Strategic Considerations in Retreating and Staying

On June 22, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is another major American adjustment towards Afghanistan since the 2009 announcement of the addition of 30,000 troops and the implementation of the new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

America’s retreat has been forced by general trends. In the words of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.” The Afghan War has become a war that can neither be won nor be allowed to be dragged out even further. Retreat is the only way out, and the question is how to control the retreat and ensure the maintenance of American vested interest. The consumption of resources by the Afghan War is not sustainable, and annual military expenditure has reached as high as $100 billion, while the annual GDP of Afghanistan is less than $10 billion, meaning that the result is disproportionate to the investment. How to reduce the costs and wastes of the war to transform it into a low-cost war against terrorism is a practical calculation in the U.S. retreat.

Shooting down bin Laden provided an opportunity for the U.S. to scale down its military presence and adjust its strategy towards Afghanistan. On one hand, bin Laden’s death eased America’s domestic revenge complex, and the counterterrorism war achieved an interim victory. Under the circumstance of increasing domestic antiwar sentiment, withdrawing American forces indeed conforms to this trend. On the other hand, the death of bin Laden indicates that Afghanistan is no longer a major sanctuary for global terrorist networks, which provides a foundation for American adjustment of its Afghanistan strategy in the post-bin Laden era. Recently, the U.S. has engaged the Afghan Taliban in intensive peace talks. In the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. has also initiated discussion on the Taliban and al-Qaida as separate and distinct entities though originally considered a single monolithic threat. This has allowed the U.S. to discuss and alter the strategy to accelerate the split of the Taliban from al-Qaida.

Obama’s declaration of retreat mainly focused on domestic political considerations. When announcing the addition of troops two years ago, Obama made a promise to withdraw from Afghanistan, and fulfilling his promise is good for his presidential image. The plan to first pull back 10,000 this year and 23,000 next year resulted from significant effort to guarantee enough armed forces to deal with Afghanistan’s ground situation and keep the Afghan Taliban from regaining its power, as well as ensure that Obama’s promise is fulfilled to demonstrate that his word is as good as gold in the coming presidential campaign.

However, remaining in Afghanistan is also what the general trend requires. After 10 years of feeling around in the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. has found out that there are two things that cannot be done: one is that the U.S. cannot help Afghanistan with its reconstruction, as building a western-style democracy in Afghanistan is a fantasy. Even if the U.S. Army remains there for 10 or 20 years, such a reconstruction is impossible. The other thing is that the Afghan people’s hearts cannot be won over, because it is impossible for them to trust foreign armed forces stationed in their own country without such a historical precedent. Therefore, scaling down into a low-expense strategy to maintain a military presence has become an inevitable choice for America.

Recently, the U.S. has been working extremely hard on this. First of all, America is striving for negotiations with Afghanistan to sign a strategic cooperative partner treaty in an attempt to safeguard its garrison rights and vested interests in Afghanistan through legal means. Secondly, the U.S. has also strengthened its construction investment in building military bases in Afghanistan, focusing on the Bagram and Kandahar airfields, etc. to knit together a regional network of military bases. The completion date of the construction contracts of some projects exceeds the end of 2014; which means that there is an obvious intention to remain in Afghanistan for the long term. Thirdly, America has planned to increase the security power in Afghanistan to over 300,000 by the end of this October, gradually increasing military advisers and transferring responsibility to counterterrorism special forces to decrease the number of active duty troops waging direct war and finally arrive at the goal of “using Afghans to control Afghans.” In addition, the U.S. has also planned to promote the strategic development of greater Central Asia and to enhance the mechanism of regional cooperation, alleviating surrounding large countries’ doubts regarding America’s strategy in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, while on the surface the U.S. looks as if it has put forward a withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan, in reality the U.S. is still using every conceivable solution to maintain and reinforce its vested interests in Afghanistan, and the long-term plan to maintain its presence has not changed. This retreat and the reduction of absolute numbers of American armed forces is just a strategic adjustment and tactical recalibration, which does not mean that American presence is receding and is definitely not a complete withdrawal. America’s control over Afghanistan has not weakened.