Stephen Walt is spot on with this blog post. COIN enthusiasts are among the many in Washington who believe American foreign policy must maintain an aggressive missionary aspect. This isn’t really a problem—we should be striving to make the world a better place—but it currently manifests itself in ways that are prone to failure and terrible blowback. Namely, military interventions.
It’s impossible to say what would have happened in Afghanistan had the Bush Administration not taken away resources and attention to devote to a completely unnecessary war in Iraq. Now, both countries are messes (Iraq’s security improvements may yet prove temporary). The strategic error in invading Iraq and largely abandoning Afghanistan is consistently understated, and the tactical success of COIN (the surge) is overstated.
Wars are problematic for several reasons. One, they kill people, including many innocents, and that doesn’t tend to make us many friends. Two, they cost lots of money, and the U.S. has not found an adequate way to pay for its two current engagements (no, borrowing money does not count). Three, they take time and political capital which would be better spent on preparing America for future challenges, not blowing up huts in small Afghan or Pakistani tribal villages.
Instead of trying to fight wars better, we should be trying to fight fewer of them. Once you’re in them, you’re in them. But we need to do a better job of not getting in them in the first place.
