Tico Thinking

When I was 12 and 13 years old I lived (with my parents) in Costa Rica. The experience helped me deal with other cultures and ways of doing things, and often led to interesting discussions.

Why do we have to stand in line for everything, and why do you need six notarized forms and two passport-sized photos for any interaction with the government? Wouldn't it be easier to do only wait in one line?

Oh, that's gringo thinking.

Why don't they actually fix the potholes instead of just filling them with gravel?

That's gringo thinking.

Why doesn't the United States buy fewer tanks and fighter planes and spend the money on schools?

Silly, that's tico (as Costa Ricans are known) thinking!

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof seems to have discovered the same thing on his recent visit to Costa Rica, and names that choice as a primary reason why ticos are the happiest people.

What sets Costa Rica apart is its remarkable decision in 1949 to dissolve its armed forces and invest instead in education. Increased schooling created a more stable society, less prone to the conflicts that have raged elsewhere in Central America. Education also boosted the economy, enabling the country to become a major exporter of computer chips and improving English-language skills so as to attract American eco-tourists.

I’m not antimilitary. But the evidence is strong that education is often a far better investment than artillery.

A Tale of Two Speeches

President Obama gave two important foreign policy speeches recently, and the opinion pages and blogosphere can't seem to stop talking about them. I didn't want to have my voice be lost in the immediate aftermath, but now that much of the dust has settled I thought I'd add a few thoughts.

The President's long-awaited speech rolling out his new Afghanistan strategy pleased almost no one who chose to examine it closely. It took too long, it wasn't detailed enough, it was too specific, some of the details were wrong, he didn't focus on Pakistan enough, he focused too much on Pakistan... Jon Stewart made fun of it for being too much like a speech President Bush could have given. Some bloggers complained that he had conflated the Afghanistan and Pakistani Taliban, and that anyone who doesn't understand the difference couldn't possibly come up with a good strategy. The West Point cadets watching the speech didn't seem to know how to respond until the speech stopped being specific and started going in to broad, soaring generalities and hopeful themes - Obama's specialty. In the days following the speech it turned out that few of the specifics were actually totally true. The troop "surge" may not take place until Fall 2010, and they will only "start" to be pulled out in Summer 2011. The speech failed to be all things to all people, and thus was not well received.

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech made up for it in a big way. It was masterfully written and beautifully delivered. Critics called it the best of Obama's career, and certainly the best of his Presidency so far. It spoke truth to the power of the Nobel committee, addressed the oddity of winning a peace prize while leading a nation engaged in two wars, acknowledged previous winners, and defended the use of military force while advancing progressive ideals. It was a perfect encapsulation of the Truman Project worldview - which makes sense since it was written by someone affiliated with the Truman Project. Writers from the progressive side to at least the conservative moderation of David Brooks loved the speech. About all critics of the speech could say was that it was rambling and disjointed. I loved the speech, but the critics are right. Everyone was happy with it because they could read what they wanted into the speech. Dan Drezner made an attempt to map out the various international relations theories referred to in the speech. It was another classic piece of Obama magic: choosing the middle path and creating buy-in from all sides by incorporating their arguments. It made for a powerful speech, but it will be hard to predict his future foreign policy moves based on a speech that left almost every door open.

"Off Ramps" for Afghanistan

With the "all COIN all the time" crowd calling for 40,000 more troops and years upon years in Afghanistan I'm relieved to know that President Obama is dissatisfied with the current options and is looking for an "off ramp" for Afghanistan. Whether Ambassador Eikenberry's leaked cables were the catalyst for that kind of thinking or not, I'm glad that the President is looking for a way out. The difference between us and the British or Soviets is that we are not seeking an empire, we do not wish to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, therefore our end goal must be leaving, and the strategy has to include doing that as soon as possible while preserving our long-term security.

Steve Coll is always worth reading, so check out his "If we fail in Afghanistan" article. I'm not sure I agree with his second point/scenario especially, but it's an interesting read. Coll is far more pessimistic on the consequences of leaving Afghanistan than skeptics like Stephen Walt. Coll and Walt were on different panels at a RAND discussion on Afghanistan a few weeks ago (Paul Pillar was also excellent), but I would love to have seen them actually debate the issue.

