sdsc afghanistan surge 2009 transcript

8/7/2019 SDSC Afghanistan Surge 2009 Transcript

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Preparing for the Afghan Surge:

Australian Interests and Strategy in Afghanistan

Edited Transcript of a conference by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU

Old Parliament House, 5 March 2009

Morning Session: Coalition Strategic Objectives in Afghanistan

Graeme Dobell: All right well youre all here to have fun, the man who has actually done all thework is Stephan, who is about to kick it off; Stephan.

Stephan Frhling: Members of the diplomatic community, Senator Johnston, ladies and gentlemen,let me welcome you on behalf of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the ANU to todaysconference on Australian interests and operational strategy in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is now in its eighth year, and coalition combat units are now deployed inAfghanistan as long as US combat troops were deployed in South Vietnam, and yet the war isnt

coming to an end yet. This is two years longer than the Second World War and soon twice as longas the First World War. For many of these years, Afghanistan was a holding action as the Coalitionconcentrated its efforts on Iraq, although that is now changing. But that doesnt change the fact thatAfghanistan is a long war by any standards, and certainly by the standards of Western post-cold warsocieties and militaries. No one leaves a long war the way they entered it, be it governments,militaries, or societies at large, and nothing concentrates the mind like the imminent prospect ofdefeat; which the United States, and Britain, and the rest of the Coalition members faced in Iraq in2006.

So if we think back eight years, theories that were fashionable in 2001 such as Rapid DecisiveOperations have long gone out of the window, and the long war is confronting policy makers andcommanders with some basic aspects of the Clausewitzian nature of war. And one of these aspects

is that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of politicalintercourse carried on with other means. So policy changes war, but war also changes policy, andrarely does a country enter a long war with the same goals as it ends it in the end. And this is wherethe first half of todays program is going to pick up. In a moment, Geoffrey Garrett, Klaus-PeterKlaiber, and Andrew Shearer will review and discuss the Coalition strategic objectives from a US,from a NATO, and from an Australian perspective. After morning tea, Frank Lewincamp willintroduce a wider discussion of what exactly Australia should today be seeking in Afghanistan inthe eighth year of the war.

But long wars also highlight the importance of strategy as the use of engagements for the object ofthe war, because tactical excellence is simply not enough to win a long war, and certainly not a warin which Western force levels are always going to be much below what traditional metrics suggest

are necessary. So in the US and British militaries, the experience in Iraq in particular has led inrecent years to a deep and sometimes remarkably self-critical introspection in terms of theiroperational and strategic approach to these kinds of conflicts. The result is the revival of the studyof counterinsurgency as an operational strategy in both countries, which has informed the surge inIraq, and is now informing the revision of Coalition strategy in Afghanistan.

This context raises some important questions for Australia, in particular, how the ADF deploymentin Afghanistan, and especially the deployment to Orzgn province, fit into this wider developingoperational level strategy. After the lunch break that operational aspect will be the focus of the


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second half of todays session. Unfortunately there has been a change in the program in that session.The Australian Army has informed us that no serving Army member will be given approval toattend todays event, because the policy response to a surge in Afghanistan is under considerationby government. Therefore, my colleague Daniel Marston will present on the counterinsurgencystrategy in Afghanistan as it is developing in US and UK thinking, before we move on to a widerround-table discussion introduced by Admiral Chris Barrie.

Before we begin with that program though, let me make a few remarks on the somewhatidiosyncratic setup of this room. In order to allow an in-depth debate and to bring out the differentopinions as they exist on these quite important questions, we have invited this inner table ofparticipants. At specific times, our able and very disciplined moderator Graeme Dobell will askthem to give their opinion on some issue or another. For the wider audience there will be theopportunity to participate but no requirement to do so, both during the panel Q & As and the widerround-table discussions. And finally we will produce an edited transcript of todays discussions andI would like to ask everybody who wants to receive it by email, probably by early next week, todrop their business cards in the box provided at the end of the room. And with that, its my pleasureto hand over to Graeme.

Graeme Dobell: Alright, if the first three could come and join us please; and I think Professor

Garrett is going first.

Geoffrey Garrett: Its a real pleasure for me to be here today but I should make an importantobservation at the beginning. Unlike many people in this room Im not an expert in national securitymatters, especially not in an operational sense. So there are two ways I can try to add some value tothis session the first is to say some things at essentially the 10,000ft level about the US andAfghanistan; and the second thing is to be as brief as possible to leave more space for the rest of theconversations, so let me see if I can achieve that.

Let me start at the very highest level, maybe now its 10,000 meters rather than 10,000ft. I thinkthere are some profound ironies in the election of Barack Obama, but to my mind the biggest ironyconcerns the mismatch between the forces and expectations that got Obama elected and the way he

is, and is likely to, govern, Obama rose to prominence as a result of his pristine anti-Iraq credentialsplus the fact that he gave a great speech in 2004 at the democratic national convention. He quicklythen became a global messiah , with the high-point being the quarter of a million Germans whocame to hear him speak in Berlin in July 2008.

This is ironic because most of what we know about the Obama presidency now, as opposed to theObama candidacy, is that it is going to be much more domestically oriented than anyone wouldhave expected and the world wanted, and that the division of time and effort between economicsand national security has tilted much more heavily on the economic side than anyone would havethought.

So here is a person that the world was looking to for a new kind of global leadership. But my senseabout the kind of leadership that Barack Obama wants to show the world is a leadership that saysIm going to lead by example at home, fixing my own house, rather than being out there on theworld stage building new global coalitions to do new global things. Irrespective of how hard onewants to push that line, its just clear that the USs focus at the moment, and the presidents focus, isobsessively concentrated on domestic economic issues. I was just reading an op-ed in the WallStreet Journal this morning, the headline of which is there is a 20% chance that the US is about toenter a depression, not just a recession. My sense is that will focus many minds.


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So that was my first point. My second point is that if Obama himself is going to be focused moredomestically than we might have expected, he knew he had to put together a very experiencedinternational team. I wouldnt suggest that Obama in any sense is out-sourcing foreign policy, butcertainly if you look at his team the thing that one immediately notes is that there arent manyObama-maniacs in the Obama foreign policy team. In fact, the only one who was with Obama fromthe beginning, who made it to the end, is Susan Rice, Ambassador to the UN.

The Obama foreign policy team is an all-star Clinton plus Republican team. What are they going todo? Well, it seems to me that Obamas Afghanistan policy has more to do with winning an electionthan with what is the right policy in Afghanistan. Last northern summer, Obama was really facing achallenge: I rode to the democratic nomination on the back of my pristine anti-Iraq credentials butnow Ive got to convince the establishment and swing voters that Im tough about national security,So how did he do that? Less Iraq more Afghanistan. It was the perfect political stratagem. It wasthe combination of that move plus McCains problems over the fundamentally sound Americaneconomy followed by the subsequent Lehmann Brothers collapse that ultimately tipped the balancein Obamas favour.

So less Iraq, more Afghanistan made good political sense. The question is is it good policy? Itseems to me that the key question that is now being asked more overtly in the US debate than it has

been for a while is -- what is the mission in Afghanistan? And the mission as it is being re-defineddoesnt look like the same mission that the US and the allies had in 2001, which had a sort ofvisceral personal lets get Osama flavour to it, but against a sort of pretty traditional bad behaviourthat isnt punished is rewarded, therefore we must punish bad behaviour backdrop. The badbehaviour was state sponsorship of terrorism in Afghanistan, so the US and the allies had toretaliate against Afghanistan.

The problem with that seven years later is, well, youve retaliated, so what are you doing now? Thebest place to look is the words at Robert Gates and Obama because the comprehensive policyreview is apparently ongoing but we dont know what the result of that will be. So what have Gatesand Obama said?

I was struck by Secretary of Defense Gates essay in Foreign Affairs January/February 2009. Hereare a couple of quotations from Secretary Gates that I think are interesting and instructive.

The United States ability to deal with future threats will depend on its performance in currentconflicts. To be blunt, to fail or to be seen to fail in either Iraq or Afghanistan, would be adisastrous blow to US credibility both among friends and our allies and among potential enemies.Thats the first line in this Gates essay, its about credibility, not about winning on the ground, itsabout how the world will view how we do.

Then Gates had something to say about Afghanistan, and the first thing he wanted to say was thatin Afghanistan as president Bush announced last September, US troop levels are rising, with thelikelihood of more increases in the years ahead. So Obama Afghanistan policy is an extension ofBusy policy and of course that in an important sense is personified by the continuation of Gates inhis role.

