Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category

Defense policy bill would require Trump’s Afghanistan, Syria … – The Hill

The House Armed Services Committees version of the annual defense policy bill would require the president to give Congress his strategies for United States involvement in Afghanistan and Syria.

The provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) are meant to ensure the administration follows through on its promise to give Congress an Afghanistan strategy and build off a previous bills requirement that it give Congress a Syria strategy, a committee aide said Monday.

For Afghanistan, Defense Secretary James Mattis has promised to deliver Congress a new strategy by mid-July that would include a troop increase of a few thousand to break what top generals have described as a stalemate.

To ensure Congress gets a strategy, the NDAA would require the Pentagon to submit a report by Feb. 15 that looks beyond the next five years and should connect current lines of effort to a steady state for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan that meets U.S. objectives, according to the bill summary.

Asked Monday whether the committee is concerned the administration is being too slow with the strategies, the aide said, Its not that.

With regard to Afghanistan, we are anticipating they havent made a decision but a change in their strategy and so its just, Ill call it 'due diligence and appropriate oversight' to ensure that we actually get that strategy articulated, the aide continued in a background briefing.

On Syria, Congress has been asking for the administrations broader strategy since President Trump ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian government airfield in April. The strike came in response to the chemical weapons attack on civilians carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad.

To that end, the catch-all fiscal 2017 appropriations bill required the president to submit a strategy for the Syrian civil war, as well as one for the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Congress fenced $2.5 billion until it receives the ISIS strategy.

Building on that, the NDAA would require a report by Feb. 1 that assesses the goals of state actors such as Iran, non-state threats such as al Qaeda and the ISIS, the resources and timeline required to achieve U.S. objectives, the transition from military operations to stabilization programs and the risks to U.S. forces.

The committee understands that the political and military situation in Syria is unpredictable and that the nature of U.S. involvement may change as the result of such volatility, the bill summary says. The committee, however, believes it important to articulate the United States' strategic objectives and describe a realistic process for achieving such objectives.

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The 5 Wars in Afghanistan – The Diplomat

U.S. policymakers are oblivious to the fact that Afghanistan is home to not one but five distinct conflicts.

By Abrar Ahmed for The Diplomat

June 27, 2017

The Associated Press reported on June 16 that Washington would soon add 4,000 more troops to the 14,000 U.S. and NATO troops already stationed in Afghanistan. This development would be the result of the U.S. interagency review process and corresponds with proposals from the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson. But increasing troops alone wont solve the Afghanistan conundrum.

The dominant discourse regardingthe Afghanistan crisis is often centered around U.S. war in Afghanistan and its strategic implications. This reductionist approach ignores the fact that Afghanistan is home to not one, but five distinct conflicts. Interestingly, four of these conflicts precede the U.S intervention in 2001. Nonetheless, the U.S. strategy is often oblivious to the regions historical intricacies, thus complicating the situation further still.

Afghanistans first war is ethnic in nature. It is an age-old political power struggle between the countrys dominant ethnic community, the Pashtuns, and the other ethnic groups: Uzbeks, Hazaras, Tajiks, Aimaqs, and a modicum of other small ethnic groups. Historically, Pashtuns have almost always been atthe top of political power in the country, despite the fact that they constitute less than half of the total population. They have vehemently struggled to preserve their favored position, which has consequently generated resistance, and their opponentshave created a web of shifting alliances to counter Pashtun power.

This was most vividly evident in 2004, when the new constitutional framework sought to stabilize the government by concentrating power effectively in the office of the president. This generated persistent opposition and hostility from non-Pashtun factions, so much so that, in 2014, President Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun, was forced to reach a power-sharing agreement with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik, under a National Unity Government.

The result of this settlement is a government thatis stable enough to sustain but too fragile to govern effectively. This division of power has created room for disagreements between Ghani and Abdullah to turn into political deadlock, particularly over political appointments. The inability of the government to hold or reschedule the planned parliamentary elections in October 2016 expressly manifested this deadlock.

