No Good Choices

Today, U.S. President Barack Obama met with top advisers to debate four proposals for a new military strategy for Afghanistan, most of which include increased troop levels. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has requested an additional 40,000 soldiers to neutralize the insurgency, stabilize the government, and increase U.S. security. Vice President Joe Biden and others propose a lighter-footprint counterterrorism strategy aimed at fighting al Qaeda rather than the Taliban that would keep approximately the same number of troops in place.

The truth is: None of the proposals would have much effect.

We used forecasts from statistical models to determine how the two strategies under Obama's consideration might play out: the chances that insurgency will abate and democracy will strengthen, as well as the impact on the stability of Afghanistan's democratic government and its neighbors, like Pakistan. Unfortunately, we found that regardless of what the United States does, the chance of violent insurgency remains woefully high -- and that a larger force deployment might actually endanger the weak Afghan state.

To perform this analysis, we studied similar efforts by foreign powers to establish democracy during the 20th century -- the Allied forces in Germany and Japan after World War II, for instance, and Sudan after the British colonial occupation. We studied the correlation between the occurrence of insurgency in foreign-created democracies and factors such as the level of economic development, social divisions, number of neighboring democratic states, and historical episodes of political violence. In turn, we studied how these characteristics and the insurgencies they spur influence the durability of democracy. We input data on historical conflicts and current conditions in Afghanistan to generate forecasts for each of the force deployment strategies under Obama's consideration.

We studied the prospects for Afghanistan on a two-year time frame under several scenarios: a same-sized U.S. force, an increased U.S. force, and an increased Afghan force, for instance. In all of our models, regardless of the number of soldiers deployed, the probability of insurgency in the years after the force deployment -- and, thus, continued violence and instability in Afghanistan -- remains so high as to seem certain.

The current cadre fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban includes 68,000 U.S. troops, 40,000 NATO troops, and 94,000 soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA). If that same force stays in place, there is a 93.6 percent probability of insurgency over the next year. Regardless of how many additional troops arrive -- or who sends them -- the chance of insurgency in 2010 and 2011 remains more than 90 percent. If the ANA achieves its force target of 134,000 troops, for instance, the probability of insurgency reduces negligibly. Deploying 15,000 more U.S. troops reduces the risk a scant 0.1 percent in 2010. Deploying 60,000 more -- the largest additional U.S. force suggested -- reduces the risk just 0.1 percent further than that.

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AHSON HASAN

8:55 PM ET

November 11, 2009

No Good Choices

Absolutely agree with the writers of this article!

If I may add, Afghanistan has a history of combative struggles. The country has seen bloody times for centuries; the Afghans are 'natural' warriors.

From all scientific and moral angles, the US need not spend anymore resources or funds on this rather barren society and region which is beyond repair or reform.

Let the Afghans look after themselves. Let them sort out their present and future problems on their own.

DES

8:17 AM ET

November 12, 2009

US is capable of bringing change in Afghan

I do agree with you first 2 paragraphs but turn to disagree wit your conclusion. The U.S is capable of bringing change in Afghan so it has to do all it can in the light of alliviating human suffering in Afghan not to 'Let the Afghans look after themselves. Let them sort out their present and future problems on their own' as you suggest.

If the world is let to run as it chooses then it wouldnt be a better place, rather the U.S shld have monitoring systems that shows them the real picture on the ground in Afghan pertaining to were they are going wrong.

ONTOGENY5220

9:03 AM ET

November 13, 2009

History Repeats Itself

Look at the military powers that over the centuries tried to occupy this region

The concept of Democracy cannot change this region that has been ruled by currupt - one man - rule by the sword power for thousands of years cannot be instilled (installed) in a matter of a few years by a miliitary occupational army

JARETH HOLT

10:15 PM ET

A couple points

For the most part, I agree with this article. This article indeed points out how desperate the situation in Afghanistan really is. I'd just like to bring up a couple of points.

1) Statistical analysis is all well and good, but I think more comments on the dynamics of insurgency and democracy failure - the how, why, and when of the backlash - would be appropriate. Such analysis shouldn't change the statistical conclusion, but would put some strength behind these numbers.

2) I wanted to ask precisely what a "probability of insurgency" is. It is easy to convince someone that some insurgency will occur. In this sense, the 93.6% statistic is either trivial or wrong (it should be 100%). If this is not what's meant, then I think the authors are trying to quantify something unquantifiable: the predicted "level" of insurgency. I hope someone can clear up this point for me.

In any case, the survival of externally-imposed democracy in Afghanistan is extremely slim for precisely the reasons the authors stated. This is the kind of analysis I hope the administration is taking to heart, but I hope they also have enough insight on the why and how to move forward.

DGREEN27

12:03 AM ET

Isn't that expected anyway?

Has anyone doubted that there will be an increased insurgency if we strengthen our efforts? In addition, it seems equally obvious that democracy cannot succeed in Afghanistan without a complete revamp of the entire society (and that's not going to happen).

The questions to ask are not "will there be an insurgency," or "can democracy be created and sustained?" The right questions are "what are our REALISTIC goals," "can we attain them," and "will it be worth the cost?"

AZRAEL

12:30 AM ET

Hopefully, we're getting closer

Articles like this, as obvious as some aspects of it may seem to those who have paid attention to this issue, are designed to move us closer to those important questions you list. Public skepticism towards our goals in Afghanistan is undoubtedly rising, and articles like this are fueling the fire. We can only hope that they continue to spur further inquiry into our role in the region, but it's safe to say we still have a long way to go.

