Our commander in Afghanistan is worried about the same thing I worry about when he said this about the transition to Afghanistan's lead in the fight:
"There is a growing sense that December 2014 is a cliff for the Afghan people," Dunford said in his prepared opening statement to the committee. "That dynamic must be addressed with a credible, compelling narrative of U.S. commitment. Absent confidence in the hope for a brighter future, Afghan leaders, the Afghan people and regional actors will continue to hedge and plan for the worst case. The behavior associated with that mindset has the very real potential to undermine the campaign."
Yes, indeed. If our friends wrongly believe we are just bugging out, they can fold even with a winning hand. Pay attention to the messages we send as we hand off responsibility to the Afghans:
In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one, as Napoleon put it. Even though counter-insurgency seeks to turn over fighting to local allies strong enough to win the fight, the very act of reducing our troop strength and activity in Afghanistan can be indistinguishable from retreat. We have to make sure withdrawal because of victory is not seen as retreat because of defeat.
We pounded down the enemies in Iraq enough so that our hand-off was not perceived as retreat. We didn't inflict the pound-down in Regional Command East as we initially planned for the Afghanistan surge. So we have one problem right there.
And we failed to stay in Iraq after 2011, so we may have a problem in perceptions of our staying power, too.
But we are still in Afghanistan in strength and we do plan to stay after next year, so let's make the most of it and make sure our friends, enemies, and neutrals feel that we are winning and place their bets accordingly.
