The Afghanistan "Surge"

The London Sunday Times reported October 12 that President George W. Bush is planning on announcing an Iraq-style surge of U.S. military forces to Afghanistan after the presidential election next month.

According to the Times' report, the plus-up in American troops could number as many as 10,000. The plan for a surge, of course, mirrors the effort undertaken by President Bush and General David Petraeus in Iraq beginning in early 2007. The security situation in Afghanistan has been steadily deteriorating for more than a year, and Bush is planning to address that problem with a multi-faceted approach that will utilize all the elements of national power.

The Times quotes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen as saying, "The trends across the board are not going in the right direction. It has been very, very tough fighting this year and it will be tougher next year unless we [develop] a way to get at all aspects of the challenge."

The Times says Bush "...is eager to pass on the lesson learnt from the troop surge in Iraq." Perhaps the most important lesson is that military force alone cannot hope to succeed. Additional troops can help decrease levels of violence, reduce Taliban influence, and secure more territory, but simultaneous efforts across the diplomatic, information, and economic fronts are needed as well.

It is also crucial to understand that Afghanistan is different from Iraq. Simply taking the Petraeus plan from Iraq and transferring it to Afghanistan will not work. An independent assessment must be conducted before moving forward with any strategy. That said, Petraeus is probably the right man for the job. He can draw on lessons learned from his time in Iraq, but ultimately he will be forced to use his knowledge of and experience in counterinsurgency to develop a unique plan to bring stability to Afghanistan.

Petraeus has already begun work on a new Afghanistan strategy. Mullen told the Times, "It's the full spectrum - the political piece, the diplomatic piece, the economic piece in addition to the security piece - that has got to improve dramatically."

No doubt a central piece of any Petraeus strategy will be his plan for dealing with the lawless region along the Afghanistan - Pakistan border. Cross-border raids have increased, and have become more overt, and Pakistan has been either unwilling or unable to exercise control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. Without some measure of stability in this region, any Afghanistan strategy is likely to fail.