Transcripts For CSPAN3 U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan 20171108

Good morning. Im christopher prebrle, the Vice President for defense and Foreign Policy studies here at the cato institute. Thank you for being here today and thank you also to our outstanding conference staff here at cato who do such a terrific job organizing our many events. Welcome also to those of you watching on cspan and online at cato. Org. Following the september 11th terrorist attacks in october 2001 the United States initiated combat operations against al qaeda targets inside of afghanistan and against the taliban government that had harbored the terrorists there. In the ensuing 16 years u. S. Goals have changed marginally, but they typically include defeating al qaeda and other terrorist groups with global reach, strengthening the Afghan Government, and Security Forces to prevent the taliban from retaking political power and denying terrorists a safe haven. Assessments of our progress to date are mixed at best. In june secretary of Defense James Mattis stated, we are not winning in afghanistan right now. One could say its not for lack of effort. Estimates of what weve spent range from 840 billion to over 2 trillion plus over 2,300 u. S. Troops killed and another 20,000 wounded. A recent report by the special Inspector General for afghan reconstruction noted that the United States had spent 70 billion alone over 16 years to train afghan Security Forces but concluded that the effort had been hampered by corruption and inadequate oversight. And the Afghan Government is struggling to defeat the taliban. Several years ago the government controlled about 70 of the country. Today that figure is down to about 60 . In late august of course President Trump announced a modest u. S. Troop surge and pledged to turn things around. In his speech the president acknowledged that americans were weary of war without victory. Hes right. Many americans seem unwilling to walk away. But an equal number or so are reluctant to continue the war indefinitely. U. S. Strategy reflecting the publics mood remains a work in progress. What better time, then, to discuss the way forward in afghanistan . Can the United States win as President Trump promised to do and at what cost . If outright victory is unrealistic or too costly, can a negotiated settlement bring peace to afghanistan . What are the risks of u. S. Withdrawal . Can america secure our vital interests without a permanent presence in the region . Or should we be prepared for an openended commitment along the lines of the decadeslong american deployments in germany, japan, and south korea . We have an excellent panel here today to consider these and other questions. Our first speaker is u. S. Army major maxwell pappas. A 2006 graduate of the u. S. Military academy at west point, major pappas served a combat tour in iraq from late 2007 to early 2009 followed by three combat tours in afghanistan in 2010, 2011, and 2013. Pappas completed Army Ranger Training in 2007 and was then assigned to the 25th Infantry Division during the iraq surge. He went to Zabul Province in afghanistan as a member of provincial Reconstruction Team in 2010, returned to the states to complete additional training at fort bening, georgia and was then assigned to the 10th Mountain Division where he commanded troops in the 1st squadron 89th cavalry regiment in kandahar process and paktika province in afghanistan. Major pappas earned a masters degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University in 2016 and he graduated from the armys command at general Staff College at fort leavenworth, kansas earlier this year. Hes currently the executive officer of the 4th battalion 3rd infantry regiment also known as the old guard at arlington cemetery. Following major pappass remarks well hear from our three other distinguished panelists. Michael ohanlon is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the brookings institution. Hes also director of research for the Foreign Policy program at brookings and an adjunct professor at columbia, princeton, and syracuse universities and the university of denver. Hes a member of the International Institute for strategic studies and was a member of the external Advisory Board to the Central Intelligence agency from 2011 to 2012. Mike is the author of many books including the future of land warfare pushed published in 2013. Healing the wounded giant maintaining military preeminence while cutting the Defense Budget 2013. And toughing it out in afghanistan, published in twts. Hes also written three marshall papers. A new monograph series from brookings Foreign Policy program. Id like to put in a special plug for beyond nato a new Security Architecture for Eastern Europe which was published earlier this year. Dr. Ohanlon has published several hundred op edds in all the major newspapers and since september 11th, 2001 has appeared on television or radio more than 3,000 times. So if he looks familiar to you, he should. Mike earned a ph. D. In Public International affairs from princeton. Our second speaker today is stephen biddle, professor of Political Science and International Affairs at my alma mater, George Washington university. Hes published widely, writing mostly about how modern social science can inform defense policy. His book military power explaining victory and defeat in modern battle 3ub8d by princeton in 2004 won four prizes including harvards huntington prize and the council on Foreign Relations arthur ross award silver medal. Hes also published articles in all the leading jushlgz including international security, foreign affairs, survival, and the journal of strategic studies and shorter articles in the new york times, washington post, wall street journal, and many others. Professor biddle has testified many times before congress including on the wars in iraq and afghanistan. In 2007 he served on general david petraeuss joint Strategic Assessment Team in baghdad. On general stanley mcchrystals initial Assessment Team in kabul in 2009. And as a Senior Adviser to general petraeuss Central Command assessment steam in washington in 2008 and 2009. He was awarded the u. S. Army superior civilian Service Medal in 2003 and 2006 and was presented with the u. S. Army commanders award for Public Service in baghdad in 2007. Steve holds a ph. D. From hafshds. Our final speaker today is my colleague erik goepner, a visiting Research Fellow in catos defense and Foreign Policy studies department. Retired colonel in the u. S. Air force his assignments included unit commands in afghanistan, iraq, and the pacific region. His Research Interests including national security, civil war, terrorism, and trauma. He has published in the washington post, parameters question, newsweek and the National Interest among other outlets. Erik is a doctoral candidate at jooinl George Mason School of government. He received m. A. S from George Washington university and the air command and Staff College. He is the coauthor with trevor thrall of two cato papers including step back lessons for u. S. Foreign policy from the failed war on terror which is available in hard copy for those of you here in attendance and online for those of you watching from afar. I should also note that weve made available in the foia recent articles on afghanistan by mike ohappen lop and steoh steve biddle. Erik, who deserves all thec would like to begin by telling a firsthand story about major pappass exploits in afghanistan and then major pappas will take it. Good morning to all. Major pappas and i served together in afghanistan. 