For the vast majority of Americans, watching the last American boot leave Iraqi soil is nothing short of good riddance. The numbers have become seared in Americans minds: Nearly nine years. Nearly a trillion dollars spent. Nearly 35,000 US soldiers wounded. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers dead.

The long-term effect of the Iraq War is pretty obvious—a national sentiment for retrenchment—a streak of isolationism that is being espoused by both sides of the political spectrum. It’s hard not to watch Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry warn against “military adventurism” without comparing him to his predecessor.

But despite the desire to go inward, the simple fact is that if there was any hope for the US to go on the sidelines, that’s changed forever with the onset of the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring has reminded the world of the danger of failed states. With long-time dictators losing power, militant Salafists (not solely Al Qaeda) are looking to fill the vacuum.

But the Arab Spring also comes with a new challenge—a new type of interventionism.

That new interventionism will not look like Afghanistan of 2009-2011—where we put boots on the ground in order to take out a ruling, rogue power. It will also not look like Pakistan—where our intervention will largely rely on airpower (unmanned predator drones in particular) with a small, light on-the-ground footprint to conduct reconnaissance and special operations, but with no motive to change the leadership.

The new interventionism will be a mix of two factors. Like Pakistan, it will be heavy on airpower, light on boots. Like Afghanistan in 2001, the effort will involve removing a rogue power, but with a slight difference. The intervention will not lead the effort to remove a rogue power, but will enable an indigent rebel to do the job.

In other words, it’s the fullback strategy of foreign intervention. The new intervention does not mean playing the halfback, taking the ball to the endzone for the touchdown. It means playing the full-back, creating the hole for the indigenous rebel groups to score the winning touchdown.

In this case, the main objective is very different. The hope is helping enable a victory on the ground that forestalls a long, drawn out war that creates the type of environment where a terrorist group can take hold.

The merits of the new (or fullback) approach to interventionism contrasts, for example, how the Iraq War was executed.  Because the new interventionism does not do the heavy lifting, it doesn’t overrule the will of the people in a given country.

Also, because the interventionism largely relies on airpower, with limited if any boots on the ground, it makes it easier and more likely to develop the type of multilateral coalition that is associated with legitimate and successful interventionist endeavors. And because of the airpower focus and multi-lateralist character of the intervention, the result is greater political legitimacy, a substantially decreased likelihood of casualties, and, therefore, staying power to finish the job.

In short, the new paradigm of successful intervention is not Afghanistan or Pakistan, but Libya. Heavy on firepower, multi-lateralism, and a limited mandate that paves the way for a rebel victory, not a Western one. While the removal of Qaddafi is an enormous immediate benefit, the long-term goal is preventing the drawn-out civil war that would make Libya a terrorist launchpad.

But ignoring the inclination towards isolationism is not only good for the Middle East. Successful, limited intervention also benefits the United States. When the US is involved in liberation that increases US influence in the world. This is not only an upside in the Arab World, but it means improving our soft power in other parts of the world, including areas where we are competing for influence with China.

And it also revives the notion of American humanitarian sway. The greatest casualty of the Iraq War is that it dampened our ability in the eyes of the world. We were distracted from ongoing operations in Afghanistan. We had a slow response to atrocities in Darfur. Now, the fullback humanitarian approach is attached to the heightened likelihood of intervention. That could have a deterrent effect on would be genocidaires and reinvigorates the idea of American power.

It’s not easy to ignore a nine-year war where America lost valuable blood and treasure. But isolationism is the easy approach. Isolationism was the approach after 1919 and the world was in the midst of another world war twenty years later. The goal is not taking the ball and going home. The goal is finding a pragmatic approach that means greater political stability, the return of American influence, and the preservation of innocent life. Just don’t call it leading from behind.

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3. Graeme Bannerman: Libya, A Costly Victory

Among the many issues that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta must ponder in the coming months will likely be whether to recommend shifting U.S. strategy in Afghanistan from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism.

Some critics argue that our current policy of deploying large numbers of ground troops puts more of our men and women at risk for questionable gain and even encourages more Afghans to join the Taliban, fighting against what they claim is an invasion force. Yet the recent gains in clearing out Taliban strongholds and helping to build schools, medical facilities and other civic institutions argue, instead, for staying the course for several more years.

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3. Crossing the Rubicon

One can understand the frustration on all sides of this, the longest war in America’s history. However, the United States cannot afford to turn its back on what is right – either in terms of national security or our values. And on both counts, President Obama’s modest withdrawal is the right call.

In terms of national security, Osama bin Laden’s assassination scored a huge foreign policy victory for the Obama administration as well for all peoples who oppose the hatred and violence that bin Laden espoused. Yet the sole justification for the Afghan campaign was not bin Laden’s death or capture. It is true that only about 50 to 100 al Qaeda operatives remain in Afghanistan. Recall, however, that only 19 hijackers were needed for the September 11th attacks. Furthermore, so few al Qaeda remain in Afghanistan, in part, because many have fled to the ungoverned tribal areas in Pakistan. If the United States leaves Afghanistan an ungoverned mess, al Qaeda will have more places from which to train to kill Americans and our allies.

This is not to say that we should stay forever. Ultimately, this is a war the Afghans must win. Timetables for withdrawal are tricky things. Some have said all the Taliban now have to do is wait until 2014. While true, the Afghan police and military are building capacity. There has been progress made since the strategy has been redefined and, more importantly, given more resources (patriotic men and women can disagree whether enough resources have ever been given to this endeavor). The men and women of our Armed Serves, as well as U.S. government civilian agencies on the ground, have performed heroically. Washington now, more than ever, needs to be equally heroic. Yes, the Afghans must ultimately decide their future, but we can help by making sure that the gains that have been made at great cost give them a chance for a better future.

Killing Osama bin Laden did not end our obligation to the brave Afghans who have stood with the United States and our allies against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Some in the Taliban may be able to come into the political fold of the new Afghanistan. Others will never give up their extreme ideology, and their trail of horror is well documented.

Values are tricky things – if they don’t cost you anything, they’re not your values. We won the Cold War not just through the force of arms, but through the force of our ideals. Make no mistake about it – this war is not different. We must keep our word to those we said we would help stand for a better future. We must not let our soldiers’ and Marines’ sacrifices be made in vain. And we must not bow to this evil.

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“Virtually all serious observers of national security affairs now recognize the current structure of the national security system militates against unified problem-solving when the problem is a multiagency issue. The question is what to do about it.”

Counter-proliferation, counterinsurgency, food security, energy policy – all examples of complex and multifaceted issues that increasingly dominate America’s security priorities and starkly highlight the chronic limitations of the U.S. national security structure. The Project on National Security Reform and others stress the critical need for a Goldwater-Nichols Act of national security to take on the colossal and outdated bureaucracy built around the security challenges of the post WWII period.

In a recent report released by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, Christopher Lamb and Edward Marks take on one facet by proposing a solution to the bureaucratic ‘stovepiping’ that hinders security missions requiring multi-agency approaches, such as counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan or WMD proliferation. They pinpoint the inability of the President to delegate executive authority as the crux of the problem. For example, while czars have been used as a way to coordinate across departments, they are not given the resources or authority to execute their missions – and become what Lamb and Marks describe as ‘cajolers-in-chief’. This is also evident in the role of Special Envoys, PRTs, and lead agencies. Described as a tension between ‘unity of command’ and ‘unity of effort,’ they argue the solution can be modeled after the Chief of Mission (COM) approach where executive authority is delegated to resident country Ambassadors.

