The Afghanistan Condition

Dylogue
Dylogue
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

March 1, 2013 — Donald Trump: “We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives”.

Photo credit: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-america-cant-win-the-war-afghanistan-19857

What is the issue?

In a speech committing more US troops to Afghanistan on Monday, 24 August 2017, America’s president contradicted a half-decade’s worth of tweets opposing the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy. Gone were the diatribes on “wasting money” and “building roads and schools for people who hate us” — replaced by broad statements like “victory will have a clear definition” and “stopping the resurgence of safe havens” while guaranteeing that America’s support does not “come with a blank check”.

What does this mean?

In practical terms, the speech was very light on specifics. It is only clear that thousands more US troops will be sent to Afghanistan (the number has been stated to be 4,000) in what is a continuance of a war that has spanned sixteen years. While rightwing commentators who traditionally support the president have jumped on this policy shift as a broken promise to his base, his Afghan rhetoric largely passes notice amongst the mainstream as yet another extension of open-ended bombast containing little substance.

What does this change?

The Obama years saw both a surge, with almost 100,000 combat troops committed in 2009 in an attempt to finish the war once and for all, as well as a drawdown in troop levels being a condition of the commitment. A key distinction between the Obama policy and the new Trump approach is the elimination of time limits on the duration of US intervention. This has been acclaimed in some quarters as a welcome sea change, given that Obama’s promise to withdraw troops by 2011 was roundly criticised for simply allowing insurgent forces to “wait [the US] out”.

According to the current president, “conditions on the ground” will drive strategy. Beyond that, he only offered a bare-boned promise that “we will fight to win”.

Who’s “right”?

On the one hand, this administration will “decentralize” more control to field commanders. The increased freedom to deploy air strikes is likely to be a tactical boon, notwithstanding the higher probability for civilian casualties. This is in contrast to the perceived “micromanagement” of the Obama years, where the White House directly dealt with senior commanders on technical matters like strategy and tactics.

That said, what impact this will truly have on winning the war itself is questionable. As mentioned above, the US combat presence was a hundred thousand strong at one point, and even that was not enough to definitively end the conflict. Comparatively, an increase of 4000 troops can hardly be expected to move the needle given the current Afghan climate: where the government “faces a resurgent Taliban, a continued al-Qaida menace and a rising Islamic State presence”.

With no real definition on victory and the removal of time-based restrictions, the president now takes ownership of a potentially limitless conflict. If anything, this initial troop surge may be an ominous sign of even more increases in the near future.

NB: Trump’s rhetoric on “definitions”, “safe havens” and “blank checks” sound astonishingly similar to Obama’s own statements on the issue. Trevor Noah brilliantly breaks it down here.

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