Escalating the War in Afghanistan?

The historian Arnold Toynbee observed that civilizations that attempted to reform far flung outposts on the periphery of their empires tended to fail and decline. Societies that renewed themselves, on the other hand, stood a better chance of succeeding and being ascendant powers.

Toynbee’s observation is extremely pertinent as the Obama administration contemplates a possible expansion of troops in Afghanistan. Proponents of increasing American forces to counter a resurgent Taliban contend that the so-called surge option turned the tide of the Iraq War in America’s favor, so why shouldn’t a similar counterinsurgency strategy work in Afghanistan?

To begin with, Afghanistan is a country five times the size of Iraq with some of the most inhospitable territory in the world. To compound matters, Afghanistan has never had an effective central government and the administration of Hamid Karzai, the partner in any nation building efforts in Afghanistan, is notoriously corrupt and therefore despised by much of the population.

Given enough time, say a decade, a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan might succeed. But defeating the Taliban and those resisting America’s presence in Afghanistan will likely have a limited strategic impact on the broader campaign against terrorism. Put simply, terrorism is an ideology that defies borders. Waging a battle for territory in Afghanistan is futile or beside the point if America’s enemies can simply flee to ungovernable regions in neighboring Pakistan.

The Bush administration’s strategy against terrorism boiled down to reducing the pool of ‘bad guys’ who are ideologically disposed towards attacking the United States. One limitation of this approach, of course, is that inevitable collateral damage tends to breed new jihadists. As even Don Rumsfeld noted, we can’t be sure we’re killing them faster than they are being created.

The “War on Terror” concept is proving self-defeating in other ways. It costs approximately $250,000 to field a single soldier in Afghanistan per year. Escalating the war in Afghanistan is going to cost the United States Treasury some $173 billion a year going forward. The Obama administration has an ambitious agenda to reform healthcare, repair America’s ailing infrastructure, and invest in the alternative energy sources of the future. However, at some point America’s creditors, particularly China, will have to ask the question: will the United States ever be able to repay the vast sums it is borrowing?

Experts agree that China is a rising power. Increasingly, America’s economic fate is tethered to China’s willingness to lend us money. The more the United States borrows the more leverage China will have over America’s economic and political future. For instance, if the United States does not curb its appetite for debt, then one day Chinese bankers might decide that they require a higher level of interest to compensate for their risk. A failure of America’s elected officials to raise taxes and cut services in order to pay for the servicing of our national debt could precipitate a run on the dollar.

Military success in Afghanistan may be less central to our national security than has been generally assumed. America cannot quit Afghanistan entirely. But our adventure in Iraq should have taught us something about the limits of military force. After all, the “success” of the so-called surge was something of a pyrrhic victory; the surge merely succeeded in mitigating the disastrous consequences of the Bush administration’s ill-advised invasion. Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Unfortunately, the United States no longer has the resources to do nation building abroad and at home. America must make a choice.