Whither the world’s policeman?

Since Saturday I’ve been trying to process my thoughts about Afghanistan.  Yes, part of it’s personal, a reaction to seeing the Taliban back in charge, making we wonder if we accomplished anything in two decades of leaving our families for months at a time, risking life and limb, and watching teammates going home in flag-draped caskets.  But it’s more than that.  I think many of us knew when the mission changed from driving the Taliban out of power in late 2001, to one of trying to remake the country into a Western-style democracy, we were going a bridge too far.  I’m not surprised that failed to take root there even after a generation of effort.  We often forget it took Western Civilization centuries of fits and starts to get where we are now (or at least were, before we started eating away at the foundations of our own structures… but that’s off topic for the moment).

What leaves me soberly shaking my head is the utter ignominy of our departure.  We are suffering a global humiliation on a scale not seen in half a century, if even then.  We had already said we were leaving.  But it was supposed to be on our timetable, not the Taliban’s.  They weren’t supposed to be broadcasting from the presidential palace in Kabul while we scrambled helicopters to move our people to the airport, which itself had disintegrated into chaos.  This isn’t a withdrawal.  It’s a rout.  The Afghan forces we lavishly spent time and billions of dollars on simply melted away, while we tried to come to grips with events our intelligence services and leadership said would take far longer to materialize.

This is a national security disaster and likely a turning point in the history of American power and influence.  Not just because a hostile regime is returning to power.  It’s a disaster because of the conclusions both friends and foes will take from it.  Does anyone in either China or Taiwan have reason to believe we will intervene decisively if the former moves to swallow the later?  If America can’t manage a better endgame than this in a technologically lopsided fight against people who aided a stunning attack on us, how likely is it we’ll summon the national resolve to fight a rising peer competitor (China) that claims it’s simply resolving an internal affair?  After all, the last time we fought China (in Korea), the best we managed was an uneasy draw that continues to this day.  Similar assessments are no doubt being made in Moscow and NATO capitals as well.

After Vietnam, our military was demoralized and distrusted, both for good reason.  It took years to rebuild both capability and public confidence.  There is at present little to no reason to believe our national leaders, in and out of uniform, know how to wisely employ our military power.  There is even less reason right now for a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine or Guardian to believe the sacrifices he or she is willing to make for their country will prove meaningful in the end.  In such an environment, who will stay?  Who would join?  And what quality of force will result from those hundreds of thousands of individual decisions that are even now being made?   We spend trillions on our military and intelligence services, but that alone is no guarantee against a hollow force.

We’ve not managed a solid closure to a conflict since 1945.  Even Desert Storm, which seemed to vindicate the oft-heard maxim that we have the best military in the world, dragged out into a decade of combat air patrols and low-intensity shooting matches until we finally decided to oust Saddam after 9/11.  That was followed by years of counterinsurgency warfare, and the jury is still out on what we accomplished in Iraq.  In the absence of realistic strategic objectives and a willingness to fully commit to what is required to achieve them, expensive hardware and brave Americans can only accomplish so much.  And much has been asked of them over the past thirty years.  War without end was never what the early Americans envisioned for the nation they fashioned.

Patriotic Americans are quick to thank military members for their service.  The sentiment is appreciated, but the average non-veteran citizen simply can’t comprehend the cumulative costs of that service: broken veterans, strained and failed marriages, the emotional baggage carried by the children of military families.  The legions are beyond tired, the equipment is wearing out, and from the world’s perspective right now, it appears the Emperor has no clothes.  We won’t even secure our own border, so how likely is it we’ll fight to the death over Poland’s or Ukraine’s?  Our geopolitical ego, to crib a phrase, has written checks our willpower is unlikely to cash.  And our enemies know it.

The world became more dangerous on September 11, 2001, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

A worthwhile New Years resolution

…would be for the United States to admit we’ve achieved everything we’re likely to in Afghanistan (i.e. not much), and end the operation:

No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan. There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept…

Indeed, Afghanistan represents the triumph of the deterministic forces of geography, history, culture, and ethnic and sectarian awareness, with Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras and other groups competing for patches of ground. Tribes, warlords and mafia-style networks that control the drug trade rule huge segments of the country…

The United States’ special adviser to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is trying to broker a diplomatic solution that allows the United States to draw down its forces without the political foundation in Kabul disintegrating immediately.

That may be the real reason the United States keeps spending so heavily in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is terrified of a repeat of 1975, when panicked South Vietnamese fled Saigon as Americans pulled out and North Vietnamese forces advanced on the city. The United States military did not truly begin to recover from that humiliation until its victory in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. An abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan could conceivably provide a new symbol of the decline in American hard power.

There is also the fear that an Afghanistan in chaos could once again provide a haven for an international terrorist group determined to perpetrate another Sept. 11-scale attack. Of course, Yemen, Somalia and a number of other places could also provide the setting for that.  The point is, we remain in Afghanistan out of fear of even worse outcomes, rather than in the expectation of better ones.

Afghanistan has become America’s “tar baby.”  The more we try to do there, the more we seem “stuck” with no vision or endgame in sight.  The writer of the linked article is correct that our misadventures there are likely to signal to our adversaries we aren’t the power we used to be.  But what is far worse is that our indecision and inability to know “when to fold them” demonstrates poor strategic judgment as well.  Nothing encourages aggression like thinking your potential opponent is both weak AND a fool.

(Chinese) Rear Admiral Lou Yuan has told an audience in Shenzhen that the ongoing disputes over the ownership of the East and South China Seas could be resolved by sinking two US super carriers.

His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.

Our extended presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan underscored our country’s emphasis upon what the military calls “force protection.”  It’s natural for any military to seek to limit casualties, but when it becomes apparent that even a few deaths are enough to change national policy, outside observers begin to doubt one’s resolve.  The thoughts expressed by Admiral Lou Yuan echo those of the Japanese militarists in 1940: the U.S. is a paper tiger, and will acquiesce to its rivals if smacked hard enough on the nose.  Japan’s miscalculation led to a brutal Pacific War that ended in atomic fireballs over two of its cities.  To see the line of thought being resurrected by the Chinese, whose potential to oppose the U.S. dwarfs that of Russia, should give plenty of people pause.

Afghanistan is known as “the graveyard of empires” for a reason.  The sooner we recognize that, and take steps to restore the deterrent credibility we’ve lost there, the better.  The misguided 17-year (and counting) occupation may have sought to avoid another 9/11.  But at this point, it risks far worse outcomes by emboldening rivals who believe they’ve taken our measure by watching us there.  Perhaps America in 2019 lacks the ability to muster the resolve shown after Pearl Harbor in 1941.  Then again, perhaps not.

The only certain thing is it’s better to ensure we never have to find out.