Surge and Retreat in Effect

by YankeeJim | December 6, 2009 at 07:24 am

164 views | 16 Recommendations | 13 comments

After reading the Washington Post article this morning that describes the Obama strategy development process in more detail, it is clear that Obama wants to punch the Taliban into a knockout while punching the al Qaeda into oblivion before making a swift exit in a short time frame. He wanted a date-certain exit which runs counter to military professionals who do not want to giveaway such details. Herein lies the biggest and most obvious contradiction – America plans its wars in public.

America has no nuance or finesse when it comes to war. That may be why George W. Bush was such a perfect-appearing commander. The kick-ass style goes with the blundering giant warfighting approach.

Now, however, the counterinsurgency strategy is different in that our forces are committed to do the right things the right way, that is 1) punch the enemy with sufficient force to impress the local populations that it is safe for them to learn to protect themselves, 2) show the national government how to train and deploy a national military in support of local forces, 3) support the operation with civilian experts so that the military can concentrate on fighting while specialists work with the tribes, and 4) accomplish all of this in 18 months because we’re going home to pay some bills.

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"Obama's Coin Toss

Eliot A. Cohen, Washington Post opinion.

It is impolite, but probably true, to say that when President Obama announced in March that he had a "comprehensive, new strategy" for victory in Afghanistan, he had no precise idea what he was talking about. In Washington parlance, the word "strategy" usually means "to-do list" or at best "action plan." As for "comprehensive" and "new," they usually mean merely "better than whatever my predecessors did." So now, even after his speech Tuesday night at West Point, does the president really have a strategy for the Afghan war? What is a strategy anyway, in a war without fronts, one that might drag on for decades and that shades off into banditry at one end and terrorism at another?

Strategy is the art of choice that binds means with objectives. It is the highest level of thinking about war, and it involves priorities (we will devote resources here, even if that means starving operations there), sequencing (we will do this first, then that) and a theory of victory (we will succeed for the following reasons). That is the job of wartime presidents; it's why they have the title commander in chief. Obama set out his objectives for Afghanistan, focused on thwarting al-Qaeda, and enumerated some of the means, chiefly a 30,000-troop, 18-month surge. But what about the hard part: setting priorities, establishing a sequencing and laying out a theory of victory? ..."

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snuffysmith

at 07:39 on December 6th, 2009

Obama's decision to grant the generals' request for Afghanistan should come as no surprise. William R. Polk on how the Pentagon came to run Washington Obama's decision to grant the generals' request for Afghanistan should come as no surprise. William R. Polk on how the Pentagon came to run Washington.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-05/the-militarization-of-america/

Hugh Askew

at 07:45 on December 6th, 2009

From a Wasington Post narrative of President Obama's decision making process on Afghanistan:

“Defeat the Taliban.” But a red box had been added beside it, saying that the mission was being redefined, Jones said. Another participant recalled that the word “degrade” had been proposed to replace “defeat.”

Already briefed on the previous day’s discussion, the president “looked at it and said, ‘To be fair, this is what we told the commander to do. Now, the question is, have we directed him to do more than what is realistic? Should there be a sharpening . . . a refinement?’ ” one participant recalled.

Given that insight, I would venture to guess that the mission statement will be tweaked as often as is politically expedient.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/05/wapo-white-house-forgot-that-they-told-mcchrystal-to-defeat-the-taliban/

YankeeJim

at 07:53 on December 6th, 2009

Political expediency will be the Obama brand for this presidency.

snuffysmith

at 08:02 on December 6th, 2009

Obama Steals Bush’s Speechwriters

By Matthew Rothschild

If you closed your eyes during much of the President’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night and just listened to the words, you easily could have concluded that George W. Bush was still in the Oval Office. Continue

snuffysmith

at 08:04 on December 6th, 2009

How do you ask a Man to be the Last Man to Die for a President's Political Image?

By David Sirota

There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops. Continue

snuffysmith

at 08:00 on December 6th, 2009

US not leaving Afghanistan in 2011, says top adviser: President Obama's top national security adviser, General James Jones, has said the United States has no intention of leaving Afghanistan "in the near future" and certainly not in 2011.

snuffysmith

at 08:05 on December 6th, 2009

The Audacity of Ethnic Cleansing

Obama's plan for Afghanistan

By Mike Whitney

The Bush administration never had any intention of liberating Afghanistan or establishing democracy. The real aim was to remove the politically-intractable Taliban and replace them with a puppet regime run by a former-CIA asset. The rest of Afghanistan would be parceled-off to the warlords who assisted in the invasion and who had agreed to do much of the United States dirty-work on the ground. Continue

YankeeJim

at 08:42 on December 6th, 2009

The United States is out of there 2011 come hell or high water. We can't afford to be there. The president and most of the nation doesn't want to be there.

Inflicting pain on the Taliban and al Qaeda with a visble punch is what we're after. Then, before the dust has settled it is homeward bound.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 15:46 on December 6th, 2009

Then why even bother going through this exercise in futility. If anyone thinks that the Afghan National Army is able to take over in 18 months, they.re fooling themselves. I wished they could, but they don.t know the nature of that tribal nation.