Senate Dems reluctant to escalate in Afghanistan

By Dave Anderson:

I've been skeptical of the urge to surge in Afghanistan mainly because there is too much handwaving and too strong of a willingness by COIN advocates and 2007 Surge advocates to remember two things; first the COIN advccates own admonition that foreign power COIN is a low probability of success, high cost proposition, and secondly, the Surge in Iraq failed to meet its overt strategic objectives of creating space for political reconciliation. 

However, it has been appararent that Gen. McChrystal's advisory board is a COIN heavy group.  Members of this group are publicly advocating for a significant expansion in mission, goal-set and resources for US involvement in Afghanistan.  Anthony Cordesman for instnace has mentioned a US surge of between 5,000 and 45,000 additional troops.  A trigger puller increase is already occurring in Afghanistan as US logistics and support functions are being outsourcd to contractors while the number of combat arms units are increasing.  This swap caps the total US uniformed presence at a constant number but is a signifcant increase in firepower and cost. 

There has been some pushback as the rationale for the war in Afghanistan has massively expanded in the past few years as the Democrats used the war in Afghanistan as both a political club and shield against attacks that Democrats are reflexive doves.  However the original rationale, smash the capacity of "far enemy" terrorists in Al Quaeda so that there is no capacity for intercontinental strikes out of Afghanistna has been achieved.  At this point, core Al Quaeda can barely fundraise, much less project power. 

Politically, the case for expanding the war's strategic goal set is popular only among neo-cons and neo-liberals who reflexively want to punch dirty fucking hippies for their correct skepticism.  No one else is significantly invested in Afghanistan as there are few credible arguments that can be made that American security is improved over the short or long run by a multi-decade and multi-trillion dollar nation building effort that will most likely lead to us propping up a series of unpopular and increasingly autocratic frauds. Support for the war is already net negative among the general American public, and as long as the objective set is large, vague and disconnected from either improved American security or outcomes, it will continue to decline.   

Senate Democrats are starting to catch a clue.  Escalation in Afghanistan without a massively improved objective set (most likely a massively simplified and minimized objective set) is a multi-level loser of an idea.  Senator Levin, (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is laying out a few markers on this:

Senator Carl Levin was the latest top Democratic lawmaker to caution Obama against a greater military escalation in Afghanistan, reflecting rising concern within the president's own party over the US direction there.

"We should increase and accelerate our efforts to support the Afghan security forces in their efforts to become self-sufficient in delivering security to their nation -- before we consider whether to increase US combat forces above the levels already planned for the next few months," Levin told the Senate.....

On Thursday, Obama's top Democratic ally in the House of Representatives, speaker Nancy Pelosi, warned of a lack of support among the US public and lawmakers for ramping up troop levels in Afghanistan.

"I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress," Pelosi told reporters.

Levin is arguinig for an Afghanistization policy where the US supplies the equipment, trainers and money, while the Karzai government supplies the fighters.  I don't think this will work either as it pre-supposes commonality of goal sets between the US and Karzai, but it is a less costly way to fail in the short and long term than sending another couple of US divisions to Afghanistan.