"I don’t recall hearing the terms ‘War on terror’, ‘long war’ or anything similar over the three days. The conflict in Afghanistan was (rightly, I think) divorced from some greater project."

Has it become politically acceptable to describe the war in Afghanistan more as a humanitarian, rather than a national security, imperative?

Let's assume everything you say is true. All your assumptions are correct. Even the one that says that our Army is led by a bunch of know-nothings. You seem to think: "We've a whole generation of Army leaders at all ranks who've come to believe that Afghanistan is 'their' war, they own it, and they get to stick with it until magic happens and all issues are resolved in our favor. "

Well we're stuck in this tar-baby. We've got a big problem and we really need to figure the BEST way out. We could take the easy way out. DING, OPS are over, lets all go home. But even that would leave us some bad things (which I'll offer in a moment). We will have left the battlefield, not just having lost a strategic effort but also without untying this Gordian knot.

We won't have learned the fundamental thing we need to know so we can counter this problem in the future. And there will be a future, and a future conflict, and our enemies around the world will know that we don't have the stomach to complete what we start...and our allies will know that they are only allies until it is expedient for us to pass on our obligations. We'll be no better prepared to deal with future threats and we'll have lost a fundamental fight. My points are based on the ego of not losing, although that's important (esp in a honor based society like that in the Middle East), its based on so much more.

So here's some bad things. Not an all encompassing list, but a substantial start. 1) both Iraq and Afghanistan are frontier BARRIER outposts (and intermediate staging bases) in the backyards of our biggest, best defined enemy we have right now. We'll give that up. This esp relates to Iran and (believe it or not) Pakistan. Political/UN pressure is doing nothing to curtail Iran's efforts at nuclear technology. Best have a backup plan.

2) We'll give up control/protection of the oil assets in Iraq and the natural gas pipelines that can/will be routed through Afghanistan. Destabilizing the markets for both.

3) We'll leave our allies in these places at the mercy of whoever subsumes control. If they survive they will never trust us again (kinda like the mujahadeen we left to rot in countering the USSR in Afghanistan

4) NATO as a force for good will likely collapse having failed to counter the one true fighting war they had to contend with.

5) Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons, will be further destablized as the Taliban and Al Qaeda gain political strength in the wake of our pull-out. With no pressure applied from outside (Afghanistan) or inside (Pakistan's internal forces) the likelhood of their securing some sort of nuclear device (likely a dirty one) will grow commensurately.

the list goes on.

I really have no desire to fight a 100 year war (another of your favorite descriptions. But we have been in Europe for 65 years because that is what it has taken so far. Indeed you need only look to that example to see how we countered the 5, very similar, threats there.

You know they say we lost Vietnam because we didn't fight a ten year war, we fought a one year war ten times. You can bet - akin to Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom - we'll have to go back into these places if we leave at the wrong time. Why do that? We've got so many sunk costs already. It sucks, I don't like it, but it is still better than the nasty alternatives.

"My points are based on the ego of not losing, although that's important (esp in a honor based society like that in the Middle East), its based on so much more."

SHOULD BE

"My points are NOT based on the ego of not losing, although that's important (esp in a honor based society like that in the Middle East), its based on so much more."

We're playing, but not well, not successfully, not with any defined end in sight. Again (David Petraeus): Tell me how this ends.

It doesn't. That's what concerns me about current thinking about the Afghanistan war.

I agree with Tom Ricks that Afghanistan is not Iraq, at least where the reasons each war started are concerned. The fact is, though, that right now we're committed to a major, very expensive military deployment for another year (if one believes the official Obama administration line) or much longer (if one believes some counterinsurgency experts) the strategic objective of which is to prevent something from happening. That something, obviously, is the reestablishment of al Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary and the ability of that organization to organize from Afghanistan the kinds of international terrorist operations it did prior to the fall of 2001.

In one sense, as long as we prevent that from happening, we're winning in Afghanistan -- a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. The lack of any positive objective is an enormous weakness in the NATO war effort in Afghanistan right now. I'll grant that the counterinsurgency ideas now being applied might have generated such an objective had they been tried back in 2002: something like a stable, peaceful Afghanistan where everyone got along well enough that they weren't killing each other all the time.

That kind of objective might have been something Afghans were willing to fight for, then, but we really need to consider the possibility that this is a ship long since sailed. I'm not down on counterinsurgency by any means, but lost time has consequences. Operation Overlord wouldn't have looked like such a hot idea if we'd put it off until 1952, either.

