[Senate Hearing 111-169]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-169
STRATEGIC OPTIONS FOR THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 26, 2009
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
JACK REED, Rhode Island SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
BILL NELSON, Florida JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
EVAN BAYH, Indiana ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
JIM WEBB, Virginia RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
MARK UDALL, Colorado SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina
MARK BEGICH, Alaska
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
Richard D. DeBobes, Staff Director
Joseph W. Bowab, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
Strategic Options for the Way Ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan
february 26, 2009
Page
Barno, LTG David W., USA (Ret.), Director, Near East South Asia
Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University...... 6
Dobbins, Hon. James, Director, International Security and Defense
Policy Center, RAND Corporation................................ 19
Strmecki, Marin J., Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Director of
Programs, Smith Richardson Foundation.......................... 27
(iii)
STRATEGIC OPTIONS FOR THE WAY AHEAD IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009
U.S. Senate
Committee on Armed Services
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in room
SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin
(chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Levin, Reed, Bill
Nelson, E. Benjamin Nelson, Bayh, Webb, McCaskill, Udall,
Hagan, Begich, Burris, McCain, Inhofe, Sessions, Thune,
Martinez, and Collins.
Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff
director; and Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk.
Majority staff members present: Thomas K. McConnell,
professional staff member; William G.P. Monahan, counsel;
Michael J. Noblet, professional staff member; Russell L.
Shaffer, counsel; and William K. Sutey, professional staff
member.
Minority staff members present: Joseph W. Bowab, Republican
staff director; Adam J. Barker, research assistant; William M.
Caniano, professional staff member; Richard H. Fontaine, Jr.,
deputy Republican staff director; Paul C. Hutton IV,
professional staff member; David M. Morriss, minority counsel;
and Lucian L. Niemeyer, professional staff member.
Staff assistants present: Kevin A. Cronin, Christine G.
Lang, and Ali Z. Pasha.
Committee members' assistants present: Jay Maroney and
Sharon L. Waxman, assistants to Senator Kennedy; James Tuite,
assistant to Senator Byrd; Vance Serchuk, assistant to Senator
Lieberman; Elizabeth King, assistant to Senator Reed; Ann
Premer, assistant to Senator Ben Nelson; Jon Davey and Mike
Pevzner, assistants to Senator Bayh; Gordon I. Peterson,
assistant to Senator Webb; Stephen C. Hedger, assistant to
Senator McCaskill; Jennifer Barrett, assistant to Senator
Udall; Michael Harney, assistant to Senator Hagan; David
Ramseur, assistant to Senator Begich; Brady King, assistant to
Senator Burris; Anthony J. Lazarski, assistant to Senator
Inhofe; Lenwood Landrum and Sandra Luff, assistants to Senator
Sessions; Matt Waldroup, assistant to Senator Chambliss; Adam
G. Brake, assistant to Senator Graham; Jason Van Beek,
assistant to Senator Thune; Brian W. Walsh, assistant to
Senator Martinez; and Chip Kennett, assistant to Senator
Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Levin. Good morning, everybody. Today the
committee receives testimony from outside experts on options
for the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our witnesses
are: Lieutenant General David Barno, U.S. Army (Retired), who
is the Director of the Near East South Asia Center for
Strategic Studies at the National Defense University;
Ambassador James Dobbins, Director of the International
Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND Corporation; and
Dr. Marin Strmecki, Senior Vice President and Director of
Programs with the Smith Richardson Foundation.
We welcome each of you. We thank you and we are grateful
for your attendance and for your testimony.
The current policies of the United States and its allies
are not succeeding in stabilizing Afghanistan. The Department
of Defense (DOD) reports that insurgent-initiated attacks are
up 40 percent in 2008 over the previous year. The Director of
National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, testified earlier
this month that the Taliban-dominated insurgency has increased
the geographic scope and frequency of attacks and that security
in eastern areas and the south and northwest has
``deteriorated.''
The United Nations (U.N.) announced this month that Afghan
civilian deaths reached a new high last year of 2,118 and that
U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Afghan
operations, particularly air strikes, were responsible for
nearly 40 percent of the civilians killed. A recent public
opinion poll showed declining support among the Afghan people
for coalition efforts and a loss of legitimacy for the Afghan
Government of President Karzai. Of those surveyed, a majority
viewed the United States unfavorably, with fewer than half, 42
percent, having confidence in coalition forces to provide
security where they lived.
A main source of Afghanistan's insecurity and instability
comes from Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban, extremist militant
groups, and al Qaeda fighters use Pakistan's Federally Assisted
Tribal Areas (FATAs) and the Baluchistan region around Quetta
as a safe haven from which to launch attacks into Afghanistan.
President Obama has recognized the declining security situation
and that it cannot wait for the completion of a comprehensive
policy review and has approved Secretary Gates's request to
deploy an additional 17,000 U.S. troops, including key
enablers, to Afghanistan by this spring and summer. This
increase on top of the more than 35,000 American troops already
in Afghanistan and 32,000 other foreign forces participating in
the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will
provide needed capabilities, particularly in the Regional
Command (RC)-South, where, according to Deputy Commanding
General for Stabilization Brigadier General John Nicholson, the
border is wide open for extremist militants to attack from
sanctuaries on Pakistan's territory.
Recently, DNI Dennis Blair stated to the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence: ``No improvement in the security in
Afghanistan is possible without progress in Pakistan.'' He
added: ``No improvement in Afghanistan is possible without
Pakistan taking control of its border areas and improving
governance, creating economic and educational opportunities
throughout the country.''
I disagree with his unqualified assessment. While actions
by the Government of Pakistan that would root out the Afghan
Taliban in Pakistan's Baluchistan region surely would be
helpful, Afghanistan's security cannot be totally dependent on
Pakistan's uncertain efforts to eliminate militant sanctuaries
along the Afghan-Pakistan border, for many reasons. I question
whether Pakistan has the political will or the capability to
take on the Taliban and other militants. Evidence of their
unwillingness or inability to do so has been clear and
longstanding. There have been reports for some time that the
Afghan Taliban council, or shura, meets in the Pakistan city of
Quetta and commands attacks in southern Afghanistan from that
safe haven.
The militant Baitullah Mehsud, who is suspected by the
Pakistan Government itself of orchestrating the assassination
of Benazir Bhutto, holds an open press conference in South
Waziristan. To make matters worse, the Pakistan Government
inflames opposition to the United States with their strong
public criticism of our air strikes. Afghan Taliban cross
unhampered from Pakistan's Baluchistan area into southern
Afghanistan. There is evidence indicating that some elements of
Pakistan's intelligence service may provide support to
militants conducting cross-border incursions into Afghanistan
and at a minimum Pakistani forces look the other way while the
extremist militants cross over the border to attack coalition
forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan and then pull back
to sanctuaries on Pakistan's side of the border.
The bottom line for me is that we need to accelerate the
planned expansion of the highly motivated and capable Afghan
army and to more quickly erase the shortfall in U.S. and allied
training and mentoring teams embedded with Afghan security
forces. In addition, the Afghan army needs to take the lead in
countering the greatest threat to their security, the threat
from cross-border attacks from militants in those sanctuaries
in the Pakistan border.
The Afghan border police, with its history of corruption,
should either be transferred from the Ministry of Interior to
the Ministry of Defense, as promised, by the way, long ago, or
dramatically retrained and reformed.
At this committee's hearing on January 27, Secretary Gates
warned against trying to create a ``central Asian Valhalla'' in
Afghanistan. He has called for more concrete goals, security
for the Afghan people, and better delivery of services, that
are achievable within a 3- to 5-year timeframe.
The United States cannot and should not bear the burden
alone of meeting the additional requirements for the Afghan
mission. Over 40 NATO and other allies are contributing to that
mission. However, NATO members have yet to fulfill the mission
requirements that NATO agreed to for personnel and critical
support like airlift and intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets. A new strategy should call upon NATO and
other allies either to provide additional forces and
capabilities or, if they will not do so, they should help
defray the costs of training and sustaining the Afghan national
security forces or assisting Afghanistan in building its
capacity to govern itself.
The administration's strategic review needs to also look at
how we can bring all instruments of national power to bear in
Afghanistan, particularly our civilian tools of diplomacy,
development, and the rule of law. I am encouraged to hear that
the State Department and U.S. Agency for International
Development are looking to increase their civilian presence in
Afghanistan at the national, provincial, and district levels.
I saw firsthand how development assistance at the local
level can serve as a key enabler of the security mission when I
visited a primary school near Bagram which was built with
funding through the Afghan National Solidarity Program (NSP).
Three villages had come together to pool very modest amounts of
money to construct that school to give their boys and girls a
better life and they were prepared to defend it with their
lives against the Taliban.
We look forward to hearing from our witnesses. We very much
appreciate their contributions to the debate as we look to the
ways forward.
Now I'll call on Senator McCain for his opening comments.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN McCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for holding this hearing today. I join you in welcoming our
witnesses. Each is a well-regarded specialist with extensive
experience in the region.
More than 3 years ago, some of us called for a major change
in our strategy in Iraq. The change in strategy in Iraq that we
called for was one based on the fundamental principles of
counterinsurgency, the imperative to secure the civilian
population, and a significant increase in the number of
American troops. As we know now, through the courageous efforts
of our troops on the ground and the wisdom of leaders such as
General David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and General
Ray Odierno, the situation has been reversed in Iraq.
We face a similar moment now with respect to the war in
Afghanistan. Nearly every indicator in Afghanistan now is
headed in the wrong direction. Many Americans have begun to
wonder whether it's truly possible to turn this war around.
Commentators increasingly focus on past failures in Afghanistan
by the Soviets and British. Others have suggested that it's
time to scale back our objectives in Afghanistan, to give up on
nation-building and instead focus narrowly on counterterrorism.
I for one remain confident that victory is indeed possible
in Afghanistan, but only with a significant change in strategy.
We all know that the American people are weary of sending our
young men and women off to such a distant land. But it's
absolutely critical they understand the stakes in this fight.
We must win the war in Afghanistan because the alternative is
to risk that country's reversion to its previous role as a
terrorist sanctuary, one from which al Qaeda could train and
plan attacks against America. Such an outcome would constitute
an historic blow to America's standing and in favor of the
jihadist movement and severely damage America's standing and
credibility in a region that already has doubts about our
staying power, and deal a crushing blow to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.
A terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan would enable al Qaeda
and other groups to attempt to destabilize neighboring
countries, such as a nuclear-armed Pakistan. Broader insecurity
in Afghanistan, with the violent refugee flows, and lawlessness
it would prompt, could spill beyond its borders to Pakistan or
other states in south and central Asia, with grave implications
for our national security.
The problem in Afghanistan today is that we have tried to
win this war without enough troops, without sufficient economic
aid, without effective coordination, and without a regional
strategy. The ruinous consequences should come as no surprise.
If we change our policies, the situation on the ground too will
change.
I say this with some confidence because we've been through
this before, and I refer not to Iraq, but to Afghanistan
itself. For a brief but critical window between late 2003 and
early 2005, we were moving onto the right path in Afghanistan.
Under then-Ambassador Khalilzad and Commander Lieutenant
General Barno, who is with us today, the United States
completely overhauled its strategy. We increased the number of
American forces in the country, expanded non-military
assistance to the Afghan Government, and, most importantly,
abandoned a counterterrorism-based strategy that emphasized
seeking out and attacking the enemy in favor of one that
emphasized counterinsurgency.
All of this was overseen by an integrated civil-military
command structure in which the ambassador and the coalition
commander worked in the same building from adjoining offices.
The result was that by late 2004 governance and reconstruction
were improving. Projects like the Ring Road were at last
getting off the ground. Warlords were being nudged out of
power. Militias like the Northern Alliance were being
peacefully disarmed of their heavy weapons and national
elections were carried off safely. The Taliban, meanwhile,
showed some signs of internal dissension and splintering.
Rather than building on these gains, we squandered them. I
believe that we need in Afghanistan a counterinsurgency
strategy focused on providing security for the population,
tailored for the unique situation in Afghanistan, and backed
with robust intelligence resources and a sufficient number of
troops to carry it out. This strategy must be outlined in a
theater-wide civil-military campaign plan.
We should also more than double the current size of the
Afghan army to 160,000 troops and consider enlarging it to
200,000. The cost of this increase, however, should not be
borne by American taxpayers alone. The insecurity in
Afghanistan is the world's problem and the world should share
its costs. In addition, I believe the United States should
continue to invite European troop contributions and press for
the reduction of caveats on their use.
I also believe we should move away from stressing what
Washington wants Europe to give and more toward encouraging
what Europe is prepared to contribute. Many of our NATO allies
and other allies and partners outside NATO, including the Gulf
countries, are fully capable of contributing many badly needed
resources.
We also must increase our non-military assistance to the
Afghan Government, with a multi-front plan, something akin to a
Plan Afghanistan, for strengthening its institutions, the rule
of law, and the economy in order to provide a sustainable
alternative to the drug trade.
Afghanistan's problems exist of course in a regional
context and we must increasingly view them as such. A special
focus of our regional strategy must be Pakistan. For too long
we have viewed Pakistan as important because of our goals in
Afghanistan. Yet Pakistan is not simply important because of
Afghanistan. Pakistan is important because of Pakistan. We
cannot simply subordinate our Pakistan strategy to our
Afghanistan policy.
I especially look forward to our witnesses' testimony
regarding the role of Pakistan, its present state, and its role
in the region.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you. I welcome our witnesses here
today and look forward to their observations on this crucial
issue. This issue, the situation in Afghanistan, will be with
us for a long time. It's going to be long, it's going to be
hard, it's going to be tough. It will require additional, I'm
sorry to say, expenditure of American blood and treasure. We
need the input of our witnesses today, among others, to help us
shape the strategy that will succeed. We cannot afford to lose.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator McCain.
A quorum is now present and we need to consider the
committee rules for the 111th Congress. The proposed rules
which are put forth by myself and by the ranking member are
identical to the committee rules from the 110th Congress. The
changes that were proposed, that we discussed in the executive
session of February 12, are not included.
The proposed rules have been reviewed, as I indicated, by
Senator McCain and me and our staffs. I understand that they're
acceptable to both sides.
Is there a motion to approve the proposed rules?
Senator McCain. So moved.
Chairman Levin. All in favor say aye.
[A chorus of ayes.]
Opposed, nay.
[No response.]
The rules are approved.
Thank you very much.
General Barno.
STATEMENT OF LTG DAVID W. BARNO, USA (RET.), DIRECTOR, NEAR
EAST SOUTH ASIA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, NATIONAL DEFENSE
UNIVERSITY
General Barno. Chairman Levin, Ranking Member McCain, and
members of the Committee on Armed Services: Thank you very much
for the invitation to offer my views today on strategic options
for the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Although I continue to serve in the DOD at the National
Defense University, the views I offer today are my own. In
addition to my 19 months as the overall U.S. and coalition
commander in Afghanistan from late 2003 until mid-2005, I've
remained engaged on these issues in my current job, which has
included trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in fact included a
visit to RC-South just last month for 3 days in Kandahar,
Zabul, and Helmand Province.
On a more personal note, my youngest son just returned from
a 12-month tour of combat in Afghanistan as an air cavalry
scout platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division. We're very
proud of him. We're very grateful to have him home safe and we
pray every day for his fellow young Americans that are still in
harm's way.
My brief remarks this morning will attempt to summarize a
more lengthy written testimony that I've provided. The focus
that I'd like to bring today is to understanding U.S. goals,
defining our core objectives, identifying what I call first
principles for success, and depicting a phased approach to a
military strategy. I'll also briefly speak to issues that link
Afghanistan and Pakistan because that linkage is very
important.
My thinking I would note also reflects a good deal of
collaboration and discussion with Dr. David Kilkullen, a
counterinsurgency expert and former Australian Army officer,
although I'm only speaking for myself here today.
In my judgment the international effort in Afghanistan at
the beginning of 2009 is drifting towards failure. There's
still time to turn it around, but it will take strong U.S.
leadership, a change of strategic direction, and a focused and
substantial effort. Results will not come from continuing
business as usual or simply adding more resources. Major change
is essential.
Fundamental questions remain for both the international and
the U.S. effort: Who is in charge? What's the plan? What does
success look like? Today U.S. and international goals at times
seem unclear at best.
I would say any discussion of reversing the downward
trajectory today must start with a discussion of objectives:
What is winning? Can we win? Maybe even the most fundamental
question: Who is ``we''?
Core objectives I think include several for the United
States Winning for the United States in this context equates to
achieving American policy objectives in Afghanistan and in the
region. I would outline them as follows.
First, that the Taliban and al Qaeda are defeated in the
region and denied useable sanctuary and that further attacks on
the United States and our allies are avoided.
Second, that Pakistan is stabilized as a long-term partner
that is economically viable, friendly to the United States, no
longer an active base for international terrorism, and in
control of its nuclear weapons.
Third, success for NATO: the trans-Atlantic alliance
preserved, with NATO's role in Afghanistan recast into a
politically sustainable set of objectives.
Fourth, a stable and sustainable Afghan Government that's
legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people, capable of
exercising effective governance, and in control of its
territory.
Then, finally, the regional states are confident of U.S.
staying power and commitment as their partner in the long-term
regional struggle against violent extremism.
I would offer that in order to achieve these objectives a
mathematical equation might be in order, an equation which
sounded like this: that success achieving those objectives
equals leadership plus strategy plus resources; leadership plus
strategy plus resources.
Our system will tend to distort our focus towards the
resource component, towards generating more troops, dollars,
euros, and more aid workers and police mentors, and that will
absorb tremendous amounts of our energy. But resources cannot
be a substitute for the lack of a plan, nor can they take the
place of the most essential ingredient, which is the dynamic
leadership needed to deliver success.
None of this is new. What is new, however, I think is the
growing recognition among even our allies that today's
fractious mix of all the different players in Afghanistan
cannot effectively reverse the trend lines without strong
American leadership. Resources poured into a disjointed
strategy with fragmented leadership produce a stalemate, and
that's a description we often hear used with regard to
Afghanistan today. Stalemate in a counterinsurgency represents
a win for the insurgent.
So I think in order to address this we ought to think about
focusing first on what I call first principles, or the things
we need to do to set conditions for a new approach. The first
of those I would characterize as making the Afghan people the
center of gravity of all of our efforts. We say this today, but
the practical application of this is very uneven across the
country. The Afghan people down to the local level are the
ultimate judgers, arbiters, of success in Afghanistan.
International civil and military activities that alienate the
Afghan people, that offend their cultural sensibilities, or
further separate them from their government are doomed to fail.
Protecting the Afghan people and nurturing their hope and
cautious optimism for a better future is an essential
requirement of our collective success in Afghanistan.
The second item is creating true unity of effort, a
critical principle that we again speak about today often, but
we rarely find in the field. It's unity of effort within the
military arena and between the civil and the military spheres.
Ultimate success is really integrating those two effectively on
the ground. We've spent countless dollars and tens of thousands
of troops' efforts in Afghanistan over the past 8 years, but a
very sober assessment would conclude that the whole has totaled
far less than the sum of the parts.
The enemy seeks to disrupt our unity of effort. We have
given him many of the tools to do so. Only by dramatically
improving the coherence of our military effort and by fully
connecting it to the civil reconstruction, governance, and
development efforts can effective progress be made.
Third and final principle: There has to be a simultaneous
bottoms-up and top-down approach in Afghanistan. The current
ongoing debate between strengthening the central government
versus strengthening capacity at the local level must be ended.
Afghanistan requires both a capable national government in
Kabul and an effective local set of institutions at the
province, district, and village level. They have seen this in
their history 30, 40 years ago.
Action in this arena has to be two-pronged. In Kabul, the
international community must focus on the central government in
building key capacity there. In local areas, at the province
and the district level and down to the village level, bottoms-
up action will be required, and in many cases it will have to
be enabled and led by military efforts, especially in the
south, which is the least secure part of the country.
In the south and east of Afghanistan, because of poor
security, military forces will have to lead civil actors in
this enterprise. In the north a much different scenario exists.
In fact, I typically call the north of Afghanistan the
stability zone and the south of Afghanistan the
counterinsurgency zone. In the north, civil efforts and
peacekeeping operations by NATO military forces are
appropriate. In the south, because of the lack of security,
because of the violence, military-led efforts, often by the
United States, leading the civilian enterprise are essential.
With the foundation provided by these principles, an
overarching counterinsurgency approach must be developed. It
has to be tailored to the nuances and differences in each
region, but it has to be one strategy, and a unified strategy
must include counternarcotics, rule of law, governance,
development, building security forces, and counterterrorism,
all within a single strategy, all very doable, and all
something we've seen before in Afghanistan, but what does not
exist today.
Without this unified strategy, I think we will continue on
the current path. A change in approach can only be led by the
United States.
At the operational level, which is where strategy connects
to events on the ground, the sequence of action in my view
would look like: stabilize, protect, build, and transition.
Over the next few years it might look like the following: 2009
would be the stabilize phase, which essentially is a holding
operation focused on setting conditions for a successful Afghan
election this year. The Afghan election of 2009, the
presidential election, is the strategic report card of the
entire enterprise of Afghanistan and it's occurring this year.
That has to be the focus of our security efforts for 2009.
For 2010, the protect phase, which will begin this year as
well, to allow us to regain the initiative from the enemy in a
counteroffensive against his very aggressive, violent attacks,
particularly across the southern half of the country. This
protect phase would focus on building additional security for
the population, growing state institutions, while persuading
and enabling the Afghan Government to be more effective at the
local level. Again, this will often be led by our military
units partnered with civilian limited capacity, especially in
the violent areas.
The build phase and consolidation would be 2010 to 2015,
again focused on protecting the population, building the state
and non-state institutions. Improved security would have to be
built from the bottom up in Afghanistan in this phase and allow
the concurrent growth of economic and governance institutions.
Then finally, the transition phase, which is 2015 to 2025,
would see the movement to Afghan control. Some of that would
occur in the previous phase, especially in the north, where we
have a much more secure environment. This transition phase
would allow us to return full Afghan control across the country
as security has improved, the civil-led effort now is in front
of the military effort, and that the growth of Afghan
institutions and economic capability has taken root.
Across this entire period of time, we have what I would
call a prevent phase, which is counter-sanctuary operations to
disrupt the enemy and ensure that we keep him off balance. But
we have to do that in a very careful, balanced way to ensure it
doesn't unhinge the rest of our operations. That can be a
problem that we see in the newspaper headlines today.
Finally, a few brief words on Pakistan. Pakistan arguably
presents the United States with its greatest strategic
challenge in the region. It's well known that Pakistan's the
second largest Islamic country in the world, armed with several
dozen nuclear weapons. That said, the conflict in Afghanistan
is not simply a subset of a broader challenge in Pakistan.
Solving Pakistan will not in and of itself solve Afghanistan.
Pakistan requires its own strategy and its own solutions in a
regional context as the United States looks at our
requirements.
We must assist Pakistan in managing change inside of
Pakistan, led by the Pakistanis, economically, militarily,
perhaps even societally. But these immense combination of
factors are going to be very difficult to overcome.
Essential to our long-term prospects with Pakistan is
building a strategic partnership with Pakistan that takes us
beyond today's what I call use and abuse relationship, the
continual give and take of how we can get more from the
Pakistanis and how they can get more from us. We have to have a
vision of a long-term relationship there that allows them to
believe in the sustained presence and the sustained involvement
of the United States in the region. Their lack of that belief
today undercuts all of our efforts.
