Former British Army officer, diplomat, academic and author of “The Places In Between,” Rory Stewart discussing Afghanistan this past fall on Bill Moyer.
It’s a bit dated in that he’s discussing the then upcoming decision by President Obama on whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan, but the bulk of his discussion is timely and full of a clarity and wisdom rarely found in the talking points of generals and politicians.
He argues for a lowering of expectations in what we can actually accomplish and a cooling of the “all or nothing” and “losing is not an option” rhetoric so often heard among national leadership.
(h/t to Collin O’Bryant for alerting me to Stewart)
For more of Rory Stewart’s writing on Afghanistan see here and here.
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Wow, that’s some lucid thinking. Cam, thanks for the post. Stewart’s understanding of Afghanistan is on a whole other level. I can definitely see his “bang and bust” theory playing out before our eyes. Yesterday, I heard Jon Stewart on the daily show straight up say “Leave Afghanistan” with no other qualifiers. I know it’s comedy (partially), but I found it significant because it was the first time I’ve heard anyone in the media venture out and blatantly say such a thing. I wonder, how long it will be before we hear that refrain echoed all over the place? We’ll see…
@ Collin,
Thank you for reminding me of Rory Stewart in the first place ! I think what’s happening is more and more people are beginning to question the feasibility and necessity of a stable, democratic Afghanistan…at least in the way we define such things here in America. What does stable actually mean? Who knows? How does one measure such things?
As Stewart (Rory) pointed out, we’re starting from such a low base that we really need to scale down our ambitions. The US military is great at certain, very specific core competencies, but we’re not miracle workers…we can’t turn Mujahideen into new-age Swedes no matter how many troops, resources, or changes in strategy we have.
Also, the baseline assumption that a stable Afghanistan is necessary for American security is being questioned by many, including yours truly.
This discussion has been going on in the dark underbelly of the AfPak foreign policy blogosphere for quite some time, it’s just now becoming more mainstream hence you hear guys like Jon Stewart saying what he did.
It’s a great debate for sure and one that I see only getting more heated the longer we stay. It’s just unfortunate that the debate is happening now, 9 years in…the fundamentals should have been hatched out a long time ago, but hindsight….