I am not calling for an immediate withdrawal. I would support sending more troops, as long as it is for a purpose and we have a plan for what they will do, but I am very glad that the subject of how and when we can leave is an important part of the discussion.

Soon is the Winter of Our Afghanistan Discontent

The three main stories about South Asia in the recent news all focus on waiting: for President Obama to make a decision on a strategy and troop levels, for the official results of the Afghanistan election, and for the Pakistani Army to finally begin its offensive into South Waziristan. Waiting is not the worst thing in the world; no matter what is decided on any of those matters the fighting will likely slow to a trickle soon, since Afghanistan becomes even more inhospitable and difficult to fight in every winter.

President Obama is right to take his time discussing his South Asian strategy with as many advisers as he needs and for as long as it takes. With every passing day the critics and think tankers here inside the Beltway pace across their offices and write more and more op-eds bravely criticizing a war many of them once supported and then argued should be left alone in favor of invading Iraq, but it is worth the time needed to come up with a functional strategy. As Truman Fellow Alex Rossmiller points out, the current situation in Afghanistan is not the cliched do-or-die crossroads/critical juncture; we could sustain the current stalemate for many years to come without "losing" or "winning" any more than we currently are. General McChrystal's suspected request of 40,000 additional troops, if approved, would not arrive until around a year from now, and would still fall far, far short of the number needed for a "true" counterinsurgency campaign. Even then, as McChrystal admits, if we don't have an effective partner in the Afghan government even hundreds of thousands of troops spending another decade in Afghanistan would likely do little good.

The much-delayed results of the Afghanistan election were supposed to finally be announced this weekend, but have been delayed yet again. Enough fraudulent ballots are expected to be thrown out that Karzai will fall short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off. The ideal situation would be for Karzai to accept some sort of power-sharing arrangement situation, but that looks unlikely. Since he has proved to be at best a reluctant partner in actually governing his country, many U.S. leaders would prefer to work around him, but as the recognized leader of Afghanistan that is proving quite difficult. The necessity of propping up and empowering a corrupt, incompetent leader who will only inevitably collapse when we leave is not much incentive for committing more time, money, and personnel.

After over a month of buildup (both actual military buildup and media hype) this weekend the Pakistan Army finally began its offensive into South Waziristan, the home of the Mehsud clan. Since everyone knew the offensive was coming everyone has had a chance to prepare themselves to flee (an estimated 100,000 people have been displaced so far) or fight.

The looming winter will allow all parties time to sit around and think. I think the Pakistani military timed their offensive when they did in order to accomplish just enough that the Pakistani Taliban wouldn't be able to regroup and mount a major counter-offensive and to ensure that the military would not be able to overcommit. President Obama's Afghanistan strategy group will not make a decision before the results of the election are clear. The winter lull is a mixed blessing for the Administration, since no major action will be possible. The President's team should avoid getting distracted by the sniping attacks from neoconservatives all winter and focus on determining the best course of action in a region with no good options.

The Big Afghanistan Strategy Rendezvous

I was at East Potomac Golf Course yesterday afternoon when a bunch of military helicopters flew by overhead. I remarked to my playing companions that it was probably Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen headed to the White House for the afternoon Afghanistan discussion. They looked at me like I was sharing top secret information rather than readily available news, but it goes to show that even in DC, where "everyone" is enthralled with the ongoing Afghanistan strategy debate, "everyone" is really just a few of the wonkiest of us.

To recap, so far General McChrystal is arguing for an intensive population-centric counterinsurgency strategy, including an increase of probably 40,000 U.S. troops. Vice President Joe Biden continues to advocate for a troop draw down and a focus on counter terrorism and targeting al Qaeda leadership. President Obama has gathered the usual suspects for regular discussions in hopes of coming up with a coherent strategy. While I have been calling for a defined and articulated end goal and strategy since at least several things we introduced as strategies ago, I applaud the effort now as better late than never, assuming in the end we come up with an actual strategy. So what if it took the farce of an Afghan election to cast doubt on the idea of the Afghanistan government taking over smoothly in a few years and keeping Afghanistan stable, at least we're now discussing it.