So in conclusion, I would argue that the war in Afghanistan
can be won, but only by the concentrated application of strong
U.S. leadership beginning here in Washington, a new unified
civil-military strategy which must be implemented from the
bottom up on the ground, and the right resources to enable a
new set of dynamic leaders to fully implement this new plan.
We must clearly acknowledge that only the United States can
be the engine that powers this train and it's the only nation
that can lead this renewed international effort.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Barno follows:]
Prepared Statement by LTG David W. Barno, USA (Ret.)
Serious problems in Afghanistan demand a ``reset'' of the
international effort to reverse the decline and set a new trajectory.
The central component of success required in this fragmented endeavor
is the reassertion of American leadership of our friends and allies.
This discussion focuses upon understanding U.S. goals, defining our
core objectives, identifying first principles for success, and
depicting a phased approach to a military strategy. It also briefly
speaks to issues with Pakistan and Afghanistan. This paper reflects
significant collaboration and discussion with David Kilcullen,
counterinsurgency (COIN) expert and former Australian Army officer.
However, the opinions expressed here are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect either those of Dr. Kilcullen or those of the
Department of Defense.
introduction
The international endeavor in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2009
is drifting toward failure. There is still time to turn it around, but
this will take strong U.S. leadership, a change of strategic direction
and a focused and substantial effort. Results will not come from
continuing ``business as usual'' or simply adding more resources. Major
change is essential.
Eight years into a broad and substantial multi-national investment
and 2 years since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) assumed
military leadership, the Taliban have returned in growing strength,
poor governance and corruption are widespread, the Afghan people's
confidence is ebbing, and the political sustainability of NATO's effort
over the long term is in question. An increasingly fractured
international civil effort is mirrored by a fragmented NATO
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) military organization
with 41 members--all of whom operate under differing rules and a myriad
of national strategies and caveats. Fundamental questions remain for
both the international and U.S. effort: Who is in charge? What is the
plan? What does success look like? Today, U.S. and international goals
and objectives are unclear at best. Success is possible, but only if
dramatic changes are applied--and applied rapidly. 2009 will be a
decisive year in Afghanistan--for the international community, for the
Afghan people, and for the Taliban.
defining our goals
Any discussion of reversing a downward trajectory in Afghanistan
must start with a discussion of objectives. What is ``winning?'' Can we
``win?'' Even the most fundamental question: who is ``we?'' Different
actors in the Afghan campaign have disparate interests and objectives,
a reality often poorly appreciated. The goals of the Afghan Government
may not be synonymous with those of the international community. The
goals of NATO members and the alliance writ large may not be identical
to those of the United States. The goals of the diverse civil players
in Afghanistan--Afghan and international--may not align well with those
of the military forces fighting what most would describe as a deadly
COIN fight--a full-fledged war.
While each of these groups has its own set of discrete objectives,
this paper will focus on the challenges from an American perspective.
Bottom line up front: Success in Afghanistan will require a re-
assertion of American leadership. While such leadership must be
exercised through close and genuine partnership with our friends and
allies wherever possible, the past 3 years of decline have amply
demonstrated that lack of full American attention and an over-reliance
on other actors and international institutions as substitute for strong
U.S. leadership will ultimately fall short.
core objectives
``Winning'' for the U.S. in this context equates to achieving
American policy objectives in Afghanistan and in the region. Those
objectives can be outlined as follows:
The Taliban and al Qaeda defeated in the region and
denied usable sanctuary; further attacks on the United States
or allies avoided.
Pakistan stabilized as a long-term partner that is
economically viable, friendly to the United States, no longer
an active base for international terrorism and in control of
its nuclear weapons.
NATO success: the transatlantic alliance preserved
with NATO's role in Afghanistan recast into a politically
sustainable set of objectives.
A stable, sustainable Afghan Government that is
legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people, capable of
exercising effective governance and in control of its
territory.
Regional states confident of U.S. staying power and
commitment as their partner in the multi-faceted regional
struggle against violent extremism.
The United States' regional circle of friends
expanded, and the influence of enemies (e.g., violent
extremists) diminished.
In order to accomplish these objectives, the U.S. must work closely
with a myriad of partners--first and foremost, the Afghan Government,
but also the governments of allies, friends, and neighbors who comprise
both the international military and civil efforts. Additional
stakeholders include a diverse set of actors from nongovernmental
organizations, private entities and international institutions such as
United Nations and its many agencies.
None of this is new--what is new, however is the growing
recognition that this diverse mix of sometimes fractious players cannot
effectively counter an increasingly powerful enemy without strong U.S.
leadership. Of the myriad of actors involved, only the United States
can provide the leadership ``engine'' required for the multi-faceted
international to succeed in Afghanistan: it alone possesses the
resources, regional influence and combat capabilities to act as lead
nation--from facing the growing military threat to the provision of
``in-conflict'' (versus ``post-conflict'') reconstruction and
development efforts. The United States recognizes that it has vital
interests at stake in Afghanistan and the region; many other nations
view their vital interests in Afghanistan as simply preserving their
relationship with the United States.
success: leadership plus strategy plus resources
Put as a mathematical equation, success--meeting the above U.S.
policy objectives--derives from the balanced combination of leadership,
strategy and resources. Our system distorts our focus toward the
resource component: generating more troops, more dollars and euros,
more aid workers and police mentors absorbs vast amounts of our energy.
But resources cannot be a substitute for the lack of a plan--nor can
they take the place of the most central ingredient: the dynamic
leadership necessary to deliver success.
Missing during the past 3 years of de facto NATO primacy was an
effective American leadership ``engine'' to unify and drive the
international effort in Afghanistan toward a singular set of objectives
and strategy. Beginning in 2005, the U.S. largely approached the
military handoff of the Afghan conflict to NATO as a ``divestiture''
opportunity--NATO would take charge of Afghanistan, demonstrate the
alliance's relevance in the 21st century, and free the U.S. to focus on
the immense challenges in Iraq. At the U.S. Embassy, an integrated U.S.
civil-military enterprise in 2005 shifted toward a separate civil
approach with the dissolution of the overall U.S. military headquarters
in Kabul and the arrival of NATO as the over-arching military command.
Unfortunately, despite a new American commander leading NATO's ISAF
for the first time, the conflict rapidly became decentralized in
application--much different from previous U.S.-led NATO missions (such
as the 1995 Balkans ``Implementation Force'' effort or 1999 Kosovo Air
War). This individualistic approach with contributing nations
effectively designing their own campaigns has proven problematic. The
past 2 years of NATO command in Afghanistan have exposed numerous flaws
in alliance inter-operability and seen a spike to unprecedented levels
of insecurity and both military and civilian casualties--violence today
is up 543 percent on 2005, according to United Nations figures, a rise
of several orders of magnitude over the previous 5 years. 2007's high
point of violent incidents became 2008's year's lowest point.
In the military dimension, 2005 levels of U.S. and coalition unity
of command has largely been replaced by loosely coordinated NATO
national efforts focused on the small slices of Afghanistan, semi-
autonomous from any unified military strategy on the ground--and in
some regions simply providing a purely peacekeeping (and often
symbolic) military presence. NATO has spoken of a ``comprehensive
approach'' in its operations, but confusion regarding NATO's historic
role as a conventional military alliance have preempted it from taking
greater ownership of integration of military and civil effects in this
irregular war where success requires the effective integration of both.
Many NATO nations remain profoundly uncomfortable characterizing the
effort in Afghanistan as a ``war'' at all--despite rocket attacks,
roadside bombs, ambushes and thousands of casualties on all sides. In
the civil sphere, the U.N. mission has broadly lacked the will and
until recently, the mandate to unify the civil sector, and still avoids
the notion of somehow ``joining up'' with a military organization and
strategy. In sum, the current approach has proven a recipe for
deterioration and potential failure.
Resources poured into a disjointed strategy with fragmented
leadership produce stalemate--the description often applied to the
current situation in Afghanistan. Stalemate, in a COIN, represents a
win for the insurgent.
Lack of continuity and coherence in our leadership and our strategy
removes any possibility of delivering effective results without a major
change of approach. Over the last 8 years, our standard response to
challenges in Afghanistan has always focused on more resources; at the
same time we have cycled through at least six different U.S. military
commanders, seven NATO ISAF commanders, six different U.S. embassy
leaders, and four chiefs of the U.N. Mission.
The number of diverse ``strategies'' has closely paralleled this
revolving door of senior leadership. In this extraordinarily complex
conflict, strategy is important (and will be explored below), but
leadership is vital--leadership that includes both organizational
structures (e.g., military commands) and people: the human beings who
will fill critical roles in the effort, from senior NATO military
commander to U.S. ambassador.
first principles
Achieving success in Afghanistan requires the international
community--led by the United States--to focus on three ``first
principles'' in order to create the conditions for a new approach.
These principles must be the touchstones of any new strategy and
provide a lens through which any set of decisions should be viewed.
Absent these principles, no new strategies, no infusion of troops and
money, and no increased in international support will prove effective.
First, the Afghan people are the center of gravity of all efforts.
This fundamental understanding must underpin and influence every aspect
of a new approach in Afghanistan. Securing the population entails more
than simply protection from the Taliban: success requires the Afghan
people to have confidence in their personal security, health and
education, access to resources, governance and economic future--a broad
``human security'' portfolio. The Afghan people, down to the local
level, are the ultimate arbiters of success in Afghanistan. Progress
rather than perfection is a standard they understand and will accept.
On the other hand, international civil and military activities that
alienate the Afghan people, offend their cultural sensibilities, or
further separate them from their government are doomed to fail.
Nurturing the reasonable hope and cautious optimism of the Afghan
people in a better future is the sine qua non of our collective success
in Afghanistan.
Second, creating actual unity of effort within the civil and
military spheres is essential--and ultimately integrating the two.
Countless dollars and tens of thousands of troops have been committed
to Afghanistan over the past 8 years, but a sober assessment would
conclude that the whole has totaled far less than the sum of the parts.
The enemy seeks to disrupt our unity of effort; we have given him many
of the tools to do so. Only by dramatically improving the coherence of
the military effort and by connecting it to the civil reconstruction,
governance and development effort will effective progress be made. A
``comprehensive approach'' wherein each nation designs its own national
approach ensures disunity of effects.
The civil dimension of the enterprise has been even more fragmented
than the disjointed military effort. Successful Afghan Government
programs such as the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS), the
Independent Directorate of Local Government, and the National
Solidarity Program should form the drivers of this integrated effort--
and serve as the nexus of an integrated civil-military plan. Only the
United States has the capacity to lead this integrated effort--and it
should exercise its leadership by fully supporting and enabling the
Afghan Government, allowing allies and the international community to
solidify behind an Afghan plan, with an Afghan face, built on Afghan
institutions with improved capacity and effectiveness.
Third, simultaneous bottom-up and top-down action is required. The
recurrent debate between strengthening the central government versus
strengthening capacity at the local level must be ended. Afghanistan
requires both a capable national government in Kabul and effective,
legitimate local institutions at province, district and village level.
Models for this relationship exist in Afghan history over the
centuries, most recently in the 1960s and early 1970s. Action in this
realm must be two-pronged: Kabul and the central government as the
``top-down'' focus of the Kabul-based international community; and
province and district level ``bottoms-up'' action, enabled (and
sometimes led) by military efforts.
Improvements in central government from the capital must become the
main task for the Kabul-based international community, with
institution-building efforts jointly led by the United States, key
allies, and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan: effective
local government will be difficult if the national institutions of
power remain broken. These efforts should be focused toward key
ministries of the Afghan Government, which directly impact the local
population, as well as on support for a more effective executive system
around the president. At the same time, a renewed effort must be made
to concentrate resources and direct assistance at the growth of local
governance capabilities and sustainable State and societal institutions
at the province and district level.
In the south and east, because of the poor security environment,
much of this effort must be led by military forces with civil actors in
support--a different scenario from the north, where much better
security permits civil-led efforts. As security improves (akin to the
north and west), the primacy of military versus civil roles can be
reversed. As in Iraq, improvements in security are an essential first
step that will prompt faster progress in governance and development
programs, which will in turn enable greater security, leading
ultimately to a virtuous cycle of improving conditions. Moreover,
focused international attention in Kabul can do much to provide
increased resources for provinces and districts, as well as to enforce
accountability--while adhering to the ``first, do no harm'' commandment
in influencing local matters.
With the foundation provided by these first principles, an approach
for the next several years can be outlined.
operational sequencing
The broad outline of a new strategy in Afghanistan translates into
an operational sequence of reducing the threat while securing the
population, simultaneously building up the capacity and legitimacy of
the Afghan Government at the central and local level, then
transitioning each category of effect to sole Afghan control once a
sustainable Afghan capability is achieved.
This is a classic COIN strategy for Afghanistan--but a unified
strategy as opposed to the multiple disjointed approaches that exist
today. Due to the protracted nature of COIN, the severe lack of
development and infrastructure in the region, and the intractable
nature of regional dynamics affecting the conflict (such as the India-
Pakistan confrontation) this strategy is a long-term enterprise that
may take 10 to 15 years of effort to deliver decisive and enduring
results.
However, assuming the international community allocates adequate
resources and chooses sound security objectives, enough progress might
be made to allow significant reductions in coalition combat troops well
before this time, based on conditions on the ground rather than a rigid
timeline.
But executing a strategy focused on the long-term in Afghanistan is
currently not feasible, due to the current dangers that are the result
of the decay of government legitimacy and a deteriorating security
situation on the ground. So before we can begin executing a long-term
strategy the United States and the international community must first
halt the deterioration, stabilize the situation, and regain the
initiative. Only the United States can lead this effort, and only
through a military-led action in its first phases.
Therefore, at the operational level, the level at which strategy is
implemented through campaigns and civilian programs on the ground, the
sequence of action is ``Stabilize, Protect, Build, Transition.'' This
can be summarized as follows:
2009--Stabilize Phase (Holding Operation): Focus a surge of
U.S. and Afghan forces, and additional combat forces from other
partners willing to contribute, on the central essential task
of protecting the population during the August 2009 elections
and on stabilizing the security situation. The election outcome
will be a key test of legitimacy of the Afghan Government, and
indirectly, the international effort. A successful election
outcome--one that meets international standards of fairness and
transparency and strengthens Afghan institutions--offers the
chance to hit the political reset button, restoring the
legitimacy of the Afghan Government and with it the credibility
of the international effort.
2010--Protect/Regain the Initiative Phase (Counter-
offensive): continue to protect the population and state
institutions while persuading, enabling and mentoring the
Afghan Government to govern more effectively--top-down and
bottom-up. This will entail substantial growth in security
forces: U.S., allied, Afghan Army and Police.
2010-2015--Building Success Phase (Consolidation): protect
the population, build Afghan state and non-state institutions.
Improved security built from the bottom up around the country
provides space for concurrent growth of key economic and
governance functions. Success in the security sphere
incentivizes reconciliation efforts. Begin selective transition
(Afghanization) in the north and west.
2015-2025--Transition/Movement to Afghan Control: continue
selective transition--as further geographical areas (provinces/
regions) or functional aspects (e.g. agriculture, local
government, customs and border protection, policing) of the
state achieve sustainable stability, hand-off control over them
to responsible Afghan institutions. International military
presence draws down.
Continuous--Prevent (Counter-Sanctuary Operations) Throughout
the operational sequence above, the ``prevent'' task is
concurrent, continuous, and (because it disrupts other tasks)
is conducted only to the limited level needed to prevent
another international terrorist attack on the scale of the
September 11 attacks. Tactical opportunities which undermine
broader strategic goals are avoided.
political strategy
Although providing a detailed political strategy is outside of the
scope of this piece, a short synopsis of the complementary political
approach is provided here. The underpinning political strategy is to
regain the initiative through a sustained surge of international
military efforts partnered with improved local civil functions while
generating increased leverage over the Afghan Government, aimed at
reversing its loss of legitimacy through the circuit-breaker of
successful 2009 elections. This increased leverage is then used, via
persuasive, enabling and coercive measures (``carrot and stick''), to
create a reformed Afghan Government that governs in a more effective
and credible manner (building on its own improved legitimacy through
the 2009-2010 elections process, ideally including district elections
promised in 2002 but not scheduled so far).
As part of this overall political approach, the negotiation and
reconciliation strategy is aimed at identifying and co-opting
reconcilable elements of the loose insurgent confederation, while
simultaneously targeting and eliminating the tiny minority of
irreconcilables. Strength matters in this effort: regaining the
psychological initiative by creating military success accelerates the
potential for breakdown of Taliban fighters and promotes
reconciliation--insurgents with no hope for a future are much more
likely to lay down their weapons than those who believe they are
winning. Conversely, pursuing negotiations while your adversary
perceives he is winning negates any prospects for success.
the military strategy
An effective military strategy is paramount in an environment where
all agree that lack of security prevents progress across all other
elements of power. Despite the role of the enemy--Taliban and
affiliated networks--in creating this dangerous security environment,
coalition military forces must avoid the temptation to focus upon the
enemy as the centerpiece of their actions to restore security: the
population must remain the center of gravity. Focusing on the enemy
risks endlessly chasing an elusive actor who has no fixed locations he
must defend, and can thus melt away at will. It also creates civilian
casualties, undermining popular support for the effort, as the enemy
hides behind the population and deliberately provokes casualties.
north vs south: stability and counterinsurgency approaches
Geographically, Afghanistan can be broadly divided into two
security zones: the relatively more secure northern part of the country
(the ``Stability Zone'') and the dangerous and unstable south (the
``Counterinsurgency Zone''). A military strategy for Afghanistan must
recognize this disparity and of necessity focus its finite resources
and planning upon the south. The Stability Zone (comprising Regional
Command (RC)-North based in Mazar e Sharif and RC-West based in Herat)
presently demands few military forces: Afghan National Army units
stationed there are largely underemployed (while currently unavailable
to rotate to the south). NATO forces in the north perform a traditional
peace-keeping and reconstruction role--offering a useful security
presence but making little direct contribution to stabilizing the much
more dangerous south. That said, pockets of Taliban influence are
growing in Pashtun areas across the north, and NATO military forces
assigned to these areas must be prepared to counter this increasing
threat.
The Counterinsurgency (COIN) Zone--the primary area of insecurity
and combat action--comprises RC-East based in Bagram and RC-South in
Kandahar. Forces in the COIN Zone are engaged in near-continuous combat
action and account for the bulk of casualties in both NATO ISAF and in
Operation Enduring Freedom--U.S. counterterrorism forces not under NATO
command. Enemy suicide attacks, ambushes, roadside bombs and popular
intimidation occur predominantly in the COIN Zone.
population security: military lead
A population-centric strategy focused upon the COIN Zone should be
based upon classic COIN theory, modified and tailored so that it
applies to the specific circumstances of the Afghan context. Owing to
the very dangerous security environment in the COIN Zone, military
commanders must take the lead in the civil-military effort. Military
civil affairs units joined by a select number of appropriately trained
and equipped civilian volunteers, with adequate legal authorities, will
focus on improving the accountability and performance of Afghan
provincial and district governance, catalyzing economic development and
improving the rule of law. Civilian volunteers will often be at the
same levels of risk as the military units with whom they are
partnered--which reinforces the need for military-led efforts with
``combat'' reconstruction and development capabilities.
As increased (mostly American) units flow into the COIN Zone--
perhaps as many as 30,000 more in 2009 alone--both combat actions and
casualties will increase as more contacts between Taliban and coalition
forces ensue. For this reason, the level of violence involving the
coalition will be a poor metric for success in 2009--regardless of
whether we are winning or losing, the level of incidents will rise
sharply. Rather, the key success metrics will be control over
population centers and Afghan-on-Afghan violence.
Military commanders in the south and east must position their
forces to control and protect major population centers (cities, towns
and larger villages) while ensuring freedom of access along key routes
of communication. Areas that cannot be protected using coalition troops
must be secured by the presence of special forces and advisory teams,
working with local government and Afghan forces at the district level
to raise and employ local security volunteers (in the nature of a
neighborhood watch) and supported by quick-reaction forces in nearby
major centers. This role should become the primary focus of special
forces--much different from their principal ``door-kicking'' mission of
today.
Inherent in providing security to population centers is a robust
parallel effort to improve governance and extend development and
reconstruction across key sectors. The Provincial Reconstruction Team
(PRT) concept has proven useful in this contested environment and
should be expanded to district level through the fielding of District
Reconstruction Detachments and Governance Transition Teams. Deploying
PRTs down to district level will provide an implementing reality to the
``bottom-up'' approach and complement ``top-down' reform in Kabul. In
broad terms, civil-military integration and unity of effort in Kabul
argues for a diplomatic-led, centralized approach; civil-military
integration in the contested space across the COIN Zone argues for a
military-led, decentralized effort until security can be returned to a
more normal level (e.g., northern Afghanistan: the Stability Zone).
area ownership: delivering results
Military combat units in the COIN Zone must operate within a
principle of ``area ownership'' where unit commanders ``own'' the
primary responsibility for entire segments of territory--districts and
even provinces--and lead a unified civil, military, and Afghan
Government effort to ensure coherent, mutually supportive results
within these areas. ``Area Ownership'' is a derivative of the New York
City Police precinct approach of the 1990s, where precinct captains
were held fully accountable for crime in their precinct--but were given
all the tools and support to change the picture; this one person owning
all resources and all outcomes is absent in today's approach and
contributes to both fragmentation of effort and lack of accountability
for results.
The new approach should be visibly Afghan-led and connected to the
ANDS goals, but coalition military forces have an essential behind-the-
scenes role to play: ``leadership from the rear.'' Only by integrating
all of these civil-military efforts under one commander will synergy
and effectiveness be achieved. The coalition military commander must be
partnered with his Afghan National Army counterpart and the local
Afghan Governmental leader--be it provincial governor or district
administrator. The disjointed approaches employed to date--dividing
military and civil (and even Afghan) enterprises in the face of a
resurgent enemy--have taken us to the point of failure. It is past time
to make the bold shift required in order to assure success.
from mentoring to partnership
An essential shift in operational technique is also needed, away
from today's mentoring-only approach (where small teams military
personnel organized as Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLTs)
or Embedded Training Teams (ETTs) are responsible to advise entire
Afghan units) towards an approach that complements these teams by
partnering entire Afghan military and police units with coalition
counterparts.
At present, because of the security situation, our often under-
manned coalition advisor teams can only be in a limited number of
places and find it extremely difficult to observe and monitor the
activity of their dispersed Afghan unit. Police and military units tend
to operate on their own, with only limited coordination with each other
and with coalition forces.
By contrast, experience in Iraq and in parts of Afghanistan (such
as RC-East) where a partnering model has been used, suggests that
partnering whole units in such a way that any patrol or operation,
regardless of size, always includes a coalition military, Afghan
military and Afghan police component (and ideally also an Afghan civil
governance component), improves the performance of all three elements.
Coalition forces' performance improves because, since they always
work closely with an Afghan partner unit, their level of local
knowledge, language skill and situational awareness improves
dramatically. This creates fewer civilian casualties than occur during
unilateral operations, and allows for a subtler and less disruptive
approach to the local population.
Afghan military units' performance improves, because they have a
constant example and model of correct operational technique and
appropriate military behavior constantly before their eyes, and because
of the indirect fire, intelligence support, transportation and other
enablers available to them through coalition forces.
Afghan police effectiveness improves because they are supported by
military partners in the execution of law and order functions (rather
than, as now, carrying alone the burden of COIN operations for which
they are ill-trained and poorly equipped) and because the level of
police corruption and abuse drops dramatically when coalition and
Afghan military forces are present to independently monitor police
behavior. Meanwhile the presence of police officers creates another
whole category of ways to respond to security incidents, allowing
arrest or questioning, instead of leaving military forces to respond
with potentially lethal force.
