Paris '07 Workshop |
The Future of Afghanistan and NATO
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Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry
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| Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry (left), Deputy Chairman of NATO Military Committee and former Commander of Combined Forces Command--Afghanistan, with former SACEUR General George Joulwan. |
"...the greatest long-term impediment to success of our mission in Afghanistan would be what I would call the irretrievable loss of confidence of the Afghan people in their government...what is needed is a much more ambitious effort for the development of governing institutions, a much more aggressive ...and comprehensive approach in the area of justice."
I will start with a very brief story and then I will get into the remarks. The story is one that I think everyone here would find interesting with me being a U.S. military officer. The story is two people who are making a trip in a hot air balloon across the United States and they get over the clouds. They get completely lost and they don’t have a global positioning system device, so they drop through the clouds to try to figure out their location and they look out below them and there is a huge building which is surrounded by an even larger parking lot. The navigator of the balloon shouts down to a man that he sees walking towards his automobile and asks the question: Where are we? And the person looks up and answers: You are in a balloon. And so they rise back to the cloud cover and they keep on drifting and the navigator about a minute later turns to the pilot and says: I know exactly where we are. We are over the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the pilot asks the navigator: From that answer, how can you possibly know that? And he says, Well, think about the answer: it was concise, it was accurate, and it was of no help whatsoever.
What I would like to do is just very briefly talk about three aspects of Afghanistan. Three points: I would like to talk about how do we think operationally we are going to do in the near term? How about the longer term? And then, thirdly, some thoughts about NATO’s involvement.
The Near Term
First of all, the near term. What do I mean by the near term? Let’s say 2007, the first part of 2008. I have got a reasonable degree of confidence in how we will do in this near term and why do I say that, especially after the levels of violence that we experienced in 2006. I think that there has been a set of adjustments that have been made on the ground by NATO, by the United States, that have got us postured reasonably well for this short term. Let’s review what is in the short term prognosis.
First, in terms of security, NATO did successfully complete their military transition of mission expansion in 2006, very difficult for NATO, for any kind of militaries we would say, a relief in place is a difficult operation. But think about the idea that NATO, now out of sector, first time they have taken on a ground campaign of this nature, did a relief in place in the U.S. coalitions, first time that they have been involved in Afghanistan. And despite the difficulties which obtained in that transition, they are still there and importantly, they have got a lot more presence than we had in Afghanistan when I say we, now putting on the U.S. coalition hat, we now for me is NATO. And NATO has a lot more presence in Afghanistan which is very necessary. The level of effect that international soldiers achieve in Afghanistan, let’s say, soldier for soldier, of course is far greater than a place than a place like Iraq and I would like to take one example: Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan, where now we have a large British task force. About fourteen months ago at this time in Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan, the international military force presence was about 120 U.S. special forces and civil military affairs specialists. Now NATO has the British-led task force almost 4,000 soldiers in that troubled province. Those kinds of difference in numbers matter and then very importantly the United States made a decision after Secretary Gates visited Afghanistan in January when I was still in command, made a decision to contribute another infantry brigade, about 4,000 soldiers into Afghanistan above the levels that we had anticipated. And that is giving the operational commander, General Dan McNeal, a lot of capability not just to react in extremis but, more importantly, to seize the initiative with those forces.
Second point about security: the Afghan national security forces. If you look at a period of time from 2002 to 2006, again 2006, a more troubled year and we have levels of violence that we simply did not anticipate in 2005. Afghan national security force presence 2005-2006, very little of the national army, and the police force was simply insignificant, in fact the police force in Southern Afghanistan and many parts of Afghanistan is part of the problem. Now we have a growing Afghan national army capability, very respected institution in Afghanistan, good partnering with NATO, and we are making good progress there. National police forces, much more difficulty, the police force program was unfortunately very late in developing with a comprehensive approach but now it is in place but we are not going to see huge gains in the police until several more years. But more for what we are facing in Southern Afghanistan, Eastern Afghanistan, and even now this year with additional investments by the international community, important on the United States which just invested about another five billion dollars in the army and the police, we will start to get payoffs later this year and in 2008.
