We are losing the war in Afghanistan and we have no good options left there.
This is no reflection on our military. There has never been a more capable fighting force in history and they are doing a magnificent job under the circumstances. But the task we have given them of propping up an utterly corrupt government and a narco economy, with unrealistic rules of engagement, is beneath them and not worth the lives we are losing there. (*Please see footnote below.)
When President Obama was agonizing over the future of our efforts in Afghanistan last December, I found myself speaking with a former Green Beret and Vietnam veteran. We agreed that Afghanistan was becoming eerily reminiscent of our painful experience in Southeast Asia. We are once again propping up a weak and thoroughly corrupt regime, with no definable mission or exit strategy, little in the way of clear and measurable progress, against an entrenched enemy who merely needs to wait us out to win. Our allies are slowly drifting away while our enemies are piling in.
As in Vietnam, we tell ourselves we dare not leave even when it is clear we can not win. But, the time has now come for us to admit that the cost in terms of lives and treasure is no longer worth the effort.
Over 1,000 American soldiers have now died in Afghanistan and an additional 6,000 have been wounded. We may never know the cost in Afghanistan lives. In fiscal year 2011 Afghanistan is projected to cost $117 billion up from $105 billion in 2010. Between Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S. has already spent over $1 trillion at a time when our federal deficit has exceeded $14 trillion. The Afghan economy is now in ruins. It is hard to see what benefit we or the Afghan people have derived.
Indeed, Afghanistan’s problems make Vietnam look easy in comparison. General Petraeus wrote that history shows that a counter insurgency can only be fought by engaging in nation building. Yet this is something we can no longer afford to do. As anyone who has ever been to Afghanistan knows, that country is virtually in the Stone Age. The U.S. is in no position to build out Afghanistan, a country twice as big as Vietnam - even if it could be done.
Moreover, unlike Vietnam, there is no clear sense of national coherence, only tribal identity. The Pashtuns who make up roughly 50% of the country, strongly side with the Taliban. As a result, we have chosen to side with the Tajiks who make up only 25% of the country. The other dozen or so ethnic minorities similarly have little stake or faith in the current government, the Afghanistan military or the war lords of the other tribes.
Even if we are able to drive El Qaeda and the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the next question is: will we be willing to fully invade their sanctuaries in Pakistan? Even if we could drive them out of the Pashtun regions of Pakistan, would we then chase them to Yemen? And after that to Sudan and to Somalia? How many more countries are we willing to invade and then rebuild?
In the 2,300 years since Alexander the Great, empire after empire has come to grief in Afghanistan. Before us came the Greeks, the Persians, the Sassasian, the Central Asian empires, the Mongols, the Safavids, the British, and others like the Russians, more than once. Afghanistan is one of the most war torn and ravaged of countries on earth. In fact, for many Afghanis, all that has changed in the last one thousand years are the weapons which have been used against them. It takes a good deal of hubris to think we can prevail where so many others have failed.
During my business career, I frequently traveled to Vietnam and to Hanoi, a place that looms large for someone of my generation. I was always struck with how vibrant and full of energy that country and its capitol is. After ten years of embracing communism they saw the folly of such a system and have embraced market based economics. And, I was always haunted by the question: what did 58,000 Americans and two and a half million Vietnamese die for? Considering how little we accomplished there at a terrible price, let us not make the same mistake all over again in Afghanistan.
Our security can be much better defended, by securing our borders and investing our money in our intelligence capabilities.
* Please note, this paragraph was added after the original version was published in Fosters and the NH Business Review. I added it to reassure a reader who felt I was disrespecting our military. Nothing can be further from the truth as I have the utmost respect for their service, valor and military capabilities. RMB - 7/22/10
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