This approach complements, but does not replace, the existing
coalition advisory teams that perform an essential and irreplaceable
function as ``up close and personal'' daily mentors to Afghan police
and military leaders. It provides them with much greater scope to
monitor, advise and assist their supported unit, since they are able to
be in many places at once and can draw on greater coalition resources.
These mentoring teams must be fully resourced immediately in order to
deliver their full potential in an environment where their role becomes
more vital every day.
enhancing command and control: military unity of effort
Military forces too must be organized in ways to optimize rather
than degrade their effectiveness in a fight for which there will never
be adequate resources. Unity of effort between civil and military
leadership cited above is one dimension. Equally important is the need
to streamline and align the NATO and U.S. military commands to achieve
maximum results. The NATO headquarters in Kabul today performs too many
functions to be effective: de facto, it operates at the political-
military, strategic, operational and tactical levels--a span of control
and responsibility which violates military doctrine and which has
proved largely ineffective. Serving all tasks allows it to perform none
well. Division of responsibilities is overdue: a three-star U.S.
headquarters whose commander is dual-hatted as a NATO deputy commander
should be positioned at Kandahar and given the day-to-day COIN fight
across the COIN Zone.
The COIN Zone 3-star headquarters should have selected multi-
national composition, but only with long-serving staff members of at
least 12 months tour duration. Its ``battlespace'' or assigned
territory should include all of RC-South and RC-East, and both of those
two-star RC divisional-level commanders should report to the three-star
Commander of the COIN Zone.
In a much-needed change from today, the COIN Zone commander should
have full command and control of all military forces operating in his
domain; his U.S. command authority makes that possible. This should
explicitly include Special Forces of all types and all Afghan National
Army ETTs and OMLTs. Moreover, the COIN Zone commander should create a
unified headquarters that fully includes ANA command and control
capabilities into this single fight across southern Afghanistan--a
missing component today.
The COIN Zone commander should be assigned a multi-national senior
civil staff to facilitate the integration of the civil and military
efforts across his zone. This civilian staff (and their counterparts at
lower level) would not fall under the military command but would serve
in what the military calls a ``supporting-supported'' role to the
commander: he is ``supported'' by their efforts and they are
``supporting'' his. This arrangement parallels the de facto approach in
U.S. PRTs today. At day's end however, the military commander is held
to account for the integrated outcome of this fused effort across his
battlespace; the same holds true for each of his subordinate
commanders, each of whom should be assigned a similar small civil staff
to oversee and integrate civilian efforts across their discrete areas
of operation. The Embedded PRTs employed with excellent effect in Iraq
during the surge could serve as a useful model here.
Of key importance, these commanders and their civil-military staffs
must connect as equal partners with parallel Afghan Governmental and
military leaders unified by oversight--``ownership''--of the same
areas. This much different approach to unity of effort is a leap ahead
from today's independent ``stovepipes'' of national and agency
approaches; these often extend down to provinces from Kabul or even
national capitols abroad with little regard for unified effect. Again,
this military-led, civilian supported approach is only designed for
high threat areas (i.e., the COIN Zone) and will revert to a more
traditional civilian-led model once security is significantly improved.
continuity: building equity in the outcome
Finally, the new strategy for the COIN Zone (RCs South and East)
must be co-developed by the military commander and his civil-military
staff who will implement and be held accountable for the strategy's
results. Area ownership also implies buy-in by those carrying out the
mission, and vests great authority in subordinate commanders to modify
the strategy as facts on the ground change. Arguably, these commanders
and their headquarters in a sustained counterinsurgency campaign should
anchor themselves in their areas for prolonged periods--the senior-most
leaders for upwards of 2 years between rotations--to improve continuity
and develop a ``long view'' beyond today's short term focus.
The time is also ripe for the U.S. to re-examine its combat
headquarters assignments to Afghanistan to either ``plant the flag'' of
two divisional and one corps-level headquarter to finish the fight
(possibly on an individual rotation model); or to specialize perhaps
three or four designated divisions with Afghanistan expertise and align
them for all future rotations. To date, the U.S. Army has rotated five
different two-star divisional level headquarters through Afghanistan in
7 years, with yet a sixth new headquarter arrival pending. Successful
counterinsurgencies require relationship-building, deep cultural
knowledge, and sustained focus--as commanders in RC-East have
demonstrated, continuity is, in itself, an extremely important
operational effect. Now is the time to reset this equation for the long
haul.
pakistan
Although describing a strategic approach to Pakistan is beyond the
scope of this piece, ignoring the linkage between Afghanistan and
Pakistan would be irresponsible.
Pakistan arguably presents the United States with its greatest
strategic challenge in the region. The second largest Islamic country
in the world armed with several dozen nuclear weapons demands our
attention. That said, the conflict in Afghanistan is not simply a
subset of a broader set of challenges in Pakistan. ``Solving'' Pakistan
would not in and of itself ``solve'' Afghanistan. Afghan problems are
as much internally driven (crime, corruption, narcotics; lack of
governance, infrastructure, economics) as they are any result of the
insurgents who operate from sanctuary in Pakistani border areas.
Solving these internal problems requires creating the right conditions
of security, but equally important requires adopting an effective
development, economic and governance approach within Afghanistan
itself.
Pakistan requires its own strategy and its own solutions as the
U.S. assesses its requirements in the region. The U.S. must assist
Pakistan in managing change--economically, militarily, perhaps even
societally--as it deals with immense problems brought about by a deadly
combination of both internal and external factors. The U.S. must
partner with the Pakistani Government to develop a vision of a long-
term strategic partnership between Pakistan and the United States--not
one simply based upon today's transactional relationship anchored in
fighting terrorists in the tribal areas. Much like the U.S. has evolved
the idea of a long-term strategic partnership with India, commensurate
effort must be invested into a parallel track with Pakistan--but not as
a zero sum game.
As to Pakistan's relationship to the conflict in Afghanistan, U.S.
success in reversing the decline in Afghanistan and achieving success
would increase our leverage with Pakistan. Arguably, much of the
schizophrenic Pakistani approach to the Afghan conflict today is based
upon their expectation that the U.S. and our allies lack staying
power--and will move rapidly for the exits if failure is imminent.
Success in Afghanistan might reverse that perception and lend much
greater credibility to U.S. statements of long-term commitment.
conclusion
The international effort in Afghanistan is at a difficult and
dangerous crossroads. A serious decline in security is mirrored by lack
of good governance and a burgeoning illegal economy, fueling corruption
at all levels. The population--buffeted by a series of downturns after
the high hopes of mid-decade, are beginning to question both their own
government and the presence of foreign forces--especially in light of
civilian casualties and some offending tactics. Hope for a better
future is diminishing--a clear danger signal. Without substantial and
dramatic changes to our approach--leadership, strategy and resources--
the risk of failure is great.
Losing in Afghanistan after more than 8 years of major
international effort creates potentially horrific results: an insecure
Pakistan; a return to deep sanctuary for Al Qaeda; increased regional
instability across south and central Asia; a lack of confidence in
American staying power and military prowess; and a fragmentation of
NATO and the transatlantic alliance. Failure truly is not an option.
The arrival of the new U.S. administration is exactly the right
moment to revisit our collective objectives in Afghanistan; to re-
animate NATO's involvement; to regenerate resource commitments; and to
re-assert U.S. leadership--which more than any other single external
factor is vital to success.
The war in Afghanistan can be won, but only through the
concentrated application of strong leadership, beginning in Washington;
a new, unified civil-military strategy, which must be implemented from
the bottom-up on the ground; and the right mix of resources to enable a
new set of dynamic leaders to fully implement the new plan. But we must
clearly acknowledge that only the United States can be the engine that
powers this train, and the only nation that can lead this renewed
international effort.
The next several years will demand an increased military effort--
indeed, the dangerous security situation across much of the country
will require a military lead to enable the delivery of many civil
effects. But ultimately, the war must be won by the Afghan people and
their government. The role of the international community, while vital,
simply creates the conditions--space, time, human capacity--to allow
the Afghan people to prevail. But only a renewed approach which
delivers focused U.S. leadership to an endeavor which is today is so
clearly off-track can reverse the trend lines and set the stage for
enduring success. This is eminently within our reach to achieve.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, General.
Ambassador Dobbins.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES DOBBINS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, RAND CORPORATION
Ambassador Dobbins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The question before us is whether it's possible for the
United States to turn around the situation in Afghanistan as we
successfully did in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. I think there are
reasons to be cautious in answering that question. Afghanistan
is, after all, larger and more populous than Iraq, while
American, allied, and Afghan forces are much smaller than those
that we had in Iraq. Afghanistan is more isolated and
inaccessible. It's far poorer and less developed, and it's been
at civil war for 30 years.
Yet we still have several advantages in Afghanistan that we
lacked in Iraq, given the nature of our entry. First of all,
the American presence in Afghanistan remains more popular than
it has ever been in Iraq. Second, President Karzai retains more
popularity than any leader in Iraq has yet been able to secure.
Third, we have far more international support for our efforts
in Afghanistan than we ever did in Iraq. Fourth, all of
Afghanistan's neighbors and near neighbors, with the partial
exception of Pakistan, helped to form the Karzai Government and
fully accept its legitimacy and wish to see it succeed.
Finally, sectarian animosities in Afghanistan are less intense
than Iraq.
These conditions are changing, however, and they're
changing for the most part for the worst. Afghans are becoming
increasingly critical of our presence. President Karzai is
losing domestic and international support. Violence is
increasing. Civilian casualties are climbing, threatening to
generate new refugee flows and exacerbate tensions among these
ethnic groups. Thus the shift in American attention and
international attention, from Iraq to Afghanistan has come none
too soon.
I'd like to use my remaining time to suggest a number of
additional steps that could be taken to improve our prospects
for succeeding in Afghanistan. By succeeding, I mean succeeding
in turning around the negative security trends.
First, I think we need to unify the NATO and American
military command chain. At the moment we have a division of
forces in Afghanistan. Most of the forces in Afghanistan do not
come under General Petraeus and U.S. Central Command. Most of
them come under the Supreme Allied Commander, whose
headquarters is in Belgium, another American general, General
Craddock. The division in command goes down into the country as
well, with Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and ISAF running
two completely separate command chains.
Clearly we can continue to muddle through with this divided
command structure, as we have for years. But I think if there's
any chance of Ambassador Holbrooke and General Petraeus pulling
off in Afghanistan what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker
were able to pull off in Iraq, that's only going to happen if
General Petraeus is given full control over the military half
of that relationship. At the moment he controls less than 50
percent of the forces in Afghanistan.
I think there's a fairly simple way of doing that, although
it would require a political decision, and that is to make
General Petraeus a major NATO commander. At present there are
two major NATO commands, one in Mons, Belgium, Supreme Allied
Command-Europe, and a second one in Norfolk, which is doing
transformation. Now, transformation is yesterday's priority. It
may be tomorrow's priority as well. But it's not today's.
Today's is winning the war in Afghanistan, and therefore I
would take all those NATO staffers from Norfolk and move them
down to Tampa and create a major NATO command so that General
Petraeus would have responsibility to the American President
for the American part of this operation and responsibility to
the NATO Council for the NATO part of this operation, and run
that part of the operation through an integrated military
command structure. I think this is the only way that we can
unite the effort successfully.
I'd point out that since we invaded, along with the U.K.,
North Africa in 1942, that's the system we have used in all of
our joint endeavors with the Europeans--the Cold War, Bosnia,
Kosovo. Afghanistan is the first time where we've had divided
command structures in NATO and allied operations.
Second, in my written testimony I offered a couple of
suggestions about how we can improve and unify the command of
the civilian assets, that is to say improve the relationship
between the United States and its allies and provide more
coherent leadership, for instance, to the provincial
reconstruction team effort, which at the moment is completely--
is completely unstructured. Twenty-two Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), the majority of them are in fact
run not by the United States, but by allies. Each ally runs its
own on their own standards and there is no practical oversight
or commonality among the approaches of the civilian part of
this counterinsurgency effort.
Third, I think that we need to bolster the quality and
size, not only of the troop presence and for that matter the
civilian presence in Afghanistan, but the quality of the staff
that both our ambassador and our military commander there have.
One of the reasons that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus
were successful in Iraq was that they had large, sophisticated
staffs that were attuned to the local situation and could
conduct a very difficult and complex counterinsurgency
operation successfully. I don't think we've put that richness
of resources into Afghanistan yet. Ambassador Crocker, for
instance, had half a dozen ambassadors working for him in
subordinate positions, and General Petraeus had a very large
staff, including a number of civilians who brought expertise
that the military don't normally bring to a situation. So we
need to bolster that aspect of the effort as well.
Fourth, as General Barno suggested, we need to combine our
top-down approach in Afghanistan of building up the Afghan army
and the Afghan Government with a bottom-up approach, something
similar, under admittedly quite different circumstances, to the
Sons of Iraq effort that we instituted in Iraq. I have some
suggestions for that. I do think that in Iraq we essentially
took 100,000 insurgents and put them on our payroll, and
thereby turned around the security situation dramatically in
the Sunni parts of the country. Exactly how we replicate that
in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to depend on very different
circumstances, but it does imply a willingness to talk to at
least some of the Taliban and to accommodate at least some of
their aspirations.
Fifth, I think we need to pay more attention to insurgent
activities in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. So far,
all of our economic assistance and all of our Predator strikes
have come into the Northwest Frontier Province, which is not
odd since that's where al Qaeda tends to operate and it's also
where the insurgent groups that were operating against American
forces in the northern part of the country and eastern part of
the country were located. However, that's not where the Taliban
is headquartered. That's not where the Taliban is operating
from. It's operating from Baluchistan. Its main council meets
in Quetta. So I think we need to complement the attention that
we've been paying to Northwest Frontier Province with a
comparable level attention to the situation in Baluchistan.
Sixth, I think we need to support the upcoming Afghan
elections while remaining scrupulously neutral among the
possible candidates. Now, that sounds like a no-brainer and not
too hard to do, but it'll in fact be very difficult. It will in
practice limit the ability we have to criticize Karzai. The
criticisms of Karzai and his government are largely legitimate.
It has been penetrated by corruption, and Karzai is sometimes
indecisive. But we need to avoid the appearance that we're
trying to undermine that government or favor alternative
candidates. So that's going to be a very difficult balance to
maintain over the next year.
Seventh and lastly, we need to intensify our engagement
with Afghanistan's neighbors. Now, I think we all agree that
includes most particularly Pakistan, which is the least helpful
of the neighbors at the present. But it also means engaging
Iran, which has by and large been benign on Afghanistan, but
could be considerably more helpful, and continuing to work with
Russia and India. All of these countries were our partners back
in 2001 after the September 11 strike in overthrowing the
Taliban and replacing it with a broadly-based government, and
we need to reconstitute that consensus.
Let me conclude by saying a word about what our objectives
should be in Afghanistan. I'm often asked, do we seek a secular
democracy, a more developed economy, a strong centralized
government, a fully self-sufficient state capable of securing
its territory and populace? If so, how realistic are these aims
and how long would they take? This it seems to me are not
questions that we can or should try to answer definitively at
this point. Democratization, development, capacity-building and
diplomacy, fighting the insurgents, and negotiating with those
that can be won over should all be viewed not as independent
goals, but as components of an overall counterinsurgency
strategy, the objective of which is to secure the population.
Our job is neither to defeat the Taliban nor to determine
the future shape of Afghan society. The American and allied
objective should be to reverse the current negative security
trends and ensure that fewer innocent Afghans are killed next
year than this year. In a counterinsurgency campaign, this is
the difference between winning and losing: Are you successfully
protecting the population or not? If, as a result of our
efforts, the current rise of violence is reversed and the
population made more secure, the Afghan people will be able to
determine their own future through peaceful rather than violent
competition of ideas, people, and political factions. This has
begun to happen in Iraq and our objective should be to give the
Afghans the same opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Dobbins follows:]
Prepared Statement by Ambassador James Dobbins \1\
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\1\ The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are
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counterinsurgency in afghanistan \2\
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\2\ This testimony is available for free download at http://
www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT318/.
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In September 2001, the United States was attacked from Afghanistan
by a global terrorist network that is now headquartered in Pakistan.
American attention is now being redirected toward this region. It is
not a day too soon.
For the first several years after the collapse of the Taliban
regime the Bush administration ignored Afghanistan almost entirely. In
Pakistan, its focus was almost entirely on al Qaeda, while it largely
ignored the Pakistani regime's continuing ties to the extremist groups
that were organizing to reclaim control of Afghanistan. In President
Bush's second term this attitude began to change. For the past several
years the United States has begun to put more resources into
Afghanistan, and to pressure the Government in Islamabad to confront
the enemy within. But these efforts have remained what the military
call an economy of force exercise. As Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Mullen acknowledged a little more than a year ago, ``In Afghanistan we
do what we can. In Iraq we do what we must.''
Afghanistan is larger and more populous than Iraq. It is more
isolated and inaccessible. It is far poorer and less developed. It has
been in civil war for the past 30 years. Yet we still have several
advantages in Afghanistan that we lacked in Iraq, given the nature of
our entry. First of all, the American presence in Afghanistan remains
more popular than it ever was in Iraq. Second, Karzai retains more
popularity than any leader in Iraq has yet been able to secure. Third,
we have far more international support for our efforts in Afghanistan
than we ever did in Iraq. Fourth, all Afghanistan's neighbors and near
neighbors, with the partial exception of Pakistan, helped form the
Karzai Government, fully accept its legitimacy, and wish to see it
succeed. Finally, sectarian animosities in Afghanistan are less intense
than Iraq. Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and the Shia all compete for wealth
and power but none challenge the identity of Afghanistan as a multi-
ethnic bilingual state, none seek to secede, or to drive others out.
It is also worth noting that our opponents in Afghanistan are as
disunited as they were, and are in Iraq. We speak of the Taliban as if
it were a united enemy, but it represents only one of a number of
insurgent groups headquartered in Pakistan. They are united in seeking
to drive us out of Afghanistan and topple the Government in Kabul, but
otherwise have little in common.
These conditions are changing, and for the most part they are
changing for the worse. Afghans are becoming increasingly critical of
our presence. President Karzai is losing domestic and international
support. Violence is increasing and civilian casualties climbing,
threatening to generate new refugee flows and exacerbate tensions among
ethnic groups. Thus the shift in attention from Iraq to Afghanistan has
come none too soon.
Although the administration is still reviewing its Afghan policy,
the broad outlines are apparent--an increase in American troop
strength, pressure on Karzai to crack down on corruption, the
appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for both Afghanistan
and Pakistan and a recognition that stability in Afghanistan requires
changes in Pakistan as well. There are several further steps the United
States and its allies should consider.
First, unify the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and
American military command chain.
Second, do the same for the civilian effort.
Third, bolster the military and civilian staffs in Afghanistan.
Fourth, institute a bottom up component to our counterinsurgency
strategy to complement the top down approach we have followed to date.
Fifth, pay more attention to Afghan insurgent activities in the
Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
Sixth, support the upcoming Afghan elections, while remaining
scrupulously neutral among the possible candidates.
Seventh, intensify our engagement with Afghanistan's neighbors.
unifying military command
Since 1942, when the U.S. and UK established a combined command for
the invasion of North Africa, American and its European allies have
operated together through a common military command structure, with a
supreme commander responding both to the American President, and the
leadership of the other allied governments. This is how we waged the
Cold War, and conducted the post-Cold War interventions in Bosnia and
Kosovo. Afghanistan is the first place where the American and NATO
command chains have diverged.
At present the American and allied military effort in Afghanistan
are divided between Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). There are American and
allied troops in both command chains. Both chains report ultimately to
American generals, one in Tampa, FL, and the other in Mons, Belgium.
ISAF is presently the larger of the two forces, operating under General
Bantz Craddock, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. OEF, the smaller
force, comes under General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central
Command.
Within Afghanistan the command chain of these two forces converge
under yet another American General, David McKiernan, before diverging
toward Tampa and Mons. The two forces operate in generally distinct
geographic areas, but some assets are necessarily employed in support
of both, and some intermingling cannot be avoided. Divided command of
this sort inevitably produces unnecessary friction, and is a standing
invitation to misunderstanding, failure to render prompt assistance,
and at the worst, fratricide. Of course we can continue to muddle
through with this complex and confusing arrangement, as we have for the
past several years, but there can be no hope that Petraeus and
Holbrooke can pull off in Afghanistan the sort of reversal that
Petraeus and Crocker managed to produce in Iraq in 2007 as long as
Petraeus has control over less than half the American and allied forces
in Iraq.
There is a simple solution to this problem. There are currently two
major NATO commands, one in Mons, Belgium, and the other in Norfolk,
VA. The Norfolk command is charged with ``transformation'', that is to
say the modernization of allied militaries along common lines. This is
yesterday's top priority, and perhaps tomorrow's, but it is certainly
not today's. Why not transfer these responsibilities back to Supreme
Allied Commander, Europe, in Mons, relieving that commander of
responsibility for Afghanistan, while moving this second major NATO
headquarters to Tampa, putting it under General Petraeus, and giving it
and him undivided authority for Afghanistan. Alternatively, NATO could
create a third major command for Afghanistan in Tampa, while keeping
the two it already has.
This move would allow OEF and ISAF to be combined into a single
force under a unified command chain all the way up to the American
president and the NATO Council. Some allies want to do only
peacekeeping but not counterinsurgency, others only counterinsurgency
but not counterterrorism. They might oppose combining OEF and ISAF
fearing that their own missions might change. It should be possible to
accommodate these limitations within the structure of a single force
with several separable missions. Yet even if the OEF and ISAF command
chains cannot be fully merged, the efficacy of both will be immensely
enhanced if they run in parallel from top to bottom, rather than
diverge as they do at present.
unifying civil reconstruction
Successful counterinsurgency (COIN) requires the intense
integration of civilian and military expertise and activity. This is
very difficult, particularly when done on a multilateral basis. The
civil COIN effort in Afghanistan is particularly fragmented due to the
failure, going back to late 2001, to create a structure and appoint a
single leader to pull these activities together.
Holbrooke's appointment puts a single official in charge of
American non-military activities in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan.
Several European Governments have recently moved to create similar
positions. It would be helpful if the Europeans could be encouraged to
appoint a single individual, representing the European Union, to
coordinate their national efforts and work with Holbrooke on a unified
western approach to stabilization and reconstruction in both
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We also need to give some greater coherence to provincial
reconstruction efforts. There are currently 26 Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan, of which the majority are
run not by the United States, but by 13 other allied governments. There
is no central structure overseeing these disparate efforts, setting
common standards, establishing development priorities and otherwise
supporting these teams. The U.S and the other governments fielding PRTs
should establish a common administrative office in Kabul which would be
responsible for developing a common doctrine, working with NATO, the
U.N., the World Bank, the Afghan Government and other donors to set
development goals and channel additional resources to these provincial
teams.
bolstering staff
Throughout the 16 month American occupation of Iraq, the Coalition
Provision Authority was never more than 50 percent staffed. What is
even more surprising, neither was CJTF-7, the top American military
headquarters in Iraq. These staffing shortfalls go far in explaining
deficiencies in American performance during that crucial period.
By 2007, these deficiencies had been largely corrected. The surge
in troop strength was accompanied by a significant build up in both the
quantity and quality of the civilian and military staffs in Baghdad.
Crocker had half a dozen former Ambassadors working for him. Petraeus
had the support not only of a very talented military staff, but of a
number of civilians who came with expertise not normally found within
the armed services. The State Department and AID were also able to
fully staff and run 22 PRTs located throughout the country.
