Same Old, Same Old in Afghanistan…But Worse

Scott Strgacich
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read

On Monday night, President Donald Trump announced what was billed as a courageous strategic course change in Afghanistan. A surprising number of experts, analysts and pundits lauded the speech, gushing, it seemed, over the coherence and presidential scent of its deliverance while glossing over the reality of its implications. At last, many felt, we have a new strategy in Afghanistan.

If one takes even a shallow dive into critical thinking, however, Trump’s pronouncements in front of throngs of servicemen and servicewomen smacked of something familiar. There was virtually nothing groundbreaking in this “new” strategy which is in reality the old strategy repackaged and diluted. Trump achieved only two things on Monday night: momentary verbal fluidity and a reaffirmation of America’s perennially aimless commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Trump’s plan appears multifaceted but that does not mean it is necessarily complex or nuanced enough to effectively tackle the Afghanistan contretemps. First off, the Pentagon will be granted increased leverage to hike troop levels beyond the 8,400 U.S. personnel currently in country, though the specifics of what that increase would look like eluded the President. Trump also did away with calendaring out the war as previous administrations have tried to do, stating “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on.”

Pres. Trump outlined his strategy for Afghanistan before service members at Ft. Myer in Arlington, VA.

It does not take an expert in counterterrorism or national security to recognize that the “conditions on the ground” have not changed substantially since the ouster of the Taliban from power in 2001 and are unlikely to change any time soon given that Trump’s Afghanistan doctrine adopts an approach that has defined the American presence in the country at least since the combat mission officially ended in 2014. The reality of more troops, fewer restrictions, and no timetables thus remains couched in Trump’s bluntly put mission statement: “We are killing terrorists” — definitely a real shakeup from the previous practice in Afghanistan.

The only significant alteration to the U.S. Afghanistan strategy is likely the worst and least appropriate for Trump’s intended direction. In his speech, Trump forsook the policy of “nation building” whereby the U.S. and its partners have sought in vain to construct effective and durable national institutions in a country with a nearly 40% poverty rate, 23% unemployment rate, rampant civic corruption and no prior experience of functional democracy. In real terms, the price tag for this project has already exceeded that of the Marshall Plan in postwar Europe and has doubtlessly been a failure. But, as even Dr. John Nagl, a fan of Trump’s proposed strategy (though not a fan of Trump’s), recently pointed out, nation building is the “core of counterinsurgency.” Trump has tied himself and his nation to a solely military confrontation with an enemy whose species of warfighting by design thrives off of the war he intends to wage against them. Over a decade and a half of bloodshed in Afghanistan has already proven the ineffectiveness of the counterinsurgent against the insurgent in his homeland. A smattering of additional forces and an increased militarization of strategy will not change that reality.

Ultimately, by abandoning nation building and pushing forward with a combat-centric counterinsurgency strategy, Trump has signaled a well-placed lack of faith in Kabul but has committed American resources and lives to its defense anyway. His reason why — to achieve “an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made” — is insufficient considering additional sacrifices will likely have to be made for a cause Trump himself once repeatedly criticized as wasteful.

The war Trump has elected to continue remains unwinnable and the enemy remains unable to be outlasted or subdued. The hubris of American leadership, ever symptomatic of Peter Beinart’s “Icarus Syndrome,” continues to guide strategy as rationality is supplanted by ideology or the demands of national “honor.” Without a doubt, there have been thoughtful and fair-minded critiques on both sides of the Afghanistan debate but it is high time to be honest with ourselves. Sixteen years hence, we must, as a nation, ask a number of basic but important questions. Why do we truly remain in Afghanistan? Is it for a good reason? What is the real price of staying?

Donald Trump has not asked these questions honestly. Americans and Afghans will continue to die as a result.

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Scott Strgacich

Written by

Just a typical Berkeley grad. Yes, the Milo place.

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