My wrap of the McChrystal hearing on Afghanistan, just out from the Washington Independent. About 70 percent of it is me acting like Andrew Exum is my assignment editor. To wit:

 Although McChrystal comes from a background in special operations and oversaw task forces charged with manhunts for specific high-value terrorists, he repeatedly emphasized how his approach in Afghanistan would be guided by “classic counterinsurgency” precepts, such as protecting the population from insurgent assaults, rather than focusing primarily on killing and capturing insurgents. A “military-centric” strategy would not succeed, he told senators, and pledged to review “all” standard practices and rules of engagement to minimize civilian casualties, which have outraged Afghans and jeopardized the United States’ relationship with the Karzai government. Losing the support of the Afghan population would be “strategically decisive,” McChrystal said, meaning the war would be lost, and said he believed that adverse perceptions of the U.S. caused by civilian casualties is “one of the most dangerous enemies we face” in Afghanistan. Success will ultimately be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence.”

Over at Democracy Arsenal, Michael Cohen reads some of my McChrystal coverage and is dismayed to learn the general is a dyed in the wool counterinsurgent. I tend to agree with Michael’s overall fear that counterinsurgency is uncomfortably commensurate with imperialism. But unless you’re willing to make that the end of the conversation on McChrystal, or counterinsurgency — and I think that’s a mistake; it should be an entrance into a discussion — his specific concerns are rather overstated. For one thing, Michael reads McChrystal’s assertion that the U.S. should assist the Afghan people "with an opportunity to shape their future" and comments:

Our focus needs to be degrading the enemy, not some amorphous counter-insurgency goal.

It’s worth asking a simple question here. What’s in it for the Afghan civilian to cooperate with the U.S., actively or passively, against the Taliban, if the U.S. doesn’t provide for her basic needs? Degrading the enemy (by which Michael means killing or capturing him, not, like, humiliating him) is a worthy goal in a necessary war, and McChrystal said as much during his hearing. (I apologize if my reporting contributed to any misimpression to the contrary.) But insurgencies live and die through popular support, and the soldiers and marines in charge of "degrading" the enemy are not going to be able to distinguish between enemy and civilian without the support of the civilians themselves. And that goes back to the question of what incentives exist for our Afghan civilian to bandwagon with the U.S./Kabul-government side rather than the insurgent side, and how the U.S./Kabul-government side can tip those incentives in their favor. Without doing that, the degradation of the enemy is going to be a non-starter. Herein lies the value of a counterinsurgency campaign. McChrystal’s specific value-added here is, of course, unproven as yet, but it’s sensible to want a commander who understands this dynamic.

Now perhaps Afghanistan really is unwinnable at this point. I’m unconvinced of that proposition, but it would be foolish to rule it out. If so, it won’t be because counterinsurgency has created an impossible task. It’ll be because — well, it’ll be because of many things, but among them will be the enemy-centric approach of the last eight years of the war have foreclosed a population-centric strategy as an option.