Politically, we are in a better position right now in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan, the more trouble there is certainly than we were two years ago. President Karzai has made a set of decisions over the last several years where the most venal governors who are really part of the problem like the police, and some of the leaders at the district level, have been replaced. We have got more competence there.
And then lastly, in the domain of reconstruction, doing better in that area as well. Another investment by the United States earlier this year, about a billion more dollars in road, power, water and reconstruction funds that are now starting to flow into Southern and Eastern Afghanistan. I would also command though other members of NATO and the international community that have put more investments in there
The Longer Term
Now, longer term 2008-2009. I have to state that I am increasingly concerned about the longer term in Afghanistan. Why is that? Because here is, not to say what has already been said again, yet however we variously want to define it, comprehensive approach, the non-military effort, we are not putting enough level of effort into this for long-term success. I testified in front of the United States House Armed Services Committee in February of this year and I said the greatest long-term impediment to success to our mission in Afghanistan would be what I would call the irretrievable loss of confidence of the Afghan people in their government and what is needed is a much more ambitious effort for the development of governing institutions, a much more aggressive approach and comprehensive approach in the area of justice. Now let’s take justice as an example, we are making a lot of effort right now to build police. NATO, the EU are involved in different ways in the delivery of police but police don’t equal justice in a representative government. They don’t equal justice in any form of society and so as we concentrate on the police, or to use the American acronym about the three Cs—cops, courts, correctional institutes—nobody is working in an aggressive manner on courts or on correctional institutes. Police can deliver short-term security, they don’t deliver a justice system. And then, in the areas of reconstruction and development, summarily, although in the short-term, in the near term, I am confident that we have enough in place to keep the momentum going, in terms of physical infrastructure development, the provision of social services we need a much more massive effort right now.
NATO’s Involvement
And then the third area, how is NATO doing at this point in time? First of all, what is NATO bringing? I already mentioned one upfront about our presence. NATO also is bringing, whether it is wearing a EU hat, whether it is wearing a partner hat, NATO is bringing in more on the non-military side. Any commander on the ground in Afghanistan will be on the ground for perhaps a month before he or she will come to the conclusion, what I need more is not more infantry forces, what I need more of, I need more roads, I need more power, I need more in the way of competent Afghan police forces. So what we have now is NATO commanders going back to very wealthy countries, partner commanders going back to very wealthy countries, capitals, and asking more for the reconstruction side. The third point is a point that I could not anticipate with NATO transition in terms of what is NATO bringing in. NATO is not a coalition of the willing, it is a real coalition and it has been very interesting to watch Taliban and the extremists in terms of their image war efforts where heretofore it was the crusading U.S. superpower infidel spoiling Muslim lands. Now you have got twenty-six Alliance countries, eleven partner countries, and it has made it much more difficult for the extremist message to get resonance in that domain.
Now what does NATO need to be doing to achieve more success on the ground? First, operationally NATO must find a way to over time remove caveats. We can emphasize caveats too much and it can become kind of a tactical argument. Somebody has got to be in Northern Afghanistan and for that matter, the Germans have taken more casualties and had more killed in action in Northern Afghanistan than other nations who are committed to Southern Afghanistan had over the course of this year. So we don’t want to get into what I think would be a very unhelpful debate about what part of Afghanistan is dangerous. On the other hand, the notion of having operational restrictions placed upon forces does hurt our overall effort there. It is not necessarily that we don’t have enough capability in Afghanistan. If you were to remove caveats and remove operational restrictions, not just forces being placed in the North that could go into Southern Afghanistan but restrictions on the way we operate our helicopter fleet, the way that different kinds of capabilities are restricted for use, if those could be lifted, then the force shortage problems that we say we are facing, a lot of those frankly would go away.
Secondly, I think more profoundly that the idea of having these kinds of restrictions placed upon forces give the military Alliance a defensive kind of mentality. And we talk about what we are going to do in extremis. That should not be the debate. It is how we are going to win and when you have debates about restrictions, we will only use these forces in extremis, you are not going to win a counter-insurgency effort that way. You have to have an aggressive approach. Here I am not talking about kinetic aggressive approach, I am talking about a comprehensive aggressive approach in which the military plays a supporting role.