They succinctly describe what such a structure would look like: as ‘mission managers’ with presumptive Presidential authority,  individuals would have expanded legal, operational and resource authority to carry out specific missions that clearly (and intrinsically) cut across departments and agencies. Senate approval and legislation codifying integration powers would give Congressional legitimacy, and require mission managers to make their case to Congress for funding. In addressing the most obvious obstacle –turf wars between departments – the role of the President would be paramount to ensure respect and proper use of authority by the different departments.  Mission managers could achieve the kind of interagency cooperation that has previously failed with the ability to “oversee the management of the problem ‘end to end’, from policy and strategy to planning and execution.”

The idea of mission managers is worthy of further discussion and analysis in the larger dialogue on creating a more nimble and effective 21^st century national security infrastructure. However, while based on an existing ‘best practice’ of interagency cooperation, it would still be a drastic departure from the current approach. Inevitably, it would face resistance from the established organizational cultures. Where the greatest obstacle lies – as Lamb and Marks point out– is making national security reform a political possibility.

‘Chief of Mission Authority as Model for National Security Integration’ can be found in pdf form here.

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Since the Afghan war began, NATO and Afghanistan have become inextricably intertwined.  The linkage culminated at last year’s NATO summit where the 60^th anniversary of the alliance sparked the assertion that Afghanistan could be the alliance’s make-or-break test of the 21^st century, despite other looming challenges.

This year’s summit in Lisbon, Portugal, meanwhile, was billed as a turning point in the war and the beginning of the transition process.  This past weekend, members formally agreed to the end of combat operations in Afghanistan by 2014.  But setting a timetable is only one key component of this process; having a competent security force to hand responsibility off to is the other.  Thus, NATO’s mission to train the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) is just as integral to the endgame.

Earlier this month, the NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan (NTM-A), which provides and better coordinates existing training of the ANA and ANP, celebrated its first anniversary.  Over the first year of the mission, there have been some notable positive outcomes, namely substantial growth in number of both the ANA and the ANP.  But there have also been some notable challenges, like corruption and illiteracy, which are hindering the effort.  All in all, a robust effort is still needed to create a viable Afghan security force.  Yet the program still needs nearly 1,000 more trainers to be able to fully complete the development of the forces.

The importance of getting the training component of the Afghan strategy right was made even clearer by the findings of the Asia Foundation’s poll “Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People,” which is the broadest public opinion poll in the country.  Among them, this year’s poll showed the continuing influence that the security situation is having on the attitudes of the Afghan public, especially when it comes to whether they think Afghanistan is headed in the right direction.  The 47 percent of respondents who said the country is moving in the right direction (which was up from 38 percent in 2008 and 42 percent in 2009) mainly attributed that view to a “the perception of good security.”  Conversely, though, 44 percent of the respondents who said that the country was headed in the wrong direction cited insecurity as the main reason.

The ANA and ANP get mixed reviews as well.  While the majority of respondents believe they are largely effective, they also think that the ANA and ANP are “unprofessional and poorly trained and require the support of foreign troops.”

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has expressed regret that a formal training effort did not begin sooner.  The challenge of that, though, may not be the time wasted as much as the momentum that could be lost.  In particular, our European allies, who are considered the best able to contribute more resources to training the army and police, have been growing skeptical about continuing their missions in Afghanistan.  Now, working with smaller defense budgets, and facing a new age of austerity and increasing domestic unease over the Afghan war, it may become even more difficult for these countries to keep their training commitments.

The Economist characterized the abundance of agreement at the Lisbon meeting as “a rowless summit.” Symbolically, this was important.  But just after the summit ended, a NTM-A review reportedly warned that transitioning control to Afghan forces “would not happen with the current shortfall of hundreds of experts needed to train the local police and army.” Thus, there are likely rows to come, and NATO’s mettle will be tested by its ability to secure continued commitments for Afghanistan from its reluctant members.

