Afghanistan Is Not Vietnam

Then there is the problem of the civilian side. The internationalization of the aid effort in Afghanistan came at the expense of coordination. Many agencies operate in the country independently, reporting to their own headquarters and pursuing their own agendas. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul is infinitely weaker in its ability to coordinate these efforts than the American mission in Iraq was, and the appointment of a U.N. coordinator has not been sufficient either. But the international community cannot hope to achieve any goals in Afghanistan unless everyone's efforts are part of a coherent overall program that is integrated with the military operations against insurgents and terrorists. Resolving this conundrum may require the hardest trade-offs at all. Unless the various countries, NGOs and international bodies now working in Afghanistan can accept that enlightened self-interest requires subordinating their efforts to a larger program, the key players will have to decide at what point the broad coalition becomes a liability rather than an asset. All of these bodies, of course, can quite reasonably insist that we develop a coherent and comprehensive civil-military plan with their involvement before agreeing to be guided by it, something we have not yet done.

The bottom line is that we are almost certainly not going to win in Afghanistan in 2009 or even 2010, although we are unlikely to lose, either. A sound strategy—now being developed by General Petraeus and his team at CENTCOM, by the commands within Afghanistan and in coordination with Richard Holbrooke, the new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan—can succeed, but it will take time, effort and patience. We can reasonably hope to set the conditions in 2009 for the beginning of a more decisive effort in 2010, with lasting success coming slowly and possibly fitfully over the following several years. The magnitude of the effort will almost certainly be smaller than what Iraq required—current plans will put a total of 6 American brigades in Afghanistan compared with the 22 that were in Iraq at the height of the surge. The pace of change, on the other hand, will likely be much slower.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam any more than Iraq was Vietnam. It is, like most insurgencies, a difficult problem, but one that we have every reason to believe we can solve. It is important to keep our expectations realistic, both in terms of what we hope to achieve and of the costs and speed of success, but we must not pursue the path of redefining success to be whatever we feel like we can accomplish with the effort we feel like putting forth. America does have vital national-security interests in Afghanistan, as it does in Iraq. President Obama is right to commit to pursuing those interests. His efforts, and those of Generals Petraeus and McKiernan, special envoy Holbrooke and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, deserve the support of the entire nation.

Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

© 2009