<b>IT IS DECISION TIME for the United States in Afghanistan and President Barak Obama is dithering.  Will he choose a counterinsurgency strategy, a counter-terrorism strategy or pull out?</b>

After eight years of war, a resurgent Taliban and a defiant al-Qaeda are fighting fiercely in Afghanistan and attacks against American and NATO troops are at an all time high. The fledgling Afghan Army is growing in quality and numbers, but effective Afghan Army units are still too few to control the country or replace US and NATO troops.  The Afghan police force is rife with corruption and is deemed by most sources as unreliable.  Afghan governance under President Karzai, after a fraudulent August 29, 2009 election, is problematical. 

At the center of the war in Afghanistan is a debate over the strategy the US will follow for the next step of the Afghanistan campaign.  Will the strategy be a determined and fully resourced counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign or a more kinetic, smaller footprint, counterterrorist (CT) effort?

On Monday, October 20, 2009, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters that he doesn't expect the disputed Afghan election to delay President Obama's decision on future U.S. operations there. "The outcome of the elections and the problems with the elections have complicated the situation for us. But the reality is, it's not going to be complicated one day and simple the next," Gates said. "We're going to have to work with this going forward, and I believe the President will have to make his decisions in the context of that evolutionary process."  Gates went on to say that "We are not leaving Afghanistan. This discussion is about next steps forward and the president has some momentous decisions to make." 

Gates’ statement was a shot heard round the world.  The President, who has deferred selecting a strategy for Afghanistan, is now being pressured by his Secretary of Defense to decide. 

Back on March 27, 2009, President Obama set the course for the war in Afghanistan by stating: “We have a clear and focused goal:  to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”  On June 15, 2009, General Stanley McChrystal was recommended by Secretary Gates and handpicked by President Obama to lead the US effort in Afghanistan as the Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A).  As ISAF Commander, McChrystal is in command of a force with 42 Troop Contributing Nations with a total strength: approx 67,700 troops.

The problem is that this is not enough troops to accomplish the mission. Upon taking command, General McChrystal conducted a thorough study of what it would take to win in Afghanistan.  He forthrightly offered his estimate of the situation to President Obama in late September in 2009. His recommendation for a counterinsurgency strategy, and his request for more troops to make that strategy work, has stirred up a political firestorm in the US.

McChrystal’s approach, which was backed in an announcement by NATO military chiefs on October 17, 2009, is to conduct an effective counterinsurgency campaign that will require a long-term commitment from NATO and the United States. He stated this guidance on July 20, 2009: “Our strategic goal is to defeat the insurgency threatening the stability of Afghanistan. Like any insurgency, there is a struggle for the support and will of the population. Gaining and maintaining that support must be our overriding operational imperative - and the ultimate objective of every action we take.  We must fight the insurgents, and will use the tools at our disposal to both defeat the enemy and protect our forces. But we will not win based on the number of Taliban we kill, but instead on our ability to separate insurgents from the center of gravity – the people. That means we must respect and protect the population from coercion and violence - and operate in a manner which will win their support.”

This counterinsurgency strategy will "clear, hold, and build" in Afghanistan to win back public support and to do this General McChrystal needs more troops.  In September 2009 McChrystal asked for 40,000 more US combat.  He may need as many as 80,000.

If the Obama grants McChrystal the 40,000-troop increase, the total number of allied troops would rival the number of troops deployed during the Iraq war surge – a surge that many Democrats argued against.  Many Democrats are against an Afghan surge.  The Obama administration, therefore, is in an intense ideological and strategic debate over the merits of deploying the additional combat troops to Afghanistan. 

Obfuscating the decision is the argument that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are different and separate enemies; that US forces should focus on the destruction of al-Qaeda and do its best to negotiate and make a deal with the Taliban.  

Although a divide and conquer strategy often makes sense in war, especially in tribal wars, it is very difficult to tell apart the Taliban fighters from al-Qaeda fighters as they are largely indistinguishable. The Taliban’s goals and the goals of al-Qaeda are very closely aligned. "We want to eradicate Britain and America and to shatter the arrogance and tyranny of the infidels,” Ay'atulah Mahsoud, the emir of the Pakistani Taliban, has said. "We pray that Allah will enable us to destroy the White House, New York and London."

Some in Washington, like US Vice President Joe Biden, are very skeptical of the counterinsurgency strategy and see it as a long, expensive and fruitless effort to modernize a land that has defied outside influence for centuries.  They believe that the Iraq counterinsurgency model will not apply to Afghanistan.  They also argue that attempting to reengineer Afghan society to model western democracy with a strong central government is folly.  They point out that with US ground forces stretched thin and NATO unwilling to commit many more troops to the combat effort in Afghanistan, the success of any counterinsurgency strategy is dubious. 

