In the current issue of the Boston Review, Nir Rosen argues that the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan is misguided and likely to fail.  Several respondents have varying analyses of Rosen’s piece: some agree with his conclusion but thinks he misses a few points; others claim that he is too pessimistic. Aziz Hakimi thinks Rosen is right to doubt the success of an American-lead COIN operation in Afghanistan, but claims that Rosen is wrong in marking Karzai’s government as illegitimate—there is hope for politics in Afghanistan, says Hakimi, as long as the central government devolves power to local officials. Hakimi, however, is not clear about what responsibilities the United States has in Afghanistan, if any. This omission clouds the discussion of what the United States should expect to accomplish in Afghanistan.

Hakimi does not discuss what duties the United States has now that it has invaded Afghanistan. He writes,

When the problem is cast in combat terms—Afghanistan as a theater in the “war on terrorism”—the solutions are inevitably military. But the central problem in Afghanistan is political.

It is common to talk about the “problem of Afghanistan” and how to fix the problem. To military commanders on the ground, it is clear that Afghanistan is not a smoothly-functioning state. But it does not follow that the United States must do much at all to ensure security in the country. Nor is it immediately evident, though, that America can consider Afghanistan as a problem only insofar as the country poses a threat to America’s domestic security. Perhaps the United States has now incurred a responsibility to the people of Afghanistan and to other governments in the region: a responsibility to provide the basis of a secure state.

Hakimi’s recommendation is to devolve power from the central government in Afghanistan to local officials. That, not COIN or “a centralized state with a massive military and police presence”, is the key to success in Afghanistan. Michael Cohen concurs on the topic of a big Afghan army: he doubts the possibility of training a “big [Afghan] army with gaudy six figure numbers”, despite claims to the contrary from the American military. Perhaps a large standing army is unrealistic. But if we assume that America’s goal in the United States should be to provide the basis for some security and we accept Hakimi’s recommendation to devolve power, a well-trained police force appears necessary. Establishing a credible, community-focused police force is a crucial ongoing reform in Northern Ireland, for instance, which also suffered from civil strife, instability, and military presence. It may be both a waste of resources for the United States to train a large national army in Afghanistan, but to neglect the importance of a police force seems unwise.

In the second of his two recent contributions to the Boston Review, Nir Rosen describes his experiences following a team of marines in Afghanistan who trained and fought alongside a force of Afghans. For most of the article, Rosen sticks to the facts and avoids drawing many explicit conclusions. However, it is reasonably clear that Rosen is skeptical of the ability of the US to succeed in Afghanistan, and he suggests several views in the article: first, it is misguided to optimistically compare the counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts in Afghanistan’s to those in Iraq, second, the state of Afghanistan’s police and armed forces is very poor, and third, the military does not fully support COIN. This last suggestion is unfair.

Rosen writes,

Westby was trying to be a good soldier in the COIN spirit. But the fact is that once you get down to the rifle squad, COIN does not make any sense. Soldiers, whose greatest concern is living through their deployments, are being asked to mix Wyatt Earp and Mother Theresa. In public they pay lip service to COIN because that is the way to advance. Less publicly, officers speak of going in to villages and “doing that COIN shit.”

He continues,

The troubles with COIN are institutional. The American military and policy establishments are incapable of doing COIN. They lack the curiosity to understand other cultures and the empathy to understand what motivates people.

Consider two of Rosen’s suggestions: first, for COIN to be successful, soldiers must believe in its merit, and, second, it is a point of fact that the soldiers in Afghanistan do not. Neither, however, is fully true. If COIN is to work in Afghanistan, no doubt foot soldiers, military strategists, and administrative officials must collectively believe that it has some chance of success. If everyone believes that it is damned, then it is reasonable to assume that a joint lack of commitment to COIN will ensure its failure. Does COIN require a soldier’s approval over-and-above following orders? Approval cannot hurt: foot soldiers who are convinced that they can successfully train an Afghan army will probably be better trainers. Their fully convinced state of mind, however, is not necessary to get the job done.

What are the actual attitudes of those soldiers after all? Is it merely true, as Rosen claims, that, “in public they pay lip service to COIN because that is the way to advance”? I find it a stretch to believe that if soldiers embrace COIN they do so for purely Machiavellian reasons. It is, after all, possible for a soldier to be cynical about COIN—and the politicians who promote it—and still be committed to the basic principles of COIN. One military blogger has concluded, for instance, that Obama’s recent decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan was the “right strategy” while maintaining that his optimistic speech sent the “wrong message”.   Another journalist claims that the military is still fairly unschooled in COIN, but that the “stigma” is changing.  In short, a person can express cynicism in all sorts of ways, and some cynicism about COIN on the part of soldiers doesn’t entail that they reject the entire project.