The Afghanistan Genie: Wish Three

The war in Afghanistan is a funny thing. Who ever thought that Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman, George Will, and Cindy Sheehan would all agree on something? For that matter, who thought that a band of neocons including Sarah Palin and I would basically agree?

But at a time when our presence in Afghanistan is being compared to everything from Vietnam to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (ignoring the many obvious differences) hope and optimism can spring from the most unlikely places. We were all waiting on General McChrystal's strategic review, which apparently will not be released publicly. But Laura Rozen, in her job over at Politico, unearthed a gem dated August 10th entitled "United States Government Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign for Support to Afghanistan." Wow. Why didn't THIS receive more publicity? A coordinated approach from McChrystal and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Eikenberry, what a concept. The plan seems very well thought out, I'm highly impressed. I challenge anyone to read the plan and not be more optimistic than they were before. It leans very heavily on counterinsurgency theory, but it doesn't make the mistake so many Beltway think tankers do of equating COIN with actual strategy.

You may recall that I first wished we would actually hit Baitullah Mehsud with a Predator drone strike after so many tries, and with my second wish asked for actual metrics for success in Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Well guess what? The "Integrated Civ-Mil Campaign" plan contains metrics! Not the National Security Council's metrics, set to be delivered to Congress by September 24th, but pretty good ones. The loquacious Spencer Ackerman has a very nice write up of the metrics.

So what should I wish for with my third wish? A job on the National Security Council? Fifteen minutes alone in a room with Holbrooke to try to talk sense to him? Those seem in the realm of possibility; my other option--magically having the personnel for an actual "civilian surge"--does not.

Picking Up Bits of Baitullah

Ask and ye shall receive. I wondered how we would a) gain enough material from the Baitullah Mehsud hit to do a DNA study and become more than 90 percent sure we killed him, and b) how we had other DNA of his to compare it to, and BBC News answered at least part b: Pakistani intelligence services apparently have a sample from his brother.

Of course now we (or more likely the Pakistani services) still have to send someone into the lovely neighborhood of South Waziristan to scrape some charred remains off of the rocks around where the house used to be and hope it was from Mehsud and not one of the other people killed in the attack. Easier said than done. But at least I got my question answered!

Notes on a Post-Mehsud Afghanistan and Pakistan

After a weekend of thinking about it, it looks like we really did get Baitullah Mehsud. Hurray! And now his deputies are fighting each other over who gets to be leader of the club now. Double hurray! That saves us the trouble. Various analysts have speculated that whereas Mehsud focused his attacks more on Pakistan, which ever deputy ends up leading his group is likely to focus more on attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan. That's both good news and bad news. Our troops will get attacked more, but they will be in Afghanistan, where we can fight back, not across the invisible line into Pakistan where we can only use drones.

The "successful" drone strike (it took us many attempts, and the strike that killed Mehsud may not have even been targeting him) means we will likely use drones even more readily. That's not necessarily a good thing, as we have a poor track record of killing the people we want to (terrorists and insurgents) and not the ones we don't (civilians).

On the drug front, we have decided to spend time and energy hunting down drug lords in Afghanistan. I wonder if we're going to include the drug lords who are some of Karzai's biggest supporters. Sure, extra heroin in the world is a bad thing, but we didn't invade Afghanistan to control drugs. Michael Cohen has been keeping an "Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch" going for awhile. Looks like he has some job security!

We are currently spending at least $60 billion per year in Afghanistan. That's roughly six times more (conservatively) than if we simply decided to buy everything Afghanistan produced (drugs included) every year. We're likely committed to spending at least $4 billion a year for quite a few years after we leave (whenever that may be) just to pay for the Afghan army and police forces, since their tax base cannot support it. What are we getting? Is this really the best strategy? Is there a strategy?

Baitullah Mehsud Dead? Now For My Second Wish... Actual Afghanistan Metrics!

