Afghanistan Outlook: The Clock Is Ticking

This year in Afghanistan, time will run out.

"We now have a narrow window of time in which to show clear signs of progress to a rightly skeptical and war-weary American public," Sen. John McCain of Arizona said two weeks ago.

"And I believe we can do this,'' he added less convincingly.

According to senior U.S. military officers and diplomats, the U.S.-led war could finally achieve momentum in 2010, with military gains against insurgents and visible progress in deploying professional Afghan soldiers and police, in rooting out government corruption, and providing jobs and hope to ordinary Afghans.

Or, the entire enterprise, in which the United States has invested $300 billion, and the lives of 949 Americans, could slide further into violent chaos, with an intensifying war engulfing U.S. troops and threatening the very survival of the western-backed regime in Kabul.

After eight years, "many Americans and many members of Congress are impatient to see results in the near term here, just as many Afghan citizens are,'' the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, told an assembly of Afghan ministers and dignitaries Dec. 17.

"We must seize this moment.''

The record so far is not encouraging.

Eikenberry, a retired Army general who was senior commander in Afghanistan for 18 months in 2006-2007, describes Afghanistan today as "a disconnected society, divided by factionalism, plagued by corruption and illegal narcotics, and challenged by insecurity.'' The country's deep poverty, illiteracy, drug addiction, and unemployment have contributed to what he called "a growing disillusionment among Afghans, both with their own government and with the uneven results of the assistance delivered by the international community.''

Within that dismal environment, the war has not gone well. Insurgent attacks, including IED detonations, are up significantly. (For a good statistical analysis see the Afghanistan Index produced by the Brookings Institution.) Three times as many Americans were killed in battle this past year (256) as in 2006, and five times as many were wounded (2,006) than three years ago. Taliban insurgents continue to expand their influence throughout Afghanistan. In the widening war, some 2,500 Afghan civilians were killed in 2009, according to an estimate by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. Most of the Afghan civilians died in insurgent attacks.

Massive foreign aid, including more than $39 billion given by the United States since 2001, seems to have been wasted. Despite repeated pledges by the United States and others to focus on training teachers and government technocrats, and to help to jump-start the economy, there is little to show for the money.

Although Washington has for years been discussing a civilian "surge'' of experts to help out, that surge is still out in the future. "We are on track to triple the number of civilian positions in Afghanistan,'' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December. She acknowledged that State had sent 320 employees to Afghanistan on six-month tours, only to discover that "a lot of them didn't spend more than 30 to 60 days inside of Afghanistan.''

This international civilian effort "has been uneven, uncoordinated and ineffective,'' says a new report by the U.S. Institute of Peace, because of corruption and lack of leadership.

In the coming year, what might change quickly in this grim picture is security. President Obama's new Afghan initiative is committing 35,000 additional U.S. troops to the fight, bringing U.S. and allied forces to more than 150,000. And a narrowed strategy will focus largely on uprooting the Taliban from Helmand and Kandahar provinces and especially from the center of Taliban influence in Kandahar city.

Look for especially vicious fighting along the Arghandab Valley, a traditional stronghold west of Kandahar from which Islamist extremists defeated at least two major Soviet campaigns during the 1980s. In one of those battles, a 6,000-man force of Soviet and Afghan government troops stormed into the valley, and after 34 days retreated, beaten, according to accounts cited by Michael Yon in Small Wars Journal. Currently, the 5^th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2^nd Infantry Division, is fighting along the valley, where there have been "frequent insurgent attacks,'' according to a Stryker Brigade report on Christmas Day.

Military victories might not be enough.

Recruiting and training Afghan security forces to take over is the key element in the Obama administration's intention of beginning U.S. troop withdrawals within 18 months. But solid progress in fielding professional troops will be difficult to demonstrate in 2010. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said some army and police units will be able to begin leading operations in two years, and could be able to handle the country's security in five years.

"Until we can get Afghan security forces to a level where they can achieve a monopoly of violence and protect the people, they will never support us or their government,'' Lt. Col. J.J. Malevich, director of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, wrote in a recent paper.

Until Afghan security forces can take over, he wrote, "their government will never have a fighting chance.''

If there are dramatic improvements in security and visible reduction in government corruption, this year could be a brighter one for Afghanistan.

"Don't expect miracles on either front,'' O'Hanlon advises, "but moderate progress would seem probable. The question is whether it will be too little, too late. But there is reason for hope.''