J. Sigger. Arm Chair Generalist, 31 December 2009.
http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/12/why-coin-will-fail-in-afghanistan.html

Meteor Blades. Daily Kos, 30 December 2009.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/30/820467/-A-Leak-About-the-Phantom-Army

Excerpt:

…the Afghan National Army is a farce; there’s little chance of turning it into a cohesive fighting force; and there’s zero chance of doing so on a speedy timetable…

Majority Staff, Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, 16 December 2009. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/2009-12-16StaffMemo.pdf

Excerpt:

[The] number of Defense Department Contractors in Afghanistan May reach 160,000. There are currently 104,000 Defense Department contractors working in Afghanistan. The increase in troops may require an additional 56,000 Defense Department contractors, bringing the total number of Defense contractors in Afghanistan to 160,000.

Gordon Adams. American University and the Stimson Center, 16 December 2009. PowerPoint presentation hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/0912adams.ppt

H.D.S. Greenway. Boston Globe, 16 December 2009.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/16/afghanistans_never_ending_challenge/

Excerpt:

The enemy, then as now, always rallied to the reliable call of “jihad’’ against the infidel invaders no matter who they were. Of all the tribes, those of the Pashtuns were the most feared.

The motives for fighting in Afghanistan were fear, prestige, and retribution. The British feared Russian expansion, and always sought to put their man on the throne to do Britain’s bidding. Retribution always followed military setbacks, and national prestige was used as the reason to fight on. British control over Afghanistan was thought necessary for the defense of India.

Russia followed the same scenario, fearing that if Afghanistan’s pro-Communist government should fail, it would endanger Russia’s Muslim regions.

The United States invaded Afghanistan out of fear of Al Qaeda, and retribution for 9/11. And today you often hear the national prestige argument that we cannot let the Holy Warriors believe they can defeat a second superpower. More and more, America’s Afghan policy is tied into protecting the stability of Pakistan, once part of British India.

Colin Clark. DoD Buzz, 14 December 2009.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/12/14/gates-picks-perry-for-qdr-panel/

Excerpt:

Rep. Ike Skelton, chair­man of the House Armed Services Committee, announced his selec­tions for the QDR panel today. Skelton named one of the Army’s most inno­v­a­tive thinkers, retired gen­eral Robert Scales, and for­mer Air Force his­to­rian Richard Kohn to the inde­pen­dent panel on the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Rep. Buck McKeon, rank­ing mem­ber of the HASC, announced his picks for the QDR panel last week: Jim Talent, the Missouri Republican who served in the House and Senate until 2006 and Eric Edelman, for­mer under­sec­re­tary of defense for pol­icy from 2005 until January 2009.

Loren B. Thompson. Lexington Institute, 14 December 2009.
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/budget-moves-buoy-defense-industry

Excerpt:

First, even before President Obama decided to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, the administration had already decided to spend more on overseas contingencies in 2011 that the $130 billion it planned to spend in 2010. Second, Jason Sherman of insidedefense.com reported this month that the White House will support increasing the regular defense budget (not including overseas contingencies) by $14 billion above what was planned for 2011, meaning it will rise from the $542 billion forecast in May to $556 billion. Third, Vago Muradian of Defense News reported this weekend that total increases above the May plan for the regular defense budget across the 2011-2015 spending period will reach $100 billion.

Editor’s Comment:

Looks as if the Obama administration’s plan to reduce Federal expenditures on war (contingency) operations and to hold increases in the base Pentagon budget to dollar inflation have come unraveled at less than a year into the budgeting plan and the administration. It is a shame, because it is so unnecessary.

Moshe Schwartz. Congressional Research Service, 14 December 2009.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24124212/CRS-Contractors-Study-12-09

Sheryl Gay Stolberg. New York Times, 12 December 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/us/politics/13obey.html

Excerpt:

“It is stunning,” he remembers telling Mr. Obama, “to listen to Johnson talk to Dick Russell, the conservative old wise head in the Senate from Georgia — it is terrible, gut-wrenching to listen to them both say, ‘Well, we know this is damn near a fool’s errand, but we don’t have any choice.’ ”

Rick Maze. Defense News, 10 December 2009.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4414781&c=AME&s=TOP

Excerpt:

The former lawmaker is Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican who served in the House and Senate until he lost a 2006 re-election bid. He was an adviser to the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The former Bush administration official picked by McKeon is Eric Edelman, who, as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005 until January 2009, had responsibilities in areas including bilateral relations, war planning, missile defense and special forces issues.