But then Gates says because of its terrain, poverty, neighbourhood and tragic history, Afghanistanin many ways poses a more difficult challenge than Iraq. Now Obama has handed the Afghanistanbaton to Richard Holbrooke, and what did he say? Holbrooke said this is much harder than Iraq andwe have a big problem which is that were not so sure we can rely on the Afghani government, inparticular Karzai to help us through.


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So now weve had the surge announcement by the President. What should we make of that? Mysense is that both the President and Secretary Gates have been redefining the mission and reducingexpectations about what the goal is, probably with a view to making it easier ultimately for the USto get out of the Afghanistan business.

On NBCs Meet the Press last Sunday, Gates said that the goal in Afghanistan was a level of

stability which at least prevents it from being a safe haven from which plots against the US, theEuropeans and other can be put together. I dont know what makes something a safe haven againstterrorism but it certainly doesnt sound like victory.

A couple of days later, President Obama was on the PBS Jim Lehrer News Hour and he said that heagreed with what Secretary Gates said on Sunday. But he added that this goal requires the entirearsenal of American power: weve been thinking very militarily but we havent been as effectivethinking diplomatically, we havent been thinking very effectively about the development side ofthe equation.

That reminds me of Hillary Clintons confirmation hearings, where she wanted to sell more Joe Nyebooks by referring to smart power as often as she could. If you are a US Democrat trying to sure

up your national security credentials, you cant embrace soft power but you can certainly havesmart power.

What is smart re: Afghanistan policy? The first element seems to be putting more heat on Karzai.But Im not sure thats so smart unless you know what the alternative to Karzai is, and I dont knowwhether anyone knows what the alternative is. Second whats smart in Afghanistan is to say thatsince all the allies agreed that this was a right war, its time for the US to ask the allies to deliveron their commitment that Afghanistan is the right war. The third thing thats smart is probably tosay that the surge is a temporary thing, not a permanent thing. Were doing the surge to try andcreate some stability that will allow us to do a serious policy rethink about Afghanistan and thatsthe way that the surge is being spun.

If you put all this together, what do you think about the future? I wouldnt presume to get inside thePresidents head in terms of what his gut instinct is on Afghanistan. But I would make threestructural observations about the US that have obtained in Iraq and will obtain with respect toAfghanistan it seems to me. The US people are sick and tired of war. The military is over-stretched.The country is going bankrupt.

Those three were the pressure points that led to a get out of Iraq policy being the winning policy nthe US. This is what happened re Iraq. People reasoned, weve got to figure out a way to get out ofIraq that doesnt look like a Vietnam from the rooftops exit, and the fact that things have stabilisedon the ground in Iraq is fantastic.

The American public hasnt been thinking about Afghanistan at all. It was all Iraq all the time forseveral years. And now it has been followed by myopic focus on the economy. I think you have toexpect in political terms that as the American public comes to understand what a real sustainedcommitment in Afghanistan would be, political support for that sustained commitment will only godown,. So if you think thats right, if you think President Obama needs to execute his exit from Iraqdeftly, if he needs to deal with economic problems at home and abroad and he is committed to asurge in Afghanistan, how would you execute all of that ? Well, it comes to the point of thismeeting. Obama will say to his friends and allies abrorad, this is the right policy, but were going toneed a lot of help.


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I wouldnt presume to speak for the NATO allies. But I would just make a couple of observationsabout the northern hemisphere. The first one is that my understanding is that Canadian politics hasbeen torn apart by the Afghanistan war for many years. And that there is a wing of the PrimeMinisters party that says foreign entanglements are bad and that we should certainly be out. So myreading of the tea-leaves is that asking for more heavy lifting from Canada in Afghanistan is a tallorder. Second, and I think this was true before the economic crisis, but its surely more true today --

even if Angela Merkel and her side of the government in Germany would like to be committed todo more in Afghanistan German politics just wont sustain that. I was in Berlin less than twelvemonths ago as part of an American delegation. The view coming from the Germans was pleasedont ask us to do more in Afghanistan, because there are only two outcomes: either we dont do itand we get embarrassed publically, or we do it and we lose power domestically. Thats not anattractive pair of options. Gordon Brown isnt Tony Blair when it comes to the war on terrorism.But in addition, Gordon Brown has now staked his political future on the G20 and solving theeconomic crisis. It is hard to imagine Gordon Brown playing a Tony Blair like role in sayingAfghanistan is the right thing to do even if the British people are opposed.

Id be happy to be pleasantly surprised about the northern hemisphere. But you go through the listand you get to Australia pretty quickly it seems to me. Im going to end my remarks right there.

Graeme Dobell: Well on the dont ask, dont tell note, we might turn to Klaus.

Klaus-Peter Klaiber: I thank you very much. NATO in Afghanistan. After the events in 2001 UnitedStates correctly assessed that this attack on the United States had been masterminded by the Al-Qaeda network which had established itself in Afghanistan with the help of the radical Talibangovernment. A military coalition led by the United States removed the Taliban government in a fewmonths, NATO was not involved in this military campaign, NATO could not be involved becauseat the time a consensus existed among member countries that NATO was a regional organisationresponsible for the safety and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area, since there seemed to be nosecurity threat for the alliance countries NATO could not be invoked for the campaign inAfghanistan, but two years later, however, at the NATO summit in Prague this regional limitation

was not upheld, realising that the threat of terrorism threatened the security of all allies. InAfghanistan it became apparent very quickly that the security situation in the country did notimprove satisfactorily after the establishment of the transitional government in Kabul.

Mandated by the United Nations an international stabilisation force for Afghanistan ISAF wasdispatched to the country to provide security and stability for the new transitional government andhelp Afghanistan to get back on its feet after more than thirty years of continued strife and war. Thereasons for this unfortunate situation were three-fold; firstly, the mandate of ISAF was limited inscope, the troops were deployed only in and around Kabul to provide security for the transitionalgovernment, and major parts of the country were without international military presence, and due toa lack of security much needed development projects in the regions could not be started, this alsoled to the re-emergence of regional warlords. Secondly, the forces were very limited in size,contrary to the military truism (which, by the way, was developed by the Chinese about 700 beforeChrist) that is you want to be successful you have to go in with overwhelming forces. Thirdly,command structure which foresaw change of command in six month intervals, did not provide themuch needed continuity of leadership needed in these uncertain circumstances. I think it was uponsuggestions of the Netherlands and Germany, I think, that NATO decided to take over the commandof ISAF, since then not only the number of troops has grown exponentially but their responsibilityhas been extended to the whole of the country. As we speak, 56,000 ISAF troops are deployed inAfghanistan with particular emphasis in the south of the country where resurgent Taliban and Al-


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Qaeda fighters are most active and try to unsettle the democratic elected government and to preventa successful economic restructuring.

Despite the considerable surge in numbers ISAF has not been able, so far, to create the peacefulenvironment the Afghans themselves and the international community want to ascertain the new USadministration has pledged to dispatch another 17,000 troops, at the recent NATO defense ministersmeeting a number of European nations, among others Italy and Germany, have announced to also

upgrade their military presence in the country. What is the purpose of NATOs presence inAfghanistan? The alliance has tried to answer this question in a vision statement which was issuedat the Bucharest summit in April 2008, and this vision statement contains four main elements: first,NATO will be engaged in the long term, there is no pre-defined end date of the mission, only anend state, namely, Afghan national security forces [ANSF] are able to provide security andsustainability in Afghanistan; secondly, increased responsibility of Afghan security forces; thirdly,apply a comprehensive civil-military approach; and fourthly, a stronger involvement ofneighbouring counties.

How does NATO now intend to reach these objectives? At the moment, there are 70,000 Afghantroops that have been trained in the last couple of years, mainly by United States experts, thesetroops support the operations of ISAF, and since September 2008, interesting, the responsibility of

the security of Kabul city lies with the Afghan forces, not with ISAF. And it is important to notethat the national forces of Afghanistan are involved today in about 80% of all ISAF operations, andthat demonstrates very clearly the close co-operation and co-ordination between the NATO troopsand Afghani forces, and the objective of NATO is that the Afghani forces will have 80,000 trainedtroops in 2010 and around 134,000 two years later. NATO has decided to increase its support forthe training of these forces, at present the alliance develops a comprehensive concept for trainingand equipment support to the Afghani forces, at present, NATO entertains 49 operational mentorand liaison teams, and to achieve the objectives of 134,000 troops in 2010 91 of these teams willhave to be sourced, and independently the US entertains 40 training teams in Afghanistan and itsclear that each support for the Afghan military is, and remains, the clear objective of NATO and isthe pre-condition of an exit strategy. In the same vein, the training of adequate police forces isanother priority.

