As Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, awaits a response from the White House on his assessment of the war effort, some would suggest that doubt is growing on Capitol Hill and in towns and cities across the United States about whether America can win this fight.
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This doubt is misplaced. The truth is that there are more than enough troops, civilians, money, and operational capability available between the United States, NATO forces, and our Afghan allies to defeat the Taliban and assist in rebuilding Afghan society. There is no reason to fear losing a war of attrition. The major danger in Afghanistan is losing a war of exhaustion.
Over time, the U.S. military has evolved in its conviction that the center of gravity in counterinsurgency operations is protecting the local population rather than defeating the enemy forces. However, while protection of the Afghan people is necessary, it's not sufficient, for the true center of gravity for the Afghanistan enterprise is not in Kabul or Kandahar -- it's the support of the domestic U.S. population that matters most. And, the Taliban intends to fight a war of exhaustion to defeat that support.
Unlike a war of attrition, where the objective is to defeat the enemy, the objective in a war of exhaustion is to defeat a nation's will to fight. The British Empire was not defeated in Afghanistan by a war of attrition, nor was the Soviet Union defeated in Afghanistan through attrition. Both were defeated through exhaustion. And this is how the Taliban intends to defeat the current coalition efforts in Afghanistan -- by steadily eroding our will to fight.
Just look at Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar's recent Eid speech. "We fought against the British invaders for 80 years," he said. "Today we have strong determination, military training and effective weapons. Still more, we have preparedness for a long war." In Osama bin Laden's Sept. 11 message, he repeated his claim that his fighters will wear down the coalition in Afghanistan "like we exhausted the Soviet Union for 10 years until it collapsed."
In Washington, however, the debate does not discuss exhaustion, but "stuff" -- the physical capacity to prosecute the war. The debate is focused on U.S. troop levels, the right number of civilians, the various ways to employ them, the defense and foreign assistance funding required to support them, and the benchmarks and metrics to grade them. This debate on capability, while necessary, is insufficient. The "War in Washington" must be to win the support and patience of the American people. Without that, mere capabilities are sure to prove insufficient and strategic patience is sure to wane. It is not hyperbole to suggest that gaining and maintaining the will of the American people is at the heart the Afghanistan enterprise.
But after eight years of combat, Americans are already impatient and war-weary. Regardless of the reasons and choices that brought Afghanistan to its current environment, it is unlikely that Americans will demonstrate the same measure of patience without a focused effort to make the case for prolonged sacrifice.
Also, most observers agree that the situation is worse in 2009 than in the past. Americans can tolerate many things, but are quick to recognize wasted effort and sunk costs. No existential threat is seen to exist in Afghanistan; rather, one reads of governmental corruption, a resurgent Taliban, and allies unwilling to bear the same burdens. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is a poor, undereducated, and sparse land with few natural endowments. A significant turnaround in the same time as experienced in Iraq is unlikely. What's more, Afghanistan competes with a host of domestic priorities from health-care reform, to economic recovery, to cap-and-trade legislation, all of which draws on a finite pool of high-level time and attention.
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