Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 30 November 2009.
http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf
Excerpt:
The reasons behind the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and its lasting consequences are examined over three sections in this report. The first section traces bin Laden’s path from southern Afghanistan to the mountains of Tora Bora and lays out new and previous evidence that he was there. The second explores new information behind the decision not to launch an assault. The final section examines the military options that might have led to his capture or death at Tora Bora and the ongoing impact of the failure to bring him back ‘‘dead or alive.’’
Stephen M. Walt. ForeignPolicy.com, 30 November 2009.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30/why_they_hate_us_ii_how_many_muslims_has_the_us_killed_in_the_past_30_years
Excerpt:
Yet if you really want to know “why they hate us,” … the fact remains that the United States has killed a very large number of Arab or Muslim individuals over the past three decades.
Editor’s Comment:
And no amount of “public diplomacy” or “American narrative” will win friends when the U.S. is responsible for killing sons and daughters of people in their home land. That is a basic piece of strategic wisdom!
Philip Giraldi. antiwar.com, 26 November 2009.
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/11/25/the-cost-of-war/
Excerpt:
Why are these wars so expensive? It goes back to Napoleon: logistics. US bases in Iraq are supplied by a 344-mile road running north from huge depots in Kuwait and by another artery running south from Turkey, both of which require convoys of trucks with armed guards dramatically raising the costs of everything being brought in. It is similar in Afghanistan but worse.
International Crisis Group Asia Briefing N°96, 25 November 2009.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/B096-afghanistan-elections-and-the-crisis-of-governance.aspx
Excerpt:
The electoral fraud was a direct consequence of failure to build the capacity of government institutions. Since the 2004 presidential vote, the international community – UNAMA in particular – repeatedly turned a blind eye to the looming crisis of credibility rooted in an unsound process. The August vote laid bare disagreements between different international actors and within the new American administration, whose lack of clear policy in Kabul undermined their ability to press for necessary changes ahead of the elections. The polls severely damaged UNAMA’s ability to function effectively, weakening its internal morale and sharply eroding Afghan confidence in Kai Eide, the Special Representative of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (SRSG). The UN’s mission to bring stability to the country has been severely jeopardised. His effectiveness as head of mission will always remain in doubt. If UNAMA’s credibility is to be restored, Eide must step down.
Hans M. Kristensen. Federation of American Scientists, 25 November 2009.
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/11/locations.php
Christi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes. Los Angeles Times, 23 November 2009.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-troop-costs23-2009nov23,0,3233273.story
Excerpt:
…in a memo early this month, obtained by The Times‘ Washington bureau, the Pentagon’s own comptroller produced an estimate that broke with the customary Defense formula and did include construction and equipment.
That memo said the yearly cost of a 40,000-troop increase would be $30 billion to $35 billion — at least $750,000 a person. An increase of 20,000 would cost $20 billion to $25 billion annually, it said — a per-soldier cost equal to or greater than the White House estimate.
Derrick Crowe. Return Good for Evil, 21 November 2009.
http://returngood.com/2009/11/21/an-interview-with-matthew-hoh/
Excerpt:
How many recruits do they [al-Qaida] get per year? A hundred? Two hundred? The Muslim population is over a billion. You’re talking about such a small fraction. It’s really associated with such a fringe movement that we have to attack using human intelligence and using law enforcement techniques. Army brigade combat teams do not affect al-Qaida. Having 60,00 troops in Afghanistan is not affecting al-Qaida. …[T]he destruction of al-Qaida should be our priority…but we need to go after that organization as it exists and not with ground combat troops in Afghanistan.
Trice Kabundi. Budget Insight, 20 November 2009.
http://thewillandthewallet.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/long-term-dod-budget-analyses.html
Summary
On Wednesday, November 18th the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) held a hearing on the significance and impact of the defense budget in the long-term. The committee heard testimony from: Stephen Daggett, Congressional Research Service; Matthew S. Goldberg, Congressional Budget Office; Thomas Donnelly, Center for Defense studies at American Enterprise Institute; David J. Berteau, Defense Industrial Initiatives Group. The post includes links to the full text of the testimony.
response by Michael Brenner to question posed by James Kitfield on National Journal Expert Blog, 19 November 2009.
http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/11/are-american-muslims-a-threat.php#1393085
Excerpt:
…all it would take to restore sanity is some slight reflection on our dismal performance everywhere we have tried our hand at manipulation in the Greater Middle East since 9/11. We have been consistently arrogant, incompetent, corrupt – in all senses, callous to the pain inflicted on the natives and ourselves alike, and abject failures.
