Strategic Errors and Errors of Ideology

Mr. Rodriguera accuses Mr. Obama's recent foreign trip of revealing two strategic errors. First, Mr. Obama is "naive" is expecting support from our European allies. I think Mr. Rodriguera has fallen for into the error of "Boltonism," the belief that it is better for the U.S. always to go it alone. There is a serious point here, one which Michael Scheuer makes much of in his book Marching Toward Hell. The Cold War was largely fought by proxy forces; with the exception of a few rumored Russian pilots over Korea, we never directly confronted our enemy. This was possible because the proxies - the ARVN, for example, had enough skin in the game to be fighting primarily for them, and only secondarily for us. Nowadays, it's harder to find that sort of proxy, and we've come to rely on mercenaries, some American and some foreign. Machiavelli pointed out the problems with mercenaries, to wit, if they're competent they're a danger to their employer, while if they're incompetent they are no danger to his enemies.

In the case of Afghanistan, I think that our allies are carrying part of the burden. Japan is paying the Afghan army's wages for six months, for example. It's just that only some of them are willing to put their combat troops into, well, combat. As long as they're used for jobs within the range of their abilities, they can be useful.

The second strategic error is our failure to attack Taliban strongholds sufficiently aggressively. For one thing, I think we've been aggressive enough to bring Pakistan to the brink of dissolution. To be more aggressive, we'd have to invade Pakistan.

I'm not sure yet, as I've just taken the matter under advisement, but I'm thinking that our strategic error in Afghanistan, and the only one that matters, is that we've been trying to establish a stronger central government than can be sustained by the political culture of the country. Perhaps our tendency to favor central governments over tribes is misplaced. When we started supporting and working with tribal forces in Iraq, we began to have some success. Maybe what we want in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a weak central government with strong regional powers, which we could play off against each other. By setting up a strong central government, with a well-equipped army, we create a prize for the provincials to fight for.

If, for example, the Pakistani central government were weak enough, and the provinces strong enough, it would be a matter of no concern that the Taliban are moving into Buner. If they took Islamabad, it wouldn't be worth much to them, and the other provincial powers would probably unite to drive them out. Paris might be worth a mass, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to have Kabul worth a Friday prayer service.