bobdina
10-24-2009, 12:35 PM
Troop-Boost Plan Gains Backing
By PETER SPIEGEL and YOCHI DREAZEN
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is moving toward a hybrid strategy in Afghanistan that would combine elements of both the troop-heavy approach sought by its top military commander and a narrower option backed by Vice President Joe Biden, a decision that could pave the way for thousands of new U.S. forces.
The emerging strategy would largely rebuff proposals to maintain current troop levels and rely on unmanned drone attacks and elite special-operations troops to hunt individual militants, an idea championed by Mr. Biden. It is opposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, and other military officials.
One scenario under consideration, according to an official familiar with the deliberations, calls for deploying 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. reinforcements primarily to ramp up the training of the Afghan security forces. But Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 troops also remains on the table.
People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach -- prompting members of Mr. Biden's staff to step in and write the document themselves.
The U.S. military effort in Afghanistan is at a crucial period, with the White House discussing troop levels and how best to use them. WSJ Foreign Affairs Correspondent Peter Spiegel says more troops will be added. It's only a matter of how many.
Signs the White House is moving towards Gen. McChrystal's view of the conflict mounted Friday as the 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers endorsed the commander's counterinsurgency strategy and signaled they might be open to modestly increasing their military and civilian contributions to the war effort.
Gen. McChrystal made a surprise visit to the NATO meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, to personally brief the defense chiefs on his strategic thinking. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after the closed-door session that he had heard "broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach," though he cautioned that the NATO members hadn't taken a position on Gen. McChrystal's request for more than 40,000 new U.S. troops.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also publicly backed Gen. McChrystal, and people familiar with the matter said the endorsements from Mr. Brown and NATO were likely part of a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for Mr. Obama's eventual decision.
"This may be part of an effort by the Obama administration to have the suggestion come from Europe first before the president makes a public commitment," said one person who has discussed Afghan strategy with senior U.S. officials.
The emerging U.S. strategy would change the tactics of conventional forces on the ground to a less-aggressive strategy aimed at winning support among Afghans, while shifting assets needed to go after terror groups -- helicopters, unmanned drones, and other surveillance equipment -- from Iraq to Afghanistan to step up the targeting of al-Qaeda-linked militants.
"You can't do one without the other," said a military official with recent experience in Afghanistan. "It's really just a question of which you decide to dial up and which you decide to dial down."
Such a hybrid does not guarantee Gen. McChrystal will get all the troops he has requested, and administration officials continue to insist that Mr. Obama is still weeks away from a final decision.
The outstanding question is how large an increase, and how those forces will be used.
A rapid increase in the size of Afghan forces has already been broached with Afghan defense officials, according to U.S. military officials, and a new three-star general -- Lt. Gen. William Caldwell -- was recently nominated to oversee the project at the request of Gen. McChrystal.
With 10,000 to 20,000 troops, "You'd be trying to buy time" for the Afghan security forces, said an official familiar with the deliberations. "In effect, you'd narrow the counterinsurgency part of the campaign down to training up the Afghans as fast as possible."
Despite some obvious parallels, the U.S. war in Afghanistan is nothing like the failed effort in Vietnam some three decades ago, WSJ's Gerald Seib explains.
Military planners advocating a hybrid strategy for Afghanistan point to the lessons of Iraq, where Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency approach was paired with an aggressive counter-terror mission directed by Gen. McChrystal, who was then in charge of the military's secretive terrorist hunters at the Joint Special Operations Command.
During the surge, conventional U.S. forces assigned to individual Iraqi neighborhoods and villages ultimately managed to develop detailed intelligence about local insurgent leaders, financiers and fighters. That information was then given to the commando units -- like the Navy Seals and the Army's Delta Force -- who eliminated hundreds of individual Shiite and Sunni militants.
Military and defense officials cautioned that a hybrid strategy would unfold very differently in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the country's biggest population centers were also the biggest insurgent strongholds, which meant that troops working to protect individual civilians could also help target militants.
video
The News Hub panel discusses President Obama's dilemma in Afghanistan, Amazon's amazing surge, the Dow's downfall and more.
Afghanistan's major population centers are comparatively secure, which means that U.S. forces hunting terrorist networks would have to operate in other parts of the country. "It would be two different wars, taking place in two different environments," said a defense official.
Officials said a final decision on troop numbers will most likely be tied to decisions the White House makes on how to negotiate Afghan politics. There is still debate over how the U.S. and its allies should approach the competing factions within Afghanistan.
"The heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is politics, because without a political framework, counterinsurgency cannot succeed," said Ahsraf Ghani, the former Afghan finance minister and presidential candidate who consults with top U.S. officials. "The number of troops could be more or less depending on what assumptions you make about politics and governance."