Last week Fred Kaplan brought up two key questions the strategy team should answer:

First, is Afghan President Hamid Karzai likely to rally the support of his own people, especially given the massive fraud in the recent election? (If he doesn't rally this support, counterinsurgency is doomed to fail; this, the top U.S. military leaders acknowledge.)

Second, given the vast amount of blood, treasure, and time that a COIN campaign requires under the best of circumstances, are the prospective benefits worth the cost?

And today Marc Lynch countered with five questions of his own. I think all of those questions are important, and I hope they are being discussed in the room, but my big concern is what the end goal is for Afghanistan. The major difference I see between us and the British and Soviets - and hopefully the reason we can succeed where they failed - is that we do not want to occupy Afghanistan any longer than necessary. The goal is for us to withdraw from an Afghanistan that no longer harbors a threat to the world, and I hope the team takes that long term a view of the problem.

It only added to the turmoil when General McChrystal mentioned that he had only ever talked to President Obama once since taking over, and has advocated for his counterinsurgency campaign (which he falsely calls a strategy) in recent talks and media interviews he has done. This has led to debates about whether the field commander should be playing politics and pushing his agenda through the media rather than going through the chain of command. Some have interpreted this as pulling a MacArthur, others have defended him. Obama has yet to pull a Truman in '51 - though he would be justified since McChrystal to me is undermining his Commander in Chief and clearly has said his piece - but was smacked down by Secretary Gates. McChrystal was put in place over General McKiernan because he could supposedly think in bigger and more flexible ways, but so far only seems to follow the COIN orthodoxy.

I'm glad the Afghanistan strategy debate is happening, both behind closed doors and out in the public. It's about bloody time, and by that I mean it's about eight years too late. But McChrystal needs to contribute through the chain of command, the way he has his entire career. I know he's an unconventional warrior, but he can't ambush the President. The principals need to go into the room and spend as much time as necessary, but when they come out they need to speak with one voice, believe it, and execute it. If McChrystal can't get on board if the decision doesn't go his way he will need to be sent home.

Worse Decision Making: Redskins or the Afghanistan Team?

The Washington Post headline this morning blared out: "McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure;'" I wished they had used the headline from below the fold (about the Redskins): "First and Unsure of the Goal."

It was inevitable that General McChrystal's classified review of the situation in Afghanistan would be leaked. It was almost as inevitable that the review, as Joshua Foust put it, contains "absolutely nothing new." The most disturbing aspect of the review is that it talks about the "counterinsurgency strategy." Our commander in Afghanistan thinks that counterinsurgency IS the strategy. Shouldn't that be a red flag? McChrystal's expertise is supposedly thinking unconventionally, but his review is extremely inside the (counterinsurgency) box in its thinking: more troops, more resources, more time, full speed ahead.

At last week's excellent Foreign Policy and New America Foundation event "Covering Afghanistan:A Conversation On How It Looks From the Ground" Steve Coll expressed optimism that President Obama's team was taking a full and deep assessment of the strategic rationale for being in Afghanistan (look for my question and his answer near the end of the video). I'm still more skeptical that new thinking will emerge, though I'm slightly more hopeful after reading the Post's other article today. The key quote is:

The president, one adviser said, is "taking a very deliberate, rational approach, starting at the top" of what he called a "logic chain" that begins with setting objectives, followed by determining a methodology to achieve them. Only when the first two steps are completed, he said, can the third step -- a determination of resources -- be taken.

And he should work in that order. It's good to hear that starting to happen, although perhaps it would have been nice to start the process four or five "strategic reviews" ago, or during the transition, or in 2002. It remains to be seen who has a plan to score a touchdown first, the national security team or the Redskins. Better late than never?

Recycled Afghanistan Stories and Ideas

I haven't written much not because I had nothing to say, but rather to avoid getting caught up in the tornado of voices, especially on Afghanistan. The news all seems recycled, and so do the ideas.

