Interviewee A. Regional expert and former MNF-I senior adviser.
Interviewee B. Former Bush administration senior official.
Interviewee C. Former Obama administration senior official.
Interviewee D. Former MNF-I senior adviser.
Interviewee E. Former US military official in Kabul.
Interviewee F. Former US intelligence official.
Interviewee G. Former US senior defense official.
Interviewee H. Former State Department senior adviser.
Interviewee I. An Afghanistan expert in frequent contact with the Taliban.
Interviewee J. Former State Department senior adviser.
Interviewee K. Former Bush administration senior official.
Interviewee L. Former Obama administration senior official.
Interviewee M. Former Obama administration senior official.
Interviewee N. Former senior US military official in ISAF.
Interviewee O. Former senior US military official in MNF-I.
Interviewee P. Former senior US military official in ISAF.
Interviewee Q. Former senior US military official in ISAF.
Interviewee R. Former Afghan government senior official.
Interviewee S. Former commander in the Afghan special operations forces.
Interviewee T. Former senior EU official in Kabul.
Interviewee U. Former senior NATO official in Kabul.
Interviewee V. Former senior NATO official in Kabul.
Interviewee W. Former senior Pentagon official.
Interviewee X. Former senior Pentagon official, Obama administration.
Interviewee Y. Former Taliban senior official.
Interviewee Z. Former UNAMA senior official.
Interviewee AA. Former senior Afghan official.
Interviewee AB. Former senior Afghan official.
1. General Stanley A. McChrystal with David Silverman, Chris Fussell, and Tantum Collins, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York: Penguin, 2015), 6, 18.
2. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New York: Vintage, 2005), x–xii.
3. Daniel Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2014).
4. Brendan R. Gallagher, The Day After: Why America Wins the War but Loses the Peace (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2019).
5. William C. Martel, Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Strategy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011), 3–4.
6. Ibid., 342.
7. Kyle Rempfer, “H.R. McMaster Says the Public Is Fed a ‘War-Weariness’ Narrative That Hurts US Strategy,” Military Times, May 8, 2019.
8. Christopher D. Kolenda, “America’s Generals Are Out of Ideas for Afghanistan,” Survival 59, no. 5 (2017): 37–46.
9. Department of Defense, The National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2015 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2015), 5 (emphasis added).
10. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 1, ADP 1 (Washington, D.C., July 31, 2019), 3-2 (emphasis added). For earlier descriptions of the decisive victory construct, see Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual 100-5 (Operations), FM 100-5 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1993), iv: “The mission of the United States Army is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The Army does this by deterring war and, when deterrence fails, by achieving quick, decisive victory on and off the battlefield anywhere in the world and under virtually any conditions as part of a joint team” (emphasis added).
11. Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013), ix–x.
12. Bradford A. Lee, “Winning the War but Losing the Peace? The United States and the Strategic Issues of War Termination,” in Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel, ed. Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 249–273, 255.
13. See Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 1, ADP 1 (September 17, 2012), para. 1-15; 2-3–2-6; 3-2, and Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1 (2019); see also Department of Defense, The National Military Strategy of the United States 2015, and Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2018), and the Joint Staff, Description of the National Military Strategy 2018 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2019).
14. Gideon Rose, How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010); Fred Charles Iklé, Every War Must End (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1991); Dan Reiter, How Wars End (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2009); Richard Caplan, ed. Exit Strategies and State Building (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2012); Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003); Elizabeth A. Stanley, “Ending the Korean War: The Role of Domestic Coalition Shifts in Overcoming Obstacles to Peace,” International Security 34, no. 1 (2009): 42–82; and Elizabeth A. Stanley, Paths to Peace: Domestic Coalition Shifts, War Termination, and the Korean War (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2009); Matthew Moten, ed., Between War and Peace: How America Ends Its Wars (New York: Free Press, 2011).
15. Moten, Between War and Peace, xi (emphasis added).
16. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 245; see also Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building, 3–4.
17. Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building, 21.
18. Iklé, Every War Must End, ix; Colin L. Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 519, 521.
19. Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (New York: Little, Brown, 1995), xiv–xv, 463–478.
20. Rose, How Wars End, 4.
21. Ibid.
22. Ivan Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 3–4.
23. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 13.
24. Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, 3–5.
25. Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, Beth Grill, and Molly Dunigan, Paths to Victory: Lessons from Modern Insurgencies (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2013); Martin C. Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies: Outcomes and Endings,” in War by Other Means: Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency, ed. David C. Gompert and John Gordon IV (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2008); James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (February 2003): 75–90.
26. See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2003); Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979); and Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001).
27. Elizabeth A. Stanley and John P. Sawyer, “The Equifinality of War Termination: Multiple Paths to Ending War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 5 (2009): 651–676; Iklé, Every War Must End, xv, 2–6.
28. Reiter, How Wars End, 6–7.
29. Stanley, “Ending the Korean War,” argues that changes in domestic coalitions are often required to end a war. See also Stanley, Paths to Peace; H. E. Goemans, “Fighting for Survival: The Fate of Leaders and the Duration of War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, no. 5 (2000): 555–579; and H. E. Goemans, War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2000), 15–22, which suggests that regime type is the most salient determinant of war termination behavior.
30. Daniel Kahneman, “Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics,” American Economic Review 93, no. 5 (2003): 1449–1475; Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2013); Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions,” Journal of Business 59, no. 4, part 2 (October 1986): S251–S278; Johanna Etner, Meglena Jeleva, and Jean Marc Tallon, “Decision Theory under Ambiguity,” Journal of Economic Surveys 26, no. 2 (2012): 234–270; Dan Arielly, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (New York: HarperCollins, 2008); Tim Harford, The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World (New York: Random House, 2008); Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort, The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002); Walter C. Ladwig III, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency U.S. Involvement in El Salvador’s Civil War, 1979–92,” International Security 41, no. 1 (summer 2016): 99–146.
31. Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960), 5.
32. Roger Spiller, “Six Propositions,” in Between War and Peace: How America Ends Its Wars, ed. Matthew Moten (New York: Free Press, 2011), 4
33. Reiter, How Wars End, 2–5, 16.
34. I. William Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives: Hurting Stalemates and Ripe Moments,” Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1, no. 1 (2001): 8–18, 8.
35. Martel, Victory in War, 46.
36. I am indebted to Lieutenant General (Ret.) James Dubik, USA, for the war-waging versus war-fighting formulation, which was discussed on several occasions and which he captures in his 2016 book Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory, Battles and Campaigns Series (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2018).
37. Colin Gray, “Concept Failure? COIN, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Theory,” Prism 3, no. 3 (2012): 17–32, 22.
38. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 13. See also Martel, Victory in War, 342.
39. Christopher D. Kolenda, “Slow Failure: Understanding America’s Quagmire in Afghanistan,” Journal of Strategic Studies 42, no. 7 (September 2019): 992–1014.
40. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (1843; reprint, Proquest E-book, 2016), 280.
41. Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 2003), 13; John G. Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity (New York: Routledge, 1998), 94; Charles S. Peirce, Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Justus Buchler (New York: Dover, 1955).
42. Anna Dubois and Lars-Erik Gadde, “Systematic Combining: An Abductive Approach to Case Research,” Journal of Business Research 55, no. 7 (2002): 553–560, 555; Brian D. Haig, “An Abductive Theory of Scientific Method,” Psychological Methods 10, no. 4 (2005): 371–388, 376–379.
43. “On background” means the interviewee granted me permission to use the information but not to name them directly.
1. George C. Herring, “American Strategy in Vietnam: The Postwar Debate,” Military Review 46, no. 2 (April 1982): 57–63; Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1986); Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999); Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978); John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005).
2. See General William Westmoreland, “A Military War of Attrition,” in The Lessons of Vietnam, ed. W. Scott Thompson and Donaldson D. Frizzell (New York: Crane, Russak, 1976); and William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976); John M. Carland, “Winning the Vietnam War: Westmoreland’s Approach in Two Documents,” Journal of Military History 68, no. 2 (2004): 533–574; Dale Andrade, “Westmoreland Was Right: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Vietnam War,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 19, no. 2 (2008): 145–181; Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Military History 72, no. 4 (2008): 1213–1247; Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006): 335–336.
3. Harry G. Summers Jr., On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1982); Jonathan D. Caverley, “The Myth of Military Myopia: Democracy, Small Wars, and Vietnam,” International Security 34, no. 3 (winter 2009/2010): 119–157; H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, Kindle ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 1791 of 10792; Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Press, 1997), 511–525; Herbert Y. Schandler, America in Vietnam: The War that Couldn’t Be Won (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 3.