Police reform is one of the most critical issues for Afghanistans security and stability, even greaterefforts are needed in this area, and law enforcement is a supporting task also for ISAF. The Afghaninational police have a key role to play in demonstrating the authority and capability of thegovernment to exercise effective control over the national territory, and according to a spokesmanof the Afghani government, the high number of casualties of Afghani policy underlines the urgentneed for better training, equipment and tactical employment; and as you all know, the EuropeanUnion is in charge of the training effort, 400 experts are envisaged to help with the training, at themoment there are around 76,000 Afghan police in the country and the objective put forward by theAfghan government is a number of 82,000. NATOs vision statement also pleads for acomprehensive integrated civil-military approach. The idea is to bring together the lines ofoperation security, governance, and development. While ISAF, as NATO sees it, plays the lead rolein security, it has a supporting function in governance and development. Let me give you oneexample there is a concrete NATO ISAF support for all counter-narcotics activities of the Afghanigovernment. There is a clear nexus of the narcotics trade and the financing of the insurgents. Eachyear the insurgency benefits from an estimated 100-200 million US dollars from this trade,according to NATO the nexus between narcotics trafficking and the insurgency is a security andforce protection threat, and therefore, a legitimate target, which means that ISAF is prepared tosupport the Afghan government in taking action against drug labs and traffickers supportinginsurgents when asked to do so. By the way, the number of poppy free provinces in Afghanistan has


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increased lately from 13 in 2007 to 18 provinces in 2008; of course, there are altogether 34provinces in Afghanistan so there is a lot of work to do.

The clear objective of NATOs integrated approach is the close co-operation with the Afghangovernment, and the Afghan government itself has agreed on a Afghan national developmentstrategy [ANDS] in its preamble it reads, and I quote, there can be no government without an army,no army without money, no money without prosperity, and no prosperity without justice and good

administration. This sounds terrific; a joint planning and co-ordination framework among keystakeholders has been developed in order to achieve a combined and concerted security in criticaldistricts, in the provincial teams and in ISAF headquarters development experts have beendispatched to help implement this integrated approach. In this respect, the provincial reconstructionteams as they are called [PRTs] are a key feature of the NATO ISAF operation and they play apivotal role in support the implementation of this development strategy, these provincialreconstruction teams provide support to ministries, NGOs, and they carry out their respectiveendeavours for the promotion of stability, economic development, and good governance, at presentthere are 26 PRTs active in Afghanistan, however, I dont want to hide the problem led by severaldifferent nations with different priorities there is no real co-ordinated strategy of the PRTs and Irecall a debate of the Armed Services Committee of the US recently where Ambassador Dobbins,who is now with the RAND corporation, argued that there has to be a complied and clear strategy of

all participating nations in these PRTs, and I couldnt agree more with this assessment.

Now NATO, of course I must mention this, is fully aware that civilian casualties arising from actionby ISAF do have a very detrimental effect on the reputation of foreign troops in Afghanistan andthis is well known by all 44 contributing nations, ISAF makes every possible effort to minimise therisk of any damage to property, injury, or loss of life to civilians, the soldiers operate under agreedrules of engagement, to minimise these risks, and ISAF is constantly reviewing its tactics, itstechniques, and its procedures to prevent casualties and demonstrate respect to Afghan culturewithout undermining the operational effectiveness or diminishing the right to self-defence. WhenISAF does cause civilian casualties or property damage NATO accepts responsibility, but theproblem of course, is militants deliberately target innocent civilians for suicide attacks and militantslaunch attacks from civilian areas using civilians as human shields. Learning lessons from every

investigation into incidents, commander ISAF have revised its tactical directive. ISAF is to partnerwith Afghan forces in all operations, it does so already with 80% of them and will increase thisparticipation, and there will be no uninvited entry into Afghan houses, mosques, historical orreligious sites, unless there is a clear danger.

Now some words on lines of communications. Recent attacks on convoys transporting equipmentthrough Pakistan in support of NATO ISAF missions have been highlighted in the media, and theyare indeed of concern to NATO, but as I learned, they do not present a strategic threat to themission, there are a number of other means available to re-supply ISAF forces in Afghanistan and atpresent NATO are negotiating with other nations, namely Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to getadditional transit arrangements. Now some words on force generation, I think it is very interestingto state that in the last two years the combined joint statement on requirements for the ISAF missionhas been updated four times to meet the evolving and changing operational demands, at present,projection stands at a requirement of 74,000 troops in 2009, with a peak increase during the electiontimeframe, and with the dispatch of additional 17,000 American troops and a number of additionalEuropean forces I think this requirement will be meet.

Now a word on Pakistan; in the strategic vision statement for ISAF mission as agreed at the summitin 2008, one of the guiding principle was the increased co-operation and engagement in theneighbours of Afghanistan, especially Pakistan. There exists, which I learned only by going into the


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internet, a tripartite commission comprising military representatives from Pakistan, Afghanistan andNATO ISAF to share information, to exchange intelligence with respect to border security. Inaddition, there is a joint-intelligence operation centre in Kabul, in ISAF headquarters, staffed jointlyby officers from the Afghanistan national army, from the Pakistan army, and from ISAF. At themoment, several joint border co-ordination centres are being established, and at present, ISAFforces are frequently fired upon from inside Pakistan. In some cases ISAF employs defensive fire inself-defence but ISAF forces do not enter Pakistan territory. The efforts of the new Obama, not to

confound with Osama, the new Obama administration in intensifying this co-operation between thetwo countries in every respect can only be beneficial to both, the US, in my view, will have to playa crucial role in this endeavour.

So Id like to sum up now, and say that NATOs engagement in Afghanistan is the alliances singlemost important operation, this operation demonstrates the transformation of the alliance from arelatively static cold-war orientation to an organisation capable of dynamic and flexible responseand geared to meet modern security challenges, all 26 allies participate with troops on the ground,in addition, ten partner counties plus three contact nations, among them Australia and two Arabnations, provide support. As I mentioned before, there is no pre-defined end date for the mission,only an end state, when the Afghan national security forces will be able to provide security andsustainability without ISAF support. Thank you very much.

Andrew Shearer: Thanks Graeme, well as the third speaker on a panel there are advantages anddisadvantages, among the disadvantages are that following two very good speakers you have toscramble to think of new interesting things to say. What Ive been asked to talk about is AustraliaAfghanistan and our alliance with the United States, and I think its interesting in that when we gettogether this morning to start talking about Afghanistan we actually start talking about Washington,our conversation starts with Washington, and that tells you something obvious it tells you that thealliance has been at the forefront of our involvement in Afghanistan since October 2001 when theformer Prime Minister announced our commitment and when historically Australia invoked theANZUS treaty, the first time that has ever happened, and it was invoked in circumstances its fair tosay its drafters would never have contemplated. I think its also fair to say that the unprecedentedcloseness, breadth and depth of the alliance today owes much to our involvement in Afghanistan

and Iraq, and I think thats the fascinating backdrop that faces Prime Minister Rudd as he packs hisbags to go to Washington on the 24th of March because it seems to me that the Prime Minister facesa rather exquisite dilemma, and what I want to do today is just take you through some of the things Ithink hell have on his mind as he navigates that dilemma.

Going back to the quality of the alliance, my starting point is that Australias alliance with the USsurvived the withdrawal of our combat forces from Iraq and it would survive the withdrawal of ourcombat forces from Afghanistan, but the whole point of the alliance is not whether it survives or not,the point of the alliance is whats the quality, whats the enduring value of it to both sides, how doesit adapt to contemporary circumstance, and thats where I think the dilemma comes in. I think therea quite a few factors pointing to an increased Australian contribution in Afghanistan and I wouldexpect to see announcements come from that meeting in Washington later this month front andcentre US expectations I think we all know that the Obama administration has many suitors, I thinkgetting the attention of the Obama administration is going to be a huge challenge for Australia andits other allies for all the reasons that Geoff outlined so eloquently and I think that will be front andcentre for the Prime Minister when he is there.

