The Stakes in Afghanistan

Spencer Ackerman has a long-form piece on the evolution of the Obama administration’s thinking on Afghanistan. It includes this telling insight: “To a great degree, Afghanistan is a proving ground for what the United States will ultimately consider the true lessons of Iraq.”

To a great degree, this is what I find to be the most troubling thing about the counterinsurgency approach to Afghanistan. It strikes me as something that’s driven at least as much by a desire to win an argument in Washington, DC about the workability of counterinsurgency as by a thoughtful analysis about the costs and benefits of adopting such an approach. Precisely because of COIN’s ascendant-but-still-uncertain status in the American military toolkit, it’s very difficult for a COIN advocate to say “eh? this would be costly at best and it’s not clear it’s worthwhile.” Ultimately, I’d say I’m more sympathetic to the COIN crowd’s view of the world than to enthusiasts about air power or the need to prepare for naval battles with China. But these kind of intra-military disputes inevitably wind up creating a somewhat warped view of what’s going on in the world.