Joost R. Hiltermann. New York Review of Books, 19 November 2009.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23371
Excerpt:
Festering unresolved for years, the Kirkuk conflict has started to contaminate Baghdad politics to the point of disabling Maliki’s government. It has already complicated efforts to create a law governing petroleum and natural gas, for example, and it may well hold up the formation of a new government in the spring. America’s legacy in Iraq could be a divided country that is left to fight over an undefined boundary with Kurdistan while a dysfunctional Baghdad government governs in name only.
David J. Berteau. Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, 18 November 2009.
http://csis.org/files/ts091118_berteau.pdf
Roxana Tiron. The Hill, 18 November 2009.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/68515-pentagon-budget-drop-anticipated
Excerpt:
CBO also projects that carrying out the Pentagon’s plans in its 2010 budget request — excluding overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere — would require defense resources averaging $567 billion annually (in constant 2010 dollars) from 2011 to 2028. That amount is about 6 percent more than the $534 billion the Obama administration requested for the 2010 budget, excluding overseas contingency funds, according to Goldberg.
Reasons why more resources would be required in the long run include the likelihood of growing military pay and benefits; a projected increase in the cost of operating and maintaining aging equipment as well as newer and more complex systems; plans to develop advanced weapons systems to replace aging ones; and investments in advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems to meet emerging security threats.
Miriam Pemberton. Institute for Policy Studies, 18 November 2009.
http://www.ips-dc.org/getfile.php?id=461
Excerpt
Because [the Obama administration's 2010] military budget is larger, in real terms, than any of its Bush administration predecessors, 87 percent of our overall security resources are still allocated to the tools of military force. And because of this, the increases in spending on defense and prevention, as important as they are, amount to deckchair arranging on the ship of security spending. The goal of rebalanced security, as a budgetary matter, remains to be realized.
Lawrence Korb, Sean Duggan, and Laura Conley. Center for American Progress, 18 November 2009.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/pdf/integrating_security.pdf
John Byrne. 70news.com, 18 November 2009.
http://www.70news.com/2009/11/18/gen-wesley-clark-calls-for-exit-from-afghanistan/
Excerpt:
You’ve got to “figure out where you’re going,” Clark told the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations. “How do we get out of here? Because our presence long term there is not a good thing. We’re playing into the hands of people who don’t like foreigners in a country that’s not tolerant of diversity. And that’s not going to change.”
Editor’s Comment:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~ Lewis Carroll. (English Logician, Mathematician, Photographer and Novelist, especially remembered for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 1832-1898)
Spencer Ackerman. The Washington Independent, 18 November 2009.
http://washingtonindependent.com/68174/army-data-shows-contraints-on-troop-increase-potential
Excerpt:
[Lawrence] Korb … said a more realistic troop increase for Afghanistan would be 10,000 soldiers until the drawdown of troops from Iraq “begins in earnest.” There are currently 120,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, almost twice the total in Afghanistan, though Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, told Congress in September that he plans to reduce that total to around 50,000 by August 30, 2010. Alternatively, Korb said, Obama could speed up the pace of redeployment out of Iraq in order to relieve the stress on the force… But under current Pentagon policy, soldiers would still need to receive at least 12 months of recuperation time back in the U.S. before potential assignment in Afghanistan.
Colin Clark. DoD Buzz, 17 November 2009.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/11/17/qdr-panel-stalls-loses-warner/
Excerpt:
House-Senate conferees added eight members to the QDR panel that will be picked by congressional defense committee leaders and it looks as if Warner was uncomfortable with the additions… Mackenzie Eaglen at the conservative Heritage Institute led the push for a panel to keep its eye on the QDR — the law establishing the QDR requires such a panel but it has sometimes been ignored in the past.
Stephen M. Walt. Foreign Policy, 16 November 2009.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/16/building_on_2_blunders_the_dubious_case_for_counterinsurgency
Editor’s Comment
Walt makes a fundamental strategic point. The Bush wars involved operational and grand strategic errors, so why institutionalize a shift in defense planning that in effect has the U.S. military prepare for more strategic errors by our leadership? Why not opt to correct the error? It is really an elemental point of strategy: Don’t compound error!