Nir Rosen. Boston Review, January/February 2010.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.1/rosen.php

Excerpt:

Perhaps McChrystal’s most crucial assumption—also endorsed by Obama—was that the failure to create a unified, centralized state in Afghanistan will lead to al Qaeda’s return. This claim is widely contested. Al Qaeda is already ensconced in Pakistan, where it is better protected from the United States than it would be in Afghanistan. And the Taliban are not interested in global jihad.

PA Consulting Group. Chart published by Talking Points Memo, 08 December 2009.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/12/the_militarys_plan_for_the_afghan_war_surge_in_one.php

click on chart for expanded view

Editor’s Comment:

The folks at Talking Points Memo don’t seem to know for whom or why PA Consulting drafted this chart. I am enjoying imagining that it was drawn for a new magazine called Popular Complexity and Chaos Illustrated and that the White House is a charter subscriber.

Joby Warrick. Washington Post, 06 December 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402607.html

Excerpt:

There is no military solution. . . If a country is bombed, you give them every reason — with the support of everybody in the country and outside the country — to go for nuclear weapons, and nobody can even blame them.

Barry R McCaffrey. McCaffrey Associates, 05 December 2009. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/0911McCaffrey.pdf

Excerpt:

Most Afghans are also dismayed at the injustice and corruption of the government (in particular the ANP) compared to the more disciplined and Islamic Taliban.

Twice in recent months we have seen battalion sized units of Taliban fighters conduct highly successful (not-withstanding catastrophic losses by the attacking insurgents) complex attacks employing surprise, reconnaissance, fire support, maneuver, and enormous courage in an attempt to over run isolated US units. This is not Iraq. These Taliban have a political objective to knock NATO out of the war —backed up by ferocious combat capabilities.

Andrew J. Bacevich. Los Angeles Times, 03 December 2009.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bacevich3-2009dec03,0,3209129.story

Excerpt:

So the war launched as a prequel to Iraq now becomes its sequel, with little of substance learned in the interim. To double down in Afghanistan is to ignore the unmistakable lesson of Bush’s thoroughly discredited “global war on terror”: Sending U.S. troops to fight interminable wars in distant countries does more to inflame than to extinguish the resentments giving rise to violent anti-Western jihadism

David Bromwich. Huffington Post, 02 December 2009.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/the-afghanistan-parenthes_b_377141.html

Excerpt:

… the president spoke as if Al Qaeda were the name of a distinct, finite, searchable entity that can be subdued by an intensification (lasting exactly 18 months) of American fighting in the country that was once its camp. As for the Taliban, whatever else they may be, they are native to Afghanistan. This cannot be said of Al Qaeda, but it cannot be said, either, of the soldiers, trainers, advisers, and contractors sent by the United States.

There is a misjudged air of precision in the idea of a renewed and extended war that closes at 18 months because that “benchmark” was settled in advance. How can anyone be sure that the scale of so entangling a mission, with so many pitfalls, will fit neatly into the shape of a year and a half?

as prepared for presentation at West Point, full text as provided by the White House to the Los Angles Times, 01 December 2009.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/12/obama-speech-text-afghanistan.html

Christopher Hellman. National Priorities Project, 01 December 2009.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/01

Excerpt:

Prior to Fiscal Year 2010, combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been funded outside the normal Defense Department budget through “supplemental” spending bills. The Obama Administration pledged that it would end this practice after Fiscal Year 2009 and included, as part of its Fiscal Year 2010 budget request, a $130 billion request for “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the majority of which was dedicated to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Fiscal Year 2010 funding, which awaits final approval from Congress, does not include the funds that will be required to support any further increase in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. Thus it is very likely that the White House will again resort to a supplemental spending bill to secure additional war funding in the coming year.

Jordan Tama. Budget Insight, 01 December 2009.

Excerpt:

In particular, the [QDR Independent] panel was created at the behest of leaders of the congressional armed services committees with the goal of providing a counterweight to the QDR, which is run entirely by the Defense Department. The independent panel’s legislative mandate is to “conduct an assessment of the assumptions, strategy, findings, and risks in the report of the Secretary of Defense on the 2009 QDR, with particular attention paid to the risks described in that report.”

This focus on risks reveals the principal motivation of the armed services committees in establishing the panel: to highlight the dangers of reducing or stabilizing the defense budget. Pentagon officials have said that, for initial planning purposes, the QDR should assume that the base defense budget will be essentially flat for the next five years, when accounting for inflation. Given that budgetary framework, the QDR will probably propose cuts to major defense programs. Many members of the armed services committees—regardless of party affiliation—are likely to oppose some of these proposed cuts. The committees’ hope is that the independent panel will bolster opposition to such cuts by calling them risky.