It was this pool of talent which allowed Petraeus and Crocker to
manage the immensely complex and sophisticated strategies that divided
our enemies in Iraq, brought former insurgents over to our side,
deterred outside meddling and turned the security situation around.
Afghanistan now requires the same sort of surge in the quantity and
above all the quality of civilian and military talent, both at the
headquarters level and in the field. At present the American PRTs in
Afghanistan are still run by the military, in contrast to Iraq. The
U.S. will find additional troops for Afghanistan by moving them from
Iraq. It may not be possible for State and AID to do likewise. Indeed
the burden on our diplomats and aid officials in Iraq may grow as the
military presence recedes. Congress should therefore help State and AID
generate the resources to surge in Afghanistan even as they hold steady
in Iraq.
building from the bottom up
Among the elements which reversed Iraq's decent into civil war were
a counterinsurgency strategy which gave priority to public security,
not force protection, and the decision to organize, arm, and pay large
elements of the population that had previously supported the
insurgency.
Replicating the first of these effects in Afghanistan will be
impossible with the American, allied and Afghan forces at our disposal.
The Afghan population is larger than the Iraqi and much more dispersed.
Afghan police and military forces are much smaller, as are American and
allied troop numbers even after the planned U.S. reinforcement.
American, allied and Afghan soldiers will be able to protect the
populations in the contested areas only if elements of this population
are also enlisted in the effort.
The initial American approach in Afghanistan was bottom up. The
U.S. worked with a number of warlords, militia and tribal leaders,
including the Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzai, to overthrow the
Taliban. More recently the United States and its allies have adopted a
largely top down strategy in Afghanistan, seeking to build up the
capacity of the Government in Kabul to provide security, justice,
education, health, electricity and other public services to its rural
population. Progress has been too slow, in part because we wasted the
first several years after the fall of the Taliban, but also because,
unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has never had much of a central government.
Current circumstances require that we combine the top down and
bottom up approaches. A counterinsurgency strategy emphasizing the
delivery of security and other public services to the rural populations
can only succeed if those populations are enlisted in the effort. The
Afghan Government has pioneered some efforts in this regard, but more
will be needed. This will prove quite controversial. The Afghan tribal
structures are very distinct from those in Iraq, and any effort to
replicate the ``Sons of Iraq'' will need to be adjusted considerably to
suit local conditions. Many in the central government will fear that
local empowerment will come at their expense. The Tajik, Uzbek and Shia
leadership will fear that we are arming their enemies, the Pashtuns,
just as the Shia and Kurdish leaders in Iraq looked at the Sunni
Awakening skeptically. Wending our way through these minefields is
precisely why our military and civilian staffs in Kabul, and the field
need to be reinforced with real experts in the region, in
counterinsurgency, and economic development.
focusing on baluchistan
Insofar as the United States has focused on the sanctuaries from
which the Afghan rebels are operating, it has directed its aid, and its
Predator strikes on the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), and the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) it. This is where the
insurgent groups targeting American troops in eastern Afghanistan are
headquartered, and also where al Qaeda leaders are located. But the
Taliban operates predominantly in the south, not the east of
Afghanistan, and does so from the Pakistani province of Baluchistan,
not the NWFP. The Taliban Shura, or governing council is known to meet
in the city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. Many American
reinforcements are slated to be heading to the south of Afghanistan,
where they will thus be facing an enemy controlled from Baluchistan.
The utility of targeted killings employing Predator drones over
Pakistan is debatable, but to the extent it is useful, there seems no
good reason to limit the activity to the NWFP. The extension of
American economic assistance and of effective Pakistani Government
authority over the border region might actually be somewhat easier in
Baluchistan, since unlike the FATA, this border area is at least
juridically covered by Pakistani law, and fully within the country's
political system.
supporting the elections
The presidential elections scheduled for later this year could be a
major turning point, either enhancing public support for the country's
leadership, or moving it further toward civil war. The United States
will have a major stake in the outcome, but will need to remain
scrupulously neutral if that outcome is to be regarded as legitimate.
This imperative will effectively limit the amount of pressure
American officials can usefully put on President Karzai. In recent
weeks the Afghan President has come under increasing criticism from
Washington for tolerating corruption and failing to meet the
aspirations of his people for peace and economic development. No doubt
these criticisms are valid, but the administration and Congress should
resist the temptation to blame Afghanistan's leadership for our
failures. It is only necessary to recall back in 2007, when Congress
was busy benchmarking the Iraqi Government, implicitly threatening to
abandon them if they did not achieve certain legislative goals. Well,
the Iraqi leadership have begun to meet many of those goals, but only
after American and Iraqi forces created the security conditions in
which mutual accommodation among rival factions became feasible.
A certain level of criticism of Karzai can actually enhance our
bona fides as a genuinely neutral party in the contest, given that he
is widely, if inaccurately, seen as something of an American creation.
Taken too far, however, such pressure could begin to look like
Washington was trying to jettison him in favor of another candidate.
This could have disastrous consequences.
Whatever we do, Karzai stands a good chance of winning this
election, if not on the first ballot, as he did last time, on the
second. A far worse occurrence would be an inconclusive or contested
result. At present everyone outside Afghanistan and very nearly
everyone inside agrees that Hamid Karzai is the legitimate, freely
elected President of Afghanistan. Our overriding objective, in how we
approach this year's elections, must be to ensure that whoever wins
enjoys at least the same degree of acceptance and support inside and
outside that country.
engaging the neighbors
Afghanistan is a poor, desolate, isolated and inaccessible state
surrounded by more powerful neighbors. It has never been fully self
sufficient. Its internal peace has always depended upon the attitude of
external parties. When its neighbors perceived a common interest in a
peaceful Afghanistan, it was at peace. When they did not, it was at
war.
In the aftermath of September 11, the United States worked closely
with Afghanistan's neighbors and near neighbors to overthrow the
Taliban and replace it with a broadly representative, democratically
based regime. This unlikely set of partners consisted of Iran, India,
and Russia, long-term backers of the Northern Alliance, and Pakistan,
until then the patrons of the Taliban. Reconstituting this coalition
should be the current objective of American diplomacy. Holbrooke and
Petraeus should be encouraged to work closely not just with our
European allies, but with all these regional governments, including
Iran, with which the United States collaborated very effectively in
late 2001.
At some point a new international conference, with participation
similar to that which met in Bonn in November 2001 to establish the
Karzai regime, might help advance this process. The product of such a
conference might be an agreement:
Among all parties to declare Afghanistan a permanently
neutral country;
By Afghanistan not to permit its territory to be used
against the interests of any of its neighbors;
By its neighbors and near neighbors not to allow their
territory to be used against Afghanistan;
By Afghanistan and Pakistan to recognize their common
border;
By all other parties to guarantee that border; and
By the United States and its NATO allies to withdraw
all forces from Afghanistan as soon as these other provisions
have been implemented.
Such a package would give all the participants something of value.
Pakistan would secure Afghan recognition of its border and assurances
that India would not be allowed to use Afghan territory to pressure or
destabilize Pakistan's own volatile border regions. Afghanistan would
gain an end to cross border infiltration and attacks. Iran would get
assurances that the American military presence on its eastern border
would not be permanent.
The Afghan people desperately want peace. They continue to hope
that their freely-elected government, the United States and NATO can
bring it to them. American forces continue to be welcome in Afghanistan
in a way they have never been in Iraq. But public support for Karzai,
his government, and the American presence is diminishing. Additional
American troops and more aid dollars may be able to reverse, or at
least slow these negative trends, but in the long term Afghanistan will
be at peace only if its neighbors want it to be. Building such a
consensus must be the main objective of American diplomacy in the
region.
long-term goals
I am often asked to suggest what our longer-term goals in
Afghanistan should be. Do we seek a secular democracy, a more developed
economy, a strong centralized government, a fully self sufficient state
capable of securing its territory and populace? If so, how realistic
are these aims? These, it seems to me, are not questions that we can or
should try to answer definitively at this point. Democratization,
development, capacity building and diplomacy, fighting the insurgents
and negotiating with those that can be won over should all be viewed
not as independent goals, but as components of an overall
counterinsurgency strategy designed to secure the population.
Thus, our job is neither to ``defeat the Taliban'' nor to determine
the future shape of Afghan society. The American and allied objective
should be to reverse the currently negative security trends and ensure
that fewer innocent Afghans are killed next year than this year. In a
counterinsurgency campaign, this is the difference between winning and
losing--are you successfully protecting the population or not. If, as a
result of our efforts, the current rise in violence is reversed and the
populace made more secure, the Afghan people will be able to determine
their own future through the peaceful, rather than violent competition
of ideas, people, and political factions. This has begun to happen in
Iraq. Our objective should be to give the Afghans the same opportunity.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Ambassador, very much.
Dr. Strmecki.
STATEMENT OF MARIN J. STRMECKI, PH.D., SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
AND DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS, SMITH RICHARDSON FOUNDATION
Dr. Strmecki. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to share my views with the committee about the
situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to address your
questions.
The debate about the Obama administration's policy toward
the region has really focused on the wisdom of sending the
additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. My view is that the
situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated to the point that
more troops were necessary. However, just as important as
sending more forces is the question of what other conditions
are necessary to ensure when these forces are sent they can
move us toward our objective. I would like to touch on a
handful of those conditions.
The first involves the role of Pakistan. A first order
priority for the Obama administration must be to undertake a
clear-eyed assessment about whether the Pakistani military
establishment is doing all that it can to eliminate the
sanctuaries on its territory. If it is not doing so--and I do
not believe it is--then the task for American diplomacy must be
to find a way to address the motivations that are driving
Pakistani policies--their geopolitical motivations, their
fears, their interests--so that one can move them to a position
where they make a strategic choice to fully exert themselves
against the problem in the sanctuaries.
Second, the United States, other NATO countries, and the
Afghan Government must develop a campaign plan based on classic
counterinsurgency principles. We should place central priority
on creating security for the Afghan population. This means
above all creating persistent presence for security forces,
primarily Afghan forces, at the local level, to give the people
the confidence that they can share intelligence with us about
the enemy without fear of retaliation when our forces are not
there.
Third, to support this counterinsurgency campaign, the
United States should work with the Afghan Government to
dramatically escalate the size and capabilities of Afghan
national security forces. This probably means building an
Afghan National Army (ANA) to 250,000 troops and an Afghan
National Police Force of more than 100,000 personnel. This will
be expensive, but it is still the most cost-effective way to
secure Afghanistan because deploying an international soldier
costs 50 to 100 times more than deploying an Afghan soldier.
Fourth, the United States should work with those Afghans
who are seeking to improve governance in their country,
reducing corruption and strengthening the civil administration.
We are right to be critical of the Karzai Government in this
regard. It has underperformed. But we shouldn't lose hope
because there have been achievements--the building of the ANA,
promoting rural development and health through Afghan-led
national programs, starting the process of appointing better
officials to provincial and local levels, and appointing a
reform-oriented minister of interior. We can be critical of the
Afghans, but we should build on the progress that we are
starting to see.
Fifth, the United States and other supporters of
Afghanistan must work with its government to bring into balance
the military and nonmilitary elements of the strategy. There's
a tried and true formula that proper counterinsurgency is 80
percent nonmilitary and 20 percent military. But our efforts,
if one looks at budgets and resources and personnel, are the
converse.
We need to find ways to build on effective Afghan-led
development programs, as well as to create enterprise funds and
other mechanisms to stimulate growth.
I'd like to make one final point. In the public debate
there have been calls from many circles to define downward our
goals in Afghanistan, to abandon the objective of building a
stable, effective, and democratic state that would be our ally
in the war on terror, and instead to focus simply on the narrow
and primarily military objective of preventing Afghan territory
from becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Defining our goal
downward in this respect would be a terrible mistake. It might
be possible or even advisable if the threat in the region had
disappeared or was diminishing. But it's a proximate threat and
it's a growing threat and located in western Pakistan. It's a
threat to us, it's a threat to Afghanistan, it's a threat to
stability in Pakistan. We need to work against that problem
from the west in Afghanistan, from the east in Pakistan, and in
working to the heart of the problem in the border regions.
Afghanistan looks like a very difficult task and it
certainly is. But if the Obama administration makes the big
decisions early I believe it has the ability to turn the
situation around in its first term.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Strmecki follows:]
Prepared Statement by Dr. Marin Strmecki
Mr. Chairman, Senator McCain, and distinguished members of the
committee: My name is Marin Strmecki. I am the Senior Vice President
and Director of Programs at the Smith Richardson Foundation, a private
foundation that supports public policy research and analysis. I
appreciate the opportunity to give you my views on the situation in
Afghanistan. I have followed events in that country closely for more
than 20 years. I served from 2003 to 2005 as a policy coordinator and
special advisor on Afghanistan in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense and undertook a factfinding trip to the country for the
Secretary of Defense in 2006. Though I am currently a member of the
Defense Policy Board, the views I present today do not reflect any
discussions or deliberations by the board.
In light of the opportunity and challenge that Afghanistan presents
to the Obama administration, the committee's hearings are very timely.
Today, I want to make five major points.
1. During the past 3 years, the situation in Afghanistan has
deteriorated, particularly in terms of security. The vast
majority of Afghans oppose the Taliban, but local communities
cannot defend themselves from insurgent intimidation and
attacks. Reversing the negative trends requires rededicated
U.S. leadership, greater resources, and an improved strategy
and campaign plan. The fact that the Obama administration is
undertaking a wide-ranging strategic review is an encouraging
sign.
2. In this review, it would be a mistake to revise our goals
downward, giving up the current objective of enabling Afghans
to establish an effective and representative government aligned
with us in the war against terror. The United States needs an
Afghan state capable of policing its territory to prevent the
reestablishment of a terrorist safe haven. Helping the Afghan
people succeed politically and economically will produce a
significant positive demonstration effect in the wider region,
thereby contributing to the war of ideas against extremism.
Success will end the cycle of proxy warfare that has cost more
than a million Afghan lives during the 1980s and 1990s. It will
also open a route to global markets for the Central Asia states
and create an economic zone that can be the basis for greater
prosperity in Central and South Asia.
3. The focus of our policy should be to defeat a real and
growing threat arising from a set of violent extremist groups
based in western Pakistan and their supporters in Pakistan. The
necessary conditions for success include the stabilization of
Afghanistan, as well as strengthening elements in Pakistan
opposed to extremism and finding ways progressively to narrow
the areas in Pakistan in which the extremists can operate until
these organizations have in effect been smothered.
4. A key task is to induce elements of the Government of
Pakistan that have historic ties to the Taliban and other
groups to make a strategic choice to cooperate fully in
eliminating extremist sanctuaries. This requires the United
States to undertake sustained diplomacy that is cognizant of
the motivations and interests that might underlie Pakistan's
policies and that is designed to create a regional context
conducive to the stabilization of Afghanistan. The Obama
administration's appointment of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as
a special envoy presents this opportunity.
5. U.S. efforts to ``harden'' Afghanistan against the
insurgent threat operating out of the sanctuaries can succeed.
To do so will require changes in our current approach,
including development of a more robust political and state-
building effort, shifting to a classic counterinsurgency
strategy focused primarily on providing security to the
population, and integrating Afghan and international civilian
and military efforts in a phased campaign to secure contested
areas.
As we approach this challenge, it is vital to understand what
conditions produced stability in Afghanistan in recent history and what
dynamics underlie the instability of recent decades. Too often,
commentators mistakenly take the view that Afghanistan has been either
ungovernable throughout history or has lacked a central government
whose reach extended throughout its territory. In fact, until the late
1970s, Afghanistan had been a relatively stable developing country for
much of the twentieth century. It was a poor country, to be sure, but
one with a state that carried out basic governmental functions and that
enabled gradual political and economic progress.
At the simplest level, three factors were essential to stability.
First, the Afghan people broadly viewed the government as legitimate,
particularly during the rule of King Zahir Shah. The monarchy was
rooted in the Pushtun community, but Afghan leaders understood the need
to provide for participation by other ethnic and social groups. The
monarchy ruled on the basis of a flexible compact between the central
government and local tribal and social leaders, providing policing and
civil administration as a means to strengthen political cohesion and
allegiance. Second, Afghan security institutions were sufficiently
strong to prevent subversion, encroachment, or aggression by ambitious
neighboring powers. For example, when externally sponsored Islamist
extremists sought to infiltrate the country in the early 1970s, they
were policed up rapidly, with the cooperation of local leaders and
communities. Third, a tacit agreement existed among regional rivals
that Afghanistan should be a buffer state, not dominated by any of its
neighbors but instead open to political, economic, and social
influences by every power at a level that would not threaten the
others. As long as those conditions persisted, Afghanistan enjoyed
stability and ``worked'' as a country.
The tragedy of Afghanistan was triggered when this system
collapsed. It began with the coup that brought the Afghan Communist
party to power in 1978 and the subsequent invasion by the Soviet Union
in 1979. Once Moscow imposed its proxy regime in Kabul, the Afghan
people mounted a national resistance. In this period, Pakistan and Iran
mobilized and armed proxies among the resistance groups, with the
United States in effect supporting Pakistan's effort with financing,
arms, and supplies. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the
eventual collapse of Moscow's client state in 1991, a three-way civil
war broke out between proxies supported by Pakistan, Iran, and Russia.
By 1996, the Taliban, a proxy group backed by Pakistan, won control of
Kabul. However, it continued to fight an inconclusive war against
factions that joined together in the Northern Alliance, a proxy
supported by Russia, Iran, and India. Throughout this period of
conflict, all of these client regimes lacked national legitimacy: these
groups were instruments of foreign states with limited popular support,
typically rooted in narrow factions or one ethnic group or region. As a
result, none could establish a state that was capable of extending its
reach throughout Afghan territory or precluding armed subversion by
adversarial neighbors. This pattern of competition--fighting among
internal Afghan factions backed by rival external powers--resulted in a
quarter century of violence.
The promise of the Bonn Process, sponsored by the U.N. and
supported by the United States as military operations were undertaken
against the Taliban regime in 2001, lied in the fact that it sought to
establish a post-war order through a renewed version of Afghanistan's
traditional formula for stability. Internally, it involved all anti-
Taliban factions in a political process that step by step gave greater
political weight to the preferences of the Afghan people, culminating
in national elections in the presidential election 2004 and
parliamentary election in 2005. This vehicle enabled the establishment
of an inclusive, broad-based state, with the Afghan people ultimately
serving as the arbiters of who would rule in Kabul. The Bonn Process
also provided for external support, principally from countries outside
of the region, to rebuild effective Afghan security institutions. At
the same time, all of Afghanistan's neighbors were players in the Bonn
Process, providing them with transparency and a measure of influence
and allowing for participation in Afghanistan's reconstruction.
The Bonn Process--and the underlying formula for restoring
Afghanistan's stability--produced significant results in terms of
political stability and state-building. Most significantly, in the
months following the Afghan presidential election in October 2004, the
level of security incidents in Afghanistan fell to negligible levels.
This offers proof of principal that a dual process--building political
legitimacy and using regional diplomatic engagement to prevent
destabilizing interventions--could produce a path to stability and
progress in Afghanistan.
During the past 3 years, the stability won by the Bonn Process has
been largely lost. The core of the problem has been the regrouping of a
set of violent extremist forces in sanctuaries in Pakistan, some
seeking to carry out terrorist attacks on the United States, others
undertaking cross border attacks on Afghanistan, and still others
attempting to radicalize and destabilize Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, rising insecurity has been driven by an escalation
in cross-border infiltration and attacks by the Taliban, the Haqqani
group, and the Hezbe-Islami of Hekmatyar Gulbiddin. This activity
increased incrementally in late 2005. It escalated dramatically in
2006, including operations by larger-unit formations against the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) units assuming command in the
south. Enemy operations expanded geographically in 2007 and 2008,
increasing the scope of contested areas even as enemy tactics returned
predominantly to small-unit and terrorist actions.
An enabling condition for successes by the Taliban and other
extremists has been the underperformance of the Afghan Government and
its consequent loss of popular support. This is not to deny significant
Afghan achievements of building the Afghan National Army, instituting
effective Afghan-led national programs in rural development and health,
and other areas. However, following the elections of 2004 and 2005,
President Karzai disappointed the expectations of the Afghan people
that their government would systematically improve provincial and local
governance, by deploying honest and effective officials and delivering
basic services. In too many areas, weak, corrupt, or nonexistent
government was the reality. As Afghans often say, ``The problem is not
that the Taliban are so strong--it is that the government is too
weak.''
This combination--violent extremists operating out of a neighboring
country and eroding legitimacy at home--has produced the deteriorating
situation in Afghanistan today. Reversing this trend requires a two-
pronged effort to eliminate enemy sanctuaries in Pakistan and to
``harden'' Afghanistan against the insurgency of the Taliban and other
extremists. I will take up each of these in turn.
Uprooting the sanctuaries will require a broad-based political
strategy. A first order question that the Obama administration will
face is assessing the role of the Government of Pakistan in the
insurgency in Afghanistan. President Zardari's election provides a
willing partner to help stabilize Afghanistan, but power is divided in
Islamabad. Key elements of the military establishment--particularly
Inter-Services Intelligence--have longstanding ties to extremist groups
operating against Afghanistan. I believe that these elements, at a
minimum, have not made a strategic choice to cooperate fully with the
effort to stabilize Afghanistan.
Press reports and analysts have long noted that, in the past 7
years, Pakistan's security services have helped capture hundreds of al
Qaida leaders and operatives but only a handful of those of the
Taliban. They have also observed that the Taliban operates openly in
Quetta, the capital city of Baluchistan province where ample Pakistani
police and other security forces are available. More troubling is the
reporting of David Sanger in his recent book The Inheritance: the World
Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power. He states that in
a conversation with former Director of National Intelligence Mike
McConnell, a Pakistani general admitted that his military was
supporting the Taliban. Sanger also writes that McConnell asked for an
assessment by the Intelligence Community of Pakistan's relations with
the Taliban. He states that the resulting report indicated that the
Pakistani Government regularly gave the Taliban and other militant
groups ``weapons and support to go into Afghanistan to attack Afghan
and coalition forces.'' I am not aware that any U.S. official has
disputed this account. If it is accurate, it raises troubling questions
about the activities of Pakistan's military and intelligence services
in Afghanistan.
If elements in Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment
are adversarial to our efforts in Afghanistan, the starting point in
trying to change their orientation is to understand the underlying
reasons for their actions. In my view, there are at least five
potential motivations:
The first is the fear that Pakistan's regional
rivals--particularly India--will secure undue influence in the
Government of Afghanistan. On this topic, Pakistani officials
offer a litany of complaints, starting with President Karzai's
close ties to India, continuing with prominent roles of former
Northern Alliance figures in key security institutions, and
including accusations that anti-Pakistan intelligence and
political activities are orchestrated from Indian consulates
and road building companies in eastern and southern
Afghanistan.
The second is a belief that the United States, as well
as NATO, lacks staying power and will abandon Afghanistan.
This, in turn, will lead to the failure of the Afghan
Government and a reprise of the proxy competition among
regional rivals of the 1990s. If this scenario is likely, it
follows that now is the time to field effective proxy forces to
gain positional advantage in the fight to come.
The third is the fear that a successful Afghanistan
will exert a dangerous political appeal to ethnic Pashtuns who
live in Pakistan. The unresolved legal status of the Durand
Line and the history of tensions with Afghanistan over the
Pushtunistan issue exacerbate this concern.
The fourth is the strategic aspiration of some in
Islamabad to project Pakistani influence into Central Asia
through Afghanistan.