I understand how military professionals who have been ordered to take on foolish strategic missions might feel that counterinsurgency theory is an attractive way out of their tactical and operational dilemmas. But there is really no excuse for civilian leaders, including Sec Def Gates, chasing the mirage of COIN as if it were an answer for our current problems dealing with the consequences of a disastrous Bush national security strategy. Change the strategy and there will be no need for investments in COIN!
Christopher Drew. New York Times, 14 November 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15cost.html
Excerpt:
…even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.
Trice Kabundi. Budget Insight, 13 November 2009.
http://thewillandthewallet.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/13/securitization-of-us-foreign-assistance-hinders-long-term-de.html
Excerpt:
…during a USIP event on USAID’s Community Stabilization Program this past Tuesday. Panelist Nabil Al-Tikriti argued that “there exists such a thing as humanitarian space,” and the more the military either engaged in humanitarian assistance or linked objectives with those providing humanitarian assistance, NGO’s/relief workers would be affected and targeted. In his eyes, the DOD’s shift creates a situation where civilian relief workers are now often identified with “military men.”
Adam L. Silverman. Sic Semper Tyrannis, 12 November 2009.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/11/conceptualizations-of-insurgency-and-its-effects-on-the-counterinsurgency-policy-process.html
Excerpt:
Given the reality that the US faces in Afghanistan; the historic lack of functional centralized government, exceedingly high number of societal elements, many of which are geographically isolated or semi-isolated, the illegitimacy of the current Afghan government, and the fact that groups we are fighting are not all insurgents makes successfully reaching the COIN end state of tethering Afghan society back to the Afghan state very, very difficult. The debate on the use of COIN really needs to be focused in on this difficult set of Afghan circumstances and whether they allow any chance for a positive counterinsurgency outcome.
David Rogers. Politico, 10 November 2009.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29357.html
Excerpts:
Under almost all scenarios before Obama, billions more than the contingency funds requested in his 2010 budget will be needed…
Most estimates of how much more the Pentagon may need now run in the range of $30 billion to $40 billion.
Dave Anderson. News Hoggers, 06 November 2009.
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/11/full-spectrum-dominance-and-coin.html
Excerpt:
COIN does not decrease the chance of future interventions; it instead probably increases the chance of future interventions and invasions as it is a “solution” that is “proven to work” as long as not too many questions are raised about either what “working” means or the initial rosy scenario assumptions that are made to sell the invasion.
Karl W. Eikenberry. The The New York Times has published two cables authored by the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul addressed to Secretary of State Clinton. The first is dated 06 November 2009 and is entitled “COIN Strategy: Civilian Concerns”. The second is dated 09 November 2009 and is entitled “Looking Beyond Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan”.
http://documents.nytimes.com/eikenberry-s-memos-on-the-strategy-in-afghanistan
Editor’s Comment:
Quibble: COIN is a tactic, not a strategy. Non-quibble: Wars are rarely decided at the tactical level.
Charles Kupchan and Steven Simon. Financial Times, 03 November 2009.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e98cbae-c8c6-11de-8f9d-00144feabdc0.html
Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason. Military Review, November/December 2009.
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091231_art004.pdf
Excerpts:
By misunderstanding the basic nature of the enemy, the United States is fghting the wrong war again, just as we did in Vietnam. It is hard to defeat an enemy you do not understand.
Elections don’t make democracies; democracies make elections.
As Jeffrey Record … notes, “the fundamental political obstacle to an enduring American success in Vietnam [was] a politically illegitimate, militarily feckless, and thoroughly corrupted South Vietnamese client regime.” Substitute the word “Afghanistan” for the words “South Vietnam” in these quotations and the descriptions apply precisely to today’s government in Kabul. Like Afghanistan, South Vietnam at the national level was a massively corrupt collection of self-interested warlords, many of them deeply implicated in the proftable opium trade, with almost nonexistent legitimacy outside the capital city. The purely military gains achieved at such terrible cost in our nation’s blood and treasure in Vietnam never came close to exhausting the enemy’s manpower pool or his will to fght, and simply could not be sus-
tained politically by a venal and incompetent set of dysfunctional state institutions where self-interest
was the order of the day.
No Pashtun would ever identify himself by his province, where we are attempting to impose external governance. Rural Pashtuns thus have no perceivable political interest in this keystone of international military and political effort in Afghanistan.
