Don’t Dither. Send More Troops to Afghanistan Now

Five year ago, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld inadvertently kicked up a political and media maelstrom when he said, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army that you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Rumsfeld was trying to explain to a soldier why Army vehicles too often lacked armor protection, even though, when he made those remarks (on Dec. 8, 2004), the Iraq War was nearly two years old.

Rumsfeld made plenty of mistakes as Secretary of Defense; and he certainly bears some responsibility for the Army’s lack of wartime preparedness. But what too often gets overlooked by the media and the politicians is the military’s own culpability, and the military’s own failure — first, to prepare adequately for Iraq; and second, to adjust its strategy and tactics quickly enough to fight the growing insurgency in Iraq.

The fact is the Army was not prepared to fight a counterinsurgency; it was not prepared for irregular warfare and hybrid threats. Instead, the Army was geared up for a conventional conflict.

This was not really the fault of Rumsfeld and Bush. Instead, it was the fault of policymakers and elected officials — from both political parties — and the U.S. military establishment, all of which, for many decades, eschewed counterinsurgency and nation-building.

That’s why, in 2005, then Lieutenant General David Petraeus left Iraq. He returned stateside to oversee the development and publication of a new Army-Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual, the first of its kind in more than two decades.

And when, two years later, General Petraeus and his Army and Marine Corps colleagues were given the opportunity to implement their new counterinsurgency strategy (in Iraq), it proved stunningly successful. The rest, as they say, is history.

Well before the surge, however, the Army was highly cognizant of its own shortcomings and inadequacies. Thus, commanders on the ground, from Corporal to General, were trying mightily to reorient themselves — their units, their strategy, their tactics, techniques and procedures — to successfully prosecute a counterinsurgency.

But this wasn’t easy to do and it didn’t happen quickly. The Army, after all, is a large bureaucratic organization which is exceedingly difficult to steer. Transforming itself from a conventional fighting machine to a more unconventional protector of the populace took considerable time and effort.

So Rumsfeld was right: We did not have the Army that was needed for Iraq, and the Army itself realized this quite early on in that conflict.

The bad news is that it took several years, and too many deaths and too many casualties, for the Army to right itself for 21st century conflicts. The good news is that the United States Army (and Marine Corps) are now stunningly and fearsomely effective at waging counterinsurgency warfare. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the U.S. Army can always be counted on to do the right thing… after it has exhausted all other possibilities.

Indeed, the Army may have taken too long to right itself, but right itself it has. Consequently, there is no more effective counterinsurgency force on the planet than the United States Army and Marine Corps. And in the annals of military history, there has never been a counterinsurgency force as capable and as powerful as the one now at the disposal of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States.

All of this provides crucial context for General Stanley A. McChrystal’s urgent request for as many as 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. The General’s request is neither ill-advised nor ill-considered; it is absolutely essential.

Moreover, General McChrystal’s request is in no way analogous to General William Westmoreland’s constant request for more troops in Vietnam. Au contraire: In Vietnam, General Westmoreland clung to a doomed strategy of search and destroy, of conventional military combat. General McChrystal, by contrast, has developed a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy that incorporates the best thinking of the Army and Marine Corps, and which includes crucial lessons learned from both Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s why, as Bob Woodward reports, General McChrystal bluntly acknowledges that “without a new [counterinsurgency] strategy, the [Afghan] mission should not be resourced.”

Yet, despite all this — despite the years of intense, painstaking work and effort by the Army and Marine Corps to right themselves for counterinsurgency warfare — President Obama (and many in Congress) still seems to doubt that the U.S. military has a workable strategy in place for Afghanistan.

This despite the fact that, on March 27, 2009, the President himself announced the implementation of this “comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”  And this despite the fact that on May 11, 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates relieved the previous commander in Afghanistan, General David D. McKiernan, and replaced him with McChrystal.

“Our mission there [in Afghanistan],” Gates said then (on May 11, 2009), “requires new thinking and new approaches by our military leaders.”

Gates was absolutely right. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps required a bona fide counterinsurgency strategy tailored specifically for Afghanistan. General McChrystal has provided that; and yet now, Gates and Obama are backpedaling. They seem to doubt the wisdom of the very strategy they requested and heralded not even six months ago.

Thus Gates this month (Sept. 4): “I have expressed concern about the footprint. I have expressed concern… about the impact on the force and other worldwide responsibilities.” And on Aug. 31: “I think there are larger issues. We will have to look at the availability of forces; we will have to look at costs. There are a lot of different things we will have to look at.”  Thus the President (Sept. 20): “I’m not considering it [sending more troops to Afghanistan] at this point because I haven’t received the request…

“What I’m not also gonna do,” Obama added, “is put the resource question before the strategy question. Until I’m satisfied that we’ve got the right strategy I’m not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there beyond what we already have.”

Being deliberative in matters of war and peace, life and death is important; but so, too, is being agile and responsive. General McChrystal has been crystal clear about will happen to the soldiers and Marines now in Afghanistan if they do not get significant reinforcements very soon. They very likely will fail, and they very likely will be beaten by the resurgent Taliban.

Indeed, as Bob Woodward reports, according to General McChrystal, “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

“[I]nadequate resources,” the General adds, “will likely result in failure.” But as the late great General Douglas MacArthur explained, “In war, there is no substitute for victory.” To delay a decision is to decide, and it is to decide for the status quo, which, according to General McChrystal, is clearly untenable. The status quo “will likely result in failure,” he says.

“A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told Congress on September 15, 2009. “We very badly under-resourced Afghanistan for the better part of four or five years,” Mullen added.

Not surprisingly, then, Woodward reports that “Obama’s deliberative pace — he has held only one meeting of his top national security advisers to discuss McChrystal’s report so far — is a source of growing consternation within the military.”

Woodward cites one Pentagon official’s exasperation with the President. “‘Either accept the assessment or correct it, or let’s have a discussion,’ that official says. ‘Will you read it and tell us what you think?’ Within the military, this official said, ‘there is a frustration. A significant frustration. A serious frustration.’”

As Commander-in-Chief, President Obama certainly has the legal authority to overrule his military commanders. However, there is no apparent reason why, when it comes to Afghanistan, he should do so — not when the Army and Marine Corps have worked so painstakingly hard for so many years to win a counterinsurgency fight there.

Indeed, if the President is serious about winning in Afghanistan, then he will let and even encourage General McChrystal to speak publicly and candidly about the military’s strategy for Afghanistan and the troop levels and other resources required to sustain that strategy. The American people and their elected representatives have a right to know what their top military commander on the ground thinks and recommends be done. Our democratic republic, after all, requires an informed and educated citizenry.

If at that point, President Obama still wishes to overrule the U.S. military, then of course he can still do so. Again, that is his right as Commander-in-Chief. But at least the American people will have heard from the U.S. military; thus, they can judge fairly for themselves who was and is right.

And when it comes time for them to go to the polls and to elect a President and a Congress, the American people can give due consideration to the decisions that our incumbent leaders have made — or failed to make. Here the people rule.