It's About Politics, Stupid: A Political War, Being Fought Militarily

[kpete]

A Political War, Being Fought Militarily
by JOSHUA FOUST on 6/3/2011 · 19 COMMENTS

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The war in Afghanistan is, at a very fundamental level, political. The dispute growing between the High Peace Council and the National Movement is, at a very fundamental level, political. I’ve been harping on this for years, that many of the biggest problems we face in Afghanistan are neither military nor economic in nature, but political. The U.S. has never had real challenges on the battlefield—the Army and Marines are terrifyingly good at “clearing” areas. But the politics of what to do with those cleared areas has always mystified NATO and ISAF.

The Washington Post recently reported that the Marines have spent nearly $1.3 billion in the last 18 months in Marjeh, and there remains no political structure to assist with governance. Even in supposedly successful places like Nawa, also in Helmand, the Marines have shown a marked inability to understand and affect the political context of the areas they control—and they have been substantially more successful than the Army in doing this! But they’re stuck in a stilted mode of thinking that, once the guys with guns sweep through, they can lavish money upon an area and declare it successful.

This is not a war the Taliban are winning: from a political perspective they’re barely more functional than the Afghan government is. It is a war we are losing—by ignoring the politics of Afghanistan, of the basic political question driving the war (e.g. what will be the ultimate political system of Afghanistan), and the politics preventing Afghans and Taliban from sitting down to negotiate, we are sowing the seeds of failure.

Meanwhile, we’ll focus on building farms for farmers, as if Afghans who already farm need any help learning how to farm. We are choosing not to get it. The key question facing policymakers—how do you create the structures for a political process without dictating an outcome or working against our interests—is, sadly, left unasked and unanswered.

the rest:
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2011/06/03/a-political-war-being-fought-militarily/

[xchrom]

1. it's our newest, bestest export -- incompetence.

i'm sure someone will come along to express surprise shortly.