“Extending the reach of the central government” is precisely the wrong strategy in Afghanistan because it is exactly what the rural people do not want. The level of coercive social change that would be required to actually implement this radical social revolution in Afghanistan is beyond our national means.
Cristina Hansell and Nikita Perfilyev. The Nonproliferation Review, November 2009.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a915796781&fulltext=713240928
Excerpt:
…if Chinese military experts decide that China needs the capability of a maneuvering warhead to evade missile defense interceptors, they may need to test the redesigned warheads. It is not clear that the Obama administration, however, will be willing to back down on missile defense in order to obtain Chinese agreement on a CTBT. Without a CTBT, though, further progress toward disarmament is unlikely; the nuclear weapon states’ commitment to NPT Article VI will not be taken seriously by non-nuclear weapon states, and the possibility of a future arms race (instigated in large part by the fear of U.S. missile defenses and precision weapons) is increased.
Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, co-chairs. Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, November 2009. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website. http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/09ICNNDReport.pdf
Sandra I. Erwin. National Defense Magazine, November 2009.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2009/November/Pages/IndustrialPolicyDebateShouldthePentagonPickWinnersandLosers.aspx
Excerpt:
Acquisition and R&D accounts now make up 34 percent of the defense base budget. Assuming a flat budget and growth in personnel a bit above inflation, modernization accounts 10 years from now will be down to 25 percent of the budget, according to TechAmerica estimates.
Unless the Defense Department decides to reduce the size of the force, procurement spending will continue to be squeezed, says budget analyst Steve Daggett, of the Congressional Research Service. He estimates that the average service member costs 45 percent more — including salary and benefits after adjusting for inflation — than in 2000.
Industry analyst Jim McAleese, of McAleese & Associates, says he is certain that the Obama administration has effectively flat-lined defense spending for the foreseeable future. But many major decisions have yet to be made regarding how money will be allocated within a flat budget.
“I would caution you to really pay attention to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ vision,” McAleese says in an interview with Federal News Radio. “I believe he is fundamentally using the QDR [quadrennial defense review] to put the finishing touches on his legacy. Gates wants to “optimize” the Army for long-duration counterinsurgencies, he says. “The priority in the Army will be investing in a world-class quality combat force, that is well-supported, and that the soldiers’ families are well-supported.” The upshot is that many of the expensive weapons systems that the services have been accustomed to buying will no longer be affordable.
Council on Foreign Relations, November 2009.
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/PublicOpinionProject.pdf
Project website — http://www.cfr.org/thinktank/iigg/pop/
Excerpt:
Publics around the world—including in the United States—are strongly internationalist in orientation. They believe that global challenges are simply too complex and daunting to be addressed by unilateral or even regional means. In every country polled, most people support a global system based on the rule of law, international treaties, and robust multilateral institutions. They believe their own government is obliged to abide by international law, even when doing so is at odds with its perceived national interest. Large majorities, including among Americans, reject a hegemonic role for the United States, but do want the United States to participate in multilateral efforts to address international issues.
Nir Rosen. Boston Review, November/December 2009.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/rosen.php
Excerpt:
After the March 2008 Charge of the Knights, when Shias in Iraqi security forces began to fight Shia militias, there was no longer a Shia bloc. This opened up the possibility of cross-sectarian alliances between Shia and Sunni nationalists, all opposed to the occupation. Maliki’s decision to target unruly Shia militias was one of the most important factors ensuring the civil war territorial gains would hold, and the reduction in gang and militia violence would continue. Sunnis suddenly changed their minds about the Prime Minister and started supporting him.
Gilles Dorronsoro. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2009.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/fixing_failed_strategy.pdf
Excerpt:
…the International Coalition, with its limited resources and diminishing popular support, should focus on its core interests: preventing the Taliban from retaking Afghan cities, avoiding the risk that al-Qaeda would try to reestablish sanctuaries there, pursue a more aggressive counterinsurgency strategy in the North, and reallocate its civilian aid resources to places where the insurgency is still weak.
Editor’s Comment
Some would say that Pashtunistan is already a nation which can’t yet fully establish itself as a state (although there is already considerable local governance, both Pashtun tribal and Taliban.) Presently Punjabi (Pakistani) and US/NATO military intervention prevent the establishment of a state.
Dorronsoro’s Afghan war strategy would seem to be a step in moving the Pashtunistan national cause to within a decade or so of success. Of course, the cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad would have to fall under Pashtunistan governance eventually, even if Western forces resisted for some years.
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