Nikolas K. Gvosdev: Obama as Gorbachev
[Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College.]
One cannot help but be struck by the comparisons that can be drawn between Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Barack Obama—at least when it comes to Afghanistan. Within a year or so of taking office as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev had come to the realization that the Soviet Union needed to terminate its intervention in Afghanistan, end the mounting losses to Soviet blood and treasure, and abandon the hopes of the most radical of both the Afghan Communists as well as the most doctrinaire Soviet officials that Afghanistan could be recreated as a model "people's democracy."
Reading the excerpts from Bob Woodward's latest tome, Obama's Wars, one is repeatedly confronted with a president who, having inherited the conflict in Afghanistan, is looking for an exit strategy that will enable the United States to claim some degree of success, without bankrupting the U.S. economy or further straining the military. Afghanistan is likely to be the last of America's "big-ticket" nation-building enterprises. Given the need to "export security" (as Derek Reveron terms it) to so many parts of the globe where states are weak or face challenges that could be exploited by groups seeking to do us harm, we are likely to have a multiplicity of missions that resemble our decade-long engagement in Colombia.
The administration will launch a policy review of its options in Afghanistan this coming December, and already statements (such as those made by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) is that we should expect only some fine-tuning and tinkering with Afghan strategy, rather than a whole-scale revision. Moreover, franker talk from across the Atlantic—General David Petraeus's deputy in the International Security Assistance Force, UK Lt. Gen. Nick Parker, has said of the July 2011 deadline announced by the Obama administration, "It is entirely reasonable for there to be some draw down of some sort although I suggest it is not a significant as some people choose to make it out to be"—suggests that the mission is set to continue well into a possible second term for the president. The British do not envision leaving before 2015—and it is likely that U.S. involvement could continue past 2018. If Obama, however, decides to undertake a radical shift in the U.S. approach, then, given the ongoing difficulties he has had with the Hamid Karzai government, he will have to embrace the Najibullah option...
Read entire article at National Interest
One cannot help but be struck by the comparisons that can be drawn between Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Barack Obama—at least when it comes to Afghanistan. Within a year or so of taking office as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev had come to the realization that the Soviet Union needed to terminate its intervention in Afghanistan, end the mounting losses to Soviet blood and treasure, and abandon the hopes of the most radical of both the Afghan Communists as well as the most doctrinaire Soviet officials that Afghanistan could be recreated as a model "people's democracy."
Reading the excerpts from Bob Woodward's latest tome, Obama's Wars, one is repeatedly confronted with a president who, having inherited the conflict in Afghanistan, is looking for an exit strategy that will enable the United States to claim some degree of success, without bankrupting the U.S. economy or further straining the military. Afghanistan is likely to be the last of America's "big-ticket" nation-building enterprises. Given the need to "export security" (as Derek Reveron terms it) to so many parts of the globe where states are weak or face challenges that could be exploited by groups seeking to do us harm, we are likely to have a multiplicity of missions that resemble our decade-long engagement in Colombia.
The administration will launch a policy review of its options in Afghanistan this coming December, and already statements (such as those made by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) is that we should expect only some fine-tuning and tinkering with Afghan strategy, rather than a whole-scale revision. Moreover, franker talk from across the Atlantic—General David Petraeus's deputy in the International Security Assistance Force, UK Lt. Gen. Nick Parker, has said of the July 2011 deadline announced by the Obama administration, "It is entirely reasonable for there to be some draw down of some sort although I suggest it is not a significant as some people choose to make it out to be"—suggests that the mission is set to continue well into a possible second term for the president. The British do not envision leaving before 2015—and it is likely that U.S. involvement could continue past 2018. If Obama, however, decides to undertake a radical shift in the U.S. approach, then, given the ongoing difficulties he has had with the Hamid Karzai government, he will have to embrace the Najibullah option...