BOOK REVIEW Conservative reappraisal of the Afghan war The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing
West
Reviewed by Brian M Downing
Bing West, a marine veteran and assistant secretary of defense under president
Ronald Reagan, has written extensively on American soldiers in various wars
from the Vietnam War, in which he served, to ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. His many books have chronicled the hard work and grim
determination of US soldiers and have been typically supportive not only of the
troops but also of the wars themselves. As its title more than
suggests, this offering is very much a departure on the latter point.
West's long experience gives him the ability to relate to and learn from the
GIs, making his insights more penetrating than those of embedded journalists.
He has gone out into foreboding places such as the Korengal Valley in Kunar
province in the east, which the US withdrew from last year, and Marjah in
Helmand to the south, which is one of the three principal areas in the
counterinsurgency program.
West presents detailed accounts of day-to-day life on combat bases out in the
boonies, the nature of engagements with insurgents, the young men who compose
US combat units today, the cohesion soldiers have built among each other, and
the problems of distinguishing enemy forces from friendly or neutral farmers.
The
first two-thirds of The Wrong War are dedicated to this Ernie Pyle-like
exposition and were it not for the title, many readers would assume at that
point of the book that they are reading another hortatory tract on the can-do
spirit in the US armed forces and the need to get the job done. But West
devotes the final third of the book to criticizing the way the war is
proceeding and offering an alternative course - a way out.
In a break with the optimistic assessment of the counterinsurgency program he
presented in The Wall Street Journal less than two years ago (July 28, 2009),
West now concludes that the program is simply not working. The intervening
period has given few signs of progress and he has rethought things.
His frame of reference (a highly useful one, in my view) is the Combined Action
Platoons that he served in while in Vietnam, which placed a detachment of US
soldiers into villages to provide security and help as best they could with
day-to-day problems. The marines used these detachments to good effect and
locals came forward to offer information and fight against Vietcong and North
Vietnamese forces.
But the generals disliked and abandoned the Combined Action Platoons. They did
not understand counterinsurgency warfare, in large part because it conflicted
with or at least did not fit well with doctrines stressing massive firepower
and big operations. The generals reallocated the troops to conventional combat
operations.
Hearts and minds, West now admits, are not being won in Afghanistan. He notes
that far more civilian deaths are caused by insurgents than by US/International
Security Assistance Force troops (an evaluation supported by a recent UN study)
but adds that locals blame all deaths on the presence of foreign troops.
There would be no deaths if the "ferengis" weren't present and it would
be best if they left. This outlook is a serious obstacle to counterinsurgency
and changing it is not in the offing.
Locals are not coming forward in appreciable numbers to provide useful
intelligence or serve meaningfully in local militias. Councils held with local
elders (shuras) are pointless exercises that amount to little more than
sullen demands from locals for more money and materiel. Bringing in his social
conservatism, West sees an "entitlement society" being built, not viable local
networks to fight the insurgents.
Several other problems plague the effort. The war is part counter-insurgency
and part war of attrition - an excellent point worthy of greater exploration.
US political and military leaders - a group with considerable turnover - have
no clear idea of the goals. They alternately talk of defeating the Taliban
outright or more limitedly, of diminishing them until they come to the
bargaining table. Pakistan offers sanctuaries to the insurgents and vigorously
opposes cross-border incursions. And Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to whom the
US is seeking to attach local loyalties, is irredeemably corrupt and aberrantly
inconsistent.
Problems of the conduct of the war are compounded by the imminent fiscal crisis
in the US. The US, he argues, is currently expending too much money and losing
too many lives, with no apparent progress: "Being poorer, we have to fight
smarter" (pg 252). His alternative is to shift US priorities from
counterinsurgency to training the Afghan National Army (ANA) so that it can
assume responsibility for fighting the war. This will allow the US to reduce
its forces there from 150,000 to about 50,000 and greatly reduce its casualties
and expenditures as well.
West's alternative, which of course sounds much like the "Jaunissement"
and "Vietnamization" of the French and Americans in Southeast Asia,
respectively, is presented only cursorily and it will strike many as a deus ex
machina. He does not address obvious problems attendant to shifting the
load onto the ANA.
Afghanistan's army is almost as corrupt as its governmental machinery. It is
also full of ethnic antagonisms between the disproportionately Pashtun officer
corps and the disproportionately non-Pashtun rank and file. Mistrust and
resentment prevent the coalescence of unit cohesion and tactical ability. The
ANA is quite far away from being ready to take up the load.
The significance of The Wrong War is not the viability of the
alternative it presents but rather in the frank assessment of a failing
strategy by a figure whose work has been generally supportive of US wars and
whose influence in conservative America, from veteran societies to the
Pentagon, is considerable. West's book makes it clear that being ever faithful
does not mean boundless loyalty to a motto or policy.
Ordinarily we might expect such a book to elicit discussion of the war in the
American public. However, the majority of the American public have little
interest in a war that most sons and daughters take no part in. They are
content to adhere to desultory aphorisms of supporting the troops or hoping the
war would just go away.
Indeed, a recent survey found that only 4% of US news was devoted to the war in
Afghanistan. Bing West has done his part to bring about debate and reappraisal,
though the impact of his book might be felt more in elite circles than in the
public at large.
The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing
West. New York: Random House, 2011. ISBN-10: 1400068738. Price US$28, 336
pages.
Brian M Downing served with indigenous forces during the Vietnam War and
is the author of The Military Revolution and Political Change
and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to
Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
The
first two-thirds of The Wrong War are dedicated to this Ernie Pyle-like
exposition and were it not for the title, many readers would assume at that
point of the book that they are reading another hortatory tract on the can-do
spirit in the US armed forces and the need to get the job done. But West
devotes the final third of the book to criticizing the way the war is
proceeding and offering an alternative course - a way out.
