The Foreign Policy Initiative held its maiden conference in Washington, “Afghanistan: Planning for Success.” We’ll see if Afghanistan is eventually a success — but from the sessions I attended, the conference surely was. (A video and transcripts of the proceedings will probably be posted on the FPI web site in a few days.)

There were, I think, several important things to emerge from the morning discussions. The first is that there was unanimous praise from the panelists — including, and even especially, by conservatives on the panels — for President Obama’s decision last week to further bolster American forces in Afghanistan, sending 4,000 more troops to train Afghan security forces on top of the 17,000 combat troops he has already ordered into Afghanistan. There were some concerns raised about what more needs to be done, but overall, the view (which I share) was that Obama had done the right and responsible thing in deepening America’s commitment in that region when there is growing unease about the war.

Among other points made by different panelists that I found of interest:

– While the Obama administration will not use the term “nation-building,” that is precisely what we are engaged in, and wisely so. The Obama administration has committed itself to nation-building in deed, if not in word. That’s better than the alternative (a commitment in word but not in deed). Our options are essentially these: (a) engaging in successful nation-building, which would allow American forces to eventually leave Afghanistan; (b) not pursuing nation-building, which would require us to stay indefinitely; or (c) not engaging in nation-building and leaving Afghanistan, which would result in a failed state that once again becomes home to insurgents and jihadists.
– Reconciliation with the Taliban is likely to fail absent significant steps toward successful nation-building. We will see large-scale defections from the insurgency to the government only if the government is viewed as legitimate and strong, which is not now the case. Corruption remains a serious problem. And if President Karzai doesn’t improve his performance over the summer, he may well lose the election later this year.
– The way you succeed against an insurgency is through establishing the legitimacy of the government. That is true in Afghanistan, as that is the overwhelming need in Afghanistan: governing legitimacy. And as was the case in Iraq, success depends on making the Afghan people the “center of gravity” of our efforts. This echoes what was said in a recent interview by the counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, who was asked what lessons of Iraq most apply in Afghanistan. According to Kilcullen, “I would say there are three. The first one is you’ve got to protect the population. Unless you make people feel safe, they won’t be willing to engage in unarmed politics. The second lesson is, once you’ve made people safe, you’ve got to focus on getting the population on your side and making them self-defending. And then a third lesson is, you’ve got to make a long-term commitment.”
– Integrating American/NATO civilian reconstruction efforts with American/NATO counterinsurgency efforts is key to future success in Afghanistan.
– On the military side, achieving greater unity of command and unity of effort are crucial. Right now we have more than 40 nations playing a role on the military side of things, and hundreds, if not thousands, of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who are involved in Afghanistan. The problem is not that we have too few players; it’s that we have too many players. How we fuse this all together will go a long way toward determining how much success we have in Afghanistan, and how soon we see it.
– Alliance warfare is very hard — and alliance counterinsurgency is both very hard and very rare. There are few historical precedents for what we are attempting to do in Afghanistan.
– It’s important that we remain clear on the fact that the purpose of the NATO alliance in Afghanistan is not the alliance, but victory.
– Afghanistan is in some ways more challenging than the war we faced in Iraq; for example, Afghanistan is a far poorer country and its civil society is decimated even beyond what was the case in Iraq. But in some respects what we face in Afghanistan is less challenging than what we encountered in Iraq. For one thing, there is no civil war in Afghanistan and far less sectarian splits. The peak violence in Afghanistan was less than a quarter as violent as the peak period in Iraq. And the people of Afghanistan tend to be more welcoming of Americans than Iraqis were. The task ahead is very challenging — but it is by no means insurmountable. It is, in the words of Fred Kagan, “perfectly manageable” — assuming we employ the right tactics and strategy and retain our will and commitment.
– We may have as many as seven brigades (3,000–5,000 troops) in Afghanistan by later this year; in Iraq, we deployed as many as 22.
– We will not see a replay of the “Anbar Awakening” in Afghanistan. Tribes play a less important role and will play a less helpful role in Afghanistan than in Iraq; in Afghanistan, the local village and community is the vital civic association.
– The Afghan National Army is one of the most respected institutions in that nation; its growth, along with the police force, needs to be quickly and substantially accelerated. Right now there are no plans to do that; but it needs to happen, and soon.
– There will be no quick or easy progress in Afghanistan. This year will be more violent than last year — and next year may (depending on how well our strategy works) may be more violent than this year. But we should not obsess only on the “violence metric.” For one thing, the violence is tied very much to the seasons in Afghanistan, rather than being a straight-line trajectory. And as we saw in Iraq in the late Spring and Summer of 2007, sometimes violence goes up as a result of progress that’s being made.
– There is a pressing need to build up the American military. Right now, there is a one-for-one trade-off in terms of American troops deployed in both Afghanistan and Iraq. To succeed, we need to resource the wars properly, which is not now the case.
– Pakistan is obviously important to success in Afghanistan, and vice versa. It’s wise to view what happens in both nations in a manner that is mutually reinforcing. At the same time, they are different countries with different needs and different cultures. And, of course, we have far greater ability to influence events on the ground in Afghanistan than we do Pakistan. We need to view Pakistan and Afghanistan together; and we need to view them as separate. The danger is to see them as all of one or all of the other. Failure in one will spill over into the other; and success in one will spill over into the other.

In sum, then, the view of the panelists was that we are engaged in a defining struggle in Afghanistan, it will require a long-term commitment by the United States, and progress and success is possible there, just as it was in Iraq. And if we do succeed in both nations, it will have tremendous and favorable ramifications on the entire region, and for American national interests.