What can we achieve in Afghanistan?

Ralph Peters:

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President Hamid Karzai is despised where he isn't hated. The people view his government as corrupt and untrustworthy - and it is. A weak man, Karzai's unwilling to stand up to warlords and narcos. Anxious to retain his illusory power, he takes our support for granted.

Karzai's constant harping on American military "excesses" every time the Taliban claims the corpses holding Kalashnikovs were just discussing Oprah's latest book-club pick is meant to please the locals - at our expense.

But we can't see an alternative to Karzai. Our bad, not his.

The bitter truth (as in Vietnam) is that we still haven't decided what we really want to achieve. We babble about nation-building where there's no nation to build, just a premedieval mosaic of tribes that hate each other. And the Taliban are homeboys.

We want Afghans to be like us. They never will be. (Good morning, Vietnam!)

If we want to alter the strategic environment amid a foreign population, we must be clear on three things: what we want to achieve, what the target population wants - and how much of what we want that population's willing to accept.

Washington is vague and naive on all three points.

Another 30,000 US troops? Fine. As long as they have clear, achievable missions. More nonmilitary aid? OK. Tell us specifically what it will accomplish. And mark the bills.

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Can anyone in the Obama administration articulate what we intend to achieve in Afghanistan? The Bush folks couldn't. I doubt this bunch can either.

If our goal is to turn Afghanistan into a rule-of-law democracy, forget it. Iraq has an outside shot - it's a semi-modern society - although success is far from guaranteed. But a modernized Afghan state whose authority extends into every remote valley is an impossibility.

If, however, our goal is only to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a massive terrorist mother-ship, we can do that - and at a lower cost. But we'd have to have the guts to choose sides among factions and stop pretending that we're honest brokers.

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Ditch the claptrap that we can't kill our way out of this: Well-focused killing, for decades, is our only chance - and Afghanistan's. And dump the feel-good platitudes. In the real world off-campus, good marksmanship trumps good will.

Every conflict is different. A comparatively easy affair (which we made hard), Iraq was ripe for its surge. But in Afghanistan - as in Vietnam - a surge will bring us tactical wins, but not decisive progress (and toward what?).

Success in Afghanistan - or anywhere - demands a clear vision of an attainable end-state; a realistic approach to achieving it, and time.

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What makes Afghanistan difficult besides the people is the terrain. We have been able to counter the terrain advantage with air power, but the Taliban have tried to counter that with a victim strategy where they put human shields in harms way. Peters argues that this is a special forces war and that we can't win with a village watch program like that which was successful in Iraq. That is to be seen.

The killing part he get right. Readers of this blog know I am a big believer in having an adequate force to space ratio to defeat insurgents. You have to be able to cut off the insurgent's movement to contact. You do this with a larger force that causes the enemy to have to alter his movements which makes him vulnerable to attack. You also need the UAVs to track the movement and knock off enemy leadership targets.

We also need to continue our attacks in Pakistan and try to get more out of the Pakistan army in attacks on enemy sanctuaries.