I recently wished I would wake up and find out we had hit our exact target with a drone-fired missile in Pakistan. This evening I "awoke" from a Twitter slumber (a cybersecurity warning sign?) to find we actually did kill Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud with a drone strike yesterday--maybe. It seems we won't know for sure until we get in to South Waziristan to collect a DNA sample (quick side note: how do we possibly have another DNA sample to compare it to?), far easier said than done, since we can't do it by drone.

If we did get Mehsud that's great news of course, but before we get too cocky we should take note that militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Mehsud's in particular, are like the hydra, and Mehsud apparently has several able deputies willing to step up and take his place.

So for my second wish, I'd like the Obama Administration to come up with actual metrics for success in Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Apparently Congress wants the same thing. After the first (or was it third) "AfPak" review the White House released a white paper promising metrics for success--and has failed not only to announce how we're doing, but what the metrics are. As I've argued repeatedly, you can't measure progress toward a goal you haven't established.

So far the White House has been better at determining what metrics not to use: enemy killed, miles of roads built, bombs defused, tips gathered, etc. Those are helpful steps, but if, according to the Times, we already have "nine broad objectives for metrics to guide the administration’s policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan" why can't we develop metrics now? We need another month or two to continue studying them? Is this a cooking-the-books plan where by the time the actual metrics are up it will be winter and things will look good because fighting is difficult for the militants?

We do need to get the metrics right, but metrics should measure progress toward a goal. Firmly and clearly state the goal, and and tell the social scientist metric creation team to get their academic butts in gear. We've wasted enough time.

Catch-Up Thoughts

Those of you following me on Twitter will know I was out in California for a few days and not posting, so here are my brief thoughts on some of the recent events. I know you all missed my commentary.

• The CIA developed an assassination squad to go after al-Qaeda leadership... and it failed to have any successes that we know about and proved far more difficult than in James Bond movies. Neither of those facts is surprising. In fact I would be shocked if the CIA didn't still have a similar squad with similar goals. As other commenters have pointed out, the difference between firing missiles from drones and potentially firing bullets from sniper teams is mostly semantic, except that the drones seem to have a lot more collateral damage--that and the drones have actually been used. Nor is it shocking that Darth Cheney kept the program a secret from Congress. That fact bothers me more. Congress, or the Intelligence committees or the Gang of Eight at a bare minimum, should be kept appraised of all programs, especially the controversial ones. That's why we have checks and balances in our government.
• Secretary of State Clinton has ordered the first Quadrennial Development and Diplomacy Review (QDDR). Great! We need to know what we are doing, and giving, have a better idea of what is going where and why, and hopefully some oversight. I'll give you a preview of the report: 1) we need a director for USAID, 2) we don't have enough civilian experts on hand to plan much less execute a "civilian surge" in a place like Afghanistan. In the Pentagon the QDR sets the tone and direction for the Department of Defense; we'll see if the QDDR has the same weight and budget power for State and the other agencies involved with foreign aid and development.
• President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed a Joint Understanding to a new START arms control treaty. The Joint Understanding is good progress, but it is really laying a foundation for more hard work to be done between now and December. By then hopefully the Nuclear Posture Review will be complete, satisfying certain Republican Senators, and real arms reductions can be made, hopefully down to the 1000-1200 range, although I would like to see us get even lower.

Predator Drone Groundhog Day

Just once I'd like to wake up, open the Washington Post, and read "Predator drone hits what it was aiming at in Pakistan." Today a drone fired six missiles into a South Waziristan militant training camp in an effort to kill Baitullah Mehsud, but killing six militants. Yesterday a drone fired two missiles and killed 12-16 militants in a training camp in South Waziristan in an effort to kill Mehsud. Sound familiar? For those keeping score at home, that's three drone strikes in four days, and at least the 26th of the year. Who taught us how to shoot, the evil henchmen from a James Bond movie?

Not that I'm at all arguing against striking terrorist camps. But the Pakistani military is doing just fine with both its air and ground campaigns. Training camps are fairly stationary and provide good targets for the Pakistani Air Force. We should be far more selective with our drone strikes in order to actually hit high value targets like Mehsud, not places where he might be or just was.