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Past midnight, our wait for a flight at  Camp Bastion, Helmand, had an eerie surreal feel.  In the passenger lounge, scores of Marines, Brits, contractors and Afghans waited in relative quiet.  Screams and dark music blared from the big flatscreen showing a grisly horror movie — a disturbing choice given the setting and the audience.   The flight was delayed because of a repatriation ceremony — a Marine’s remains were going home via C-17.  Finally, a young blond girl dressed in British fatigues cheerfully ordered us to put on helmets and flak vests for the walk to an old Afghan bus that would take us to the plane.

The wait and the flight gave me time to consider all I’d heard from the many fine professionals working to stabilize southern Afghanistan.  People mostly believed in their work and that they were making a difference at the local level.  But nobody has a good answer when we ask about the corrupt power brokers like Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK), Abdul Rahman Jan (ARJ), Gul Agha Sherzai, and Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, not to mention President Karzai himself.

These men wield immense power in Afghanistan, controlling large economic enterprises, political patronage organizations, private militia, local security forces, narcotics trade, and official government posts.  They are often protected by Karzai himself, due to their relationships or their danger to the Afghan President (or both).  They live in huge garish mansions and own dozens of firms that scoop up American aid contracts while also (allegedly) fueling corruption, intimidation, and narcotics trafficking.  They are feared and despised by much of the population, sapping the legitimacy of both GiROA (for whom they work) and ISAF (who showers them with money).  Some of them may have ties to the Taliban and collaborate when it suits their interests.

Afghanistan’s so called leaders seem to value greed and short term power over the long term peace and prosperity for the Afghan people. So what can be done?  This is where tough political work is necessary.  My experience is in the Balkans where the generation of post-Dayton leaders were just as unsavory as those in Afghanistan.  What we did was to offer a very clear vision of post-Dayton integration into Europe and backed it with political, economic, and military leverage on each group.   Leaders in the Balkans had a choice: 1) get with the program and become a post-war leader of their nation, 2) obstruct and find political isolation (at best) or be detained for war crimes (at worst). Biljana Plavsic is one example.  An extreme Serb Nationalist and war criminal, Plavsic responded in a pragmatic way to this choice (and the more moderate political mood in her political base of Banja Luka),  helping to pass some key measures to strengthen the new Bosnian government.

Leverage in Afghanistan appears harder to come by, but perhaps we’re just not willing to use what we have.  Money is an obvious one.  We currently throw assistance money at parts of Afghanistan that need help.  And we’re giving the money to contractors owned/controlled by the power brokers in these areas that are generally not helping.  Maybe we want to spend money in areas and on companies controlled by leaders that are helping.  Cancel some contracts tied to a guy that is being obstructionist.   Let’s see if that changes the behavior in Afghanistan.   We need to balance some of the structural and community based objectives with this political approach but that is doable — having political leadership that knows we will use leverage is worth that sacrifice.  We also need to better leverage political relationships.  It starts with establishing leverage on Karzai who can then put pressure on provincial level officials .  For both Karzai and others, we can leverage our influence with neighboring states, global business interests, and global media.    Finally, we have have all the tools and influence of our military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan.  There have to be ways we can better leverage our hard power advantage.

This is not to imply that we should try to remove these guys.  Much better to co-opt or push these guys into being constructive than to challenge their survival.  But we need to be willing to do that if they are an enemy of the peace.  Being part of the solution offers its own advantages: political recognition, access to US and international officials, direct and indirect financial rewards, an most important, the chance to be remembered in Afghan history as a leader not a criminal.  Until Afghanistan gets more leaders and less criminals, our mission there is difficult.

CO-PUBLISHED WITH SMALL WARS JOURNAL

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My visit to Camp Leatherneck and the PRT at Lashkar Gah reinforced that  Helmand is the land of extremes.  Afghanistan’s largest and longest province, Helmand also produces most of the poppy in Afghanistan — making Helmand province a bigger producer of poppy than any nation in the world save its own.

