President Obama cannot make up his mind on Afghanistan. The “war of necessity” has become the maybe war. And now Republicans are divided over whether we should stay there.
After rightly supporting the initial military intervention in Afghanistan and the continuing intervention in Iraq, conservatives need to go beyond slogans such as “staying the course” and “finishing the job.” Our leaders need to choose thoughtfully. Choose how often to intervene, choose on what basis to intervene, and choose how to intervene effectively.
The U.S. now has the largest military in the world, larger than the militaries of all other countries combined. This is a good thing and not a bad one, as some on the left would have us believe. However, the finest military in the world will not remain so if we engage in long interventions all over the globe.
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When we contemplate choosing one intervention, we must ask whether this will leave our military weaker when another, perhaps more urgent threat arises. Will keeping well over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan for years (yes, this means doing lots more than Obama’s half-in, half-out approach) leave us militarily strong enough to take on Iran and/or North Korea, which pose far greater nuclear and terrorist threats? Will it leave us able to intervene when a large number of al-Qaeda adherents (far larger than the hundred or so in Afghanistan) threaten to attack our homeland or our allies, as they are doing in Yemen today and perhaps other countries tomorrow?
Ancient Athens had military supremacy but diverted so many resources to invasions of Sicily and other islands that it was unable to defend itself against the alliance led by Sparta. Nazi Germany had the world’s most effective military but lost its chances for victory by fighting a war on two fronts. To remain credible we must pick and choose.
The best example of picking and choosing where and where not to employ our military is President Reagan in the 1980s. After more than two hundred Marines died when a truck bomb hit their barracks, the president decided to cut our losses and withdraw from terrorist-plagued Lebanon. And it is a good thing Reagan did. If we had then adopted the present arguments of some Republicans for “staying the course,” we might today still be fighting and nation-building in that strife-torn country — and, with the draining of our strength, losing more and more military credibility.
What is the basis for choosing where our military should be employed for years? This requires clear thinking not just about our initial interventions but about what constitutes a long-term national strategic interest justifying a long-term intervention.
Iraq is a strategic interest; Afghanistan is not. Iraq produces a needed natural resource, oil; Afghanistan produces opium. Iraq sits astride a waterway with large military and commercial traffic; Afghanistan is landlocked. Most important, what happens with Iraq’s government will arguably affect the peaceful and democratic inclinations of its neighbors. No one argues that what happens with Afghanistan’s government will affect what happens in Turkmenistan.
Oh, yes — we are told that what happens in Afghanistan will affect Pakistan. But while Pakistan influences Afghanistan, where is the evidence that the reverse is true? A Taliban government existed in Afghanistan for a decade, a Soviet-imposed government for a decade before that, and a monarchy still earlier. Yet Pakistan has changed little in that time. It has the same sort of corrupt, military-oriented government that takes our billions in return for our hope that bribes will keep it from doing something — just what is not exactly clear. If Islamic extremists gain control of Pakistan’s nukes, it will not be because of Afghanistan but because of the internal failures of Pakistan.
Al Qaeda can thrive in any one of several remote and undeveloped spots on the globe- Afghanistan being only one of them.
I think it will die a slow death under the harsh growing conditions brought about by the Arab Spring and that our military efforts now serve only to extend its life.
The "Arab Spring" offers Al Qaeda new life to spread and flourish. The old regimes in the Mid-East kept a tight rein on Al Qaeda and other radical Islamists, that's why they had ventured to the wilderness of Afghanistan to set up shop and before that they operated out of the No Man's Land territory of Somalia.
When Islamist-friendly regimes solidify their power in Egypt, Al Qaeda will find that operating environment more "jihad-friendly". Al Zawahiri was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and all reports indicate the Muslim Brotherhood sits poised to control the new government.
The only successful "nation-building" the U.S. has done (that I can think of) was with Japan after WWII. When making that effort in a non-Western country without a Democratic tradition, the only way to do it is to take over completely (same with Britain in India perhaps?). ThNation-building in Japan was justified and supported internationally primarily because we had defeated them outright in a war that had been declared by both sides. Today's undeclared asymmetrical battles won't garner support for nation-building, either in the U.S. or in the nation to be built. If we're in for a dime we have to be in for a dollar.
If not, we need to get out and prepare for the next, more important war.
This is the kind of mushy thinking and milk-toast thought that got John McCain elected president.
First, Iraq is not astride an important waterway, it is at the end of it. It might have interdicted Kuwait’s oil tankers if we let it, but we didn’t. I don’t appreciate an author moving whole countries.
Second, we did not go to war in Iraq over oil. In the post 9/11 world the slim majority of Americans thought that it was bad to have a state sponsor of terrorism, who had weapons of mass destruction, and was regularly shooting at our air planes patrolling the skies over southern and northern Iraq.
Third, Afghanistan became a stronghold of terrorism because no one did anything as the country slid into anarchy, and the strongest thugs to rule the country afterward were the Taliban. Do we do nothing now?
Fourth, the author says several times that we have the finest military in the world, but it will not be so for long if we keep fighting. However, he does not site any studies that show recruiting falling far below what is needed to sustain the army. This kind of argument without evidence is what I hear a lot lately… from President Obama.
The only argument that he has successfully made is that we will loose credibility if we can not militarily accomplish our national-political objectives. (And here is the important point! If we could agree on getting out of Afghanistan, it would be about this.) What are our political objectives? Until the President lays out a goal for America to work toward, we are just following the status quo. How is that “hope and change” working for you folks?
Actually invading Afghanistan made a lot of sense 10 years ago as just retribution for the attacks on our soil and bringing the perpetrator to justice, too bad all the resources (Special Forces, Intelligence, Recce, Ground Troops, Money, Diplomacy) were diverted to Iraq.
Iraq was the perfect counterbalance to Iran and the other clowns over there. Now Iraq is more of failed state. And Iran is now is trying to be a major ME player siding with Russia and attempting to destabilize Afghanistan, attempt to get involved in the Central Asian Republicans and other regions there.
In a lot of ways, we need to be full strength in Afganistan or to get out. This take out 10,000, put in 40,000, take out 30,000 nonsense combined with PC and sharia nonsense will only lead to being there forever with no good results.
The writer is right that Afganistan has little influence outside itself provided they keep out terrorists. Being hooked up with a crook like Karzai doesn't get us anywhere with the general population either.
We will still have troops in Afganistan until Barry leaves office (yet another good reason to deny him a second term), since he doesn't seem to make decisions like that. Seems weird since he never really wanted them there. But he won't do it. It will be the job of the next Republican president.
Foreign policy is a good reason to never let a Democrat have the White House. These things never have good solutions, and Democrats just can't do the right thing even if its in front of them. Republicans seem to have a much better grasp of the world.
Does anyone remember what happened when we helped the Afghans get rid of one repressive government (the Soviets) and then ignored them until 9/11/2001? Why does anyone think that history will not repeat itself? The situation there is messy and corrupt and there are no easy solutions, but there will not be a power vacuum if we leave. The Taliban will be back in full force and reenergized because in their eyes, they will have conquered the infidel. And we will be leaving behind thousands who helped our forces while we were there, and they will pay terrible consequences. My late son's interpreter had 4 brothers who were killed because of his work with the Americans. Such stories will be repeated many times over if we just give up and leave.
As I said, there are no obvious and easy answers. But one thing for certain is that the Afghan people do not inherently hate Americans. I know many people who have been in and out of that country, and they have had many positive experiences with Afghan people and soldiers. The worst thing we could do is send the message to the rest of the world never to trust us--we have short attention spans, and when we get tired of fighting and its cost, we'll pull our troops and leave the locals to deal with the bloodbath.
"The U.S. now has the largest military in the world, larger than the militaries of all other countries combined."
Really? Not according to the publicly available figures to which I have access. Not even close. China alone has more people under arms then we do.
Mr. Miller's statement is true if he is actually referring to the military budget of the U.S., again based on publicly available figures. But does anyone here believe that China is only spending $100B a year?
Um, we don't have the largest military in the world. External Link
This statement is factually wrong: "The U.S. now has the largest military in the world, larger than the militaries of all other countries combined." This is true if it's speaking about military expenditures (i.e., we spend more on the military than all other countries combined) but that's not what Mr. Miller said.
I'm proud of National Review for publishing an article like this, and near the top of the page too! Now if only it published an article like this as a feature on the magazine, I could support NR without a doubt in my mind as to its righteousness (and a feature article calling Bush's domestic policies what they rightly were: Statism; wouldn't hurt.)
Not that I don't support anyway, I just have to close my eyes and pretend it never happened whenever I see NRO adopting a neo-con (read: ex-leftist) stance.
Let's cast our minds back to 2001. Why did we invade Afghanistan in the first place?
We demanded that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda be turned over to us. The Taliban refused.
In other words, we had two main objectives and one secondary one. First, we wanted bin Laden, dead or alive. Second, we wanted to disrupt and, if possible, destroy al Qaeda. The secondary objective was to oust the Taliban, which had been offering a safe haven to bin Laden and al Qaeda and was therefore complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
All of those objectives have now been attained. The military has done absolutely everything asked of it in Afghanistan and then some.
The last thing we need to do is make the same error the Soviets did in the 1980s and allow ourselves to become permanently bogged down, supporting a corrupt government.
This is an excellent opportunity for Congress both to re-establish its Constitutional authority over matters of war and to remove a major line-item from the federal budget and reduce the deficit.
I have long objected to the characterization that we are at war in Iraq and Afganistan. After the initial forays in which we successfully overthrew Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, we have been engaged in something altogether different-- a mix of counter insurgency and nation building. I think the former can be accomplished with a much smaller footprint, and the latter likely not at all. We should exit both countries sooner rather than later with our pride in tact as we accomplished our objectives.
It is very heartening to read this, especially its being allowed to appear on National Review at all. Three years ago they would have been slanging Mr. Miller as an "Unpatriotic Conservative;" today they allow him space for his commonsense column. Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse
J Byrnes
07/05/11 11:52
The author definitely loses credibility with his second paragraph assertion:
"The U.S. now has the largest military in the world, larger than the militaries of all other countries combined."
We do spend more money than all other nations combined, we have a technological edge, and our navy possesses more capital ships than all other nations combined, but this is not the author's claim.