2010 youre in southern afghanistan for those fands of can the deliverance imagine the ban joez playing out in the distance. 8 30 at night. Long duty days behind us. And were playing the worlds best video game for a combat setting, which is call of duty. Correct. Major pappas is winning. Its him, me, and two other colleagues. And in comes the senior nco from our operations center. And he announces theyve detected three insurgents, 1,200 meters outside of our base, implanting an i. E. D. , putting a bomb in the road. And we go through the checklist of Different Things we could do and none of them make any sense because theyre not going to get there in time. May cause civilian casualties for villagers that live nearby or otherwise our presence would be announced too early and they would be gone. So max comes up with what would be a completely technically unsound plan for anybody if it werent max. The plan is this. We know we have three insurgents weve identified. So im going to take a team of myself and three guys. Were going to go out with four against an enemy force that we know has at least three and we assume of course theres going to be other insurgents out there kind of screening their position for them. But because max is max i readily agree and say why dont you guys go do that . Its now 8 30 at night, pitch black, max is going to don his 6 65 pounds of gear on him. Nightvision goggles. You have zero depth perception. Max is going to traverse more than a mile because you cant go in a straight mile toward the enemy. That would be unsound. Hes going to go up and down a river bed. About 2 3 of the way. Because i should tell you im where old men go in combat, which is the operations center. So im watching all this on our thermal iming device. And i watch max cruising along, cruising along and were about 2 3 of the way to making contact with the enemy force, and i see max leave two of his teammates. Now its max and one man going against three known insurgents. Im not going to bother asking him any questions because i figure his stress level is probably pretty high. Hes running with 6 350u7bds of gear dead of night and he knows hes about to have a Lethal Encounter with three other human beings. Shortly thereafter, obviously the stillness of the zabul summer night erupts. When the night concludes max and his team have wounded one insurge insurgent. Theyve detained a second insurgent. Third one got away to fight another day. Weve safely detonated the i. E. D. So no harm will come to afghans or American Forces and theres no harm whatsoever to u. S. Force thats night. May i introduce the audacious and youll soon find out intelligent maxwell pappas, major u. S. Army. [ applause ] thanks a lot for the introduction. I hope i can absolutely live up to that hype. Im here first of all as a citizen here to discuss some of my experiences, 18 months total, in afghanistan. In order to share kind of a tactical perspective, highlight some of the challenges in place implementing the policies we discuss pd in places like this when it gets down to the person on the ground, its not necessarily as clean and easy to do as we like to think it is sometimes at the higher levels. Anything i discuss here doesnt represent any official views of the army, department of the defense. I wanted to start off with just that. What ill say is anybody whos pretty well versed in Foreign Policy right now knows about 9 war in afghanistan, fm324 counterinsurgency published by general petraeus serves as a guide for the surge in iraq, which we thought was going fairly well. And also serves as kind of our guidelines for strategy in afghanistan. So it focuses on separating insurgents from the populace, separates our training host nation Security Forces, addressing grievances usually through improvement of governance and transitioning that authority back to locals. What im going to talk about just a little bit, my experience in 2010, 11, and 13 is mostly on the tactical side. Support to governance, improving that governance thing, while i was deployed on the provincial Reconstruction Team, to Zabul Province and Security Force assistance when i was deployed to paktika province as Company Commander two years later. Perspective. This is in may of 2010. Im sitting going to a small village pasani. Four or five miles out of the district capital. We were just ambushed. Im outside trying to direct fire, convincing afghans they want to shoot in this direction as opposed to that direction, trying to make sure we are able to survive the day. I see my counterpart at the time, abdul qayam. He was 50 years old. Hed fought the russians smoezedly. And hed continued to survive in afghanistan, which on its own is an accomplishment, to the ripe old age of 50. He was the district leader or sorry, district chief for sajoy district in Zabul Province. As you can see it gets very complicated very quickly. He comes over to me, while were getting shot at and he looks at me and he yells at me something in pashtun. I have no idea what he says because i dont speak pashtun obviously. I look at my interpreter. He says it again. He laughs. He thinks its funny. He says sir, he doesnt think that were welcome here. That is the story of most of my time in afghanistan. So what we were trying to accomplish right there is the implementation of this policy to support the governance. As we began to deploy in february of that year into afghanistan on this provincial Reconstruction Team, what we determined is probably the place we could make the most money was in terms of connecting the lowest part of the government of afghanistan at the district level to those cultural and tribal leaders that existed all throughout afghanistan, had existed as the way that it had been governed for probably millennia. So as part of that connection thing we talked a lot about touch time, touch points. Making sure that when we interacted with afghans or when as advisers we interacted with count counterparts, maximized that time. Which gave us additional chances to kind of impart any sort of information that we had onto these people so we could be successful in afghanistan. The other part of that was improving the touch time between that lowest level of the government and the tribal leaders. There i was in pasani just outside of shajoy attempting to bring the district chief the embodiment of the government of afghanistan for all intents and purposes to most of the people in his district, trying to bring him to the vimmage so we could have a shura, wes a collection of elders there, to discuss. And try to determine some of the grievances these people had in order to be able to deal with those problems. Perspective. Colonel goepner referred to the banjos playing in the background when you entered zabul. Zabul not to offend anyone from alabama, but is the alabama of afghanistan. Economically depressed area, very socially conservative, by afghan standards very socially conservative group. So theyre very uninterested when outsiders come into their area. When we bring the government of afghanistan which is seen as an outsider in these places of course theres going to be some resistance. That day we fight through that ambush just a few people trying to harass us, we get to the village and inside the village we say this is a shura. The district chief being em30urd as the leader of that district nobody shows up to his shura. Thats not okay. That doesnt give you a lot of confidence in your ability to govern. So we go around and we round up all the houses knocking on doors. Afghan police going out talking to people. Bringing them in in order to have the shura. And they all sit there and theyre quiet for a while. So qayum being who qayum was, an im literate 45yearold afghan man who understood not necessarily bureaucracy and not necessarily governance but he understood how to interact with people. He understood how to build that personal relationship. He taunts them. He says, hey, your ambush, that didnt stop me. Im here. The government of afghanistan is here. And that broke the ice. Because thats how that works there. These individuals began to talk to him. A little bit. Wasnt super successful. After 30 or 40 minutes of that discussion we decided to break down. That was the first time qayum had been able to make it that village in his tenure as a district chief. So we break down and we leave. We get ambushed again because thats, again, how that works. So we get back to the District Center and we say, all right, in a week were going to go back. Qayum says why . We just were there. Touch points. Its the idea of actually integrating ourselves into there. We didnt have a whole lot of money in order to be able to throw at them. If we did what would we build . An afghanistan whos survived in the desert for that long in these places. They dont need anything. They needed faith in their government. So if their primary concern which is what they discussed during that shura, is you guys arent ever here, the governments not here, so why should we trust the government . Why should we do this . Well, we needed to demonstrate a little bit of consistency. So in a week we went back and guess what happened when we came in there. We got ambushed. Didnt take us long this time because we knew what was going to happen this time at least. We were able to build a little bit of a pattern. We go in there and this time people showed up to the meeting. We knew they were going to be there. They knew that wasnt going to scare qayum away. And hes able to demonstrate the governments here, the governments coming back and the g governments going to be there to stay. Thats the absolute baseline piece of what we were attempting to establish during that period of time. As a perspective thats not solving problems. Thats giving people a little bit of faith that somebodys there. And that was one of the major challenges we had in terms of supporting governance during that period. Time going to talk a couple years later. In 2013 i go back to afghanistan and some things have changed. Some things havent necessarily changed. But the idea of creating sustainable solutions, empowering the local government to be able to increase that connection hasnt really gone away, which is heartening to see. In 2013 i redeploy as part of 10th Mountain Division as we were talking about. I was part of a Security Force Assistance Brigade. We talk about those four pillars at the beginning. Going through separating insurgent through Security Forces, addressing grievances and transitioning authority. Security force Assistance Brigade was the idea that we could have specially tailored u. S. Military organizations that are supposed to integrate with the afghan army and with the Afghan Police in order to improve their capability. Okay. So we deploy and were spread out. We have to reduce the because of the boots on the ground restrictions we had to reduce the size of the u. S. Forces. So we had we were taking risk. We had Security Force teams which were senior officers, senior ncos that had to develop a personal relgs relationship with the afghans that they were working with and they had to make sure because that was their security. Theres only, you know, ten or so at any given time walking into kandax of 500, 600 afghan soldiers. So you have to rely on that personal relationship you develop. That was one of the things a lot of them did. So one of the xhajzchallenges id talk about happened on june 8th of 2013 when i got a phone call from my squadron commander. I said need you to pull your teams back from the other side of the wire. Were on a base surrounded by afghans. I had to pull my teammates back. Colonel clark and major leonard, they were just shot. It was a green on blue incident, which if you remember the news from the 2013 era that was a very significant one. This is halfway through our deployment and this is the first one we had. We thought wed kind of nicked that one. We had built that relationship. Wed tried to build that trust. As it came down it was i cultural difference. In the u. S. Army if you screw up youre told you screw up and everybody kind of moves on. In the afghan army thats a challenge to authority. And colonel clark had told a recon Company Commander he didnt do his job properly. He was offended. He was ashamed. And his response to that was to come back and it was to kill two seniors u. S. Officers in our 3wrigd. Now, if your entire mission is to go there and be a Security Force Assistance Brigade and part of that is building that trust, how difficult do you think it is to regain that trust on the u. S. Side . How difficult is it to convince yourself, hey, i need to go back out there, i need to trust these people when individuals in your element are being killed by the people that youre there to help . Its difficult. Thats one of those challenges. When we say Security Force assistance we say were going to advise, were going to assist, were going to implement change. Our presence itself isnt necessarily enough. Its our presence and building those relationships and having the faith and in some cases just the courage to all right, ill take off my body armor so i can interact with you person to person. Thats are really tough sometimes. Im going to run out of time if i continue going on about war stories. What id like to say just to echo some of the points already made, the war in afghanistan, its been a struggle but its not a struggle because of any sort of lack of effort or skill or resourcing. Its a struggle because counterinsurgency operations are difficult. Its very complex. I liken it to trying to build a house while youre getting shot at. If im getting shot at its not as big a deal but i have the carpenter whos helping build a house, if hes getting shot at its going to disrupt his job. As a constant problem the technical experts you need to get to the locations in order to do the technical difficult jobs, theyre not always available. So what you end up having like with myself and qayum is a 26yearold ininfantry captain whos advising him on how to run a district. Its not necessarily in the wheelhouse. I dont necessarily know all the ins and outs of a bureaucracy. Same as if im responsible for building a house. I wont necessarily have all the parts inside. The plumbing might not be right. Electricity might not be right. And thats unfortunately what we see a lot of the time is we have people building the house in afghanistan, theyre helping support this governance, build this country back up from the shambles its been in. And well, sometimes all the bureaucracy doesnt work right because we dont necessarily have the ability to get the state department or those technical experts on how the Government Works into the places in order to make sure our fiscal policys good or make sure Something Else is working properly. Its difficult. Then when you add on the social and you add on the cultural differences and the language difficulty and if you dont have an interpreter, for instance, whos very good, then you can spend months having conversations with somebody where nobody knows what youre saying. So what i would like to say is the u. S. Army and the military in itself isnt always the best tool for producing or for rebuilding a nation. But oftentimes its the only one that we have. And so we owe it to ourselves and to the u. S. People, to the people who are actually sacrificing like colonel clark, colonel leonard or two of my soldiers, sergeant fike and Sergeant Hoover who are going to give their life trying to rebuild, trying to partner with afghan soldiers. We owe it to them to make sure we get it as clos to right as we possibly can. Im hoping that some of my discussions and some of the discussions on the panel such as this actually help improve that and improve the quality of our decisions that were making so that those war stories usually have happy endings rather than somewhat sad ones. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. [ applause ] major, those were moving remarks and very informative. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, chris, and all of you for the opportunity to be here. Its a privilege to be part of this important discussion today. One quick note, on baseball, todays an important day in washington. Baseball, i just want to be the first to say, im sure im not the first that even if the nats dont have a good postseason, i want to applaud them on a great season. Its been a wonderful baseball season. I also want to ask our cubs fans, how greedy can you be . Two World Championships youre after now in 107 years . Isnt one enough . And it just seems to me, i want to make a plea that maybe they make a little faux pass tonight. But im going to now segue from that into afghanistan by saying on afghanistan i am not greedy. I am not looking for some stellar outcome. To me even though i support the mission and support president s trumps decision to reinforce it, im sure im not necessarily in the majority on this panel in that view, but well hear from others and from you in the course of conversation. I do support that decision but i dont see it as a pathway toward a resounding victory. I think the stakes in afghanistan are frankly more modest and they boil back down to making sure were not attacked again by a plot thats largely hatched or planned or organized on afghan or south asian territory as we were on 9 11. And another way to put the same sort of idea is that i hope that our presence in afghanistan, which may have to last im afraid for many more years, can help be our sort of eastern flank in a broader regionwide struggle against violent extremism, which i expect to be a generationlong struggle. And had the privilege of writing an oped in the wall street journal this june with general petraeus that this may be a jernglong struggle against extremism and we need some strongholds and some bastions in a sense to wage that successfully and the afghan presence is the most logical place in south asia. So i actually see in some ways the presence of south asia not as a nationbuilding effort at this point and not simply bailing out a sinking ship of the afghan state but actually a Strategic Asset for the United States because this if you essentially assume the existence of this ongoing violent extremist threat throughout the broader middle east youre going to need assets to deal with that. Youre going to need some locations from which you can handle that threat. Now, well come back to the issue of negotiations later. If the only thing standing in the way of a truly viable peace deal with the taliban was an american willingness to leave south asia, i would probably be willing to consider that and support that. But at the moment i actually would like to slightly turn the logic away from viewing this as a nationbuilding enterprise and also argue that this is creation of an american Strategic Asset in a geographically important part of the broader Central Command theater. So my first point is just to underscore how i see the stakes and the broader strategic purpose here. I want to do four more things briefly before turning over to steve biddle and scott and then a discussion here with all of you. I want to talk about what are realistic goals for President Trumps new strategy that hes just articulated thats been further fleshed out by recent congressional testimony by secretary mattis and general dunford and other statements from other parts of the u. S. Government. What are realistic goals . For the foreseeable future. What are the main concepts, the main things were doing with these Additional Forces and other capabilities that hopefully can help us achieve realistic goals . How long will it take and then whats the role for negotiation . So again, beyond the question of strategic stakes that ive already touched on, what are more realistic operational goals . What are the main concepts for what were doing with these added resources on the ground . What are the timelines we have to think about for this kind of a strategy to have any chance . And then finally, what if any role can we aspire to for negotiations with the taliban and the Afghan Government . In terms of realistic goals, and chris in his introduction alluded to the kinds of things i want to talk about here, he mentioned that by u. S. Intelligence estimates as repeated by the special Inspector General for afghan reconstruction which does these reports every few months that you can find on the web if you want to read more that theres an estimate now that the Afghan Government only controls about 60 of the country. I think to be more precise, thats actually the right broad number and none of these estimates are exact anyway. But the report itself says that 57 of the territory and 62 of the population are essentially under government control. Another 10 or so is under taliban control. The remaining 30 or so is contested. And that is a deterioration over the last half decade and especially over the last two to three years from an earlier figure of the government having maybe 70 to 72 estimated control of the territory and population. So what i would like to see as a realistic goal that i think President Trump could possibly achieve in his first term is to reverse the momentum or the direction by which those numbers are changing. So if weve gone from roughly 70 government control to 60 , id like to see us aspire to 65 to 70 again under government control by the end of 2020. General john allen and i wrote about that more recently after President Trump gave his summertime speech on afghanistan policy endorsing that kind of a standard as one we thought was attainable. That may sound sort of like splitting hairs, you know, a different shade of a mediocre stalemate and we can certainly have that debate. Im sure some people here will want to have that debate today and we should as i say. However, a lot of whats been happening in afghanistan in the last two to three years is a function of psychology and perceived momentum. The taliban think theyre winning, which by the way is part of why im not very hopeful about a nearterm negotiation option. I dont think theyre going to negotiate for anything less than whats essentially a surrender by president ghani and dr. Abdullah and the government of afghanistan today. So i think we have to change that perception if we have a hope for realistic negotiation. Also the Pakistani Intelligence Services which are continuing to aid and abet or at least condone the taliban as i think theyve already testified the pentagon officials have testified this week in washington. If were going to try to change the calculus of the pakistani intelligence which is a daunting proposition, we have to show that defeat of the Afghan Government is not inevitable, that theres a realistic chance that the taliban can be held off, even as nato has now downsized dramatically since the peak of forces back in the petrae petraeus, mcchrystal, allen period when we get up to nearly 100,000 u. S. Troops and nearly 150,000 total natoled troops. Now were down to a number about 10 of that figure, somewhere around 15,000 total. Were probably headed up to 20,000, 22,000 with the Current Trump strategy. So were still going to be dramatically smaller, but we are going to i think have enough capability for a decent chance of reversing this momentum. So to me thats the goal we should be hoping for. And i think there would be important psychological effects on the taliban, on the pakistani Intelligence Forces and services that support the taliban. And certainly on afghans, many of whom have been leaving the country after a lot of the diaspora came back after 9 11. Its been gradually trickling out in this period of declining morale because there has been this sense of gradual slippage, that the country is gradually being lost. And i think if that could be changed, you could reverse the flow also of the young afghans, many of whom ive met and many of whom ive met and admire greatly who are trying to build a new country. And they have a lot of work ahead of them for all the reasons that max got at. But i think they have a chance. As long as they believe in the mission and they stay to complete it. When i say mission here, im talking obviously much more broadly than a military mission. Those are to me the realistic goals. I cant prove they will be achieved by President Trumps new strategy. I do think its important to caution, even as an advocate and supporter of that strategy, that the president s talk of victory is to my mind unrealistic and probably not even productive because it raises expectations too high. But i have a lower set of standards that i think may be attainable and that would be important if we could achieve them. Okay. So what are we going to do with these extra forces . First let me clarify the numbers a little bit further. I know there are a lot of numbers dancing around out there. Those of us in the unclassified world dont necessarily know the exact numbers anyway. Thats partly deliberate. Secretary mattis has been very clear as has President Trump. They dont believe in giving complete information in the American Public because by necessity youre also giving it to the enemy when you do that in a public debate. However, we do know a fair amount about the current troop configurations and now what will happen with the reinforcements. So up until President Trumps speech this summer, we had about 8,400 americans in afghanistan in uniform according to the official numbers. Weve gradually learned over the years that there have been probably 3,000 to 4,000 additional temporary forces on any given deployment at any given time. So the u. S. Number has really been probably around 12,000 in the last year or two even though the official number which is really the people who are based there for 7 to 12 months has been 8,400. So weve been at about 12,000 u. S. And another 5,000 nato and nato partner countries. So roughly in the range of 17,000 or 18,000 total Foreign Forces in afghanistan. That number is apparently growing by up to 5,000. Were going to be somewhere between probably 20,000 and 24,000 total foreign troops as these reinforcements arrive in country. Thats still only 1 6 to 1 7 the number we had at peak back when steve helped with the Strategic Review and the aftermath of that period when i had the privilege to travel with him a number of times to afghanistan myself. In that period of time it was amazing to see what people like max were doing on the ground and you also had to acknowledge even as a supporter of the mission that these guys often deserve better than they were getting from their afghan partners, from their american political system, what have you. But i still thought that they accomplished a fair amount and there is in many ways now the basis for at least some modest progress towards the standards i outlined before. You might say, however, if youre a skeptic and i suspect there are a few here, why can we get done with 20,000 foreign troops what we couldnt get done with 150,000 . Very fair question. Well, what are they going to do . I think what theyre going to do is get out in the field as combat advisers to afghan units that are in contact with the enemy. This does raise the risks for American Forces who have largely been confined to headquarters and Training Facilities in the last couple of years. Theres now going to be a larger number out in the field. Sort of the way weve been operating in iraq in the fight against isis the last three years. So there will be more of that. And many of these units in the afghan army and police have very, very young leadership. It hasnt really gotten that strong yet because a lot of their leadership was politicized in the karzai period in particular. I think its gradually reforming and improving, but we sort of skipped over a step of being out there in the field mentoring with them when president obama accelerated the draw down in decisions he made. In 2013, 14, 15. So we havent really done this phase of being out in the field mentoring. I think that can make a substantial difference. Also we havent had free use of american air power. Its been restricted to cases where American Forces were under direct threat or where we saw al qaeda direct targets. Now secretary mattis, President Trump, general nicholson on command in afghanistan are going to allow nato air power to be used more routinely in fights against the taliban even to support afghan army units who are the ones, of course, leading that fight today. So air power and mentoring are the main things well be doing differently than we have been. More expansive use of air power. Let me finish up. Ive already touched on the timelines issue and the negotiations issue so i can summarize by saying the following. I think this will be an indefinite mission, not necessarily at the level of 20,000 to 24,000 foreign troops but i think i would be less than fully honest with you as a person who supports this operation and whos tried to think through some of its longerterm dimensions if i didnt acknowledge that it could be a decade or more. And i use the expression a generationlong struggle against extremism early. So im not promise field goal we surge or mini surge for two years we can come home in 2022. I have no such promise. And you shouldnt support this kind of strategy in my opinion if you have that as a requirement, that we would be able to come home lets say within five years. I dont think a complete departure is going to be in the cards in that time frame. I hope we can return to the path of downsizing within that time frame, but thats the most i would aspire to. There are variables. What does pakistan do in terms of sanctuary for the taliban . What role do we see with isis and al qaeda . And to what extent does a broader extremist threat percolate in that region . There are a number of things we cant quite sketch out. And of course afghan politics. Whether theres a good election there for the parliament next year, a glex for the presidency in 2019. Whether the very gradual process of fighting corruption that i think president ghani has made some progress in conducting and which cigar notes has actually borne some tlufruit. Sigar is pretty good at rooting out corruption when they see it. They acknowledge some of the strategies the afghans used under president ghani have made substantial headway in their recent report from last winter. So if we can see that kind of progress continue maybe theres hope for a quicker drawdown. But finally, and to conclude, in terms of those who are hoping for a negotiated outcome with the taliban and steve may or may not speak to this, i look forward to his thoughts, i am a full supporter of that as long as its not a surrender. And right now i fear that the only kind of deal that might be doable with a group that thinks its winning is effectively a surrender. If it becomes a power sharing arrangement, if it becomes giving them certain things in the southeast that are monitored or under their control, im open to that kind of framework for discussion. I just fear right now we have to reverse that battlefield momentum before we can be there and have a realistic chance. And i hope President Trumps strategy might get us to that place of reversing momentum. Thank you. [ applause ] mike has kindly handed to me the negotiation portfolio because thats the easy part of this issue area. Im happy to talk about negotiation, but its important i think to set it into a little bit of context first. After 16 years of this conflict or range of plausible outcomes is a lot narrower than in 2001. And the range of plausible u. S. Optionsize a lot narrower than it was. Were not sending 100,000 troops back to afghanistan. And i suspect the panel will agree were not going to get anything that would conventionally look like military victory in afghanistan regardless of what policy choice we adopt. When the president talks about victory, i suspect either he isnt thinking very hard about what that means. Probably not a fan of the 19th century prussian military philosopher who talked about defining victory and defeat in terms of political objectives rather than destroying the enemy. Were not going to destroy the enemy. I think the range of plausible outcomes for this campaign at this point is somewhere between the collapse of the Afghan Government and a return to 1990s atomized civil warfare and a compromised negotiated settlement that does not look like a taliban surrender instrument either. That involves us giving something and them giving something. Thats where the range of plausible outcomes lie at the moment. And the range of initiatives that the United States could plausibly adopt to pursue getting closer to the likelihood of a negotiated settlement that involves some sort of compromise or sacrifice of all the interests that are engaged amounts to somewhere between complete withdrawal, which is a plausible choice for the United States, and something that looks like 24,000 troops on the ground to advise, air strikes, and an expenditure from the u. S. Treasury something on the order of 15 to 30 billion dollars a year or so to support that effort for as long as it takes to get a negotiated settlement we can live with, which is not going to happen in six months or a year or even two. A negotiation this complicated is going to take quite a while to unfold. Now, you could reasonably ask are any of those outcomes worth that scale of expenditure to obtain . And i think i suspect also the panel probably agrees that the scale of u. S. Interests engaged in the conflict is somewhere in the real but limited neighborhood. The stakes that the United States faces in afghanistan today involve some combination of the use of afghan territory as a base for terrorists to attack us, as mike pointed out. That is a real problem, but it is not a problem thats unique to afghanistan. There are lots of pieces of real estate around the world where al qaeda or the Islamic State or jebad alnusra or any of dozens of other violent militant groups that mean us ill arent now but might be in the future. If the way were going to deal with this generationlong problem of how do we cope with violent extremism is were going to spend 30 billion a year and send 24,000 soldiers everywhere they might be in the future but arent now, were going to run out of dollars and soldiers a long time before violent extremists run out of real estate. I tend to suspect that the more compelling american stake in afghanistan is regional stability, which is code language for whether pakistan collapses or not. Pakistan is right across a very porous International Border in the form of the duran line from afghanistan, the pashtun ethnic group thats primarily associated with the taliban insurgency. Theres a crossborder population that has more members on the pakistani side than the afghan side. And pakistan is engaged in an insurgency and a counterinsurgency war of its own that by some metrics isnt going terribly well for them. If the pakistanis lose their war, then a Nuclear Weapon state with a large and growing Nuclear Arsenal and dozens of violent extremists groups that dont like islamabad and dont Like Washington could then plausibly be a setting in which the military and Intelligence Services break up if the state loses its war and collapses and that creates some danger that an actual usable Nuclear Weapon could fall in the hands of terrorists that might use them against ourselves or our allies. Thats a real threat to u. S. National interests. And collapse on the afghan side of the duran line could accurate base camps in afghanistan by which militants in pakistan might pursue an agenda that is potentially quite dangerous to the United States. Although thats a real problem for us, note that would require a whole series of uncertain events breaking badly for us in sequence. The u. S. Counter Insurgency Campaign in afghanistan would have to fail. The Afghan Government would have to fall. Pakistani insurgents would have to set up base camps. That would have to tip the pakistani insurgency over the brink. The pakistani government and Intelligence Services break up. They lose control of their Nuclear Arsenal. Their Nuclear Arsenal. Thats not an impossible sequence of events. The compound probability is probably less than 50 and maybe a lot less than 50 . If it happened, it would be a disaster for u. S. Interests of historic magnitude, but its a low probability chain of events. What then are we willing to invest in afghanistan to have some marginal influence, not a guarantee of success if we succeed in afghanistan. Pakistan might lose its war anyway. To have some marginal influence in reducing the likelihood of this chain of bad events going badly. And thats a judgment call that reasonable people can make differently. In the past ive been supportive of the war because i think low probability events, if theyre ugly enough, and this one is way up there in the ugly scale, are worth some degree of investment. Reasonable people can make that judgment call differently depending on your risk tolerance, which as an analyst i cant tell you what your risk tolerance would be. Some of you are probably invested in the stock market. Some of you may be washington nats fans. There may be all sorts of variations from person to person in risk tolerance. What i can tell you is i think on the merits, its a relatively close call. If you decide that youre willing to incur that risk, or youre willing to incur that cost to reduce that risk, what is the sensible way to reduce the risk the most for the money that we spend . Part of the plausible policy agenda open to us at the moment is reinforcements to the advisory effort and a change in the rules of engagement for the use of air power. Especially the latter could be quite helpful. The other important avenue that is open to us that is actually not terribly expensive in financial terms is to actually get serious about the negotiating process. We are not going to defeat the taliban. And the advisory effort is not going to enable the Afghan Government to defeat the taliban. With some combination of the advisory effort, american air strikes, american intelligence assistance, american equipment, other initiatives that we may pursue in afghanistan, is plausibly able to do is to maintain a stalemate. We can change the slope of the curve on territorial control, you know, make it a bit more shallow, maybe make it a little bit positive. Were not going to kick the taliban out of the country. We probably are not going to see a taliban takeover even if we dont reinforce. The taliban have shown some but very limited ability to penetrate urban areas. My guess is either way what were talking about is something that most people would describe as a stalemate and the issue is what variation on stalemate do we want as a function of how we plan our military posture. I tend to be pessimistic on what Security Assistance can do. I dont think the central barrier to the performance of the Afghan National Security Forces at the moment is how much training their Junior Officers have. I think the primary barrier to the performance of the Afghan National Security Forces are profound structural issues having to do with the institutionalization of the afghan state and the consequences of that for military performance. More on that in just a moment. Where i think our policy probably has the most marginal influence on out comes is with respect to the way we handle the problem of negotiation. Any outcome better than afghan state collapse and return to 1990s style civil warfare amounts to a negotiated settlement. What the military campaign is doing between now and whenever that happens or doesnt happen is were just changing at the margin the terms of the settlement that will result. So settlement is the only alternative to outright defeat, failure, and rolling the dice and running the social science experiment to see what happens to pakistan if the Afghan Government actually collapses. That in turn means that if were going to spend money and if were going to send troops and if were going to risk american lives and the advisory campaign we have to be serious about the settlement process. Thats the only point of doing this. And yet we have no assistant secretary of state for south asian affairs. Theres an acting official in that job. We did away with the office of the special representative for afghanistan and pakistan whose Job Description was to act as czar for development of a negotiating strategy. The conduct of the campaign in afghanistan as far as i can tell, and this goes all the way back to when mike and i were traveling there and back to my time on general mcchrystals Assessment Team has never been conceived of as the military arm of a combined political military negotiating strategy. What we have had, and i think unfortunately continue to have is a Campaign Plan that looks like lets create the best trajectory we can for government control over time and at some unspecified point in the some unspecified future there will be some unspecified negotiation that will exploit this military result to produce a better partition of the state than we would get without it and i dont personally think that is responsible policy for a democracy thats killing people in the name of the state and spending tens of billions of dollars in the project. I think we can reasonably demand of a our government some articulation of what is the strategy for getting to a negotiated settlement and serious effort not limited to but including staffing out the relevant parts of the government that would be required to actually get a negotiation that could justify the scale of expenditure and this scale of expenditure of human life. The one element i will add to the agenda of whats required for seriousness in the negotiation is its going to require some horse trading on capitol hill by an administration willing to spend Political Capital rather than just money on this war and on this campaign. As we saw in 2012 when the Obama Administration did this kind of semi deal with the taliban where in exchange for them giving us the unfortunate Sergeant Bowe bergdahl, their one captive, we were going to release a small number of taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay. And that was intend largely as a confidencebuilding measure to start the negotiating process. When that was announced, capitol hill melted down. There was huge opposition. How can you release these terrible terrorists from Guantanamo Bay . The Obama Administration got cold feet, withdrew the deal. The taliban concluded we were bad faith negotiators. The talks collapsed and went into deep freeze from which they have only very imperfectly recovered. Reasonable people can disagree over whether or not even with a properly staffed negotiating strategy, even with some willingness to build a constituency on capitol hill for a compromise deal so another bergdahltaliban deal meltdown doesnt happen whenever compromise negotiating proposals with the taliban are revealed. Reasonable people can disagree about whether if you make a serious effort you can get a deal. Im on the optimistic end of that spectrum. Mike may be less so. I suspect in q a we can turn to what the negotiating space would look like, what you would have to do, who youd have to talk to and all of that. Its all important towards what were discussing. But if you are not somewhere on the reasonably optimistic end of that spectrum with respect to the negotiating prospects, steady as she goes is not a viable strategy. Because its not going to win the war. All it can do is tee up a settlement. If the settlement isnt coming, we ought not be doing this. What weve got at the moment in my view is dangerously close to steady as she goes and hope for miracle. Keep the war on life support. Maintain the stalemate. Prevent the taliban from gaining momentum. And expect that sometime in the future somehow in a way that were not going to articulate well get to a settlement that lots of people are skeptical can occur. That i dont think is responsible policy for democracy. I think we reasonably should ask more of a leaders in terms of articulating the logic by which our expenditure and our military effort and our advising produce a settlement thats better for us than simply government collapse in kabul. [ applause ] hope for a miracle is probably a good segue for what im going to talk about. So 2001 the taliban is in control of afghanistan. Freedom house assess the country as now free. 2017 after 16 years of significant efforts, Freedom House assesses afghanistan as not free. Transparency International Rates the Afghan Government as more corrupt than 96 of all governments in the international system. In addition to being corrupt, the Afghan Government and its Security Force are incompetent. The taliban currently control or contest approximately 45 of the country. More than at any other time since they were last in power in 2001. And regarding a threat to the United States of america, the taliban themselves have obviously never conducted a strike in the homeland and al qaeda, which has conducted a strike in our homeland and did enjoy sanctuary in afghanistan, has not conducted an attack since 2009, and that was the unsuccessful botched mission by the underwear bomber. If youre talking about safe havens, al qaeda can currently be found in pakistan, somalia and yemen. Very few fighters are you going to find in afghanistan. For this reason and some more im going to get into im going to argue its long overdue for the withdrawal of military forces, to bring them back home. My two primary arguments this morning are one, the threat does not warrant our continued presence in afghanistan. And two, the strategy weve used for 16 years which is the worlds most exquisite, most Capable Military force, this giant wonderful shiny hammer is marauding muslim majority states looking for a terrorist and then shwacking the terrorist and really hoping all we killed was the terrorist and not somebody else. So to begin, the threat does not justify is my argument our presence in afghanistan. So heres a chart of 50 years of data on exactly how Many Americans are murdered each year in the homeland. Question for today is how many of them are murdered by islamist inspired terrorists and how many of them are murdered by someone else . Obviously the green bar suggests its always someone else who does the murdering in the United States. Its not islamistinspired terrorists. In fact, in only one year can you detect the impact of islamistinspired terrorists and thats of course 2001. And i want to talk for a moment about the terror attacks on 9 11. Those attacks were unprecedented. Had not ever seen it in history prior. We have not seen it since. Its an outlier event. Twice as many human beings perished that day than any in other terror attack ever in history. And its important to not in contrast to that largescale terror attacks almost never take place in the west, in north america, much less in the united america, much less in the United States of america. Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac