this case, and the Joanna Nathan: accountability of local officials. It has been a little bit strange emerging from There is a database called the Correlates five years in the forgotten war to the harsh of War maintained at Indiana University. It has light of a U.S. debate. The war is forgotten no been run continuously longer. Basically nothing since 1963 and identifies “I was in D.C. in 2001, about this has been very 411 wars worldwide since surprising. It goes back to 1816. Of those, 17 percent and I do not think that anyone the structures that were have been conventional understood that the put in place post-2001. state-on-state wars. The The same regional struc- other 83 percent have been Northern Alliance was – tures were left in place as insurgencies, and this is and is – viewed by Pakistan brought the Taliban to the type of environment power in the 1990s. as an Indian proxy.” that we find ourselves in Within Afghanistan, abu- now. So we need to ask C. Christine Fair sive power holders, many ourselves what posture – of them the very same what aid posture, what development posture, figures, were put back in power. I think we what diplomatic posture, what military posture have to be very clear about that. They were – is most conducive to creating those out- the people we chose. They were not traditional comes. That is the debate we need to be hav- leaders. They were not well-loved Afghan fig- ing, and we need to be thinking about Afghan ures nor were they the powerful people at the posture, U.S. posture, coalition posture, and time. They were they people we chose. It was about Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is the a strategic decision, which has resulted in question: What posture is most conducive to what we see today. that result, and how do we use that to generate I am glad that we agree that a counterin- the leverage we need to break the cycle of surgency has not been fought. I am more instability? familiar with the south, where there certainly has not been one, but I often have been Steven Simon: amazed at a narrative that the east is won I hope we come back to the leverage question through some counterinsurgency strategies because, from my perspective, Karzai is a there. I was down in Gardez, a two hours’ classic free rider. It is difficult to envisage the drive from Kabul, just before I left leverage that works on a free rider, particular- Afghanistan. I used to be able to drive right

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along that road to Khost in 2005. A civilian goes in and then asks where the civilians and would not think about doing that today. I had government are to back them up. to wait six days until I found a UN convoy to Similarly, there is no comprehensive plan return with. That used to be a day trip, but I about whom to engage, kill, and isolate in the would no longer drive that road by myself. insurgency, so people would be working with I remember sitting in Kandahar and conflicting directions about who should be Lashkar Gah in 2006, when I did the first talked with and who should be killed. report on the insurgency there, with my pile of I disagree with Tom Johnson. I do not canonical counterinsurgency books to read think it is a largely ideological movement. and being puzzled about what was being done. They often use religious vocabulary, but I Operation Mountain Thrust (which is still my think that as a certain spiral of violence got favorite name of an operation) was sweeping going, basically everyone piled in. A large through the south as the Americans’ parting number of local grievances drive what is not a gift to the British, while the books say not to very ideological movement. The Canadians do large-scale sweeps if you are not going to were running around the districts outside of stay afterward. Kandahar sweeping through in what could be I rarely embedded with the military, but described as the “shaving your legs” theory of on that trip I was invited to see all of the posi- counterinsurgency. It is just going to grow tive things happening at the British Provincial back stubblier and uglier. I couldn’t find any Reconstruction Team. The reconstruction mis- of this in any books, and it seemed to take a sion was just not reconstruction anymore. That long time to relearn. It was very depressing was the week when they all were drawn out and points to the lack of unity of effort and and spread out in platoon houses around the strategic overview that General Barno referred province – again, something classic counterin- to earlier. surgency theory tells you not to do. Because I I agree that legitimacy is absolutely cru- was on the PRT the week those decisions were cial. I do want to challenge a few points that made, I know that the civilians on the PRT were made this morning, though. This is cer- told the military not to get spread out and dis- tainly not a failure of democracy. Such was tracted with actions that could not be backed the commitment to democracy that in 2005 up. But they decided to go anyway. They were they sold the election equipment to make up told at one stage that it would take 48 hours. the money, without considering all the other Years later we are still seeing that. This points elections they were supposed to have, such as to a lack of strategic planning throughout. district elections, let alone the fact that there The political and development sides have might be another election in 2009. No plan- been seen as a sort of backpack that the mili- ning was done. You then had a hastily tary puts on and pulls off once they are done. arranged, expensive election. It was clear early You always hear complaints: We won this on that it was going to be fraudulent because area. Where were the civilians to set up the it was thrown together so quickly. In the inter- schools and dig the wells? Counterinsurgency vening years, very little has been done to back has to be the other way around, with the civil- these institutions. I emphasize that the people ians making decisions about where they can who we backed, who we chose, were not have effect and how the military can assist or democrats. We did not work through institu- even restrain themselves and keep away. It is tions. It was much quicker and easier basically driven entirely the opposite way – the military to hand out suitcases full of cash. The corrup-

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tion we hear about today is Afghanistan was in 2006. not despite our best “Afghanistan is a house The last threat assessment efforts; it is because of the on fire. We have to either was in 2005. So we are way we engage. operating in an ad hoc There is a fantastic have enough firefighters vacuum. For me, the cru- article in the December to put out the fire or get out cial position in the new 2009 issue of Harper’s cabinet needs to be the about a commander in of the house.” national security adviser. Spin Boldak, Abdul Rizak, David Kilcullen We need to get the who is backed by National Security Council American and Canadian forces. He is the there actually acting as a council with an biggest drug dealer in the area and everybody agreed strategy across all the security forces knows it. This is what we are associated with to then interact with international plans, rather there. I also encourage everyone to read than expecting either to drag them along or to Opium Season, a young American contractor’s have them change their minds every few account of working in Helmand for a year. A months. USAID project hired the house of the known One final, controversial thing I want to local drug dealer for thousands of dollars to throw into the mix is that I am a bit puzzled run their alternative livelihoods program from. by the emphasis on development in counterin- This happens throughout the country. It is bla- surgency. To me, the priorities are security, tant, and we have no leverage as long as we governance, and just being left alone to get on continue to operate like this. The leadership with their own business, which helps build simply shrug us off and think that we are not their own businesses. I do not think we need serious. The people think we are hypocrites, to go out and give lots of things. I am not and it drives the disillusionment. talking about development in all of We do not tackle our “allies” there. Too Afghanistan, which is very different, but I often a good Afghan is seen as an Afghan who simply do not understand trying to do large does what he is told. I think it is a priority to infrastructure projects in a war zone. It is engage more with the Afghan government. As more expensive. We destroy security-sector General Barno noted, we do not have any reform, hiring militias to guard the develop- Afghan voices here today, and I think if we ment, and we achieve very little. They become are going to have consistent and sustainable magnets for the insurgents. If this is about planning, it means drawing in the Afghan things, if people are rising up because they leadership and tying down the constant rota- want more development, why is Bamiyan not tion of foreigners. Currently, what we encour- up in flames? It is the poorest part of the age is donor shopping: Each ministry goes out country and also the most peaceful. Helmand, and sees what it can get from an individual one of the most violent areas of the country, donor during that particular rotation. grows by far the most poppy. If it were a We do not have basic, agreed-upon threat country by itself, it would grow the most analysis, roles, and responsibilities for the poppy in the world. It would also be the fifth- Afghan National Security Forces laid out in largest recipient of USAID aid. Why do we black and white. My understanding is that the set up perverse incentives, which in many last national internal security strategy deliv- ways fuel the war economy? ered by the National Security Council in

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Nir Rosen: at least between Tajiks and Pashtuns, pretty I apologize, but I am going to take the conver- soon. But it was the Shia scorched-earth treat- sation back to Iraq for a minute because so ment of Sunnis that broke the back of the much of this is based on the context of Iraq, insurgency in Iraq. The concrete walls that the even if we have talked about Vietnam. There Americans built around Baghdad neighbor- was a silly profile of General McChrystal in hoods allowed Shia forces to control them and the New York Times Magazine last month with cut them off from their depth in Anbar some of his revelations – for example, that if Province, where reinforcements were battling you have infinite time and resources and a a civil war in the Sunni community. The inter- plan, then anything is possible, and that the Shia fighting that followed spelled the end of Americans have turned the tide of the Iraq a Shia block that could go after Sunnis, while insurgency. If the latter is true, then why is Shia and Sunni militia abuses of their own Iraq so much deadlier than Afghanistan, as populations meant that they lost the support of Peter Bergen referred to earlier? Why do so their people as well. many more Iraqi civilians continue to be You cannot build walls around thousands killed compared to Afghans? Maybe we are of remote Afghan villages. You cannot punish only counting U.S. lives when we consider the entire Pashtun population the way that Iraq to be a victory. It is claimed in the article Sunnis were punished in Iraq, which drove that the drone war in Pakistan was successful them to sue for peace. So it is wrong to use even if controversial, so why does the insur- Iraq as a frame of reference. The Sunni gency only get stronger and more entrenched Awakening in Iraq was not the result of bribes, there? You would think that a successful cam- nor was it the result of Americans persuading paign, killing 11 of 20 al Qaeda leaders, Sunni tribal leaders of anything. Sunni leaders would have a positive effect, but it has had the began to realize even in 2006 that they had opposite – they are worse off there. General lost the war. In their minds, they had a choice McChrystal defends his claim that his secret between an American occupation and an hunters and killers destroyed al Qaeda in Iraq, Iranian one because, to them, all Shias were but even his greatest success, killing Abu Iranian. They chose the American occupation, Musab al Zarqawi in 2006, did nothing to halt hoping they could battle the so-called Iranian the violence or weaken the organization. This one. trope of using Iraq as a baseline is really The surge came at just the right time. If it annoying. The article described current-day had come a year earlier, it would have met Iraq as keeping the peace, but that is a gross with much more resistance. But it was not just misrepresentation of the daily car bombs and an increase in troops; it was a change in what assassinations. It is just not Americans being the Americans did. Some of the best practices, killed, and perhaps not open militia warfare, in Baghdad at least, involved conducting a but it is still a very nasty place. So if General census – walling off an area in the city, know- McChrystal wants to turn Afghanistan into ing who lives there and what they do for a liv- Iraq, it might be worth considering whether ing. The soldiers really got to know the people Iraq is an appropriate end state. in the neighborhoods that they were control- The civil war in Iraq started in 2004, not ling. These walled-off communities were in 2006 as John Nagl said earlier. Afghanistan oppressive, and they were bad for local mar- is not in a civil war between its ethnic groups kets, but they meant that the Americans and or sects the way Iraq was, although it will be, the Iraqi security forces could control who

