Why West Lost Afghan War

[bwv]

Let's Beat the Extremists Like We Beat the Soviets
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, September 27, 2009

America's long war, which began on Oct. 7, 2001, when U.S. bombs and missiles started falling on Afghanistan, has become the longest in this country's history. The eighth anniversary of the conflict beckons, with no end in sight.

...

Fortunately, there is an alternative to a global counterinsurgency campaign. Instead of fighting an endless hot war in a vain effort to eliminate the jihadist threat, the United States should wage a cold war to keep the threat at bay. Such a strategy worked before. It can work again.

At the dawn of what the Bush administration came to call the Long War, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told U.S. military personnel: "We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter." In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the work of changing the way they live has turned out to be difficult, costly and problematic. After years of exertions, $1 trillion expended and more than 5,000 American troops lost, U.S. forces have yet to win a decisive victory. The high-tech American way of war developed during the 1990s (once celebrated in phrases such as "shock and awe" and "speed kills") stands thoroughly discredited.

Changing the way they live -- where "they" are the people of the Islamic world -- qualifies as mission impossible. The Long War is a losing proposition; it will break the bank and break the force.

Devising a new course requires accurately identifying the problem, which is not "terrorism" and, despite Washington's current obsession with the place, is certainly not Afghanistan. The essential problem is a dispute about God's relationship to politics. The proposition that the two occupy separate spheres finds particular favor among the democracies of the liberal, developed West. The proposition that God permeates politics finds particular favor in the Islamic world.

...

In confronting this conflict, the goal of U.S. national security strategy ought to be limited but specific: to insulate Americans from the fallout. Rather than setting out to clear, hold and build thousands of tiny, primitive villages scattered across the Afghan countryside, such a strategy should emphasize three principles: decapitate, contain and compete. An approach based on these principles cannot guarantee perpetual peace. But it is likely to be more effective, affordable and sustainable than a strategy based on open-ended war.

Decapitation -- targeting leaders for elimination -- provides the means to suppress immediate threats to our safety. The violent jihadists who pose those threats are vicious but relatively few in number. They possess limited capabilities. Their aspirations of uniting the world's Muslims into a new caliphate are akin to Sarah Palin's or Dennis Kucinich's presidential ambitions -- unworthy of serious attention. They are rank fantasies.

Without effective leadership, the jihadists are nothing. The aim of decapitation is twofold. At a minimum it will oblige jihadist chieftains to devote enormous attention to ensuring their own survival, giving them less time to plot against the West. Optimally, it will confront jihadist networks with never-ending succession crises, consuming organizational energies that might otherwise find external expression. Decapitation won't eliminate the threat -- Hamas and Hezbollah have survived the Israeli government's targeted assassination campaign -- but it can reduce it to manageable levels.

A crucial caveat is that assassinations must be precise and accurate. The incidental killing of noncombatants is immoral as well as politically counterproductive. The missiles launched from U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles in Pakistan have repeatedly demonstrated the wrong approach. The recent elimination of Saleh Ali Nabhan in Somalia -- in a helicopter-borne raid by special operations forces -- models the correct one.

Containment implies turning to the old Cold War playbook. When confronting the Soviet threat, the United States and its allies erected robust defenses, such as NATO, and cooperated in denying the communist bloc anything that could make Soviet computers faster, Soviet submarines quieter or Soviet missiles more accurate.

Containing the threat posed by jihad should follow a similar strategy. Robust defenses are key -- not mechanized units patrolling the Iron Curtain, but well-funded government agencies securing borders, controlling access to airports and seaports, and ensuring the integrity of electronic networks that have become essential to our way of life.

As during the Cold War, a strategy of containment should include comprehensive export controls and the monitoring of international financial transactions. Without money and access to weapons, the jihadist threat shrinks to insignificance: All that remains is hatred. Ideally, this approach should include strenuous efforts to reduce the West's dependence on Middle Eastern oil, which serves to funnel many billions of dollars into the hands of people who may not wish us well.

During the Cold War, containment did not preclude engagement, and it shouldn't today. To the extent that the United States can encourage liberalizing tendencies in the Islamic world, it should do so -- albeit with modest expectations. Sending jazz musicians deep into the Eastern Bloc in the old days was commendable, but Louis Armstrong's trumpet didn't topple the Soviet empire.

