How are we doing in Afghanistan, part II: New UK views - pessimism or realism...?

The British Ambassador to Afghanistan and the outgoing senior British military commander in Afghanistan reportedly acknowledged that the struggle to secure and rebuild Afghanistan is failing.  Within the space of a week, Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper Coles and the outbound British force commander, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith seemed to issue almost identically negative assessments of the prospects for Afghanistan, both appearing to suggest that it was almost inevitable that the war would be lost with its current strategy and that the Taliban would (and perhaps should) make a political return in some way.

The claims come so close together and are so similar that it doesn't look coincidental, but to be fair, the Cowper Coles statements come through the distorted looking glass of a French diplomatic telegram reporting his views that was leaked to a French newspaper,  It has been, if not entirely denied, then at least downplayed by the FCO.   But there is a very strong ring of plausibility to the report.  The interviews make interesting reading and there seems to be a growing divergence between US and UK approaches in strategy.  There was another report at the end of September in which, according to The Observer, the UK was allegedly (via UK intelligence services) involved in helping to broker talks between the Taliban and Karzai.  The UK seem increasingly to favour negotiation while the US - with ongoing and dangerously destabilising missile strikes into Pakistan and looking highly likely to deploy another 2-3 brigades regardless of who wins the US election - still appear committed to a military solution.

And lets talk about making yourself a hostage to fortune.  Brigadier Carleton-Smith said in his interview that a military victory over the Taleban was “neither feasible nor supportable”.  This is the same Brigadier Carleton-Smith who was quoted early on in his tour, with the following:

"The Taliban are much weaker...The tide is clearly ebbing not flowing for them. Their chain of command is disrupted and they are short of weapons and ammunition...We have seen increasing fissures of stress through the whole organisation that has led to internecine and fratricidal strife between competing groups...I can therefore judge the Taliban insurgency a failure at the moment...We have reached the tipping point...

And note the use of the most abused cliche in the Afghan book: "tipping point".  There is a serious lesson to be identified (but, of course, not learnt) here - many military commanders tend to make this mistake and see "the war" as something that will be won or lost on their watch - their "watch" often being a paltry 6 months.  The more realistic assessments, as in this case, tend to come after their deployment has completed.  The problem is not exclusive to the military, but lets see how many of these new US brigade commanders, fresh in from "the surge" of "victory" in Iraq make these early initial claims, thus distorting analysis of progress and delaying yet further discussion of any more realistic approaches to solving the problems of the day...

The fact is, however much we talk in cliches about “failure is not an option” or “what we need is a comprehensive approach” or “the Taliban cannot be defeated by military means alone”, or "tipping point", the situation is getting worse each year.  But it is easier to talk of changing strategy than it is to implement a new one.  If the international efforts to rebuild Afghanistan can be likened to a heavily laden oil tanker, a slight change in direction will take a lot of time and distance before the effects (good or bad) are felt.  A major change in direction might break the tanker’s back.  And highly public disputes within the international community and discussions about “alternative strategies” not only risk a self-fulfilling prophesy of failure but also give much  psychological support to the Taliban.  They are also are fraught with worrying implications.  If the international community has spent seven years going wrong so far, how many years might it take to correct this, how many years to get a new strategy underway, how many years to make it work and how hard will it be to convince the Afghan population that this time the strategy is correct?