When Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, the world was at an inflexion point. George W. Bush had squandered the positive reputation that the United States had enjoyed earlier with his decision to invade Iraq, which drew in Britain and a number of other allies. The Great Recession—caused in large part by the risky moves of American bankers and political leaders—caused unemployment to skyrocket, forced many countries to impose austerity measures and profoundly shook faith in the market economy. The fallout from this financial disaster hit the United Kingdom hard, and arguably it helped set the stage for the 2016 Brexit vote.
For many, it appeared that Barack Obama could fix all of these problems. He walked into office with an amazing gift for reaching a crowd of people, both at home and abroad. During his first year in office, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” even as he oversaw the prosecution of two inherited wars. The world was ready for the hope and change he offered. Despite his rhetoric, and a few notable successes like the Iran Nuclear Deal, what we see in Obama’s administration and his way of working with other countries, was more of a continuation of how American leaders interact with the world, rather than a dramatic shift. This is especially true in the realm of war.
One of his first moves was to do a comprehensive review of the policy in Afghanistan. As one of his closest allies in that fight, Britain was in a wonderful position to set the record straight and explain to the United States that the counterinsurgency strategy initiated in 2006 (called Operation Medusa) was not working. Along with the Canadians, they were in command of some of the heaviest fighting against the Taliban and other insurgent groups. The British picked Helmand province, in part, due to the fact that the British Empire’s attempt to make Afghanistan a colony ended in Helmand province in the 1880s. The British felt a historical tie to that province and their military was more than happy to take on the difficult battles.
They enjoyed remarkable success in battle, so much so, that anecdotal evidence suggests they were diminishing Taliban moral. At one point during Operation Medusa, an SAS team discovered twelve beards hastily shaved off—suggesting the members of the Taliban had defected and attempted to blend in with the civilians.
Despite their remarkable success in battle, the mission called for them to clear, build, and hold. They could clear the insurgents but due to the nature of the fight from the Taliban, they were unable to hold territory, let alone build infrastructure to prove to the Afghans the merits of the Western militaries occupying Afghanistan. In the 2006 summer fighting season, the Taliban came back with significantly more personnel and supplies. They had spent years reorganizing and regrouping. Furthermore, after a day of fighting, the insurgents were capable of blending into the crowds and meting out justice to any who helped Western forces. Canadians, British and Dutch forces attempted to use all the tools available to them, but unfortunately it was ineffective.
Despite this battleground reality going back several years, Obama and his defense team worked closely with his NATO allies to create the 2010 Afghan surge in the hopes of trying to win the Afghan war. Obama called on NATO members to provide more supplies to address the issues in civil society in the hopes of addressing the complex relationships among all the NATO allies who had “national caveats” that prevented them from engaging in direct combat. Working closely with Gordon Brown (identify), Obama saw a path forward for the US efforts and leaned on the British, Canadians and the Dutch to help make the surge a success.
During the summer of 2009, NATO planes supported US marines in Helmand province in an attempt to eliminate the Taliban presence once and for all. By 2010, however, the UK public was exhausted and other NATO forces had started to draw down. As a consequence, the US were predominantly alone in military operations and they had made a crucial mistake: they failed to effectively define a scenario where they could get a clean win. If they simply tried “to destroy al Qaeda’s terrorist network and to protect our common security,” they might have succeeded. Unfortunately, they linked the fight against terrorist to the fight against the Taliban; while they could degrade Al Qaeda and other networks, eliminating the Taliban was virtually impossible. The Taliban’s violent oppression of Afghans, particularly women and girls, provided a moral legitimacy to the US, British, and allied presence, but this extended the mission went beyond the original plans. In British official circles, it was clear that a long fight, echoing earlier imperial interventions in the region, was in the works. Furthermore, Western states could not rally their domestic audiences to send a sufficient force to achieve success in counterinsurgency. The United States was attempting to achieve a military victory that would translate into an entirely new form of government, alien to the people they impose it on and a civil society that does not reflect the deeply held beliefs of many in that country. What is perhaps surprising, is how the nature of the fight persisted under Obama rather than changing or narrowing. There were voices in the United Kingdom that attempted to warn the US and NATO about this reality.
As a former member of British Parliament, Paddy Ashdown wrote to Gordon Brown in 2007, “We do not have enough troops, aid or international will to make Afghanistan much different from what it has been for the last 1,000 years….” On the political side, he said “governance is key. But it has to be governance with the grain of Afghan traditions…we have to abandon the notion that that we can make Afghanistan into a well governed state, with gender aware citizens and European standard human rights. It raises expectations.” On the military side, he claimed “we also need to understand that we probably cannot defeat the Taliban – probably, only the Afghan people can do this. And at present, especially in the South, they do not seem ready to do so. Nor can we force them.” This was a realistic picture in 2007 that the Obama administration ignored. Part of the difficulty they faced was caused by the neighboring country, Pakistan. This nation, which had emerged out of British imperial rule after World War II, now occupied a unique and important space in the war in Afghanistan as an ally.
The Taliban and other extremist groups were able to exploit the porous border between Tora Bora and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan to regroup and resupply. The United States and NATO allies were not authorized to follow them into Pakistan, and due to Pakistan’s unique concerns about the potential for Indian aggression, they have an interest in maintaining the strategic depths offered by the porous border. Adding to the problems, the necessity of Pakistani cooperation made it impossible for Western states to impose higher costs or create more enticing incentives to cooperate. Obama consistently failed to be sensitive to these concerns and claimed they needed more cooperation because “Al Qaeda has a sanctuary in Pakistan” as well as claiming he would go into Pakistan if he had credible intelligence about a high value target.
The relationship between the United States and Pakistan went from bad to worse under Obama, thanks in part due to his willingness to use drones over Pakistan to eliminate extremists. The relationship reached the height of its tension in May of 2011 when Obama gave the order to go into a compound in Abbottabad to eliminate Osama bin Laden. The Pakistanis were furious but Obama was victorious. He claimed “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.”
We see in his next actions, however, that he was still in a quagmire in Afghanistan. He claimed the war in Iraq would come to an end by December of 2011 but he did not make the same promise about Afghanistan. In that war, there was no end in sight. He drew down troops significantly to approximately 8,400 by the end of his presidency, but the US and NATO could not leave. The Taliban were too powerful, too ruthless, and willing to bide their time until Western states left. What we see in Afghanistan is a country capable of defeating the British in the 19th century, the Soviets in the 20th and the US along with its close ally, the UK (who attempted to make up for past failures by conquering Helmand province once and for all), in the 21st. While it is questionable whether the United States is in decline the way that other empires have been, it is clear that there are no external powers capable of altering Afghanistan’s path. It remains, as it has been for over 150 years, the graveyard of empires.
Sarah Burns is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rochester Institute of Technology. In her recent book, The Politics of War Powers, she demonstrates how the Constitution creates an invitation to struggle between the branches. Since World War II, Congress has failed to engage in the struggle, allowing presidents to create and execute poorly developed policy in the realm of war. Her current book project, Losing the Peace examines why the US military can successfully prosecute wars but fails to preserve the peace or rebuild nations after military operations have concluded. Besides academic work, she has published in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and The Conversation.
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