The battles lines over future US policy and strategy in Afghanistan are being drawn, tied up with a larger backlash against counterinsurgency theory. This was largely inevitable, as the consensus over both subjects was fragile and largely contingent on a certain political, institutional, and theoretical climate that is now gone. As Zenpundit notes, the debate has equal promise and peril.
Schmedlap put it best in a SWJ comment:
"Whatever plan is come up with, all the think tanks and professors will be scrambling to take credit for being part of the brain trust that came up with it - if it works. And then the book deals, TV interviews, requests for comment and analysis, op-eds, speaking engagements, and think tank donations will follow."
This is the root of the problem. High-level political problems tend to provoke a flood of position papers, op-eds, etc offering answers. Op-eds are an important part of the debate. Yet we must take care not to see it become the entire debate. Far more important than answers (which everyone has, in some shape or form) is whether or not we are asking the right questions.
We have a foreign policy and security blogosphere that has so far exercised tremendous maturity compared to the hue and cry of regular political blogs. The unraveling of the Afghanistan consensus is both a crisis and opportunity in that allows us to focus more on the process by which we think about the issue and post-9/11 security challenges in general. I have faith that this community will handle this debate in a reasonable and thoughtful manner.
I cannot say the same, however, for the larger argument that is about to occur.
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