How Much Of An Afghanistan Withdrawal?

By Steve Hynd

Prof. Donald Snow is one of the treasures of the international relations/military affairs analyst community. His work is always clear, approachable (a minimum of acronym-laden jargon) and sensible. Yesterday at the New Atlanticist he neatly summarized competing arguments on the strength of any Afghan troop withdrawal.

The opponents, whose chief spokesman increasingly is Massachusetts senator John Kerry (chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Democratic nominee for president in 2004), make at least three separate arguments for pulling back. The first is that the United States cannot afford to continue to drop $10 billion a month into Afghanistan given current economic conditions at home. The expenses are particularly odious because they are inflated by the costs of �nation-building� associated with the Petraeus strategy of counterinsurgency, a cost that could be reduced with a smaller commitment with smaller troop numbers. Second, they argue the situation can be handled with a more concentrated effort aimed at the remnants of Al Qaeda, which requires neither large numbers of �muddy boots� on the ground nor the levels of financial resources currently being expended. Third, the scaling back is further justified by the successful elimination of Usama bin Laden (and subsequently his heir apparent), leaving the terrorist organization in some level of disarray. Not so openly discussed are the further assumptions that the war is probably unwinnable under any circumstances and that the Karzai government does not really warrant continuing American support (part of the reason the war is unwinnable).

Supporters, of course, disagree with this assessment. Their arguments are most sharply made by active participants in the war itself, notably Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General Petraeus. Both of these officials have argued that progress has been made but that it is, in a phrase first used by Petraeus but adopted by Gates, �fragile and reversible.� The heart of the argument is that real progress is being made and that a precipitous drawdown would endanger what has been accomplished. In Gates� own words, �Far too much has been accomplished, at far too great a cost, to let the momentum slip away just as the enemy is on its back foot.� In an interview with 60 Minutes, Gates drew a football analogy, warning against abandoning the field when the U.S. was on the enemy�s �two-yard line.� Critics, of course, find these descriptions of progress to be overblown.

...So what will the president decide? As usual in the hyper-partisan atmosphere that dominates Washington, it is a �damned if he does, damned if he doesn�t� set of choices. He cannot avoid withdrawals altogether, because to do so would be politically too injurious, reneging on a public promise and alienating his natural constituent base on the left. He cannot order a massive withdrawal, because doing do runs the risk of the entire enterprise going south before the 2012 election, and certainly inflaming the core of the GOP right. That leaves him with options inside the extremes, ranging from a token to a moderate to a sizable reduction. So what will the President choose to do?

Professor Snow is doubtless correct that Obama will try to keep both these constituencies happy by announcing a withdrawal amount that splits the difference:

Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a porridge that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right. How does a reduction of 15-20,000 sound?

The prospect of Obama making such a political decision and emerging unscathed, however, isn't a good one. Any withdrawal of less than the whole of that original 30,000 "surge" force announced in December 2009 amounts to a de facto escalation - albeit with considerable legerdemain. The American public are in less of a mood to accept that than ever, given the many different ways in which the surge has failed to meet Obama's plan as announced back then:

These are the three core elements of our strategy: a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that reinforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the career-minded generals who know careers go better and faster when there's a war on are talking about a Mega-Friedman Unit: staying to 2017. Republicans who support the military-industrial complex which supports such insanity aren't going to lay off Obama if he throws them half a bone in any case.

Obama should go big on withdrawal. Unfortunately I agree with Prof. Snow that he'll wimp out and go small.