4. For the evolution of US strategy, see the following documents: Edward C. Keefer, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 4, Vietnam, August–December 1963 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1991, e-book): document 331, “National Security Action Memorandum [NSAM] 273,” November 26, 1963, 637–640; document 374, “Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) to President Johnson, ‘Vietnam Situation,’” December 21, 1963, 732–733; document 380, “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, “Letter from President Johnson to General Minh,” December 31, 1963, 745–746; Jack Schulimson, ed., The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1960–1968, part 1 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2011), 199–239; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, 1440–1559 of 10792; Edward C. Keefer and Charles S. Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 1, Vietnam, 1964 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1992, e-book): document 84, “Memorandum From the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) to the President,” March 16, 1964, 154, 160; document 87, “National Security Action Memorandum [NSAM] No. 288,” March 17, 1964, 172–173; document 201, “Paper Prepared for the President by the Secretary of Defense (McNamara),” June 5, 1964, 462–465; document 420, “Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara), SUBJECT: Courses of Action in Southeast Asia,” November 23, 1964, 932–935; document 424, “Memorandum of the Meeting of the Executive Committee,” November 24, 1964, 943–945; document 428, “Memorandum of the Meeting of the Executive Committee,” November 27, 1964, 958–960; document 433, “Paper Prepared by the Executive Committee, Washington, December 2, 1964, POSITION PAPER ON SOUTHEAST ASIA,” December 2, 1964, 969–974; document 435, “Instructions From the President to the Ambassador to Vietnam (Taylor),” December 3, 1964, 974–978; David C. Humphrey, Edward C. Keefer, and Louis J. Smith, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 3, Vietnam, June–December 1965 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1996, e-book), document 93, “Document Summary Notes of the 553d Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, July 27, 1965, 5:40 p.m.–6:20 p.m. SUBJECT: Deployment of Additional U.S. Troops to Vietnam,” July 27, 1965, 262–263. A negotiated outcome was discussed as early as 1962. See Allan E. Goodman, The Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War, Institute of East Asian Studies (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1986), 1–2.
5. McNamara used graduated pressure to convince the Soviet Union to abandon plans to put nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba while avoiding the risk of a wider war. He overrode highly aggressive military advice that might have escalated the conflict out of control. Cyrus Vance, “Oral History Transcript,” section 3, LBJ Library, March 9, 1970, 11; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, 643, 1549 of 10792.
6. Keefer and Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 1, Vietnam, document 201; document 304, “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Canada,” August 8, 1964, 651–653.
7. H. K. Johnson Papers, Notes on Meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, January–April 1964, “Notes on JCS Meeting for 8 January 1964,” box 126, General Harold K. Johnson; The Pentagon Papers, vol. 3, Joint Chiefs Memorandum 46–64, “Vietnam and Southeast Asia,” January 22, 1964, 496–499; Herbert Y. Schandler, “America and Vietnam: The Failure of Strategy, 1964–67,” in Vietnam as History, ed. Peter Braestrup (Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1984), 23–24; Keefer and Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 1, Vietnam, document 66, “Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) JCSM-174-64 SUBJECT: Vietnam,” March 2, 1964, 116–117; document 70 (March 4, 1964), 129; document 191, “Memorandum From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor) to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara),” CM-1450-64, SUBJECT: Transmittal of JCSM-471-64, “Objectives and Courses of Action-Southeast Asia,” June 2, 1964, 437–441; Schulimson, ed., The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, chapter 9, 241–264; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, location 1351, 1491, 1914 of 10792. The so-called “Rostow Thesis” hypothesized that graduated military actions reinforced by political and economic pressures could cause a nation to reduce or eliminate support for an insurgency. This notion for North Vietnam was tested in a September 1964 wargame called SIGMA II, which concluded that such a bombing campaign would more likely stiffen North Vietnam’s resolve, while eroding public support in the United States. The conclusions, however, had little effect on US strategy; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, 3221–3277 of 10792.
8. Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991), 60–88; Karnow, Vietnam, 240–251; The Pentagon Papers, “Memorandum for Secretary of Defense from Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale, ‘Vietnam,’” January 17, 1961, 69, 72–73.
9. William Duiker, Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 164–165.
10. Keefer and Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 1, Vietnam, document 339, “Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State,” Saigon, September 6, 1964, 733–736; and Humphrey et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 3, Vietnam, document 40, “Paper by the Under Secretary of State (Ball), ‘A Compromise Solution for South Viet-nam,” undated, 108.
