Dept. of Defense photo by U.S. Air Force SSgt Bradley A. Lail
U.S. Army General David H. Petraeus
Yesterday, President Obama announced that General Stanley McChrystal was resigning as commander in Afghanistan and would be replaced by General David Petraeus. For the most part, the challenges that Petraeus faces today and in the future are exactly the challenges faced by McChrystal:
• It is not possible to win if the government of Afghanistan — at all levels — is very incompetent and/or very corrupt.
• It is not possible to win without the support of the Afghani people. They must come to believe that the United States, its allies, and most importantly, the Afghani government are worthy of their support. Unfortunately, gaining their trust is not only a long process but one that places U.S. forces at greater risk. To reduce the chances of harming Afghanis, we must reduce the use of firepower. This obviously increases the chances of casualties to U.S. troops.
• It is important to work with lower-level Afghani leaders (say at the village level). Not only does this take time, but it can involve the United States with a variety of questionable people.
• The insurgency is firmly rooted in several areas of Afghanistan. Once insurgencies become well-established, they can be defeated but the process takes a long time and consumes a vast amount of resources.
• While there is a military component to defeating an insurgency (hence President Obama’s decision to send more troops), as noted above, military force alone will not lead to victory.
• Finally — and most importantly — what is the real exit strategy? Not the date, but the conditions under which the United States can leave? Will defeating Al Qaeda be enough? What about eliminating the Taliban (this could include having members of the Taliban renounce their affiliation and joining the Afghani government or just becoming civilians)? Should we stay until the Afghani government is truly effective and committed to rule of law? This question is both the most important and most difficult one we face.
Beyond dealing with the same challenges as McChrystal, Petraeus replaces a man who had developed a good working relationship with Afghani President Karzai. Petraeus must find a way to establish a productive relationship with Karzai.
On the other hand, we should have no qualms about Petraeus’s commitment to counter-insurgency warfare. He (literally) wrote the book on this: the joint Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency manual.
Petraeus is very adept (much more so than McChrystal) in dealing with a wide variety of people. One of the problems the United States has faced is disunity between some key officials; McChrystal had difficulties getting along with the American ambassador to Afghanistan (former three-star general Karl Eichenberry), and Special Adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke. Petreaus has the opportunity to achieve a better unity of effort on the American side than McChrystal.
In sum, most of the challenges remain the same. Success in Afghanistan will only come after a long and sustained effort by the United States, its allies, and most importantly, the Afghani people and government.
Richard J. Stoll is a Baker Institute scholar and the Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science at Rice University.