An Afghan success story

Vance Serchuk:

Four years ago this spring the United States began building an Afghan National Army, which has since emerged as arguably the least ambiguous success story of the postwar reconstruction here. While military power in Afghanistan was once synonymous with partisan, warlord-run militias, the new army is a multiethnic, battle-hardened and increasingly professional force -- tangible proof of how nation-building can work in even the unlikeliest of places.

Unfortunately, this accomplishment is under threat, not just from a resurgent Taliban but from the Bush administration itself, which is keen to trim its contributions to the Afghan army. Against Kabul's objections, the U.S. military hopes to cut the planned end-strength of the Afghan defense sector by more than 25 percent; rather than building the 70,000-man force previously agreed upon, the goal is now 50,000.

The Pentagon defends this downsizing with rhetoric about "sustainability." As one of the world's poorest countries, Afghanistan needs an army it can afford, commanders here argue, and a 70,000-man force is simply too expensive.

The problem with this is that Afghanistan has struggled throughout its history to generate the resources needed for its security, and the Pentagon's proposed cuts do little to resolve this. In fact, the U.S. military's own number crunchers predict the Afghans won't be able to pay for even a 50,000-man force until 2063. And that's under a best-case scenario -- assuming robust, unbroken economic growth for the next 50 years, and that the equipment we are buying the Afghans today doesn't wear out in the interim. (The World Bank's less rosy estimates put affordability somewhere in the early 26th century!)

But if talk about affordability is rooted in futuristic fantasy, the U.S. military's emphasis on it has a host of pernicious, real-world consequences in the here and now. For starters, it infuriates our allies in Kabul, who argue, rightly, that 70,000 is already a minuscule force given the size of their country and the manpower-intensive nature of counterinsurgency.

U.S. military commanders here acknowledge that a smaller army will mean that Kabul must accept a higher degree of "risk," but they defend their approach, citing current intelligence about the size of the Taliban and other potential threats.

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The problem with this analysis is that force measurements based on the size of the enemy rather than the nature of the enemy are meaningless. The problem in Afghanistan is that the enemy is diffused and disbursed in areas that are not easy to dominate from Kabul. To address this, the Afghans need a higher force to space ratio to cut off the movements of the enemy. Reducing the Afghan force before the enemy is reduced is an invitation to stalemate and quagmire. It does not make much sense to be arguing about cost of Afghan forces when much more expensive forces are needed to suplement them anyway. If the number of Afghan forces were increased to a point where the NATO forces could be reduced, it would probably cost less.