Afghanistan-A Way Forward
I read and circulated the Johnson/Mason article last week. Jon is correct about the "spooky" part.
But, I think Fred Moolten writing here is correct about what are modest, achievable goals, part of a "necessary war" that has to be concluded to be just. A third withdrawal that fails, again, is not just. various proxy war players attempting to "bleed" each other in Afghanistan is not just. Just war is the only kind we should attempt, and, even then, only when "necessary", as I think this is and that Barack Obama always insisted it was.
I would add that we should be prepared to lose, sometimes. Asserting invincibility is civilian vanity -- not a military virtue. being of Southern heritage, I always gagged when Nixon claimed during Vietnam that "Americans never lost a war!". Huh, my folks lost big time from second Manassas to Pea Ridge. we are from Texas, but we do not make idle threats about "secession".
Which brings me to what may be one of several non-trivial, non-Vietnam analogies:
First, that the GOP proposes a war of escalation as the alternative to a war of attrition is not surprising. They have done that since WWII, when they wanted Patton to invade the Soviet Union and us to start dropping atomic bombs.
But, Barack Obama is not leading a coalition of Southern Democrats and moderate Republicans. he has no post-Civil War coalition that, in effect, gave most of the War, Navy, Treasury, Interior, and Commerce portfolios to the GOP. I do not think that he as drunk the neo-con Kool Aid.
No, he is "inexperienced" but "confident" in the manner of Abraham Lincoln. that is nothing like those Democratic Presidents with a lot of experience or virtue -- like Buchanan and Davis. It is not like those as had to or wanted to govern -- like Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton -- in coalition with the other party.
The GOP wants this and all wars to be seen as a matter of ideology/religion. but, those are rare, probably just literary. this is not one, for sure.
I am not sure we begin to understand exactly what Fourth Generation Warfare is about today. and, as in most medicine, we may have to come up with a cure by trial-and-error without understanding the etiology of what we are dealing with.
Here is my main thought as to the difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan: Afghanistan is a country wracked by over 30 years of proxy wars that we are part of whether present or not from time to time on the ground.
Afghanistan is not a nation which will end a civil war and become united once the colonial, post-colonial, neo-colonial foreign troops are gone. on the contrary, the proxy wars will continue or expand, especially if and as various nuclear ambitions become involved.
The COINistas propose de-escalation as a tactic. They may or may not, yet, understand how to do that. I certainly do not know. My son, a Captain, is one of those figuring this out, but I am too old for that stuff.
However, I am sure anything involving nuclear ordnance is a strategy -- and not one we or should be forced to or let anybody else resort to, if we can prevent it.
