Calculating the cost of war by Sharon Chadha
November 14, 2009 – Ambassador Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the head US diplomat is said to be deeply alarmed about the prospect of adding the additional 40,000 US troops in Afghanistan that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama’s top-ranking military commander in Afghanistan has recommended.
Amb. Eikenberry, who like Gen. McChrystal, was the top American commander from 2005 to 2007, is said to be wary of sending more troops to Afghanistan for fear it will increase as opposed to decrease the country’s dependence on the US. Amb. Eikenberry is said to be pessimistic regarding President Karzai’s ability to build a viable state.
The two American generals have reportedly long had their differences as to how to proceed in Afghanistan. When Amb. Eikenberry was the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal was in charge of clandestine operations. At that time, Amb. Eikenberry also opposed Gen. McChrystal’s recommendation to increase the number of combat operations. Amb. Eikenberry, then as now, believed that the increase in civilian casualties this would translate to would cause the American project to lose the popular support it needed to succeed.
The White House is said to be reconsidering Gen. McChyrstal’s surge recommendation. President Obama and his advisors are now said to be contemplating adding only 10,000 to 15,000 additional troops versus the 40,000 Gen. McChrystal has proposed.
Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian analyst, takes issue with the logic that reducing the US footprint will win the US support. Writing on the AfPak blog, a widely respected website, he says that, paradoxically, fewer strikes may instead increase anti-American sentiment as each individual strike will likely loom larger in the popular imagination than during continuous warfare.
A smaller U.S. presence, he goes on to warn, also risks reducing the accuracy of the so-called surgical strikes. Fewer troops on the ground will translate into a reduced ability to protect informants. This will result in fewer Afghans being willing to help pinpoint targets for US airstrikes.
Reducing America’s footprint will also not likely appease America’s enemies. “Al Qaeda has a very wide definition of occupation,” writes Hegghammer, “and would frame any U.S. military presence in the region as such.”
How necessary is it to deny Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations safe haven now that the Internet seems to have eliminated the need for physical meeting points?
The Internet may have eliminated most of the need for training camps, but websites are still not able to “allow organizations to desensitize recruits and break down their natural human barriers to the use of violence,” says Hegghammer. “It is one thing to rant online about killing infidels, it is something else to slit their throats (which is why the 9/11 operatives practices on sheep and camels in the camps).”
David Kilcullen, a leading authority on counterinsurgency, says the White House needs to adopt a plan, and sooner rather than later. He compares the current situation to officials standing around in front of a burning building with fireman trapped inside. “There are not enough firemen to put it out. You have to send in more or you have to leave. It is not appropriate to stand outside pontificating about not taking lightly the responsibility of sending firemen into harm’s way. Either put in enough firemen to put the fire out or get out of the house. That is my analogy of where we are. Either of those approaches could potentially work.”
Kilcullen recommends that the US “go to Karzai and say ‘We are done here’. We will be leaving in two to five years. If you do not want to left hanging from a lamppost, like Najibullah [the former Afghan president hanged in Kabul in 1996 when the Taliban took control], this is what you need to do. I think that would work.”
If the cost of adding troops is steep – figure a million dollars a year for each soldier – the cost of not finishing the job will also be high. This is the calculation, Hegghammer says, the White House needs to make. Which will be more costly, continuing the war against terrorism in Afghanistan or fighting it in the West should America leave too early and the jihadists follow the troops back home?
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