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went in and out and prevent militias or arms won, and there can never be a civil war in Iraq from getting in. Community outposts – living again. No group remains that can challenge among the people – meant that the Americans the Iraqi government, even though that gov- were always there and they began to recognize ernment is corrupt, sectarian, and brutal. This people and know who belonged and who did is your victory in Iraq, at the price of millions not. The increased American troop density of of displaced people, hundreds of thousands of the surge allowed them to control the areas dead, and a much more unstable region. they had walled off in ways that they had not It is also wrong to romanticize the extent been able to before. Suddenly it felt as if the to which the Americans protected the popula- Americans were occupying Iraq again, which tion in their population-centric counterinsur- would have been a negative thing up until gency during the surge. Air strikes alone killed then, but in a way it helped to reduce the vio- more than 250 civilians in Iraq in 2006, before lence. American officers with experience of the surge. During the surge, in 2007, more several tours in Iraq also had the flexibility to than 940 civilians were killed in air strikes, cut deals with the local actors for the first while 400 were killed in 2008. So, many more time, perhaps with the so-called bad guys of civilians are being killed by Americans during 2003 and 2004. a surge, just in air strikes alone. There was The surge was meant to lead to political also a lot of use of artillery – so-called terrain settlement, but that never happened, even if denial – even in populated areas. So I do not violence did go down. But that does not really think the population often felt very protected have to happen. There does not have to be a during this population-centric COIN. reconciliation. The Sunni militias miscalculat- The Americans are making their big surge ed in a way. They thought they would be better eight years into the war in Afghanistan. The positioned to fight the Shias – the “Iranians” – obsession with the south led Logar and if they struck a deal with the Americans. Wardak Provinces right at Kabul’s backdoor to Instead, the Americans abandoned the Sunnis fall into Taliban hands. With only 60,000 and the Shias emasculated their militias. But Afghan soldiers or whatever the figure is, it is for the most part, their original motivation was going to take too long to increase the size of ideological, not financial. They had been the army. There are never going to be enough wanting this accommodation with the foreign troops to remain in villages to control Americans for a long time and had basically them the way the Americans could control failed until then. neighborhoods in Baghdad. So the Americans The idea was that these Sunni militias are going to be like firemen, responding to would be hired into the government. That different crises but never achieving the density never happened, so some people view the to get to know the community. surge as a failure as a result, but it does not The Taliban own the night, undermining really have to happen. The more Prime whatever the Americans accomplish during the Minister Nuri al Maliki becomes like Saddam day. You can strike deals during the day but Hussein, the more popular he is, and there is they will send a letter, they will knock on the nothing the Sunni militias can do because door – they do not even need Kalashnikovs to their identities are known. They no longer undermine your activities, and they are wise have the ability to swim among the people enough to avoid direct encounters with the because so many Sunnis have been expelled. Americans. They can continue to place impro- So, basically, the Sunnis lost and the Shias vised explosive devices, which neutralize the

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troops. In fact, it is not even the IEDs but the being used by the defense establishment, but it threat of an IED that cause it to take maybe an is the same old-school Army thinking. I think entire day to travel a handful of kilometers that they are just incapable institutionally of while people walk in front of you, sweeping doing COIN. the road. The Taliban are long gone by the Afghans are still viewed as “hajjis” by the time you get there. military, by the average soldier. Alternative Even though General McChrystal’s assess- viewpoints are not really considered. ment identified the biggest challenges the Journalists are viewed as the enemy. Various Americans face as political, social, and eco- pundits, so-called instant experts, will travel nomic, his solution was to send more troops. with the military. They do not really see The military is trying to make everything look Afghanistan. They do not really see Iraq. They like a nail, and they keep on wanting to apply think they have been there, but when you are the hammer. The generals are saying that they with the military, there are going to be people are going to fight this war not by focusing on who won’t talk to you because you are with the enemy but by helping the people, but they the guys with the guns. They are not going to are not doing that. They are not taking the be sincere with you. People won’t relate to you steps to protect the people. They are inevitably in the same way. The military has a lot of trou- going to set up large bases again. Instead of ble seeing things from other people’s perspec- relying on civilian experts, the government is tives. In fact, the greatest advantage the defaulting to the military whenever they want Taliban have is that they do not have to rely on to do something, and they wind up using the PowerPoint, which makes it impossible for military even for things that are not military. people in the military to deal with these com- They did not even find enough civilians to plex environments and complex ways of staff the requirements in Iraq. thinking. COIN is more than a code of action; it is a mentality calling on an occupying army to pri- oritize securing the population rather than EXCERPTS FROM THE QUESTION killing the enemy, but that has not really trick- AND ANSWER SESSION led down to the ground level. Once you get down to the rifle squad, COIN does not make Question (from the audience): any sense. It is hard for them to maintain the Guerilla forces have a record of evolving. Is greater strategic picture in their minds – they that true of the Taliban as well? just don’t want to die. They are being asked to be Wyatt Earp and Mother Teresa at the same Gen. Barno: time. They pay lip service to COIN. They talk Today’s Taliban is not yesterday’s Taliban. The about going into villages to do that “COIN Taliban that we were facing in 2003, 2004, shit” and then go back, but to do COIN, the and 2005 was extraordinarily different from Americans have to leave their bases and learn today. This is a version 2.0 or 3.0. One of the the people and the villages. You cannot just go major differences is that by about the spring of in for a few hours, call a council with the eld- 2006, the Taliban made a major escalation ers, and make sure you get back to the base in from having very limited capabilities before time for hamburgers at the chow hall. COIN is then. dangerous, and the military is very risk averse, In 2004, we ran an Afghan election in it seems. They have changed the language every district in every province without any

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serious opposition from the Taliban, remark- ting any more in is tantamount to getting out, ably enough. About 18 months later, in the so we might as well get out if we are going to spring of 2006, there was a huge resistance to do that. the British in Helmand, and you could see all the curves go high and right at that point. Steven Simon: What was the driver behind the Taliban Kinetic Darwinism – I like that concept. suddenly having that capability that they sim- ply did not have a year or 18 months before? Nir Rosen: We dropped 82 bombs in Afghanistan in 2004. I think that our presence is part of the prob- Three years later, my successors facing a dif- lem. In May 2006, there were riots in Kabul ferent Taliban dropped 3,500 bombs in one after a road accident with American forces. year. So there was a huge sea change in terms The Americans shot at the crowd, and it of the enemy’s capability. I think I would just revealed an underlying anger that can explode leave it at that. Today there is a much differ- at any moment. In September 2009, a British ent, stronger, and more capable Taliban that is plane dropped a box of leaflets that failed to intent on winning, and we have to adjust to open. It landed on a girl who was probably that fact. illiterate and couldn’t read the leaflets anyway, but it killed her. There is more and more hos- David Kilcullen: tility to our presence there. I would like to The question uses a biological metaphor, so I read from a folk poem. Folk poetry throughout will too. Insurgents evolve, in the sense that Pashtun areas is increasingly antioccupation. insurgency kills generation after generation of This is a ghazal by a female poet called insurgents, and the generations that replace Zerlakhta Hafeez: them have some kind of adaptive characteris- tics that allow them to survive better. We saw Oh Afghanistan, You are my love. that in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is very com- You are my soul. You are my body. mon. So the Taliban that we are dealing with They want peace while having guns in today is more like a hospital superbug than their hands. anything else. It has been exposed to a variety That’s why all the children are dying for of antibiotics that have made it drug resistant. you, Afghanistan. We have seen the insurgency expand and Your children are dying for you because absorb successively three major increases in they want you U.S. forces since 2005. That is one of the con- to be sovereign, to be independent like siderations that I am not sure is being consid- they did before. ered in the White House but certainly should Pashtuns from both sides of the black line be – that the Taliban have demonstrated the [meaning the border with Pakistan] ability to absorb increases of up to about call you their home, oh Afghanistan, so 25,000 troops at a time, and it just makes they fight for it. them stronger. So you have to decide either not to keep doing small increases like that or I think the population is just turning more and to jump over their ability to evolve, which gets more against the presence there. back to this dichotomy: Either do not put any more in or put in enough that they cannot Peter Bergen (from the audience): adapt effectively. I would argue that not put- I would like to follow up on on General