The fifth is the belief that the United States will
only remain engaged with Pakistan--and provide military and
economic assistance--if security threats draw us into the
region. This leads to the view that Pakistan's interests lie in
acting as a ``strategic rentier state,'' perpetuating a degree
of insecurity in order to be paid to reduce it.
As Ambassador Holbrooke engages with Afghan and Pakistani leaders,
a key objective should be to draw out from Pakistani military and
intelligence leaders what are their strategic concerns and to advance
discussion between the two sides about how these might be addressed in
a manner consistent with a strong and stable Afghanistan. At a minimum
this should include discussion of a package containing five
initiatives:
Create a system of redlines governing the activities
in Afghanistan of all regional powers, including both Pakistan
and India, to allay concerns that one rival is gaining
unilateral advantage and to provide a transparent system for
monitoring compliance.
Craft credible commitments on the part of the United
States to remain the principal external power engaged in state-
building in Afghanistan, particularly regarding security
institutions, and to take Pakistani security concerns into
account in formulating its policies.
Mediate discussions between Afghan and Pakistani
leaders to arrive at a common understanding of the border
regime and use relations between the Pushtun communities in
both countries to foster constructive social and economic ties.
Make commitments to plan, jointly with Kabul and
Islamabad, and to finance the construction of the
infrastructure (e.g., roads, rail, pipelines, communications)
to connect Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan,
thereby enabling expansion of trade and cultural and political
ties.
Develop a major package--on the order of U.S.
assistance to Egypt--to support the economic and social
development in Pakistan, including support to improve the
educational system, to stimulate growth of private enterprise,
and to build needed infrastructure, in order to demonstrate the
United States values a long-term relationship with Pakistan for
its own sake not just as a tactical necessity in the war on
terror.
These initiatives, among others, can address the motivations that
might lie behind the apparent reluctance of elements in Pakistan to
make a strategic choice to support efforts to bring stability to
Afghanistan, as well as isolate those who might sympathize with the
ideology of the extremists. It is imperative to recognize that the
inducements needed to ``flip'' their policies must be significant.
Current assistance, including coalition support funds and bilateral
aid, creates a foundation for leverage. However, the increments of
additional assistance will need to be large in order to be commensurate
with the stakes involved.
At the same time, for a package containing these initiatives to be
effective, the benefits should flow only on a ``pay for performance''
basis. If U.S.-sponsored mediation leads to a meeting of minds on these
issues, bestowing the benefits should begin only when the security
situation in southern and eastern Afghanistan has stabilized--only when
the sanctuaries have been closed down.
Together, these actions could create the basis for a transformation
of the Afghan-Pakistan relationship. As I noted, the Zardari Government
is already a willing partner. However, I believe that, since the
attacks of September 11, U.S. policymakers have underestimated the
sensitivity of Pakistan's military establishment to the evolution of
post-Taliban Afghanistan. The issue is not whether those fears or
beliefs are grounded in fact or paranoia. Instead, the issue is to find
ways that Afghanistan and the United States can allay or address
whatever concerns might be driving Pakistan conduct without
compromising our interests or values.
If all elements in Pakistan fully cooperate to eliminate extremist
sanctuaries, the task of hardening Afghanistan against the residual
insurgency would be an order of magnitude less difficult than the
challenges we face today. Yet, even if the Pakistan-based insurgency
remains at current levels, it can be done.
The principal reason for my conviction is that the legitimacy of
the Afghan Government can be renewed. The overwhelming majority of the
Afghan people, as measured in polling and shown by anecdotal evidence,
oppose the Taliban. Large majorities want the new democratic political
order to succeed. What has been missing on the part of the Afghan
Government, the United States, and other friends of Afghanistan is a
fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy and campaign plan to
mobilize and vindicate this latent support.
The hard core of the enemy is a cadre composed of Afghan and
(increasingly) foreign fighters who operate out of cross-border
sanctuaries. According to polls, the Taliban also appears to have the
support of about 5 percent of the people. In addition, there are
``soft'' layers of coerced, tacit, or expedient supporters. In light of
the inability of Afghan or NATO forces to protect local populations,
many Afghans believe they have no choice but to submit to Taliban
threats and demands. Sometimes, ineffective or corrupt officials
demoralize local communities to an extent that they have no preference
between the Taliban and the Afghan Government. In other instances,
tribal rivalry results in disadvantaged groups seeking tactical
alliances with the Taliban. It is likely that military mistakes or
civilian casualties in NATO operations have turned communities against
the Afghan Government. In still other cases, some individuals have
become ``terrorists for a day'' to make money.
The logic of classic counterinsurgency doctrine provides the
template for peeling away the soft outer layers of the insurgency and
for defeating the hard core. It begins with the recognition that the
center of gravity is the people. They are the key because the enemy
moves among them--they know who in their areas is linked to the enemy.
If the people provide this intelligence, rooting out the enemy can be
done surgically, even by police actions. To obtain this information,
the challenge is to win the ``hearts and minds'' of the people. Winning
the mind of an average Afghan involves persuading him that the Afghan
and NATO forces are going to win the war and that these forces will
protect him from retaliation if he takes the risk of providing
intelligence on the insurgents. Winning the Afghan's heart entails
persuading him that he will benefit, in terms of improved governance
and economic development, as the Afghan Government prevails. Winning
hearts and minds cannot be done without persistent presence of security
forces at the local level--this visibly gives the assurance of
protection against retaliation and provides the basic security needed
to deliver services to the people. There is no short around the hard
work of providing security for the population. It is the foundation of
all other measures.
From late 2003 through mid-2005, coalition forces shifted to a
population security-based campaign plan. Coalition and Afghan forces
were deployed permanently into contested areas, instead of launching
cordon and search operations that left no enduring security presence.
Though the threat and troops levels in this period were lower than
those of today, this approach succeeded in winning cooperation from
local communities and increasing stability in the south and east.
However, as the Taliban and other extremist forces escalated attacks in
late 2005 and 2006, U.S. and other NATO forces gradually moved away
from the population security paradigm and toward an emphasis on
maneuver operations, firepower, and raids by Special Operations Forces
(SOFs). In the current paradigm, Afghan, U.S., and NATO forces withdraw
shortly after clearing an area of the enemy, which allows him to
reenter and results in no enduring gains. It is not surprising that
some polls show that, while Afghans support the continuing presence of
international forces, they are losing confidence that these forces can
deliver security.
To implement a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan entails
making a commitment to success, strengthening the legitimacy of the
Afghan Government, establishing security at the local level, and the
fielding of effective governance and development. It requires ten
principal actions:
1. Recommit to a definition of success that includes the
improvement of the lives of average Afghans: Loose talk about
diminishing U.S. goals or expectations demoralizes our Afghan
allies. If an Afghan villager doubts our staying power, he will
not risk his life and the lives of his family members to
provide intelligence on the enemy. If he believes that we are
solely pursuing a parochial mission of hunting down terrorists,
he will become cynical and indifferent to our success. If we
operate in partnership with the Afghans--and if we credibly
recommit to success--this action alone will reduce
counterproductive hedging and result in popular mobilization to
support the common cause.
2. Align the United States with popular aspirations for
reform: In the coming election in Afghanistan, the United
States should announce that it hopes that Afghans will seize
the opportunity to achieve a political breakthrough for reform,
bringing to office leaders for whom reducing corruption and the
taking on narcotics industry as primary missions. It is for
Afghan political figures to compete for popular support in
terms of these and other issues. The key for the United States
is position itself to support the better aspirations of the
Afghan people.
3. Resolve issues through collaborative problem solving:
Diplomacy based on angry demarches seldom work with Afghan
leaders. Assigning all blame to President Karzai for failures
in governance is unfair and counterproductive. There have been
instances when he sought to move against a corrupt minister or
a criminal figure but was persuaded to desist by U.S. officials
and military officers. President Karzai has been an effective
leader when he is confident in his relationship with the United
States, when he has a strong team of reformist officials around
him, and when his main U.S. interlocutor works with him to
arrive at a common definition of the problem, an agreed action
plan with responsibilities allocated among the Afghan
Government and the international community, and a system for
working through challenges in implementation. As the United
States has moved away from this kind of time-consuming but
productive engagement, Karzai's leadership suffered, to the
detriment of our common efforts. We should return to the
successful model based on close collaboration to get the most
out of the Afghan Government.
4. Avoid actions or statements that shift the United States
toward the role of an occupying force: In addition, loose
comments about bypassing Kabul to work with provincial, local,
or tribal leaders can be harmful. U.S. forces and agencies
already undertake constructive work at the grassroots level.
However, if a shift in rhetoric or policy appears to diminish
the elected Afghan Government, the United States will take a
step down a path that could result in our being viewed as
occupiers. The best approach is to work from the bottom up as
well as the top down to achieve immediate effects while
improving the functionality of linkages between levels of
government. This model was used to great effect in the CORDS
program in Vietnam.
5. Develop an integrated population security-based
counterinsurgency campaign plan jointly with the Afghan
Government: Since our forces and those of our Afghan and NATO
allies are limited, we should first secure major population
centers and then progressively expand secured areas district by
district and province by province as more Afghan or NATO forces
become available. Also, too often, the United States and its
NATO allies develop military plans and bring them to the Afghan
side for formalistic approval. Sometimes, actions are taken
without any consultation. Going forward, this should change.
Afghan security forces are the largest component of the
coalition, and the Afghans can provide valuable local knowledge
needed to build out the plan. Moreover, an integrated campaign
should bring to bear Afghan-led governance and development
programs immediately in the wake of military operations. These
include the Focused District Development program (which
upgrades training of police personnel for an entire district),
the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG) (which
evaluates and replaces provincial and district officials if
necessary), the National Solidarity Program (which provides
small grants to carry out projects selected by village-level
development councils and already operates nationwide), and
others. The Afghan Public Protection Force concept--a program
in the pilot stage--is designed to provide village-level
security thought vetted and trained recruits, under the
authority of the Ministry of Interior (MoI).
6. Bring all SOFs active in Afghanistan under NATO command:
Press reports, as well as speeches by Department of Defense
officials, have noted a major expansion in actions by SOF. In
Afghanistan, the highest and best use of SOF is partnering and
mentoring ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP) forces. There is
no better way to move Afghan forces up the learning curve and
thereby to increase our capacity to fill contested areas.
However, there are indications that direct action is the
dominant SOF mission. Senior Afghan officials believe that SOF
raids are a principal cause of excessive civilian casualties
and are disaffecting the Afghan people. We should take this
concern seriously. It is encouraging that NATO is concluding a
military technical agreement with the Afghan Government that
may cover this issue. Specific SOF operations should be
measured against the standard of whether they advance the
population security campaign. This approach would result in
greater emphasis on the mentoring mission and less on direct
action.
7. Field a major expansion of the training, partnering, and
mentoring capacity for Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF):
Though the Bush administration's decision to increase in the
planned end strength of the ANA from 70,000 to 132,000 deserves
praise, the Obama administration should increase the target to
250,000, as well as increase ANP end strength above 100,000. In
light of the current level of the threat, it is only when the
ANSF reaches those numbers that the ratio of security personnel
to population will achieve the level necessary for success in
counterinsurgency. More precise estimates of needed ANSF force
levels will be possible as the campaign plan demonstrates how
much area or population can be secured by particular numbers
and mixes of the ANSF. This will require a major expansion of
training capacity--at least a doubling--but the experience in
Iraq shows that this is possible without loss of quality. While
it will be expensive, there is no more cost effective approach
to secure Afghanistan than to build up the ANSF dramatically.
8. Accelerate support to the MoI: President Karzai's
appointment of a new, reform-oriented minister in October 2008
created a major opportunity to improve the performance of the
institution in charge of civil administration and police. A
major U.S.-supported program to reform the ministry is
underway, but the United States should spare nothing in
ensuring that the new minister has what he needs to advance
these changes. The Afghan-led IDLG has show that the
appointment of high-quality local and provincial leaders can
have transformative effects. A reformed MoI, supported by the
experience garnered through the IDLG, creates the needed
mechanism to systematically improve governance beyond Kabul.
9. Adopt the national program model for service delivery and
development: Afghan-led national programs in rural development
and health have been significant successes. The National
Solidarity Program has created 23,000 Community Development
Councils and through them has implemented more than 45,000
locally selected reconstruction projects across the country, at
a fraction of the cost of those undertaken by western
nongovernmental organizations or contractors. Improvements in
the national health infrastructure, led by Ministry of Health
and supported by a wide variety of donors, have started to move
health indicators such as child mortality in a positive
direction. The model is based on using an Afghan ministry as
the vehicle to receive donor funds and to carry out donor
programs. If the ministry lacks capacity--in strategic
planning, procurement, auditing, or other functions--it
contracts foreign specialists to work within the ministry, side
by side with its personnel. The ministry also either delivers
the services itself or enters direct contracts with providers,
thus avoiding western overhead rates and reducing inefficient
subcontracting. This model should be applied to other program
areas and should be adapted to accelerate development of Afghan
capacity in economic sectors, such as agriculture, food
processing, and construction. It should be complemented by an
enterprise fund to support small and medium-sized enterprises
and joint ventures and by a greater use of instruments such as
Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
10. Reconcile the reconcilable elements of the insurgency as
the counterinsurgency campaign unfolds: A population security-
based campaign will naturally peel off the ``soft'' layers of
the insurgency. Providing enduring security to vulnerable
communities will reduce the level of coerced support. Improved
governance will win over disaffected communities that opted to
sit on the fence between the insurgents and the government.
Effective governors and district administrators, who
historically have mediated tribal or communal conflicts, can
prevent the insurgents from exploiting local conflicts to gain
support. Effective counterinsurgency should entail far less
kinetic strikes, reducing the numbers of enemies produced by
mistakes or civilian casualties. As economic growth takes hold
in secured areas, the relative attraction of payments to carry
out insurgent actions will diminish. Improvements in the lives
of average Afghan citizens may also win over some of those who
report sympathy for the Taliban in polls. If all these groups
are reconciled, the next final step is whether any elements can
be split off from the hard core.
These 10 measures create the needed balance between providing
security on the one hand and taking advantage of improved security to
take the political, governance, and economic actions to strengthen the
legitimacy of the Afghan Government and to enable Afghanistan to stand
its own feet. It is a tried and true statement that effective
counterinsurgency entails 80 percent civil actions and 20 percent
military measures. A properly executed population security-based
campaign supported by a fully resourced state-building and economic
development program should meet that standard.
In closing, I would again urge us not to reduce downward our goals.
If the United States does so, it will diminish its ability to win the
hearts and minds of the Afghan people--and thus the intelligence they
can provide--for they will know that their aspirations are excluded
from the definition of success. Such a reduction in our goals would
also wave a red cape in front of regional powers already doubtful of
our staying power and could prompt them to take actions that will
further destabilize Afghanistan. Moreover, even if the United States
were to remain engaged with a narrow military mission of preventing a
renewed terrorist safe haven, it would become a mission of indefinite
duration. An Afghan Government with sufficient capacity to police its
own territory is the path to a drawdown of NATO forces.
The example of South Korea should be the model. After the end of
the fighting in the mid-1950s, South Korea was worse off by most
social, economic, and political indicators than Afghanistan after fall
of the Taliban. Yet, a robust and well-designed state-building and
economic development program, led by excellent South Korean leaders and
supported by the United States, produced an Asia Tiger within 25 years.
Even though we retain a defense commitment and forward deployed forces,
the overwhelming burden of defending the peninsula is carried by South
Korea. In the cold war competition in East Asia, the peninsula was
vital terrain. The same is true for Afghanistan in the struggle against
extremism and terrorism. The South Korean case shows what can be
achieved by resolute American commitment and effective partnership with
local leaders. The Obama administration should carry those lessons over
to Afghanistan.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Dr. Strmecki.
Let's try a 6-minute first round. I think there's a vote
that's going to begin at 10:30 a.m. It's my hope we can work
right through that vote.
In his recent statement to the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, Dennis Blair said that ``No improvement in
security in Afghanistan is possible without progress in
Pakistan'' and no improvement in Afghanistan is possible
without Pakistan taking control of its border areas and
improving governance, creating economic and educational
opportunities throughout the country.''
As I indicated, it obviously would be very, very helpful if
Pakistan was able to improve the border situation and take
control of it and do the other things which Dennis Blair talked
about.
But would you agree with me that that statement is simply
too unqualified, that there can be no improvement in Afghan
security unless the situation in Pakistan is improved in the
way that's indicated? Why don't we start off with you, Dr.
Strmecki. Very quickly, would you agree with that statement
that it's too unconditional?
Dr. Strmecki. I would agree with you, Mr. Chairman. I think
it's an issue of costs. If one got cooperation of the kind that
he discussed in his point, an order of magnitude reduction in
cost in terms of stabilizing Afghanistan would I think be
possible. But one can harden Afghanistan against the insurgency
if one puts in the resources and approaches the task mobilizing
Afghan capability at the right levels.
Chairman Levin. Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I agree that it's an overstatement in
the sense that I do think it's possible to reverse the
currently negative trends. But I don't think it's possible to
eliminate the threat or create an entirely self-sustaining
Afghan capability of protecting its population unless Pakistan
is playing a much more benign role. Afghanistan is simply too
poor, and too isolated, to ever be able to secure its territory
and its population unless its neighbors cooperate in that
effort.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
General Barno?
General Barno. I would agree as well, Mr. Chairman. I think
in fact as I look at Afghanistan that probably half of the
problems that we were dealing with were not related to the
Taliban; they were related to internal factors trying to pull
the country apart--corruption, crime, poverty, lack of
education, lack of health care. Those factors are not directly
impacted by activities inside of the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Chairman Levin. I think each of you has commented on the
additional forces which the President has now indicated are
going to be going to Afghanistan, but why don't we have it in
one place in the record. Very briefly, do you support the
President's decision to send an additional 17,000 troops to
Afghanistan over the next 6 months or so? General? Briefly,
why? Do you support it and briefly why?
General Barno. I absolutely support it, Mr. Chairman.
Having just been out there a month ago, it was clear in RC-
South, where the bulk of those forces are going, that they are
tremendously under-resourced with boots-on-the-ground right
now, and if we're going to secure the population we're going to
require a much different force structure than what's available
there today.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I support the reinforcement and expect
that probably more are going to be necessary over the next
year.
Chairman Levin. Do you want to say briefly why? I know you
did in your testimony, but still very quickly tell us,
summarize why you think the additional forces are needed and
appropriate.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think the core of any successful
counterinsurgency strategy is making the populace feel that
they're safer if you're there than if you're not and providing
them pervasive--or not so much pervasive as persistent
security, so that you don't lose control of the villages at
night and they come in and murder everybody who cooperated with
you in the daytime.
Now, given the dispersed nature of the Afghan population
and the size of the Afghan population, there's probably no
conceivable American increase that's going to fully meet that.
So it is going to have to be met by, as you've suggested,
significantly increasing the size of the Afghan forces and
contributions from allies. But most particularly, in addition I
think we have to empower the local communities in the
threatened areas to contribute to their own security and look
on the central government's and our own forces as quick
reaction forces that can come when they're threatened. Creating
that kind of structure for local security, I think, has to be
one of our priorities.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I also support the reinforcement of our
forces. One reason, as has been discussed, is that a proper
counterinsurgency plan focused on protecting the population
will require more people. But also, if we're going to escalate
the numbers of Afghan forces, that key mentoring and partnering
role will require additional forces.
Chairman Levin. I'd like to ask you about the border issue.
It's obviously a huge problem and we keep saying to Pakistan:
We need you to control your border. Down in the Baluchistan
area, what that's going to mean is basically taking on the
forces there that so far they've been unwilling to take on,
including the Taliban leaders that are there, that openly--or
if not openly, at least have meetings in Quetta and support
forces going across that border into Afghanistan.
What I have argued is that the strongest security force in
Afghanistan is their army and it is a weak force that is now
along the border, where they rely on the border police to do
the patrolling and the controlling, and yet there has been a
history of corruption there and weakness.
Could you comment on my suggestion that the strongest
Afghan security force should at least in part be moved to that
border to provide a deterrent for those cross-border incursions
and that we should not rely as heavily on Pakistan to stop
those incursions from occurring?
Why don't we go right to left. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I think keeping some kind of screens, whether
it's our forces together with ANA forces or ANA forces alone,
is important. However, it has to be complemented by the
population security campaign. It needs to be in balance. But
the screen would be helpful, and certainly the ANA forces are
the most effective ones on the Afghan side.
I think the real pay dirt in terms of Pakistan is conduct
and getting Pakistan on side in this effort is going to be
diplomatic. If Ambassador Holbrooke can get to the root of why
Pakistan is conducting itself the way it is, then we can work
the issues. Is it fear of India getting too much influence in
Afghanistan? Is it fear that we're going to leave and there
will be a proxy competition afterward, and so forth. There are
other motivations that may be behind the Pakistani conduct. If
we can get to those and find ways to address them that do not
compromise our interests in Afghanistan, but allay fears or
take interests into account on the Pakistani side, I think you
could see a flip in the Pakistani policy.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I'll defer to General Barno on the
feasibility of controlling that long, difficult border. I'm
skeptical that it would be the optimal use of available and
limited forces.
I do agree with Marin that part of the solution is
diplomatic. We're in this odd situation and the Afghans are in
this odd situation of insisting that Pakistan control a border
that Afghanistan doesn't recognize. The border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan is contested and it's contested
because the Afghans don't recognize it and, frankly, many of
them harbor aspirations to taking over large parts of Pakistan,
the parts that are currently inhabited by Pashtuns.
I think at some stage we might want to try to reconstitute
the kind of meeting we had in Bonn in 2001 which set up the
Karzai Government, this one to try to negotiate a pact among
Afghanistan, its neighbors, and near neighbors, the components
of which might include all of the parties declaring Afghanistan
to be permanently neutral, Afghanistan agreeing not to permit
its territory to be used against the interests of other
neighbors, its neighbors agreeing not to allow their territory
to be used against Afghanistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan
finally recognizing their common border, all of the parties
guaranteeing that border, and the United States and its NATO
allies agreeing that they will eventually withdraw once all of
these other provisions have been fulfilled.
So I do think this is not something you can do overnight,
but I think that kind of objective for Holbrooke's diplomacy
would be worth considering.
Chairman Levin. Very quickly, General, because my time is
up.
General Barno. I would be very cautious about moving forces
to the border. It's a 1,500 mile border, the distance from
Washington, DC, to Denver, CO.
Chairman Levin. I'm talking Baluchistan mainly here.
General Barno. Even on the Baluchistan side, Mr. Chairman,
I think that the ability to actually try and shut down border
crossings because of the size and the complexity and the
terrain there and the history of that being a very porous area
is going to be very tough. I think there's more that can be
done, but I would be against moving military forces there to do
that. I don't think that would be productive.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witnesses. General McKiernan has said that
17,000 additional forces are at best two-thirds of what his
requirement would be. Would you agree, pending, obviously, the
development and implementation of an overall strategy? General?
General Barno. I think he best knows what his requirement
is, Senator. So clearly he understands what he's trying to
achieve with those forces, which is the ultimate question, what
are the forces going there to implement on the ground and is
that the right number to implement the strategy which we all
now think is the correct strategy. So we have a couple
questions we have to know the answer to before we can say this
is the right resources to apply.
Senator McCain. But very likely it's not sufficient?
General Barno. I think from my own brief visit out here
recently, I think that, depending on how the strategy lies out,
that the total security force requirement could be
substantially more than that, and that'll include lots of
Afghan forces as well.
Senator McCain. Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I agree with that.
