The Debatable Land

Paying Tribute to the New Emperor

One of the odder characteristics of a certain strain of British right-wing thinking is the terror that British Prime Ministers might ever disagree with the American president. It's almost as if there's a fear that if Britain takes an different view then Washington will chuck us overboard and find a new european friend with whom to play. (Sometimes that's the Germans, though at the moment the French might be thought the more likely rivals). Such fears are, I suspect, overdone. Still, here's Con Coughlin today:

But the quid pro quo for a bigger American military commitment to Afghanistan is that Washington's European allies - which includes Britain - step up to the plate and commit more resources of their own. But although Britain currently makes the most important contribution in terms of fighting the Taliban, Mr Brown seems strangely reluctant to support the proposed American surge, which could immediately put him on a collision course with the new American president.

It is very much in Britain's national interest to have a good relationship with the White House, and Mr Brown will sacrifice a lot of important political capital if he does not soon come up with a workable strategy for the future deployment of British forces in Afghanistan. 

Indeed, a good relationship with the White House is important, but is it everything? Coughlin's last paragraph has a whiff of antiquity about it: you can imagine such calculations being made by one of Rome's allied (ie, vassal) states or tribes, desperate to remain on good terms with the new emperor and, consequently, reviewing battleplans to impress the man in Rome with the zeal with which you're prepared to send your sons into battle alongside or on behalf of the Empire's own legions... Above all, a "collision course" with the new Emperor must be avoided at any cost...

This is in response to a Times piece claiming that the Americans are disatissfied with British military performance in Helmand province. Perhaps they are. And perhaps the public is increasingly of the view that if the Americans want Helmand province, they can bleedin' well have it...

The Afghan Conundrum

Joe Klein has been to Afghanistan, so that puts him one up on me. Still, having spent some time pointing out the (widely-acknowledged) complexity of the situation in Afghanistan, Klein concludes his piece with this sweeping pronouncement:

The first step toward resolving the war in Afghanistan is to lay down the law in both Islamabad and Kabul. The message should be the same in both cases: The unsupervised splurge of American aid is over. The Pakistanis will have to stop giving tacit support and protection to terrorists, especially the Afghan Taliban. The Karzai government will have to end its corruption and close down the drug trade. There are plenty of other reforms necessary — the international humanitarian effort is a shabby, self-righteous mess; some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden — but the war will remain a bloody stalemate at best as long as jihadis come across the border from Pakistan and the drug trade flourishes.

Well, now that Joe Klein's pointed this out, Tommy Taliban might as well acknowledge that the game is up. You've been rumbled. Time, lads, for a spot of "lifelong learning" and "skills" training for other, alternative means of employment. After all, now that we know it's as simple as a) telling little Mr Karzai (such a disappointment, don't you know?)to sharpen up his act and b) ending the drug trade (!!) we can all rest easy knowing that there is a map, even if the only thing written on it, albeit in pleasingly large letters, is VICTORY. As maps go, that's pretty bloody useless.

Perhaps I'm being unfair on Mr Klein. Perhaps the strictures of TIME's house-style require him to keep the punters happy and feed them a sufficient dose of trite policy prescriptions that, in the unlikely event some heel mentions the bloody war, will help them survive their next social engagement.

One other thing: "Some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden". Well, that's become the prevailing view and I dare say there's some truth to it. Some troops probably could do with operating under more robust terms of engagement and all the rest of it. But all of them, regardless of nationality, would be better served by a strategy that had clear and realistic goals. Or to put it another way, if I were a Pomeranian, I'm not sure that it would be head-slappingly obvious to me that Afghanistan is worth the bones of any (or any more) of my grenadiers...

Anyway: Mike Crowley's article in TNR is a much better, if gloomy, analysis of the problems Afghanistan is going to pose President Obama.

Obama and Europe, Cont.

Dan Drezner politely suggests I'm talking (or writing, rather) through my hat in this gloomy assessment of the transformational potential of the Obama presidency. Dan prefers to see the potential rather than the pitfalls. And he may be correct. It would probably be better for all if he were.