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Barno’s comments a few minutes ago. Why who we brought back, laundered, and gave did the Taliban come back at such great legitimacy to. These were the guys associated strength in 2005 and 2006? There may be with the Northern Alliance. I was in D.C. in three reasons. One is that they may have 2001, and I do not think that anyone under- sensed the NATO takeover as an opportunity; stood that the Northern Alliance was – and is second, they copycatted or learned directly – viewed by Pakistan as an Indian proxy. from the Iraqi insurgency; and third, they sim- During the days of the Taliban, it was the ply had enough time to regroup. There may be Indians through their base in Tajikistan, along another reason, but obviously the critical ques- with the Iranians, the Russians, and all of the tion is: Why did they come back? other folks from the various “– stans” in the world, who sustained the Northern Alliance. Gen. Barno: So, when we brought the Northern I think that is open to some speculation. I Alliance back and broke every single promise think that all three of your points are pretty that we had made to Pervez Musharraf, the accurate, but I would add a fourth. I do not Pakistanis understood two things: that the know it to be true, but there are some who Americans had handed the keys to the Indians believe that it was a contributing factor. There through their proxy the Northern Alliance, and is a perception that we signaled by the end of that, as General Barno referred to, we had sig- 2005 that we were on our way out of naled our willingness to depart. When we sig- Afghanistan. During the summer of 2005 we naled our willingness to depart, the Pakistanis announced very publicly that we were turning understood that the Americans – and certainly the effort over to NATO, which we viewed as NATO – were going home and had basically ostensibly an alliance capable of doing this. In left Afghanistan in the hands of the Northern the region, that was viewed as the U.S. divest- Alliance. From a game-theoretic point of view, ing itself of Afghanistan, which, in fact, was the Pakistanis arguably understood that the part of our rationale as well. Then, in value of the Taliban is much more important. December of that year, we announced that we While the U-turn on the U-turn had already were going to withdraw 2,500 combat troops begun before 2005, I think there is a strong from Afghanistan. I think that was widely argument that the concatenation of events real- viewed as our moving for the exits. I think that ly shaped Pakistan’s cost–benefit calculus, and both our friends and adversaries recalculated – voilà – the Taliban came back in 2005, hav- their game plans based upon that, and the ing recuperated from the various amenities Taliban once again became clearly a possible they enjoyed in the tribal areas of Pakistan. weapon system in some of those game plans. So I think there is a distinct difference Joanna Nathan: between what we saw in the Taliban through I think that the big leaps we see have to do 2005 and what we saw in 2006 and since. I with strategic momentum, because it is not think much of it had to do with those hugely ideological. It is a franchise that announcements. expands when people feel the strategic momentum behind them and that there are C. Christine Fair: rewards for piling in, rather than through any There is a regional dimension that I do not ideological appeal as such. think was appreciated in 2001, which gets back to Joanna Nathan’s point about the creeps

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David Kilcullen: have 10 years ago in Afghanistan. They were I would like to offer a countervailing view to concerned that if they lost that access, their the idea that the big driver of Taliban expan- ability to execute a counterterrorist program sion during the 2005–2006 time frame was throughout the region would be significantly failure to engage properly, failure for us to put impacted. enough in. There is another view that you often hear from Pashtuns in the south, which John McLaughlin (from the audience): is that the expansion of NATO to cover the We finally appear to be approaching decision whole country during the same time frame time on Afghanistan, with the news reports created the insurgency. I am not saying that this morning that the president will make that's necessarily right or wrong. If you look at some announcement after Thanksgiving. What the timing of the insurgency expansion com- would you be pleased to hear as his key point? bined with the timing of the NATO expansion, the violence came after the NATO expansion Steven Simon: in some places and in other places preceded it. We are running short on time, so please keep So there is no clear causality that you can your answers to 25 words or less. identify from the field evidence, but it is cer- tainly a perception that many Afghans have in Gen. Barno: the south – that the insurgency is here because I would start by saying a long-term commit- NATO is here; that if NATO went away again, ment to a partnership with our friends in the the insurgency would go away. I think the sec- region. ond part is probably not true, but the first part is certainly what many people are saying. Nir Rosen: Recognition that if your goal is to fight al Question (from the audience): Qaeda, then you are dealing with the symp- How would you assess the United States’ toms instead of the causes. If you stop killing human intelligence gathering capabilities in Muslims, if you stop supporting the Israelis in western Pakistan? Palestine, if you stop supporting dictatorships, you will remove all of the causes that anybody Gen. Barno: would have to attack the U.S. Al Qaeda just I spoke to some of our senior intel folks over would not have recruits; there would be no the past week, and that was part of our discus- motivation to attack the Americans. This sion. They expressed to me, interestingly whole Afghanistan thing is a diversion and the enough, that they felt that their capabilities in real solution is so much easier, but it requires that area are very good right now, in large a whole revolution in how the U.S. does its measure because of the amount of presence foreign policy. they have in the border areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan that allows them access David Kilcullen: remotely into the adjacent areas inside of I would be very happy to hear any kind of Pakistan. In part because of the amount of firm decision or any kind of commitment by U.S. military presence, because of the amount the president to actually pay attention to the of intelligence presence that that enables, they problem. Afghanistan is a house on fire. We have a very good reach and very good intelli- have to either have enough firefighters to put gence assets today that they certainly did not out the fire or get out of the house.

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What Lies Ahead

Panelists: speech outlining the new strategy in Peter Bergen, Roger Cressey, Steve Fondacaro, Afghanistan. Essentially, he sold it as a coun- Ken Silverstein, Steven Simon terterrorism strategy directed at al Qaeda, but when he read the speech it was really about a Moderator: larger counterinsurgency strategy. As a matter Karen J. Greenberg of politics, that might have been a pretty smart way to sell nation building in Afghanistan, as basically all about al Qaeda. But it is open to the criticism that if al Qaeda isn’t so threatening, then why are we in Afghanistan at all? There are five or six other things he could have said, which he may well say in the speech after Thanksgiving, because there are other values about why we are in Afghanistan that are about more than just al Qaeda. The first is that the return of Steve Fondacaro and Peter Bergen. Photo by Dan Creighton. the Taliban in Afghanistan would be a strategic failure for the United States, leaving aside the question of al Qaeda. Karen J. Greenberg: It would also be a massive moral disaster for This panel, I hope, will convey the idea that the people of Afghanistan. We have over- there is a way to think through these problems thrown their government. We have some sort that can give some constructive strategies for of an obligation to create some form of stable going forward. It is going to look at how to state that follows. It does not have to be like think about what we have heard today and Belgium and the Afghans aren’t expecting how to imagine what lies ahead. Belgium, but they are expecting relative secu- From my point of view, the reason that we rity and relative prosperity. have these conferences is to help us think There is also the question of regional secu- through impasses that seem so intractable, or rity, which the previous panel talked about. about which viewpoints seem so entrenched, Afghanistan and Pakistan are interlocked and that we as the public give up and prefer to an insecure Afghanistan leads to a more inse- think about other things. In this case, what is cure Pakistan, and vice versa. Something that really nice about today is seeing that all of you is often forgotten in this discussion about care enough to trudge through the many layers Afghanistan is that it was not just al Qaeda of dilemma that we are facing in Afghanistan. that was headquartered there before 9/11. Every single serious Muslim insurgent move- Peter Bergen: ment, from Indonesia to Egypt to Jordan, was On March 27th, President Obama gave a based in Afghanistan. So it is not just about

