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If you never read another word I write about Afghanistan strategy, please read this, hinging off an interview Gen. Petraeus did with NPR.
It’s a shame that Inskeep moved on to a different line of questioning. Because this sounds very much like Petraeus acknowledging that the U.S. cannot and will not kill every last al-Qaeda operative. What it can do, along with its Pakistani partners — and can’t do without them — is degrade al-Qaeda-central’s safe haven and harass it militarily when possible, so that it can’t export the extremism that senior officials continue to see emanating from the region. There’s a word for that: containment.
“Containment” in the post-9/11 age has acquired an unfortunate pejorative connotation. The Bush administration contrasted “containment” with “victory,” and repeatedly said that it was impossible to contain stateless terrorist networks. In doing so, George W. Bush ended up overtaxing American power without ever articulating how “victory” could be achieved; accordingly, it never was. But al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has proven over the past eight years that it does seek to hold territory, operating from somewhere. Reducing its ability to branch out from that place effectively limits the threat it poses, and gives U.S. and allied forces a place to respond if the cordon proves to be porous.
But is this actually how the Obama administration conceives of how the endgame is achieved — which is to say, an endgame that looks more like long-term vigilance and partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan? When I posed that question in March to Denis McDonough, one of the most influential of Obama’s advisers, that seemed to be his answer. But the actual answer still remains unarticulated — by President Obama, by his critics, and by the entire constellation of U.S. foreign-policy analysts. And if containment is the answer, does the U.S. transition to Afghan security forces beginning in 2011 mean subcontracting out the military edge of containment to the Afghans?
I think that gets, at least somewhat, to the question of why the Obama administration won’t send, as Marcy and Sen. Feingold ask, troops to Somalia. But the logic of their question still haunts the strategy.
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Aye Spencer, did you happen to see the interview Rachel Maddow did with Susan Rice I believe on Wednesday night? And if so what did you think of it? I think Ambassador Rice actually was speaking of containment without using the term when Rachel asked her about why not send troops to Somalia. It actually made a point that should have been obvious but that I had not really thought of in terms of thinking why we should stay in Afghanistan and escalate. That being, yes Al Qaeda is in Pakistan now, however if we were to leave they would hurry back across the porous border to Afghanistan because Pakistan is now hunting them up in their country and also because the Taliban would provide them areas to thrive in.
“And if containment is the answer, does the U.S. transition to Afghan security forces beginning in 2011 mean subcontracting out the military edge of containment to the Afghans?”
Okay, first of all, how can US forces “subcontract” military security efforts to the country in which the actions are taking place? Isn’t a more accurate term “transition”? It’s their damn country!! No one would be relegating DOD operations for containment to another country. That’s insane. We still have the responsibility to contain the threat, if it cannot be deterred or destroyed.
And worst case, if the Taliban were to take over the country again, why do so many people assume that they will throw open the coffers to AQ? Maybe the Taliban leadership – such that it is – will be a little more wary about inviting in “guests” who have a permenant target painted on their backs, no? If/When the US military leaves Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Pakistani army is more likely to ease up its operations, thus eliminating the need for AQ to flee to more hospitable climates. Think it out.
Didn’t see it but heard it was good. Will check the YouTubes.
I’d agree that subcontract did seem like an odd term to use.
Also, a containment doctrine could explain why we’re not in Somalia but not why we are in Afghanistan.
I think it is possible to construct a consistent case for staying in Afghanistan but not going into Somalia. You can start with the fact the we are already in Afghanistan and that deciding how to end an occupation isn’t the same as deciding whether to start a new one. However, that isn’t the case that the administration is making.
@gregsanders @jasonsigger, I don’t think “subcontract” is an odd word at all. If I was talking about subcontracting the security of Afghanistan to Afghan security forces, then yes, that would be an odd thing to say. But I’m wondering about subcontracting the containment of the al-Qaeda safe havens to them. That’s an American military priority, which the Afghans may or may not embrace. As a result, relying on them to carry it out is indeed subcontracting.
okay I didn’t that from the original paragraph. But I submit that it is still not appropriate language – I don’t think the military subcontracts its “containment” operations to anyone (even Blackwater). It’s one thing to contract out intel gathering or security ops, but something like this you don’t trust to a junior partner – especially not a bunch of former heroin addicts managed by warlords with drug money connections (yes, I mean the Afghan security forces, not the others).
So in this case, I suppose the analogy would be interdicting North Korean arms proliferation. Preventing North Korean invasion is a classic matter of South Korean security. On the other hand South Korean security is not particularly compromised by sales to Iran. Both working against the proliferation and the invasion could fall under a containment strategy.
All that said, transition is first and foremost about responsibility for providing Afghan security, right? Pakistan does provide a model for separating the security issue from the containing al-Qaeda issue. I would think that if the Afghans were amenable, we’d presumably want to work out a similar arrangement, albeit with basing rights which we can avoid in Pakistan thanks to Afghanistan.
Of course, if the Afghan’s aren’t amenable, then we do get into the sub-contracting issue I suppose.
So let me get this straight. We’re going to start thinking seriously about drawing down in 18 months, and the CentCom commander envisions a long-range strategy of containing and “militarily harassing,” not “destroying,” Al Qaeda? And Biden lost this fight?