As it happens, I do think he's right to argue that many european policy elites - and certainly much of the think tank world - do believe that Afghanistan must and can be saved. And it is certainly possible that withdrawing form Iraq (if that proves possible) could create the space and manpower needed to refocus on the "Good War". Nonetheless, I suspect european public opinion has soured on or, to be more generous, is simply confused by a conflict that drags on with little sign of progress, let alone an endgame. Now it's certainly possible that Obama can leverage his popularity and the idea of a fresh start and lead by example in Afghanistan. Jim Jones' experience with NATO and Europe Command should help - though of course Jones will be familiar with the limits of what NATO can realistically achieve, as well as its potential.

Iran seems more difficult, however. The proliferation consequences of an Iranian bomb are, to say the least, disconcerting but it's hard to imagine there being any european enthusiasm for a military strike against Tehran. And that, of course, remains the default, bottom-line US position. Let us hope it never comes to that.

What is also striking, however, is how, as Ben Macintyre writes in the Times today, Obama's relationship with europe is very different from that of most of his predecessors. It's not merely that he's a different generation, it's that his cultural background is Kenya, Kansas, Hawaii and Indonesia. He's one of the few Presidents of recent times who has not looked to europe and perhaps the first to see it as just another, if still important, place. Even Bill Clinton had been a Rhodes Scholar (though not a particularly happy one) while George W Bush had actually spent more time in Scotland than any other foreign country prior to becoming President. And of course, he was part of an Andover and the Ivy League elite, even if he had transferred his primary self-identity to Texas. His father, of course, like Reagan before him, was steeped in the transatlantic alliance.

So, even more than Clinton and Dubya, Obama's Presidency marks a break with the established conventions of the transatlantic alliance. An alliance built, of course, on WW2 and the Cold War. His memoir, as Macintyre reminds us, finds Obama feeling “edgy, defensive, hesitant” while travelling in Europe. “It wasn't that Europe wasn't beautiful,” he writes. “It just wasn't mine.”

Perhaps this means Obama has the benefit of a fresh, less misty-eyed perspective, one that casts off the humbug of the "Special Relationship" and enduring ties with the "old continent". But it may also mean - time will tell! - that he's less instinctively attuned to european sensibilities and interests. His enthusiasm for Georgian and Ukrainian NATO membership could be taken to suggest that, for instance.

On the flip side, Obama's break with history may mean that he will be less likely to take the Bushian attitude that "you guys owe us". A partnership needs to be just that and it's not a partnership if one side isn't on occasion permitted to say "No". Still, so far Obama seems to have been suggesting a recalibration of the essential Washington worldview, rather than any fundamental change to it. Nonetheless, as I say, it would might well be best if Dan is right and I am, er, not.

Winning and Losing in Afghanistan

A rather interesting development in Kabul. The French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaînė (France's Private Eye) claims that the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has told the French that the war is lost. According to Le Canard:

The British ambassador and his deputy have in turn contacted me to pass on their analysis of the situation before the Franco-British meeting on Afghanistan. These were their main points:

-- The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the government has lost all trust. Our public statements should not delude us over the fact that the insurrection, while incapable of winning a military victory, nevertheless has the capacity to make life increasingly difficult, including in the capital.

-- The presence -- especially the military presence -- of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution. The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them. In doing so, they are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis (which, moreover, will probably be dramatic.

The British Ambassador also told the French:

The reinforcement of the military presence would have a perverse effect: it would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and it would multiply the number of targets (for the insurgents).

We have no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan... but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one.

"Within five or ten years from now... (it would be positive) if Afghanistan were governed by an acceptable dictator... This outlook is the only realistic one and we should prepare our public opinion to accept it... In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan.... The American strategy is destined to fail.

Now, of course, a) this may not be true and b) is only one, admittedly well-placed, man's view. Nonetheless, let's suppose that this is an accurate summary of the British Embassy's views. What does it mean?

At the very least one might hope it will cause some people to ask some questions. We like to think of Afghanistan as the "good" war. But what does that mean? Allied troops have been in Afghanistan for six years now and a military victory remains elusive. Is this merely a matter of resources? If it's not, then how useful are promises to pour more troops into Afghanistan? And what does victory look like anyway? How sustainable are current operations? In fact, are we more concerned with "winning" the "war on drugs" than with pacifying the Hindu Kush and Helmand province? To what extent is the drug war compromising our ability to achieve our other objectives? Furthermore, what sort of threat does the Taliban (and a rump al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan pose to the non-Afghan world? Is it containable absent a military occupation? How long should our current occupation last? Dare we tell the public? Can we win? What are the adverse consequences, if any, of winning?

I don't pretend to know the answers to these questions. But I'd be interested in seeing them asked in Washington and London and Paris. The Ambassador, if he's been quoted correctly, may well be wrong. But what if he's right?

[Hat-tip: Art Goldhammer]

Palin on Afghanistan

So, yeah, keeping Sarah Palin away from the press isn't too stupid a strategy. The second half of her interview with Katie Couric airs tonight. Alas, it's on foreign policy and it's not, I think, likely to be pretty. Here, for instance, is Palin talking about Afghanistan:

Katie Couric: Why is it much more challenging there? Can you explain that?

Sarah Palin: The logistics that we are already suggesting here, not having enough troops in the area right now. The… things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that-- Bin Laden is-- is hiding out right now and… and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There… there are many more challenges there. So, again, I believe that… a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq. That's not gonna get us any better off in Afghanistan either. And as our leaders are telling us in our military, we do need to ramp it up in Afghanistan, counting on our friends and allies to assist with us there because these terrorists who hate America, they hate what we stand for with the… the freedoms, the democracy, the… the women's rights, the tolerance, they hate what it is that we represent and our allies, too, and our friends, what they represent. If we were… were to allow a stronghold to be captured by these terrorists then the world is in even greater peril than it is today. We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan.

This is, alas, just gibberish, isn't it? There's ordinary and not being part of the Washington elite and then there's being, well, like this.

UPDATE: Palin on Russia is actually almost painful to watch. What have they been teaching her these past three weeks? This is excruciating.

UPDATE: See this post for more.

No escape for Brown

Hamid Karzai, wag:

Gordon Brown had to suffer the indignity of a joke about his leadership from Afghan president Hamid Karzai during a press conference in Kabul.

Mr Karzai, who faces numerous challenges to his own leadership, made the quip as reporters pressed the British Prime Minister over his relationship with David Miliband.

“Cabinet ministers plotting is nothing new. We have it in Afghanistan - although not my foreign minister,” Mr Karzai remarked.

Brown of course also pledged to continue the futile drug war. We've been in Afghanistan for six years now. To what end? Or, to put it another way, what will we achieve in ten years that we couldn't in six?

Rupert Murdoch's Curious NATO Vision

From James Joyner:

News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch says that NATO is in a “crisis of confidence” because Western Europe is “losing its faith in the values and institutions that have kept us free.” He calls for a radical redefinition of the Alliance in order to save it, including extending membership to Australia, Japan, and Israel.

Murdoch, who is receiving the Atlantic Council of the United States’ Distinguished Business Leader Award for 2008, says in his prepared remarks that, “We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. And it means that reform will not come from within.” Accordingly, he continued, “we need to transform this Alliance from a community formed around a map to a community based on common values and a willingness to take joint action in defense of these values.” Indeed, he argued, “Expansion is the only hope of invigorating an Alliance weighed down by those who are no longer willing to commit themselves to defend its founding principles.”

Murdoch contends that, “Around the world, there is no shortage of nations who share our values, and are willing to defend them. I am thinking of countries like Australia, which sent troops to Iraq … Israel, which has been fighting Islamic terrorism almost since its founding … and Japan, which generally follows a more ‘Western’ policy than most of Western Europe.” Ultimately, he argued, “If we continue to define the West or the Alliance as a strictly geographical concept, the Alliance will continue to erode. But if we define the West as a community of values, institutions, and a willingness to act jointly, we will revive an important bastion of freedom — and make it as pivotal in our own century as it was in the last.”

