David Kilcullen is one of the intellectual forces behind the Petraeus strategy in Iraq which has transformed the situation there. It was Kilcullen, an Australian and an anthropologist by training, who grasped the pre-eminent importance of population security. So, Kilcullen’s thoughts on Afghanistan, relayed to George Packer of the New Yorker, are well worth reflecting on.
Kilcullen sees four crucial challenges the mission there must rise to:
“(1) We have failed to secure the Afghan people. That is, we have failed to deliver them a well-founded feeling of security. Our failing lies as much in providing human security—economic and social wellbeing, law and order, trust in institutions and hope for the future—as in protection from the Taliban, narco-traffickers, and terrorists. In particular, we have spent too much effort chasing and attacking an elusive enemy who has nothing he needs to defend—and so can always run away to fight another day—and too little effort in securing the people where they sleep. (And doing this would not take nearly as many extra troops as some people think, but rather a different focus of operations).
(2) We have failed to deal with the Pakistani sanctuary that forms the political base and operational support system for the Taliban, and which creates a protective cocoon (abetted by the fecklessness or complicity of some elements in Pakistan) around senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
(3) The Afghan government has not delivered legitimate, good governance to Afghans at the local level—with the emphasis on good governance. In some areas, we have left a vacuum that the Taliban has filled, in other areas some of the Afghan government’s own representatives have been seen as inefficient, corrupt, or exploitative.
(4) Neither we nor the Afghans are organized, staffed, or resourced to do these three things (secure the people, deal with the safe haven, and govern legitimately and well at the local level)—partly because of poor coalition management, partly because of the strategic distraction and resource scarcity caused by Iraq, and partly because, to date, we have given only episodic attention to the war.
So, bottom line—we need to do better, but we also need a rethink in some key areas starting with security and governance.”
Solving the Pakistan problem is imperative, as long as rejectionist forces can be constantly resupplied and reinforced from across the border it will be hard to make much progress. But equally, the military focus in Afghanistan is going to have to shift. Securing the local population is the most important task as without that the coalition and the Afghan government will never receive the cooperation and support they need to be successful.
Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan
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