Graphics
Surveying the battlefield: While the U.S. maintains the largest presence in of NATO forces in Afghanistan, several other nations have troops stationed in hot spots around the country. Figures do not include the 33,000 U.S. troops operating independently of NATO. Flags represent nations with major troop presence in each command
Senior administration officials, as well as British and NATO leaders, have indicated that any strategy that backs Hamid Karzai's government would come with stringent benchmarks to constrain Mr. Karzai's actions and ensure progress on essential services and governance was being made.
The election, marred by fraud, rekindled questions within the Obama administration over whether the U.S. should continue to commit troops and money to support a central government wracked by corruption.
The alternative is equally fraught, however: focusing on local tribal leaders outside of Kabul and empowering them to secure and govern their local areas independently of the capital. In southern Afghanistan, where most of the current violence has raged, this would require partnering with Pashtun tribes that have frequently allied with the Taliban.
Whether allied forces can identify and peel off Taliban leaders and incorporate them into a friendly governance structure has been one of the most contentious issues within the administration deliberations, according to people familiar with the talks.
Several senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have publicly said that while certain Islamist elements of the Taliban may be objectionable, they do not present a direct threat to U.S. security and could be co-opted.
"The terrorist threat from al-Qaeda or any other group or movement is not to be equated with control over a particular piece of real estate by the group itself, or by the friends and patrons of that group," said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran who worked on Middle East and South Asian intelligence issues in the Bush administration.
Even Gen. McChrystal has envisioned some kind of accommodation with low-level Taliban, writing in his August assessment that NATO forces "must identify opportunities to reintegrate former mid- to low-level insurgent fighters into normal society."
But senior military officials have argued that convincing insurgents to put down their arms and seek alliance with the U.S.-backed central government -- much like Sunnis in Iraq's once-restive Anbar province reached out to U.S. forces there -- only occurs when those insurgents no longer feel they have the upper hand.
Allowing Taliban-linked tribes to regain authority in Pashtun areas while insurgents are still in the ascendancy would provide breathing room for al-Qaeda operatives, some of whom retain close ties to Taliban leaders, some warn.
"Terrorists refuse to stay in their lanes," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer in South Asia who led Mr. Obama's review of Afghan policy earlier this year. "We want to keep them in little boxes; they don't stay in their boxes. They interact with each other. It's the syndicate of terrorism that we're facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is so difficult to deal with."
By PETER SPIEGEL and YOCHI DREAZEN
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is moving toward a hybrid strategy in Afghanistan that would combine elements of both the troop-heavy approach sought by its top military commander and a narrower option backed by Vice President Joe Biden, a decision that could pave the way for thousands of new U.S. forces.
The emerging strategy would largely rebuff proposals to maintain current troop levels and rely on unmanned drone attacks and elite special-operations troops to hunt individual militants, an idea championed by Mr. Biden. It is opposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, and other military officials.
One scenario under consideration, according to an official familiar with the deliberations, calls for deploying 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. reinforcements primarily to ramp up the training of the Afghan security forces. But Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 troops also remains on the table.
People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach -- prompting members of Mr. Biden's staff to step in and write the document themselves.
The U.S. military effort in Afghanistan is at a crucial period, with the White House discussing troop levels and how best to use them. WSJ Foreign Affairs Correspondent Peter Spiegel says more troops will be added. It's only a matter of how many.
Signs the White House is moving towards Gen. McChrystal's view of the conflict mounted Friday as the 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers endorsed the commander's counterinsurgency strategy and signaled they might be open to modestly increasing their military and civilian contributions to the war effort.
Gen. McChrystal made a surprise visit to the NATO meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, to personally brief the defense chiefs on his strategic thinking. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after the closed-door session that he had heard "broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach," though he cautioned that the NATO members hadn't taken a position on Gen. McChrystal's request for more than 40,000 new U.S. troops.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also publicly backed Gen. McChrystal, and people familiar with the matter said the endorsements from Mr. Brown and NATO were likely part of a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for Mr. Obama's eventual decision.
"This may be part of an effort by the Obama administration to have the suggestion come from Europe first before the president makes a public commitment," said one person who has discussed Afghan strategy with senior U.S. officials.
The emerging U.S. strategy would change the tactics of conventional forces on the ground to a less-aggressive strategy aimed at winning support among Afghans, while shifting assets needed to go after terror groups -- helicopters, unmanned drones, and other surveillance equipment -- from Iraq to Afghanistan to step up the targeting of al-Qaeda-linked militants.
"You can't do one without the other," said a military official with recent experience in Afghanistan. "It's really just a question of which you decide to dial up and which you decide to dial down."
