The American Strategist

Photo Credit: The White House

Today, President Barack Obama will unveil his new strategy for Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. What will matter more than troop numbers and timelines however, is whether the president is able to re-set the narrative of America's role in the world such that our forward posture re-aligns the politics of South Asia and, to some extent, the greater Middle East.

Unfortunately, the President will not have enough room in this speech to do everything. That means he will have to balance messages to Main Street, to foreign capitals, and to the average South Asian hoping for a more secure and prosperous life. For Main Street, the President will have to articulate the urgency of the situation and the threat to American Security that requires such a commitment of blood and treasure. World capitals will be watching for two things: our allies will be looking to see if President Obama is serious about changing the nature of American engagement in the world while the regional powers, India, China, Russia, and Iran will be looking to see if the new strategy has a comprehensive regional approach. Meanwhile, the people of South Asia want to know if, finally, the United States is willing to see this conflict through or whether we will abandon the region once again as we did in 1991 and 2002.

Already, it is clear that the White House is sending messages selectively. According today's New York Times, tonight's speech at West Point will aim to give Americans a fuller picture of the challenge in Afghanistan and begin to set expectations on how big and how long our committment will be. President Obama spent Monday making calls to world leaders, making sure, presumedly, that they have a fuller picture of American intent beyond what is released in tonight's speech.

Because of the intense domestic scrutiny over troops, the regional framework will likely only get a passing reference and will have to come out in other venues and other formats. Some has already leaked out. Karen DeYoung, writing in yesterday's Washington Post, provided a window into part of the regional strategy, the Pakistan element. President Obama, she reports, sent a letter to Pakistani President Zardari through National Security Advisor Jim Jones, in which the president said it was time for Pakistan to stop hedging its bets in Afghanistan by implicitly or explicitly supporting the Afghan Taliban of Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network. This, of course, is the crux of the American Strategy. If we cannot get Pakistan to actively dismantle the Afghan Taliban, no amount of American troops will secure Afghanistan.

But for Pakistan to change its strategy will require a much broader change across the region. The many factions composing the Pakistani government will have to each feel confident that there is prosperity and security to be had in building a strong, competent, and civilian Pakistani state. Right now, Islamabad is defined by dysfunctional civilian government and a rightfully paranoid military. To overcome these major obstacles the politics of South Asia will have to finally leave the Great Game and Partition in the past and forge a new regional future.

To get there, President Obama needs to demonstrate a real comitment to the entire region and for tackling the hard diplomatic questions, in particular, the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan which is the single largest source of Pakistan's security fears. Of course, addressing India-Pakistan is more than just mediating Kashmir. Kashmir is a symptom of a deep mistrust between the two states and it will take a real Presidential effort to make any kind of difference there. 

Yet if Mr. Obama's only public message is "more troops to Afghanistan" he runs the risk of letting his policy and his meta message get out of sync, as did his predecessor. In President George W. Bush's 2004 inaugural speech, the 43rd president articulated a vision of America's role in the world to spread democracy far and wide, saying:

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

Clearly, President Bush's lofty rhetoric was not backed by principled action and the disconnect between his vision and his methods damaged America's reputation and weakened our influence around the world. President Obama needs to make sure that his inaugural vision of hope and engagement do not fall victim to the same disconnect in the harsh reality of Afghanistan. This time, however, the risk would be that Americans are unprepared for and unsupportive of the significant regional investments necessary that would go beyond the warfighting in rural Afghanistan.

That means regardless of what President Obama announces tonight in Upstate New York, his messaging and his personal diplomacy will have just begun on South Asia. Troops are a symbol of resolve, but that resolve must not only mean that he is willing to stomach casualties. Rather, President Obama must be committed to a real regional realignment, he must articulate that committment and he must forge it himself. Hopefully, these last three months of study and planning have prepared him well.