An expensive stasis

By Dave Anderson:

Bernard Finel is depressing me as he explains why he is writing less now about Afghanistan than he has in the past.  I am depressed because I fundamentally agree with him:

At some point we�ll declare �combat operations� ended in Afghanistan.  This will reduce the violence in the country, but not really increase the stability of the place (sort of like Iraq). We�ll continue to spend tens of billions of dollars a year there, while at the same time gutting services at home due to a lack of those billions.  Afghanistan will remain barely functional...

The war will have institutionalized an unparalleled level of militarization in Afghan society, and trained a generation of fighters, at least some of whom will end up fighting abroad...

In short, something like the worst case scenario has been achieved: A long, costly, pointless conflict that will leave us less secure. And I do think this is the worst case � even the most right-wing administration would have been unlikely to escalate the costs of the conflict any more than Obama has...The problem with Afghanistan isn�t so much that we�ve made things horribly worse, but rather that we�re not making things better despite the tremendous costs....

And despite the added Super SURGINESS of an additional Marine battalion, the Taliban and other non-governmental armed groups in Afghanistan will still be able to hold their own against the counterinsurgent forces arrayed against them. 

Despite dropping billions in reconstruction projects, the Karzai government is still mainly a looting conduit to the UAE. 

Despite dropping American public support for this ulcer, the Serious People will insist that there is only VICTORY, without actually defining what victory looks like. 

Pulling out in a year or eighteen months (whatever is a reasonable and prudently planned withdrawal would look like is fine with me) or staying for another decade does not materially change the security interests of the United States.  And those interests are objectively fairly low in Afghanistan.  Yet, we are stuck as the internal political dynamics in the United States excludes military operations from any reasonable benefit  analysis. 

So we are voluntarily stuck, and Bin Laden got the war that he wanted for the second time.  The slow bleed continues because our political elites are more afraid of being called wusses and wimps than actually advancing national interests.