Once again, Clausewitz has been vindicated. He wrote that the first, most fundamental task of a statesman contemplating war is to decide what kind of war it will be; that is, to frame a definition of victory. For war is an instrument of policy, and the policy objective is the definition of victory.
What, though, was the US policy objective in Afghanistan? What, where, was the point at which the soldiers could look around and say, “Mission accomplished”? Nobody knew, not really, and so on the US side the war was a succession of expedients. The Taliban, however, knew exactly what its objective was and how to achieve it: by a strategy of what might be called psychological attrition. The enemy thought he could exhaust the patience and commitment of the US, and since the US didn’t really know what it was doing, the enemy was successful.
Really very informative. Vivek Kelkar’s article reminded me of an essay written by Adam Garfinkle in the American Interest over a decade ago. Obama was President at the time and Adam suggested that it would be difficult to solve the problems of Afghanistan and Iran simultaneously. Given resource constraints and limited amounts of public enthusiasm for foreign policy adventurism, Adam thought it might be an either/or situation. The essay is well worth a read,
Of course, here we are a decade later and the situation with Iran and Afghanistan are both getting worse.
It’s just one more example of the bumbling incompetence of bipartisan American foreign policy “experts.” They never get anything right. Like the keystone cops they stumble from disaster to disaster.
Say what you want about Trump, but at least he recognized that the clowns leading American foreign policy since at least the end of the Cold War, were weakening the United States not strengthening it.
What exactly is to be gained now by sending in the B52 bombers? It’s little more than a feckless act that makes the United States look even more pathetic than it already does.
Trump was right when he said during his campaign against Hillary Clinton that our country “never wins anymore.” Can anyone really deny that? Isn’t it time to acknowledge that both the foreign policy Mandarins and military leaders (all globalists by the way) who have been designing and implementing policy for decades have done a horrendous job?
The Biden foreign policy team, the Obama foreign policy team and the Bush (the second) foreign policy team all had one thing in common. They were populated by morons who never seem to get anything right.
Does anyone remember when Trump ordered the attack that killed Qasem Soleimani? He was widely (and often vitriolically) criticized for it by both the Democratic and Republican foreign policy establishments.
Yet more was gained by killing this one man than the United States accomplished in the long years we spent wasting our time and resources in Afghanistan.
How many American soldiers came home from Afghanistan without arms and legs because of the stupidity if not venality of our bipartisan cabal of experts?
Once again, Clausewitz has been vindicated. He wrote that the first, most fundamental task of a statesman contemplating war is to decide what kind of war it will be; that is, to frame a definition of victory. For war is an instrument of policy, and the policy objective is the definition of victory.
What, though, was the US policy objective in Afghanistan? What, where, was the point at which the soldiers could look around and say, “Mission accomplished”? Nobody knew, not really, and so on the US side the war was a succession of expedients. The Taliban, however, knew exactly what its objective was and how to achieve it: by a strategy of what might be called psychological attrition. The enemy thought he could exhaust the patience and commitment of the US, and since the US didn’t really know what it was doing, the enemy was successful.
Really very informative. Vivek Kelkar’s article reminded me of an essay written by Adam Garfinkle in the American Interest over a decade ago. Obama was President at the time and Adam suggested that it would be difficult to solve the problems of Afghanistan and Iran simultaneously. Given resource constraints and limited amounts of public enthusiasm for foreign policy adventurism, Adam thought it might be an either/or situation. The essay is well worth a read,
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2010/03/01/spring-note-disconnected/
Of course, here we are a decade later and the situation with Iran and Afghanistan are both getting worse.
It’s just one more example of the bumbling incompetence of bipartisan American foreign policy “experts.” They never get anything right. Like the keystone cops they stumble from disaster to disaster.
Say what you want about Trump, but at least he recognized that the clowns leading American foreign policy since at least the end of the Cold War, were weakening the United States not strengthening it.
What exactly is to be gained now by sending in the B52 bombers? It’s little more than a feckless act that makes the United States look even more pathetic than it already does.
Trump was right when he said during his campaign against Hillary Clinton that our country “never wins anymore.” Can anyone really deny that? Isn’t it time to acknowledge that both the foreign policy Mandarins and military leaders (all globalists by the way) who have been designing and implementing policy for decades have done a horrendous job?
The Biden foreign policy team, the Obama foreign policy team and the Bush (the second) foreign policy team all had one thing in common. They were populated by morons who never seem to get anything right.
Does anyone remember when Trump ordered the attack that killed Qasem Soleimani? He was widely (and often vitriolically) criticized for it by both the Democratic and Republican foreign policy establishments.
Yet more was gained by killing this one man than the United States accomplished in the long years we spent wasting our time and resources in Afghanistan.
How many American soldiers came home from Afghanistan without arms and legs because of the stupidity if not venality of our bipartisan cabal of experts?