America's Afghanistan Problem: It's Not Just about Sending More Troops - Michael O'Hanlon

Before examining the numbers issue, however, a few other quick points need to be made about our ongoing commitment to Afghanistan, now in its sixteenth year. First, those who have been saying for years that the United States does not have the strategic patience or political resilience to remain committed to a long and tough mission for many years have been definitively proved wrong. That is a good thing, not just for Afghanistan, but for what it says about America’s strategic ability to stick with a tough job even when the results are mediocre and the stage lights have dimmed, so to speak. Second, the Trump administration seems to be implicitly accepting that it will remain in Afghanistan throughout much—if not all—of the president’s first term. For example, there would be little purpose in talking about a buildup this year if our intention was simply to pull out next year, for example. Happily, there seems to be a good chance that the United States will end its annual policy reviews that consider zeroing out the U.S./NATO presence in the country, as happened in the latter years of the Obama administration. A mission that has been called Operation Resolute Support since 2015 may now fully deserve its name.

Beyond these subjects are the issues of Pakistan, Afghan political and economic reform, and the peace process with the Taliban, such as it is. On the first matter, many American voices on the Left and the Right are calling for a tougher U.S. approach to Pakistan—one of the top “frenemies” in American foreign policy today—due to its tolerance of Taliban sanctuaries on its soil, even as it cooperates with the United States over Afghanistan in other ways. Already we have cut aid to Pakistan considerably. We could cut more; we could designate Pakistani individuals and organizations supporting the Taliban and sanction them; we could strike Taliban targets within Pakistan with even less restraint than has been the norm to date. More positively, we could also eventually offer incentives—a free-trade agreement or increased aid—if Islamabad will restrict its support for the Taliban or cut it off altogether. 

As for Afghanistan's tortured politics and ongoing affliction with corruption, there is actually some hopeful movement to build upon. The much-maligned government of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, while hardly a picture of harmony, has held together. The corrupt warlord, Vice President Rashid Dostum, may have been just pushed into temporary (or perhaps permanent) exile in what would be a welcome development. Ghani is personally overseeing the awarding of government contracts. This slows down the wheels of government, but it also allows him to create more transparency and pressure against corruption. For its part, the United States is more diligent about how it provides aid and spends money for its forces in Afghanistan than was the case six or eight years ago—with far less money now falling inadvertently into Taliban hands. 

There is a long ways to go on all these fronts. Among other things, the Afghan electoral commissions that will have to oversee parliamentary and presidential voting in the next two years or so remain weak and underresourced. The same is true of the Afghan judiciary writ large. So the military mission in Afghanistan cannot be viewed in a vacuum, of course, and broader state-building efforts must continue. 

In other words, in Afghanistan today, rather than talk of cutting forces further, the United States needs to first go back to the future—or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, go forward to the past—and redo the phase of the mission that it unwisely skipped in 2015 and 2016. By “escalating to deescalate,” the United States may not achieve a brilliant victory in Afghanistan, but it can improve significantly the odds of avoiding defeat, and of shoring up its eastern flank in the broader fight against extremism and terrorism. The proposal before Trump makes good sense and is worthy of serious consideration. - Read More

America's Afghanistan Problem: It's Not Just about Sending More Troops