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the return of al Qaeda; it is battlefield in Afghanistan, also about the Taliban har- “[T]he return of the Taliban according to Mark Urban, boring other major Muslim who has really written the insurgent movements. in Afghanistan would be a best history of the early Finally, Afghanistan strategic failure for the Afghan war, there were was the first war where 175,000 to 250,000 United States, leaving aside Article V, NATO’s collec- Afghans fighting. Today tive right to self-defense, the question of al Qaeda. the Taliban, by contrast, is was invoked. We have a only about 20,000 full- It would also be a real coalition, and the time fighters, if you are future of NATO to some massive moral disaster for being generous. Dr. degree is being decided in the people of Afghanistan. Kilcullen has suggested Afghanistan. While we can maybe even 40,000, if you talk about national caveats, We have overthrown their add in part-time farmers. you go to war with the government. We have some But the point is that there coalition you have, and at is a relatively small insur- sort of an obligation to least we have a coalition in gency compared to what Afghanistan. We had a sort create some form of stable the Soviets faced. of pretend one in Iraq, Another common state that follows.” which was basically com- objection is that prised of the British and Peter Bergen Afghanistan is not a perhaps the Polish, where- nation-state. Actually, that as in Afghanistan there are 42 countries is complete nonsense. The first modern involved, including Muslim countries. In Afghan state was the Durrani Empire of 1747, small numbers, the Jordanians have a presence so Afghanistan has been a nation longer than there, and also the Qataris. So there are other the United States has. The problem is not a values about what we are doing in Afghanistan lack of nationhood. Afghans have that. It has more than a simple question of the return of al always been a weak central state. That is not Qaeda. really even a problem; it is just the way that Having said that, there are six common Afghanistan has been organized, and trying to objections about why we are going to fail in create something else probably does not make Afghanistan, essentially, that I want to quickly a great deal of sense. try and dispose of. One is the graveyard of Another objection is that Afghanistan is empires, which should be retired to the grave- just too violent. This is ridiculous. We have yard of clichés. Every single empire that has already discussed how Iraq remains more vio- ever decided to go into Afghanistan has won a lent than Afghanistan, but that is not because victory. The question is sustaining it, whether Iraq is so violent (although it remains so to you are talking about Alexander the Great or some degree). It is because Afghanistan is rel- the Soviets, but we are not the Soviets. The atively nonviolent. You were more likely to be Soviets killed a million Afghans, at least. They murdered in the United States in 1991 than made five million Afghans homeless. They you are to be killed in the war today in inflicted a totalitarian total war on the popula- Afghanistan. Because that may seem like a tion. They were hated. They faced a country- shocking statistic, I will give you more detail. wide insurgency. At any given moment on the Twenty-four thousand Americans were mur-

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dered in 1991, in a U.S. the Taliban. It was one of population of 260 million “Can you defeat the Taliban? the most depressing places at the time. Last year about in the world. The World My belief is that the 2,000-plus Afghans died in Bank stopped tracking the war, and the population answer is no. Afghanistan’s GDP is around 30 million. Just You can't defeat the Taliban, because it was zero. There do the math. So it is actu- was nothing to track. The ally more dangerous to not today, not the way Taliban basically come to New York City we would traditionally destroyed the economy than to go to Afghanistan and turned the whole describe it. We are headed today. thing into a sort of police Another is the “anti- towards striking a deal with state, and a rather unpleas- body” argument, which is ant one. One in six the Taliban at some point.” also ridiculous. Sixty-three Afghans had a cell phone. percent of Afghans in a Roger Cressey They did not have a phone recent poll had a favorable system under the Taliban. view not just of the United States but of the GDP growth has been something like seven U.S. military. There are probably parts of the percent in most years since the fall of the Upper West Side of Manhattan that do not Taliban, coming from a pretty low base obvi- have such a favorable view of the U.S. mili- ously. tary. So it is not that we are the antibody; they Four million refugees have returned. This just want us to produce what we keep saying is a very important number because refugees we are going to, which is relative security and do not return to places which they don't think some measure of prosperity. have a future. In Iraq, the war created four The final thing, which may be the most million refugees. Almost none of those controversial point that I am going to make, is refugees have returned today – maybe 200,000 that the idea that the Karzai government is – whereas in Afghanistan we have had a mas- illegitimate is fairly nonsensical when you sive refugee return. look at the other countries that surround Then there is polling data. One very com- Afghanistan. Pakistan has had four military mon polling question is, “What’s your view of dictatorships in the last six decades. the future?” For obvious reasons, at the end of Uzbekistan is a place where the dictator boils the Bush administration’s second term, when people alive as a sort of forensic technique. Americans were asked, “Do you think your Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Iran – this is life is going to get better?” – only 17 percent the neighborhood in which Karzai just said yes. When you polled Afghans at roughly received 49 percent of the vote. That is the the same time, 40 percent said yes, and we real number he got. So, Karzai remains, know the problems that have gone on in despite all the criticism we have given, a Afghanistan. Why do they have a positive somewhat legitimate leader. So those are the view of the future? It is because their bar is objections. low. They have had a totalitarian invasion, fol- To turn to the positives, there are millions lowed by a warlord-led civil war, followed by of Afghan children in schools – including the Taliban. As a combination, that is pretty many girls, of course, who were not there bad. So Afghans who have either lived under the Taliban. I was in Afghanistan under through this or have a sense of it think today

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that things are still getting better. We zeroed our aid to one of the poorest coun- This brings me to Pakistan. This is a skunk tries in the world and into that vacuum at the garden party to some degree, but again stepped the Taliban, and then they brought there are some reasons for optimism. The with them al Qaeda. In 2001, because of an Pakistani Taliban have made the biggest strate- ideological aversion to nation building, the gic error possible, which is attacking where Bush administration did the least-resourced they live. The center of gravity in the war on nation-building effort the United States has terror is what the Pakistani population thinks, been engaged in since World War II. There because this is where al Qaeda and the Taliban were 6,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan are headquartered. If they think that Osama in 2003 – the size of a police force in a city bin Laden is a Robin Hood figure and that the like Houston, in a country the size of Texas – Taliban are just a great bunch of guys, you and you get what you pay for. The Taliban have a problem. That was basically the view came back, this time morphed together ideo- after 9/11, but that is changing. Support for logically and tactically with al Qaeda, at least suicide bombing in Pakistan has dropped from at the leadership level. So we have already 33 percent to 5 percent in the last several done the two other options. years. Support for bin Laden is dropping; sup- port for the Taliban is cratering. Roger Cressey: When Pakistan went into Waziristan in I would like to make a couple of points about 2004-05, it was seen by the Pakistani popula- my experience with the government, touching tion as doing the American bidding in the war a little bit on some of the points made earlier on terror, and it was really a sort of perform- today, and then talk about four critical ques- ance-art operation that did not succeed in tions about what lies ahead. I have no clue doing very much. Pakistan’s operation in what lies ahead, and anybody in the govern- Waziristan right now is very serious because ment who says they do is lying. they are doing it for their own reasons. I think I went to Somalia in 1993 when I was 27 that our interests and theirs have not been and still full of ideological support and excite- more closely aligned since the Soviets invaded ment. I met Michael Sheehan at the airport in Afghanistan in 1979. It is far from a perfect Mogadishu. I was still in the State alignment – it never will be. They are proba- Department, seconded to the UN, and Mike bly never going to hunt down Mullah Omar, was on his way out. He had a briefcase for me, but the enemy of the perfect is not the reason- and he said “Welcome, Rog. You’re going to ably okay. What we are seeing in Pakistan is need this.” I opened it up, and there was a .45 the reasonably okay. The Swat operation was in it. I asked him why he was giving me a also serious. We are beginning to see some loaded .45, and he said, “Welcome to Somalia, serious change in support in Pakistan. baby. This is the way it is.” So there is a whole Critics of a larger sustained operation in generation of young twenty-somethings in the Afghanistan have to answer one simple ques- State Department, the Pentagon, and else- tion: What is the alternative? History suggests where who want to serve their countries over- two alternatives. One is doing nothing and the seas, who go into these countries and have other is basically doing what we are doing but simply no clue what they are getting them- in a less serious way. That would be great if selves into. Some of the stories that we’ve we had not already done both of those. In heard today about what is going on in 1989, we closed our embassy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan show that this is still alive and well.

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Much of what was has been talked about today is what we called “complex contingency operations” in the old school of the 1990s. I was involved in political-military planning for Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans. When I hear about what is going on today, when I hear the criticisms of interagency working together, I swear it is Groundhog Day. In some respects nothing has changed. In 2006 or 2007, General Petraeus gave a PowerPoint presenta- tion about the requirement and objective of interagency cooperation. If you were to Roger Cressey and Ken Silverstein. Photo by Dan Creighton. change the dates and the countries, it would be the same PowerPoint that I was doing in the We have talked a bit about counterterror- early 1990s. What I am trying to tell you is ism and counterinsurgency. In regard to that the government will never fix itself on Afghanistan, my view is that they are separate this issue of proper cooperation. It will always problems but they are related. Eliminating one fall short for a variety of reasons. They are all does not mean you solve the other, but you well–intentioned, good people, but it will can't say that they are combined and that there never work the way we want it to. We get is no difference between them. Most of what together and say, “My God, we need to do a we are doing in Afghanistan and probably in better job, look at what’s happening in Pakistan, which I think is more germane, is Afghanistan,” but it is not going to change. So tactical, near-term, urgent counterterrorism accept that, factor it into your planning in missions. Everything we are doing is aimed at terms of what lies ahead, and figure out how trying to stop the next plot, the ability of what to work around it, because it is absolutely remains of al Qaeda to project power against going to be critical. U.S. interests either in the region or in the In the movie Volunteers, from the 1980s, United States. We are in counterinsurgency, John Candy plays a member of the Peace and this is where the strategic, long-term chal- Corps going somewhere in Asia to build a lenge lies for us. There is an inherent conflict bridge, someone who thinks of himself as a and friction between our counterterrorism pol- great American who wants to go and do the icy and our counterinsurgency policy. I think right thing. Tom Hanks plays a Yale dropout that we still have not figured out a right way on the run from the law who hops on the plane to address that. before it leaves. He wakes up the next day and To General Barno’s point about the Obama asks himself what he’s doing there. There is a administration’s review, the review is critical combination of both types of people right now for the reasons that have been talked about, in Afghanistan – those who want to do the which have nothing to do with the troops and right thing and many who are wondering what have everything to do with the strategy. What they are doing there. Each group has a direct strategy are you looking to put in place? What impact and effect on the population that we are your objectives? What is your end state? are trying to influence. We need to think about What are the milestones that you are trying to that in terms of how we actually achieve establish in order to meet that end state? After progress on a day-to-day tactical basis. answering those questions, you can come up

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with a force posture and although clearly it is not other elements of “We are trying to stabilize a as strong as it used to be. American power to imple- It comes down to two ment that strategy. So I very complex population, issues from a counterter- would like to see the presi- dealing with many problems rorism perspective: Can al dent lay that out in his Qaeda’s core still project speech. If he does, then we that lead them to use power? If they can, then can have a debate as a violence as a means of conflict we have to come up with a country about whether or strategy consistent with resolution. How do I do that? … not it is worth investing eliminating and defeating the blood, treasure, and What is the insight that tells that capability while we resources to achieve that are doing everything else me how to change how my end state. in Afghanistan. Can they I would like to give unit operates on the ground still plan, train, and oper- you four “what ifs” about at the soldier level, ate? What do we need to what lies ahead. The first do tactically to ensure that one is, What is al Qaeda’s the squad level, the platoon they do not have the capa- capability right now? I level, and the company level in bility to put together one think this is a central ques- of these plots again? If the tion because, regarding order to achieve this answer is that they can’t – Mike Sheehan’s point ear- operational outcome?” that all they have left is lier, we have had tremen- bin Laden, Ayman al Steve Fondacaro dous success beating them Zawahri, and a few others over the past eight years. howling at the moon, The core al Qaeda simply is not as capable as sending out random videotapes and audio- it once was. That is a fabulous success from tapes, saying, “We told you so. See, the our Intelligence Community, our military, and Americans are still at war with Islam,” but that all elements of national power. But we they can’t do anything else – that is a different received a wake-up call in 2006 through the problem and a different strategy is required to Heathrow planes plot, which fell short, thank deal with it. God, for a variety of reasons. I believe that Or is the issue not of the core but of what shook the counterterrorism community into I call, in sports parlance, the “unrestricted free addressing that there is still a strategic threat agents”? Is Najibullah Zazi the face of the emanating from Pakistan regarding the core al future when it comes to counterterrorism? It is Qaeda capability, and we need to get serious still important from a Pakistani perspective about it at the next level. Much of what we because he went to Pakistan. He ended up have been doing over the course of the past hanging out with the wrong people who taught three years has been aimed at eliminating the him things, and then he tried to come back ability of al Qaeda to try something like the here and do something about it. Our greatest Heathrow plot. What they were looking to do strategic advantage with the unrestricted free was take down 10 or a dozen planes over the agents is that most of them are stupid and Atlantic and kill as many people as were inept, but that is not going to continue. Sooner killed on 9/11. The intent is still there. The or later a couple of these clowns are going to capability is the fundamental question, get it right, and the point to remember about

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9/11 and the summer leading up to it is that either inside the United States or elsewhere everything broke al Qaeda’s way. Nothing around the world and that we can trace that broke our way. It is entirely likely that could attack back to what is left of the safe haven in happen again, so we need to keep that in Pakistan. What does the Obama administration mind. do? They go in big and they go in heavy. If The second issue going forward is, Can there are dozens, if not hundreds, of you defeat the Taliban? My belief is that the Americans lying dead, then it is the obligation answer is no. You can’t defeat the Taliban, not of any president, Republican or Democrat, to today, not the way we would traditionally respond in a big way. Now that sets in motion describe it. We are headed towards striking a a series of events that we quickly lose control deal with the Taliban at some point. They are a of, and we have a series of unintended conse- viable part of the political process in Afghan quences that plays right into the hands of society. We are foolish if we think we can either what’s left of al Qaeda or those ele- eliminate that completely, so we are going to ments in Pakistani society that want to have a have to come up with an approach in this new fundamental change in the political environ- strategy that recognizes that in the right way. I ment there, to put it lightly. do not know what that right way is, but the What if Karzai goes away? I don't mean Taliban is here, it will be here for a long time, politically; I mean in a puff of smoke. Some and we should be realistic about what we can would argue that that would be one of the best do against it. things to happen to Afghan political society. This leads to a secondary question: Is the But do we have a strategy for dealing with Taliban a counterterrorism problem? The that? I can guarantee you that the Taliban and answer is no, unless the Taliban are going to others are going to be gunning for him, and provide a sanctuary for al Qaeda, the remnants they only have to get lucky once to take him of al Qaeda, or the follow-on to al Qaeda in down. order to do in the future what they did in the What about Congress? We have not talked 1990s. There is an assumption in Washington enough about Congress here, but if Congress that if the Taliban were to come back into decides to assert itself in this process, that will power, they would follow the exact same play- complicate the administration’s ability to exe- book that they did in the 1990s. I do not think cute on its strategy. If you don’t think that is necessarily the case. I think there is a Afghanistan, Pakistan, and al Qaeda are debate within the Taliban, and that some of the watching what is going on in Washington, Taliban leadership think that providing the then you are fooling yourself. safe haven to al Qaeda was incredibly stupid Finally, what is the priority? Is it and should never be done again if they were to Afghanistan or is it Pakistan? Some would say take power again. So I think we should have a that you can’t separate the two, that they are debate about that. What is the counterterror- inextricably linked for all the reasons that we ism component regarding the Taliban? have talked about. When I was still in the The next issue is, What are the wild cards? Pentagon doing the Quadrennial Defense There are always wild cards. There are always Review, and others in government have done unintended consequences of our actions. What this before, we categorized American interests if there is another al Qaeda attack from into three groups: humanitarian, important, Pakistan? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, and vital. The humanitarian category is made that a couple hundred Americans are killed up of those things we do because we can,

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because we are a great also going to be a function country, and we want to “We do not have a of how many Americans help people. So we go in are killed. cohesive foreign policy elite and help victims of the We are a government tsunami. We go into anymore in the way that beset by attention deficit Somalia. We do a variety disorder. We look near we did during the Cold War. of things. The important term. Our government is interests are those that are That is hurting us, and it is still structured to do near- in between – important term priorities only. So hurting us very badly.” enough to deploy military when we talk about near- forces and maybe do a few Steven Simon term tactical versus long- other things but without term strategic, the bureau- rising to the third level. Then there is vital, cracy as it is now structured cannot do strate- which is that we must be prepared to fight and gic. It simply can’t. We will swing from one die in defense of a vital national security inter- priority to the other and leave people hanging est. in the lurch. That is why the Afghans and the It is pretty obvious that Pakistan is a vital Pakistanis have a much longer memory than national security interest now. What does that we do, and that is why they are worried about mean in terms of the commitment of U.S. what our long-term commitment is. forces, U.S. government expertise, and lever- The final point I’ll make goes back to a age? Is Afghanistan a vital national security morbid joke that was made right before the interest? If the Taliban were to come back to onset of our intervention in Haiti. We joked power but there was no al Qaeda and no abili- that the objective of the intervention, which ty to project terrorism plots inside the United was a humanitarian intervention, was to bring States, would that be a vital national interest Haiti into the Third World. So if you look at for the United States? No. So I think that all the challenges in Afghanistan right now, trying to understand where these countries what is our objective? Are we trying to bring rank on our importance scale is critical. Afghanistan into the Third World or are we The reality of counterterrorism is that our trying to do something greater? Answering policy is driven by body bags. This has been that question part and parcel will answer the true for years. When a half dozen people die, question of what lies ahead. we all think that is unfortunate, but we lose dozens, if not hundreds, a year in military Steve Fondacaro: accidents. That is the price to pay for being a I am an operator. I bring an operator’s view- global superpower. When you start to kill hun- point to share with you as we take a look at dreds and thousands, then the U.S. government what lies ahead in terms of counterinsurgency takes a different approach. That is the differ- and counterterrorism in general as it applies to ence between our doing nothing after the what we are facing right now in Iraq and attack on the USS Cole and doing what we did Afghanistan. I have been directing the Human post-9/11. It is a body bag-driven approach. Terrain System program for three years. I So what lies ahead in terms of counterterror- bring my observations and the observations of ism related to Afghanistan and Pakistan, those operators out there at the brigade, divi- whether by counterterrorism or through a sion, and three- and four-star levels who I counterinsurgency implementation strategy, is have been dealing with in both countries for

