Afganistan - Sec Pol

The Obama Administration: Toward a Troop "Surge"

A. The Decisional Backdrop B. The December 2009 Decision C. The Decisional Aftermath In early 2009: With approximately 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan, Obama agreed in assuming office to send 17,000 more and then another 4,000 in March. That would bring US force levels in Afghanistan to around 60,000 troops and the entire NATO-country contribution to roughly 90,000 troops by late summer. In May, Obama dismissed General David McKiernan. His Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had concluded that McKiernan's traditional background and approach would not serve a mission that required new resources and drew more heavily from counterinsurgency principles. Signs of a potential retraction in administration policy were evident as early as March 2009. The Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan arguably offered modest and selective recommendations. Whereas the high-level assessment team, appointed to advise the president on US war strategy, was admittedly near unanimous in its support for "executing and resourcing an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan," its strategic emphasis was another matter. The assessment stressed the importance of building up institutions at the provincial and local levels, recognized the need to monitor, and obtain leverage, to deal with a corrupt central government in Afghanistan, and gave priority - in building centralized institutions - not to a democratic and representative government in Kabul but instead to its security forces. Indeed, when the assessment team's chair, Bruce Riedel, briefed the president, he stressed that the US focus should be on Pakistan. The assessment did not offer a specific recommendation on force levels: indeed, it was not clear to Riedel that the strategy required additional forces, beyond those previously authorized. The US military, by contrast, planned for a wide-ranging - and costly - upgrading of the US mission in Afghanistan. That was clear from the strategic assessment, delivered by General Stanley McChrystal at the end of August 2009 in response to a June request by the Secretary of Defense. The Commander's Initial Assessment - a secret assessment, leaked to the Washington Post - grimly described the current US challenge in Afghanistan. Obama new that an additional troop request from the military was forthcoming. It would arrive in the form of three options. An optimal initial force of 80,000, a low force of 20,000, and a make-do force of 40,000. Obama seemed to split the difference between the low-end force of 20,000 and 40,000. Biden and others argued for a force of 5,000-10,000. Counterinsurgency advocates (General McChrystal, General Petraeus, and Hillary Clinton) versus the skeptics in the administration (Vice President Biden, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, among them). Biden argued for a counterterrorism mission requiring far fewer boots on the ground and a focus on Pakistan. The president grew increasingly wary of the war's direction as he came to recognize the high costs of achieving something approximating a victory over the Taliban. His advisors claim, in fact, that the August 2009, Afghan election was a watershed for the president. The election produced widespread fraud -- ballot stuffing, inaccurate counts, bribery, voter intimidation, and all the rest. Adding insult to injury, Karzai attempted to deflect charges of fraud by protesting outside interference in the election. He even accused the United Nations of trying to manipulate the election to install a puppet government in Afghanistan. The election dragged on for months - the results prompting endless charges and countercharges -- before Karzai's opponent preempted a runoff by quitting the race in disgust. Events would not ease Obama's doubts. In November 2009, Obama received bracing evaluations from Ambassador Eikenberry of malfeasance in the Afghan government and its prospects for change, transmitted to Washington in two classified cables (subsequently leaked to the New York Times). In Eikenberry's view, the Afghan government lacked essential capacities to partner effectively in the US-led war effort: a US counterinsurgency effort required the Afghan government to perform at levels in excess of its military, economic, and political capabilities. Under Karzai's leadership, it was loath to reform or carry its weight. Committing additional US military and economic resources to the fight would only encourage further malfeasance; indeed, it would reinforce Karzai's belief that the United States would nonetheless persevere by shouldering the burden. Obama had come to recognize that for one or more reasons - corruption, a self-interested aversion to reform, political rivalry, and low capacity - the Afghan government's performance would fall painfully short. The president recognized, then, that he had to act. In the late summer and fall, over a three-month period, Obama joined his advisors in ten, lengthy sessions for a thorough reassessment of Afghan war strategy. By all available accounts, the deliberations were painstakingly rigorous: the president remained highly engaged. He challenged his advisors to provide information, and express and support their opinions. Under his direction, the discussions focused first on conditions in Afghanistan: the president wanted to understand "the problem" before entertaining solutions. After months of deliberations, a compromise emerged. The administration would not endorse a major buildup nor accept Biden's proposed shift to counterterrorist operations. The new policy was designed for "proof of concept," reflecting Biden's doubts that a COIN strategy would succeed. The US military was to receive 30,000 additional troops to implement the strategy, paired with a withdrawal of US forces from less populated or hard-to-defend outposts in the north and east of Afghanistan. A nationwide progress assessment (on all aspects of the mission) was mandated for December 2010; a decision on the ongoing mission was to follow in July 2011, as the United States commenced a drawdown of its forces. The focus of US policy had shifted, now, to achieving success at the provincial and local levels and training the Afghan military to permit a US handoff of security responsibilities. The administration had concluded that security in Afghanistan would depend, not on its central government, but on building cooperative relationships with provincial governors, tribal leaders, local militia, and perhaps even Taliban elements. Counterinsurgency references were noticeably missing from the strategy, as outlined in a presidential memo. Indeed, the memo spoke to Biden's aversions: "This new approach is not fully resourced counterinsurgency or nation-building, but a narrower approach tied more tightly to the core goal of disrupting, dismantling and eventually defeating al Qaeda and preventing al Qaeda's return to safe haven in Afghanistan or Pakistan [italics added]." Notwithstanding the rigors of the decision process, evidence abounds that the deliberations were designed, above all else, to contain the costs of the Afghan operation. The dutiful deliberations thus revealed symptoms of a cost-driven policy. With the US mission floundering, the Obama administration opted for a US-force "surge" into Afghanistan. It hoped to regain the initiative and turn the tide against the Taliban insurgency. But the president had grown wary of the direction of the war effort. He recognized - apparently, early -- the high costs of scoring a win against the Taliban and the reality that the Afghan government would remain an unreliable and ineffective US partner. His efforts to extend the US presence in Afghanistan, by borrowing a late-stage strategy from the Iraq playbook, provoked fractious debate among the president's advisors over war costs and priorities. When the president chose finally to send additional forces to Afghanistan, he sought to constrict the mission. His intentions were apparent when he pressed his advisors insistently for less costly options; gave the US military fewer troops than it said it needed; imposed a compressed timeline for assessing the success of his surge; and established a modest (indeed, somewhat nebulous) mission for US forces, which they could not help but achieve. His goal was not to defeat the Taliban and build viable, transparent, and effective central-government institutions. Nor was it even to ensure that Afghan security force could carry the load with a US departure. His goal was to weaken the Taliban - to "reverse its momentum" - in order to create an environment in which Afghan forces could hold their own. Missing, then, from the extensive discussions, leading to the president's surge decision, was an overriding sense of what the infusion of US troops should, or could, accomplish.