Such a hybrid does not guarantee Gen. McChrystal will get all the troops he has requested, and administration officials continue to insist that Mr. Obama is still weeks away from a final decision.
The outstanding question is how large an increase, and how those forces will be used.
A rapid increase in the size of Afghan forces has already been broached with Afghan defense officials, according to U.S. military officials, and a new three-star general -- Lt. Gen. William Caldwell -- was recently nominated to oversee the project at the request of Gen. McChrystal.
With 10,000 to 20,000 troops, "You'd be trying to buy time" for the Afghan security forces, said an official familiar with the deliberations. "In effect, you'd narrow the counterinsurgency part of the campaign down to training up the Afghans as fast as possible."
Despite some obvious parallels, the U.S. war in Afghanistan is nothing like the failed effort in Vietnam some three decades ago, WSJ's Gerald Seib explains.
Military planners advocating a hybrid strategy for Afghanistan point to the lessons of Iraq, where Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency approach was paired with an aggressive counter-terror mission directed by Gen. McChrystal, who was then in charge of the military's secretive terrorist hunters at the Joint Special Operations Command.
During the surge, conventional U.S. forces assigned to individual Iraqi neighborhoods and villages ultimately managed to develop detailed intelligence about local insurgent leaders, financiers and fighters. That information was then given to the commando units -- like the Navy Seals and the Army's Delta Force -- who eliminated hundreds of individual Shiite and Sunni militants.
Military and defense officials cautioned that a hybrid strategy would unfold very differently in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the country's biggest population centers were also the biggest insurgent strongholds, which meant that troops working to protect individual civilians could also help target militants.
video
The News Hub panel discusses President Obama's dilemma in Afghanistan, Amazon's amazing surge, the Dow's downfall and more.
Afghanistan's major population centers are comparatively secure, which means that U.S. forces hunting terrorist networks would have to operate in other parts of the country. "It would be two different wars, taking place in two different environments," said a defense official.
Officials said a final decision on troop numbers will most likely be tied to decisions the White House makes on how to negotiate Afghan politics. There is still debate over how the U.S. and its allies should approach the competing factions within Afghanistan.
"The heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is politics, because without a political framework, counterinsurgency cannot succeed," said Ahsraf Ghani, the former Afghan finance minister and presidential candidate who consults with top U.S. officials. "The number of troops could be more or less depending on what assumptions you make about politics and governance."
Graphics
Surveying the battlefield: While the U.S. maintains the largest presence in of NATO forces in Afghanistan, several other nations have troops stationed in hot spots around the country. Figures do not include the 33,000 U.S. troops operating independently of NATO. Flags represent nations with major troop presence in each command
Senior administration officials, as well as British and NATO leaders, have indicated that any strategy that backs Hamid Karzai's government would come with stringent benchmarks to constrain Mr. Karzai's actions and ensure progress on essential services and governance was being made.
The election, marred by fraud, rekindled questions within the Obama administration over whether the U.S. should continue to commit troops and money to support a central government wracked by corruption.
The alternative is equally fraught, however: focusing on local tribal leaders outside of Kabul and empowering them to secure and govern their local areas independently of the capital. In southern Afghanistan, where most of the current violence has raged, this would require partnering with Pashtun tribes that have frequently allied with the Taliban.
Whether allied forces can identify and peel off Taliban leaders and incorporate them into a friendly governance structure has been one of the most contentious issues within the administration deliberations, according to people familiar with the talks.
Several senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have publicly said that while certain Islamist elements of the Taliban may be objectionable, they do not present a direct threat to U.S. security and could be co-opted.
"The terrorist threat from al-Qaeda or any other group or movement is not to be equated with control over a particular piece of real estate by the group itself, or by the friends and patrons of that group," said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran who worked on Middle East and South Asian intelligence issues in the Bush administration.
Even Gen. McChrystal has envisioned some kind of accommodation with low-level Taliban, writing in his August assessment that NATO forces "must identify opportunities to reintegrate former mid- to low-level insurgent fighters into normal society."
But senior military officials have argued that convincing insurgents to put down their arms and seek alliance with the U.S.-backed central government -- much like Sunnis in Iraq's once-restive Anbar province reached out to U.S. forces there -- only occurs when those insurgents no longer feel they have the upper hand.
Allowing Taliban-linked tribes to regain authority in Pashtun areas while insurgents are still in the ascendancy would provide breathing room for al-Qaeda operatives, some of whom retain close ties to Taliban leaders, some warn.
"Terrorists refuse to stay in their lanes," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer in South Asia who led Mr. Obama's review of Afghan policy earlier this year. "We want to keep them in little boxes; they don't stay in their boxes. They interact with each other. It's the syndicate of terrorism that we're facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is so difficult to deal with."