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the past three years. level, the squad level, the platoon level, and The first observation I have is that we the company level in order to achieve this have to understand the problem before we start operational outcome? implementing solutions. This is driven by a We have not done that work for our sol- number of different things. I will share with diers. They have been thrust into this and they you a viewpoint from most of the operators have been learning it as they go. What we try and the commanders out there, which is that to do in our approach is jump-start that learn- they find themselves having to take a test that ing process with our social scientists at the they have done no coursework for. That does lowest level, not at the four-star level where not work in an academic environment and it is we have put them before as senior advisers not working for them out there. They are high- whose input is supposed to trickle down and ly competent, very smart, intelligent, kinetic help soldiers do better what they are supposed operators. They are designed to do exactly to do at the bottom. I do not know of any what we design them for, primarily as conven- other cases, but I have been on the bottom end tional organizers, deployers who force their of that model for the past 30 years. In my own way into a directed theater of operations under experience it has never worked and will never civilian leadership and kill what is in front of work. So we have turned that model on its them. What has stymied and frustrated them is head. We try to provide that understanding for the fact that this approach, which they are the commanders at their level to help them focused on, which is in their comfort zone, understand the problem first in order to devise and which is their expertise, has not led to a what they can do in their own sphere to make positive solution in the area that they are the problem better. What faces us, at least at deployed in. this level here, is helping our government, our What this focuses on is simply understand- institutions, understand what that problem is ing the operational, sociocultural relevance of before committing ourselves in one way or the population in terms of what they are another in order to achieve a measurable out- required to do. It all boils down to something come. This is the part we have not done. we call the “so what?” What does a great brief Fundamental to that is doing the research by Dr. McFate on the tribes of Diyala mean to on the ground that tells us about the history of me as a brigade commander on the ground? the target population or nation that we are What does that information tell me to do or to focused on, that helps us understand what the change in the behavior of my unit in order to underpinnings of conflict are amongst the have the positive effects upon the population multitude of groups that are out there. Some that I am supposed to be achieving here in the of those conflicts go back hundreds of years, stabilization phase? We are not in a maneuver some of them are very recent. Some of them warfare situation in which we are moving flu- are political, some of them are criminal. Some idly from Paris to Berchtesgaden anymore. We of them are socioethnic. Some of them are are trying to stabilize a very complex popula- racial. There is no one out there to help the tion, dealing with many problems that lead commanders on the ground understand the them to use violence as a means of conflict nuances of how that applies to their missions resolution. How do I do that? How do I imple- on the ground. ment that? How do I stabilize that? What is Part and parcel of this is understanding the insight that tells me how to change how ourselves as well as we understand the popula- my unit operates on the ground at the soldier tions we are dealing with – understanding our

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own culture, understanding the cultural differ- research and identify those problems that have ences between our institutions, including the the potential to become crises like this in all Department of State, the Department of the other areas of the world where we are not Defense, and USAID. We have heard a num- committed right now. Wouldn’t it make sense ber of different explanations throughout the for us to devote our energy there so that we day of the systemic difficulties we have in get- can identify the potential crises and diffuse ting those entities to work together in a collec- and eliminate them before they become some- tive strategy that achieves an outcome. This is thing that requires us to implement massive part of our culture. This is part of our under- numbers of troops and incredible amounts of standing what our capabilities and limitations national treasure at the cost of a tremendous are, and task-organizing ourselves before we amount of worldwide credibility with our commit ourselves to a particular problem. allies? From our standpoint, what drives this in many cases is that we have much too much Steven Simon: money accompanied by much too little So many interesting, even profound, things research and thinking. We jump to the solu- have been said today that I am going to con- tions, throwing a thousand solutions at the fine myself to just a few observations about problem, rather than doing the thinking that the future of counterinsurgency and maybe leads toward an organized, logical, scientific, with a little bit of a connection to Afghanistan intellectual approach to the problem. The peo- and Pakistan. These are random observations, ple at the bottom end are dealing with the just in the interstices of what other people effects. You have heard a number of those have said. issues talked about today, in particular about Looking to the future, I think that it will soldiers out there simply trying to stay alive. be interesting to see how the counterinsur- In many cases, we have them talking to us gency effort – to the extent we are really doing about how they feel as if their main mission is one, which the previous panel called into to troll for IEDs, hopefully make it back to the question – influences force structure and doc- FOB, count one more day off the list, and trine down the road. Right now we are at a return. crossroads, with some advocating that U.S. Another thing that feeds this is our unit force structure, doctrine training, and so forth rotation policy. Instead of being there eight need to be shaped much more in the direction years, we are there eight different times, one of counterinsurgency. Others, like General year at a time. Research, we think, followed Casey, take exception to these COINadistas by intellectual capacity, which we have, is and look back perhaps sentimentally to the what has to drive us in the future. This is a vision of enormous tank battles on the plains diagnostic that our future enemies throughout of Europe. I think we are going to wind up this century are observing carefully and learn- with something in between, and it will be ing from. They are understanding the weak- important that the debate about force structure nesses in our nation’s ability to formulate and track actual developments in the field as implement foreign policy in a coherent way. It against these more theoretical constructs. is incumbent upon us all to try and get this One thing that struck me – and I am not a message in the form of reform before we com- military man – is the way in which firepower mit ourselves to things like this or future has developed on the other guy’s side, not just crises. We have the capability now to do the on our side. The development of weaponry,

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particularly the precision – a sort of British model of weaponry available to “For better or for worse, of sending the troops back insurgents, means that they USAID used to actually develop to the barracks, the civil do not need the kinds of servants back to their min- supply lines, huge stock- and implement its projects, istries, and finding a cou- piles, and so forth that but now it is simply taking ple of generals or some- might have been necessary body suitable to take money and passing it on at another point in time to charge. Then there was fight the United States in through to corporations, another, far more expan- battle. That has made sive war aim of reforming, nonprofit groups, insurgents in some – essentially re-engineering, although not all – contexts and consultants who are Iraqi society and politics a formidable enemy, as, for that went on to create a lot charged with carrying out the example, the Israelis found of trouble for us, and as out battling Hezbollah in development projects.” Nir Rosen pointed out, a southern Lebanon in the Ken Silverstein lot of trouble for Iraqis summer of 2006. We themselves. So, this war- would be wise to think twice before diverting aims issue needs to be tackled. our force structure and doctrine in one direc- That leads to a number of other collateral tion or another. We are at risk of doing that, of problems. One is the way in which the media adopting one of these binary choices, because garbles issues that arise. There is one issue of the way in which senior officers have that is very much on my mind now, and we emerged from the crucible of the Iraqi and have talked about it in today’s sessions – cor- Afghan insurgencies. ruption and legitimacy. One of the reasons – Another thing that hit me from today’s dis- maybe the principal reason – that our poor cussion was the truly engrossing fact that beleaguered president has not been able to there weren’t really any good analogies or come out with a strategy on Afghanistan is precedents that would help us understand what because of the way in which the elections is going on in Afghanistan. That raises the played out and the subsequent publicity given question of how we prepare for the next one, to the issue of legitimacy and corruption. if preparing for the next one is learning from What is curious about this is that the concern the ones that have come before. I think this is comes from the counterinsurgency literature. going to be a continuing challenge in dealing It has been a leitmotif of counterinsurgency with the insurgencies that do arise. theoreticians. It has been absorbed by the A third thing – and this has been tacitly media, which have then turned it into some- referred to in a number of different ways – is thing probably much bigger than it should be, the problem of confusion over war aims. This particularly in the case of Afghanistan, where is how countries lose wars, and lately the an imported notion of legitimacy is probably United States has had a very difficult time misplaced. That in turn has hemmed in the stemming or controlling a kind of entropic flexibility that the president has in promulgat- process in the development of its war aims. ing a strategy to deal with the problem over We saw this in Iraq. The United States had two the longer term. war aims. One was essentially a coup d’état: There is a second issue that I think is to get into Iraq, get rid of Saddam, and get out counterproductive in the discourse, but which