And there is the question of the war's expense. I know this is not an issue that resonates especially well in the defense policy community, with its traditional indifference to fiscal matters, but it is not an issue we can afford to put off for very much longer. The United States has got to start budgeting less for the Defense Department, a lot less. The kinds of choices that Americans will soon have to make regarding government spending and taxes that directly effect their own lives are not consistent with the indefinite commitment to Afghanistan that some in the defense policy community seem to be contemplating as if it were the only thing we could do.

That an American withdrawal from Afghanistan would be very bad for most Afghans I have no doubt, and if we were not on the brink of a fiscal crisis it might be reason enough to stay there longer than President Obama has indicated he wants to. We are, though, a fact that has to be part of the context of our thinking about what to do next.

A tactical note: I'm pretty concerned about the enemy managing to hit a convoy carrying senior American and NATO officers in the middle of Kabul. This indicates either a serious intelligence leak or an equally serious carelessness about security. Perhaps Tom Ricks has sources who could let us know what happened here.

Our strategic policy at the time was containment. We contained what we could for ten years until the unstable Vietnam government made it clear we weren't gonna make substantial progress. Congress and public opinion made it easy to leave under the circumstances.

But Vietnam was never an existential threat to the US mainland, we were supporting an ally and trying to contain Communism (wooo spooky). Indeed it could be argued (and I often have) that while Vietnam never concluded the way we would want it to it was an instrumental step in winning the Cold War proxy fight with the USSR (along with Afghanistan). LOOK SOMETHING SPARKLY! By those two distractions, we kept the nukes in the barn, kept the Russkies out of Western Europe and ultimately bankrupted our opponents. Yeah, party baby...and Oh BTW see the Rolling Stones in Prague - as I did as a young 1LT. Indeed, I also conducted a peacekeeping mission with the Czechs - IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC - in 1995, unimaginable only 6 years prior.

Now that was Vietnam. But today we have an existential threat. Indeed we have a threat who by manifesto has not only declared war but also stated that Inshallah they'll use whatever nasty weapons they can devise or steal against us. And on one fateful day they did just that with the only recent attack on American soil. 3000 dead and untold ripple effects on the global economy, that some may argue we still haven't recovered from.

Hmm, I would say that the stakes are too high...or the cost benefit analysis (per RD's request) is such that maybe this containment idea needs to be relooked, rejiggered and re-implemented. The almost inevitable Time Square suitcase bomb, and the fallout both real and economic afterwards, looks to be a cost none of us can afford.

The Times Square Bomber does link to Afghanistan, but it was our failure to close the deal/end the conflict/wrap up our victory/finish the job in 2002 that evolved the events that radicalized the Bomber, that and our feckless war in Iraq, which we also grandly screwed up. Lots of blame for all that - Bush/Cheney at the top - but My Favorite Army is on that list too.

Goddammit, you've been in Afghanistan for almost 9 years, no lack of support, no limits on technology, no significant boundaries on range-of-action: how is it that a smallish and ragtag lot of irregulars continue to baffle and bamboozle the best you can do?

BOLANDJD - Please allow me to politely and tactfully (it pains me to say this) point-out that my experience in Viet Nam tells me we certainly did marginalize the Viet Cong, but we never truly defeated them. They were able to continue to recruit, and fill ranks from those coming down from up north for that purpose.

I fear, like Uncle Ho understood, the Taliban also understand, time is on their side – which of course is the heart of the question: how much time do we really have?

see below

Tom's earned his place. Cheap shots are undeserved except as they diminish the shooter....

You might want to edit your comments Mr. Ducky, lest you sound like a crass brown noser. Perhaps you might want to tell us what Mr. Ricks earned.

Actually I was aiming for that award.

This is a pretty good blog - the best by some accounts. Mucking it up with ad hominem crap is not useful, nor does it speak well of the mucker. Take that, you dumb mucker.

I misspoke. Of course I was sorry for all of them. What I should hae said was that I was shocked. That would have conveyed what I was trying to say.
Thanks,
Tom

The murdering, killing and mutilation of civilians means nothing to those employed by Eternal War, Inc. These evil and criminal wars have destroyed untold numbers of human beings. The employees of Eternal War Inc,. refer to these poor souls as, "Collateral Damage." A good rag head is a dead rag head as far as Eternal War Inc, is concered. Just ask Assasin Stasn, he has killed plenty of them himself.

The Pentagon could care less what things cost. Our current military officers only understand, "Food good, fire bad." Besides, war is the only growth business left in America, and war pig looters like Northrop Grumman are making the best of it! The looting raid continues, and the pigs get fatter everyday. Great work for those with hearts of stone.

thanks!