These ethnic ruptures subsequently trickle down to the level of military platoons and local municipal government officials. It has created a patrimonial state apparatus whereby the patrons keep their subordinates in line with money and promotions, and the bureaucrats, in turn, fleece the people to repay their superiors. Thus, in a place where ethnic association is a principal source of political legitimacy, nepotism and corruption becomes rampant and pervades all sections of society. All of the efforts on part of international community to curtail corruption in Afghanistan have failed miserably. As proof, Afghanistan ranked 169th in Transparency Internationals 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index.

To make matters more complicated, there is also political strife among Afghanistans Pashtun community. This is the second conflict, inter-ethnic in nature, that runs along tribal lines and stretches back to 18th century. The primary antagonists are theGhilzai tribe of rural east and the elites of the Durrani tribe in the south. The Afghan state was founded in 1747 when the Ghilzai were defeated by the Durranis. Since then, the Durranis ruled the country, with a few brief exceptions, until 1996. Later, the Taliban seized power under the leadership of Ghilzai Mullah Mohammed Omar. The subsequent U.S. intervention handed countrys rule back to the Durranis by making Hamid Karzai the interim president in 2002. Today, the violence in Afghanistans east is the continuation of centuries-long power play between these two tribes. The majority of Taliban foot soldiers areGhilzai who deem themselves as fighting a holy war against Western invaders allied with a hostile Durrani-led government.

The third conflict is a cultural war between the cosmopolitan progressives in Afghanistans urban centers and religious conservatives in the rural areas. This conflict also stretched back hundreds of years. In the 19th century, Afghanistans emir, Abdur Rahman Khan, undertook a series of reforms to liberalize the country and delegitimize the ecclesiastical authority of religious leaders. Consequently, there were around 40 insurgencies during his reign.

In the 1920s, when his grandson Amanullah Khan sought to advance modernization and womens rights, the clerical mullahs engineered another rebellion that culminated in his abdication. In 1979, the communist leader Hafizullah Amin attempted to include women in a national literacy program, which sparked conservatives to rebel in the countrys west. The movement spread across the country when Amin tried to suppress the rebellion with force. This subsequently led the Soviet Union, which feared it was a CIA plot to destabilize the southern border of USSR, to invade Afghanistan. Gallons of ink has been spilled to note the chaos that followed thereafter.

The fourth conflict in Afghanistan is one that pervades the whole South Asian region: a cold war between Pakistan and India. Since decolonization, Pakistan has viewed its foreign policy through a security prism vis--vis India. In fact, both India and Pakistan have each used Afghanistan to gain strategic depth and asymmetric advantages over the other. The spillover effect of thiscold war in Afghanistan resulted in the creation of yet another insurgency the Pakistani Taliban, who have operated primarily in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. This extremist upsurge is connected to the larger Taliban movement, and both countries have been accused of using Afghanistans soil to prop up insurgencies in each others territories.

Layered on top of these four conflicts is the ongoing U.S. war against the Taliban in the country, which has, in turn, accentuated all other conflicts. These forces are pulling Afghanistan apart. Deploying 4,000 more troops would not end the long-standing ethnic conflict between the Pashtun and other communities, nor would it mitigate the centuries-old tribal hostility between the Durrani and the Ghilzai. Rural communities would keep resisting any form of foreign invasion or attempts to alter their traditional culture. More than 15 years of scrupulous U.S. diplomacy has been unable to change Islamabads strategic calculus in Afghanistan and the country wont cease being the theater of an India-Pakistan cold war anytime soon.

By adding more troops, Trump will be making the same mistake his predecessors did. At best, the Trump administrations latest surge will partially inhibit the Talibans momentum. It wont contribute to creating a conducive environment for establishing sustainable peace in the country. Instead, the Trump administration should pursue a containment strategy a minimalistic approach that protects the U.S. homeland from terrorist networks in Afghanistan and prevents regional destabilization that could encompass its neighbors. In the context of these multiple conflicts, the goal to turn Afghanistan into a modern, liberal state is neither achievable nor sustainable.