• Afghanistan is corrupt and the election was likely stolen. We knew that was the case, and we knew the elections would probably be stolen.
• Both Fareed Zakaria and Fred Kaplan had the same brilliant idea that we should simply throw money at the problem by bribing everyone and their brother in Afghanistan.
• Paul Pillar sums up the "safe haven" debate nicely, but it's nothing I, or others didn't say.
• Another smart, young officer, Joseph Kerns Goodwin, returned from Afghanistan to tell us how bad the situation is on the ground, which we will likely ignore.
• A draft of the metrics was released today, and while it appears to be thoughtful and contain a list of good things to measure, it lacks any actual numbers. Don't worry, apparently Afghanistan is like kindergarten, we can keep trying as many reviews and metrics as it takes to get it right. For as long as I've waited for the metrics you might think they would get me excited, but nope, nothing.
• The COIN crowd keeps arguing that COIN is awesome and the solution to everything and ignoring the lack of a strategy that COIN is supposed to help implement. They are even having a big COIN conference to talk about how important COIN is. Fun! (would they seem even nerdier if we called them numismatists?)
• Even Osama bin Ladin's message seemed phoned in. "Death to America and Israel, blah blah blah." (although at least one blogger has promised to Auto-Tune the tape; maybe that can spice it up.)

Is it the economy? Is there a down market for ideas right now? Even I feel repetitive: Pakistan is not going to collapse despite the heavy-handed Pakistani military; we need an actual strategy in Afghanistan; we need to work on our smart power; etc, etc.

I'm all for recycling, but this is ridiculous. Wake me up when you're ready to have a non-circular debate.

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.

The Eminently Bloggable Tony Zinni

I wish all speakers at DC think tank events could be as candid, dynamic, and entertaining as General (ret.) Tony Zinni. While his main point (as chronicled by Jamie Morgan, and, oddly enough, The American Conservative, as well as organizer Steve Clemons) was that the U.S. government should go about "civil affairs" or "smart power" in a totally different way, by creating a separate command committed to it (since the military "will get stuck with it anyway"). (Zinni was also promoting his new book.) It would be interesting to get Zinni and O'Hanlon in a room to discuss their visions for civil affairs.

Along the way Zinni touched on quite a few other interesting subjects, including strategy. He agreed with me that we need to actually outline a strategy for Afghanistan, but went further in stating that it should flow from and be consistent with President Obama's National Security Strategy, which has yet to be released. (Apparently an NSS is due within the first 150 days of an administration, which never happens. The Bush Administration's NSS wasn't released until2002; one small section talked about preemption, yet that became the centerpiece of the "Bush Doctrine.") That's certainly true, and a point I hadn't fully considered.

Other "Zinni Zingers:"

• Zinni wondered what someone would think if they had been put in a coma right after 9/11, woke up yesterday, and you had to explain our response. (I'm paraphrasing here): "We were attacked by al Qaeda. We're in Iraq? And we're in Afghanistan, but fighting the Taliban? Al Qaeda is in Pakistan? We're helping Pakistan, but they're fighting the Taliban too? ...?"
• "We shouldn't talk about 'smart power' as if we have it."
• "Special envoys are useless!" (Zinni was the Bush Administration's special envoy to Israel and Palestine).
• "You know where Osama bin Ladin is? Great! I don't know where bin Ladin is. He's on K Street, he's a lobbyist!"
• "Shock and awe turned into aw, shucks."
• "I'm tired of all this 'graveyard of empires' nonsense. The difference is we want to leave Afghanistan, we don't want it as part of an empire."

Call of Duty: Counterinsurgency? How 'Bout Them Metrics?

I was watching a friend of mine play the realistic video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and as he piloted an AC-130 gunship providing air support to his team of retreating commandos he also enjoyed shooting his various weapons at additional random buildings to see if they would blow up. I joked that if this were really modern warfare he would lose points, since he had just created hundreds of additional insurgents.

