An unlikely exit from Afghanistan

An unlikely exit from Afghanistan
By H.D.S. Greenway
January 4, 2011

THIS NEW YEAR will mark the second decade of America’s war in Afghanistan — already longer than Russia’s war, and longer than any of the three the British fought in the previous two centuries trying to bend Afghanistan to their will.

Following a catastrophic defeat during the first Afghan war 170 years ago, the British sent another army, calling it the “Army of Retribution.’’ We don’t label our war aims quite so frankly these days, but, in effect, that was America’s goal a decade ago: to inflict retribution on Al Qaeda and its enablers, the Taliban, in the wake of 9/11.

The goals have shifted many times since, but we now seem to have settled on our war aims: Not to create a “21st century Afghanistan,’’ said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, nor a country “free of corruption,’’ but simply to reduce the Taliban so that Afghan forces can deal with them, hopefully by 2014.

What are the prospects of achieving this goal? First the bad news. The Taliban has, as Richard Holbrooke told me late last year, matched General David Petraeus “surge for surge.’’ Its tactics and organization have become much more sophisticated, and more and more, it has wrapped itself in the flag of national resistance to foreigners, rather than religious extremism. It has made impressive gains in northern Afghanistan, far away from its traditional bases in the south and east along the Pakistan border.

The gains that the US military keeps trumpeting may be ephemeral, because the problem has never been an inability to control territory on which 100,000 US troops are standing. It is the nature of guerrilla warfare to fade away when faced with superior firepower. The problem is how to create something lasting that can stand up after Americans have left. On this front there is little sign of progress. The problems of massive corruption and governmental inefficiencies continue to drag down hopes for a successful counterinsurgency strategy.


unhappycamper comment: Want to read how the Brits did in 1842?