Helmand is dominated by the Helmand river, which runs north-south from the Kajaki dam near Kandahar to Dishu in the south.   The population of Helmand lives off and along the river and its canals and irrigation channels.  Helmand’s border with Balochistan, Pashtun tribes, and poppy dominated economy made it largely Taliban controlled  — until recently at least.

The mission of Marines in Helmand is to wrest control of the population centers from the Taliban.  This is tough counterinsurgency fighting and the Marines have done amazing work turning the tide in key districts of Helmand, though the fight is far from over.  The offensive which began with Marjah in 2009 continued district by district into the key towns of the Helmand including Nad Ali, Musa Q’ala, Garmsir,  and now Sangin. Taliban resistance hasn’t disappeared by any means (even in Marjah) but don’t underestimate the ability of the Marines to clear and hold.  With a density of forces now in place and a dismounted force, the results from the population are visible.  People are getting out, engaging in commerce, and talking to Marines about needs and concerns.

The build piece will take more time but a key element has been the establishment of village shuras that serve to both recognize traditional governing structures as a bulwark against the Taliban and to serve as a link between the population and the district government.  This blending of traditional and official governance may be the best model for a realistic transition plan that effectively denies Taliban control of the south.  One senior Marine noted that they see some patterns in what each village and district needs —a government center, a bazaar, a health clinic, a school, and a mosque.   Making progress on these key pillars of daily life is a key part of the stabilization effort.

The build phase has a particularly strong partner in the Helmand PRT, based in Lash.  Led by a British civilian but strongly staffed with a multinational civ-mil team, we were impressed with the passion and confidence in their capacity building efforts now that security is on the upswing.  Such a civilized compound too!  Much nicer than dusty Camp Leatherneck.

As I get ready to head back to Kabul, I leave with a heavy respect for the Marines and civilians in Helmand.  There is no denying the challenges but I MEF and this PRT are taking Helmand back from the Taliban district by district.

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I’m in Kabul!  I inspect the city on my drive from the airport.  It seems  pretty similar to my last visit with one big annoying exception: traffic.  There are just more cars on the road now (both Afghan and expat) and the result is close to gridlock.  The 30 minute drive from the airport turns into total nightmare as protests at Kabul University completely paralyze Mayor road.  We end up bailing out of the car, flagging down a taxi, and heading to the Gandamack for dinner.    I suppose traffic is actually a good thing. It either shows that more Afghans are buying cars, more are out and showing confidence in the regime, or the civilian surge has had a secondary effect of gridlock.  Overall the impression is a more busy and vibrant Kabul.

Our initial meetings feature a variety of senior civilian and military officials representing State, USAID, ISAF, RC-South, and Task Force Raider.   Our discussions go quickly to the issues at hand: are we winning?  If so, why?  How is the civ-mil collaboration working?

The general consensus from those on the ground is that we are making progress in security and the population is responding at a local level, especially in the south.  The story here sounds pretty close to the COIN manual.  The extra forces and more dismounted approach are improving the security environment in the areas that used to be dangerous.   Areas in Helmand and Kandahar that used to be Taliban strongholds have been cleared or will be, and the rapid follow up efforts show results with the population.  Additional staff and resources are generating a lot more activity in the political and economic areas.  In areas like Nad Ali in Helmand, local village shuras now work with the District Governor and the DST to link traditional and official government.  These approaches are particularly effective in areas where the civ-mil team is closely integrated and strikes the right balance between stabilization, reconstruction, and development (not all do).  There is measurable albeit modest progress in capacity building in some areas.

Several US officials dismissed US and western media reporting on the war, noting that the media reports on violence and controversy rather than understanding operational effects.  The US offensive is fueling more violence in the short term as the Taliban resist the clear operations with both fighting and information operations.   Public access and activity is seen as an indicator of diminished Taliban intimidation (one officer noted “you see more kites flying in Kandahar city every day”) and therefore political progress (a leading indicator).  Reduction in violence will tend to be a trailing indicator.  This matches the Iraq surge effects many of them saw first hand in the 2007-2008 time frame.  It is natural for officials on the ground to be more positive than journalists so take all of this with a grain of salt.