Which brings us to General McChrystal's statement that success in Afghanistan is judged not by insurgents killed but by the number of people protected. Could you duplicate that in a video game (Modern Warfare 2, due this November?)? Would it be any fun?

And more importantly, will McChrystal's upcoming review actually contain the long-awaited metrics? All signs point to McChrystal being given 12-18 months to show progress. We know the metrics we're using in the absence of better ones (troops killed, insurgents killed, civilians killed, number of bombs, etc) will go down this winter due to the weather. Hopefully McChrystal will have something better in place by then both in terms of a strategy and a way to measure success.

If Afghanistan Was Vietnam, We'd Be Winning

The internet has recently blossomed with commentary saying Afghanistan is today's Vietnam, or that the United States is now in the place of the Soviet Union. Don't believe a word of it.

Let's look first at the local population. As Robert Kagan points out (I can't believe I'm linking positively to the Weekly Standard), in Afghanistan the Soviet Union was supporting a puppet state it helped install against the will of the vast majority of the local population. The same thing was true for the United States in Vietnam. In modern Afghanistan the population supported the U.S.-led invasion by a wide margin, and still supports U.S. efforts by a healthy majority.

Both the Soviet Union and the United States in Vietnam were fighting for, or against, an ideology, rather than for their security. The local populations did not embrace their goals, and were fighting for their own security. We want Afghanistan to become a stable, secure nation, and our primary aim is security and freedom for the people. Afghanistan just had an election, and the United States was and is prepared to live with whoever wins.

At its peak we had over 500,000 troops in Vietnam. We currently have around 68,000 in Afghanistan, where the Soviets had two to three times that number. It helps that we're not fighting against the entire population the way they were, but we're still far below the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual's recommended twenty troops per 1,000 residents ratio. 500,000 doesn't even get us to that ratio (though it surpasses it for just the areas where the insurgency is strong). I'm not calling for half a million troops or anything like it, but we do need to note that disparity in commitment. We have just enough troops now to tread water. If we had as many troops as we committed to Vietnam--or even the troops we stupidly sent to Iraq instead--Afghanistan would have been stable long ago.

One final similarity between the U.S. loss in Vietnam and the Soviet failure in Afghanistan is the massive amounts of external support each insurgency received. We should know, we helped provide it to the mujaheddin. The Taliban enjoy some support from fringe elements in Pakistan and some funding from a few rich extremists in the Gulf, but as far as I know no major foreign power is hoping to defeat the United States in Afghanistan.

Success in Afghanistan, even minimal success, will require additional troops and the time to let them work. However, it will also require better goals and actual strategies. We didn't fail in Vietnam for lack of resources, we failed because we were opposed by the population, fighting against an ideology not an actual enemy, and didn't have the correct strategy to accomplish our goals. In Afghanistan we need the resources and an actual strategy to accomplish defined and limited goals. Hopefully President Obama can balance his guns and butter well enough to maintain support, and hopefully General McChrystal's imminent review had enough good ideas that we don't miss our window of opportunity.

Getting Schooled on Afghanistan

I sometimes feel like a school teacher handing out homework when writing this blog. As you sit around waiting for results from Thursday's election, here are some reading suggestions. We can discuss them in tomorrow's class.

Read yesterday's Washington Post article about how General McKiernan got fired in large part because he didn't know Washington or play politics well enough (while at the same time not being offered the same power or resources as McChrystal already enjoys). Read Andrew Exum's post where he finally (almost) admits to being too close to a tactic (counterinsurgency) and unable to objectively examine the strategic realities in Afghanistan (if you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail). Read the Times op-ed talking about how ethnic divisions in Afghanistan (like almost everywhere) complicate the process of creating a government. As always, read Steve Coll's take on the strategic debate over Afghanistan, which he says will heat up even more. And if you haven't yet done so read Rory Stewart's lengthy skeptical article in the London Review of Books asking, just as I have been for some time, what our strategic objectives are and taking specific umbrage with the tautological idea of counterinsurgency as a one-size-fits-all solution.