Senator McCain. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I agree as well.
Senator McCain. Are we in danger in our exhaustion and
frustration and weariness of developing a counterterrorism
strategy in Afghanistan, as opposed to a counterinsurgency
strategy, General?
General Barno. I've always viewed the counterterrorism
component, which I should shorthand as calling strike
operations, as a subset of a broader counterinsurgency
strategy.
Senator McCain. They alone didn't work in Iraq.
General Barno. No, they can't work by themselves. It's
simply a way of buying time. In some ways, as I watched while I
was out there, some of those strikes obviously counter our
strategic objectives. They may be tactical successes by killing
the individuals we're looking for, but when they kill civilians
the strategic impact is----
Senator McCain. It alienates both Afghan and Pakistani
populations?
General Barno. I think clearly in Afghanistan we have
options to operate with our ground forces in ways that we don't
across the border. So our choices are much more limited inside
of Pakistan, which requires us to work closely with the
Pakistanis. In Afghanistan we have a series of different things
we can do than simply conduct strikes from the air, which we're
doing some of there as well.
Ambassador Dobbins. I generally agree. I've stressed that
the objective, our objective there, has to be not defeating the
Taliban or even killing terrorists; it's reducing the number of
civilian casualties. If we do that we're winning, and if we're
winning then many things will become possible that are not
possible when you're losing, which is what we're doing at the
moment.
Dr. Strmecki. I'm very concerned in terms of what we see in
Special Operations Forces raids and air strikes that are not
linked to a population security campaign. I think they are
alienating----
Senator McCain. That partially can be addressed by
integration of command.
Dr. Strmecki. That's right, that's right. But on the Afghan
side they're seeing civilian casualties from these things, but
no returns in terms of increasing security. So I think that is
why you're seeing trends in the Afghan population that they're
losing confidence in us to be able to deliver the result of
security.
Senator McCain. General, I assume you agree that in 2003
and 2005 we were going in the right direction, since you were
there.
General Barno. That's a loaded question, I think, Senator.
Senator McCain. Without personalizing it, what happened?
What caused what was really a promising situation to
deteriorate to a now almost universal opinion that we are not
winning, therefore we are losing?
General Barno. One of the things we've done in Afghanistan,
and it still is in play today, is a continuous rotation of
people. Ambassador Khalilzad and I got there within a few weeks
of each other in the fall of 2003 and because of basically our
personnel system we rotated out within a few weeks of each
other 19 months later. Since 2001 in Afghanistan we've had six
different U.S. military commanders, seven different NATO ISAF
commanders, six different chiefs of our embassy, and four
different U.N. senior representatives, all in the space of less
than 8\1/2\ years.
That's probably not a recipe for sustaining a good program
and I think that was a big contributor.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think that what Ambassador Khalilzad
and General Barno did was abandon the counterterrorism
strategy, move to a more sophisticated counterinsurgency model,
began to provide more resources, both military and civilian.
However, that was not enough to turn around the situation. The
situation continued to deteriorate through that period. So they
were doing the right things, but they were doing it with
inadequate resources.
Dr. Strmecki. I'd differ a little bit about the end of the
period. If you look at late 2004, early 2005, the security
incidents in Afghanistan were almost negligible. The most
important thing that I believe happened is that there was an
escalation by the enemy starting in mid, late 2005, and then
dramatically so in early 2006.
I think that the response was no counter-escalation. We
essentially went along the glide path that we'd been on, rather
than understanding that the enemy has voted and now we have to
respond with a counter-escalation.
At the same time, there was a drift in President Karzai's
leadership. The Afghan people had great hope after his election
in October 2004 and they were expecting that they'd see a kind
of a housecleaning of bad governance. But instead there was
drift and maybe marginal improvements here, marginal
improvements there, but not the transformation they were
expecting.
Senator McCain. Certainly an increase in corruption.
Dr. Strmecki. That's right. They were calculating: We'll
run risks for our government, but only if there's a return,
that we see improvement. Gradually, in parts of the country
that had poor governance you see people becoming indifferent as
between the enemy and the government.
Senator McCain. Should the Karzai Government talk to the
Taliban? General?
General Barno. The Karzai Government, even during my time
there, was always in low-level dialogue with various Taliban
leaders. The advantage that the government and the coalition
had then was that we were winning, we were perceived as
winning, and there didn't appear to be any future in being in
the Taliban. We have the reverse situation today, which makes
it, I think, much more difficult, much more problematic to even
enter into any talks.
They think they're winning, the enemy, and therefore they
have no incentives to have any discussions at all.
Ambassador Dobbins. The Karzai Government is talking to the
Taliban in negotiations that are talks that are being sponsored
by Saudi Arabia. Karzai's brother, among others, is
participating in these talks.
It's not clear how serious these are on either side. I
think it's quite possible that Karzai thinks it's simply good
presidential politics to show that he's willing to negotiate,
that he's a man of peace, and that it's the other side that's
unwilling to make concessions. At some point this might become
productive.
Senator McCain. Dictated by the realities on the
battlefield?
Ambassador Dobbins. Partially, and as you had in Anbar
Province, at some point it's not impossible that the Taliban
will decide that they no longer want to ally themselves with al
Qaeda, that they're prepared to cut those ties. Some have said
that they're ready now. I've heard people who are much more
expert than I am say that the Taliban are willing to offer that
deal.
I think that would have to be tested. But if the point
comes where the Taliban is actually willing to do what the
insurgents in Anbar Province were willing to do, which is turn
against the Arab extremists in their society, then I think you
would need to reevaluate the utility of those talks.
Dr. Strmecki. The Karzai Government since 2004 has had a
program and it's called Peace Through Strength, that allows
Taliban commanders and fighters to come in out of the cold, and
a good number of middle- and low-level commanders and fighters
have done so.
I think of the nature of the enemy as a hard core in terms
of the two shuras, the Peshawar Shura and the Quetta Shura, and
then soft layers surrounding them, which might be disaffected
communities that have seen bad governance or a minority tribe
in an area that makes a tactical alliance with the Taliban or
people who are terrorists for a day because of a desire for
economic compensation. If you do COIN right, counterinsurgency
campaign right, you will see the soft layers fall away, until a
point that you're just up against the hard core, and that's the
point where you'll see whether the hard core is going to
fragment and some part of them will be willing to come in out
of the cold.
Senator McCain. I thank the witnesses.
Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Let me also add my voice to those here today in the
committee who appreciate the good work you've all done. The
documents you've produced are worthy of further digestion. I
look forward to reading them in great detail.
I followed Senator McCain's line of questioning and your
answers with great interest when it comes to the Taliban and do
they have political aims, how do you negotiate with them, how
do you peel away the various factions. It's certainly worth
additional effort and attention.
General Barno, If I might, I'd like to turn to the question
that you did discuss in your remarks. It's this question of
caveats and working in the NATO structure. I heard quite a
great deal about it a year ago when I was in Afghanistan. I
wonder if you might comment on ideas you would have to work
effectively within that structure. The panel has talked a great
deal, as did the chairman and the ranking member, about this is
a test for NATO, this may have historical ramifications if, in
fact, NATO is successful; on the other hand, if we fall short
then what does that say about NATO's future?
General Barno. Thank you, Senator. I think caveats remain a
problem in Afghanistan and will remain a problem as long as
NATO is in Afghanistan. The likelihood of nations dropping
their caveats in Afghanistan, regardless of how much pressure,
how much persuasion the United States does with them, I think
is next to zero. I don't think they will grow necessarily, but
I also am keenly aware from my visit out there to the south--
and I visited the Brits, the Canadians, as well as American
forces, the Dutch commander at RC-South--it's very clear that
the caveats are linked to the political support at home for
these nations, and the political support at home is not moving
in a more robust direction. It's definitely fraying at the
edges, and in many of the countries, particularly those in the
northern part of Afghanistan--the Germans, the Italians, the
Spanish--the political will at home in my estimation was only
for a peacekeeping operation in the first place. So the idea
that somehow those nations would remove their caveats, come to
the south, and take up weapons and a counterinsurgency fight, I
think, is highly unlikely.
So to what the chairman noted this morning, I think our
line of approach with NATO realistically is going to take us
down the road to ask them what we think they can and will
provide. That's driven as much by political support as it's
driven by military capability.
Senator Udall. So in effect you're talking about, as we
often do, three centers of gravity, the Afghan people being the
primary center of gravity, the various military leadership
representatives in the country, the sense the military has that
the fight is worthwhile, and then the people of those various
countries and they're an additional center of gravity, and our
diplomacy and our outreach from the administration could play
an important role in at least stiffening that support in places
like Germany and the Netherlands and the U.K. Is that what I
hear you saying?
General Barno. I think that's a fair assessment. I was at
the Munich security conference here about 3 weeks ago and it
was very clear, listening to the various nations talk about
Afghanistan--and most of the participants were in the political
elements of the nations' legislatures and what-not--that they
are absolutely on a daily basis having to convince their
populations that this mission is still worthwhile. They need
our support and our clear reasoning behind that to help them
with that, with that argument.
That said, though, I'm hopeful, but I'm not optimistic,
that we're going to see any substantial change in the support
levels from those countries. I am a bit concerned about those
that are in the south because they've been taking the brunt of
the casualties of all the countries save the United States here
over the last 3 years. There's not a lot of relief in sight for
them right now.
Senator Udall. Thank you, General.
Dr. Strmecki, you talk in your analysis about an area I
think it is very important to further understand, and that's
the Pakistani Government and the Pakistani people's motivation
and approach to the conflict in Afghanistan. I want to first
just commend you for the five insights you've provided us, and
I wonder if you would talk a little bit more in depth about
working with the Pakistani Government. Sometimes in this region
of the world what's up is actually down, what seems logical and
rational to us is exactly the opposite impression that people
in that part of the world have.
But would you talk a bit more about some creative and
insightful ways we could work with the Pakistani Government to
have success in Afghanistan as well as the FATA and the border
regions?
Dr. Strmecki. The key is to look at their motivations
behind their conduct if one is assuming they're not doing
everything that they can. Afghanistan historically has been an
area where regional powers have contested for influence. When
Afghanistan has been neutral among the governments around it
and able to defend itself, then there's been relative stability
in the region. But in the last 20 years when that broke down,
you had a series of proxy civil wars, where you had a client
inside Afghanistan supported by a regional power on the
outside. When one was in, the others mobilized a client against
it, and so forth.
The Bonn process brought that to a stop for a time. But
what you've seen is Pakistan essentially defecting from the
Bonn process and allowing its territory to be used as a
sanctuary for the kind of forces that are attacking the Afghan
Government and our forces. If you ask why they're doing that,
I'd offer five potential reasons.
The first is that Pakistan, rightly or wrongly, fears that
rivals, particularly India, are gaining influence in
Afghanistan. So when you talk with Pakistani officials, they
talk about Karzai's links to India, they talk about Northern
Alliance officials who have been their opponents when they were
supporting the Taliban. They will talk about Indian activities
in the east, out of consulates and out of road-building
companies. So there is either a paranoia or a belief that
they're seeing something and they're reacting.
The second belief is that they don't believe that NATO and
the United States have the staying power and therefore it is in
their interest to be ready for the proxy competition that would
follow.
A third reason----
Senator Udall. Dr. Strmecki, if I could interrupt you, and
I apologize. I understand my time has expired. I did want to
thank again the panel for your great insights and important
insights, and I'll yield back the time I don't have remaining
to the chairman. Thank you again.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Udall. Like all the
other questions which we might have to interrupt for various
purposes, it would be good if you could complete your answer
for the record. I know Senator Udall also would appreciate
that.
We will make that answer of yours, the complete answer, in
the record at the time that you were making the answer, so
we'll have it in the right place. Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
A third reason is the fear that a successful Afghanistan will exert
a dangerous political appeal to ethnic Pushtuns who live in Pakistan--a
revival of the Pushtunistan Issue that troubled Afghanistan-Pakistan
relations in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
A fourth reason is the strategic aspiration of many in Pakistan to
project Pakistani influence into Central Asia.
A fifth reason is that instability in the region leads the United
States to remain engaged with Pakistan--and to provide Pakistan with
military and economic benefits.
The key is whether we can use creative diplomacy to deal with these
potential motivations. This would entail allaying concerns about Indian
influence, convincing Pakistani leaders of the firmness of our
commitment to success, mediating differences between Afghanistan and
Pakistan, helping build economic connections across Afghanistan that
connect Pakistan to Central Asia, and developing a vision and program
for a future U.S.-Pakistani relationship based on positive goals, not
just security threats.
Chairman Levin. Senator Ben Nelson.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Each of you has suggested that there are conditions, there
are points that we ought to insist on in terms of our
capabilities, and to determine whether or not there's the
support that we need both internally and externally to continue
the challenge in Afghanistan.
When we were faced in Iraq with the questions about how are
we doing in Iraq, there were people looking at the same set of
facts, one group saying we're winning, another group saying
we're losing. It seemed to me and I pushed for benchmarks as a
way of getting some metric to measure progress, to move away
from talking about whether we're winning or losing, to look
more toward whether we're making progress in certain areas.
Do you think it would be appropriate for us to codify,
without law, strategy with conditions or benchmarks and then at
various points along the way measure how we are doing in
achieving those benchmarks, how the Afghan Government is
achieving the benchmarks, so that the American people can look
at the mosaic and begin to understand what the picture is,
because I think for most folks today, including those of us in
Congress, it's a muddle. We know we're not doing very well.
It's going sideways, it's not achieving the objectives that we
had hoped to achieve. But I don't think people know what the
objectives are ultimately, other than to beat the Taliban.
So I guess each of you I would ask that question: Do you
think that we can or that we should and can we establish
benchmarks, conditions, or something where we can measure
progress? Let's start with you, General.
General Barno. I think there's some merit in that, Senator.
I think it proved to be fairly useful in Iraq, as you noted,
much to everyone's surprise. In fact the benchmarks, I think,
if I remember correctly, all but one are now----
Senator Ben Nelson. We were opposed when we tried to come
up with the idea as it wouldn't work. But I think it did work.
General Barno. I think, and that alone gives it some merit
for consideration in Afghanistan. But lack of information about
a lot of the overall effort in Afghanistan is rather striking
in comparison to Iraq. Tony Cordesman at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies has noted how little
information statistically is available in any dimension of
this. So there may be some utility in that idea. I don't think
that's a bad thought.
Senator Ben Nelson. Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I'm a little skeptical. I have to say
that I tended to regard our effort to benchmark the Iraqis back
in 2007 more as an effort to transfer responsibility for
failure from us to them. Now, they did finally meet the
benchmarks, but they met the benchmarks only after we
established security conditions which allowed them to move from
a survival mode to a more normal political wheeling and dealing
mode.
Senator Ben Nelson. I think we would hope that that would
be the case here as well, where our security and their security
works to help them from the top down and the bottom up to
match, so that they will be secure and they will think the
future is brighter for them.
Ambassador Dobbins. I'm not completely hostile to the idea,
but I do think that the key benchmark is the one I've
suggested, which is how many Afghans are getting killed. If the
number's going up, you're losing. If the number's going down,
you're winning. It's as simple as that.
For the first 3 years in Iraq, our military refused to
count civilian casualties. They were under orders not to count
civilian casualties. Whenever they were asked how many
civilians were getting killed, they said they didn't know and
they were telling the truth because they weren't counting them.
When General Petraeus came back and testified to Congress,
his only criteria for success that he presented was that less
Iraqis were getting killed this year than last year, and he was
right. That was the right metric. So I think it's fine to keep
track of what they're doing in other sectors as a way of
benchmarking our own progress, but that's the metric that I
would put front and center.
Senator Ben Nelson. Dr. Strmecki.
Dr. Strmecki. I think a set of benchmarks would be very
productive as long as they are benchmarks about partnership
with the Afghan Government. I think that's where you're coming
from. A properly structured counterinsurgency campaign would
give forth very obvious benchmarks: ambient security in
district after district after district. The information for
that exists because there are sufficient forces to know what
the situation is province by province, district by district.
There can be an assessment of the quality of the local
governance. When you go to PRTs, they know whether this
district administrator is good, this one's bad. The U.N. knows
that. There's a lot of ways we could pool information and then
constructively say, here, this province is the one we have to
work on because the governance is lacking. Then also some basic
measures of economic activity could be undertaken.
One of the great things about the Bonn process is that it
had milestones, constitutions, loya jirgas, and so forth, and
it was an organizing principle and kind of a forced march for
Afghan, U.N., the U.S. efforts. So I think that properly
designed benchmarks can create common and shared expectations
for a productive partnership with the Afghans.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
I'll yield back my time. Thank you, gentlemen.
Chairman Levin. Senator Bayh.
Senator Bayh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your time today. It's a very
important hearing and you've been very enlightening in your
comments.
I'd like to start with a couple of comments based upon some
of the things you've said. Mr. Barno, I think you indicated
that the Taliban largely come and go unimpeded by the Pakistani
border police. This is an amazing state of affairs. Based upon
published reports, when some U.S. forces strayed across the
line in pursuit of militants they were fired on by the
Pakistani authorities. So we have a situation where our allies
are not impeding our adversaries, but firing on us. How can
this be?
Second, we pay them billions of dollars every year in a
variety of forms of assistance and as best I can tell we get in
return, once again according to published reports, the ability
to perhaps launch a few Predator strikes in the tribal areas
and to have supplies go through their territory to help with
the situation in Afghanistan, a conflict which through their
behavior they help to perpetuate. That seems to be a relatively
low return on our investment and it's a problematic
relationship. I think we need to have a very hard-headed
reassessment of our relationship with Pakistan. It's a complex
one, I understand, but one we need to focus on. So that's just
some frustration I feel, given their behavior that has been
less than helpful in some pretty important respects.
Now my questions. Dr. Strmecki, to you first. I think
you've put your finger right on it with regard to Pakistan.
Until their government--and I'll just append that by saying the
military and their intelligence services--make a strategic
decision that a more robust effort to combat militancy and the
insurgency based in their territories is in their interest, in
their strategic interest, it's unlikely to get much better.
They'll do some things on the margins to placate us, but they
won't really do all that they can do or as effectively as they
should do until they change their calculus about that effort
being in their regard. I think that's primarily their standing
with the Pakistani people.
What can we do to convince them that it's in their
strategic interest to do that?
Dr. Strmecki. I think there are some things that they fear
and some things that they could benefit from. I've talked about
their fear of regional rivals getting a foothold in Afghanistan
and that could be dealt with by what Ambassador Dobbins spoke
about in terms of----
Senator Bayh. You mean the Indians?
Dr. Strmecki. That's right.
Some red lines that are monitored, and that there's a forum
in which to discuss and clarify whether bad behavior is taking
place by any party.
But one should also be looking to find win-win kinds of
situations. The Pakistanis would like to project influence,
economic and political, into Central Asia. We could help
jointly plan and finance the infrastructure to create the
roads, rails, telecommunications, other kinds of infrastructure
that connect Central Asia to Pakistan and world ports through
Afghanistan, to privilege that route.
Senator Bayh. So we help allay their fears vis-a-vis
encirclement by India and help foster or abide their ambitions
in Central Asia?
Dr. Strmecki. That's right, in the sense of giving a
peaceful way to achieve them.
Senator Bayh. That, in your view, would be enough? Part of
their fear of India doesn't seem to be--there's a long history
there, but it tends to be somewhat irrational from time to
time.
Dr. Strmecki. It will be a mediation and it won't be one
moment in time when they'll flip. You'll have to work through
the problems, look at every issue that they raise, and they
have a laundry list, and either allay them by proving that
they're not true or, if there are issues, then work it back
with the Afghan side.
Senator Bayh. It's worth a shot. It may take some time, as
you say, but better than the current state of affairs. Thank
you.
General, a couple questions for you. The time line once
again you laid out for the transition phase, was that 2015 to
2025 or 2020 to 2025?
General Barno. The time line would have started for
transition in my phase here from 2015 to 2025. Some of that
actually begins----
Senator Bayh. Transitioning over, starting in 6 years,
going possibly as long as 16 years.
General Barno. That would be for primarily the south. In
the north the transition could start next year.
Senator Bayh. This is a long time, 6 to 16 years. A lot of
blood and treasure. We have other national security challenges.
Is there anything we can do to expedite that process? The key
is upgrading the capabilities of the Afghanis to control their
own territory. We consistently overestimated our ability to do
that in Iraq. What can we do to expedite that process
realistically in Afghanistan?
General Barno. I spent a half day with our embedded
training teams that work with the Afghan army in Kandahar and I
have since met with their commander, who is back in the States,
and they all tell me that they can accelerate--in their view,
that the ANA could be built up much more rapidly, but the long
pole in the tent, the thing that will prevent that from
happening, is not enough Afghan troops, it's lack of equipment
to give these troops machine guns, vehicles, various radio
systems--the basics that ultimately will come from the United
States in most cases. That's preventing them in their view from
being able to grow the force at the rate they think that the
Afghans are capable of growing it.
Senator Bayh. So that's the major stumbling block, a lack
of----
General Barno. In the view of the people out there on the
ground. It's a problem with them today even with their current
forces.
Senator Bayh. We certainly ought to be able to provide that
in something less than 6 to 16 years.
General Barno. We should, but our system in that arena is
still very much of a constipated peacetime system. It was a
problem when I was in Afghanistan in 2003 to 2005 and it's not
a problem that's gotten any better since then, candidly.
Senator Bayh. Mr. Chairman, that is certainly something we
ought to be in a position to expedite. If that truly is holding
up the transition phase, which ultimately is the answer to
this--well, we need to do better than that.
My final question, I think, General--Ambassador, I hope you
won't feel neglected--has to do with you once again. Or,
Ambassador, feel free to jump in if you would like. The
Pakistanis seem to have a different view of these published
reports about the Predator strikes. They seem to think that
it's having the effect of destabilizing the rest of Pakistan.
Published reports indicate that our intelligence people feel
that it's having a very salutary effect in terms of keeping al
Qaeda destabilized, on the run, removing key operatives, et
cetera, et cetera.
How do we reconcile those two different opinions of these
published reports about those kinds of activities?
General Barno. It's a difficult question, especially in an
open forum. I've been to Pakistan about two dozen times and I
see Pakistanis every week here in Washington typically. Their
overriding concern that I think animates all of their
decisionmaking is two: fear of India, as Marin noted; and fear
of the day the United States leaves. They're expecting that to
occur, and that creates a calculus inside their government that
takes them in places we don't want them to go.
With regard to these strikes, I think they are having an
effect on the enemy and I think they are the only serious
pressure that the enemy is worried about every single day in
that part of the world. So I think that that is the reason why
the United States, to include the new administration, has
continued our approach over there in this regard, as best we
can tell from reading the newspaper.
The Pakistanis have a different view in the sense that some
of that has to be driven by their internal politics of how they
react to this inside their own country, how that plays in their
own press. I think we have to take that into account.
Senator Bayh. My time has expired. But it gets back to my
initial question to the doctor, which is how do we convince
them that it's in their strategic interests to step up and do a
better job of dealing with this. That won't be easy and it
involves dealing with the India issue, but it's something we
have to get on with here if it's going to be good for Pakistan,
Afghanistan, India, and the entire region, and ultimately
obviously for us.
Thank you, chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Bayh.
In terms of the long pole in the tent issue being radios
and trucks, this is something we have not heard before. We've
been told consistently it's lack of trainers; plenty of
recruits to speed up the size of the army. In any event, what
we will do, Senator Bayh, is we will ask General Petraeus if
that is, in fact, the long pole. That is something we can
correct, should be able to correct, very, very quickly.