11. See The Pentagon Papers, Special National Intelligence Estimate, “Evolution of the War. Origins of the Insurgency,” part IV. A. 5, August 1960; Maxwell B. Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares (New York: Norton, 1972), 301; Keefer and Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, document 84, 155–158, 156; document 156, “Summary Record of the 532d Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, May 15, 1964,” 328–329; document 341, “Special National Intelligence Estimate, Washington, September 8, 1964, SNIE 53-64: ‘Chances for a Stable Government in South Vietnam,” September 8, 1964, 742–746; Robert S. McNamara with James Blight, Robert Brigham, Thomas Biersteker, Herbert Schandler, Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 369; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage, 1989), 201–266; James Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), 88; Vincent H. Demma, “The U.S. Army in Vietnam,” in American Military History (Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 1989), 619–694; Karnow, Vietnam, 339.
12. Johnson Library, “Memorandum for the Record, Washington, February 3, 1965, ‘SUBJECT Discussion with the President re South Vietnam,’” John McCone memoranda of meetings with the president, dictated by McCone and transcribed in his office, February 3, 1965; Secret; Eyes Only; David C. Humphrey, Ronald D. Landa, and Louis J. Smith, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 2, Vietnam, January–June 1965 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1996, e-book), document 42, “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, ‘Basic Policy in Vietnam,’” Washington, January 27, 1965, 95–97; document 84, “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, En route from Saigon to Washington, February 7, 1965, 175–181; Humphrey et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 3, document 235, “Notes of Meeting,” Washington, December 18, 1965, 662.
13. Humphrey et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 3, document 189, “Draft Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson,” Washington, November 3, 1965, 514–528; document 194, “Memorandum for President Johnson, Subject: Courses of Action in Viet-Nam,” Washington, November 9, 1965, 535–554; document 238, “Notes of Meeting,” Washington, December 21, 1965, 677.
14. Ibid., document 228, “Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Califano) to President Johnson,” Washington, December 13, 1965, 638; document 237, “Telegram From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Wheeler) to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” Saigon, December 21, 1965, 673.
15. Ibid., document 208, “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, SUBJECT: ‘Once more on the pause,’” Washington, November 27, 1965, 582; document 223, “McGeorge Bundy, Personal Notes of Meeting with President Johnson. LBJ Ranch,” Texas, December 7, 1965, 620–621.
16. Ibid., document 231, “Notes of Meeting,” Washington, December 17, 1965, 647.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., document 238, “Notes of Meeting,” Washington, December 21, 1965, 677.
19. For examples, see ibid., document 262, “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between the Under Secretary of State (Ball) and President Johnson,” December 28, 1965, 732–734; document 265, “Telegram From the Embassy in Burma to the Department of State,” Rangoon, December 29, 1965, 736–737; documents 266 and 267, “Telegram from the Embassy in Poland to the Department of State,” Warsaw, December 29, 1965, 738; documents 268 and 269, “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam,” Washington, December 29, 1965, 739–740; document 271, “Telegram from the Embassy in Italy to the Department of State,” Rome, December 29, 1965, 744–747; document 272, “Telegram from the Embassy in Thailand to the Department of State,” Bangkok, December 30, 1965, 748.
20. Ibid., document 247, “Paper by Secretary of State Rusk, ‘The Heart of the Matter in Viet-Nam,’” Washington, December 27, 1965, 707.
21. Ibid., document 199, “Telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State,” Saigon, November 11, 1965, 463–468; document 148, “Special National Intelligence Estimate, SNIE 10-11-65, ‘Probable Communist Reactions to a US Course of Action,’” Washington, September 22, 1965, 403 (note: the Special NIE does suggest that recent US bombing and willingness to escalate shook DRV and VC confidence); document 184, “Intelligence Memorandum, No. 2391/65, ‘An Appraisal of the Bombing of North Vietnam,’” Washington, October 27, 1965, 500–504; document 212, “Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson,” Washington, November 30, 1965, 592; document 239, “Special Intelligence Supplement,” Washington, December 21, 1965, 680–685, “While the air strikes against logistics facilities and sensitive lines of communications are causing major distribution problems, these operations have not significantly reduced the DRV capability to continue to support the Communist forces in Laos and South Vietnam.”