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has come up again and again today. General increasing. Democracies don’t do barbarism – Barno, David Kilcullen, and Peter Bergen or, let me put it this way, when democracies basically gave us a choice – General Barno do barbarism, there is a backlash. Barbarism is called it a “stark choice” – saying that it is not sustainable, so we need to bear that in either go all the way or get out. This not only mind. corrupts discourse but hamstrings policymak- A few points just to wrap up. Because of ers. It is inconsistent with, if it does not our failure to organize ourselves properly to absolutely contradict, the way in which do these kinds of things, which is a tributary democracies do things. We have got to get a of a bigger problem – that we do not have a grip on this. unified national security budget – we will That is related to a third issue in this kind never be able to do them right. of subcategory that I am advancing here, We are always going to have the problem which is the polarization of the debate about of casualty tolerance. The reason I raise that, foreign policy – a problem, in a sense, made even though it is kind of a cliché, is because it possible by the collapse of our foreign policy is an important corollary to my point earlier elite. We do not have a cohesive foreign policy about the demise of a foreign policy consen- elite anymore in the way that we did during sus. Some very careful studies by the RAND the Cold War. That is hurting us, and it is hurt- Corporation showed that casualty tolerance ing us very badly. It is hard for me to imagine was dependent on three things. One was a one of the great avatars of U.S. foreign and sense that victory could be achieved in some defense policy during that period, when there meaningful frame of time, but also that there was a substantial unanimity of view on a was an elite consensus on that point – that bipartisan scale, saying, “We’ve only got two Congress, the executive branch, the media, options – nuke them or surrender.” When I and the punditocracy all kind of agreed that was in government, one of the jokes was that this was something worth doing; that the all memos, at least at the State Department or stakes were high and there were good the White House, had three options: nuke prospects for success in a meaningful amount them, surrender, or my option. Where is the of time. When those conditions were met, “my option” in this scenario? The fact is that casualty tolerance was extremely high, and I governments have to satisfice because there will give you an example. In 1990, the are so many constraints on them. The notion Chicago Council on Foreign Relations did a that there is an either/or here also corrupts the very interesting poll where they asked respon- discourse and makes it harder to deal with the dents, “How many causalities should we be problem. willing to accept in a war in Iraq?” I saw that While we are on the subject of the way poll at the time, and I was shocked to see that democracies do things, Jeffrey Record, a respondents said that they would tolerate scholar at the Army War College, picked up 40,000 casualties in Operation Desert Storm. on a fascinating book by Omer Bartov, an Of course, in light of the RAND analysis, this Israeli scientist, on Nazi military activity in is the kind of thing you would expect, because Russia. He basically says that with certain there was a wall-to-wall consensus on the kinds of insurgencies, the only way you beat stakes, the prospect for success, and so forth. them is with barbarism. It seems to me that With the collapse of the foreign policy elite, this would be all the more true in an evolving we will never see that again. And with people situation where the other guy’s firepower is sitting on these panels saying “we go all the

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way or we get out,” and of Congress, I get the not putting forward really “Mullah Omar is not same sense that people do any kind of constructive Henry Kissinger. We have not have the foggiest idea third ways, I think we are of what they are talking really doomed in that already run this particular about. They have no idea respect. videotape, which was of what Afghanistan looks like. Again, I do not claim Ken Silverstein: after 9/11. He was prepared any level of expertise, but I would like to talk a little to lose absolutely everything I think I can be a bit more bit about USAID’s pro- sophisticated than much of on a point of principle. gram in Afghanistan. the debate I hear in Before doing that, I want So why would he suddenly Congress. It’s another to make a couple of ran- world – Americans talking turn into a sort of dom observations from lis- about the Amazon as if tening to people talk today foreign policy realist now?” you could preserve it to go that I think are relevant to Peter Bergen floating down the river USAID’s role and, I think, having a wine and cheese gross failures in Afghanistan. party. It is just not going to work, and I think The first concerns the road-building proj- that the debate on Afghanistan is just as fre- ect in Afghanistan that Montgomery McFate quently out of touch as the sort of conversa- mentioned. I think it is a fair point. However, tion I used to hear about Brazil – and still do. it is difficult to listen to stories about corrup- All of that is relevant to a discussion of tion in Afghanistan without looking in the the way USAID has performed in mirror, which we frequently fail to do. Afghanistan. It is not just Afghanistan. Another story, which may seem complete- USAID has performed relatively abysmally in ly off topic, concerns the Amazon rain forest. I most parts of the world. It really does not have have never been to Afghanistan and I make no a track record of great success, but in claims to expertise. I write about Washington Afghanistan it is much more important now for the most part, so I know a lot about because the stakes are so high. When the Washington. I did live in Brazil for five years United States led the invasion of Afghanistan, some time ago. I remember always finding it President Bush talked about how we weren’t strange, either while in Brazil or visiting the going to walk away, we were going to rebuild United States during that time, to read news- the country, and it would never again be a safe paper stories or hear people talking about haven for terrorism. We had to have not just a stopping the burning of the Amazon, how this military solution but there was a long-term worldwide treasure must be preserved. development strategy that we needed in Absolutely, we need to preserve the Amazon, Afghanistan so that that wouldn’t happen. So but there is just one problem, which is that USAID had an important role. It was sup- there are a couple million poor people who posed to implement a good chunk of this live there and they are going to burn part of it. development program. Its role there is You cannot preserve the Amazon unless you extremely important. expect people to not eat. When I hear the pub- In critiquing USAID, I would also point lic debate about Afghanistan, and frequently out not only that it has not performed well in the political debate, certainly among members other parts of the world, but also that my cri-

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tique is not time-bound. We are not just talk- money and passing it on through to corpora- ing about now or the past five years. Going tions, nonprofit groups, and consultants who back through most of its history, it has per- are charged with carrying out the development formed very poorly. projects. USAID, because its budget has been One of the reasons that it is worth examin- cut very badly, no longer has the staff or per- ing is because we tend to look at USAID as a sonnel to even monitor the money that is charity organization. It is, after all, the Agency going out. So there is little oversight or for International Development. But, of course, accountability in terms of these projects. That, its goals and methods and plans are all inextri- I think, accounts for many of the failures. cably linked with U.S. foreign policy. So the Nobody really knows exactly how much of real goal is to back American foreign policy, AID’s money ends up in America instead of in which may clash with local needs. I wrote a the intended recipient country. It is difficult to piece about this in the September 2009 issue measure but it certainly has to be more than of Harper’s. The title was initially going to be 50 percent, and I have seen estimates as high “Charity Begins at Home,” because so much as 80 percent. Instead of going to Afghan of the money that is allocated by USAID for companies for these projects, much of it has development projects in Afghanistan and else- gone to American companies, so you have where ends up in the pock- very little local impact ets of American compa- “If we are not winning from much of the money nies, and frequently that is spent over there. As American companies that decisively on the battlefield, I mentioned earlier, the are well connected, that and yet we cannot money that is distributed have political connections is often appropriated on through the traditional figure out a way to create the basis of connections means – campaign dona- a cessation of hostilities and access, as much of the tions, their lobbyists. Many federal budget is, includ- in order to change the of the companies that have ing the defense budget. received USAID grants are dynamic in the country, then You see problems time headed by former USAID and again where you can- it gets really complicated.” officials. So when you talk not see where there is any about fixing USAID, Roger Cressey reason for the allocation which the Obama adminis- of funds other than politi- tration is talking about, it is complex and dif- cal connections of the recipients. ficult because you are trying to fix There is a line item in many of these proj- Washington in a way. It is a small part of a ects called “technical assistance,” which is much bigger problem. It is easier said than basically a bureaucratic code word for “fat done. consulting contracts.” Enormous sums of The other important thing about how money have been diverted into the pockets of USAID has been transformed in the past 15 or consultants, often at a rate of up to $1,000 a 20 years is that it has really just become pretty day. Some of these contracts include salary, much a pass-through for taxpayer money to benefits, housing, and R&R. Some are as private entities. For better or for worse, valuable as half a million dollars a year for the USAID used to actually develop and imple- consultants hired. ment its projects, but now it is simply taking If you look at many of the AID programs

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in Afghanistan, it is clear that there was very is yet. I just believe there is going to be a little local consultation. Many times the com- point when there is a recognition that there is panies were formed simply as a vehicle to some element of the Taliban leadership (and I receive U.S. government contract money and, understand that it is not homogeneous; there hence, you have boondoggles of this sort that are multiple elements of it) that the United have plagued the reconstruction. States or others is going to start to have a dia- logue with.

