Bob Blackwill's bad, bad Afghan Plan B: Let's surrender but then keep fighting!

I was curious about what my CNAS colleague General David Barno, who was commander in the war in Afghanistan a few years ago, thought of the article in the new issue of Foreign Affairs by Robert Blackwill proposing a new approach in the war there.

Barno has some issues with Blackwill's suggestions, as you can see here. Basically, he gives this Plan B a big fat F:

By Lt. Gen. David Barno (U.S. Army, ret.)
Best Defense guest columnist

Ambassador Bob Blackwill's recent piece ("Plan B in Afghanistan") in Foreign Affairs is a stunner. Not wanting for bold formulations, it is most notable for the inconsistent logic that permeates the piece -- and a lack of understanding of war. It is indicative, most of all, of the degree of desperation with which far too many in the Washington establishment view Afghanistan.

Blackwill's essay is best read in tandem with the companion piece in the same issue "Finish the Job" by Paul Miller, formerly Afghanistan director on the NSC staff. The truth, if there is such a beast in Afghanistan, lies somewhere in between these two widely divergent outlooks.

Miller argues that, "The United States is not yet winning the war in Afghanistan, but it is not losing as swiftly or as thoroughly as the current crisis of confidence would suggest." Blackwill asserts: "The United States and its allies are not on course to defeating the Taliban militarily."

Miller notes, with some solid facts to support him, that, "Although Afghanistan remains poor, violent, and poorly governed, it is richer, freer and safer that it has been in a generation."

Yet Blackwill contends, "With all these individual elements of the United States' existing Afghanistan policy in serious trouble… [the] time has come to switch to the least bad alternative -- acceptance of a de facto partition of the country."

This desperate leap to a de facto partition of Afghanistan -- echoes of Senator Joe Biden in Iraq in 2006 -- makes absolutely no sense, either as a "least worst case" option or as an odd adjunct to Blackwill's other (surprising) suggestion: "The administration should stop talking about exit strategies and instead commit the United States to a long-term combat role in Afghanistan of 35,000-50,000 troops."

While the argument for sustained and substantial U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan is a sound one (and one that Andrew Exum and I recently proposed in our CNAS report "Responsible Transition: Securing U.S. Interests in Afghanistan Beyond 2011"), to argue for such a sustained combat role while at the same time preemptively surrendering the Pashtun southern half of the country simply fails the common sense test.

The Afghan people are pretty much left out of Blackwill's formulation. Although Afghanistan has existed as a country longer than the United States (1747 vs. 1776), little regard is given to the reality that most Afghans want to remain a unified state of diverse ethnic groups - existing as Afghans, not as a collection of independent ethnic fiefdoms tied to neighboring states. To carve out a Pashtunistan separately from the current Afghan state not only shatters the reality of 250-plus years of Afghan history, but could well upend the regional balance of power -- especially regarding Pakistan. A Pashtun mini-state on the Pakistani border could rapidly threaten to undermine Pakistan's tenuous hold on its significant internal Pashtun minority. Blackwill also notes oddly that his plan would not be supported by any of the neighboring states, but breezes over this serious chasm.

If this were the Soviet Union in 1941 trading space for time to overextend a Nazi armored juggernaut before striking back, Blackwill's suggestion might carry a thread of military logic. But offering the same territorial bonanza to a largely ethnic-based insurgent group in Afghanistan is effectively giving away the entire store. Moreover, to add even more confusion, Blackwill goes on to assert that the United States would "not accept permanent Taliban control of the south" and that "the time might come when a much stronger Afghan National Army might be able, with help, to retake the south and the east."

In other words, surrender… but keep on fighting. Give up half the country to the enemy, but plan to go back and re-take it… later. Keep up to 50,000 U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan indefinitely to hold onto the northern half of the country, while maintaining that a counter attack to re-take the south remains an option.

The question is: Why?

Why concede half of the country to the enemy while making plans to go back in several years to take it again? Why provide a huge propaganda victory to global violent extremists while ostensibly scheming to defeat them later -- on the same turf? Why keep up to 50,000 U.S. combat troops alongside the now growing Afghan National Army in what will now be a much more disadvantageous geographic position, poised for a bloody future battle to re-take a huge tract of territory that we freely gave away?

And finally: Why would one expect the American people to sustain their support for many more years of a war in which Blackwill would now have all but signaled our acquiescence to the enemy?

Understanding the psychology of warfare plays in this debate. NATO's November 2010 conference in Lisbon has in effect lengthened the timeline in Afghanistan -- with little notice and less fanfare here in the United States. After telling their foot soldiers they were nearing the football game's two-minute mark in the fourth quarter, the Taliban are now facing a game with three more quarters reaching out until at least the end of 2014. The psychological impact of this major change is going to be crushing to an enemy that has been pummeled severely over the last ten months by ground operations, airstrikes and drone attacks. For the Taliban rank and file to hold out until the summer of 2011 is one task; to keep fighting until the end of 2014, or even beyond, is quite another. Leverage is being created.

For the Pakistanis - also hardly mentioned by Blackwill -- the calculus may also be starting to shift. Pakistan's decision-making calculus has long been: "What will this plan look like the day after the Americans are gone?" Now their equation may tilt toward: "How will this advance our interests in the face of a likely long-term American commitment?" Blackwill is courageous in calling for this extended U.S. commitment, but does so after giving up the psychological and physical high ground to the Taliban, undercutting the effect of the substantial U.S. residual force he recommends.

All told, this is a disappointing plan whose parts just don't fit together. Given Bob Blackwill's immense diplomatic

Rick's