The demand for coalition forces I think is another factor were hearing about the increase in USforces in Afghanistan as a surge, I actually think thats an error, I dont think its a surge, I dontthink this is a temporary increase of the type that we saw in Iraq, and I think that the US military


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planners, if you read carefully what theyre saying in testimony and so on are talking about asustained increase in US force levels so if we are to increase our forces it seems to me we need todo so planning that it will be a long term commitment. I think strategic consistency is a factor, andGeoff touched on this, but if I could be a little bit controversial both the Obama administration andthe Rudd government when they were in opposition chose to benefit politically from theunpopularity of the war in Iraq and the way they did that was to highlight the importance of the warin Afghanistan thats an acceptable political strategy but it means that once you get in to

government you have to live with the reality youve created.

I think another factor for Australia in this is that we have capacity. The excuse that we might havehad four or five years ago of concurrency pressure elsewhere in our own region; in East Timor andSolomon Islands and of course in Iraq is pretty much gone, so the argument that the cupboards barewed love to step up and send more troops but we cant really wont fly and I think people knowthat. Another key decision point is military necessity, now Im not right up to date with this, but itseems to me the Dutch are pretty much set on departing Orzgn which is the province were prettymuch operating in 2010, thats next year in military planning terms thats kind of like tomorrow. Iguess it is possible the US is going to step in to that role, but Im also guessing that the USpreference would be that another country do that, an the obvious country is the country that hasbeen operating there for some time now, and thats a very sizable commitment if we do take it on,

and Ill leave much more expert military commentators to talk about what it would mean. I thinkthere is another couple of factors driving a bigger Australian contribution, one is and Geofftouched on this credibility is key to this whole Afghan operation it seems to me and widerinternational credibility is a factor here, seems to me we cant really keep flaying Europes NATOmembers for not doing more while saying that were very comfortable, thank you very much, withour existing commitment even though it is a reasonable one. And I think thats particularly the casegiven the inadequacy of Australias civilian response in Afghanistan. Klaus talked about the needfor an integrated civil-military approach in the country and the government has talked about that butaround the time I finished working in the government we had, I think, two diplomats in Kabuloperating on a fly-in fly-out basis in a temporary embassy accommodation, weve got, I think,twelve AFP officers in the whole of Afghanistan, and we have as far as Im aware no aidworkers operation on the ground in Afghanistan, we have people going in and out reasons for that

are obvious, its to do with security, its to do with complicated conditions of service issues,insurance issues, et cetera which make it very hard for Australia to deploy civilians but frankly itsnot a very strong effort.

What are the factors on the other side, because that would seem to be a pretty strong argument forAustralia stepping-up. The most obvious one is that the wars not going well, Geoff mentioned it, theObama team is talking down expectations, were seeing an increasingly sophisticated and lethalrange of methods employed by the enemy in Afghanistan were seeing a government palpablystruggling at the national level unable to deliver services, unable to provide basic security for itspeople, including in Kabul the capital, there is a lot of evidence, I think, that were as a coalition starting to lose the battle for hearts-and-minds, were being outplayed in information warfare, and tomake matters worse the situation in Pakistan, which for a long time I think we thought was kind ofthe secondary front to the war in Afghanistan maybe turns out the be the primary front, and as wesaw in the attack on the cricket team the other day, that situation just gets worse and worse. I thinktoo there is an open question as to whether this new coalition strategy will work, it may help thecausation is contested by the experts but I think there is broad agreement that the surge worked inIraq but circumstances in Afghanistan it seems to me, are very very different, its not clear to methat there is a viable political accommodation to be had in the war in Afghanistan and the way thatperhaps there is now emerging one in Iraq.


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I think its pretty clear that despite a couple of increased European contributions announced recently,were not going to see a major stepping up of European forces to help with this sustained increaseof coalition forces. It seems to me that the traffic is rather going to be the other way over the nextcouple of years I think as the nature of the war has changed coalition government have really failedto develop a compelling strategic rationale for being there, why are we there, what are we trying todo, how are we going to measure progress is the cost worth it? And I think a lot of our societies arestruggling with casualties which might be acceptable and worn by the public if they had a clearer

sense of what the end point was and that we were moving toward it, and again I think that Iraq is asalient example there. Once there was a sense that the security situation there was improving andthat it was worthwhile a lot of the heat went out of the debate, and I think related to that has been acollapse of public support for the war in Afghanistan; our polling at the Lowy Institute last yearshowed, for the first time, a majority of Australians opposed to being in Afghanistan and I foundthat a bit surprising I mean I thought the debate on Iraq would have sated the publics desire to seeforces come home but it seems that once that trajectory was resolved they just moved on to the nextthing and that polling was done in July last year and I find it very hard to believe that that has notgot worse, that picture.

Two more things that I think militate against stepping up are military concerns, and again Ill deferto the experts in the room but Ive never detected a big appetite in defence or in the ADF for a large

brigade sized ongoing contribution in Orzgn, its a very very large undertaking there are lots ofenablers required to do it and as Ive said the duration is completely uncertain. Lastly, were veryconstrained in terms of what we can do in terms of stepping up with civilian assets, so I think its agenuinely very difficult situation we are it seems to me approach something like a moment of truthin our national commitment in Afghanistan and whats needed I think is a serious cold eye strategicappraisal of our national interests and our goals, weve got a lot of interests invested there and Ivetalked about the alliance I personally believe that the global security paradigm has shifted and anexample I like to use is the attacks on the British, American, and Australian missions in Singaporethat were disrupted off the back of intelligence gained in caves in Afghanistan from coalitionmilitary operations I think the point that the reach of these networks is global is genuine and for thatreason I think the threat has changed and that we do need to take a more geographically andthematically expansive view of Australias security.

Weve invested blood and treasure in Afghanistan as a nation and I think its important not to losesight of that, particularly in terms of the very real commitment of the military and their families.Western failure in Afghanistan would be a major symbolic victory for terrorists and a majorstrategic defeat for the West and lastly the nature of the conflict has changed so that its a verydifficult set of decisions, the rest of today is really about the solutions, but I might take theadvantage of having the floor to throw a few out there, seems to me on the military side the keyquestion is whether we step-up in Orzgn or not, and thats very difficult, who would partner us,where would be get the helicopters, the artillery, the life to stay there how long could we keep aforce like that there, what arr ether implications for our reserve capabilities if something elsehappens unexpectedly, what would the objective be, does the coalition really have a strategy thatcan succeed at the national level in Afghanistan, how would we measure progress, can we reallywin? And its not clear to me that governments really preparing the Australian people to wrestlewith those questions right now.

Either way I think we need to step up our commitment to training both of the military and police,Klaus talked about the sort of targets that NATO has for training, I personally think that the size ofthe military thats envisaged is probably too small, and I think Australia can do more on training,we can send a larger army training team there and we can do more on the police. I think itsimperative that we make a serious civilian contribution theres not been much scrutiny of it but our


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level of civilian involvement really is pretty inadequate, we really should have a proper embassy inKabul and it should be properly staffed and we should be able to after now nearly two decades ofdeploying people on stabilisation operations it shouldnt be beyond our wit to find ways to deploycivilians, even where security is a problem, I think we need to refocus our efforts and the provinciallevel and get more of those diplomats and aid workers into Orzgn, and I think that lastly we needto develop a clearer regional strategy, we need to take the problem in Pakistan more seriously thanwe have and above all the government needs to develop, I think, a clear public case for our

commitment there, what were doing and a way of keeping the Australian public better informedthan they are. Thank you.

Graeme Dobell: Alright now, the moment of truth is not coming for the rest of you in the room justyet. What Id like to do now, youve had three really excellent presentations laying out the terrain,youve got a chance now to throw some darts and ask some questions; so Ill throw the floor openand lets put these guys through their paces for a while. Who wants to go first?

Richard Brabin-Smith: Could I pick up Andrews final point. You talked about the need for aregional strategy including a contribution with respect to Pakistan. Do you have any views on howAustralia might interact more and more profitably, as is the saying with more benefit, with Pakistan?

Andrew Shearer: Its a good question Brab, I mean the first thing to say is that my view is that andIve said this to a table of Indians a couple of months ago and it didnt go down very well but itsPakistans weakness which is the threat to us all, and it seems to me that in a way what is required isalmost a kind of Marshall Plan for Pakistan, you have to start building institutions that are credible,you have to start building an economy, you have to start getting the grass roots level issues that aredriving this alienation fixed, because at the moment it seems to me, what were doing inAfghanistan is kind of swatting flies as these guys come over the border for $20 a day, give them anAK-47 and a few grenades and theyre just going to keep coming, and we hear a lot aboutaddressing the root causes of terrorism but it seems to me until we all take those causes in Pakistanmore seriously then we have a problem.

Now I dont want to exaggerate Australias role, weve got limited resources and indeed now

everyones got fewer resources than the had six months ago but we dont do a huge amount interms of aid in Pakistan, we dont do a huge amount in terms of help for their security forcestraining, and so forth and I think there are probably some niche areas there where we could targetfruitfully in a well co-ordinated way with other donors.

Graeme Dobell: Dr. Klaiber, have you any thoughts on NATO and Pakistan?

Klaus-Peter Klaiber: I think NATO and Pakistan is not so much the issue apart from these specificregional efforts to stabilise the frontier as such, but in reality I would personally agree with whatAndrew said, that the key issue of stabilisation of Afghanistan lies today within Pakistan, but there Ifeel that the strategic efforts of the United States is of crucial importance and it has to be led by theUnited States to convince the Pakistani government to change their tact to maybe accept much moreforeign assistance, also military assistance, but this is going to be very difficult indeed, but itsessential and I feel if the international community and especially the United States and maybe someof the coalition partners cannot put enormous pressure on Pakistan it will be very difficult as well tostabilise Afghanistan if you had listened to a report by an Australian journalist who recently visitedthese remote areas in Pakistan, I think he came to the conclusion that at the end of the transmit thathe fears that if things go on unchanged the Pakistan state could fall apart, and very soon. I think thisis a frightening, very frightening, prospect for any involvement in Afghanistan.


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Tom Gregg: Thanks, just to the panel generally, weve seen the appointment of Karl Eikenberry asUS ambassador to Kabul which I think is a good appointment but we now have Holbrooke asthe Special Envoy. Im interested to hear your thoughts on these appointments by Washington. Younow have Holbrooke with a direct link to Obama, to work in Kabul and he has been very outspokenon Karzai, and you have Eikenberry, who has one of the closest relationships to Karzai of any of theambassadors, Im just interested in how you see that playing out?

Geoffrey Garrett: On this one I dont know. This is a bigger question about the Obamaadministration, isnt it? Youve got a lot of power in the Whitehouse, youve got a lot of power outin the departments, youve got a lot of overlapping jurisdictions all over the place. My sense aboutObamas overall view on how this should work is I want lots of robust discussion behind closeddoors, but as soon as we decide I want the iron clad discipline to obtain in terms of message andexecution. So turning on Karzai must have been a thought through position on the Obama side, andthat begs the question what were they thinking about, whats the end game there? I dont know ifanyone in this room has a view on this end game; maybe Bill Maley does.

William Maley: Just on that particular point, I think one of the little-noticed features of internalpolitics within Afghanistan in the moment is how many of the potential contestants for theapproaching presidential election actually have power bases in Washington rather than in

Afghanistan alone. People like Ali Jalali, Ashraf Ghani, (and even Zalmay Khalilzads name beenmentioned although that seems unlikely to me). Some of these are migrs who have been livingaway from Afghanistan for many years but are excellently connected to various circles inWashington. And it may well be the case that a number have come to the conclusion that a way inwhich to position themselves optimally as competitors in the Afghan election is to try to trashKarzai and his immediate associates in Washington, because if the view then spreads inAfghanistan that Karzai is on the nose with the new US administration that may be to hisdisadvantage. So there is that complexity which comes into play here as well, and Karzai, of course,doesnt have that kind of base, because he is dependent of the Afghan embassy in Washington,which is not just representing him individually but the state of Afghanistan, and is an exceptionallyweak embassy anyway.

Andrew Shearer: Just an observation about Karzai, I mean Im not here with a brief for him today,but I think its salutary to remind ourselves that around about seven or eight months ago there was abig public push to get rid of Maliki in Iraq and the bloke staged a kind of what everyone thoughtwas a clumsy kind of sortie down in Basra which, in hindsight, turns out to have been one of thepolitical and military turning points of the situation in Iraq, so Im always a little cautious aboutditching people who we know and throwing our fortunes on the breeze.

William Maley: Just on that point, obviously of course it is for the Afghans to determine who theirpresident will be, and David Kilcullen, an Australian, in congressional testimony the week beforelast, pointed rather effectively to the case of Diem in South Vietnam in 1963 as a negative exampleof what can happen if outside powers begin to become excessively entangled in trying to pickwinners. I think there is, however, a deeper question with which the US administration is yet tocome to terms, which is that the Afghan constitution, by creating a strong presidential system, hasactually set up the state for failure.

The office of President of Afghanistan is actually one which is too exacting in its job description foranyone to do well. Symbolic head of state, executive head of government, mediator betweenmultiple competing interests, many of which have international backers to promote them, its verynaive I think to think that changing the person at the top of the Afghan government is going to makemuch difference at all if these structural problems are not addressed.


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Klaus-Peter Klaiber: Well just one other reflection in this respect, I mean everybody knows thatwithin Afghanistan nowadays the Karzai administration is not considered to be very effective, itscorrupt, its not doing the job properly and its considered to be a puppet of the United States, andthat is the danger if the American government in the forthcoming election would take sides for oneor the other candidates, so if I would have to give advice to the American administration I wouldnot take sides in this election campaign at all.

Graeme Dobell: I suppose Id only say having been around a lot of politicians that I wouldntnecessarily expect that Richard Holbrooke knew what the message of the day was, and even if hedid you wouldnt necessarily be relying upon him to, so yes, there is always a danger to ascribedwell planned strategies to governments on the go, I find.

Peter Leahy: Thanks Graeme, I was taught a long time ago that the task of a General, and Id say inthis state its the task of the statesman, is to define the nature of the conflict, what Ive heard thismorning from the panel and I apologise I was a little bit late I see as mission confusion, theconfusion between the political change and policy change, the confusion between what we went outto achieve in 2001 and then again in later events, it was about Al-Qaeda, it was about the Talibanand the nexus that was there and I think there was tacked on to it we better have some stability and

security because thats a wonderful thing to achieve.

If you look at Afghanistan largely Al-Qaeda has gone, the Taliban have a different task they have adifferent approach, but they may have gone to Pakistan which presents a real problem; is that wherethe task is now? And the security and stability seems to be there, but this mission confusion is, tomy mind, statements like were not looking for a Switzerland, were not looking for a democracylike ours and Angus Houston said last week I think hed prefer to form planning documents and hetalked about something that is more akin to the tribal origins, I wonder if the panel, because as aGeneral I like to have a mission, I wonder if the panel have a clear view of what our strategy andour mission should be, because Im not seeing it at the moment.

Graeme Dobell: Well, youre just about throwing us to the next session, but given that these guys

have done all the hard work they get two bites at the cherry, so lets do what is our mission veryshortly now, then well go coffee, then we might really get into it next session; so, final wordsplease.

Geoffrey Garrett: I actually wont go with what the mission is, but Ill just underscore what you saidin terms of my sense of the American political and policy debate. There has been no discussionAfghanistan for a long time. Iraq was the only question. Everything in the US was about Iraq, evenwhen the rest of the world didnt care about Iraq any more. Then you flipped to the financial crisis,so there hasnt been, in my judgement, a serious discussion yet of Afghanistan. And of coursemission confusion and mission creep are a consequence of that.

Andrew Shearer: Peter youre absolutely right I think, while I was putting my remarks together Iwas trying to conceive what is the mission, I mean it keeps shifting, it seems to me we need to goback to why we went there, we know why we went, Al-Qaeda were there, the Taliban were there,we needed to get rid of the Taliban so we could get rid of the Al-Qaeda presence, it seems to me themission now has to be partly grounded in that and that is to present, its kind of a negative missionin a way, but its to prevent Afghanistan again becoming that sort of safe-haven, and it seems to methat to do that you need to achieve some other things and they are Klauss thought about crediblesecurity forces that can stop people coming over the border and so forth, reasonable delivery ofservices and so forth, so that there is legitimacy of the operation of those security forces.


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But what were seeing so far in Washington is a very rapid back-peddling on what the end statelooks like and it just seems to me this looks more and more like, this seems very unfashionable tosay but, it seems more like a border policing operation that previous empires have conducted andthe problem of course is they conducted them in a world that wasnt about the 24/7 instantaneousmedia cycle and you know guys with mobile phones photographing civilian casualties and so forth,its hard, and its going to be very hard for our societies to sustain casualties for that sort of very

opaque objective.

Klaus-Peter Klaiber: Well thank you very much, I would like to be an advocate of the devil andargue that Australia is part of a NATO operation and NATO has a clear vision and strategy and ithas been developed in 2008 so I sometimes ask myself whether the solution of our problems isreally to develop a completely new strategy there is not much we can really do to change but thereis one clear objective of course and I think we all agree with that, if we leave the Afghanistan whatwill happen then we will have a terrorist sanctuary in this part of the world and that would beterrible for all of us. Therefore I think the vision statement which had been developed last year bythe NATO alliance and all member countries plus other participating nations including Australiawere in agreement with that, so Im personally very surprised if something extraordinarily new willcome out of the strategic discussion in Washington.

Graeme Dobell: That is an excellent spot to lead us into the next session, and were now going tohave coffee.

INTERMISSION

Graeme Dobell: Just to give you the rules of engagement for this session. As Dante said, the innercircle of hell is reserved for prophets and seers, and so the inner circle of hell today I am urging toenjoy life on this Earth because the next life will be much more difficult, so were going to urge youto enjoy yourself this morning. And the way its going to work is Frank is going to kick it off, andwhen he is finished were then going to descend to the seventh ring of hell starting on my right withHugh White and were going to work around the inner circle and each of you is going to be given

about 90 seconds to answer a question that Frank is going to set up for us, and that question is:What is Australia trying to achieve in Afghanistan; what is our strategic objective? A simplequestion Im sure youll agree, which you can all deal with in 90 seconds.

Frank Lewincamp: That question was a surprise to me too; Ive just heard that for the first time. AsI understand my role in leading this discussion it is to be a bit of a spruiker or provocateur. I suspectnot much will be needed on this particular subject. Can I just take a slight exception to where weended the last session, where we said the issue now for discussion was the mission. No, the issuefirstly for discussion is policy - mission presumes a particular policy outcome so lets just go backto the policy questions first. I like Graemes formulation about talking about what Australiasstrategic interests are, with the afternoon session about the mission itself and its implementation.But I could say that if we do our job well this morning and we clarify the policies such thatAustralia should depart from Afghanistan, then we can all take an early mark and take the afternoonoff.

Ill make a few comments and theyll be largely declaratory or assertive because I dont have thetime to justify all that I might say to you now. Three brief observations about how weve got towhere we are now. Firstly, I think the initial decision to invade Afghanistan in 2001 merited muchmore careful consideration at that time. Youll recall that Bushs speech to Congress in 2001 issuedan ultimatum to the Taliban as harbourers of Al-Qaeda. That was a unilateralist approach which


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committed everybody else without any consultation. Now it may well be that in the end we wouldhave had no other option but I think that certainly merited further consideration at that stage.Secondly, I dont think the cause of Afghanistan was assisted at all by the diversion of effort intoIraq in pursuit of the furtherance of the so-called war on terror. Thirdly, I was interested in thediscussion in the end of the period before - the effort in Afghanistan has not been aided by thehandling of Pakistan. Weve consistently failed to deal with urgent issues in that country.

But we are where we are, so we must move forward from there. I was heartened to hear in Obamasspeech to Congress last week, and Ill just quote it, that he said a new and comprehensive strategyfor Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat Al-Qaeda and combat terrorism. I dont think thecombination of those two was accidental in the speech. Let me pose a tough question - is co-operation with Pakistan still the answer, or is a more forceful strategy required in relation to thatcountry?

I was a little surprised in the outline of the conference today that there was no mention of Afghaninational interests. There has been no discussion of that, nor has there been any of Pakistans andthat may warrant a little bit of consideration during the discussion.

The focus of this conference is to clarify Australias interests and therefore our future policy

operational strategy. Ill make the first obvious point about Australias policy options - there are noclear, compelling or appealing policy choices available. What is the real issue for Australia? I dontthink it is terrorism or the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. The real issue is the US alliancerelationship, which Andrew covered. I dont think the humanitarian or terrorism issues bythemselves are sufficient to justify Australias engagement in Afghanistan. Australia, I dont think,has a separate policy position; it certainly doesnt have a clear, coherent exposition of Australiasstrategic interests in Afghanistan, or at least not that Im aware of. If there is a classified versionaround in government, its been written after I left. What are the options for the US alliance inAfghanistan? There are three, I think; firstly, the status quo; secondly, a revised military strategy,including a surge or increased forces; and thirdly, withdrawal, partial or complete. The key issuesabout the revised military strategy are what are the prospects, what is the achievability of the endstate, and what would success look like? Ill have a shot here at defining four things where minimal

levels are required on an ongoing basis; firstly, internal political stability; secondly internal security;thirdly, cross-border security; and fourthly, some sort of reconstruction and economic restoration.These constitute broadly the end state that were looking for. We might quibble about the extent towhich these are achieved, but minimal levels in those four, I think, need to be achieved.

What are the implications or the options then for Australia? I think there are only two, each of thembroken into two further options. The first is continued participation; the second is withdrawal. Soon the first, continued participation, we can do that in two ways: one is the status quo levels, andthats tolerable from our point of view but trying to adopt a Generals perspective this doesnt meetthe stated criteria for our military engagement elsewhere - there are no clear strategy or objectives,no clear end point and itll be very difficult to decide when such an engagement would end. Thesecond option under continued participation is to participate in the surge. I think for Australia thatwill be challenging both militarily and politically. The second option is withdrawal. We could dothat in one of two ways; firstly, without the US; and secondly, with the US. Firstly, without the US,the Australian dilemma then, as Andrew put so clearly, is at what cost to the strength and thebreadth of the alliance. Secondly, with the US - I think it would be a very welcome outcome. Butwhat is our capacity to persuade the US to go down that path?


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Ill make a final point. Withdrawal may be a strategic defeat - I think a number of people spokeabout that - but it may be far better to accept that defeat now than do it in two or three years time. Itrust that is sufficiently provocative.

Graeme Dobell: Well I Think that sets it up perfectly, and for a man who didnt know what his briefwas I think he did that extremely well. No wonder you did so well in defence. Alright well, youknow the question, and to give you an example of how this is going to work, Hugh White your 90

seconds starts now.

Hugh White: Thanks mate, okay there are three ways you can approach Australias objectives: thatwe care about the Afghans, forget about that; that we care about terrorism; and we care about thealliance. On terrorism there are two questions, first of all, is the kind of strategic approach which wehave seen before and whatever it might evolve into credible, that is, if you succeed to you fixthe problem? If we succeed, for example, in Klaus-Peters account of the NATO definition, if wesucceed in building viable Afghan security forces do we succeed in limiting significantly the riskthat Afghanistan will become a haven for terrorism? I think the answer is almost certainly no. Evenif it wasnt for the problem of Pakistan, and the people who somehow seem to see the linkagebetween Afghanistan and Pakistan as good news, oh thats a relief, now we understand the problemweve discovered we cant do anything with a state of 30 million people, and were starting to think

were going to do something with a state of 180 million people, and nukes. That makes it harder,not easier. The second question about terrorism is, is it achievable?, even if I thought that firstobjective was credible, ones chances oh achieving, even in Afghanistan, the level of security forcesadequate to deliver the kind of outcome were after is very low and I just make this observation,there has never been in history an armed force or security force that was better than the governmentit served, and the idea that we can build a stable Afghanistan by building a strong security force is Ithink to put it precisely the cart before the horse. You have to have a strong government before thesecurity forces can do anything for you, so that takes us to the alliance. I agree that what we decidein response to the kind of request were likely to get from Barack Obama is not in itself an alliancebuster. We can say no to increased forces without destroying the alliance, what it will do is affectthe way the alliance works, and I, like others, think the alliance has always been the question.

If our aim, and I use that plural pronoun a bit loosely, if our aim is to build with Barack Obama thekind of relationship which John Howard had with George Bush then saying yes is extremelyimportant, this will be the most important question Barack Obama puts to Kevin Rudd in his firstterm and if Rudd wants that kind of intimacy hed better say yes and say yes in a pretty big way.But thats Rudds interest, not ours. We dont need to have that kind of intimacy with a President,Bob Hawke didnt have it with Ronald Reagan for example, and the alliance flourished very nicelyunder Hawke, so I think we need to ask ourselves a deeper question, where more broadly do wewant the alliance to go? And in my opinion, the most important issue in the future of the alliance ishow we can discuss with the United States the evolution of strategic issues in Asia, so the questionis how does our position on Afghanistan affect that, which is a really big question for Australia, andmy argument would tend to be that pulling out would do damage to our credentials in discussing thefuture of Asia with the United States but surging is not necessary so my answer is well stick with athousand.

Graeme Dobell: Patrick Walters what is Australias strategic objective in Afghanistan; your timestarts now.

Patrick Walters: I think itll be very difficult for Kevin Rudd to contemplate any kind of drawdownin our forces in Afghanistan. Youve only got to look at what hes said in the year or so before hetook government, and what hes said since, I dont think that while there has been some stepping


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back from the notion that Afghanistan is terror central, the way the PM views the alliance will meanthat we will be there, we will be there for a long time. I think we can talk about later on theprospects in terms of our military involvement, what that might mean, but just in terms of thealliance I think there really is an expectation on the American side that we will do more. That iscertainly based on my discussions Ive had with senior American officers recently. Now of course itis a political question, but I think there really is an issue of alliance management here. Should weseek to limit our involvement or indeed draw down our involvement. I think that is not something

that Rudd can contemplate with any degree of confidence in terms of the way that would be viewedin Washington. But in terms of Orzgn, there are some real issues there; perhaps we could talkabout those later

Andrew Shearer: Thanks, I dont think Ive got a whole lot to add to what I said before. Hughscomment about what sort of alliance we want, what is the quality of the alliance that we want, Ithink is key here. The benefits of intimacy that was present in the alliance over the last ten years orso Hugh and I might differ on slightly, but I think you can point to very substantive set ofinstitutional gains from that, seems to me, Rudd faces a choice, are we happy with banking thoseinstitutional gains and then dropping to the second tier, back to where we were frankly, the secondtier of US allies. I think the problem for Rudd in choosing to do that is that he has got a veryambitious declaratory foreign policy; he wants to influence post-Kyoto climate-change framework

for the world, he wants to influence the post-September 15 financial institutions for the world, Idont see how he does that without having a pretty intimate relationship with Barack Obama, unlessyou make a different judgement that is, that Obama really not going to deliver so as I said before Ithink Rudds dilemma is exquisite, if I had to guess Id say hed do something bigger than stickwith the status quo.

Lesley Seebeck: Thank you. I tend to agree with Andrew that this is a difficult problem its gettingworse and its going to challenge the government. Weve had it fairly easy so far. I dont think ourinterests in the region have changed; I think they have adapted and morphed as one would expectwhen you confronting an adaptive intelligent enemy. We still have a clear interest in stability inthat region, not least because were dealing with the imminent collapse of a state that has nuclearweapons and were seeing a revitalised Jihadist insurgency and one which is proving that it can pull

apart established nation-states. Therefore, I think we have an ongoing strategic interest inparticipating in that area, we share interests with the United States in that, and we act inAfghanistan within the alliance in that framework. Therefore, in terms of the specific policyquestion about do we do more do we do less, I agree with Andrew. I think were going to be doingmore, but I also think were going to have to be smarter about how we do more. At the momentwere still utilising what are essentially conventional state forces and putting them into a situationwhere we then attempt to engage in counter insurgency operations. We dont have sufficientcivilian capacity, we havent adapted to many of the new innovations that are evident in the Britishand US forces, and we therefore are also confronted with a transformation issue of our own as well.

In terms of how we operate with the US I think that were going to operate more closely. If wedont were not actually going to be able to fulfil even the tactical measures of success we setourselves. I have to admit one of the things that struck me in the discussion this morning was thatwe kept talking about how were going to win this war. We have to get away from that sort oflanguage: this is a long warand even simply labelling this as a long war provides thepsychological understanding that you looking at a new future, you have to adapt, and you have tochange. Simply attempting to continually measure success invariably lends itself to a tactical andoperational level of understanding and doing so risks continually failing because conditionschange. Thank you.


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Jim Molan: I think there are four reasons why Australia should do something, and theyve all beenmentioned before; humanitarian, self interest, and the alliance in any way that you want to put aweighting on those. The last one I would add is political integrity, and thats just a cheap shot,really, if you say youre going to do something then you ought to do something. But there isabsolutely no point in getting the strategy right, even generally right, unless you match it and alightit down so that you have an operational outcome that matches your strategy, we have got ourstrategic guidance in Australia right for many many years, but weve never done anything to

actually realise it at the level, so at the moment we have a declared strategy which I think is as Dr.Klaiber described it, weve got an actual strategy, which I believe is a holding strategy in Iraq andthis is not Australia, this is the big broad picture, its a holding strategy until we can figure out whatour strategy is and until we can get some resources together, then somewhere in there, and we mightdiscover it here, is a best strategy, and I believe that that is a strategy to win, and I understand whatLesley says, but it just depends how you define win, and Id love to define win later on, that wouldbe matched by an operation strategy or plan which is really to achieve security and then to get intothe clever parts of counterinsurgency, and then to hand over to the Afghans and the tactics is allabout the kind of sayings people have like clear, hold, build, all those clever tactical things that youdo at the bottom level, but the mission, really in in my view, regardless of how we want to put it,regardless of whether its declared is control of Afghanistan, who in the end, controls Afghanistan,is it the warlords, is it going to be the Taliban, is it going to be some form of imperfect democratic

government and therefore the people?

Daniel Marston: Im just going to talk quickly I put in quickly because Im going to be touchingupon quite a few of these issues later in the afternoon, the first point Id raise is yes, it is an allianceissue. Im an American who works with the Brits as well, we do look at Australia and I can see thatit is an alliance issue. It is a question I think that Australian has to figure out if its going be a team Aor team B alliance partner, and some of the European partners are definitely team B now, but quite afew Australian officers and senior politicians have stated that they want to be on team A with us.This was the good war for Rudd, this was the good war for Gordon Brown, this was the good warfor Obama. Now people are saying we have to see it through and try to change the strategy, there isa changing strategy and Ill cover some of this later this afternoon. It has been a holding action,exactly what General Molan has said but it is developing a strategy bottom-up and Australia needs

to figure out whether it wants to be team A or team B.

William Maley: Thank you, I think the holding action line is a useful one because it drives homethe point that looking for an immediate route to a particularly-defined notion of victory is notalways fruitful. This was the fatal mistake that Basil Liddell Hart made in the first half of 1940,when he could not see any way of defeating Germany and therefore advocated that one should try tocut a deal, whereas Churchill had a wider vision, which was that the wider political situation mightreconfigure in such a way as would change the relevant balances. Here I think the equivalent isdealing with the problem of sanctuaries in Pakistan: the further one gets from the border betweenPakistan and Afghanistan the quieter the country becomes.

There is bad governance and corruption in the north of Afghanistan but there is not an insurgency,and part of the problem here is that very few governments have been able to work out how to dealwith a particularly difficult elephant in the room, namely a failing, roguish, nuclear armed state,which will eat alive the civilian politicians who make up the weak part of the Pakistani state, but notnecessarily address the problem of the strong part of the Pakistani state, namely the Inter-ServicesIntelligence Directorate which is not a weak organisation at all, and which is up to no good. DavidSanger in his recent book, recounts from an American intercept the army chief in Pakistan inconversation with President Musharraf in May 2008 referring to the Haqqani network as a strategicasset. Thats the kind of thing that needs to be confronted. In terms of Australian forces, very


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briefly, Frank has outline a sort of continuation scenario and a withdrawal scenario, I think weshould also put a reconfiguration scenario on the table, namely, asking the question of whether weshould be putting all our resources into Uruzgan, or whether it might actually be possible to achievegreater political capital by investing in some activities in some of the areas of Afghanistan whichare less threatened - because at the moment in Afghanistan there is a great deal of anger on the partof people in the quieter parts of the country who see that although they have made an effort to gettheir act together and deliver better governance, all the resources are flowing to the rougher areas,

which is not a good signal to send in the long run.

Rod Lyon: Id like to go back to grand strategy just for a second to ask why was it that we went intoAfghanistan at all. And it seems to me that the reason we did was that we agreed with theassessment that was being made in Washington that said we have a direct strategic interest instopping global range strategic threats emanating from the ungoverned spaces of southwest Asia.Now I think thats the problem we have to focus on, and conflating it with the possible collapse of anuclear armed Pakistan and a whole set of other problems in the region, we have to beware ofrolling too much together here. The US still judges that interest as being amongst its vital interests,so our key ally judges that grand strategic problem as still being a very important one for it. How doAustralians think about it? I dont think weve honestly had the debate much, we tend to focusnaturally a little bit on our region and on the shifting power balance in Asia, but its wrong to think

that all strategic problems boil down to classic Napoleonic great power balance ones. I think we doshare with the US that strategic interest at the grand strategy level about handling a new class ofstrategic threat, and I think we ought to prepare ourselves for the long haul of finding mechanismsfor dealing with it.

