HOME / war stories: Military analysis.

CounterinsurgenterrorismObama's new policy for Afghanistan tries to steer a middle course.

By Fred KaplanPosted Friday, March 27, 2009, at 7:00 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

RSS

Then again, Obama engaged in a bit of finesse, too. Most critically, it's unclear where all these civilian specialists are going to come from—or, more critically still, who's going to protect them from insurgents' attack. (There are, at least initially, not enough troops to go after terrorists, protect the Afghan population, and protect civilian advisers from the West.) Unless that latter question is settled, nobody is going to report for duty.

But what may have been most interesting about Obama's speech is how little of it dealt with Afghanistan at all. Most of it concerned Pakistan. He wants to spend $1.5 billion a year for the next five years on direct support—roads, schools, hospitals, "opportunity zones" on the border—if Pakistan's leaders get serious about rooting out the terrorists on their western border. He also called for a "contact group" for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together everyone with a stake in the region's security—not just NATO and the Gulf nations but also China, India, Iran, and Russia. Obama seems to understand that policy in Afghanistan, even if it went perfectly, is irrelevant if Pakistan remains in turmoil. (At the press conference after Obama's speech, Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the area, explicitly said as much.)

So what are Obama's real plans? What can we expect to see over the next year or so? It's hard to say. But today's remarks allow us to engage in some informed speculation:

First, at NATO's summit next week, Obama will ask the allies to increase their economic and development assistance to Afghanistan. (He seems to have surmised that they're not going to send many more troops.)

Over the next several months, U.S. air and ground forces will step up direct attacks on al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the south and east, to kill as many of them as possible and to keep them away from populated areas, where they might disrupt the presidential elections in August. This is essential in the short run; if the Afghan people are prevented from fairly and freely choosing their national leader (whether it's Karzai or somebody else), all subsequent efforts to secure and stabilize the country will be fruitless.

In the meantime, Obama—and, he hopes, a lot of allies—will pressure Karzai to crack down on corruption, pressure the Pakistanis to crack down on insurgents in the northwest territories, and lay the groundwork for his regional diplomacy.

By the time the election is over, the 4,000 advisers from the 82^nd Airborne will have just started working with Afghan units. Depending on how their pre-election offensives have gone, these soldiers will either continue to reinforce this CT effort, move to a COIN approach, or do some mix of both.

At this point, plans get murky—because nobody knows what things will look like. In his speech today, Obama promised to establish firm "benchmarks" and "metrics" by which to measure progress or failure in every area—counterterrorism, population-security, anti-corruption efforts, the whole mix. If the Afghan and Pakistani leaders don't meet these benchmarks, Obama will …

Well, it's not clear what he'll do. But it's a fair guess that one thing he won't do is send the level of troops or spend the amount of money required for a full-blown counterinsurgency campaign. If things go well, he still might not shift to

COIN, but maybe he'll be better-positioned to persuade other governments to join the effort. ("None of the steps I've outlined … should be taken by America alone," he said in his speech.)

At a press conference after Obama's speech, Bruce Riedel, who led the White House strategic review on the new policy, admitted that specific benchmarks haven't yet been defined. Holbrooke added that the strategy itself is "a framework within which there's plenty of flexibility to bring in ideas which are not in this report."

In one sense, this is worrisomely open-ended. But in the broader context, it's only reasonable. Obama is saying that what he does a year from now depends, in large part, on what happens between now and then. "We will not blindly stay the course," he said, in a clear jab at his predecessor. We "will not, and cannot, provide a blank check."

Biden's argument against an all-out COIN strategy stemmed from caution about getting sucked into a possible quagmire—a resistance to uncontrolled escalation. It's a resistance that Obama seems to share.