The United States quietly increased troop levels in Afghanistan by 13,000 people on Tuesday. These troops are designated support troops as opposed to the combat kind, even though the generals on the ground have stated that 40,000 more combat troops are necessary and the denial of which will result in massive failure in Afghanistan. However, President Obama has been reluctant to provide that level of fighting force to this battle that he’s labeled a “war of necessity.”
Is this argument for greater force levels a strong one? Is Afghanistan’s land mass necessary to disable Al Qaeda? History has shown that if this criminal organization is denied an area (which they are for much of Afghanistan), they simply mount their efforts from another country. The hovering and unfixed characteristic of this organization is one of the factors that make it so lethal. But is a solution to that problem going to be taking over the whole world so these terrorists have less corners to crawl into? It seems we’re left hostage to fortune if we do.
One of Obama's reasons for being in the fight in Afghanistan is that we need to make sure Pakistan is not destabilized from the terrorists on the Afghanistan side of the Durand line. However, there are Al Qaeda forces already in Pakistan that do that with greater effect than those in Afghanistan. Is dedicating a massive amount of troops to fight a Plan B of the enemy a prudent tactic to employ?
When the parallel of more troops in Afghanistan is made to the surge in Iraq, what people fail to forget is that the turnaround in this former war was not made my brute force of personnel but rather the calculated actions they took, with vital merit given to their partnering with Sunni tribes to destabilize the enemy by making their friends their enemy. With the case in Afghanistan, a flooding of troops may not be the best strategy because if the people and warriors of Afghanistan feel America is an overwhelming occupying presence (perhaps like the presence in Iraq), then they will likely have a nationalistic reaction which will make negotiations with internal groups to switch sides and the building up of Afghani forces to bear some of the battle weight more difficult.
The politics in Pakistan make it difficult for us to introduce the enemy to the full measure of American strength. We do not want to invade a country that is considered our ally, although the alliance has been suspect in the recent past, so the rationale is to secure a victory and stability in the secondary position of the enemy in order to not allow this difficult and sensitive situation to potentially get worse through Afghanistan.
This Plan B strategy does not seem to sound like a war of necessity. The reason that this war is a war of choice is because we literally have a choice. We can take the battle to Pakistan, or at least become more engaged with the Pakistanis in order to find an inlet into the real fight. We are choosing otherwise which, by implication, makes this a war of choice. The definition of “war of necessity” is that we are willing to do whatever it takes, including sending 100,000 more troops to Afghanistan, if a supremely vital American interest is at stake against that enemy in that region. We would be willing to go as hard as it takes for as long as it takes to get the battle won. However, Obama seems to be pulling his punches a bit since his famous mislabeling of this war.
Perhaps the president is rethinking this secondary war on the grounds that it may not be worth all the lives that will be lost, nor is it worth that kind of troop dedication when we may have potential conflict with North Korea and Iran soon. Has all the talk about Obama being a man of peace worthy of a Nobel Prize in this category made him hesitant to drop the hammer when necessary? Some argue that the award was a pressuring by the Norwegian committee to influence more peaceful tactics by Obama, who over the last few months has been on the fence about sending a mammoth increase in troops over.
These questions and these pressures would not be easy for any person to navigate. However, this is what we voted him into office for. He spoke in several campaign speeches about his willingness to go into Pakistan if necessary to dig out the terrorists and end this decade-long battle. Yet, we remain in Afghanistan, dedicating troops in an area so that the enemy does not have a space to run to. As we rove around this chessboard of foreign policy in an attempt to capture the lone fleeing king of Al Qaeda, we are dedicating our forces to cornering his escape. However, this king isn't lone, he isn't fleeing, and at this point in the match, we certainly aren't winning.
