by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers
A Prescription for Sustainable Security
As
the war
in Afghanistan rages on into its eighth year, American and coalition
forces face increasingly dangerous and unstable conditions.
2008
was the deadliest year for American and coalition forces, with nearly
300 soldiers killed in combat.
Seventy-four troops have already
been killed in 2009. Last month, President Obama approved an increase
of 17,000 troops
to be sent to Afghanistan by next summer. "This increase is necessary
to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not
received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently
requires," he said. Today, the Center for American Progress (CAP)
released
a new report,
Sustainable
Security in Afghanistan,
calling for a significant increase in funding, manpower, and
attention to the embattled country. "Two paramount national
security interests of the
United States are to
prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for
terrorists and to ensure the deteriorating security situation there
does not envelop the surrounding region in a broader power struggle,"
the report's authors -- Lawrence
Korb, Caroline
Wadhams, Colin
Cookman,
and Sean
Duggan -- write. "Doing
so will require a prolonged U.S. engagement
using all elements
of U.S. national power -- diplomatic, economic, and military -- in a
sustained effort that could last as long as another 10 years."
SHORT-TERM GOAL -- MORE MANPOWER: "Ever
since the United States
began planning to invade Iraq in early 2002, Afghanistan
became the 'Forgotten Front'
for U.S. policymakers -- an under-resourced, under-manned, and
under-analyzed 'economy of force' operation." A Dutch Major General who
commands 23,000 NATO troops in southern Afghanistan recently said he is
"out
of troops"
to provide security for the region. CAP recommends adding
15,000 U.S.
troops to the 17,000
ordered by Obama and calls for an 30,000
allied troops -- a total
of 100,000 soldiers. "This increase must include troops for combat as
well as
mentor teams for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to
fill critical gaps in the training effort. ... Together with the 32,000
coalition troops already there, this
increase will bring international forces to about 100,000 -- a
nearly 300 percent increase over the average force level for the period
from 2002 to 2007." A military increase is not itself sufficient,
however. "I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem
of
Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely
through military means,"
Obama said last month. Obama has indicated he plans
to deploy more than
300 American civilian diplomats, civilian specialists, and
reconstruction advisors. "This is a good start," the CAP report notes.
"Effectively employing all elements of U.S. national power will require
a
restructuring of the U.S. national security apparatus
and a renewed focus on our diplomatic and economic assets that have
been allowed to atrophy in favor of more direct but ultimately
unsustainable military-centric policy responses."
INTERMEDIATE
GOAL -- BOLSTER
GOVERNMENT: "No
matter how many resources the United States and its allies commit to
Afghanistan, the mission is bound to fail if the Afghan
government does
not become accountable," the
report states.
The United States must work to make the Afghan
government a true partner by protecting its elections, aggressively
rooting out corruption, and strengthening the rule of law. Doing so
will require a boost in monetary aid to the country. Only 7
percent of the $170 billion allocated for Afghanistan in FY2009
is dedicated to foreign aid and diplomatic operations, "with the
remaining 93 percent alloted to Department of Defense operations." "This
imbalance must be corrected,"
CAP writes. The new report calls for $25 billion to be redirected from
the savings earned by scaling down the Iraq war to the Afghanistan
budget, "and up to $5 billion per year should be redirected to increase
U.S. foreign aid and diplomatic operations -- roughly twice the amount
of foreign and diplomatic aid that has been provided to Afghanistan in
any year since 2002." The U.S. must also build up the Afghan
National Army to 134,000 troops as quickly as possible, from its
current 80,000 troops, and expand the Afghan National Police to a
150,000-strong force. Finally, the U.S. must add to its anti-narcotics
campaign a "counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to expand
and strengthen an effective local justice system
and economic
infrastructure."
THE NEED FOR AN EXIT STRATEGY: The
CAP report concludes that
the
long-term policy objectives, over 10 years, are to establish a stable
Afghanistan "that can provide for the basic needs of its own people in
order to allow for the eventual withdrawal of international combat
troops." President Obama emphasized the need for an "exit strategy"
during an interview
with 60 Minutes
on Sunday. He said that the U.S. cannot rely solely on a military
approach, looking instead to a "comprehensive" strategy. "And there's
gotta be an exit strategy.
There's gotta be a sense that this is not perpetual drift," Obama
added. Indeed, "perpetual drift" is a good description for how the
Afghanistan war has been waged since 2003, when the Bush administration
diverted
resources
and attention from al Qaeda's base to invade Iraq. Korb and
Wadhams, in a Nov. 2007 report,
warned that the "window
of opportunity to reverse
the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan" was "closing rapidly."
CAP's latest report lays out the ways that the Obama administration can
pick up the reins dropped by Bush and lead the war in Afghanistan to a
successful close.
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