The Biden strategy emphasizes a counter-terrorism approach that reduces the number of conventional combat troops on the ground, creating a smaller “footprint” that minimizes the potential for the Afghan population to see the introduction of additional troops as an occupation force of foreign invaders.  The number of special forces units, however,  would increase.  These special forces units would go deep into enemy territory to gather information and target al-Qaeda high-value targets. 

The counter-terrorism strategy also fails the reality test of recent history.  Successful attacks against al-Qaeda leaders since 2001 indicate that al-Qaeda is not a self-contained organization that can be easily destroyed by decapitation and that it is, in many aspects, a leaderless Jihad. In August and September of 2009, for example, predator drones attacked al-Qaeda leaders deep in Pakistan's lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal regions. The strikes had dramatic success and resulted in the deaths of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and three senior al-Qaeda leaders.  This effort was a victory, a setback for al-Qaeda, but not a war-winner. In the McChrystal’s view, therefore, al-Qaeda is a multi-headed hydra that cannot be decapitated but must be starved from its support: The Afghan people.

McChrystal has directed that the focus of every effort be to gain strategic success by winning the support of the population.  To win their support, he must protect them from the Taliban until there are enough Afghan National Army troops to protect their own country.  McChrystal believes that a successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan requires enough troops to provide this security – hence his request for 40,000 more US combat trips -- while other forces live with the Afghan people to win the trust of the villagers and tribes. Minimizing friendly Afghan casualties is paramount. Fighting the insurgents is still an important part of this effort, but the focus is not just on winning tactical victories.

The 64 million dollar question in this strategic debate is the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan.  The strategic linkage between Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot be underestimated and the decision on which strategy to adopt must consider the long-term effect on Pakistan.  Al-Qaeda lives, recruits, trains and grows in the badlands of Pakistan. Many Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan consider themselves as part of a Pashtun tribal nation and not as citizens of either country. Decoupling the war in Afghanistan with the crisis in Pakistan is impossible. If either the counterinsurgency or counter-terrorism strategy fails in Afghanistan, the effect future of nuclear-armed Pakistan will be dire.

When asked if he could support a counter-terrorism strategy that focused on the use of fewer troops and high tech weaponry to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, his short answer was: “No.” 

The President, therefore, has a difficult decision to make, but the decision must be made, and made soon.  Every day he vacillates, the enemy grows bolder in their beliefs that we are tiring of the fight.  Every day he hesitates, the Afghan people grow more suspicious of our promises to stick with them in this fight.  Every day he postpones, more American troops are endangered. To employ either strategy half-heartedly, not only crushes all hope, but also courts disaster.

The choice is clear and General McChrystal, the commander on the ground, has done his duty and is asking for the resources to finish the job.  The only strategy that offers the hope of a lasting victory is the counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal has laid out. To execute any other strategy, would be to renege on US obligations, to back out of promises to our allies and abandon the Afghans.  

We asked 42 nations to fight with us in Afghanistan and they answered the call.  We asked the Afghans to fight with us and their role in their own defense is growing every day.  We have spent precious lives, losing over eight hundred Americans in combat in Afghanistan since 2001.  We have spent much time, money and effort.  Now, the US is at a decision point and the decision rests with the Commander in Chief.  We must have the courage of our convictions an see this fight through.  If we don’t, it could begin a cascading catastrophe that we will forever regret. 

In the end it all comes down to hope.  Americans need to know that our blood and treasure expended in Afghanistan will be for a good and lasting purpose.  The Afghans, who have lived in an endless war, need to know that the Americans will stick with them and will not abandon them.  The Afghans want justice, more than freedom.  Secure these goals and there may be hope for Afghanistan. 

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<b><i>Image:</b></i> Colonel John Antal, US Army (Retired) shown here in Kandahar, Afghanistan in September 2008.  Antal visited Afghanistan to visit the troops and discussed security issues with US and ISAF leaders.  (Antal Photo)

Colonel John F. Antal, USA, (Retired) served 30 years in the US Army as a leader, senior staff officer and commander. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College.  He is an Airborne Ranger and has commanded tank, cavalry and combined arms units from platoon to Regiment. He served as Special Assistant to the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as the G3, Operations officer, for III Armored Corps at Fort Hood, Texas.  Since retiring from the Army he has become a successful video game producer, military consultant, magazine editor, author of ten books, film personality, public speaker, explainer-integrator, journalist and leadership consultant. He is the published author of ten books on military subjects and is a life-long student of the Art of War. This year he was historical editor, and appeared in, the new History Channel show, PATTON 360, about General George S. Patton.  He is the Editor-in-Chief of Real Military Network. 

<i><b>Main Image Caption:</b></i> On the hunt in Afghanistan.  Paratroopers from 3rd Platoon, Company B, 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division prepare to load a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter in the Bermel District of the Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, Oct. 13, during an air-assault mission to detain a known militant. (Photo by U.S. Army Pfc. Andrya Hill, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division Public Affairs) PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan