Secretary of Defense Bob Gates testified before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday on the status of the Coalition mission in Afghanistan, and though his statement might best be characterized as one of cautious optimism, there is clearly cause for concern as to the overall direction of that campaign. Gates stated:
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, it has become clear that the mission there is not one of peacekeeping, but rather a classic counterinsurgency campaign–and no one in their right mind would put NATO in charge of a counterinsurgency campaign. Counterinsurgency is predominantly political by its very nature. It requires a unity of effort, as the military effort needs to be synced up with the political effort, and the military must have a coherent objective and a clear plan for achieving it. But NATO has no political lead actor, and it is incapable of unity of effort. And this is not to blame the Europeans, it is simply a function of what NATO is and is not. And it is not an institution that is capable of complete subordination to a single commander, as each government has a veto over how its troops and equipment will be deployed. Interestingly, the left has often praised the effort in Afghanistan, relative to that in Iraq, as the ‘good war’–a multilateral war waged with the support of the international community. But it turns out that counterinsurgency operations are, as we have seen in Iraq, far more effective when carried out in a unilateral fashion, with a unity of effort and a unity of command. Right now, Afghanistan has no lead actor. Who’s in charge of the mission there? Is it General Dan McNeil, who heads up the ISAF mission, or Maj General David Rodriguez, who commands American forces operating as part of Operation Enduring Freedom? And then there’s the Special Operations Command, which is itself operating largely independent of both ISAF and OEF. The situation in Afghanistan is not critical–there is no sign that the effort there is on the verge of some kind of collapse–but in a counterinsurgency campaign, if you’re not winning, you’re losing. And we are not winning. The Democrats want to throw more money and more troops at the problem, which isn’t a bad idea, but as long as this fundamentally dysfunctional and disorganized command structure remains in place, more money and more troops will not suffice. And here’s where Iraq becomes the model for getting Afghanistan back on track. Only now, with General Petraeus clearly in charge of what is a unilateral and united effort to dismantle the insurgency have American forces seen sustained progress. And that model must be adapted to Afghanistan. Afghanistan needs more troops, more money, and a unified command. The American people know who’s running the war in Iraq, it’s time they were able to identify the person charged with running the war in Afghanistan as well. Afghanistan needs its own Petraeus.