Abrar Ahmedis a political analyst and a specialist in global democratic affairs based in Lahore, Pakistan.

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The 5 Wars in Afghanistan - The Diplomat

India, US agree to strengthen ties to ensure peace in Afghanistan – The Indian Express

By: PTI | Washington | Published:June 27, 2017 6:45 am Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump discussed in depth several regional issues, including Afghanistan during their meeting. (Photo: Reuters)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump today agreed to continue strengthening coordination for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan as they expressed concern over rising instability in the war-torn country caused by terrorism. Trump thanked the Indian people for their contributions to the effort in Afghanistan, and for joining us in applying new sanctions against the North Korean regime.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump discussed in depth several regional issues, including Afghanistan during their meeting.

Modi said the rising instability in Afghanistan due to terrorism is a cause of mutual concern for both India and the US.

India and the US have played a crucial role in the redevelopment of Afghanistan and its security. We will have close coordination, consultation and communication to achieve peace and stability in Afghanistan, Modi said.

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India, US agree to strengthen ties to ensure peace in Afghanistan - The Indian Express

Can There Be Peace With Honor in Afghanistan? – Foreign Policy (blog)

Over the next few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is due to provide President Donald Trump with a new strategy for Afghanistan. This will be the latest in a long series, produced on a regular basis since 2001, all with the core objective of preventing the country reverting to a sanctuary for terrorism. Mattis cannot be accused of ramping up expectations for the new approach he is seeking to develop. He describes the current situation as a stalemate, but with the balance having swung to the Taliban. Reversing this, he argues, will require more troops to help develop Afghan capabilities. When asked what it would mean to win, he says violence must be brought down to a level where it could be managed by the Afghan government without it posing a mortal threat.

There are several obstacles to even this modest definition of victory. First, it envisions an Afghan government able to competently deal with groups such as al Qaeda without outside assistance; it envisions, in other words, a government very different than the one Afghanistan has had for some time. Another obstacle is posed by the supporters of the former Taliban government, who are well embedded in Afghanistan and have sympathetic backers in Pakistan. Regardless of the strategy Mattis settles on, the war offers little prospect for a stable end-state in which the Afghan government will be able to think about issues other than security, or U.S. forces can withdraw without having to rush back to repair the damage as the Taliban surge once more.

But Afghanistan is not unique in this regard. The situation in Iraq is similar, as are the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Ukraine, and any number of other international conflicts. We have entered an era of wars that wax and wane in intensity, and at best become manageable, rather than end with ceremonies to conclude hostilities. The challenge posed to traditional notions of war by these endless conflicts has been the subject of much debate. What is long overdue is reflection on the challenge posed to our definition of peace.

Once upon a time the distinction between war and peace was clear-cut. Peace ended when war was declared. Almost immediately acts which had previously been considered criminal, harmful and obnoxious became legal and desirable. Trade would be blocked and aliens interned. Neutrals had to pay attention. Eventually the war would end when a treaty was signed, setting the terms for a new peace. The fighting would stop, trade would resume and aliens would be released. Neutrals could get on with their business. As the previous peace had been flawed, for it had ended with war, the new peace must address those flaws. In addition, as wars involve sacrifices and pain, the new peace must provide a degree of reward and compensation. It must represent progress.

It has been a long time since we enjoyed such clarity. Wars are no longer declared. The trend began in the 1930s, including the use of euphemisms for war, as those states which had renounced war as an instrument of national policy (the language of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact) embarked on invasions. The trend was set by the Manchurian Incident of 1931, when Japan invaded China. The Second World War involved lots of declarations, but few wars have been declared since. In those many contemporary wars that involve civil conflict, formal declarations are obviously irrelevant. Cease-fires and peace settlements are regular but they have a habit of not sticking. Meanwhile, international wars now frequently conclude with no more than a cease-fire agreement (as with Korea in 1953 or Iraq in 1991), explicitly leaving open the possibility that they can resume at a later date.