Finally, there is the matter of competition. Again, the Cold War offers an instructive analogy. During the long twilight struggle with the Soviets, competition centered on demonstrating scientific superiority (putting a man on the moon) and material superiority (providing cars, refrigerators and TVs for the masses). The West won.

Competition today still includes a material element. Yet a conflict rooted in a dispute over God's place in human history necessarily extends beyond the material realm. Radical Islamists assert that all humanity must submit to their retrograde version of Islam. Western political leaders declare with equal insistence that all must live in freedom, that term imbued with specific Western connotations.

The competitive challenge facing the West is not to prove that Islamic fundamentalism won't satisfy the aspirations of humanity, but to demonstrate that democratic capitalism can, even for committed believers. In short, the key to winning the current competition is to live up to the ideals that we profess rather than compromising them in the name of national security.

The upshot is that by modifying the way we live -- attending to pressing issues of poverty, injustice, exploitation of women and the global environmental crisis -- we might through our example induce the people of the Islamic world to consider modifying the way they live. Here lies the best chance of easing the differences that divide us.

The war we're fighting can become plausible, sustainable and even morally defensible.

It just has to go from hot to cold.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and the author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...11_pf.html

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and the author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism."

Another in a line of elitist snobs who hate American and the principles upon which it stands? :chin:
The guy has one very important premise wrong. America's "exceptionalism" was, and for that matter is, not based on it's power. America's exeptionalism is based within it's founding principles ... at it's founding.
When you shift to the premise that America is exceptional because she is powerful you actually reduce her exceptional-ness.

And, to think about it, you cannot wage a "cold war" against a foe who is willing to continuously keep it hot? The is no mutual destruction for a side that believes their destruction brings them to paradise? Therefore their willingness to die regardless is a lever against our desire to live in peace. Like a rabid dog it is not the dog's fault, it is the disease that infects the dog. You have to hunt down and kill a rabid dog. That does not mean you should kill all the dogs? Nor, should you let the rabid dog live among you to chance a bite if you are trying to pet that rabid dog?

The only end to this will be an end to radical Islamic ideology. That may not come from outside, it must be formed from within. Until then you should simply hunt down and kill those who are willing to strap on bombs and kill the innocent, protect those who are on your side, and bring down wrath upon any Nation/State that give aid to the radicals with shelter and/or monetary support.

The trouble comes when a country gives too many sides to the issues and politicians interfere in issues where they have no expertise. One plan and one mind with an eye on victory should be the course. If victory is pulling out and letting radical Islamists take over, to gain a base to further attack us, there will not be a true victory? It will only give our enemies the ability to keep the heat while we strive to keep it cold.

And, I believe we did win a victory in Iraq. Millions now have the ability to choose to live free and decide their fate. A few thousand are against that. Decisive maybe not. But, in the land of the Muslims it was a victory.
Showing weakness now might just unravel the gains that were paid for by the measure of devotion the 5,000 gave?

Further shame is that leadership's corruption is as bad as the thought of not winning. All parts must work in concert, honestly, to bring about victory?

Interesting turns to this discussion. This is why coins have two sides? ;)



HSL

[bwv]

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and the author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism."

Another in a line of elitist snobs who hate American and the principles upon which it stands? :chin:

no, a Bacevich is a real American conservative

Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. (born 1947 in Normal, Illinois) is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is a former director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005), and author of several books, including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008).

...

Bacevich graduated from West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Later he held posts in Germany, including the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the United States, and the Persian Gulf up to his retirement from the service with the rank of Colonel in the early 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998.
On May 13, 2007, Bacevich's son, 1LT Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr., was killed in action in Iraq by an improvised explosive device south of Samarra in Salah ad Din Governate.[3] The younger Bacevich, 27, was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army,[4] assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

a Bacevich is a real American conservative

Sorry to disagree, but his words betray his lack of conservative values:

"The violent jihadists who pose those threats are vicious but relatively few in number. They possess limited capabilities. Their aspirations of uniting the world's Muslims into a new caliphate are akin to Sarah Palin's or Dennis Kucinich's presidential ambitions -- unworthy of serious attention. They are rank fantasies."

"The upshot is that by modifying the way we live -- attending to pressing issues of poverty, injustice, exploitation of women and the global environmental crisis -- we might through our example induce the people of the Islamic world to consider modifying the way they live. Here lies the best chance of easing the differences that divide us."