Well, this is what Rudy Giuliani recommended all those months ago when he fleetingly seemed a credible Presidential candidate. And one can see that there's something to it (though the extent of that something may only run as far as your willingness to endorse the theory that we're witnessing - or engaged in - a genuine clash of civilisations).

But... a couple of points need to be remembered. Who are these people "no longer willing to commit themselves to defend [NATO's] founding principles"? One supposes that Murdoch means many western european countries who've been reluctant to send troops to Iraq (and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan). But in what sense is Iraq a conflict to defend NATO's founding principles since the organisation was founded to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union?

Moreover, it's often forgotten that NATO did in fact treat the September 11th attacks as an act of war upon one of its members and, for the first time in the organisation's history, invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe  or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties  so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force,   to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

At the time  - ie, autumn 2001 - this was frequently cited in Washington and London as adding legitimacy to the argument in favour of military action in Afghanistan. The subsequent Iraq controversy has overhadowed the fact that, in Britain at least, the Aghan operation was not without controversy. (You may recall the warnings about the Hindu Kush and the Afghan winter and the British and Soviet experiences there).

Equally, it's the case that NATO offers of assistance were - for understandable reasons - brushed off by the United States. As I say, on psychological as well as practical military grounds one can understand why Washington took this attitude but like any other action this decision had consequences. I suspect that european countries would have been prepared to commit more to Afghanistan had they been asked to or treated as allies rather than as unwelcome appendages to US military might.

Subsequently, having been rebuffed once one can see why european countries might have been reluctant to assist the US in Iraq - a mission that was, quite clearly, less than intimately related to the immediate causes of 9/11 and, in any case, unpopular with voters across europe. In those circumstances, in fact, it's striking how many NATO members have contributed at least some troops to Iraq (even if, naturally, these have often been small deployments). Furthermore, it's hard to see why any NATO member would feel an urge to be involved in Iraq given Donald Rumsfeld's admission that the Pentagon didn't need even the 45,000 British troops committed to the invasion force in 2003. Why stick your neck out for no real reward and, domestically, the prospect of real pain in the partnership of an ally who may well regard your presence as an inconvenience?

Then there's this: “We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies."

Well, maybe. But as I say, the recent record (going back to the Balkan wars as well as Afghanistan) doesn't support Murdoch's hypothesis. More immediately, who has actually attacked europe? Does Murdoch really think that europe is under attack? From whom? Clearly there are people - as events n London and Madrid have demonstrated - who wish western europe ill, but in what way, shape or form does Murdoch think that NATO - either as currently constituted or in his expanded version of the alliance - is the best or most appropriate organisation to meet that threat?

Now maybe NATO does need to be reformed, but this doesn't, at first blush, seem an especially persuasive case for doing so.

            

Washington, You Have a Problem

The invasion of Iraq may have been deeply unpopular in much of the world, but this is the sort of horrific story that has done the United States much more damage than the initial decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. And, alas, it's hard not to think that this damage is entirely deserved. The shame of it.

At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.

Five years later he was finally released from Guantanamo. Naturally he'd been tortured. Do read the whole thing.

Or you can watch the full 60 Minutes video here:

Also: if you haven't seen it yet but have the opportunity to do so, I unreservedly recommend that you watch the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.

[Hat-tip: Outside the Beltway]

Harry of the Hindu Kush

A defence* of Royalty: Prince Harry in Afghanistan. Oddly stirring stuff, actually.

Good for him and, amazingly, good for the MoD and the media for ensuring that the Prince's comrades were not endangered by his presence on the front line becoming a matter of public knowledge until now.

UPDATE: Fraser says some of the most prominent British bloggers knew of Harry's deployment and kept the news to themselves too. This ain't a new media vs old media tussle, it's common sense and, in this instance, a certain courtesy to a young soldier who wants to serve his country without imperiling his comrades. Nothing significant is gained by "breaking" an agreed embargo on this sort of thing and nothing lost by honouring it until such point as it expires or, as in this case, becomes moot.