Extricating US Forces

A. The Obama Administration: Setting (and Resetting) a Withdrawal Deadline Roughly a year after the surge decision, the administration had a plan for the phased withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. By year's end, 2014, it would cede full responsibility for security in Afghanistan to its security forces. The administration planned to facilitate the exit by increasing Afghan army and police personnel totals from their current level, of 264,000, to 350,000, by the end of 2013. The United States would gradually turn provinces over to Afghan control, under the US military's mindful watch. It would postpone the transition of the least secure provinces, like Kandahar in the south, until the end of 2012. In June 2011, President Obama announced, in a televised address, that the 33,000-strong surge force would leave Afghanistan in phases over the next 15 months, with a third of the additional force out of Afghanistan over the next six months. By September 2012, that would still leave 70,000 US troops in the country. In May 2014, President Obama announced his exit plan: by the end of 2014, the US combat role in Afghanistan would end. In the president's words, "the Afghans will be fully responsible for securing their country." The United States would agree only to train Afghan forces and engage in counterterror operations. The president had officially accepted the "Biden model," and, once again, resisted professional military opinion. His military commanders had recommended that the president leave at least 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, for several years. That would allow the US military to advise Afghan troops directly on the battlefield. The president was pressed, however, to stem the Taliban advances, and prevent (or, at least, forestall) an Afghan military collapse. In October 2015, Obama revised his withdrawal schedule after an intensive reassessment. He now expected to leave 5,500 US troops in Afghanistan after he left office. US troops would remain at bases in Bagram, Jalalabad, and Kandahar, continue to train Afghan troops, and conduct counterterror operations. In May 2014, President Obama had articulated the principles of exit with his troop withdrawal plans: "We have to recognize Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not America's responsibility to make it one." Events forced him, repeatedly, to delay the US departure, and to expand the US military role in that country. But, even with deteriorating conditions on the ground, he did not retract his initial commitment; and he continued to work around his departure schedule. He did not reintroduce US forces into Afghanistan; instead, he delayed their exit from the country and limited US troops to an enabling and over-watch role. Despite mounting evidence that Afghan forces - and the Afghan government - were ill-equipped to take the lead, he supplied only the support required to avoid imminent defeat. As Obama added, in his 2014 announcement, "the future of Afghanistan must be decided by Afghans." The president was pressed, then, to stem the Taliban advances, and prevent (or, at least, forestall) an Afghan military collapse. In October 2015, Obama revised his withdrawal schedule after an intensive reassessment. He now expected to leave 5,500 US troops in Afghanistan after he left office. US troops would remain at bases in Bagram, Jalalabad, and Kandahar, continue to train Afghan troops, and conduct counterterror operations. Yet, conditions in the country continued to deteriorate. By April 2016, at least 20 percent of the country, in large pockets throughout the north, south, east, and west, remained contested or under Taliban control. Although the Taliban did not yet control major provincial cities, it maintained sanctuaries throughout the country from which to threaten those cities. The increasing violence registered in internal civilian displacement. In the first six months of 2016 alone, around 150,000 people had fled their homes to escape the violence. Obama now walked back his commitment to curtail the US combat role. US forces had not joined Afghan military forces in battle since 2014, when the United States had officially ended its combat operations in Afghanistan. Moreover, airstrikes had been restricted to exceptional circumstances: defending against a direct threat to coalition or Afghan forces or forestalling an Afghan "strategic defeat." In June 2016, however, the president authorized US personnel to accompany Afghan forces in combat offensives, an implicit acknowledgment that the depleted US presence, and shift to counterterrorist operations, had left Afghan security forces unable to prevent insurgent advances. US ground personnel could now call in air strikes, and commanders had greater latitude to authorize them. Under the revised guidance, US airstrikes could serve as enablers in Afghan offensive operations. The departure schedule also continued to slow. Whereas the US troop contribution to the ISAF mission, currently at 6,800 troops, was to drop by half by the end of 2016, with another 2,000 US troops engaged in counterterrorism operations, Obama planned now (as announced in July 2016) to keep around 8,400 troops in Afghanistan - maintaining six major bases - when he left office. B. The Trump Administration The first year of the Trump administration did not produce a significant upswing in US action. By 2018, the United States planned to bring US force levels to around 15,000 troops in the country and task advisory teams to work with Afghan troops at the battalion level. It also conducted airstrikes at a ferocious pace, under more limited rules of engagement. Between August and December of 2017, the United States and its Afghan ally conducted 2,000 airstrikes, nearing the total number for all of 2015 and 2016 combined. Yet the US commitment depended on the Taliban's willingness to negotiate, when the number of Afghan soldiers and police in uniform declined dramatically, in 2017, and the Afghan government was progressively losing its hold on the country. With the year ending, the Afghan government controlled just over half of the country's districts - then, a 16 percent drop from the levels in late 2015. Given Trump's limited affection for the Afghan mission, a largely indifferent public, and a war that had lasted too long, does the administration have the will, or the practical latitude, to do much more? C. Hitting the Wall: Afghanistan's Institutional Failings - Goat, GDP, etc

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, established by the United Nations Security Council in December 2001 by Resolution 1386, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and assist Afghanistan in rebuilding key government institutions, but was also engaged in the war with the Taliban insurgency. In a donor-country meeting in Geneva in April 2002, the United States agreed to lead the army-reform effort, as part of a five-pillar security plan. Under the plan, Germany, Italy, Britain, and Japan would lead police reform; justice reform; counter-narcotics; and disarmament, demilitarization, and reintegration, respectively. Rumsfeld, with good reason, later lamented this attempt to create a division-of-labor among US allies "without any realistic assessment of their ability to deliver." In his words, it yielded "a series of unfulfilled pledges by well-intentioned but poorly equipped coalition partners." The Bush administration left the US military to fight with severe constraints. It had failed to plan for a lengthy stay in Afghanistan; wanted, now, to expedite a US exit from the country; and, with its turn toward Iraq, left the US military to survive on dwindling resources. The US mission in Afghanistan expanded, as the US military took charge of training Afghan security forces, continued counterterrorism operations, and channeled resources into national stabilization and development. Yet US leaders left the US military to define the Afghan mission through default. Delegation fostered wide gaps between what US civilian leaders sought to achieve, what the US military, more ambitiously, hoped to achieve, and what the US military could actually deliver given formidable challenges and limited resources. With the disconnect, US civilian officials presumed falsely that the US military could meet ambitious goals for enlarging the Afghan army and police; the Afghan government would unify, reform, and build its capacity sufficiently to assist the US-led effort; the regional handover of OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] responsibilities to ISAF would both follow and facilitate the geographical extension of security in the country; and the war was essentially over, requiring neither an injection of resources nor the administration's full attention. Rumsfeld would eventually intervene to pull the military command in Afghanistan back into line. With the appointment of a new US military commander, Rumsfeld delivered a clear message: build up the Afghan military so that it could take charge. Still, Rumsfeld could not, through sheer force of will, mandate the Afghan institutional development, alliance cohesion, and security improvements required for an easy US exit from the conflict. ISAF slowly extended its national reach and involvement in military combat. It eventually assumed control of all five of Afghanistan's "regions," starting in Kabul and then moving in a counterclockwise direction, with a different NATO country taking the lead in each region. In July 2006 ISAF extended its presence into the south of Afghanistan to cover six additional provinces, including Helmand and Kandahar (adding four PRTs to its holdings). ISAF completed the integration process in October 2006, when it acquired responsibility for the troubled eastern portion of the country from the US-led coalition Important - Caveats

