International Security Assistance Force

Earlier this month, General David H. Petraeus issued his seminal commander’s “Counterinsurgency Guidance” to all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Four and a half pages in length, it succinctly laid down the principles governing the conduct of military operations in that country. Not surprisingly, the guidance built on, and incorporated, many of the same elements—and often the exact phrasing—of the equally- seminal command guidance that General Petraeus had issued to the Multi-National Force he commanded in Iraq between 2007 and 2008.

General Petraeus’s first dictum, to “secure and serve the population,” the essential foundation of any effective counterinsurgency campaign and the guiding principle of his successful strategy in Iraq, remains the same. “Live among the people. You can’t commute to this fight,” was another of General Petraeus’s pivotal emphases that has been transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan. “Pursue the enemy relentlessly”; “Hold what we secure”; “Foster lasting solutions” may also be found in the new guidance as is “Fight the information war relentlessly” and “Be first with the truth.”

Just because “you don’t make peace with your friends” is now a platitude does not make the slogan any less true. The problem with Afghanistan’s National Consultative Peace Jirga, which began Wednesday and ends Friday, is that almost all the more than one thousand attendees are supporters of incumbent President Hamid Karzai or at least opponents of his Taliban adversaries—a condition that has severely vitiated its utility.

This isn’t necessarily Karzai’s fault. His Western backers discouraged him from engaging in genuine peace negotiations with Taliban leaders until coalition forces have had the opportunity to reverse the situation on the battlefield. U.S. policy makers in particular want to take advantage of the recent surge in NATO combat forces in Afghanistan—which should number about 150,000 by August—to shake Taliban commanders’ conviction that they will win the war. Washington hopes now lie in achieving some quick victories that will induce more Taliban to desert and encourage the movement’s leaders to defect or negotiate. At present, the only issue the main Taliban leadership loyal to Mullah Omar has expressed interest in discussing is how rapidly foreign forces will leave Afghanistan. They greeted the inauguration of the Peace Jirga yesterday with rocket attacks and suicide bombers.

In a recent article for The National Interest Online, Doug Bandow questioned the value of American aid that helps improve the military capabilities of its NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan. I strongly disagree with his premise and believe that it is smart to invest in NATO members participating in the Afghan War.

All NATO member states, including Latvia, are real contributors to the Afghan effort. NATO signatories responded to the American request for mutual assistance after the 9/11 terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Over the last nine years, against all odds, all members of the alliance have fulfilled their commitment to support the U.S.-led operation.

This commitment was unanimous, prompt and meaningful. Latvia is spending financial, military and civilian resources to help ensure the success of the operation in Afghanistan. A number of young Latvians have already paid the ultimate price in that country for the peace, stability and prosperity of the entire world. Latvia’s contribution and losses per capita are among the highest of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). With the support of the Michigan National Guard, Latvia’s Armed Forces have assisted in training the Afghan National Army within its own Operational Mentor Liaison Team (OMLT). Despite the severe economic recession, the Latvian army and security forces have helped enhance the effort in Afghanistan for the benefit of every country in the ISAF.

GENERAL JOHN McColl is a rare military officer. In 2002, without firing a bullet, he led a British brigade into Afghanistan, established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and received Afghan public acclaim for bringing security to the capital city of Kabul. His success reflected an Afghan consensus that international forces were central to building an effective state. They trusted the intentions and capability of the international community-trusted that their presence would catalyze the creation of a legitimate government and a just order. And under this umbrella of security, Afghans began the hard work of rebuilding destroyed homes and mending the social fabric of our homeland.

 ISAF's reception today, as General McChrystal acknowledges, is of a very different kind. The mission now faces the twin threats of an assertive insurgency and the predatory, corrupt behavior of the Afghan state. With these threats reinforcing one another, the Afghan public has lost confidence not only in their own government, but also in the international community. This decline in legitimacy has led to an ever-increasing death toll-both of Afghans and international military personnel. The Orientalist image of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires is alive and well.

Regaining legitimacy now requires the creation of a stock and flow of trust: trust between Afghan civilians and their government, as well as trust between the civilians, their government and the international community. Building this trust will require placing the needs and aspirations of the Afghan people at the center of a focused strategy, which delivers sustained results through the kind of burden sharing so evident from 2002 to 2005.

Although perhaps with different objectives in mind, analysts as different as Fareed Zakaria and special forces Major Jim Gant have recently argued that the time has come to make deals with the "tribes" in Afghanistan. However, two relatively recent attempts to make such deals further illustrate the almost certain strategic failure of that approach there. During October 2006, an agreement was reached between NATO and Taliban forces requiring both sides to withdraw and cease operations within a designated area of Musa Qala district in Helmand province. However, the Taliban soon complained that NATO had launched air strikes within the exclusion zone and proceeded to attack and occupy the district town until expelled by NATO forces almost a full year later. The re-occupation of the district town by British forces was followed during December 2007 by the public defection of a local chief-also variously described as a "tribal leader," "former Mujahidin guerrilla" or "former Taliban commander"-who had also served as a former provincial governor for the Taliban in the 1990s.

Whatever other assertions might be made, the official mission statement of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is: "to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability . . . observable to the population" by "conduct[ing] operations . . . to reduce the capability of and will of the insurgency, support the growth in capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Forces . . . and facilitate improvements in governance and socio-economic development. . . ." The most popular label for that broader objective is "nation-building." The recently leaked version of General Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan-and the current debate that has ensued-clearly assumes that the technology for "building nations" is known and the primary role of military forces is to provide sufficient security to enable our nation-builders to accomplish that task. But what if we don't really know how to build nations-even when security conditions are relatively good?

From all I saw in Afghanistan last month, everything indicates that the "clear, hold, build" strategy now employed by the military is not the solution. In the past two months, 20,000 troops, mobilized in the most important operation ever undertaken in Afghanistan, have failed in their attempt to clear the central part of the Helmand province. How could more resources turn the tide, when the plan is so clearly not working? Astronomical costs aside, it is important to reaffirm that even 200,000 troops would not be sufficient to take the rural districts back from the Taliban and seal the border with Pakistan.

On Monday, reporters sparked a fury when they seized on remarks from the top US general in Afghanistan, claiming that the war there would be lost without more troops. In his sixty-six-page assessment of the war, Gen. Stanley McChrystal claimed the United States would need more boots on the ground in Afghanistan to pursue a concerted counterinsurgency strategy. But watch the hands, not the mouth: only a day before, President Obama appeared on several major news shows, expressing skepticism that sending more soldiers into the country would accomplish any concrete objectives or make Americans safer.

"I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way - you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration," the president said on Meet the Press. "We're not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we're automatically going to make Americans safe," he remarked on Face the Nation. And on CNN's State of the Union, he added, "The first question is, are we doing the right thing? Are we pursuing the right strategy?"

President Obama may soon have a German problem on his hands that could vastly complicate his Afghanistan conundrum. President Bush had one in 2002, when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won reelection by campaigning against war in Iraq. Now Afghanistan has become a hot-button issue in a new federal election, as Christian Democrat Angela Merkel tries to win a second term.

Merkel's defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, is coming under fire for having claimed that there were no civilian casualties in the bombing raid of two fuel tankers in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. A German commander in Afghanistan gave the order for the strike, and the number of civilians dead remains unclear. The German Defense Ministry called the raid "militarily necessary and correct," which has landed Jung in a war of words with General Stanley A. McChrystal who is having none of it. McChrystal apologized to Afghan president Hamid Karzai for the heavy loss of civilian life. Meanwhile, Merkel, speaking in Parliament today, defended the German military.

The result is that Germany is in an uproar. Given the strong pacifist sentiments inside the country, the conservative-led coalition government has had to inch its way into committing forces in Afghanistan. The bungled bombing raid now gives the German Left, ever a potent force, a golden opportunity to argue that there's no cogent reason that the country should commit any forces abroad, especially if the hated United States is leading the charge. Already there are calls on the left for a special parliamentary session to examine Germany's role in Afghanistan.

Let me say at the beginning that I do not think that the existing mess in Afghanistan at present is the fault of the Obama administration. The president inherited it from George Bush, and simply did not have time between taking power in January and the Afghan elections of this month to carry out a radical change of course. If, however, the administration fails to change course after the (predictable) debacle that these elections have become, then the responsibility for subsequent disasters will indeed rest with President Obama and his team.

The Afghan election has lessons that go far beyond Afghanistan. It illustrates the folly of relying on democracy and elections to provide solutions to complex issues of state-building, absent a whole set of other preconditions. One of these is for Washington to have a clear idea of what election results it wants, what election results are possible and what if anything it can do to influence those results.

Instead, both the Bush and Obama administrations drifted along with the Afghan electoral process, the results of which were always going to be a choice between the very bad and the absolutely disastrous; and were then going to have to explain to the American public and the publics of key U.S. allies (notably Britain) why bringing about this awful choice was worth the lives of dozens of U.S. and allies troops. It now seems likely that more British soldiers have died in Helmand province over the past four years than Afghan citizens voted there in the first round of these elections. How do you explain that to those soldiers' parents, wives and children?

Leading Europeans have long promoted the idea of an independent European foreign policy and military force. Creating such a continental capability is one of the top arguments for strengthening the European Union through the Lisbon Treaty. In practice, however, Europe is moving in the opposite direction as individual nations reduce their militaries and commitments. On Bastille Day, French President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over a military parade that included German and Indian military personnel. Sarkozy has brought Paris back into the NATO command structure, opened a base in the Persian Gulf, and promised military "modernization" and high-tech development. He also has proposed establishing a "permanent and autonomous strategic planning capacity" for the EU along with a deployable military force. But France is about the only European state intent on increasing its military reach-and only after sharply reducing its defense efforts since the end of the cold war.

Throughout history, Great Britain has been America's closest military partner. The government recently announced a review of British defense policy, shortly after the Institute for Public Policy Research predicted significant cuts in London's defense budget of roughly $54 billion.

One potential target is the planned $124 billion replacement program for Britain's sea-based Trident nuclear-missile program. Earlier this year three top retired military officers proposed dropping Britain's independent nuclear deterrent. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested reducing British nuclear weapons as part of international negotiations.

Also under scrutiny is London's contribution to the Afghanistan war. Rising casualties are taxing public patience. The economic crisis is increasing calls for cutbacks. The Royal United Services Institute recently proposed "a radical scaling back" of the British contingent. Britain can, explained the Institute: