Had Barack Obama been the president of the United States in 2001, he would probably have kept his focus on Afghanistan, instead of diverting his gaze to Iraq. “We must never forget,” Obama said of the conflict in Afghanistan last week: “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”Richard Haass, who is the president of the most prestigious think tank in the United States -- the Council on Foreign Relations -- and author of a recent book titled “War of Choice, War of Necessity” asked in a recent op-ed for The New York Times: “But is Afghanistan a war of necessity? And if not -- if in fact it is a war of choice -- so what?”
Haass argues that wars of necessity must meet two crucial criteria to deserve their title. They must involve, first, vital national interests and, second, a lack of viable alternatives to the use of military force to protect those interests. Accordingly, World War II was a war of necessity, as were the Korean War and the Persian Gulf War.
Haass points out unambiguously, but still using the past tense, that in the wake of Sept. 11, invading Afghanistan “was” indeed a war of necessity: “The United States needed to act in self-defense to oust the Taliban. There was no viable alternative.” Yet, for Haass and many other American foreign policy analysts, the question is about what to do now. This is why the critical question Haass is struggling with is the following: Now that there is a friendly government in Kabul, is American military presence in Afghanistan still necessary?
Well, let's apply his own methodology and ask whether Afghanistan meets the two criteria of a war of necessity. Is there a vital American interest at stake? Haass identifies not only one, but two vital interests: (1) Minimizing the chance of a terrorist attack on American citizens is vital. (2) Making sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal does not fall into the wrong hands.
Yet since Haass is an analytical and critical thinker -- something America desperately needs in these times -- he immediately asks whether these two goals are indeed achievable by having troops in Afghanistan. His answer is a clear “no.” Even if America were to succeed, Haass argues that: “Terrorists could still operate from Afghanistan and would put down roots elsewhere. And Pakistan's future would remain uncertain at best.”
There are indeed alternatives to current American policy, such as reducing ground-combat operations and limiting the war effort to air attacks on terrorists, while putting all the financial and political efforts toward the training of Afghan police officers and soldiers, developmental aid and diplomacy to fracture the Taliban. After all, Afghanistan is not the only place on earth where terrorists can find a safe haven. In Somalia, for instance, Washington does not adopt the same policy of major military presence.
This is why Haass argues that Afghanistan is also a war of choice. He argues that Afghanistan is no different than past American wars in Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. Yet, somewhat confusingly, Haass also argues that “prospects for achieving limited success are sufficiently high and the risks of alternative policies are sufficiently great to proceed, for now, with Mr. Obama's measured strategy.” Haass chooses his words carefully. “Limited success” is not a ringing endorsement for the current strategy. Thus, he maintains that chances of limited success should require proportional dedication of “limited” resources, not an all out military effort at any price. “No one should forget that doing more in Afghanistan lessens our ability to act elsewhere, including North Korea, Iran and Iraq. There needs to be a limit to what the United States does in Afghanistan and how long it is prepared to do it, lest we find ourselves unable to contend with other wars, of choice or of necessity, if and when they arise.” If you want to understand the “realist” option that Obama is pursuing and what is really at stake in Afghanistan, you have to pay attention to Haass.
