And we are bypassing Karzai, who cannot run Afghanistan from the center:
There has always been a disconnect between American commanders in Afghanistan and their military and political bosses back home. Afghanistan is very different than the West. Afghanistan is tribal, feudal and not very organized at all. But over the last decade, enough of the senior American leaders have been there, or know someone (they trust) that has. So the new strategy is to deal directly with the major factions and do what Afghanistan's neighbors have done for thousands of years; buy off individual tribes and warlords, not those who were pretending to run the entire country. Foreign aid is largely considered a bribe by Afghans, and the U.S. is planning on buying peace by sending the aid directly to tribal or provincial leaders. The current security force (170,000 troops and 136,000 police) costs $4 billion a year to maintain, but has cost about $11 billion a year for the last few years to recruit, equip and train. Provincial leaders have taken control of some of many of these armed men for their own local armies, and the struggle for control of army and police battalions continues.
Trying to pretend Afghanistan is a real state governed from Kabul has been a big worry of mine. The outline of our campaign that I sketched over three years ago seems to be unfolding (and it is why I'm not concerned about the numbers involved in our draw down of our most recent surge--just the optics of withdrawing too fast):
The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West. We press for reasonable economic opportunities, with bribes all around (I mean, foreign aid), to keep a fragile peace.
I wasn't right about a lot. I thought the UAV strikes in Pakistan would dwindle. And I thought even with fewer troops than we have that we could have made more progress. But the broad picture is accurate. Still, our too-rapid withdrawal from Iraq makes me worry that I will be proven wrong in one vital piece of the puzzle that I thought we had:
And we stick around this time, unlike after the Soviets left Afghanistan when we ignored the place, for a generation or two to see if we can move Afghanistan into the 19th century (hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).
Hopefully our military surge recedes by the end of 2011 and we can get down to a single combat brigade plus air power that function as a fire brigade and a hammer for the central government should a local difficulty exceed Afghan military capabilities.
No longer the "good war," Afghanistan is just one more place that American troops fight that our anti-war faction wants to run from just as fast as their stubby little legs can take us.
