Title: Afghanistan/MIL a Week in the War

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Title: Afghanistan/MIL – A Week in the War

Teaser: STRATFOR presents a weekly wrap up of key developments in the U.S./NATO Afghanistan campaign. (With STRATFOR map)

Analysis

Timeline

U.S. President Barack Obama met with his national security team and the outgoing Commander of the International Security Assitance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, June 15 to discuss options for the looming July deadline for a drawdown of surge forces in Afghanistan to begin. The meeting comes at time of rampant speculation on the future course of U.S.strategy on Afghanistan.

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The Pentagon is reportedly pushing the White House to extend the surge and keep troop numbers at or close to their current level of nearly 100,000 U.S. and some 40,000 allied personnel in uniform for another 12-18 months – essentially to see through the 2012 fighting season. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has already suggested that initial drawdowns should be < and concentrate on consolidating support ‘tail’ personnel but remove little, if any, front-line ‘tooth’>. More troops means more bandwidth and is therefore desirable from a military standpoint, it is unclear whether the idea of effectively extending the surge by another 12-18 months is more a serious request in its own right or mostly an attempt to frame the political debate in an attempt to block more rapid reductions.U.S. Marine Corps Major General John Toolan Jr., the commanding general of Regional Command Southwest, has voiced concerns that the 2014 deadline for the end of combat operations will come before the development of Afghan security forces and particularly the establishment of governance and infrastructure improvements can be completed. Last week, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the commander of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, suggested that he not expect to complete training efforts of indigenous Afghan security forces until 2016 or 2017.

But this largely a political question, and not simply a decision for military commanders. There are also reports – including from STRATFOR sources – that the White House will seek to use < killing of Osama bin Laden and the shift of Petraeus to Director of the Central Intelligence Agency> to justify (politically, at least) <link to G’s Weekly<a more substantive shift away from the counterinsurgency-focused strategy>. Most recently has been the suggestion that not only bin Laden’s death, but intelligence collected from the raid in which he was killed has led to a conclusion that (< STRATFOR has argued for years>) the old apex al Qaeda core that remains straddling the Afghan-Pakistani border is weak and divided, and can be managed through continued vigilance by a comparatively small special operations and intelligence presence. STRATFOR sees the White House beginning to reshape the psychology of the war this coming quarter -- the way in which it is defined and perceived – in order to lay the foundation for a more significant reduction in forces and resources committed to Afghanistan.

An announcement from the White House on this first phase of the drawdown and an update on the status of the war effort is expected within, at most,a matter of weeks.

Negotiations

Some manner of political accommodation was always going to be part and parcel of any viable and sustainable exit from Afghanistan. But a negotiated settlement becomes increasingly important if the U.S. intends to accelerate its exit from the war. Thusfar, attempts to bring ‘reconcilable’ elements of the Taliban over to the side of the Afghan government and incorporate them into local power structures have seen only very limited results, particularly in Taliban strongholds in the country’s restive southwest – and those that do change sides are at < risk of targeted assassination attempts>.

Both Afghan President Hamid Karzai (on June 18) and Gates (on June 19) confirmed that the U.S. is in talks with the Taliban in an attempt to reach a more comprehensive settlement – though Gates cautioned that these talks are only in a very preliminary phase and are not likely to see any sort of breakthrough anytime soon.

Ultimately, the problem is that < Taliban perceives itself to be winning>, and any indication that the U.S. is looking to further accelerate its drawdown even sooner and in a more substantive way will only further enhance that sense of strength. In short, the United States needs the Taliban to come to an agreement more than the Taliban needs the U.S. Meanwhile, the < United States>, < and < each hold a discrete negotiating position vis a vis < Taliban>, and so it is anything but a straight line from a decision to negotiate to a negotiated settlement. will be of particularly pivotal importance>. Redefining the war in Afghanistan means putting a lot more time and energy into reaching an accommodation with a Pakistan already experiencing a high degree of internal turmoil. And even if an accommodation can be reached in a meaningful timeframe, the question of whether Pakistan is actually capable of delivering is also up for debate.

As the U.S. begins to redefine the war in Afghanistan, so some points of contention (like removing Taliban leadership from terrorism lists, particularly < classified Joint Prioritized Effects List>) become more acceptable from the American camp. But others, like the Taliban interest in dissolving Karzai’s government, remain intractable points of contention. So while the American desire for a negotiated settlement mounts considerably as it seeks to reshape and accelerate its exit, the difficulties inherent in it and the Taliban’s willingness to negotiate are another question entirely.

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