Some of my favorite Stewart quotes:

Policymakers perceive Afghanistan through the categories of counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, state-building and economic development. These categories are so closely linked that you can put them in almost any sequence or combination. You need to defeat the Taliban to build a state and you need to build a state to defeat the Taliban. There cannot be security without development, or development without security. If you have the Taliban you have terrorists, if you don’t have development you have terrorists, and as Obama informed the New Yorker, ‘If you have ungoverned spaces, they become havens for terrorists.’

....

The Afghan national army is reasonably effective. Pakistan is not in a position to support the Taliban as it did before. It would require far fewer international troops and planes than we have today to make it very difficult for the Taliban to gather a conventional army as they did in 1996 and drive tanks and artillery up the main road to Kabul.

....

Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building. You could create a stable legitimate state without winning a counter-insurgency campaign (India, which is far more stable and legitimate than Afghanistan, is still fighting several long counter-insurgency campaigns from Assam to Kashmir). You could win a counter-insurgency campaign without creating a stable state (if such a state also required the rule of law and a legitimate domestic economy).

....

But Osama bin Laden is still in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. He chooses to be there precisely because Pakistan can be more assertive in its state sovereignty than Afghanistan and restricts US operations. From a narrow (and harsh) US national security perspective, a poor failed state could be easier to handle than a more developed one: Yemen is less threatening than Iran, Somalia than Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan than Pakistan.

....

This is not a plan: it is a description of what we have not got. Our approach is short-term; it has struggled to develop Afghan capacity, resolve regional issues or overcome civilian-military divisions; it has struggled to respect Afghan sovereignty or local values; it has failed to implement international standards of democracy, government and human rights; and it has failed to set clear and realistic objectives with clear metrics of success. Why do we believe that describing what we do not have should constitute a plan on how to get it? (Similarly, we do not notice the tautology in claiming to ‘overcome corruption through transparent, predictable and accountable financial processes’.)

O'Hanlon Calls For an Armed Peace Corps

We've all heard how once a high percentage of Ivy League graduates served in the military, but now few liberal, well-off, and elite-educated (service academies aside) students want to or are willing to serve. Truman Project Fellow and Brooking Institute Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon may have come up with a solution (although he doesn't identify it as such) in a Washington Post op-ed: essentially a militarized Peace Corps.

O'Hanlon describes the current situation in the Congo and compares it to Darfur, where many in the United States wanted to do something and the best humanitarian assistance might have been troops on the ground providing security, but with the military stretched thin as it is by extended deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan even considering it was impossible.

He proposes creating a "peace operations division" of 15,000 soldiers, of which 3-4,000 or so would be deployed at any one time. The troops would be specifically recruited for this humanitarian division, would only serve two years, and would have more experienced officers and NCOs, including those driven away by the stupidity of "don't ask, don't tell." A more lovable, more liberal, military. The Peace Corps with guns.

It's an interesting concept, and I think encouraging a broader spectrum of young people to serve our country would benefit both the individuals and the military, but I also see some major flaws. Having a "special" force liberal interventionist troops with many gay leaders, and you want them to be less well trained and go on softer missions? Wouldn't that just reinforce stereotypes? Instead create specific training for humanitarian/peacekeeping/nation building missions for our current troops. Undertake those types of missions if they make sense to our national interest. Use various methods, including touting those missions, to recruit from a broader spectrum of young Americans. And repeal DADT. But don't create an alternative, wimpier, military for liberals and gays.

Natural Security: the Next Big Security Issue

Anyone still living in New Orleans doesn't have to be told that natural disasters can be as big a threat to their lives and well being as an attack by terrorists or another enemy. And you don't have to tell the president of the the island nation of the Maldives, who is saving a significant portion his country's tax revenue so that they can buy land elsewhere and relocate the country when it is covered by the rising sea. The journal Nature reports that this is the highest level of hurricanes in the Atlantic in the past 1,000 years.

Stephen Walt may be his usual contrarian self and say natural security is not a real threat, but the government disagrees, including climate change in the National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" report on future threats.