UPDATE 2: Trusty, credible commenter Beth Noire, suggests gossip site Popbitch knew in December and scrubbed all references to Harry's service from its chatroom.

*Spelling corrected to scrub accidental Americanism. Thanks Panenka.

Christmas Quote of the Year

More from Helmand province where Sergeant Kraig Whalley of the Royal Military Police says:

"We were thinking of challenging the Taliban to a game of football on Christmas Day, but I'm not sure they'd get the joke."

[Hat-tip, Ben Brogan]

Moustaches of the Hindu Kush

Christmas in Helmand Province, Afghanistan can't be the bonniest gig on the planet. Hence this contest amongst the Royal Marines of 40 Commando: who can grow the spiffiest moustache. Best, however, is Major Alex Murray's reminder that this takes us back to the days of the great Harry Flashman:

"Generations of our forefathers have been marching around these hills with the most splendid array of facial hair," he says. "We found throughout history, the upper lip has been stiffened with a good moustache.

"Some aspects of warfare are timeless, and in this case the requirement for impressive facial hair is as important today as it was for our forefathers working on the North West Frontier.

"Generations of British marines have operated in places like Afghanistan over the last two centuries. Often working in austere conditions, a good tash has proved essential in maintaining the stiff upper lip, and north Helmand in the current clime is no exception."

Pictures of some hirsute lobsters* here.

Happy Christmas lads, anyway.

*Old nickname for the Marines, derived from the red tunics they wore on board Royal Navy ships.

And they call this victory? Heaven preserve us from defeat...

Today's lunacy comes from US officials whose diligence and patience in seeking fresh ways to wreck Afghanistan could be commendable were it not to eye-wateringly stupid:

It is a measure of this country’s virulent opium trade, which has helped revive the Taliban while corroding the credibility of the Afghan government, that American officials hope that Afghanistan’s drug problem will someday be only as bad as that of Colombia.

While the Latin American nation remains the world’s cocaine capital and is still plagued by drug-related violence, American officials argue that decades of American counternarcotics efforts there have at least helped stabilize the country.

“I wanted the Colombians to come here to give the Afghans something to aspire to,” Mr. Balbo [the US Drug Enforcement Agency's Kabul chief] said. “To instill the fact that they have been doing this for years, and it has worked.”

Just to be clear: if Afghanistan endures a half century of civil war - a good deal of it fuelled by American and European drug policies - this will be considered a success. Who are these guys? Characters in an Evelyn Waugh satire?

How's Colombia doing anyway? Well, according to the International Crisis Group:

Since early 2006, the Organization of American States (OAS) Peace Support Mission in Colombia (MAPP/OEA), human rights groups and civil society organisations have insistently warned about the rearming of demobilised paramilitary units, the continued existence of groups that did not disband because they did not participate in the government-AUC negotiations and the merging of former paramilitary elements with powerful criminal organisations, often deeply involved with drug trafficking. Worse, there is evidence that some of the new groups and criminal organisations have established business relations over drugs with elements of the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN). At the same time, the government’s plan for reintegrating demobilised paramilitaries has revealed itself to be deeply flawed.

These alerts have to be taken seriously since conditions now exist for the continuity or re-emergence either of old-style paramilitary groups or a federation of new groups and criminal organisations based on the drug trade. The military struggles with the FARC and the smaller ELN are ongoing, and drug trafficking continues unabated. Massive illegal funds from drug trafficking help fuel the decades-long conflict, undermine reintegration of former combatants into society and foment the formation and strengthening of new armed groups, as occurred with the AUC and the FARC more than a decade ago.

You'd say it was unbelievable that you could think Colombia a model success ripe for export except, of course, nothing should surprise one when it comes to our happy drug-warriors who remain hooked on some logic-bending substance vastly more ruinous than anything produced in Colombia or Afghanistan.