Strange American responses!

Shahzad Chaudhry

What should have been a synchronous application of force on both sides of the Durand line ends up being a piston applied from one end into a perforated second end of a tube; a loss of effect and diffusion of the entire effort

The United States, for all its democratic credentials, carries an obvious fascination for its martial tradition. The Wild West was tamed through armed forays; the garrisons held sway over large swathes tilled by farmers and mined by their migrant colleagues. Many a fable is a part of their popular cultural history, finding its way into classical literature, subsequently converted to celluloid. Warrior-Presidents, as late as the 1950s, were a norm rather than an exception; most others would have had a stint in the military and proudly refer to it as time spent in service of their country.

Politics is very strongly associated with leadership and public service; hence, a retiring general would usually find a continuation in political roles. From serving the country, a military man would move to serving its people - a tradition of great honour in American society. President Obama's cabinet boasts of at least two retired generals. To the Americans, both military and politics are not dirty words; thus, a clear reverence for both.

This strange but pleasant co-habitation of politicians and their uniformed colleagues has perpetuated a sense of unified national direction that has sustained over years without stress. Under such a sense of strategic stability in the domestic environment, the spirit of free enterprise became the foundation of well-being and prosperity for American society that has more or less reigned unchallenged globally in political, economic, technological and military fields.

Vietnam, however, was an exception. A losing cause resulted in an unsure military which ultimately had to retreat in haste. It is a blot that stains the American conscience and has moulded their responses since. It was during the Vietnam War that President Johnson had to famously recall that "wars were too important to be left to the generals alone". As a consequence the political leadership in Washington tended to chaperon the war, donned military roles, and became intractably engaged with routine operational matters. Targeting was cleared from President's office, mostly far too delayed in time, and unrelated in relevance to the operational environment. America lost the war, and forever considered it a cardinal sin to interfere in what was for the generals to execute.

Did they, really? The first Gulf War saw Colin Powell, the then Chairman Joint Chiefs, being restrained by President George Bush the Elder, with the mission modified to evict Iraq from Kuwait, while Saddam Hussein, the reason for going to war, and his Revolutionary Guards were spared annihilation. President Bush, himself a military man, thought it prudent to get the boys back home while achieving the objectives only partially. The President did not appease the American public enough, appeared a wimp, and lost the 1992 election. American forces had to launch another war in Iraq to complete the mission eleven years later under another President, George Bush the Younger. So much for the repeat of the Vietnam model, perhaps not to that extent though.

The second Gulf War, only now seeing the curtain drop, has been another unqualified failure. This one was launched a la Vietnam by political masters under reluctant generals. While the US was able to finish off the war agenda of 1991, killing Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guards, it set into motion a cycle of instability that has Iraq still enveloped.

The new President, Barack Obama, disowned the Iraq war and is keen to get his men out - leaving Iraq to self-heal, if at all. This certainly could not have been the war objective of a super-power. Welcome to the mish-mash of political direction of war, under generals who could not bring themselves to conciliate with higher direction of war at the outset.

While circumspect leadership may have brought the first Gulf War to a sorry end in strategic terms, what gave in the strategic calculations of the world's great super-power the next time around: non-warrior Presidents, or a case of not leaving the war to the generals?

Afghanistan beckons, and another President remains absorbed with the way forward. His attempt: to read the grand design here. Does it mean that the US actually launched without a set of strategic objectives? Or, is it another case of having bitten more than one can chew? Meanwhile stranger stuff happens in Afghanistan.

The Presidential elections in Afghanistan have ended up neither here nor there. A runoff will be held on November 7. The very essence of the American premise to enter Afghanistan is under threat. Without a clear political mantle, and without an indication of who may actually occupy that mantle, Obama may seem naïve, nay silly, committing himself to a strategy; hence, the prolonged prevarication.

General McChrystal, the choice general for difficult assignments, meanwhile, awaits a political judgment of his sense of war. He is looking for 40,000 more soldiers; to do what - secure the Afghan cities from the Taliban. He does not seem much concerned with the gradually increasing Afghan territory falling outside of the US-NATO control; on last count the area ceded by Western forces in Afghanistan is around 79 percent. It is important to read here the difference between the territory won by the Taliban from Western forces - which is almost zero - and the territory ceded by these forces of their own free will, which is practically all of the 79 percent.

A COIN effort is meant to deny control of territory as well as the chance to establish writ by the insurgents in such territory. The opposite seems to be happening in Afghanistan. There is, practically, no on-going COIN effort in Afghanistan - there hasn't been a discernable one in the last eight years. Does it give credence to the widely observed notion that Afghanistan in actuality needs a counter-terrorism effort, rather than a counter-insurgency effort - the new mantra in Washington? Is counter-terrorism the modified and revised mission a la Gulf War I? Will it need another effort like Gulf War II to complete the mission in Afghanistan too?

Still stranger: just as the Pakistani military launches its no-holds barred COIN effort in Waziristan, the US and NATO consider it strategic sense to remove eight of their military posts from opposite the border in Nuristan and Kunar. One thought when Pakistan's major effort would be in place as the hammer, the US and NATO would provide the necessary anvil for effect.

Frank James of the NPR, quoting the Washington Post questions American strategy which is, "likely to raise even more questions about the wisdom of how the counterinsurgency strategy has been waged in Afghanistan". He laments "US military's missteps" and reports: "... it has helped drive a broader reassessment of war strategy among top commanders in Afghanistan, who have begun to pull U.S. troops out of remote villages where some of the heaviest fighting has occurred. Senior military leaders have concluded that they lack the forces to wrest these Taliban strongholds away from the enemy and are instead focusing on more populated and less violent areas".

The result is far removed from the expected anvil.

What may then one call Washington in its current throes; confused, muddled, chaotic, riddled with lack of strategic clarity? The saying goes, "if you can't stand the heat, don't enter the kitchen". When the forces begin to draw around their base camp from all over, they are possibly looking to exit. Again, this cannot be the strategy of a super-power. COIN needs to be fought and a victory pursued; defeat is never an option, or else Vietnam occurs.

The consequence for Pakistan of this American dither is calamitous. What should have been a synchronous application of force on both sides of the Durand line ends up being a piston applied from one end into a perforated second end of a tube; a loss of effect and diffusion of the entire effort. Perhaps there will need to be another effort in due course to achieve objectives fully. That shall be a shame.

The political leadership in the US must make up their minds fast, outline their objectives in Afghanistan, provision the necessary resources to the man on the ground who will then need to pump some resolve into his force and help create the strategic advantage for the US to seek an honourable exit. Else the only other possibility will be a repeat of the Vietnam nightmare. Will Obama deliver differently?

The writer is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador