Dig in for the Long War

The left claims the Afghan war has cost too much and taken too long. But Americans need to give our counterinsurgency strategy the time it needs to work.

A commenter by the name of Elvis Elvisberg takes issue with my post today about Mikhail Gorbachev and the American war effort in Afghanistan. Because Elvisberg articulates several commonplace left-wing clichés about the war and Afghan history, his comment warrants a response.

(1) Reagan: RINO or Con?

In my piece I argue that Gorbachev is seriously overrated; and that Ronald Reagan, not Gorbachev, is the real reason the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. Yet, Elvisberg notes, some prominent conservative leaders in the 1980s -- including the 2012 presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich -- opposed Reagan’s efforts to negotiate with the Soviets.

“If Reagan were here today,” Elvisberg writes, “he’d be thrown out of the GOP as a RINO.”

Hold on. Not so fast. Conservative skepticism of the Soviet Union and of Soviet leaders was perfectly understandable. After all, the Soviets, as Reagan himself had observed when he took office, “reserve[d] unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie [and] to cheat…”

In fact, “the only morality [that] they recognize[d] is what [would] further their cause,” Reagan explained. So conservatives were perfectly reasonable to look askance at Soviet intentions and negotiating tactics, and to view these with extreme skepticism.

Moreover, the historical record is clear: Because of his military buildup and his insistence on building a strategic anti-missile defense (SDI), Reagan brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

The fact that some conservatives lacked Reagan's wisdom and prescience is unsurprising. Reagan was, after all, probably the greatest American president in the 20th Century -- and of course, also one of the most conservative presidents in American history.

(2) Afghanistan is a war without purpose and a war without end.

Elvisberg complains that we’ve been in Afghanistan for almost 10 years and really haven’t accomplished much. He neglects to note, however, that for most of those 10 years we’ve had a woefully insufficient number of forces there and had adopted a more conventional military strategy that was destined to fail.

Today, by contrast, there are more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan; and Gen. Petraeus, like Gen. McChrystal before him, is waging a classic counterinsurgency campaign. This is the same type of military strategy that the U.S. military belatedly adopted in Iraq and to stunning effect.

(3) The cost of the war has been “severe.”

This is simply not true. In fact, quite the opposite: in relative and historical terms, the cost of the war has been anything but “severe.” Actually, the cost in dollars and lives has been remarkably low.

Certainly, our casualties don't compare to what we suffered in, say, Vietnam. The cost of the war, moreover, is less than one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

(4) There is no clear benefit to the war.

Nonsense. The benefit of the war is quite clear: It has stopped the Taliban and al-Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a terrorist training ground from which to attack our homeland.

Maybe Elvisberg doesn’t remember September 11, 2001, but I do. And it is a very good thing, indeed, that we have prevented the jihadists from launching another spectacular attack on the American homeland.

The war also has freed and liberated millions of innocent Afghans, especially women, from the barbaric rule of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

And, most importantly, it’s given us a way to help keep Pakistani jihadists in check. Pakistan, remember, is armed with nuclear weapons.

(5) The United States lacks clear goals and objectives in Afghanistan.

Wrong again. Our goals and objectives are quite clear. They are to keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda from conquering Afghanistan and to ensure that the country never again becomes a terrorist staging ground from which the jihadists can attack America.

This can be achieved only by ensuring that Afghanistan has a more or less representative government and a close and omnipresent American ally, resident with U.S. troops on the ground.

(6) It is doubtful that the United States can win in Afghanistan.

Au contraire: if the politicians don’t bug out in Afghanistan, then there is little doubt but that the United States will win this war. That’s because our goals and objectives there -- what we mean by winning -- are quite modest and reasonable.

The goal and objective is not to turn Afghanistan into some utopian Jeffersonian democracy. Instead, it is to transform Afghanistan into a country not all that different from its neighbors like, say, Tajikistan. The United States aims to help establish a sovereign and independent Afghanistan that is free of the barbaric rule of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

"Afghanistan," Gen. Petraeus observes, "has a long history of representative self-government at all levels, from the village shura to the government in Kabul.” The U.S. military, he explains is trying to “help the government and the people [there] to revive those traditions…"

(7) We’re engaged in a futile and counterproductive “permanent occupation” of Afghanistan.

It is true that the U.S. policymakers and the American people should be prepared for a long-term military presence in Afghanistan. But this is very different from the liberal caricature of a “permanent occupation.”

After all, is the United States “occupying” Germany, Japan or South Korea? Of course not. We have troops stationed there to help preserve peace and stability and to deter and prevent war. That should be our aim in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

It will take time and patience, however, to achieve this. Americans seem to want everything done yesterday and in a nanosecond. The real world, though, doesn’t work that way. Counterinsurgency fights especially can last a decade or more.

Such is the case with Afghanistan. Victory there is not elusive; it just will take time to achieve. But if the war is worth fighting -- and it is -- then it is worth fighting in the right way, and with the right commitment, so that it will redound to our long-term national interest.

John Guardiano blogs at strong>www.ResoluteCon.Com<, and you can follow him on Twitter: strong>@JohnRGuardiano<.