Afghanistan Needs More than Reinforcements

As the administration prepares to send another 20,000 soldiers to Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to Afghanistan. There he met U.S. and NATO commanders that find themselves shorthanded against a renewed insurgency. In 2006, armed attacks tripled, to over twelve per day. With only 20,000 U.S.soldiers in all of Afghanistan, split between the NATO command and the U.S.-led coalition, there are not enough troops to go around.

The mission in Iraq, insatiable and interminable, has left Afghanistan in a state of chronic neglect. General David Richards, the NATO commander, estimates that he is 4,000 to 5,000 troops short; coalition commander General Karl Eikenberry is also calling for reinforcements. Unlike in Iraq, where troop increases have been tried before and failed, a few thousand additional soldiers in Afghanistan could go a long way, allowing international forces to hold towns that have been cleared of Taliban and to be proactive rather than reactive. That’s why the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden, has said, “If we're surging troops anywhere, it should be in Afghanistan.”

The argument for additional troops is compelling, but it’s important the conversation not end there. MORE

Reinforcements may be necessary to hold the line against a resurgent Taliban, but by itself an increase in troops is an insufficient response. More boots on the ground must be paired with a more vigorous approach to confront dynamics that allow the Taliban to operate.

Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, recently back from Afghanistan, reports that “every American commander in Afghanistan will tell you that the solution is not military, the solution is political.” There should be no illusions that an increase in troop levels, especially a modest one, could extinguish the insurgency.

There are two fundamental challenges, and neither of them is military:

• The first is crafting a coherent policy toward Pakistan. The Taliban continue to receive material support and sanctuary across the border, and as long as this dynamic continues, the insurgency will remain potent. Islamabad claims to be doing its best to shut down the Taliban, but the recent deals it has cut with tribal and militia leaders in Waziristan have had the net result of intensifying the insurgency. If President Musharraf is acting in good faith his strategy is not working.
  
  In a recent piece in Foreign Affairs, Barnett Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, quotes a senior Western military leader that Pakistan “could disrupt the senior levels of [Taliban] command and control,” but has chosen not to. Rather than preventing “infiltration,” which Rubin says authorities are pursuing as a diversion, Islamabad must get serious about disrupting Taliban leadership, which is the key to victory, but “will require serious pressure on Pakistan."
  
  The United States and its allies have failed to take a consistent line on Pakistan. America should have leverage here (after all, it provides a quarter of Pakistan’s military budget to the tune of $80 million per month). The United Nations also has leverage: the Security Council, argues Rubin, could declare that “a lack of forceful action against the Taliban command in Baluchistan constitutes a threat to international peace and security as defined in the UN Charter,” a designation that Pakistan’s leaders are eager avoid.
  
  A successful strategy will require resolute and resourceful diplomacy. Many have claimed that Pakistan must be pressured, but this is alone is not enough. The international community must also initiate a regional dialogue that addresses Islamabad’s concerns, especially over Afghanistan’s refusal to recognize the international border and over rising Indian influence in Afghanistan.

• The second challenge is building the foundation for sustainable security. The international community has faltered in its effort to get Afghanistan back on its feet, in large part due to insufficient funds and attention allocated to reconstruction.
  
  General Eikenberry has said that while more troops would be helpful, if he had to choose one or the other he would prefer money be spent to build Afghan capacity. One reason is that focusing on reconstruction gives you more bang for your buck. In 2006, the United States spent almost $20 billion on its military effort in Afghanistan. In comparison, the Congressional Research Service calculates that, from 2001 to 2005, annual U.S. spending on Afghan reconstruction, humanitarian aid, economic assistance, and training for security forces combined came to just over $1 billion per year. It’s clear that America’s efforts have been more martial than Marshall, and that this approach is not working.
  
  Bolstering U.S. troops in Afghanistan will cost billions per year. While this is money well spent, especially compared to that spent in Iraq, Congress should ensure that comparable sums are simultaneously invested to fight corruption, train police, rebuild the courts, provide electricity and clean water for civilians, and develop alternatives to the opium trade. It must also re-examine how aid is being delivered so that it strengthens, rather than marginalizes, the government of Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Secretary Gates said that military planners needed to examine “what role additional forces might play and where they would be assigned.” These are wise words. Gates inherited the current strategy from Donald Rumsfeld, who pushed for a light deployment that focused narrowly on fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban, marginalized the United Nations, and ceded control of most of the country to militia leaders. This strategy has not succeeded in quelling the insurgency or contributing to establishing a capable and legitimate government in Kabul. Gates should ask his planners for a comprehensive bottom-up review: Is there a new strategy that has a better chance of success? What will it require in terms of resources and time?

Washington should also investigate new formulations for sharing the burden. Other NATO countries have claimed that Afghanistan is a central concern but, with the exceptions of Canada and Poland, have failed to deliver more troops. Washington should insist that these countries step up; if for domestic reasons they cannot, they should at least subsidize the cost of the American reinforcements necessitated by their absence. The international community should also investigate the possibility of replacing U.S. and NATO forces in the more stable provinces with U.N.-led peacekeepers from countries such as Bangladesh or Indonesia, which are cheaper to deploy and for which other nations pay 73 percent of the cost.

The latest call for troop escalation in Iraq seems ordained to throw good effort after bad. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, commanders believe that increasing our forces by a few thousand troops could go a long way. It might—but only if these reinforcements are matched with parallel increases in reconstruction and diplomacy.