So, warfare has become less of a separate, marked-off activity, demarcated in time and space, and instead a messy condition, marked by violence, found within and between states. It can involve examples of force that are intense but localized or else widespread and sporadic. Borders have become permeable, so that neighbors move in and out while denying that they are engaged in anything so blatant as aggression. The absence of large-scale hostilities at any particular moment in any particular region does not mean that peace has broken out because they are often on the edge of war. A true peace needs to be for the long-term, with disputes resolved and relations getting closer not a pause to allow for restocking and some recuperation before the struggle continues.

As the line between peace and war has become blurred, international relations scholars have used a simple measure of 1,000 battle deaths in a given year to mark when the line is crossed into war. A conflict with fewer battle deaths, then, for analytical purposes is not a war but merely a militarized inter-state dispute. With civil wars the threshold is much lower in the key databases than inter-state wars, so fighting can sneak below the required level but then sneak up again. Over long periods countries, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, can experience many different sorts of violence without ever enjoying a lengthy period of tranquility that might deserve to be known as peace. The literature now refers to war prevention and war termination without requiring any references to the peace being left or to which it is hoped to return.

There are still peacekeeping missions, meant to sustain a tentative peace, but when these missions have been sent into situations without any peace to keep the term has proved clearly inadequate. Some variations were attempted to recognize this difficulty such as peace enforcement or peace support until it was accepted that a durable peace might prove to be elusive and so instead the designation became stabilization operations.

When a war was undertaken for purposes of conquest then success could be measured in terms of territory gained or held. But conquest, pure and simple, is no longer represented as a legitimate objective of war, even when territory is being seized. The old imperialism was also often presented as a civilizing process, and not just about plunder and exploitation. Once the empires were dismantled after 1945 there was no appetite to construct anything comparable. Instead help with state-building is offered. Victory, for which Gen. Douglas MacArthur told us there is no substitute, is another word that has fallen out of fashion, except when talking about a specific battle. President George W. Bush tried mission accomplished in Iraq, but it turned out that it wasnt. When describing a desirable situation these days order is used as much as peace. The concept of peace has become a notable absentee in contemporary strategic discourse.

Even university departments of peace studies spend a lot of time talking about conflict and violence and how to stop it. Those working in this tradition are heirs to the idealism that saw war as unnatural and representing the worst of human nature and national conceits. They continue to oppose militarism and its representations in mainstream thinking. But even within this tradition there has always been a tension between those who are essentially pacifists, so that any violence is retrograde, and those who believe that war can only be banished through the defeat of injustice and the promotion of freedom. On the one hand is the absence of war, the negative peace when hatreds may still simmer and repression may be rife; on the other the more positive peace, which might require taking sides once fighting has begun.

The importance of this distinction is that when we do get around to discussing peace it is largely in positive terms. Peace must be just and lasting. A coming peace is rarely described in terms that acknowledge the challenges facing war-torn societies as they attempt to recover and reform. The promise, once the evil-doers are defeated, is of freedom and democracy flourishing, bringing with them prosperity and social harmony. Even when intervening in societies whose future we cannot (and should not) control the West is reluctant to say that we have done little more than calm things down and made things less bad than they might have been. It is difficult to justify the lives lost and the expenses incurred in the most discretionary intervention by proclaiming a so-so result. Indeed, the temptation is to cover the promised outcome with the full rhetorical sugar-coating. Looking back at the claims made about what could be achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ambition is extraordinary: terrorism defeated, a fearful ideology discredited, whole regions turned toward the path of democracy and away from dictatorship, an end to the drug trade, and so on.

Yet we know, and have been reminded, that the brutality and violence associated with war is not a natural route to a good peace. War leaves its legacy in grieving, division, and bitterness, in shattered infrastructure, routine crime, and displaced populations vulnerable to hunger and disease. There were good peaces achieved after 1945 with both Germany and Japan (which is why the wars that led to their defeat were considered unambiguously good). But these required more than military victory. They also demanded the commitment of a considerable amount of civilian planning and resources that would have been quickly lost if the Cold War had ever turned hot.

