The American Strategist

Photo Credit: The White House

As I anticipated in my article yesterday, the President's speech was really just a broad articulation of the new strategy for a generalist, mostly domestic, audience. But in first listening to and then reading the speech and some of the reaction, it seems clear that the president used this speech to triage the problem, not to transform it.

Here are some of my observations:

1. 30,000 troops is about not losing. As my colleague and mentor Col. Lawrence Wilkerson writes over on The Washington Note, the reinforcement number is not based on military requirements but on what's available both materially and politically. 30,000 will get us up to just under 100,000 troops in the field, combined with another 40,000 allied troops and another 100,000 contractors of various specialties, but not all with guns. Given the terrain and the enemy, this will not be enough to rout the Taliban, but it will be enough to buy some time.

2. Karzai and Zardari were absent. President Karzai of Afghanistan and President Zardari of Pakistan are just not part of the president's public strategy. My sense is that each of these leaders is so embattled and/or tainted that Mr. Obama cannot afford to put them out there as the face of the future. That is a telling sign of where the relationship stands right now. It is also tactically useful. Afghanistan, as I wrote for CNN.com last month, will ultimately have to call a Loya Jirga to get its internal poltics sorted and Mr. Karzai may not remain on top at the end of it. In Pakistan, the dysfunctional and semi-feudal political system is also part of the problem and will have to be upgraded by the Pakistanis by hook or by crook.

3. The timeline is long enough for a peace process. Speaking of Loya Jirga, 18 months is not long enough for a counterinsurgency but it is long enough for a multi-lateral peace process. Given that we are not able or willing to commit the hundreds of thousands of troops it would take to really prosecute a full COIN strategy, President Obama must be relying on SRAP Holbrooke and the rest of the national security team to align geopolitical forces against the Taliban. That means shaping Pakistan's options and, I think, a whole new relationship with India, a grand bargain with Iran, and some big deals with China and Russia.

4. The President did not articulate a new doctrine. Despite the lengthy (but called for) deliberations over strategy, President Obama did not use the Afghanistan moment to articulate a new era of American engagement in the world. This was good. The president is rightfully focused on triaging a bad hand and giving his team time to get the geopolitics and local politics in order. However, before the final deal is cut, I think President Obama will be forced to articulate a new grand strategy that articulates a role for America in the world that Europe, Japan, and India can all stand behind before they are willing to commit to the financing and actions that it will take to get this job done.

With Afghanistan triaged along with the domestic economy, the global economy, and Iraq, the last patient will be healthcare. When the Senate approves the president's bill, with the multilateral climate change deal dead, then will be the time to articulate a new grand strategy...before he is forced to by South Asia politics and before the economic stimulus wears off. More on this to come.