The lesson of Vietnam is ... [by John Kerry]

Testing Afghanistan Assumptions

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438660617984826.html

The lesson of Vietnam is don't commit troops without a clear strategy.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2009
By JOHN KERRY

In the coming weeks, President Barack Obama will make the most
difficult choice a commander in chief can face: whether to send more
troops into harm's way.

The challenge of making the right decision was dramatized recently by
the grim disclosure that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and
NATO commander in Afghanistan, has warned that unless he gets more
troops the eight-year war there "will likely result in failure."

The general provided a bleak catalogue of misaligned military
operations, a corrupt Afghan government, and an increasingly lethal
insurgency. He wants more troops and civilians to execute a
nation-building counterinsurgency strategy that he hopes will reverse
the slide. He says success is still achievable. As the commander on
the ground, Gen. McChrystal fulfilled his assignment from the
president, producing a tightly reasoned blueprint for a complex and
increasingly dangerous conflict.

Now, we in Congress have our own assignment: to test all of the
underlying assumptions in Afghanistan and make sure they are the
right ones before embarking on a new strategy.

For example, one assumption of the proposed counterinsurgency plan is
that our troops and civilians will be working in partnership with a
legitimate and reliable government in Afghanistan. After the deeply
flawed presidential election last month, we must ask whether we can
succeed if our partner is weak and viewed with deep suspicion by his
own people.

We also need to know whether a full-blown counterinsurgency, with its
increased footprint and inevitably higher casualties, is a
fundamental part of our plans to go after al Qaeda and avoid
destabilizing Pakistan. Could a far smaller, well-honed
counterterrorism strategy work as well or better?

Some have argued that counterterrorism commandos and sophisticated
surveillance might be effective at targeting al Qaeda in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. But critics contend that a counterterrorism campaign
can succeed only as a component within a larger counterinsurgency.

If we increase our commitment, we might be able to develop "good
enough governance" in Afghanistan, to quote the words Clare Lockhart
(co-author of the insightful book "Fixing Failed States") used at a
recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. But even that
would not guarantee that we achieve another vital objective: avoiding
the destabilization of neighboring Pakistan. Chaos there could put
nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.

The situation in Afghanistan has clearly changed since last March
when the president unveiled his goal of defeating al Qaeda in
Pakistan and Afghanistan. He and his advisers are exploring
alternatives in light of the conditions on the ground and we should
welcome the careful reassessment.

So far, the debate has focused on absolute numbers­how many U.S. and
allied troops are required, how many Afghan soldiers and police do we
need to train, how many more billions must we pour into that
impoverished country? All the numbers are meaningless if the goal is
ambiguous or the strategy is wrong.

Before we send more of our young men and women to this war, we need a
fuller debate about what constitutes success in Afghanistan. We need
a clearer understanding of what constitutes the right strategy to get
us there. Ultimately, we need to understand, as Gen. Colin Powell was
fond of asking, "What's the exit strategy?" Or as Gen. David Petraeus
asked of Iraq, "How does it end?"

Why? Because one of the lessons from Vietnam­applied in the first
Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq­is that we should
not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of
what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we
maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk
bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived.

Gen. McChrystal offers no timetable or exit strategy, beyond warning
that the next 12 months are critical. I agree that time is running
out and that troops are dying without a sustainable strategy for
victory. But we cannot rush to judgment.

Mr. Obama promises not to send more troops to Afghanistan until he
has absolute clarity on what the strategy will be. He is right to
take the time he needs to define the mission. We should all follow
his lead and debate all of the options.

It may be that Gen. McChrystal has provided the road map to victory.
Or it may be that some other strategy would work better, with fewer
risks. We can't know until we test every assumption and examine every option.

At the end of the day, we need to answer every question to the best
of our ability. Doing so will help develop the clarity required to
establish goals and strategies that minimize risk to our troops,
maintain regional stability, and protect our long-term national security.
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Mr. Kerry, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

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