As my staff pointed out, that would be good news if that's
the long pole in the tent. But thank you for that testimony. We
will take up that line of inquiry.
I owe not only Senator Sessions an apology because he
should have been next, but will make up for that. If another
Republican comes before you, Senator Hagan, we're going to have
to go twice to my left.
Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for a very good panel and the leadership you provide to this
committee.
I want to share the concerns I think expressed by Senator
Bayh. With regard to Pakistan, perhaps I'm in error, but I've
been somewhat more understanding of their difficulties than
some have been who've been quick to criticize them. Is it not
true--maybe, Ambassador, I'll ask you briefly--that a lot of
these areas, tribal areas, have never been controlled by the
central government? Some of them contain terrorist type violent
people who, if energized, could indeed threaten the stability
of the Pakistan Government if they undertake an aggressive
action. Can we be somewhat understanding of their reluctance to
undertake some of these activities that we'd like them to
undertake?
Ambassador Dobbins. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas
are a historic artifact of the British Empire. They have never
been governed. They, in fact, formally don't come under
Pakistani law. They come under tribal regulations that were
imposed by the British and remain in effect today. They're not,
for instance, allowed to participate fully in the Pakistani
elections or democratic process. In general, these border areas
are the worst served in Pakistan. They not only have the worst
security, they have the worst schools, the worst electricity,
the worst roads, the worst clinics.
A counterinsurgency or nation-building effort, whatever you
want to call it, in these regions will consist not just of
projecting security into those regions, but projecting all
those other services into them. Pakistan isn't going to take
money from the Punjab and put it into those regions after 100
years of neglect. So it's going to take a fairly substantial
international effort to empower the Pakistanis and encourage
them to begin to integrate those areas in their national
society, and that's not going to be easy.
Now, I do think that Senator Lugar, Senator Biden, and now
Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar have introduced an approach to
assistance to Pakistan that's designed to incentivize them and
provide them long-term resources for that kind of effort, and I
think that's probably the right way to go.
Senator Sessions. Seeking areas of mutual interest, as
Senator Bayh said, seems to me to be the way we need to work
it. But it's difficult to ask a sovereign nation to do
something in our interest if they don't think it's in their
interest. It's just a difficult situation.
I also am concerned, General Barno, when we're talking
about 2025. This is a major decision for Congress. I'm sure
that most of us have known we're coming to a point where we're
going to have to make such a decision as this, but I want to be
convinced. I'm prepared to be supportive of this effort, but
I'm uneasy about it. I'm uneasy about sending another 17,000
troops there. The Ambassador says that's going to be more. Will
it be 100,000 18 months from now committed in Afghanistan?
I just see Ralph Peters--I didn't agree with everything in
his article, but he leads off 2 days ago in USA Today:
``Instead of concentrating on the critical mission of keeping
Islamist terrorists on the defensive, we've mired ourselves by
attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be and
cannot be transformed.'' I won't say it cannot be transformed,
but it's not easy to transform this society. We know that.
We know that Kabul has never controlled in any really
effective way the entire area of Afghanistan. So let's just
talk about some of these things.
Ambassador, you mentioned that there was some potential in
some areas, you thought, to accommodate with the Taliban. I'll
ask all of you. Dr. Strmecki, you said it would be a mistake to
revise downward our goals. But in this hearing a few weeks ago
when Secretary Gates was here, I asked him. He was emphatic:
Our first goal is to protect the United States from further
attacks, to not allow a base to be set up there. It was pretty
clear to me that he's asking some tough questions about how
many more goals can we have for this country.
So I guess I would like to ask--General Barno, it seems to
me--Senator Levin and I were in Iraq before the surge and I
guess twice. A lot of progress got made quickly in Iraq in Al
Anbar before the surge really took place, as a result of
working with local people disconnected to Baghdad. So are we as
a matter of policy in Afghanistan so committed to a central
government ideal that we're not prepared to work with regional
and city and community militias or people who could maintain
order in that area, but not be under the direct control of the
central government? Could that help us reduce our military
commitment?
There was a lot to that, wasn't it.
General Barno. Let me first qualify my remarks a bit on
these dates and these times. The transition phase actually is
going to begin in the north and the west of the country, the
transition to Afghan full control, next year in 2010. In the
northern half of the country, there's many areas where we could
be moving in that direction today. So this is not something
that's way over the horizon here.
I think in the southern half of the country this year is
going to be a whole year and next year is going to be a regain-
the-initiative year. Then by 2011, 2012 timeframe you're going
to have areas there where you can start this transition. So
we're not--even though I have a 2025 marker way out there,
there's a lot of this that's going to happen in the next 3 to 5
years.
We actually clearly have to turn the direction in the
southern half of the country in the next 2 to 3 years. So I
think most of what I'm talking about is going to occur,
Senator, inside of a 5-year timeframe. Then there's a
continuous handoff of capabilities to the Afghans. So it
shouldn't be viewed that we have large chunks of time and we
don't have any transition until 2015.
Senator Sessions. Talking about our goals, is it to have
every one of these areas under the direct control of Kabul and
we expect them all to salute and send taxes and send
representatives up there like we do?
General Barno. They have a decentralized system and they've
had that for generations. What we have today is both local
control, we have provincial councils, we have representatives
from the province and districts back in the parliament in
Kabul, and we have a relationship between the center and the
states that's still fairly decentralized.
Now, American units work out there at the local level every
day, but they work with officials that have----
Senator Sessions. Let me just interrupt you. You know what
happened in al Anbar. You're not ignorant about that. We worked
with local people. We funded the local people. They ran al
Qaeda out. We funded them and I guess Baghdad didn't know
anything about it. Some of them weren't happy. But it worked.
That's what turned it around, was it not?
General Barno. That was the start of some major turn-around
in Iraq, I think there's no question.
Senator Sessions. Yes, it was.
Ambassador, would you share this idea of whether we ratchet
what our goals should be? Don't we need to be real clear about
what our goals should be?
Ambassador Dobbins. I tend to think we should focus less on
end states and focus more on direction and pace. We're still in
Kosovo today. You probably haven't had a hearing on that for 7
years, because the numbers, our numbers, are going down, the
place is peaceful, it's off the front pages, things are getting
better. They may not be getting better as quickly as we like,
but they're getting better.
We stayed 10 years in Bosnia. After the first 2 or 3 years,
numbers came down quickly; people were satisfied.
If we can turn the situation around in Afghanistan as we
did in Iraq, then how quickly we get out, how long our
commitment is for, is going to become much less pressing.
I think you're right and everybody's right to note that you
have to be modest about what kind of societal changes you can
facilitate in Afghanistan. I think you're also right that we
need a bottom-up strategy to complement the top-down strategy.
They're not necessarily in conflict, but you need to be doing
both simultaneously, as we've done in Iraq and as I think we're
going to try to start doing in Afghanistan.
Senator Sessions. Doctor, just a brief comment?
Dr. Strmecki. I think there are some promising ways to work
at the local level, and even the Afghan Government is seeking
to do that. There's a new program, the Afghan Public Protection
Force, that's seeking to recruit people from the village to
protect the village. So I think that is a positive thing.
But there's no reason it can't be linked with the
government, which has the support of the people overall. They
want it to perform better, but they want this government to
succeed. So I'd just hit that one point, and I'd say if you
want to prevent a safe haven for terrorists in the long term so
that we don't have to be there, we have to have some kind of
Afghan state that helps police that.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator Hagan.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all the
witnesses here for your excellent testimony.
In Afghanistan, I think most of us know that it's probably
the largest world producer of opium. I know that the drug trade
I would think is being used to fund the Taliban and al Qaeda. I
was wondering if you believe that you can stabilize Afghanistan
without bringing this production of opium under control, and
what can we do to address that issue? If all of you could speak
on that. General, you want to go first?
General Barno. I was down in Helmand Province during my
visit here in January, clearly the centerpiece of narcotics
production in Afghanistan. But on a positive side of the
ledger, the number of provinces in Afghanistan and districts
that are producing poppy has gone down dramatically. It's more
found today in the unsecure areas of the country, where the
Taliban have a strong presence, no doubt related to some of the
funding advantage the Taliban get from that.
I was heartened to see that there is a plan to begin doing
quite a bit more on counternarcotics in southern Afghanistan
starting this year. The military has some additional
authorities and has some additional directions working against
counternarcotics traffickers and those that are connected to
terrorism and the insurgency that they had not had in the past.
So it'll be very interesting to watch how that authority gets
used this year, but I think that's important.
The Afghan Government's made some fairly good progress
locally on counternarcotics and it's been done by good
leadership by governors out there. Particularly Nangarhar
Province comes to mind, where they had a huge poppy problem
just a few years ago and last year was declared generally
poppy-free. So there are some good things going on out there,
but it's going to take a connection of good leadership by the
Afghan Government at the province level and I think a much
stronger system of attack, not on the farmers, but on the
traffickers and the producers who benefit from the crop.
Ambassador Dobbins. There's clearly a connection between
narcotics production and security or insecurity, but it seems
dominantly to be one in which insecurity creates a framework
for poppy production, rather than the reverse. As General Barno
has indicated, in those provinces where security is reasonably
established, poppy production has largely ceased, and it is now
focused on the areas that are contested.
So if you look at the components of a counternarcotics
strategy, I think there is a general view among experts that
eradication of crops has very limited utility and some
counterproductive aspects; aerial eradication probably
shouldn't be tried; that interdiction should be strengthened,
interdiction of drug traffickers, and particularly of the
heroin trade. The actual poppies is a bulk product, but as it's
refined down and then shipped out that's the point at which
interrupting the stream will hurt the traffickers, but not the
farmers. Finally, the ultimate key is alternate development,
that is giving them actually alternative sources of livelihood
that reasonably compete with what they can make in poppy
trafficking.
Dr. Strmecki. I agree with both of those comments and I
just add one last point, that in a properly designed
counterinsurgency plan, where you're securing district after
district in these contested areas where there's a lot of opium
production, that's when the ``build'' part of clear, hold, and
build needs to include a major agricultural component: bringing
in the inputs, agricultural credit, a little technical
assistance, and helping product get to market.
Thank you.
Senator Hagan. Obviously, I think if you can give the
farmers something else to grow and actually bring in a little
bit of money it would help them in the short term and long
term.
I had one other question dealing with Pakistan and that is,
we have talked some about the U.S. aid to Pakistan and I was
just wondering your comments on whether that should be larger,
smaller, more weighted towards economic and social development,
and just what your thoughts are on that issue? Dr. Strmecki,
you want to start this time?
Dr. Strmecki. I think that if Pakistan moved into a fully
cooperative posture vis a vis Afghanistan, we should be
prepared to put on the table Egypt-level assistance over the
long term to build Pakistan's educational infrastructure, its
economy, and to prove that the United States has an interest in
Pakistan, not because it's going to help us on the war on
terror, but for Pakistan's own sake. But I think it's important
that that come only after Pakistan has become fully cooperative
in our relationship.
Ambassador Dobbins. I would favor conditioning the military
assistance and assistance we give that's used to support the
military to ensure that it's used for the purposes that we
intend. I do think that we probably should be providing a good
deal of assistance in the nonmilitary areas, in education and
in other areas, including in trying to provide better
government services, better public services to the populations
along the border regions.
I don't know that I would necessarily condition that
assistance on the performance of the Afghan army.
Senator Hagan. Pakistan.
General Barno. I do think that sustained robust assistance
for Pakistan's going to be very important for us to help
maintain stability in that country, and I think part of looking
at the internal stability is ensuring the population has an
advancing economic capacity and an advancing political
representation in the state to do the internal things that we
do in many other countries. I think a very limited amount of
our aid has gone in that direction in the past. There are some
proposals out there clearly to increase that dramatically. I
think that would be very helpful in the environment that
Pakistan finds itself in today.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Hagan.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony, but also I've
benefited from your thoughtful advice over many years
individually and collectively, and thank you for that very,
very much.
A lot has been said today about unity of command and I want
to just drill down if I could. We have currently in
Afghanistan, RC-East is an American operation, 101st. RC-South
is a Dutch operation at the moment. I've heard, in fact I think
in our discussions, General Barno, an alternate approach might
be to bring in another division headquarters, American division
headquarters, and essentially have a unity of command across
the Pakistan border, with an American division headquarters,
multinational units, but at the division level.
Another aspect of this is that our division headquarters
are much more robust in terms of the staff, in terms of access
to intelligence assets, access to civil-military relations. I
think that's the case. If not, please correct me.
But can you comment upon that, changes that we might make
on the ground to enhance unity of command and coherence of our
strategy?
General Barno. We talked a bit on this before, as you
noted, Senator. The American division headquarters is a very,
very capable organization and the 101st Airborne in Bagram----
Senator Reed. Soon to be replaced by the 82nd.
General Barno.--soon to be replaced by the mighty 82nd
Airborne, that's right. Thank you very much, absolutely. I have
served in that division before, as have you.
The divisional level in the United States brings a
tremendous wealth of capabilities. American units at the
brigade level, but beneath the division, are used to plugging
into those capabilities. So that's a very important
contribution we have going in the east for us, really a very,
very robustly resourced effort.
In the South, I spent a good bit of time with the RC-South
headquarters. Unlike our American division headquarters,
there's only three people in RC-South that I could find that
were there for 1-year tours. The remaining--and that was the
three most senior people, the two-star commander and his two
one-star deputies. Virtually the entire remaining staff are
there for 3-month tours, 4-month tours, or 6-month tours.
They're an ad hoc organization that wasn't built on a
headquarters corps. So their abilities to work together and to
have all the capabilities an American division brings into the
fight are simply absent, through no fault of their own. That's
just the way that they were organized and the way that they're
manned by these various countries.
So I think there'd be a lot of strength in having a full-
time, at least 1-year duration divisional headquarters in
southern Afghanistan. An American headquarters would bring a
tremendous wealth of capabilities. It would also bring the
long-term manning and the ability to command a much larger
number of American units that are going to be in the south from
this point forward.
We've also talked a bit about whether there might be a need
to have an interim headquarters in between the four-star
headquarters in Kabul that oversees the entire country of
Afghanistan and this more robust fight in the southern part of
the country in Afghanistan. Today the ISAF headquarters does
everything from political-military activities all the way down
to tactics. For any organization, that's extraordinarily
difficult, to span that breadth of responsibility.
So I think that there's some benefit in thinking about this
idea of whether there shouldn't be something like what we have
in Iraq, where we've had a four-star headquarters that did the
political-military and strategy, but we had a very important
three-star headquarters, the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, that
did all the tactical fighting and the integration of that whole
counterinsurgency. That was a very important part I think of
our success in Iraq.
Senator Reed. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins, I want you to respond to this issue,
but in your comments you also talk about at the higher NATO
level, a reorganization, moving their headquarters in Virginia
down to Tampa. I have a sense too, frankly, in our travels
there that NATO is sincerely committed to the operations, but
their organizational structure there--the deputy is in Mons and
it's remote control more than direct control.
But please go ahead, Mr. Ambassador.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think that's right. Our command in
Afghanistan is divided below General McKiernan and above
General McKiernan. General Barno has focused on the below
General McKiernan types of changes, and ideally combining OEF
and ISAF would be a step in the right direction. My proposal
has been combining the structures above General McKiernan,
which I think is independently desirable, whatever you do at
the lower.
We may not get a lot more troops out of the Europeans, but
I think if we could set up a command structure that was
optimized for conducting this where that itself would be a
signal that they're taking it seriously.
Senator Reed. Dr. Strmecki, your comments?
Dr. Strmecki. I agree with General Barno's prescription.
I'd just add that it would create a natural point of
collaboration of the three-star headquarters with our embassy
to be able to integrate civilian effects into the military
plan. But I also think it's important to move toward a full
integration of the Afghan side in strategy, operational
planning, and execution. They are already the largest force,
the ANA, in the theater, and if we pursue the right policies
they will become the dominant force. So having them integrated
into the planning is important.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
Chairman Levin. Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the reasons that we are seeing some success in Iraq
is not just the addition of more troops, but rather a change in
strategy that accompanied the addition of more troops. In that
regard, I have a lot of concern about sending more troops to
Afghanistan prior to the administration completing its review
of what the strategy should be.
Ambassador, I'd like to start with you, to ask you to
comment on whether there is a risk of putting 17,000 additional
troops into Afghanistan before the new administration has
decided what changes in strategy should accompany that
insertion of additional troops?
Ambassador Dobbins. Senator, it would obviously be
desirable to do the two simultaneously and I'm sure the
administration would have preferred to, but felt that the
situation was too urgent. I'd say first of all that the Bush
administration in its latter years was already altering the
strategy in Afghanistan toward the model that had been
established in Iraq, although they hadn't completely embraced
it. So some of the changes toward a counterinsurgency strategy
as opposed to a counterterrorism strategy were already put in
place.
But to execute that kind of strategy, to execute the kind
of strategy we did execute in Iraq, you do need more troops.
You're going to need the troops to execute a strategy that is
centered around protecting the population, and therefore I
think sending the troops makes sense.
So I agree in principle that you're right that it would be
desirable to do both at the same time. My sense is that the
administration will probably complete its review on Afghanistan
and announce the results before most of those troops get there.
Senator Collins. General Barno?
General Barno. I would generally agree with the
Ambassador's comments. Being out there and seeing what the
demands were on the current level of troops in the south and
knowing this election is coming up here in August, there is--I
think a very practical decision was made, which is we know we
have to get more troops in to help set conditions for a
successful election; we'll begin that flow and we'll begin
putting the logistics and the other requirements in place to
ensure that they're capable of being bedded down where we need
to put them--in a very austere area, by the way--without having
the complete strategy approach finished.
I think it was just a very practical call to make, and
knowing that the strategy is in its final stages right now and
seeing where that would probably lead them. But I think the
election was one of the key drivers on that, a date that's
fixed, that's not going to go away, that we're going to need
those troops for.
Senator Collins. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I would agree with the thrust of your
comments, that if you send forces without the right strategy
you're certainly not going to get the optimal result, and you
may not get--you can even have a counterproductive effect if
they were put into play in service of a poor strategy.
I think that a decision to flow the forces had to be made
now in order to have them available at the time that the
strategic review would be done. But I think that puts Congress
and others in a place to really push for the right strategy,
because the combination of the two can turn the situation
around.
Senator Collins. My related concern is that we're putting
an American face on the effort. It is evident that, despite the
heroic efforts of Secretary Gates, that most of the NATO
nations are still very reluctant to step up the number of
troops that they are sending to Afghanistan. We don't see
something equivalent to the Anbar Awakening occurring in
Afghanistan.
General, is there a danger that this is too much of an
American operation rather than an Afghan-NATO operation, and
thus will be more resisted by the Afghan people?
General Barno. I have the opposite experience. My
experience with the Afghans during my time there and in my many
dealings with them since is that they have great confidence in
American military forces. If they have a choice, they want
Americans in their districts and their provinces working with
them out there, because in part the amount of resources that
the United States brings and in part because of the
relationships that we've built there.
I think the reality is as we look at the very demanding
requirements ahead of us, that the United States is going to
have to take a bigger role, that the United States is going to
have to take a stronger leadership position, and that much more
of what we do there to help fuse this very disparate effort
that we have been able to put together over the last several
years is going to have to be fused by American leadership.
So I think that that's a positive, and I think the Afghan
people will have a lot of positive reaction to that. I used to
describe it that when we began this NATO transition that brand
NATO didn't have any recognition in Afghanistan, brand USA had
a lot of recognition. Now, that's less true today, but it's
still I think fairly true.
Senator Collins. But this is a country with such a history
of resistance to outside powers. It just seems to me that it's
imperative that we build up the Afghan army as quickly as
possible so that the Afghans are taking a lead.
Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I quite agree. We need to put not so
much a NATO face on this as an Afghan face. The Bush
administration decided last year to double the size of the
Afghan army, but it's still probably an inadequate number and
it probably will have to be increased further. The Afghans will
never be able to afford to pay for that army, and therefore
implicit in the decision to further increase its size is a
long-term commitment to support a military structure at that
level as long as necessary. But I think that's probably a far
better alternative than envisaging a longer-term American
military presence.
Senator Collins. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. In my experience the Afghans still want a
robust American presence. The greater fear is that they're
going to be abandoned and that the regional powers will again
return to fight a sort of proxy war in their country. They have
a very positive feeling toward us for the support we delivered
to help them fight the Soviets in the 1980s. But you're right
in the sense that we have to think of the forces we're sending
as a bridging force until we can ramp up the Afghan forces.
The first call on new forces in my view should be in the
mentoring, embedded trainer role, so that we can get that
Afghan force building its size and capability as fast as
possible.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Collins.
We have word that, Ambassador Dobbins, you might have to
leave at 11:30 a.m. If that is the case, we understand it. But
we would like to have a second round for those of us that are
here, for those of you who can stay.
I want to get back to the size of the Afghan army. It's now
at apparently about 65,000. The goal is to now double that by
2011. It originally had been 2013 and I talked to some of the
Afghans yesterday and some of those who are advising us on the
size of the army who are U.S. people, that it has to be much
larger than 130,000, which is the new goal, perhaps, as I think
the Afghan Defense Minister Wardak suggested, maybe 250,000.
Dr. Strmecki, you mentioned 250,000. Without getting into
the question of how much larger, I think all three of you would
want to see that expedited, would want to see a much larger,
better equipped Afghan army, and we're going to try to check
the long poles and see what they are. Again, my understanding
has been that it's lack of trainers, a significant lack of
trainers, as a matter of fact a shortfall I believe of 4,000
minimum, according to General McKiernan's estimate at least
4,000 trainers short.
The cost of the army increase is relatively small. If you
assume $2,000 a year, which is more than the average pay of a
soldier, an Afghan soldier, if you added 100,000 additional
above the 130,000 which is our new goal, in terms of pay you're
talking less than $200 million. Now, that doesn't get to
equipment, but compared to the other costs it's still fairly
relatively minimal.
One of you used a figure that it was at certain times more
expensive to have an American soldier there than an Afghan
soldier. One of you used that this morning. Was it you, Dr.
Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. 50 to 100 times.
Chairman Levin. 50 to 100 times. So the cost should clearly
not be the long pole in the tent. Whether it's equipment or
whether or not it's trainers or something else, it should not
be cost, given how much we're spending to have American troops
in Afghanistan. Would you all agree with that, that cost should
not be a long pole in that tent? Very briefly, would you just
agree with that?
General Barno. Absolutely.
Chairman Levin. Mr. Ambassador?
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes, but I do think that to the extent
we can succeed in turning some of the populations in the
contested regions and bringing them over to our side and
empowering them to provide local security, we may actually
limit the burden that we'll be putting on national forces. So
the total numbers may not be just the numbers for the permanent
full-time army, but rather the security forces, which might be
complemented by these other elements.
Chairman Levin. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I would agree that cost shouldn't be the
factor.
Chairman Levin. All right. Now, getting to your point,
Ambassador Dobbins--I think others have made it as well--
there's a new initiative that's been begun called the Afghan
Public Protection Program. It works through community councils,
which select local members of the Afghan Public Protection
Force who will serve neighborhood watch-like functions in their
home communities, and essentially be paying local folks to
maintain security in their communities, which is along the Sons
of Iraq model.
Is that model that I've just described the right model, to
try to get people paid locally to provide their own protection,
to bypass the central government and the army? If so, what's
the reaction of the Afghan National Government to the Afghan
Public Protection Program? Is that a joint program? Is it our
program? Is it an Afghan program? What is it?
Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. It's a program that is run by the Ministry of
Interior, so it is one that the national government is fully
vested in. There's a pilot program that's taking place in
Wardak Province, six districts relatively near Kabul. I think
it's a good model, because when you look at what we did in
Iraq, where we operated separate from the Iraqi Government--and
that was necessary at that time--then came the question of how
do you integrate this back and how do you vet the people who
had been in many cases in the enemy camp to join the forces of
the Iraqi Government?
Here the vetting takes place through the local community.
So it's people that they trust that will have the arms put in
their hands to defend their communities. So I think you've
leapfrogged the kind of problem that the Sons of Iraq might
have at the integration stage.
Chairman Levin. Ambassador?
Ambassador Dobbins. I think that I wouldn't see this so
much as bypassing the army and the central government. I think
there has to be relationships established that make everybody
comfortable with this. For instance, these local forces are
going to be quickly overrun unless they can be rapidly
reinforced by either American, NATO, or ideally Afghan regular
army units.
We've been using the Afghan police as a counterinsurgency
force and they're not suited for that and they're getting
killed in large numbers, and we need to move to a better model.
This will create some suspicion on the part, for instance,
of the northern populations, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks and
others. They'll see this as essentially a program for arming
Pashtuns. So that particular dynamic--just like the Shia were
suspicious about our arming the Sunnis--is going to have to be
managed.
Chairman Levin. Even when it's local people?
Ambassador Dobbins. Well, they're local Pashtuns.
Chairman Levin. They're suspicious of local Pashtuns in
Pashtun areas?
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes, not to the same degree as the
Sunni and Shia are, but yes. So that aspect of it will have to
be managed as well.
But I think it's a step in the right direction. The
economics of it are pretty clear. If you put 50,000 American
troops in, you get 10,000 boots-on-the-ground and the rest are
staff and support. If you recruited 50,000 local Afghans in
these regions, your net is not just 50,000; it's 100,000
because you've taken 50,000 Taliban recruits and essentially
recruited them into your own force. So the economics of it are
very attractive.
Chairman Levin. General?
General Barno. I think it has some merit. It's good to see
as an experimental program, a pilot, and see what successes
come from it. But I think there's a risk and there's concern
out there that it doesn't become a rearming of warlord militias
in its next incarnation. So I think we have to be very careful
on how to transition into something beyond this.
The other thing I think we have to be cautious about is
that we don't inadvertently take resources away from the police
training program to do this program. I suspect we're going to
be doing both as complements to each other, but if there's a
finite set of resources I think we ought to be careful we don't
undercut the other important programs we have going.
Chairman Levin. I'm going to come back to that police
training program on my next round.
Senator Hagan.
Senator Hagan. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief because
I have to preside in a little while.
But I do have a question on the upcoming elections. From
what I understand, President Karzai's term ends May 21 and the
constitution calls for an election 30 to 60 days before May 21.
But evidently the country's upland areas will be snowbound for
several months, which somebody said that maybe when the
constitution was drafted that wasn't taken into consideration
in 2003.
The election commission has recently ruled that, due to the
logistical and security problems, they've postponed that until
August 20; and that something I was reading today said that
Karzai might hold a snap election on April 21.
My question is what are your thoughts about the upcoming
election and specifically what that would mean to our troops,
and the security reasons?
Ambassador Dobbins. I do think that this will be a pivotal
event. If it goes well, I think it could be seen as the
beginning of a turn-around. If it goes badly, particularly if
an election is essentially indecisive, in which the results are
hotly contested, then it could be a serious setback.
Dr. Strmecki. I think the Afghans and the international
community are going to be able to work through the question of
timing. In other big events, the loya jirgas and so forth,
there was a little give and take in terms of scheduling as was
required by political circumstances or other things. I don't
think a snap election is in the cards because the logistics are
so challenging. General Barno is the expert on that in that he
ran the security and other aspects of the 2004 election in
concert with the U.N. and others. So I don't think there is
such a thing as a snap election in Afghanistan.
General Barno. I would agree with that, but I do think that
there is potential for some degree of internal crisis in
Afghanistan over this particular event. There is great debate
inside the country right now on who is going to be the
president of Afghanistan after 21 May, because by the
constitution it can't be President Karzai. Who inherits that,
what does that mean, what is the impatience for the upcoming
election in August?
So this is a very contentious and potentially explosive
issue that the international community has--I've gone to a
couple conferences on the election in the last 6 months and
there's been a feeling that this is the Afghans' election, the
international community doesn't have a central role, as it did
in the 2004 and the 2005 election, I think that has taken us
into some potentially dangerous territory here.
So I think we're going to have to be very alert to the
potential for some internal strife if some of these issues that
Dr. Strmecki pointed out don't get resolved.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Hagan.
Just a few more questions. You talked about, General, the
importance of not weakening the effort to strengthen the
national police with the program called Public Protection
Program. I want to get to the police question. Just how
realistic are the prospects for developing a noncorrupt,
competent police force in Afghanistan?
General Barno. There's a very good program under way now
called the Focused District Development Program, that takes
local police out, substitutes them with national police for a
period of time while the local police are taken away to be
trained to a higher standard, and then the local police are
brought back, they're given mentors and the national police are
sent on to other locations.
That was launched I think about 18 months ago and it's had
a lot of success as it marches around the country. The key to
the sustained success of the program appears to be keeping
those mentors with those retrained police for a prolonged
period of time. There's some question whether the actual system
will support that or not. In the places where that has not
happened, the police have gone right back to their old ways. So
I think that program is showing a lot of prospects for success
and needs to be reinforced as perhaps a nationwide model. It
may be under way, but I know that it's being implemented in
slightly different ways in different parts of the country.
So I think there's high prospects, but we have to get the
police fixed in Afghanistan. There's not going to be an ANA
soldier on every corner in Afghanistan, but there should be an
Afghan policeman on every corner in Afghanistan, and that needs
to be a trained individual that can do both rule of law, but
also be able to react if he has Taliban come into his area. The
Afghan police have not been brought up to that standard yet.
Chairman Levin. Ambassador, how confident are you we can
reform the police in Afghanistan? How important is it?
Ambassador Dobbins. I think within limits we've been
successful in police training programs in a number of places.
But you have to have reasonable expectations and it's a
resource and time-intensive process.
I do think that the police in Afghanistan have to some
degree been misused. We need to focus the police on law and
order type activities and look to other institutions and other
solutions for counterinsurgency roles in isolated roles,
situations in which the police will be too rapidly overcome if
they're left out there on their own.
Chairman Levin. Dr. Strmecki, do you have any thoughts
about the police? Can we reform them?
Dr. Strmecki. The police program has been a challenge from
day one in Afghanistan. Certainly the stories of the corruption
and abuses in police forces are largely true. Also we should
recognize that there are good elements in the police and that
the police have suffered probably the highest casualty rates in
engagements with the insurgents.
I am hopeful, because we're having a bringing together of
two factors, good leadership in the Ministry of Interior and a
robust program to support police, development of the police.
Earlier we had a good minister in 2003 and 2004, but our
program was underdeveloped. Then in 2005 until 2008 we had a
poor minister, but a stronger program. Recently President
Karzai has appointed a very good new Minister of Interior.
They control the police, and coupled with the robust
program, now I think the combination of the two gives us some
prospects for optimism, provided that we can do the kind of
partnering and mentoring that my colleagues have talked about.
Again, that brings us back to the question of what's the
first call on additional forces that we send to Afghanistan,
and I think the first call on those should be in the mentoring
and partnering role, not just with the ANA, but also with the
police.
Chairman Levin. My final question relates to the Afghan
NSP. Are you familiar with this community-based development
approach? As I indicated in my opening remarks, I'm personally
familiar with at least one example of it, which seemed to be a
very great success. We heard good things about it from other
folks in Afghanistan. Are you all familiar with it? If so,
would you tell us what your assessment is of it?
There's a new program that attempts to create links between
the local and the national levels in this area which is called
the Afghanistan Social Outreach Program. If you're familiar
with that program, do you believe that it's intended to be a
substitute for the Afghan NSP?
So what do you know about NSP? Is it a good program? Is it
working? Should it be expanded, continued? Is that other new
program, Afghanistan Social Outreach Program, something which
works along with it or is it threat to it, assuming that NSP is
a good program?
Anyone of you, are you familiar with it? Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. Afghan NSP I think is one of the great
successes in Afghanistan. It's an Afghan-led program out of the
Ministry of Rural Reconstruction and Development, that created
23,000 community development councils. So these are small
councils in villages that determine what reconstruction
priorities they have or development priorities they have.
Those are then channeled up to the ministry and then a
grant is made to enable the local community to carry it out. So
it really shows that an Afghan institution can deliver results
for the people.
Chairman Levin. Again, let me interrupt. These are small
grants.
Dr. Strmecki. That's right.
Chairman Levin. $16,000 or something like that.
Dr. Strmecki. Exactly. They've carried out more than 35,000
projects across the country. So it's a tremendous success,
given the environment, given the underdeveloped nature of the
Afghan state. It really shows if you take that model, that
national program model, you could apply it in other areas.
Now, the Afghan Social Outreach Program I have to confess I
haven't heard of it. So I will have to take that and discover
its nature and get back to you.
[The information referred to follows:]
The Afghan Social Outreach Program is an Afghan-led program to
mobilize local communities and connect them to their government. The
problem that the program seeks to solve is that, at the district level,
the Afghan Government does not have a political body to engage and to
cooperate with at the local level. The program involves the
organization of broadly representative community councils at the
district level, which will be phased out and replaced by elected
district councils in 2010. The stated goal for these councils is to
foster community solidarity to prevent infiltration by anti-government
elements, to provide a mechanism for conflict resolution, and to
provide an organized channel for local communities to communicate and
engage with the Afghan Government, particularly its police and security
services. The councils will not implement or manage funds for
development projects--a task that will remain with the development
councils created under the National Solidarity Program (NSP). To
directly answer your question, the Afghan Social Outreach Program
should not be viewed as a threat to the NSP.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. The NSP certainly gets good marks from
everybody I've talked to. I do think that we talked about
creating local, village-based defense forces controlled by
local village councils. I think the important thing is to link
these different programs and to ensure that you're not only
empowering the local representatives in the security area, but
also to be providing resources through these other programs, so
that they're not only taking responsibility for their own
security, but for deciding what development programs are to be
instituted and then actually delivering the resources for those
deployment programs.
I think our PRTs and our military can play a strong role in
ensuring that the efforts to provide those kinds of resources
are adequately secured, so they actually show up and are used.
Chairman Levin. General?
General Barno. I would agree with Dr. Strmecki on the
overall benefit of the program. The Social Outreach Program,
I'm not sure if that's synonymous with what's called the
Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), which I
have heard is a competitor at times with the Afghan NSP. The
IDLG is a program that President Karzai has set up to really
connect him more directly to the local governance and work at
the local area, in effect somewhat independently of some of the
structures of government, that's had some success, but I don't
have a great knowledge of how the details of that are being
implemented.
Chairman Levin. I promised that would be the last question,
but there is one that I overlooked. Predator strikes--we've
talked about these--in Pakistan. There are plusses--they hit
some of their targets--it misses targets, hits innocents at
times. They're going to continue, apparently. So there's up
sides and down sides to those strikes.
The Government of Pakistan attacks them and that creates a
very negative public perception of us, and by some accounts it
becomes a recruiting tool for future terrorists and people who
violently attack us.
Are they worth it overall, General, in Pakistan?
General Barno. My sense is they are having a major impact
on the enemy. In open session I think that's as far as I would
go with that.
Chairman Levin. That's fine.
Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. I think it's a difficult balance
between the political impacts they have on Pakistan and the
specific tactical victories. I don't have a basis to challenge
either this or the last administration's judgment that on
balance it's something that we should be doing. But clearly
it's something that we should be continually reevaluating.
Chairman Levin. Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I work primarily from open sources in
following Afghanistan, so I can't adequately judge the return
in terms of degrading the enemy. I've spoken to Afghans, senior
Afghan officials, who believe that it is degrading.
Chairman Levin. You're talking about Pakistan?
Dr. Strmecki. But I've spoken to Afghan senior officials
who said those attacks are degrading some elements of the
cross-border capability. But that's not direct evidence that I
have.
Chairman Levin. Shouldn't we at least expect that Pakistan
not vehemently attack something that we're doing, that they've
been informed about, according to Secretary Gates? Shouldn't we
at a minimum expect the Pakistan Government--we understand the
politics of it, that they want to disassociate themselves from
the innocents who are killed. But shouldn't we expect that they
can disassociate themselves without the vehement attacks on
them, publicly calling for them to end, which they have? At the
same time there's some suspicion that they may not want them to
end, that they at a minimum acquiesce in them, know about them?
So that's my question. If they politically need to
disassociate themselves, even criticize the loss of innocent
lives, isn't the vehemence of their criticism beyond what we
should expect the Pakistan Government to be doing? Anyone want
to comment on that?
General Barno. The only comment I think I'd make, Mr.
Chairman, is that this is still a very new government and they
are still finding their footing. The nation hasn't been
governed by a civil leadership in many, many, many years, and
this government is still trying to discover how it connects to
its population, what its role is, how it should look at these
issues.
I think that over time as they grow in maturity that this
outward manifestation of how they feel about this may change a
bit.
Chairman Levin. Anyone else want to comment on that?
Ambassador Dobbins. I tend to think that rhetorical
protestations are probably the least we can expect. The
Pakistanis could be taking steps to make it more difficult for
us, which they're not. They could be inhibiting our transit
rights, overflight rights. They're not. So as a practical
matter they are acquiescing in this behavior.
They are paying some political price domestically for
acquiescing in it. If they were actually to stop their
rhetorical protests, they would be paying an even higher
domestic price. I don't know whether it's in our interest to
have them do that.
Chairman Levin. I'm talking about the extreme nature of it,
the vehemence of the protest, not just the fact of it. Maybe
I'm being too fine-tuned in my thought.
Dr. Strmecki?
Dr. Strmecki. I think I share your dissatisfaction with
their posture, and I'd suggest that an engagement with them
over time that goes to what General Barno said earlier, about
what is the positive vision that our relationship will have for
Pakistan's sake over the long term, is critical, so that then
this aspect of the relationship can be put into a wider
context, and together the Pakistani Government and us can
engage the public to say, we're here for the long haul for
Pakistan's sake, these are the things that we're doing to
improve the Pakistan economy, the educational system,
universities and so forth, but we together have to deal with
this dangerous extremist threat, that's a threat to both
Pakistan and to the United States.
So getting the relationship to that footing, I think, is
the solution to this unsatisfactory current situation.
Chairman Levin. I promised that that was the last question.
Senator Reed came just in time.
Senator Reed. Mr. Chairman, I would never undercut your
commitment.
Chairman Levin. No, no.
Senator Reed. No, these gentlemen have been very generous
with their time, and I just again want to thank them.
Chairman Levin. Senator Webb has asked that a U.S. News
article by Andrew Basovich called ``Afghanistan Surge Is Not
Worth The Cost in Blood and Treasure'' be inserted in the
record. It will be at this point.
[The information referred to follows:]
Afghanistan Surge is Not Worth the cost in Blood and Treasure
by Andrew Bacevich, USNews.com, February 23, 2009
More than 7 years after September 11, the global war on terrorism--
in Pentagon parlance, the Long War--is entering a new phase. Attention
is now shifting back to Afghanistan, with President Obama seemingly
intent on redeeming an ill-advised campaign pledge to increase the U.S.
troop commitment to that theater of operations. Yet as the conflict
continues, the correlation between American actions and America's
interests is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. The
fundamental incoherence of U.S. strategy becomes ever more apparent.
Worst of all, there is no end in sight.
Almost forgotten now, the theme of the Long War's first phase was
shock and awe. Starting with its invasion of Afghanistan in October
2001, the Bush administration set out to demonstrate America's military
supremacy. With a series of crushing defeats of its enemies, the United
States would eliminate conditions that fostered and sustained jihadist
activity, thereby ``draining the swamp.'' From military victories would
come political reformation.
U.S. successes in overthrowing the Taliban and then toppling Saddam
Hussein lent to these expectations a superficial plausibility. No
sooner had President Bush declared ``Mission Accomplished'' in Iraq,
however, than things began to unravel. Military campaigns expected to
be brief and economical became protracted and costly.
As hopes of transforming the greater Middle East dimmed, the war on
terrorism entered its second phase. On July 1, 2003, Bush himself
expressed its central theme: ``Bring 'em on.'' In a conflict commonly
described as global, Iraq and Afghanistan now absorbed the lion's share
of attention. In Iraq, the Bush administration remained intent on
achieving decisive victory. By winning there, the entire project of
transformation might still be salvaged.
Yet efforts to achieve a military solution yielded not decision but
escalating levels of violence. Confident chatter of ending tyranny and
liberalizing the Islamic world ceased. The strategic focus narrowed
further: In common parlance, ``the war'' no longer meant the larger
struggle against terrorism; it meant Iraq. There, U.S. commanders had
willy-nilly adopted a strategy of attrition, which produced frustration
on the battlefield and backlash on the home front. When the November
2006 elections installed a Democratic majority in both Houses of
Congress, Bush pulled the plug on Phase 2, sacking his Defense
Secretary and announcing plans to change course.
Phase 3 of the Long War commenced when Bush appointed Robert Gates
as Defense Secretary and General David Petraeus as his fourth commander
in Baghdad. On one key point, Gates and Petraeus concurred: Iraq was
unwinnable in strictly military terms. Events had shredded any
expectations of the United States coercing Muslims into embracing
liberal values. From the Green Zone, Petraeus launched what was in
effect a salvage operation. The emphasis shifted from chasing
insurgents to protecting the Iraqi people. Under what was styled as the
Sunni Awakening, the United States offered money and arms to militants
who promised to cease attacking coalition forces. Thanks to this
``surge,'' the level of violence in Iraq diminished appreciably.
Although Petraeus by no means solved the Iraqi conundrum, he pulled
that country back from the precipice of disintegration.
This limited success did not suffice to redeem the presidential
hopes of Senator John McCain, who made his support for the surge the
centerpiece of his campaign. Barack Obama, a consistent critic of the
war, beat McCain handily. Yet if Obama's supporters read his win as a
repudiation of Bush's Iraq policies, the election's outcome had a
second effect, paradoxically serving to ensure the Long War's
continuation. Even as Petraeus was tamping down the level of carnage in
Iraq, conditions in perennially neglected Afghanistan had eroded. In
2008, the Taliban returned to the offensive. Allied casualties
increased. Fighting spilled across the border into Pakistan, which
became the Long War's de facto third front. Obama, the candidate who
vowed to get out of Iraq but needed to protect himself from the charge
of being weak on national security, promised if elected to up the ante
in Afghanistan.
So Obama's inauguration finds the Long War in transition to a new
fourth phase. In Iraq, the surge has reached its ambiguous conclusion:
Petraeus has moved on, leaving to his successor the problem of
extricating the 140,000 U.S. troops still there without destabilizing
the country. More important, Afghanistan, now coupled with Pakistan,
has returned to the front burner. In effect, the Long War that began in
Central Asia in 2001 and then shifted to the Persian Gulf in 2003 is
now seesawing back to Central Asia.
What has been lost along the way, in addition to over 4,000 U.S.
troops and enormous sums of money, is any clear sense of purpose. No
serious person believes any longer that the United States possesses the
capacity to transform the Islamic world. Our efforts to drain the swamp
have succeeded mostly in exacerbating the anti-Americanism on which the
jihadists feed. Testifying before a Senate committee recently, Gates
mocked the idea of converting Afghanistan into ``some sort of a Central
Asian Valhalla.'' Using a now familiar Pentagon mantra, he declared,
``There is no purely military solution in Afghanistan.''
At a time of trillion-dollar deficits and grave economic crisis at
home, the questions must be asked: What will the Long War accomplish?
How long will it last? What will it cost? Who will pay? The time to
address these questions is now. Obama's freedom of action will never be
greater than it is today. Should he dodge these issues and plunge more
deeply into Afghanistan, the Long War will very soon become Obama's
war. He will richly deserve the obloquy to be heaped on his head as a
consequence.
Chairman Levin. You have been terrific witnesses. It's been
a very valuable hearing and we're grateful for your attendance.
We will stand adjourned.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Daniel K. Akaka
exit strategy
1. Senator Akaka. General Barno, one of the issues I had in the
beginning of the Iraq war was the lack of a definitive exit strategy.
Secretary Gates recently stated, ``the goals we did have for
Afghanistan are too broad and too far into the future.'' He went on to
say, ``we need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically
within 3 to 5 years.'' To what extent do you believe that the
Department of Defense has developed a clear, definitive exit strategy
in Afghanistan?
General Barno. Senator, I do not have specific information on the
degree to which the Defense Department has developed a clear and
definitive exit strategy for Afghanistan. That said, I also believe
that any public strategy which identifies ``exit'' as an objective in
effect imbeds within such strategy the seeds of its own destruction. In
the case of Afghanistan, a primary theme of the Taliban has been: ``The
Americans have all the wristwatches but we, the Taliban, have all the
time.'' The Taliban strategy is simply to run out the clock and
convince the population and their fighters that the United States has
no resolve for winning this fight; history tends to support their case.
Our exit strategy must be predicated on ``success''--creating a nation
and region stabilized in the political, economic, and security realms
to the extent that U.S. forces are no longer needed.
troop levels
2. Senator Akaka. General Barno, President Obama recently committed
an additional 17,000 military troops to Afghanistan in an effort to
stabilize what has become a deteriorating situation. However, it is my
firm belief that there is no pure military solution to the challenges
we face in Afghanistan. What immediate steps do you think we should
take from a political and economic standpoint as part of a more
comprehensive effort to stabilize the current situation in Afghanistan?
General Barno. Additional military forces are necessary, but as you
point out, not in and of themselves sufficient to assure the outcome.
On the political front, our most important objective this year--and one
in which the military must play an enabling role--is to set conditions
for a free, fair, and secure Afghan presidential election in August.
This event will become the ``strategic report card'' on the entire
international enterprise. On the economic front, I believe that a
wholesale major effort must be taken to reform and reinvigorate the
Afghan agricultural sector. Nearly 80 percent of the Afghan economy is
connected to agriculture, yet to date the international community has
done little to even return Afghanistan to the functioning agricultural
state that it was in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a crucial component
in any economic development program, and one which lacks coherence
today.
3. Senator Akaka. Ambassador Dobbins, the people of Afghanistan
must be able to secure its borders and deny cross-border mobility to
insurgents and drug traffickers. Pakistan made a truce with Taliban
forces that many feel creates a safe haven for terrorists. In your 2007
testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you stated ``U.S.
and NATO troops will be required indefinitely as long as the Taliban
and the other insurgents groups are able to recruit, train, raise
funds, and organize their operations in Pakistan.'' This recent truce
further complicates this situation. Do you still feel that this is an
accurate assessment of future troop requirements in the region?
Ambassador Dobbins. Afghanistan cannot be fully stabilized until
the threat from insurgent groups operating out of Pakistan is brought
under control, and that task will have to be performed principally by
the Pakistani Government. Until that occurs, Afghan forces alone are
unlikely to be sufficient to secure Afghan territory and population.
Reliance upon American and NATO troops can be reduced, however, as
Afghan national and local forces become more proficient, and the Afghan
administration becomes more effective in providing public services to
the populations in the contested regions.
As I said in my February 26 testimony, we should worry less about
end states, and more about the direction and pace of change,
particularly as regards public security. If we can reverse, over the
next year or 2, the current negative trends in public security, the
need for a large scale presence of foreign forces can be reduced, if
not eliminated altogether.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the committee adjourned.]
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