Restoring Security in Afghanistan and Pakistan Is the U.S. Goal

Washington — A stable security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is sustainable by their governments over the long term is vital to U.S. national security interests and to the world, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.

“Failure in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of much, if not most, of the country and likely a renewed civil war,” Gates told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony.

“Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become, once again, a sanctuary for al-Qaida as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan,” he said.

Four congressional committees are holding two days of oversight hearings on President Obama’s announcement that he is sending an additional 30,000 U.S. forces to Afghanistan to reinforce the 68,000 Americans and 39,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force troops already there. The additional forces are being sent to target the Taliban insurgency, break its momentum and better secure population centers. The buildup also is designed to train Afghan security forces so they can gradually take over their own security, the White House said in a fact sheet on the president’s December 1 announcement.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified December 2 before the Senate Armed Services Committee and also the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 3. Gates, Mullen and Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew will also testify before the House Armed Services Committee later on December 3.

Clinton travels to Brussels on December 4 to attend the two-day NATO foreign ministers meeting, where she is expected to set out Obama’s renewed commitment and more focused strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama said in his nationally televised remarks at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, that he is also asking NATO allies to increase their commitments.

OVERARCHING GOALS

Admiral Mullen told senators that the overarching goals remain the same: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies from either country in the future.” South Asia is the epicenter of global extremism, the location of al-Qaida’s core leadership and the terrain that dozens of related terrorist groups call home, he said.

Gates added that defeating al-Qaida, the transnational terrorist group that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, and enhancing Afghan security are mutually reinforcing missions. And one cannot separate the security situation in Afghanistan from the stability of Pakistan, he said, which is a nuclear-armed nation of 175 million people who have been targeted by extremists.

The president’s strategic concept aims to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and reduce its strength and also provide time and space for the Afghans to develop enough security and governance to stabilize their own country, Gates said. The process involves six primary objectives:

• Reversing Taliban momentum through sustained U.S. and allied military action.
• Denying Taliban access to and control of key population and production centers.
• Disrupting the Taliban outside secured areas and preventing al-Qaida from gaining sanctuary in Afghanistan.
• Degrading Taliban to levels that can be managed by Afghan security forces.
• Increasing the size and capability of Afghan national security forces.
• Selectively building the capacity of the Afghan government, specifically in key ministries.

Gates said this approach is not open-ended “nation building” and it is not feasible to create a modern, centralized, Western-style Afghan nation-state.

“Beginning to transfer security responsibility to the Afghans in summer 2011 is critical — and, in my view, achievable,” he said.

Obama said in his speech that the United States expects to be able to begin a drawdown of U.S. forces by July 2011, as Afghan security forces take over their own security.

Mullen acknowledged that in war there are no guarantees, but he told senators that U.S. and allied forces will make “significant headway in the next 18 to 24 months.” And he said that in the same time period the U.S. forces can begin a drawdown.

“From a military standpoint, the president’s commitment to an increase in military force, especially backed by an increase in civilian resources, is much better than one featuring periodic assessments that trigger incremental force escalation,” Mullen testified.