Implications

1) The administration gave little thought to the implications of regime change on the future stability of Afghanistan, or its neighbors. Yes, the administration appreciated that deposing the Taliban invited some costs and risks. After all, it demonstrated some initial reluctance to take on the Taliban. Despite Bush's early vow to punish terrorists and those who "harbor" them alike, the administration did try to leverage a split between the Taliban and al-Qaeda hoping (albeit without much optimism) that the Afghan government would surrender the terror group's leaders. In addition, participants expressed some misgivings about US military action in Afghanistan. For example, Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice voiced concerns that potential instability might spread to Pakistan; Rice also acknowledged the danger of the United States becoming entrapped in Afghanistan, much like Britain and the Soviet Union once had. Still, decisional participants treated their concerns as potential reasons to strike some other country, for an easier win, not as reasons to explore - and address -- the potential complications of an Afghan operation. A war with Iraq featured in the discussions. An all-important question would arise - with time. A full month after the September-11 attacks, with the start of US military operations, Bush supposedly asked the principals, "Who will run the country?" At that point, Rice apparently "was beginning to understand that that was the critical question [italics added]." The focus in the early discussions had been on taking down states because states presumably fall easily. For example, Cheney observed, "it's easier to find them than it is to find bin Laden." Likewise, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld noted that terrorists "don't have armies and navies and air forces that one can go battle against. They don't have capital cities with high-value assets that they're reluctant to lose." Yet no one was seriously asking, "What happens when they break?" Some insights into Rumsfeld's thinking emerge from a memo he wrote on October 30, 2001, to Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, with copies requested for other national-security principals. The memo made the destruction of al-Qaeda and the Taliban the clear priority. In Rumsfeld's view, considerations of governance in a post-Taliban Afghanistan should not determine the progress of the war: The United States "should not agonize over post-Taliban arrangements to the point that it delays success over Al Qaida and the Taliban." Moreover, the United States should head for the exit with the accomplishing of that goal: "The U.S. should not commit to any post-Taliban military involvement since the U.S. will be heavily engaged in the anti-terrorism effort worldwide." Rumsfeld had two apparent priorities in Afghanistan: a) vanquishing the adversary and b) not getting stuck. Once engaged, he wanted to move quickly to destroy the enemy, and then leave. 2) The principals defined the adversary expansively - indeed, indiscriminately. Envisioning the enemy in global terms, it had to see any long-term strategy for Afghanistan as an encumbrance. In the president's view, as articulated in his September-20 speech, the United States was now engaged in a war against global terrorism: "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." Indeed, the president rejected a less grandiose draft statement from his National Security Council Deputies Committee: it limited the US war effort to groups that threatened "our way of life." In doing so, Bush defined the terrorist enemy implicitly by its tactics and capabilities not its goals or grievances. The war that Bush outlined, then, took inadequate account of the enormity of the task; its counter-productiveness, should it spread or galvanize opposition to the West; or the support that it would render to oppressive governments that could then cloak their brutality, against dissidents and separatists, in the rhetoric and symbolism of Bush's global fight. Opinion coalesced, eventually, around forgoing an attack on Iraq: in Powell's view, going after Saddam Hussein would "'wreck' the coalition." Yet the challenge only kicked the issue into the future. Bush ended the Iraq-first discussion by giving his blessing to war planning for an eventual war with Iraq. He and his advisors viewed the September-11 attacks - unanimously, it seems -- as requiring an ever-expanding mission against a broadly defined adversary. 3) The administration was unjustifiably optimistic that (in Afghanistan and elsewhere) other states would yield to US preferences in the war on terror. Administration officials took note of the unprecedented outpouring of international sympathy, and support, for the United States in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. NATO - for the first time in its history - invoked Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. Accordingly, members considered the "armed attack" against the United States "an attack against them all" (requiring that each member take actions that "it deems necessary"). But how much could the United States rely on its potential (non-NATO) regional partners in the fight? Pakistan was a critical partner but its cooperation would not come easily. The president's war cabinet seemed impressed by their blunt challenge to Pakistan's leaders. On September 12, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Pakistan's ISI chief, Mahmoud Ahmed in a 15-minute meeting to convey an unequivocal message: "Pakistan must either stand with the United States in its fight against terrorism or stand against us. There was no maneuvering room." The following day, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, referencing that conversation, informed Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, that US relations with his country were "at a turning point" - Pakistan "was either with us or not with us." "Action now is the only language that matters." The message was reinforced, that day, when Colin Powell told Musharraf, "the American people would not understand if Pakistan was not in this fight with the U.S." This strong and unwavering US stance - communicated in many voices -- would surely show Pakistan that it could no longer play the United States for a fool. Musharraf eventually claimed that Armitage threatened, through the ISI chief, to bomb his country "back to the Stone Age" if it failed to cooperate in the US-led effort against the Taliban regime. The administration had good reason, nonetheless, to remain wary of the Pakistan government. President Musharraf had backed down before in the face of Islamic protests; now, he and his generals engaged in long and intense debate over whether to comply with US demands. Moreover, Pakistan's ISI had a long history of association with Islamic elements in Afghanistan - a fact that Ahmed tellingly denied when Armitage confronted him: he said he wanted to dispel the "misperception" of his country "'being in bed' with those threatening U.S. interests." Pakistan, to the contrary, had always viewed the issue as "black and white." President Musharraf also defended his country, telling the US ambassador that Pakistan has always been and will be a "front line state" in the fight (presumably, from the context of the remarks) with the Taliban. For the US intelligence community, however, the reality was equally clear: the ISI had a long history of entanglement with nefarious Islamic groups including the Taliban. Ironically, when the Clinton administration launched cruise missiles against terror camps in Afghanistan, the camps were being used by Pakistan's ISI to train Islamic guerrillas for action against India (in particular, in Kashmir). Of course, the Pakistan government conceded -- officially -- to US demands. Still, Pakistan's leaders also gained a critical US concession: the Bush administration lifted economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan for its 1998 nuclear test. They were also acting now under duress. Would the Pakistan government continue to cooperate once the shock of 9/11 subsided? When it faced internal pressure to resist US demands (including that it end its long-standing support to Islamic groups opposed to India)? When it recognized that it could credibly deny the Pakistan military's ongoing support for the Taliban? When it believed that the Afghan government threatened Pakistan's interests? Or, for that matter, when the United States sought to reduce its profile, at some point, in Afghanistan leaving Pakistan to fend for itself and protect its interests? 4) The administration had not set its priorities to determine the resource share that it would, and should, devote to the Afghan-war effort. For that purpose, administration officials could have planned around the limits of the terrorist threat. After all, the September-11 hijackers relied on tactics that could work once: they depended on an open-cockpit door and compliant passengers (who chose not to confront men armed only with box cutters). They might also have considered the merits of a defensive over an offensive strategy. For example, the administration could have prioritized homeland defense, stressing border security, increased vigilance, and protection of vulnerable and lucrative targets. Instead, the administration (much like the US public) envisioned a boundless terror threat to the United States: terrorists, thriving with sponsorship from so-called rogue states (an axis of evil connecting Iran, North Korea, and Iraq) and armed with the world's most odious weapons, threatened entire cities. In consequence, the administration assumed that, to succeed, the United States must do all things well. It mobilized the US government broadly to disrupt and destroy the terrorist financial, intelligence, logistical, and military network, assuming the threat required an intensive and wide-ranging global response. It took the offense and defense, at home and abroad. The resulting profusion of policies, on multiple fronts, stretched available resources and begged the question, "Did the administration actually have a strategy?"

V. After the Taliban: Development, Governance, and Security

A. Under-Resourcing Stabilization and Development B. Underestimating the Challenge to Building an Afghan Security Force C. Undue Optimism Concerning Afghan Government Capabilities D. Overestimating Allied Military Contributions E. Underestimating the Taliban Challenge

The Taliban in Afganistan

A. the Russian Invasion, 1979, and the Resulting Insurgency B. the Triumph of the Taliban The Soviet exodus created new threats and opportunities for rival insurgent groups: they had fought Soviet troops but not as a coherent, united fighting force. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the eventual leader of the Taliban and government of Afghanistan, emerged from the anti-Soviet resistance - as a fighter for a CIA-favored commander, no less -- to become a potent political and military force in the country. He built his militia, in his home base of Kandahar, by channeling grievances and religious zeal within the large Pashtun community on both sides of the Pakistan border. The Taliban seized control of Kandahar, attracting a bounty of fresh recruits, and then gained control of surrounding provinces by pummeling, coercing, coopting, or simply buying off the opposition. Within two years of its emergence in 1994, the Taliban controlled 22 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan including Kabul, the capital. A complete Taliban victory was thwarted, however, by rival warlords (Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara), who maintained fiefdoms in the northern portion (constituting ten percent) of the country.

Lead up to 9/11

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bombings that took place eight years to the day after US troops were ordered to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden considered the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a grave offense. August 7, 1998 - Almost simultaneously, bombs explode at US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people. More than 5,000 are wounded. August 20, 1998 - The United States launches cruise missiles at suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan Sudan, in retaliation for the embassy bombings.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of the 9/11 Attacks

Allegedly financed the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center Presented the initial 9/11 plans to Osama bin Laden Allegedly water boarded 183 times at a secret interrogation site in Poland: confessions are controversial (for various reasons)

Tora Bora

Lingering controversy The operation, in December 2001, at the al-Qaeda redoubt at Tora Bora became the centerpiece—fairly or unfairly—of popular analyses of the administration's war strategy. Critics claim that the US military had "outsourced" the mission of hunting down bin Laden—and along with him, perhaps over a thousand al-Qaeda fighters—to venal and incompetent local militiamen. Short on initiative and commitment, they made their own deal with the al-Qaeda suspects, allowing them to slip across the border and take refuge in the tribal regions of western Pakistan. The criticism is not without merit. The US military command refused to put boots on the ground to block an escape, despite the entreaties of Henry Crumpton, the CIA coordinator for Afghanistan. He appealed directly to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, to no avail. Critics claim that the administration lost a critical opportunity to deliver a potentially decisive blow. They argue that US special forces personnel had successfully traversed the forbidding terrain to call in air strikes against entrenched al-Qaeda positions, and that US forces had the tenacity and capability to prevail, as they would soon demonstrate on a similar battleground in the Shahi Kowt Valley. These arguments deserve some scrutiny. If the critics are right, US ground forces could have advanced, with necessary haste, through the steep mountain passes and rugged terrain of Tora Bora. They could have moved against fixed enemy positions and avoided ambushes, coping with high altitudes and extreme weather. They could then have found and searched the extensive cave networks that housed al-Qaeda remnants while blocking (from the opposing direction) their short retreat across the border into Pakistan. But the case for the mission was apparently not decided on its specific merits. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General Franks refused to approve the mission, drawing from the logic of the US war plan, which advised making a light US footprint in the country. The preference to avoid entanglements, casualties, and local pushback from a large conventional force overrode the thinking of US military commanders in Afghanistan that "the risks were worth the reward." In this important sense, Tora Bora offers a view of the US war strategy, and its deficiencies, in microcosm. The war supported a military strategy divorced from considerations of overall benefits and costs.

The 2001-02 defeat of the Taliban

On November 10, 2001, CIA paramilitary officers and Northern Alliance militia joined US army special-forces operators in the north of the country to assail Taliban positions protecting Mazar-e Sharif. When the city fell, the so-called "Afghanistan model" was established. A small US ground presence - special operations forces to coordinate ground operations and air force spotters to target aerial strikes - would soften or destroy enemy positions, opening them to primitive assaults by local militia (in Mazar-e Sharif, on horseback, carrying Soviet-era weapons). The Northern Alliance, composed largely of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara, moved methodically to establish control over cities and territory in the north of the country, and Kabul, the capital. The Taliban oddly played to US military strengths by concentrating forces in vulnerable positions outside the major cities. Pinpoint air strikes and powerful bombs exacted their toll on Taliban fighters, whether they hid in trenches, mobilized for offense, or ran from attacks. With the defeat of the Taliban in the north, the US military turned its attention to the less-hospitable south and east of the country where the Taliban reigned and ethnic hostilities precluded US reliance on a force of Tajiks and Uzbeks. The US military benefited enormously, then, when it received backing from Pashtun leaders -- most significantly, Hamid Karzai, who would become the first president of Afghanistan of the post-Taliban period. In December, Kandahar -- where Mullah Omar had built his base -- surrendered to Karzai and those who had rallied around him.

Connecting the Afghan War to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq (important issues to think about)

Specific Issues 1.The challenges encountered in promoting a democratic transition given the ability of nationalist, religious, and sectarian leaders to sabotage those efforts for their own purposes. 2.The human and material resources, and patience, required to implement counterinsurgency. 3.The limits of a counterterrorism strategy absent the benefits of counterinsurgency. 4.The strong incentive of the local government to free ride: passing the burden of the fighting, etc. to the outside party while pursuing its own political and pecuniary interests. General Issues (Questions) 1.Did US leaders make decisions with adequate consideration of costs, available resources, and operational goals? 2.Still, could any ambitious US operation succeed in these countries given the required levels of domestic transformation and thus the time and resources required to produce change? 3.Could an outside power have produced these changes given the "outsider disadvantage?" What became then of ambitious US plans for Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? 4.How do you define "success" in these kinds of wars? How then do you know whether to stay or leave? 5.Could the United States have succeeded if pursuing more limited goals from the start? If so, would the resulting "success" have been worth the price?

Afganistan Geography

The Pashtun constitute half of Afghanistan's population and most of the population of southern and eastern Afghanistan and reside in even larger numbers in the tribal regions on the Pakistan side of the border.

US relationship to the Afghan Taliban

The Taliban's rigid Islamist practices and restrictions sparked international condemnation, but its embrace of al-Qaeda (as a non-Afghan ideological and military partner) made Afghanistan a priority US security issue. During the Clinton administration, the Taliban leadership placed Afghanistan in the crosshairs of successive UN Security Council resolutions - and a 1998 US cruise-missile strike - by giving al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, a safe haven and allowing him to use Afghanistan as a base for recruiting, training, and planning attacks on US interests. After September 11, 2001, the tight relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban was its undoing.

The Bush Administration and the Decision to Act: Neglected Considerations

The deadly al-Qaeda attacks made war almost inevitable. President Bush claims that he knew from the moment the second plane struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center that the United States was at war. Indeed, within days of the attack, Bush had authorized the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists; US strategic bombers were preparing for a long-distance bombing campaign; and US supplies, carrier groups, and bombers were prepositioning closer to the combat zone. On September 14, 2001, the US Congress passed (through a joint resolution) the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Terrorists. Signed four days later by the president, it authorized the president to take action "against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States." It amounted to a declaration of war that would give legislative cover to a war in Afghanistan and an open-ended, legal basis for Bush and his successor, Barack Obama, to target terror groups around the world. The Bush administration thus had strong justification for going to war, especially once the Afghan government proved unwilling to compromise. The president outlined US demands in a speech before a September-20 joint session of Congress. There, he insisted that the Taliban "deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land," "close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan," and "hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities." Not surprisingly, Taliban leaders stood defiant. Disclosures from these discussions support claims that the administration was inattentive from the start to the challenges of fighting and winning in Afghanistan. The discussions reveal multiple signs of "fixation"—that is, (non-rational) mission-based thinking.

The US and Northern Alliance A. Military Challenges B. the US War Strategy

The president and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld - the administration's point man on Afghanistan - tasked the US Central Command (CENTCOM) to develop a full range of military options for Afghanistan, from air and missile attacks to an all-out ground invasion. The National Security Council had initially presented President Bush with two alternatives. The Joint Chiefs of Staff favored deploying multiple US divisions in Afghanistan for action against the Taliban, months into the future; the CIA favored a plan to bring US airpower, US special forces, and local militia to bear more quickly, in lethal combination, to purge the country of the Taliban. The CIA plan won out. Rumsfeld clearly favored the "unconventional" approach. He ardently believed that US advantages in command, control, communications, and intelligence, and edges in mobility, firepower, and precision, allowed the United States to win wars -- quickly and efficiently - and depart, with similar haste, to avoid occupational burdens. His thinking found a home in the administration. George Bush, as early as the 2000 presidential campaign, made his aversion to (post-war) nation building clear; he did so again, to his advisors, early in the Afghan operation. The resulting plan was a historical first: the CIA, not the US military, would take the lead in US war planning. George Tenet, the CIA director, and Cofer Black, his counterterrorism chief, outlined the basic plan to the president and National Security Council two days after the September-11 attacks. With Rumsfeld's support, CENTCOM (under the command of General Tommy Franks) responded with option packages of increasing strength: a) cruise missile attacks; b) cruise missile attacks in association with strategic bombing sorties; and c) some mix of a) and b), paired with air controllers (for target designation) and special operations forces to obtain intelligence and otherwise assist the Northern Alliance. CENTCOM favored the latter approach, as did President Bush. The president approved the overall plan ten days after the September-11 attack. Around two weeks after the 9/11 attack, the first team of CIA operatives, capitalizing on longstanding CIA links to the Afghan opposition, entered Afghanistan to gather intelligence, build local alliances, and lay the groundwork for the US-led operation. US special operations forces followed, though with some delay. When finally assembled in Afghanistan, a team of 100 CIA operatives and 300 special operations forces personnel paired with around 15,000 local militiamen to assail a numerically superior Taliban force. The Pentagon prepared to bring US military force more fully into the conflict. On September 20, it announced the start of a military buildup involving ground troops and aerial assets for striking Afghanistan. Two pressing considerations challenged these preparations. First, a war in land-locked Afghanistan was a logistical nightmare. Its neighbors, uniformly led by authoritarian leaders, were either hostile to a US presence (Iran) or willing to offer their help at a high price. Although the US military acquired basing and transport privileges within bordering countries -- importantly in Pakistan, to the east, and Uzbekistan, to the north -- it had to contend nonetheless with enormous bottlenecks imposed by sheer distance, harsh terrain, and the exceedingly poor Afghan transportation infrastructure. All conspired to impede the expeditious movement of US personnel and material to the war zone. Second, a war in Afghanistan, fought with a large US occupation force, could easily become counterproductive. Geography and topography, and an agile and scattered opposition, worked against classic American advantages in scale and heavy armament: the country's size and dispersed population required a mobile force to provide effective security - one that could conduct operations and be inserted, supplied, supported, and evacuated by helicopter. Furthermore, a heavy US footprint would offend local and nationalist sensitivities - as a Soviet presence once had -- and perhaps galvanize opposition to the US presence throughout the Islamic world. The US military preferred, then, to maintain a low profile. It would rely on US airpower, US special operations forces, and local militia to destroy the adversary's military capability; but it would depend on the local units to seize ground and hold territory. Simply put, the US military chose not to become an occupying force.