astan777

Still in Afghanistan = maintaining a force-presence of some sort, either conducting CT or TAA (or both). This could be 500 or 5000 troops. Embassy presence doesn't count. Our BSA is good through 2024, so that's 7 years right there. I bet we'll be there through 2030 and beyond. Maybe Trump will surprise us. I'll send a PM for a shipping address if he does a 180 and brings everyone home.

I bet you a bottle of Jeremiah Weed we're still in Afghanistan 15 years from now, unless the NUG suffers a violent collapse. We'll do everything possible to keep that from happening. Wild card: Our new policy and mini-surge strategy works, the Taliban negotiate, and Afghanistan becomes stable. Then we withdraw. The thing is, Congress doesn't give a f*&k about our mission in Afghanistan. $500B is nothing over 10-15 years, Congress will be glad to spend it. Politicians like Senator Chris Murphy are more interested in pumping money into their district at the expense of US soldiers who have to train the Afghans on the equipment (UH-60 contract) their district builds. We keep the war low-key enough that your average American doesn't feel too guilty about some youngster from fly-over country getting blown-up in Helmand/Kunduz/Kabul.

For many US policy makers, the value of natural resources alone are worth less than the perceived value of controlling or influencing the terrain it lies underneath. Our involvement in Syria and Afghanistan is at least partially reflective of this logic. We don't really care about $1T worth of lithium in of itself, but we do want to make sure the Afghan government is forever amiable to our interests and can squeeze markets and control economic access when we demand it. The US believes having a (theoretically) stable and US-dependent Afghanistan in South Asia is worth more than purely mineral rights. Here is how we compare to the Chinese regarding resource competition: We offer security assistance packages and a pathway toward greater legitimacy in the international arena in exchange for durable partnerships with god-forsaken third world countries. The Chinese offer immediate cash infusions and capital investment, but not a whole lot more. Textbook example is all the activity going on in Africa. China is there bigtime, we're just starting to show up. If you think 365s to Afghanistan are bad, wait until we start sending tens of thousands of troops to obscure corners of Africa (take a look at current AFRICOM requirements, then map the trend data over a five year period). I expect 10K plus US troops in Africa by the mid-2020s.

Gris, Here are my thoughts after a few years focusing on the region, I'll try to keep them brief and use them as a platform for forum discussion. The only politically palatable reason we're still in Afghanistan is terrorism. It's the only issue that resonates with American voters, many whom believe Afghanistan is a hostile nation. This is why every American politician from McCain to Nicholson (4 stars are politicians) hammers this issue in their public statements. The unspoken reasons we're still in Afghanistan are resource competition, national prestige, alliance concerns, and using the country as a beachhead in a rising South Asia. All these factors are political nonstarters - try telling your constituents PFC Snuffy got shot in the face training Afghans because we really want leverage in the region twenty years from now. We will not abandon the National Unity Government. It is a textbook proxy/puppet. Ghani was an American citizen. His wife is American. His daughter is a Brooklyn-based hipster artist. If we hang him out to dry, we risk losing the ability to replicate the proxy model in the future. I've mentioned this in past posts, but we are fully joined at the hip with the NUG. Our BSA and long term strategic relationship with Afghanistan cemented this policy. I agree with all your comments about tribalism as being the natural fit. Our approach makes no sense, but we committed $1T to the effort, and no one wants to admit we're crazy. I have no problem killing extremist groups in Afghanistan ad infinium, we just don't have the technology to do it effectively yet. The platform needs to be based outside Afghanistan, some sort of persistent surveillance/strike platform with a month-long sortie duration that doesn't need to be landed in Pakistan, Afghanistan, any of the Russian satellites, etc. If I were king, I'd advocate for the Biden CT model. My contrarian perspective is that Kabul can survive on funding alone. Draw down US forces to 2K CT soldiers at BAF, then just throw cash at Kabul to keep them semifunctioning. In many ways, this is already the plan. US taxpayers pay the salaries of the entire Afghan National Army, and they won't be Afghan sustainable at anytime in the next two decades. We do this with Egypt, Pakistan, etc. Everyone will say "the Taliban will take Kabul", but I point towards the fact that Najibullah lasted three years after the Soviet troop withdrawal. It was only after the Soviets stopped the cash flow that his government collapsed and he lost power (as in, hung from a light pole and having his nuts cut off).

Yes, at least another decade. We bet the farm on ANA ability to secure the country so we could leave. But it has become clear we put the cart (withdraw deadline) before the horse (conditions on the ground necessary to leave). This is where you get the "Afghan good enough" phenomenon. Hilariously, stop-light charts mapping ANA progress at ISAF went from red to green overnight back when we were hellbent on showing policymakers that, yes, of course, no doubt, the ANA were an outstanding force ready to take the fight to the Taliban.

The United States desperately wants to extricate itself from Afghanistan so it can better focus on a number of more important issues; Islamic State, China, Russia, NK, etc. Afghanistan is virtually ignored within the broader national security community. We're sick of it. There are brush fires elsewhere that need to be addressed before they become major problems. We just don't know how to wrap this thing up. It's a textbook quagmire. It was also a leadership problem, on both the civ and mil side, which stretches back across the past two administrations. I'm hopeful McMaster's deliberate policy review will pave the road for a dignified exit sometime in the next 10-15 years. I can only speculate what it will involve, but it'll probably require a modification of the broader Resolute Support mission. We need to take a long, hard look at how we do TAA and its overall effectiveness. The CT mission is here to stay. We'll start bringing in more regional partners and pray that the Taliban are either compelled or coerced to finally come to the negotiation table. There happens to be a first cohort AFPAK Hand sitting on the NSC no doubt working on the new policy; if his team throws a hail mary and nails it, I like to think the program will finally realize its original purpose of achieving strategic effects. Then, everything will be forgiven.

