DISPUTATIONS: False Dichotomy

This summer, Stephen Biddle wrote one of the more influential and oft-cited articles in support of the current U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In "Is It Worth It?" in The American Interest, Biddle argued that by the narrowest of margins, the United States had strategic interests that necessitated the maintenance of a robust military presence in Afghanistan.

In "Is There a Middle Way?" in the most recent issue of TNR, Biddle has focused instead on the operational elements of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. He argues that a mission oriented around half-measures—such as paying off Afghan warlords or building up the Afghan security services—as opposed to a fully-integrated counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy that incorporates all of these measures is destined to fail. But then as now, Biddle's argument is predicated on a dubious straw man, which reduces the Afghanistan debate to a simplistic, binary argument between two unfeasible options.

In the summer, Biddle based his argument on the suspect notion that policymakers faced the choice of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan or prolonged American engagement. Now, Biddle's straw men are the disparate elements of a counter-insurgency operation, which he claims will fail on their own but which are likely to succeed if pursued in concert. But neitherfull-fledged COIN or so-called half measures are reflective of the diverse set of possible scenarios that the White House could andshould be considering. If anything, they only muddy the waters because neither strategy has a strong chance of succeeding or even being implemented.

Biddle claims that "integrated COIN offers a higher probability of success than any of the proposed middle ways; middle ways are cheaper, but also likelier to fail." Yet nothing in his article actually supports this argument. Biddle does not make the affirmative case for why a COIN mission would work; and he doesn't fully and faithfully engage with the alternative approaches for stabilizing Afghanistan and securing U.S. interests there. Quite simply, there is no evidence that the sum he embraces is greater than the parts he dismisses.

Worst of all, Biddle ignores the many reasons why a full-fledged COIN mission in Afghanistan is unlikely to succeed: the lack of Afghan government support and capacity, an ineffective Afghan Army and police force, a growing decline in public support among U.S. and NATO countries, the continued presence of Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, and the lack of civilian support for a COIN mission. Instead, Biddle picks apart the so-called middle way approach to counter-insurgency by treating each policy recommendation in isolation, as if the recommendations of COIN opponents are to focus on just fighting a drone war or just trying to improve aid delivery.

If Biddle provided the same scrutiny to his own counter-insurgency argument, he might notice that it is built on a precarious house of cards. For example, he argues:

The pieces of orthodox COIN strategy interact: security enables development and governance, development and governance enhance security, governance facilitates counterterrorism, counterterrorism improves security, security enables negotiation and reconciliation. Each is a valuable complement to the others; none is a viable substitute.