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION Peter Bergen: In principle, it is very desirable to do those Joanna Nathan (from the audience): deals, but there are basically six problems. Al My question is for Roger Cressey. I said earli- Qaeda and the Taliban at the leadership level er that I do not think that the vast majority have morphed together ideologically and tacti- who are now joining are ideological, but I cally. The Taliban today is very different from think there is a hard-core ideological center to what it was pre-9/11. Secondly, Mullah Omar the Taliban with no sign of Taliban-light. They has taken every opportunity to reject a deal. behead people. They disembowel people. They Thirdly, the Mecca process, where there has feel they have the strategic momentum. We been some dealings with people within the always seem to be talking about doing a deal, Taliban and members of the Afghan govern- that it would be quick and easy. I cannot ment, does not represent anybody involved in understand why they would want to do a deal. the actual insurgency. Fourthly, as Joanna I do not see what is in it for them, and I have Nathan pointed out, we have already seen not seen any sign that they ever abide by what the Pakistani Taliban did with their peace deals, from what we have seen in the past, deals. They used it as an opportunity to both within Afghanistan in Musa Qala and expand. The Taliban also feels that they are across the border in Waziristan. not losing, or maybe winning, so why do a deal now when they can get a better deal later? Roger Cressey: Finally, Mullah Omar is not Henry Kissinger. There is a long history of American govern- We have already run this particular videotape, ments striking deals with people and those which was after 9/11. He was prepared to lose deals never being fulfilled, and then we move absolutely everything on a point of principle. on to another deal. What I was trying to get at So why would he suddenly turn into a sort of is that I just do not think strategically that we foreign policy realist now? are in a place that this administration is going This is unfortunate for our strategy to make a decision to go in and defeat the because we are not going to win militarily Taliban in the way that the popular media has against the Taliban. But the reconciliation is been discussing this issue. I simply don’t see clearly going to be problematic. By the way, it. When I talk to military experts, current we are not reconciling with the Taliban. At the active duty or retired, they do not believe that end of the day, it is the Afghan government the footprint being discussed right now, that that has to reconcile. We are not even really a we’ll be there for the next several years, will party to the negotiations. We can maybe facili- accomplish that. tate by handing them some battlefield defeats. To Steve Simon’s point, there is going to So it is tough. be a middle option, but I do not know what it

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Roger Cressey: consensus. In this case, not only are Congress Believe me, I am not an advocate for this. I and the executive branch at odds, but the uni- am not saying we should cut a deal right now. formed military is at odds with the White I have seen part of this movie play out before House and the White House is at odds with when I was in the government in different itself. There are prominent people in the White areas of the world, and I can guarantee that House framework, like the vice president, there will come a point when we are going to attempting to stake out a position on try and find someone to make a deal with. To Afghanistan that is unlike the president’s – all the points that you guys just made, you are presumably not so unlike the president's as to absolutely right. That leads to the next ques- appear disloyal but enough to make it appear tion: Then what? “Then what” becomes really as though he is his own man and putting for- complicated. If we are not winning decisively ward a different vision of how to work this. on the battlefield, and yet we cannot figure out Then there is the really turbocharged public a way to create a cessation of hostilities in debate informed by all these weird issues like order to change the dynamic in the country, legitimacy and corruption that I talked about then it gets really complicated. earlier. With those kinds of cracks in the foun- dation, it is difficult to see a large troop com- Question (from the audience): mitment lasting all that much longer. But in There seems to be a problem in COIN right this case, as in the case of Iraq, “all that much now, which is the inability to conceive of leav- longer” is measured in years – probably three ing. It does not seem likely that we are going years or something like that, maybe a bit to leave Iraq, and it is unlikely that we will be longer. I do not think that that we are going to out of Afghanistan in five to 10 years if we be there forever. dig in. Roger Cressey made the point earlier I also do not think, for reasons that I sort that there will be pressure or simply a decision of explained earlier, that we are going to be to go in hard if there is a terrorist attack in going into every other country where there is New York or elsewhere involving Americans, a radical cleric, not so long as we have in which case we may be in a third place. Are Predators and Reapers that fire Hellfire mis- we committing as a democracy to long-term siles. That is going to be, I would expect, the social and political rehabilitation of every- countermeasure of choice in the coming years, where? Or is it only in areas where there is a as it has been since Abu Ali al Harithi was direct threat or perhaps a less-direct connec- killed in Yemen by one of those missiles. tion to a cleric who has some sort of safe haven or something that we describe that way? Roger Cressey: Where does this democracy draw the line? The bottom line is that we are not going to go heavy into every country, but any administra- Steven Simon: tion will always respond militarily to a signifi- First, we are getting out of Iraq. I think that is cant terrorism event. Say it is al Shabaab in guaranteed. If I had to hazard a guess, I would Somalia. We’ll do a variety of what we have say we’ll be leaving Afghanistan under some- done in the past – a combination of off-shore what similar circumstances and conditions assets, assets in the air, cruise missiles, because support for a long-standing commit- Special Forces, and maybe we will come in ment will erode. It is already not in good afterward and do humanitarian missions just shape, precisely because of the cracks in elite for old time’s sake.

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Con Caughlin (from the audience): withdrawn from the Iraqi cities. That sent a I think one of the key issues here is just how huge message to the Iraqi people that we were much will there is within the Taliban to fight. no longer the occupiers. So I think a status of I sense that there is a growing tiredness within forces agreement with Afghanistan, now that the Taliban leadership to maintain this con- we have essentially another five years of flict. Does the panel have any sense of how President Karzai, is something the Obama much longer the Taliban are prepared to fight? administration should be thinking about care- fully as a way to withdraw in a way that makes Peter Bergen: sense for all involved. Michael Semple, who has spent more time talking to the Taliban than anybody else in the Karen J. Greenberg: world, points out to them that the past eight But there are reasons not to have such an years have basically been a total failure in agreement, right? terms of their stated goals. The Taliban has yet to really take a significant town, let alone a Peter Bergen: city. Cearly they are trying to run out the It is a sovereign country. We have status of clock, as General Barno said. But I think you forces agreements with dozens of other coun- raise a very good point, and it is a point that tries. I do not know what the objections would Semple has tried to make in the process of try- be. ing to get these guys to the negotiating table, which is be realistic. The black flag of the Karen J. Greenberg: Taliban is not going to be flying over Kabul. One of the objections is the detention effort. The Taliban cannot do a Tet Offensive on There are a number of things that we need to Kabul in a million years. It is never going to get our own arms around before we go for- happen. The counterargument is that they have ward, and it would drastically alter how we did done their own kind of offensive on Kandahar, that. It may be just a matter of time, but there which was without tanks rolling into the are some issues, and that would be just one of streets, but just by a process of subversion them. they have taken over much of Kandahar city. That is not a very good answer, but I want Question (from the audience): to say one thing about a way out of this that In possibly that third option that Mr. we have not talked about today. It goes to Simon alluded to, do we see Iran or Saudi some things that I think Steve Simon was say- Arabia as some type of stabilizing nation in ing. A status of forces agreement with the something we do in Afghanistan? Afghan government would be a pretty smart way to begin to end many of the problems that Steven Simon: we have there. It would show that we are not No. going to be there forever, but in a way that is agreed upon. We are going to be out of Iraq as Peter Bergen: a result of the SOFA. One of the great things I am going to completely disagree with Steve about the SOFA is that it had real time limits Simon. According to Jim Dobbins, it was the in it. We would always have found a reason Iranians who first suggested having elections not to go out of the Iraqi cities. They always in Afghanistan. That is something the would have been too violent, but we have Americans had not even thought about, and

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they played, I think, a basically nonspoiler here today, I do not think that is so much the role. They could have played a spoiler role and case. I think that the United States – not only they haven’t. The Saudis could play an the United States, but the United States – has immensely important role, and they have tried a vast supply of knowledge resources and of to with the Mecca process. If the Taliban is capable individuals who can think about these essentially a religious movement (I think it is issues, and the facts, and the ideas. One won- more ideological, perhaps, than Joanna Nathan derful thing that did not come up today was does), at the end of the day the Saudis have an accusations that a particular fact or a particu- immense amount of influence over the ideo- lar interpretation was a result of politics rather logical component, and they are probably the than reality. only group of people that can facilitate these So whether you are optimistic or pes- kinds of agreements. Obviously, the United simistic, we have grown immensely even from States is not the right forum, but Saudi Arabia a little more than a year ago when probably is. Ambassador Holbrooke was here just prior to the election. We had a conference on Steven Simon: Afghanistan that he began, and that had four To borrow David Kilcullen’s colorful lan- panels that were similarly constituted with guage, Iran was the pooch that was screwed. very bright people – some of whom are back Their involvement in the way that they today, many of whom joined Petraeus’s team, involved themselves very constructively in and some of whom advise Holbrooke. The 2002 is not coming back in the foreseeable consistent theme of the day was that future. Afghanistan is not a place that we know how to manage our thoughts about and, as a result, Peter Bergen: maybe we shouldn’t be there. But the real Right. issue was a tremendous amount of controversy about what we even thought and how we Karen J. Greenberg: thought about it. That is not really here today I have no intention of trying to summarize in the same way. what was said today, but I do want to com- So I am going to end on an optimistic note ment on one persistent theme that I think you by saying that, at least if nothing else, we have need to make when you are in a university set- a baseline and I think that it is growing. It is ting. There has been tremendous frustration at part of the democratic experience to think that the military, diplomatic, and law-enforcement with more knowledge you find the right – and levels since the beginning of this serious if not the right, then at least the constructive – encounter with al Qaeda about the lack of solution. knowledge the United States has about its ene- mies and about the context in which those enemies identify themselves, thrive, are sup- ported, and are countered. We have grown immensely in our knowledge. It may not be perfect; we may all be part of General McChrystal’s bastion of people who do not know enough about where we are, who do not know languages, and so on. But after being

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