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George Will’s alternative in Afghanistan:
[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
Eh, I dunno. If a manhunter like Stanley McChrystal doesn’t think you can hunt extremists along a 1500-mile mountainous border — and think about that length for a moment — then it probably can’t be done. Erin Simpson’s reply is worth amplifying:
The intelligence demands are daunting and cannot be met from either the Indian Ocean or satellites in orbit. And even if they could, given the distances involved, such information is perishable. Only people on the ground — civilians and soldiers, Americans and Afghans — can secure the population and deny our adversaries the sanctuaries they crave.
Now, the reply here is something that may shape up to be the architecture of a Plan B. If we’re to believe that the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan are actually hitting their intended targets, then it follows that we don’t need a significant ground troop presence in Afghanistan to accomplish the minimal objectives of harassing and eroding the safehavens for al-Qaeda that Obama set out in his March 27 speech. We don’t have a combat-troop presence in Pakistan, after all, and yet somehow a human-intelligence network arose there in the last two-three years that resulted, at the bare minimum, in an increased number of strikes that the Obama administration considers too valuable to abandon, even in the face of blowback concerns. With all due respect to Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, who make the strongest case for the drone strikes around, I’m not sure anyone who isn’t inside the administration really knows how successful or unsuccessful it really is; and most of those insiders who think they do may not really know.
Maybe the drones program is really successful. Maybe it isn’t. It certainly carries a massive series of risks. If it turns out that counterinsurgency really doesn’t work in Afghanistan, then the drone strikes will probably become the bare bones of Plan B, as this fascinating AfPak Channel essay suggests.
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Um, just how many long-distance, long-endurance UAVs does Will think we actually own? Not nearly enough to keep eyes on the border.
How is an eternity of low-intensity bombing a good idea? Is it the real-world equivalent to an eternity of a(n American) boot on a(n Afghan) throat?
I kinda thought that our drone strikes in Pakistan became a big bunch more successful when the Pakistani Army started joining in the effort. Without people on the ground causing movement, it’s a whole lot harder.
Any push to stop giving Pakistan money until they get rid of Al Quieda we have given them billions they have done nothing. But now they must be used to the lifestyle of billions in stolen aid money. If we cut them off they might go after Al Quieda.
While it’s clumsily phrased and ill-formed, the basis of Will’s quote is correct. If you reach the conclusion that there is on real national security reason to engage the Taliban with ground forces, then to the extent that a national security threat arises in Afghanistan that our intelligence organizations become aware of, there is still a spectrum of options for disrupting it and killing or capturing it’s operational personnel.
Certainly, if you reach the conclusion that no significant real benefits are accruing from the troop presence, the range of alternatives includes options other than just walking away…
mikey
and if you reach the conclusion that you don’t want AQ camps re-forming and again operating in Afghanistan and you also conclude that no one else is going to prevent that, and you also conclude that you want to encourage the Pakistanis to end the safe havens in Pakistan….