Several organizations are noticing as well. Truman Project-affiliated Operation Free is working to promote understanding and action on climate change as a national security imperative. CNAS has launched their own natural security project as well. The Center for Naval Analysis has been rolling out lots of retired stars (admirals and generals) promoting their own report. Friend Of The Blog Nat Skinner writes frequently about the intersection of "Energy, Environment, and Security."

I'm quite convinced that natural security is an important component of the security threat debate. But I have yet to hear any significant answers from these groups. The CNA group talked about how DoD needs to become more energy efficient, but none of them seem to have done anything to make it happen when they were actually serving. What is it we should do? Is it just high level policy changes, and if so which ones? If we passed a cap-and-trade bill with some teeth would that do the trick? I'm convinced we have a problem, I'm still waiting for someone to think hard and come up with real solutions.

Obama and McChrystal Need to Watch "The Wire"

President Obama and General McChrystal should schedule a few evenings to sit down and watch a few episodes--or seasons--of The Wire. They would learn that killing drug lords--or warlords--is only a temporary solution. Every time you capture or kill an Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell will take his place, and Proposition Joe, and Marlo Standfield after them.

Like the Baltimore "po-lice" we can keep treading water in Afghanistan, going after the top 50 drug kingpins and tribal leaders, but they will always be replaced by other ambitious and talented leaders driven by anger, violence, and need. Sure, sometimes the succession can get bloody, and we will cheer and even help out as different sides battle each other, but nothing will change without a long term plan.

The United States, like Baltimore, has to make a strategic choice. The best solution in the long run is to pump lots of outside money in (from the United States/the state of Maryland) and improve conditions for the population to the point that conditions are no longer ripe for drug trafficking, violence, and terrorism.

Alternatively you can define more limited goals, like the reduction of the crime and violence that goes along with drug trafficking, and reducing the negative impact on the surrounding community. In Season 3 Major Bunny Colvin set up "Hamsterdam" in his district, a free zone where drug dealers and users could go without penalty, greatly reducing crime and violence in the rest of the community. I'm not suggesting that the United States should allow Afghanistan to collapse into a den of drugs and terrorism, since the goal of both those activities is to spread worldwide. I'm simply saying that limited objectives can also be successful if they are clearly defined and the trade-offs are acknowledged.

Invading Afghanistan accomplished its initial goals--the terrorist leaders are no longer in Afghanistan, they are in Pakistan, and could soon flee to Somalia, Yemen, or other "ungoverned spaces." We have to make a strategic choice in Afghanistan and decide if we are trying to make it into a Central Asian Valhalla, or if we should adopt more limited goals.

Is Afghanistan Worth It? A (Limited) Roundup of Opinions

What to do when three of your favorite bloggers decide to take significant portions of August off? Luckily we have plenty of opinions to discuss on "should we be in Afghanistan?" front.

The Wall Street Journal proclaimed that General McChrystal stated the Taliban are winning (although the Pentagon is now protesting that he didn't really say that). David Rothkopf gave the Obama Administration a six-month grade of D for Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, saying "The best we can hope for is to get some bad guys and get out, hand the problems over to locals and forge a partnership with the other great powers in the region, notably India and China to contain the spillage from a place that is likely to be an open wound on the world for decades to come." Of course having India involved in Afghanistan would only add to the problems with Pakistan, but no matter. Seth Jones does his usual shtick of repeating platitudes and recycled ideas--this time how to "win" in Afghanistan without defining what winning means--and somehow getting published.

Lee Hamilton is asking the questions. The counterinsurgency crew (and hangers on) are providing their answer. CNAS' Andrew Exum has even provided a forum on his blog compiling people's answers to the strategic questions.

The overall feeling seems to be turning more pessimistic about the chances of our success in Afghanistan. As for me, I still think we can succeed, depending on how we define success. We will never pacify or control the tribal regions completely, and it would be crazy to even try. We can, however, give Afghanistan a fighting chance at having a stable central government that controls most of the country--on their own terms--but it will require long-term aid as well. The U.S. military is capable of almost anything, but the civilian policy makers need to define what limited goals they want accomplished and then allow the military to do its job. The longer we fail to have a real defined strategy the more pessimistic I will become.