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University

No true conservative would put stock in this. Especially "global environmental crisis"? That myth based on fudged data and the dreams of wealth that Al Gore and the American President are bent upon through the Chicago Climate Exchange?
Women's rights? Conservatives are for. That would put us in direct opposition to radical and most mild followers of Islam? Is he asking us to go back to Somalia or attack Iran to ensure their women's rights?
Combating poverty through what? A redistribution of wealth? Now that is conservative thinking? :chin:
Injustice or social justice? I'm for equal justice (as are most conservatives).

Sorry about his loss. I honor the son. I question the father. And, I do not agree with you that this guy is any where near conservative, at all!



HSL

[bwv]

a Bacevich is a real American conservative

Sorry to disagree, but his words betray his lack of conservative values:

Real conservative values, not the neoconservative messianic vision of American military power transforming the world (which has its roots in Leninist internationalism, as the founding neocons were Trotskyites), are in line with the views of the founding fathers in avoiding foreign alliances and entanglements and maintaining a small federal government. It is not possible to have limited government and civil liberties at home and empire abroad.

Being pro-war is to the mainstream Right what global warming is to the Left-an unassailable dogma that is integral to their respective political identities. Like global warming, believing in the righteousness and necessity of the “war on terror” is an act of political faith, and any heretic who holds challenging views is not to be tolerated-hence conservatives like Coulter, refusing to even listen.

And yet questioning government, especially on something as important and expensive as foreign policy, is unquestionably a conservative exercise. Much like conservatives have done when considering national healthcare, cap-and-trade and federal stimulus, is it “liberal” simply to consider a cost/benefit analysis of America’s recent foreign adventurism? Speaking at CPAC this year, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski noted: “The phrase ‘war on terror’ has been used to justify trillions of dollars in spending, hundreds of thousands of new government positions, and thousands of new government contracts. At the same time, the ‘war on terror’ has produced very little in terms of new technology or enhanced security, has vastly increased the degree of national centralization, and has created many new permanent trees and branches in the gnarled world of federal and state institutions.”

Mainstream conservative’s usual retort to those who question US foreign policy is that national security is a top priority, for which any cost is justified. This is true. But is it possible that our government is as reckless with foreign policy as it is in every other sphere? During his speech at this year’s CPAC, Ron Paul made this distinction: “There’s nothing wrong with being a conservative, and come up with a conservative belief in foreign policy where we have a strong national defense and we don’t go to war so carelessly.”

Trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives later, too many right-wingers will still not consider-much less admit-that we went to war with Iraq carelessly. What did Iraq have to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda? Did Saddam Hussein really threaten the US? These questions are never asked, and are even considered treasonous by many conservatives. Allegedly to reduce the terrorist threat, we are now escalating our war in Afghanistan, bombing Pakistan, eyeballing Yemen and placing sanctions on Iran. How do any of these military actions abroad stop future “shoe bombers” or “underwear bombers” from striking at home? What does any of this have to do with America’s national interest and how does it make us safer? Few conservatives are connecting these dots or asking the obvious questions. On this subject, blindness to government incompetence and recklessness is now considered conservative.

Despite what his critics portray, Paul’s approach to Islamic terrorism is not to ignore it, but to examine motive and develop a sound strategy by pinpointing our defense. Just one month after 9/11, Paul introduced the “Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001,” legislation that would have allowed Congress and the President to specifically target Bin Laden and his associates by placing a bounty on Al-Qaeda leaders. Paul said the Act “allows Congress to narrowly target terrorist enemies, lessening the likelihood of a full-scale war with any Middle Eastern nations. The Act also threatens terrorist cells worldwide by making it more difficult for our enemies to simply slip back into civilian populations or hide in remote locations… Once letters of marque and reprisal are issued, every terrorist is essentially a marked man.”

In hindsight, what would have been the more conservative, productive approach after 9/11—spending three trillion dollars in Iraq or placing a $1billion bounty on Bin Laden and every other Al-Qaeda member’s head?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4zKzXFcLN4

[JasonC]

To KKR - there has never been any society in human history that wasn't "assailed from within" by outright treason, by partisan political games, and by human immorality and lethargy. And there never will be. Yet gosh, some states have won wars nevertheless.

For the US in particular, you can't name a war unmarred by treasonous partisan conduct on the homefront, by somebody or other. With something like Nam it is proverbial - but Americans consciously gave atom bombs to Joe Stalin long before that, right after a "good war". I could cite chapter and verse on the subject all day, but there is little point.

We can win the war in Afghanistan simply by deciding not to lose it. Since we can fight there at this level indefinitely, and none of our enemies there have a prayer of defeating us if we decide to, this ought to be obvious. But domestic partisans are more interested in using the situation to score political points than winning anything. All it takes to win is saying "tough toenails" to such self inflicted idiocy.

Nor is it a matter of "strong enemies" from without. They are pathetically weak enemies. Running in fear from enemies so pathetically weak borders on the absurd, and pretending we can't defeat them endlessly is pretending and an interested crock of you know what.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Real conservative values, not the neoconservative messianic vision of American military power transforming the world (which has its roots in Leninist internationalism, as the founding neocons were Trotskyites), are in line with the views of the founding fathers in avoiding foreign alliances and entanglements and maintaining a small federal government. It is not possible to have limited government and civil liberties at home and empire abroad.

Do you wish to change the topic?

Neoconservatives? Who talked of neoconservatives?

True conservatives do not hold the visions of which you wrote.
As far as your empire comment, you'll have to ask the Brits how that worked out. They were the last of the "empires"?

And, I do hold true to the words of the founding fathers that we should avoid foreign entanglements.

Like was said to Jefferson, "if you fight the pirates, you will be fighting them for ever." That should have been said here, after 911, and the people should have been both informed and prepared.
There is no empire when you fight for your own survival?

And, before you get to it, I would take our troops out of Japan and Germany in a heart beat. I never liked being the worlds police nor do I like the thought that others rely on American military might so that they can spend their treasures to support their socialist ideals.

Bend away. :chin:



HSL

[bwv]

Like was said to Jefferson, "if you fight the pirates, you will be fighting them for ever." That should have been said here, after 911, and the people should have been both informed and prepared.
There is no empire when you fight for your own survival?

Did Jefferson decide to have US troops stay in Tripoli for a decade in order to transform it into a liberal republic? That is the equivalent of what we are doing in Afghanistan. Al Queda is gone from the country and set up in W Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The Taliban is no threat to our national security. Should they come back into power and allow AQ back in we can take punitive measures. We won in Afghanistan in 2003, however we fell into the nation-building trap. The Taliban are the Pashtuns - the nations largest ethnic group - they will be in Afghanistan longer than us, that is certain. Now we are in the position of being on one side of a centuries-old tribal conflict, the outcome of which has no impact on our national security.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Of course! :)



HSL

[bwv]

George Friedman, founder of Stratfor on why its time to pull out:

Leaks Show Why It's Time to Pull Out
By George Friedman

On Sunday, The New York Times and two other newspapers published summaries and excerpts of tens of thousands of documents leaked to a website known as WikiLeaks. The documents comprise a vast array of material concerning the war in Afghanistan. They range from tactical reports from small unit operations to broader strategic analyses of politico-military relations between the United States and Pakistan. It appears to be an extraordinary collection.

Tactical intelligence on firefights is intermingled with reports on confrontations between senior U.S. and Pakistani officials in which lists of Pakistani operatives in Afghanistan are handed over to the Pakistanis. Reports on the use of surface-to-air missiles by militants in Afghanistan are intermingled with reports on the activities of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, who reportedly continues to liaise with the Afghan Taliban in an informal capacity.

The WikiLeaks
At first glance, it is difficult to imagine a single database in which such a diverse range of intelligence was stored, or the existence of a single individual cleared to see such diverse intelligence stored across multiple databases and able to collect, collate and transmit the intelligence without detection. Intriguingly, all of what has been released so far has been not-so-sensitive material rated secret or below. The Times reports that Gul’s name appears all over the documents, yet very few documents have been released in the current batch, and it is very hard to imagine intelligence on Gul and his organization, theInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, being classified as only secret. So, this was either low-grade material hyped by the media, or there is material reviewed by the selected newspapers but not yet made public. Still, what was released and what the Times discussed is consistent with what most thought was happening in Afghanistan.

The obvious comparison is to the Pentagon Papers, commissioned by the Defense Department to gather lessons from the Vietnam War and leaked by Daniel Ellsberg to the Times during the Nixon administration. Many people worked on the Pentagon Papers, each of whom was focused on part of it and few of whom would have had access to all of it.

Ellsberg did not give the Times the supporting documentation; he gave it the finished product. By contrast, in the WikiLeaks case, someone managed to access a lot of information that would seem to have been contained in many different places. If this was an unauthorized leak, then it had to have involved a massive failure in security. Certainly, the culprit should be known by now and his arrest should have been announced. And certainly, the gathering of such diverse material in one place accessible to one or even a few people who could move it without detection is odd.



Like the Pentagon Papers, the WikiLeaks (as I will call them) elicited a great deal of feigned surprise, not real surprise. Apart from the charge that the Johnson administration contrived the Gulf of Tonkin incident, much of what the Pentagon Papers contained was generally known. Most striking about the Pentagon Papers was not how much surprising material they contained, but how little. Certainly, they contradicted the official line on the war, but there were few, including supporters of the war, who were buying the official line anyway.

In the case of the WikiLeaks, what is revealed also is not far from what most people believed, although they provide enormous detail. Nor is it that far from what government and military officials are saying about the war. No one is saying the war is going well, though some say that given time it might go better.

The view of the Taliban as a capable fighting force is, of course, widespread. If they weren’t a capable fighting force, then the United States would not be having so much trouble defeating them. The WikiLeaks seem to contain two strategically significant claims, however. The first is that the Taliban is a more sophisticated fighting force than has been generally believed. An example is the claim that Taliban fighters have used man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) against U.S. aircraft. This claim matters in a number of ways. First, it indicates that the Taliban are using technologies similar to those used against the Soviets. Second, it raises the question of where the Taliban are getting them — they certainly don’t manufacture MANPADS themselves.

If they have obtained advanced technologies, this would have significance on the battlefield. For example, if reasonably modern MANPADS were to be deployed in numbers, the use of American airpower would either need to be further constrained or higher attrition rates accepted. Thus far, only first- and second-generation MANPADS without Infrared Counter-Countermeasures (which are more dangerous) appear to have been encountered, and not with decisive or prohibitive effectiveness. But in any event, this doesn’t change the fundamental character of the war.

Supply Lines and Sanctuaries
What it does raise is the question of supply lines and sanctuaries. The most important charge contained in the leaks is about Pakistan. The WikiLeaks contain documents that charge that the Pakistanis are providing both supplies and sanctuary to Taliban fighters while objecting to American forces entering Pakistan to clean out the sanctuaries and are unwilling or unable to carry out that operation by themselves (as they have continued to do in North Waziristan).

Just as important, the documents charge that the ISI has continued to maintain liaison and support for the Taliban in spite of claims by the Pakistani government that pro-Taliban officers had been cleaned out of the ISI years ago. The document charges that Gul, the director-general of the ISI from 1987 to 1989, still operates in Pakistan, informally serving the ISI and helping give the ISI plausible deniability.

Though startling, the charge that Islamabad is protecting and sustaining forces fighting and killing Americans is not a new one. When the United States halted operations in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets in 1989, U.S. policy was to turn over operations in Afghanistan to Pakistan. U.S. strategy was to use Islamist militants to fight the Soviets and to use Pakistani liaisons through the ISI to supply and coordinate with them. When the Soviets and Americans left Afghanistan, the ISI struggled to install a government composed of its allies until the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996. The ISI’s relationship with the Taliban — which in many ways are the heirs to the anti-Soviet mujahideen — is widely known. In my book, “America’s Secret War,” I discussed both this issue and the role of Gul. These documents claim that this relationship remains intact. Apart from Pakistani denials, U.S. officials and military officers frequently made this charge off the record, and on the record occasionally. The leaks on this score are interesting, but they will shock only those who didn’t pay attention or who want to be shocked.

Let’s step back and consider the conflict dispassionately. The United States forced the Taliban from power. It never defeated the Taliban nor did it make a serious effort to do so, as that would require massive resources the United States doesn’t have. Afghanistan is a secondary issue for the United States, especially since al Qaeda has established bases in a number of other countries, particularly Pakistan, making the occupation of Afghanistan irrelevant to fighting al Qaeda.

For Pakistan, however, Afghanistan is an area of fundamental strategic interest. The region’s main ethnic group, the Pashtun, stretch across the Afghan-Pakistani border. Moreover, were a hostile force present in Afghanistan, as one was during the Soviet occupation, Pakistan would face threats in the west as well as the challenge posed byIndia in the east. For Pakistan, an Afghanistan under Pakistani influence or at least a benign Afghanistan is a matter of overriding strategic importance.

It is therefore irrational to expect the Pakistanis to halt collaboration with the force that they expect to be a major part of the government of Afghanistan when the United States leaves. The Pakistanis never expected the United States to maintain a presence in Afghanistan permanently. They understood that Afghanistan was a means toward an end, and not an end in itself. They understood this under George W. Bush. They understand it even more clearly under Barack Obama, who made withdrawal a policy goal.

Given that they don’t expect the Taliban to be defeated, and given that they are not interested in chaos in Afghanistan, it follows that they will maintain close relations with and support for the Taliban. Given that the United States is powerful and is Pakistan’s only lever against India, the Pakistanis will not make this their public policy, however. The United States has thus created a situation in which the only rational policy for Pakistan is two-tiered, consisting of overt opposition to the Taliban and covert support for the Taliban.

This is duplicitous only if you close your eyes to the Pakistani reality, which the Americans never did. There was ample evidence, as the WikiLeaks show, of covert ISI ties to the Taliban. The Americans knew they couldn’t break those ties. They settled forwhat support Pakistan could give them while constantly pressing them harder and harder until genuine fears in Washington emerged that Pakistan could destabilize altogether. Since a stable Pakistan is more important to the United States than a victory in Afghanistan — which it wasn’t going to get anyway — the United States released pressure and increased aid. If Pakistan collapsed, then India would be the sole regional power, not something the United States wants.

The WikiLeaks seem to show that like sausage-making, one should never look too closely at how wars are fought, particularly coalition warfare. Even the strongest alliances, such as that between the United States and the United Kingdom in World War II, are fraught with deceit and dissension. London was fighting to save its empire, an end Washington was hostile to; much intrigue ensued. The U.S.-Pakistani alliance is not nearly as trusting. The United States is fighting to deny al Qaeda a base in Afghanistan while Pakistan is fighting to secure its western frontier and its internal stability. These are very different ends that have very different levels of urgency.

The WikiLeaks portray a war in which the United States has a vastly insufficient force on the ground that is fighting a capable and dedicated enemy who isn’t going anywhere. The Taliban know that they win just by not being defeated, and they know that they won’t be defeated. The Americans are leaving, meaning the Taliban need only wait and prepare.

The Pakistanis also know that the Americans are leaving and that the Taliban or a coalition including the Taliban will be in charge of Afghanistan when the Americans leave. They will make certain that they maintain good relations with the Taliban. They will deny that they are doing this because they want no impediments to a good relationship with the United States before or after it leaves Afghanistan. They need a patron to secure their interests against India. Since the United States wants neither an India outside a balance of power nor China taking the role of Pakistan’s patron, it follows that the risk the United States will bear grudges is small. And given that, the Pakistanis can live with Washington knowing that one Pakistani hand is helping the Americans while another helps the Taliban. Power, interest and reality define the relations between nations, and different factions inside nations frequently have different agendas and work against each other.

The WikiLeaks, from what we have seen so far, detail power, interest and reality as we have known it. They do not reveal a new reality. Much will be made about the shocking truth that has been shown, which, as mentioned above, shocks only those who wish to be shocked. The Afghan war is about an insufficient American and allied force fighting a capable enemy on its home ground and a Pakistan positioning itself for the inevitable outcome. The WikiLeaks contain all the details.

We are left with the mystery of who compiled all of these documents and who had access to them with enough time and facilities to transmit them to the outside world in a blatant and sustained breach of protocol. The image we have is of an unidentified individual or small group working to get a “shocking truth” out to the public, only the truth is not shocking — it is what was known all along in excruciating detail. Who would want to detail a truth that is already known, with access to all this documentation and the ability to transmit it unimpeded? Whoever it proves to have been has just made the most powerful case yet for withdrawal from Afghanistan sooner rather than later.

© Copyright 2010 Stratfor. All rights reserved.