It is also imperative to ask whether we are making progress on some of the big strategic questions, particularly at the national and provincial political levels.  There is broad skepticism about the Afghanistan government in both its capacity and integrity.   Key power brokers and government figures like the Karzai brothers and Gul Aga Sherzai (and many others) are masters at manipulation for political and personal gain, at the expense of political progress.  They cultivate and reward allies, vacuum up US reconstruction dollars through affiliated companies, look the other way at shake downs and intimidation, and profit off other licit and elicit activities. Rarely are they willing to expend political capital for long term progress or to do the right thing.  Governing capacity and legitimacy remains poor, particularly in the provinces and municipalities, and the central government control hinders efforts by ineffectively controlling them and blocking progress.  Is measurable progress at the district level sustainable without better partners at the provincial and national level?

What is most clearly lacking is the same thing I saw in 2009 on my last visit: leverage with national and provincial officials over key issues such as corruption and management.   How can we get these guys to clean up?  We need leaders with a vision of Afghanistan that extends beyond the near term lining of their bank account.  And we need US leaders that can herd these cats in the right direction.  If only a plate of tuna fish and a water bottle would work on a Karzai.

Next stop: Kandahar and Helmand to see how civil-military integration is working at the regional platforms, Task Forces, PRTs and DSTs.

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Over the past week, Taliban militants in western Pakistan have bombed and set fire to dozens of tankers carrying oil to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The seemingly daily trend of attacks on NATO fuel supply convoys has been ongoing since Pakistan closed a key border crossing in retaliation to a U.S. helicopter strike within its airspace. This recent surge in violence highlights the increasingly precarious reliance on fossil fuels as the single most critical strategic linchpin of U.S. military success. With the soaring costs – in both dollars and lives – of the military’s dependence on oil becoming ever more apparent, there has never been a more urgent time to accelerate the transition to renewable energy use on the battlefield.

Even before the recent wave of attacks, a study by the Army Environmental Policy Institute found that for every 24 fuel convoys to Iraq or Afghanistan, one soldier or civilian involved in the transport was killed. On top of the risk, the economic costs of the military’s dependence on oil are staggering. Although the military purchases gasoline at a relatively cheap price, transporting a gallon of fuel to a forward operating base can cost up to $400. Moreover, the sheer scale of the military’s energy expenses ($20 billion in 2008) leaves it particularly vulnerable to oil price volatility, as just a $10 uptick in the price of a barrel of oil costs the Department of Defense about $1.3 billion. These factors, in addition to the strategic challenges and indirect costs associated with importing foreign-produced oil rather than using American-made renewables, make the military’s current energy practices dangerous, inefficient, and ultimately unsustainable.

Although the Pentagon has taken strong strides in developing and deploying clean energy technologies, it still has plenty of untapped potential. In a report released in July, the CNA Military Advisory Board suggested that increased collaboration between DOD, DOE, and the private sector can spur the innovation necessary to make renewable energy technology more viable in the military. In FY 2010, DOD received $80.5 billion in funding for research and development alone – more than the entire operating budget of nearly any other government agency. A reallocation of some R&D funding from weapons systems to energy innovation would likely increase long-term U.S. national security significantly.

The military is also uniquely positioned to be a catalyst for economy-wide clean and renewable energy development, creating markets and driving down costs as its technological innovations are adapted for civilian use. The military has a long history of pioneering technologies that later found wide commercial success, from nuclear power to GPS systems to the Internet. As the nation’s largest single consumer of energy – accounting for roughly three quarters of the entire U.S. government’s energy usage – the impact of DOD’s investments could ripple throughout the economy. With the current legislative stalemate in the Senate, the military just might be the best vehicle to propel the U.S. economy toward a clean energy future.

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