SID

9:15 AM ET

Failure in Afghanistan

The authors are 100% correct in their model for Afghanistan. After 10 brutal years of Taliban regime, Afghans should be fighting as one man to keep away Taliban. But this is hardly the case. Only Western soldiers are shedding blood and sweat. Pashtuns on either side of the border of Afghanistan,who have suffered the most, are still sheltering Taliban. Nor have they have given up cultivating opium. It is a pity that for such a tribal society, Democracy has been prescribed. It will not survive even one year, if U.S forces leave Afghanistan.

SPENCER.KIMBALL

12:07 PM ET

Dangerous final conclusion

Maybe the last couple sentences were a throwaway, but too much money, too much pressure, and too many cross-border CT ops will push Pakistan into open conflict with the US--for precisely the reasons you list for our ongoing failures in Afghanistan. We're already seeing that with the recent aid package brouhaha.

OMARALI50

11:29 AM ET

I wrote this on another

I wrote this on another website (in response to some discussion about taliban and ANA) and I think it has some kind of tangential relevance here...btw, this is in the nature of testing out a hypothesis. I think things could turn out differently..

There is argument at the level of propaganda and we are all familiar with it, but I am going to put on my cynical cassandra hat:

1. The majority of the afghan people want peace and progress, but the majority cannot be said to automatically know how to get there (this is true of all people in some trivial sense). What Anand is saying about the ANA may have been true, but when the US signals withdrawal, things are bound to change. Most people do not support the taliban or the karzai regime. They support whatever option is marginally better than the rest in giving them peace and security. With full western support and creative and consistent effort, that MAY have been the ANA, it wont be once Obama completes his pullout dance. Support will then necessarily shift.

2. It will not shift all to the taliban. Where local warlords are capable of resisting the taliban, a lot of it will shift to them.

3. Obama and the West have probably not decided to pull out. WE can see that pullout, they cannot. This is a tragic but perhaps expected situation. Tragic because it means a lot of killing will be carried out on all sides while the Western powers figure out that they are leaving.

4. Of course, all that killing will be nothing compared to the orgy of violence that will come AFTER the withdrawal.

5. Jihadi propagandists (including the oversmart spin masters at GHQ, like Shireen Mazari and Ahmed Qureshi) will find that victory is sometimes much worse than defeat. Their objective interests (as a class) actually lie with the West and India (not with "the gap", as Barnett would say), they just dont know it. Eventually, they will be shunted aside or will change their tune OR "everything burns"...btw, I am not buying all of Barnett Bahadur's cheery theories either...

6. As always, I hope to be proved wrong. But watching the show unfold in the national security team in Washington, I now think this will all end sooner than we thought.

7. Finally, I dont think the average American taxpayer will be worse off (or at least, they will not be much affected by this whole business). It may be that the lives of average people will be materially better just as the lives of average britons have been better since their empire moved on (at least for a couple of generations..nothing lasts forever), especially if the important parts of the world are still cooperating and in order. The places the US leaves behind may also be better off, but not ALL of them. I dont think there is some general rule that EVERY region is ready to rule themselves and cooperate with some kind of international order as well. Some will fall into anarchy until a new policeman takes control (chinese?)..Unfortunately, I think Afghanistan is in that category and could drag a chunk of Pakistan down with it. Worse case scenario, all of south asia is in trouble...And I am making no judgment about how much foreign "interference" has helped to bring things to this pass. Just describing things as they seem to be unfolding.

MARKUSTEE

12:38 PM ET

I didn't know people could be reduced to equations and models

Models and equations cannot take into account the effect of the human heart. While these models may prove to be correct, they may also prove to be completely irrelevant. It is difficult to believe that an intelligent people (by that I mean the readers of this magazine article) could place any weight at all on such a study. As an academic excersize it is perhaps interesting, but as a predictor of human behavior, not so much.

When models of this sort can predict the emergence of a Hitler, or a Stalin, or can predict the outcome of a D-Day invasion, then they can be considered useful. Until then, they are simply an academic excersize, a means of assuaging arrogant egos.

This simply cannot be taken seriously. No man understands the human equation.

ITONLYSTANDSTOREASON

7:06 PM ET

Models and so forth

Do we need a statistical model to tell us that the probability of continuing violence of the next years is over 90%? For years the COIN mavens have been telling us that settling an insurgency takes an average of 10 to 15 years!

If you came up with any other answer for a 2-year time frame I'd say your model is seriously flawed. But not getting that one wrong doesn't mean your model has merit. All we know is that you failed to disprove Ho. We don't know what your R2 is for making predictions based on the model.

Beyond technical issues, how have you included military strategy in your model? If you've been following the discussion in the past month, you should have read that it is not the number of troops that is important as much as how they will be used. The number of troops is a dependent variable, not an independent one.

Overall, this seems likely a sterile exercise. You need to put up a real report on your model if you want to achieve some level of credibility.

Signed,

A Friend

Foreign Policy Magazine

Inside National Security

No Good Choices

You might think Afghanistan's fate lies in U.S. President Barack Obama's forthcoming strategic decision on troop levels. But the picture is bleak, no matter what.

BY J. MICHAEL GREIG , ANDREW J. ENTERLINE | NOVEMBER 11, 2009

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