Peter Leahy: The quandary here is that as a middle power, or an aspiring middle power, it isdifficult to maintain an independent strategy or mission. In some ways our strategy is do weparticipate or not, in someone elses conflict, and that is really what Australia has done, I think, inmuch of our history, so to me the issue is, do we like what somebody else has said were going tobe doing, if we dont how do we influence it to get it to a stage where we can accept it, or do we notparticipate? Well, what would we like to see that broader strategy, I think the first thing is denyAfghanistan to the terrorists, that was the original mission and I think that has to stand, to do that

needs to be the development of the Afghan security forces, but I dont think that to have a nationyou have to have an army and that prescription we heard out of the Afghan constitution, Im notsure I agree with that, so the sequence isnt quite have a nation have an army, but you need securityforces because thats part of the exit strategy. But its then, very importantly, the humanitarianmission that Jim has mentioned, people there need help, we are a country who are generous, wereopen, and I think we can help people, but its to provide a platform for development, then we needto figure out what are the metrics for development, and therefore when can we decide when itstime to leave?

But before we do all of that, I think weve got to do a few things; firstly, understand what is theAfghan nation, I dont know that, Im not sure they do; we need to understand what will work forthem as a government; we need to decided whether the Taliban are part of the government, orwhether theyre part of the solution; I think the issue of the Taliban perhaps in 2001 that bit wassolved but arent we distracted by the Taliban now, and I agree entirely with some of the earliercomments, we need to get civil agencies involved in this, it is a civil problem as much as it is asecurity problem. So first point; we dont control the strategy, we have to be able to influence it,and my conclusion is we should be helping, we should partcicpate.

Klaus-Peter Klaiber: Well, as a non-Australian Id want to make two comments in addition to whatI said already, I just wanted to state the fact that there are only, apart from the United States, there


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are only seven other countries who are putting in more forces into Afghanistan than Australia, andtherefore, I think the Australian military presence is quite respectable; secondly, I would totallyagree with previous speaker who said that if we accept a kind of comprehensive civil-militaryapproach to possibly getting closer to a solution of our problem then it would be advisable, in myhumble view, that Kevin Rudd is travelling to Washington and proposes some additional assistanceproviding economic help, human rights issues, and these are the issues where Australia has beenvery strong in the past, and why not put the emphasis on this, and by the way there was one retired

American General, who in the committee meeting of the Armed Services Committee recentlymentioned, well if the other nations cannot put more troops on the ground then I think they couldhelp financially or with development assistance, and I think this is the message I would leave withyou Australians here.

David Johnston: Whatever our strategic regional objectives were when we undertook this operation,we all accepted them as legitimate, valid, and worthy; and accordingly we committed to them, and Ithink that is a very important point, that we are now committed. As I see it the three principalmotivators were; firstly, Afghanistan itself, but more broadly Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran a region that potentially is a very problematic for all of the players on our side; we also saw it asvitally important to be a part of the ANZUS team, if you like, and to maintain our standing with theUnited States; and lastly, I think we also saw some potential standing positives in our local region

here in Asia. The question that now confronts us is, what will the end result look like?, and I thinkthis is a very important question, and I venture the proposition that it will look something like Iraqis starting to look like, there are massive differences between the two countries, but I think t herewill be, over some long time, much probably longer than Iraq, a governance issue, and we better setabout looking at governance issues in a much bigger way than we do, a governance, propriety, andintegrity that states to emerge flowing from the level of security that we can all provide.

Neil James: I suppose I begin with an advertisement, I mean the ADA first started talking aboutwhat Australia should do when the Dutch go 18 months ago, so our normal lead on public debate iswell ahead. People are forgetting the wider moral vision here, weve been bludging on theAmericans for too long and were going to have to soon starting to deliver, but youve also go tolook at it from the point of view of the Afghans and I actually reject the argument that the Afghans

dont come into this, and Ive lived for a fairly long time in Pakistan and I know Afghanistan fairlywell, its in Australias interest to take over from the Dutch in Orzgn, for the simple reason thatwe dont want the Americans to be the senior partners in the province: were better atcounterinsurgency than they are, itll help the Afghans better if were the senior partner, not theYanks. It will also mean that we will finally start to deliver more than rhetoric to the Americans, wewill no longer have a niche force or a token contribution, well have an actually contribution;because you dont fight wars unless you intent to win them, all wars are a contest of will, and allwars end when one side gives up, and this is why Id reject Franks broad assumption that it was aunilateralist operation in Afghanistan, this was a United Nations endorsed operation, the front pageofLiberation the communist-newspaper in Paris said we are all Americans now, after 9/11, thewider political and moral vision here is that if we dont tackle the problem in Afghanistan it willeventually bite us on the bum as it already has to an extent in Bali and in Jakarta and Singapore, andto some extent in southern Thailand and the southern Philippines.

We live next door to the largest Muslim country on Earth, luck theyre not all Islamists, however, ifthe problem of Islamist terrorism isnt tackled in its nest it will eventually come and affect us here,or the risk of it affecting us here. You cant be unilateralist and regard the Arafura Sea as a mote,globalisation is total, you cant have economic globalisation and communications globalisationwithout looking at the globalisation of strategy, we cant hide in Australia any more and we have toget in there and win this war, and continuing to talk about aw gees we might not win is not the


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answer, because the people watching us, the enemy watching us, know that our Achilles heel is ourwill, and its our will we have to strengthen. You know the counterinsurgency war in NorthernIreland took 30 years to defeat the IRA but they were convincingly beaten in the end because thewill of the British never faltered and why our will should not, must not, falter in Afghanistan andwe should increase the contingent with a re-enforced battalion group with artillery and tanks, andwell have to borrow some attack helicopters off the Americans because ours wont be ready yet.

Tom Gregg: Thankyou, if Australias strategic objective in Afghanistan is the US alliance, then forthe sustainability of Australias effort I think we need to be pretty sure that the US has a coherentstrategy and clear objectives. And I think that right now theyre trying to define what their strategicobjectives are. If our strategic objective is more closely aligned with the Afghan national interest,which would be stabilisation, economic development, reduced narcotics, this kind of thing, the onlyway were going to achieve that is by the strengthening of the Afghan state. Right now as weveheard this morning the Karzai government lacks capacity, its not just capacity however, its anissue of political will, which is lacking greatly. Afghanistan needs to define itself, or address itsrelationship, not just with Pakistan but in the region more generally, on counter-narcotics andrefugees with Iran, on counter-narcotics again and energy and other issues with its northernneighbours, after three decades of war, Afghanistan needs to establish itself in the region again andit hasnt done so, so I think Id agree with Bill and Andrew that in order to achieve stability its not

really going to be a military effort alone, it will be a military effort as part of a much greaterpolitical strategy which will require an enormous civilian effort.

Geoffrey Garrett: What a fascinating discussion, Im really glad to be here to be listening to it. Ivebeen struck, since Ive been back in Australia, by the slogan of alliance management, as an end inand of itself for Australian foreign policy. I guess my conclusion it is that it would make sense forAustralia to think about Afghanistan on its own terms, rather than about alliance management.There was talk about slipping from the A team to the B team, and I wonder if thats just aboutprestige or about things Australia might want to get done. If its about what Australia might want toget done, my sense about what most of the things that Prime Minister Rudd wants to get done withBarack Obamas help are probably not going to get done anyway. So what are those things? G20,Doha, Copenhagen are all ones I think where the broad Australian strategy would be we need some

global solutions and we need the US to take a leadership role.

I think its unlikely that that will happen this year on any of those things. Can Prime Minister Ruddand Australia be the China go-between for the US? The Chinese want to have bilateral relationswith the US, as does the US with China. Can Australia convince the US and Asian countries that theUS should be part of the East Asian Summit? I dont see that. Is Australia positioned to become thenew Japan for Asia? I dont see that either in the short term. So, if the reason you want to be on theA team is because itll get the US to do heavy lifting for Australia based on the objectives thatPrime Minister Rudd has stated, I dont see that thats a good reason to be on the A team.

Stephan Frhling: I have a lot of sympathy for the plight of the Afghan people; but I think that if theprime motivation is humanitarian and you want to improve the lot of mankind, Afghanistan is notthe place to start. The second p

sdsc afghanistan surge 2009 transcript

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