Motley Crew

If President Obama decides to endorse Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, he'll find an unlikely assortment of allies. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote a note to her Facebook followers stressing her belief that the additional troops were integral to success in Afghanistan. In September, she joined Karl Rove, William Kristol, David Frum, Robert Kagan, and more 30 other conservatives in signing a letter that urges the president to "give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy." On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain told reporters that he was "very convinced that General McChrystal's analysis is not only correct but should be employed as quickly as possible." Possible GOP 2012 contenders Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, both supportive of McChrystal's assessment, concur. And Obama would also receive the blessing of hawkish Democrats like Evan Bayh of Indiana and House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri, who said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation that he supported additional deployments. All these voices—representing vying factions across the political spectrum—have a shared chorus: "Give the general what he needs."

And if Obama consents to McChrystal's troop request, his opposition will emerge as an equally unlikely group of naysayers. In Congress, members from both parties are expressing hesitation. Republicans are mostly playing it safe. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee told NEWSWEEK he's reserving judgment until he hears how troop levels fit with the president's overall strategy in Afghanistan. Perhaps sensing Obama's proclivity for choosing a middle path, Republicans like Corker, along with McCain and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, who will both likely support a troop surge, are warning against "half measures," like committing to a modest troop increase. Graham told NEWSWEEK that's "the worst of all worlds … Either give the general what he needs or get out. There's no in between for me." That dichotomy is precisely the “straw man” Obama cautioned against in his meeting with congressional leaders yesterday.

Some Democrats, such as John Murtha and Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, are openly oppositional. "I would not commit to more combat troops at this time," Levin said on Face the Nation. Others present more opaque reservations, including Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who says she's not sure there is sufficient support for sending more troops.

It's politically wise—and predictable—for politicians to hedge until the president makes his final decision. But their private views are reflected by academics and intellectuals in think tanks and on op-ed pages across the country.

Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians are lining up to voice concerns. They've become unexpected bedfellows, united in an opposition borne of ideologically distinct strains of realism that transcend standard partisan divides. These three groups are finding agreement on three things. Firstly, they share a skepticism that sending more troops coheres with an overarching strategy that is likely to succeed. General McChrystal is proposing a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, much like General Petraeus's "surge" strategy in Iraq. It requires pushing out beyond major cities to fight insurgents on their terrain with the goal of stabilizing the entire nation. As such, it requires significant additional resources. The alternative, which hews more closely to a plan being pushed by Vice President Joe Biden, is a counterterrorism (CT) strategy. Under CT, American forces would hold major urban areas and take advantage of superior technology—drones, for example—to strike Al Qaeda safe havens. CT requires fewer boots on the ground. Its strategic aim is simply defeating terrorism, not promoting stable democracies.

For most opponents, counterinsurgency is a murky strategy without a clear end game. "The administration is comprised of people who don't have a clarity of objectives about the mission and what we are supposed to be doing," Steven Clemens, director of the nonpartisan think tank American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "How do you define success? What are the benchmarks?" Clemens describes himself as a "progressive realist" who wants to support Obama but worries that deploying the resources necessary to successfully execute a full-scale counterinsurgency would break the back of American power in the eyes of others—both allies and foes—around the world. "I think Obama today is making exactly the same kind of mistakes that he accused George Bush of making with regard to Iraq," Clemens says. That is, pouring more resources into a situation that looks increasingly dire, with no real exit in sight. Successful COIN also requires significant nonmilitary resources to build civil and political infrastructure. Clemens worries that the U.S. is not infusing enough nonmilitary capability to promote long-term stability.

Like many libertarians, Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, believes the true cost of a COIN strategy far outweighs the benefits. "The counterinsurgency doctrine calls for far more troops even than is being contemplated," he says. He's deeply skeptical of nation-building exercises, which tend to require protracted, ambiguous military commitments. "Counterinsurgency is just nation building by another name. That's all it is," he says. He's unconvinced that's a role the United States should be playing at all.