Early this month, I traveled to Washington with Vets for Freedom
to advocate for General Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 to
60,000 more troops in Afghanistan. I returned from Afghanistan last
summer and, along with other veterans of that theater, wanted to
share my experience with policymakers.
During our meetings in Congress and at the White House, I was
surprised by how widespread several misperceptions were. Though
most officials seemed sincere, these myths are distorting the
debate about General McChrystal's request. Here are some of the
most common:
A counterterrorism campaign is an effective alternative to
counterinsurgency. Some analysts believe precision
counterterrorism strikes can defeat al Qaeda without a simultaneous
counter-insurgency. This logic is faulty for several reasons.
First, General McChrystal is a counterterrorism expert, yet he
has proposed a full-spectrum counterinsurgency. A decorated Green
Beret, he has commanded the Army's Ranger Regiment, Delta Force,
and Navy SEALs. His recommendation is entitled to great weight.
Second, a counterterrorism-only approach will lack actionable
intelligence. Senior al Qaeda operatives are extremely hard to
track at a distance: They move constantly, live among fierce
loyalists, and avoid phones, radios, and computers. The best
intelligence tends to come as tips from cooperative locals who have
come to trust troops on the ground. Locals can't provide such tips
if there are no troops to give them to.
Third, our counterterrorism tools have fatal limitations.
Predator drones and special-operations forces have limited ranges
and need in-country bases, which generate large protective forces,
vulnerable supply lines, and sensitive political questions. Aerial
or naval attacks require even better intelligence and risk more
self-defeating civilian casualties. To be sure, all these tools are
potent, but primarily in conjunction with forward-deployed
counterinsurgent forces.
The Afghan people don't want us there. Although we
frequently hear that the fiercely tribal and proud Afghans
instinctively rebel against foreign forces, I did not encounter
this sentiment during my deployment. Afghans rarely objected to our
presence, but they did complain that we haven't provided basic
security. When I asked if they would accept more American troops in
exchange for improved security, the overwhelming answer was
yes.
Our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that the key
issue to the population isn't troop numbers, but troop
effectiveness. Afghanistan faces a growing insurgency after eight
years of limited deployments. Similarly, violence grew in Iraq for
years, until the surge contained it. In this light, we now have the
worst possible situation in Afghanistan: enough troops to raise
Afghans' expectations, but not enough to protect them.
America cannot win a war in Afghanistan, the "graveyard of
empires." How can America succeed where Alexander the Great,
the British, and the Soviet Union struggled? This refrain belongs,
as they say now in the military, in the graveyard of analogies.
The Soviets, in particular, teach us how not to win in
Afghanistan. A heavily mechanized force, the Red Army was
ill-suited for Afghanistan's treacherous terrain, and it was
dependent on long, vulnerable supply lines. It also discouraged
innovative junior leadership, which is critical against an
insurgency. To compensate, the Soviets employed vicious, massively
destructive tactics that inflamed the Afghan people and still scar
the country with depopulated valleys and adult amputees maimed as
children by toy-shaped mines.
Our present way of war couldn't be more different. We deploy
light and wheeled infantry to Afghanistan, making our tactics more
flexible, our supply lines shorter, and our soldiers more engaged
with the locals. We also radically decentralize decision-making
authority to our junior soldiers and leaders, who increasingly can
draw on years of combat experience.
In short, America has a counter-insurgency strategy, whereas the
Soviet Union had a genocide strategy. Afghans I spoke with always
recognized the difference, reviled the Russians, and respected our
troops.
America needs a new political partner before committing more
troops. This myth stands counterinsurgency doctrine on its
head. A government battling an insurgency is by definition weak,
else the insurgency would never have gained strength. We must
accept this inescapable fact and focus on helping improve President
Hamid Karzai's government, not use it as an excuse to abandon his
government.
This dynamic played out in Iraq. When added troops and improved
security there, we also pursued corrupt officials, whether to
prosecute them or to pressure them with the threat of prosecution
to improve their performance. In Afghanistan, which today depends
more heavily on the coalition for security and funding than did
Iraq, we have even more leverage to root out corruption and promote
competent, honest government.
Specific reforms can also help. For example, the president
appoints provincial and district governors, which makes many
unresponsive to their constituents. Political reform to allow for
local elections will tie the government more closely to the people
and tribal leadership. This kind of ground-up reform succeeded in
Iraq and can succeed in Afghanistan.
We should not put troops in harm's way without thorough
debate. True, but we already have 68,000 troops very much in
harm's way, and they urgently need reinforcements. The continuing
delay demoralizes those soldiers and puts them at greater risk.
Also, our allies among the Afghan people and government and in the
Pakistani government are wondering if America is truly committed to
victory. According to General McChrystal, the security situation is
deteriorating and may be irreversible unless we can seize the
initiative in the next year--and he made that assessment in August.
To put it bluntly, we are not winning in Afghanistan, and without
more troops we will lose.
Practically, too, the military needs to begin preparing for this
deployment now. Afghanistan's extreme terrain and weather, along
with its rudimentary infrastructure, mean the deployment will take
many months. Likewise, the military's Spartan bases need
significant expansion to accommodate new troops.
The military will break if we send more troops to
Afghanistan. This fear, heard often about Iraq in 2004-06, is
no truer now than it was then. At the 2007 peak, the United States
had 200,000 troops deployed to Iraq (170,000) and Afghanistan
(30,000). Currently, there are 110,000 troops in Iraq and 68,000 in
Afghanistan, well below that peak. And 60,000 troops are expected
to leave Iraq by next August as more troops flow into Afghanistan.
Thus, overall deployed troop levels in 2010 will remain the same or
fall.
The Army has also grown to accommodate repeated deployments. It
expanded over the last two years from 512,000 to 547,000 soldiers
and now plans to add another 22,000 troops by 2012. Further, it
just exceeded its annual recruitment and retention goals, hardly
the stuff of a broken Army.
To be sure, our military needs to grow in both size and funding
to reflect wartime priorities and alleviate the stress of repeated
deployments. But the quickest way to break the military is to lose
a war.
In a country where firsthand knowledge of Afghanistan and its
people is scarce, it is understandable that these myths have gained
currency. But they are just that--myths--and should not be allowed
to paralyze our war effort when victory is eminently
achievable.