Things are not going well in Afghanistan. Back in February, General John W. Nicholson, U.S. commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, said that he needed “a few thousand” more troops to reverse what he called a “stalemate” (which may have been an optimistic view of the situation).
On June 13, it was reported that Donald Trump had given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and how many to send. (Several weeks later, however, it was further reported that the President’s National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, had sent a follow-up memo saying Secretary Mattis would need White House approval before sending more than 3.900 extra troops.)
(i) Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner asked Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, and Stephen Feinberg, owner of DynCorp International1, to present a proposal to Secretary Mattis to replace U.S. troops in Afghanistan with private contractors2;
(ii) a recent National Security Council Principals Committee meeting on Afghanistan turned into a “‘sh*tshow’ of disagreements and complaints”; and
(iii) President Trump has apparently refused to agree to any plan on Afghanistan that Lt. Gen. McMaster has presented to him.
This is not good. When Barack Obama came into office in 2009, he had no plan for Afghanistan, even though he had called Afghanistan the good war during the 2008 campaign. And based on how long it took him to make a decision as to what to do in Afghanistan, he apparently didn’t have much of an idea what he wanted to do there when he took office. President Obama wound up procrastinating for months before he finally decided in late 2009 to increase troop levels in Afghanistan (and even then, when he made the decision, he messed it up3).
The concern is that President Trump is in much the same situation. He does not seem to know much about Afghanistan and almost certainly has no plan of his own as to what we should be doing there. While I trust Secretary Mattis and National Security Adviser McMaster to have good ideas, I worry when I see Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner asking people who own security contracting firms to propose how we could proceed in Afghanistan with private contractors instead of regular troops. If we aren’t willing to commit US forces to Afghanistan, then maybe we shouldn’t be there. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama used too many private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should not repeat that mistake.
I am also concerned whether President Trump understands the need for consistency and follow through in our policy for Afghanistan. If President Trump accepts a recommendation from Secretary Mattis and/or National Security Adviser McMaster, or they decide something within the limits President Trump has set, will he have their back if things start to go bad or it there is a setback?4 Or will he turn on them as he has on other high-level officials? We cannot expect other countries to trust us and cooperate with us, if they cannot rely on us to follow through on our decisions and commitments.
I understand that President Trump has a lot of things on his plate. North Korea. Tax Reform. Healthcare. And more. But Americans are still dying in Afghanistan. We need to decide what to do there. We need to make the decision now. And we need to follow through on our decision.
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1 Both of these are companies that have made a lot of money supplying private contractors to the United States armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).
2 Oh, my gosh. What a terrible idea.
3 President Obama finally agreed to send extra troops to Afghanistan, but in the same speech in which he announced they were going, he said when they would be coming home, regardless of the situation on the ground. That was not a good decision. (Here.)
4 Or if he sees something on Fox News.
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