It was obvious a year ago that the 2010 midterms were going to be about domestic issues, specifically the economy, jobs, and health care. But it was hard to predict just how little foreign policy, the Afghanistan war included, would play in this political season. The war in Afghanistan has to be considered the top foreign affairs issue of the day, but that isn’t saying much.

There are many reasons why domestic matters are overshadowing the Afghan war when it comes to voters and politicians’ minds right now. President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress spent most of their efforts on domestic issues (Stimulus, health care reform, financial industry reform) and rarely discussed the Afghan war effort. The President almost never talks about the Afghan war and has used his political capital and bully pulpit for other issues. The American populace is unsurprisingly also inward looking as jobs aren’t going to come from Afghanistan. In a New York Times/CBS News Poll 60% Americans listed the economy or jobs as the most important problem facing the country while only 3% listed Afghanistan. The American people have a list of concerns and the Afghan war just isn’t at the top of that list right now. It is also true that both Democrats and Republicans do not find the Afghan war a beneficial talking point in their election campaigns. After all, Republicans actually agree with the President on the issue (which both sides have so far chosen to downplay) and the Democratic party fears bringing up the issue as it has the possibility to split the party (not literally), with some liberal Democrats deeply disappointed in the President Obama’s decision to escalate the conflict. Political analyst extraordinaire Charlie Cook brings up another reason the war has fallen off the political radar in an interview with the New York Times:

“I think the president is an ironic beneficiary of the success of Bush’s Iraq war surge,” said Charles Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report and an independent analyst of Congressional races. At the time that Mr. Bush ordered additional American troops to Iraq, many foreign policy experts argued that was a move bound to fail. It did not. “So the Afghan surge is getting a honeymoon of some time.”

Though Americans are growing more and more skeptical of a successful outcome in the Afghanistan conflict, I think it is accurate to discern that many Americans are at least giving this administration’s surge strategy some time to work. However, as the same New York Times article points out, the American public will not wait that long before they want to see results:

But Afghanistan, political analysts say, will almost certainly be a campaign issue in 2012, when Mr. Obama is likely to be on the ballot trying to keep his own job. By 2012, it will be clear whether Mr. Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan, and his decision to begin bringing troops home next summer, has worked. The president will probably have to fend off challenges from both the right and the left on Afghanistan.

That is 2012, and 2010 is already a handful, so I wait to comment on that last part for at least a few….months.

Well, I just finished the 1st of Bob Woodward’s three-part series ‘Obama’s War’ in the Washington Post and came away keying a different aspect than Woodward and likely the Obama administration wanted to get across. Woodward’s main theme in this first section is that the high brass of the US military (Mullen, McChrystal, Petraeus) failed to give him as many options for an Afghanistan strategy as he requested. In other words, they pigeon-held the President into an escalation. The evidence provided by Woodward definitely leads us to believe that this indeed did occur to an extent. The President is the ultimate national security decision maker and needs to be provided with as many viable options for any strategic situation as possible. That being said they also need to be clear to the President how they view each strategies likely outcome: i.e. ’We could do a light footprint strategy Mr. President, but that would drastically increase the chances of a Taliban takeover of southern Afghanistan….’.

The military-civilian relationship, or lack there of, is clearly a central theme to Woodward’s first piece, but what jumped out at me from the piece was how focused President Obama seemed to be on just getting out of Afghanistan. Obviously, it can be argued that the US should be lessening our footprint in Afghanistan and that this would be in our national security interest, but it is disconcerting to have a President push us further into a conflict that he appears to desperately want to end. Remember, during Obama’s presidential campaign, Afghanistan was ‘necessary war’ that was ‘underfunded, under resourced’ and ‘neglected’. Here are some of the quotes from the piece where the President appears to show wavering on his commitment to fight in Afghanistan (there are many others I could have also chosen):

“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” he said. “Everything that we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint.”

But even as he laid out how he planned to explain his choice to send 30,000 more troops, he added a caution. “There’s a chance the decision could change,” he said. “We may need another speech.”

Under the redefined mission, Obama told Gates, the best I can do is 30,000. “This is what I’m willing to take on, politically,” the president said.

“I’ve got a request for 4,500 enablers sitting on my desk,” Gates said. “And I’d like to have another 10 percent that I can send in, enablers or forces, if I need them.”

“Bob,” Obama said, “30,000 plus 4,500 plus 10 percent of 30,000 is” – he had already done the math – “37,500.” Sounding like an auctioneer, he added, “I’m at 30,000.”

Obama had never been quite so definitive or abrupt with Gates.

“I will give you some latitude within your 10 percentage points,” Obama said, but under exceptional circumstances only.

“Can you support this?” Obama asked Gates. “Because if the answer is no, I understand it and I’ll be happy to just authorize another 10,000 troops, and we can continue to go as we are and train the Afghan national force and just hope for the best.”

“Hope for the best.” The condescending words hung in the air.

And more excerpts from the Wall Street Journal:

According to Woodward’s meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.

“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room.”

The president concluded from the start that “I have two years with the public on this” and pressed advisers for ways to avoid a big escalation, the book says. “I want an exit strategy,” he implored at one meeting. Privately, he told Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to push his alternative strategy opposing a big troop buildup in meetings, and while Mr. Obama ultimately rejected it, he set a withdrawal timetable because, “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

Contrast these words from Obama with this national security speech Obama made during his presidential campaign:

Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That’s what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that’s why, as President, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.

….The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring, because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared.

The differences in commitment between President Obama and candidate Obama are stark. The President’s final decision to send a middle ground additional 30,000 troops with a year and half public timetable also appear to be chosen strategically arbitrarily, with domestic politics (Midterms, Reelection, public support) playing a major role. We should not be surprised or even begrudge (Stephen Biddle has a solid take on this) a President inputting his domestic political agenda and hopes for reelection into a decision like this, as that is only natural and has happened throughout history. Nevertheless, the extent that this drives the strategy chosen does matter if it’s too highly weighted on the domestic political side.

President Obama comes across deliberative, cerebral, and forward thinking in Woodward’s piece, all things we want in our nation’s leader, but I still feel uneasy about Obama’s commitment to his decision. He spent his whole campaign hammering the fact that Afghanistan was the war worth fighting and that it could be won with the right strategy and resources, but the man portrayed in this article does not come across as someone who still believes in this. The last thing we need is to get ourselves deeper into a protracted, costly war with a leader not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a successful outcome. When President Obama announced his decision on the Afghan surge, he had my support and still does, but my confidence is shaken when I hear that in many ways he made this decision ‘hoping for the best’. We need a Commander-in-Chief, not a Politician-in-Chief or Waverer-in-Chief.

Woodward still has 2 more sections to come so this story and my thoughts could change.

This was also posted at the Foreign Policy Association’s ‘Afghanistan‘ blog.

*Apologies for GPP’s absence.

The latest Afghanistan and Iraq cost analysis by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) will not sit well with many Americans living on a tight budget. Though the war in Iraq is costing less and less, the US military is basically transferring these saved funds to the Afghan conflict.

Between 2009 and 2010, the average monthly cost of the Iraq war fell $1.8 billion to $5.4 billion, a 25% drop. But increased spending in Afghanistan ate up that savings–and a bit more. Monthly costs rose $2.2 billion to $5.7, billion, a 63% increase.

The average cost per service member is $694,000 per year, much less than the Obama administration’s stated $1 billion, but when you times this by the approximately 100,000 American soldiers in the country right now, the costs are unsurprisingly substantial. The American public is already facing the emotional and moral toll of a large spike in US casualties, as the nightly news usually features a report about another soldier or two falling and August saw 56 American soldiers killed in action. The American public has a history of being willing to shoulder a tremendous burden when the costs seem appropriate with the mission’s national security implications, but the Afghan war is putting an awful lot of pressure on America’s strong back.

A new cog in this wheel, is the rising emphasis on excessive government spending from our nation’s voters. Only 24% of polled Americans wanted a more active government that provided more services and levied more taxes and this trend has been palpably felt across the country for some time now. This matters because when the Iraq war was in disarray in the mid-2000s there were many pronouncements about the costs of the war with marginal political impact, but if these were made today it would have more political meaning. For the first time that I can remember, many in the American public will vote with the national debt and spending as key drivers of their decision.

The Obama administration is definitely aware of this trend and continues to voice that the Afghan war is not ‘an open-ended’ conflict (Iraq withdrawal speech) and just recently stated that American troops will be coming home starting July 2011 (same speech). Unfortunately, in my opinion, it is the administration’s two-way street (trying to bring stability and victory in Afghanistan while telling the American public we are coming home soon=July 2011 deadline) is making everyone unhappy and is likely making the military’s job that much more difficult.

The costs of the Afghan war, both material and human, are substantial and are only increasing. The American public’s stomach for these costs will be a trend worth following. And this will be an issue for quite some time, as a NATO training mission document stated that it will cost about $6 billion dollars every year until 2015 (further?) to maintain the Afghanistan military and police. Ka-ching, ka-ching, Ka…….

'Our health care system is broken....Oh, I mean.....Our Afghan strategy is broken'

Barack Obama made his first trip to Afghanistan as president a few days ago, and during his 6 hours in the country he met with President Karzai, Gen. McChrystal, and Ambassador Eikenberry. It has been reported that Obama pressed Karzai on clamping down on corruption and that their conversations were very much ‘down to business’.

In related news, the US president’s approval rating (WaPo poll) for his management of the Afghanistan situation, unlike other areas such as health care, jobs, and the economy, is on the rise. During the height of his ‘dithering stage’ on choosing an Afghan strategy in October, November of 2009, his ratings had turned upside down, with more disapproving (48%) than approving (45%). This was a long fall from early in 2009 when Obama held strong in the low 60’s. As I argued in late 2009, it wasn’t so much the situation on the ground that was causing Americans to become disenfranchised with our presence and ability to win in Afghanistan, though that certainly was a factor, but a lack of leadership from the nation’s leaders. The only time Obama talked about Afghanistan was about how difficult a situation it was him and the US. Don’t believe me? The American public wanted to see a leadership that had a plan that it believed in. ‘Either we are in to win or let’s get the heck out!’

Since the announced Afghan surge strategy at West Point, the Obama administration has enjoyed ever growing levels of support, November 45%, December 52%, January 50%, and the latest from a couple days ago, 53%, with an incredible only 35% disapproving. These numbers come despite the fact that American combat deaths have doubled and injuries tripled from this time last year. The uptick in the poll numbers is good for the president and should show the administration that the American public is willing to give him time to show positive results from McChrystal’s surge strategy. This latest visit by Obama, especially with images like the one below, will only help.

Garnering domestic support for a war over seas is a crucial part of any winning war strategy. President Obama must spend political capital on fostering support for the Afghan war effort by reminding the American public the stakes involved and communicate that we have a strategy in place that can bring success. Now that the health care debate is thankfully not dominating his agenda any longer, I expect more public attention to be shown by President Obama about this critical issue to US foreign policy. The poll numbers show he’ll have a somewhat friendly audience.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs ran a poll in 2004 comparing the views of the general US public and US leaders on various US foreign policy issues.  I tried and tried to get the poll for posting, but alas could not.  Here is an article providing an overview of the findings by the Council itself.  I myself will discuss certain issues and findings from the poll that I believe are of most interest.

Overall US leaders and elite were more apt to support a stronger US presence in the world compared to the general US public.  This is not surprising as most everyday citizens concern themselves with what’s on the dinner table and going on at work than how the people of Darfur or Iraq are doing, though this is not to say that they don’t care or are not informed, though for many of them this is no doubt true.  For instance, Leaders favored supporting Israel and Taiwan a whole 20% more than did the general public.  There were also large disparities concerning working towards stopping global hungry and environmental degradation, both featuring strong US leader support with only mild general public backing.   

On the flip side, the general public was much more in favor of halting the flow of illegal drugs, making US military superiority a top priority, protecting American jobs, decreasing legal immigration (that’s legal, not illegal), reducing economic aid (64% to Leaders 4%), protecting oil supplies, and lastly more everyday citizens supported keeping the military base in Guantanamo Bay open (58%) than do US leaders (47%).  It is important to remember that this poll was taken in 2004 and of course that all polling is suspect.  

Though there was some disparity, both leaders and the public favored an ‘active’ US role in the world by wide margins, but did not desire for the US to be a ‘global police force’.  When it came to stressing the spread of democracy abroad both sides were cautious (leaders 29%, public 14% approving), though I think this data should be understood to be in the context of an Iraqi state in great turmoil.  I would guess this number might start to creep up as time goes by, as to me many American citizens are inherently for promoting liberty and democracy throughout the globe.  

These numbers showcase that the so-called elite of US foreign policy and the general public do indeed have some strong differences on certain key issues.  In many ways this is quite normal as actual leaders who must make decisions on these issues on a daily basis will have to tackle them head on and almost always will have access to more information from more angles than everyday citizens.  Take a look at the short description and let us now your thoughts.  Here is also the Chicago Council’s 2007 World Public Opinion poll data to look over.  However, take the data, especially from authoritative states, with a grain, or maybe two, of salt.