The astonishing feature of the invasion of Iraq was the refusal to put any effort into what was described as the aftermath of the occupation, and the complete lack of preparedness to take advantage of whatever opportunities for a better society that might have been created. If we look back at policy failures here and elsewhere they often lie in the reluctance to make the effort and deploy the resources to address the long-term issues of reconstruction once fighting subsides. In short, there has been no agreed view about the demands of peace.

Thucydidess observation that wars are undertaken for reasons of fear, honor, and interest has been quoted by members of the Trump administration. These three words allow for a wealth of interpretation and all can be said to be in play when dealing with the Islamic State or Afghanistan. Of the three, doing justice to fear would require not only the elimination of terrorist sanctuaries in the respective countries, which might be possible, but preventing their return, which seems optimistic. Securing American interests might require the establishment of states that are more stable, and societies that are more free, and less sectarian, internally violent, and corrupt. These are individually matters of degree and also do not come as a package. The tension between social order and individual freedom runs through political theory as well as Western foreign policy and is no closer to resolution. Even the best likely outcomes now will feel unsatisfactory even if further calamities can be avoided.

Which leaves honor as the final path to peace. This is the simplest to achieve as all it requires is acting in a principled way with high standards. It does not preclude a disappointing material outcome. Indeed, when we think of peace with honor, two great failures that come to mind. In 1938 this is what British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain claimed to have achieved when he came back from Munich after meeting with Hitler, as did U.S. President Richard Nixon when talking about the Paris Peace Accords at the start of 1973. Honor means you did what you could, not that you achieved what you set out to achieve.

We talk about peace as a utopian condition, as a set of desiderata for a better world to keep us motivated when times are tough, or when inquiring into the requirements of postwar reconstruction. But the nature of the peace we seek needs to be integrated as a matter of course into any military strategy, and in contemporary conditions requires a renewed commitment to realism. There is no point in describing an attractive future if there is no obvious way to reach it. Military planners should remember that the conduct of a war, as well as the cause for which it is fought, shapes any eventual peace. Opportunities need to be taken to consider what might seriously be achieved through the use of force, nonviolent alternatives that might achieve comparable objectives, and also what can be done with a war that others have started but we wish to see finished.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war, goes the Roman adage. But if you prepare for war then at least think about the peace you want.

Photo credit:JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP/Getty Images

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Can There Be Peace With Honor in Afghanistan? - Foreign Policy (blog)

Top US military officer arrives in Afghanistan to finalize plans for troop increase – Fox News

The U.S. militarys top officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., arrived in Afghanistan Monday to finalize plans for adding several thousand more troops there.

Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress he will present a new plan for Afghanistan and the region in mid-July.

We are not winning in Afghanistan right now, and we will correct this as soon as possible, said Mattis, who called the new plan a fundamental change from the Obama administrations policy.

Mattis told lawmakers part of the change involves moving U.S. troops closer to the fight to help Afghan forces -- decimated with record casualties last year -- to call in airstrikes against the Taliban.In this way, officials say the new strategy in Afghanistan will look like the current fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with more American troops calling in airstrikes to support local forces.

Earlier this month, President Trump gave his defense secretary the authority to determine how many more troops were needed in Afghanistan.

Defense officials say Mattiss authority from the president to increase troops is in the 3,000-5,000 range and not above that number. While not a blank check, the move would enable Mattis to make small changes without having to ask permission from the White House each time to speed up the process, officials say.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (AP)

The Pentagon is also asking for NATO contributions as well.

In February, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill he needed a few thousand more troops including from allies, less than two months after then-President Obama ordered roughly 1,500 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan at the end of December. Officials say the increase in forces in the coming weeks makes up for cut at the end of 2016.

Dunford was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan from 2013-2014.

There are roughly 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan right now.Unofficially, officials say that number is closer to 10,000.

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

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Top US military officer arrives in Afghanistan to finalize plans for troop increase - Fox News