The third point about caveats that I am worried about at this point in time is that the Dutch mandate ends parliamentary-wise in late 2008 and the Canadian mandate ends in 2009. I cannot speak for what will go on politically in those capitals but unless we have a more equal sharing approach as perceived in those capitals about who will do what, is there a possibility in The Hague, is there a possibility in Ottawa that they will not keep their forces and missions committed to Southern Afghanistan?
Second, Afghan national security forces. NATO has made improvements in that area, much more has to be done. There is a huge material investment that has been made by the United States. The best way to get a return on investment for that equipment and all that training support, money for facilities, is for NATO forces to more aggressively partner with the Afghan national security forces. We need for them to provide more trainers with the Afghan national security forces. Time is going through the hourglass right now. Understandably, the Afghans now six, seven years after the collapse of the Taliban, want to be in control of their own sovereignty. There is no other greater manifestation of sovereignty than having control of your country, then you have a monopoly on the imposition of security. The Afghans want that. We have to help deliver but their patience is starting to wear thin in terms of NATO forces, U.S. forces being in the lead and very frankly when competent Afghan national security forces are in the lead, they succeed where we cannot succeed. They can go into a valley that U.S. forces or NATO forces have been fighting in for four or five years taking casualties, they can go into that same valley once they have the capability and the commander will walk into the valley, will gather up the tribal chiefs, will take them into the local Mosque, he will pray with them and within a month, will have a radical turn in the security environment there. Only Afghans can do that and we talk about Afghan lead but we need to make the necessary investments to produce an Afghan lead.
The third and final area has already been addressed very eloquently and this is the so-called comprehensive approach. NATO has somewhat of a dilemma here though. NATO is a military alliance, so how do you then evolve from what has traditionally been a more narrow military mission to the comprehensive approach? Well, you need to be engaged with the United Nations, you need to be engaged with the EU but it is still a dilemma. What I would argue is that NATO has to have some kind of political-military transformation as well. Heretofore with the exception of the Kosovo air war, there has been a set of missions where NATO has not had to be tremendously dynamic on the politico-military strategic front. But now in Afghanistan, we are fighting what is a sub-regional conflict against what we would say is an interactive enemy who keeps adapting against us. So where is the political cohesion and the direction from NATO that is setting strategic goals and objectives to the operational commander and then guaranteeing the necessary ways and means for that operational commander to succeed? How are we going to do that? It is not going to evolve from the debate among the twenty-six permanent representatives. There is political will and political direction that must be given to those permanent representatives for us to succeed.
The last and final point I will make is with regard to what I see as opportunity for NATO. Clearly NATO has a superb opportunity to accelerate real military transformation through the experience of Afghanistan and in various ways I do see that happening. It is going to be a slow process but I do see it happening in certain domains. There is opportunity that must be seized upon, let’s say at the defense level. Let us talk about the identification of real requirements and then translating requirements into capabilities. I could tell you if you go around and talk to each NATO commander on the ground in Afghanistan, they would give you the same short list of what we-- i.e., NATO and also the U.S. coalition that remains behind there--lack the most right now: persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), how we can get better situational awareness capability for our forces and they will talk about Blue Force Tracker. In the year 2007, there are ways to use software to integrate a lot of different systems. We can talk about counter-IEDs but there I think there has been good progress with several of the allies in taking on the counter-IED mission. We can talk about what we would call counter-battery fire but the enemy still remains very adept at using rocket fire and mortar fire, indirect fires against us, what are ways that we can improve to counter those?
So whether it is in the operational area, whether it is in what we call the more defense policy arena, I think we should be looking at Afghanistan as an opportunity and kind of engine of transformation which probably gets back to the categorization that was given for how NATO now that we are in Afghanistan must do. We must succeed because if we fail in Afghanistan, the consequences for the Alliance are more obvious to this group than it is to me.