It is impossible to invest two years in Afghanistan and leave feeling optimistic about the future. Flying missions from BAF is great but it doesn't capture the dysfunction going on inside Kabul. Also, many don't have a sense of the sheer level of fear and desperation most Afghans feel as we linger in this strategic vacuum created by the drawdown. Nothing in Afghanistan is sustainable, almost everything is breaking, and ANA attrition rates outstrip their ability to regenerate. The whole arrangement is held together by the United States current willingness to bulldoze piles of cash towards the problem and mediate political infighting at the palace. Purchasing UH-60s for the Afghan Air Force is just the latest example of high-order buffoonery.

I see where you're coming from. However please consider, if you have a young Captain asking for gouge about AFPAK Hands, it'd be much more accurate and helpful in his decision making matrix to say: "AFPAK Hands sucks because there is a high likelihood you'll be undervalued and misused during your deployments" "AFPAK Hands sucks because there is a high likelihood you'll never command in this community" "AFPAK Hands sucks because you'll see the tragedy of our mission in Afghanistan up close" No one says "AFPAK Hands sucks because I didn't get promoted." If they do...f*&k 'em.

Healthy dose of conjecture in your post, there is little to indicate Hands faces "promotion board level dismissal." The guys who made it were going to make it at any assignment. The guys who didn't make it were probably never going to make it. Each board is different and correlation does not imply causation. Quality officers will endure through the program and promote at a rate which mirrors their peers on the outside. APH is radioactive for reasons besides promotions.

Non-flyers have an advantage because they don't face as severe a career-timing penalty. Gate month requirements, credibility, and prejudice within the flying community towards non-standard assignments all add up to make life hard for rated seeking to return to their career fields. Many talented, upwardly-mobile Hands come from the non-rated community. Acquisitions, security forces, contracting, all these communities send guys who do well both during the program and afterwards. They still struggle with the same BS flyers do while deployed but seem to fare better overall. I would recommend this program to a non-flyer willing to endure the sacrifice.

During my time, AFPAK leadership at the Joint Staff was represented by an O-6 with little ability to influence the program. With no GO top cover, APH was essentially dead on arrival within the Pentagon. There is no universal standard between the service for selecting Hands (besides the subjective platitudes in the CJCSI) and no accountability mechanism for washing out poor performers during spin-up. If you carefully parse the AFPC robot message, you'll notice a line about vetting candidates for suitability; I'm certain suitability in this context only means no QFIs and no obvious fatties. Otherwise, there is no standard. APH selects easy and manages hard, the exact opposite of programs such Olmsted Scholars and (to a lesser extent) RAS. Yes, management shields HPOs from this opportunity. Plenty of stories of shiny pennies having orders drop for APH only to have a GO-level sponsor intervene with AFPC and save the day. The best part of working at the Pentagon is you get to meet all the guys who successfully stiff-armed the assignment and found their way to a normal staff gig. AB - I wanted to follow-up with this portion your otherwise excellent assessment. Soul-crushing staff jobs aren't the sole providence of APH. I watched my neighbor suffer through three painful years on the Joint Staff. It took a tool on him physically and mentally, not to mention his family. He was a great leader and went on to command, but by god did he pay for it during his time in DC. Is it normal for folks to scheme and hustle finding a 3-4 star to make their command dreams come true? We should should be ashamed if someone in our line of work is engaged in this behavior. No APH has made GO, and I've never met one with that ambition.

AB - I agree with the majority of your assessment with minor dissenting remarks not worth quibbling about here. The bottom line is APH is not a path for command-oriented flyers, period. If your community non-vol'd you, I'd suggest it is a message about where you fit in the future hierarchy. If you volunteered and didn't get strong counselling from your commander about the repercussions, I'd suggest that is a message also. Anecdotally, if you came into this program a strong performer, you'll leave this program in shape for O-5 with minimal command prospects. The are outliers, especially in the non-rates community. If you came into this program with weak records and hoped APH would give you a boost, you're going to be disappointed. CJ nailed it in his assessment, I will provide more later but bottom line is this program has a high risk/reward ratio. There are some truly unique jobs downrange, but it's pure chance you'll be assigned to them. The AHOB process is broken, and for the most part GO's at RS treat Hands as free-agents to pad their staff. I know of no less than three C-130 WIC grads in the program, none of which advised Afghans on aviation-related issues. WTFO!

I'm an AFPAK Hand. We pull folk from across the Air Force, a slight majority of them flyers. It seems about half the cadre are non-vols. In my experience, AFPAK Hands appeals to a narrow range of folks interested in alternative career paths such as RAS or the attaché program. Others are seeking something Army-oriented or an assignment completely different than the norm. Motivations for doing AFPAK Hands vary considerably. We need to stop forcing commanders to non-vol folks. It turns AFPAK Hands into a force-management culling mechanism for justifiably pissed-off officers with no interest being advisors for the Afghans. Willing to candidly talk about the program, both good and bad. Fire away.