22. Goodman, The Search for a Negotiated Settlement of the Vietnam War, ix.
23. Ibid., 9, 19, 37–46, 93–112.
24. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty, 3063, 3210 3678, 3875, of 10792; Keefer and Sampson, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 1, document 331, “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara), ‘SUBJECT: Recommended Courses of Action—Southeast Asia,’ TCSM-746-64,” Washington, August 27, 1964, 413–417.
25. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 33.
26. The Pentagon Papers, part IV. C. 5. “Evolution of the War. Phase I in the Build-up of U.S. Forces: March–July 1965,” 116–123, and part IV. C. 6. a. “Evolution of the War. U.S. Ground Strategy and Force Deployments: 1965–1967,” vol. 1, Phase II, Program 3, Program 4, a, 1–7; McNamara, Argument without End, 353–354; John A. Nagl, “Counterinsurgency in Vietnam,” in Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2008), 131–148.
27. Karnow, Vietnam, 399.
28. Ibid., 18; McMaster, Dereliction of Duty; General William C. Westmoreland, “Address: National Press Club,” Washington, D.C., November 21, 1967; Lewis Sorely, Thunderbolt: From the Battle of the Bulge to Vietnam and Beyond: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 192–200.
29. Karnow, Vietnam, 488–527; Sorely, Thunderbolt, 199–200; Iklé, Every War Must End, 59, 84–85.
30. Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 684.
31. Karnow, Vietnam, 546; Don Oberdorfer, Tet! The Turning Point in the Vietnam War (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2001), 251; McNamara, Argument without End, 366–367.
32. John A. Farrell, “Nixon’s Vietnam Treachery,” New York Times, December 31, 2016.
33. Edward C. Keefer and Carolyn Yee, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 6, Vietnam, January 1969–July 1970 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2006, e-book), document 8, “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” January 24, 1969, 18–22; document 46, “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” undated, 154–161; document 49, “Minutes of National Security Council Meeting,” March 28, 1969, 164–176.
34. Ibid., document 106, “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, ‘Subject: Meeting in Paris with North Vietnamese,’” August 6, 1969, 330–343.
35. Ibid., document 117, “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” September 10, 1969, 370–374.
36. Ambassador Edward Brynn, “Preface,” in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 9, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973, ed. John M. Carland (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2010), iv–vi.
37. “The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later,” Conference Transcript, The Nixon Center, Washington, D.C., April 1998, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/paris.htm.
38. Peter Church, ed., A Short History of South-East Asia. (Singapore. John Wiley and Sons, 2006), 193–194.
1. Martel, Victory in War, 342; 370.
2. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1980), 4–5.
3. Ibid., 5.
4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Pater Paret (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), 92 (emphasis added), 95, 99.
5. The White House, “President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror,” June 28, 2005.
6. Clausewitz, On War, 584.
7. Freedman, Strategy, ix–x.
8. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 2–3. See also Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 19–32; Clausewitz, On War, 81; Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1980), 77–79.
9. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 411–412.
10. Clausewitz, On War, 89.
11. Ibid., 84, 117–118; Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness,” Cognitive Psychology 3, no. 3 (1972): 430–454; Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovik, and Amos Tversky, Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987); Graham T. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review 63, no. 3 (1969): 689–718; Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Longman, 1999). For a critique of Allison and Zelikow, see Jonathan Bendor and Thomas H. Hammond, “Rethinking Allison’s Models,” American Political Science Review 86, no. 2 (1992): 301–322.
12. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 3.
1. The Department of Defense defines irregular warfare as “A violent struggle among state and nonstate actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations. IW favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities, in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.” Irregular Warfare, Joint Operating Concept (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2007), 6.
2. Clausewitz, On War, 75, 80–81, 87, 134–139. “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose,” 87.
3. Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II (Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1961); Robert Taber, War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerilla Warfare (New York: Brassey’s, 2002); Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, 2nd ed., rev. (Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2005); David Betz, “The Virtual Dimension of Contemporary Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 19, no. 4 (2008): 510–540; and David Betz, Carnage and Connectivity: Landmarks in the Decline of Conventional Military Power (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2015).
4. David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010); David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Press, 2006); Christopher D. Kolenda, The Counterinsurgency Challenge (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2012); Marston and Malkasian, eds., Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare.
5. It is important to note that this book does not seek to address the extent to which these problems affect democracies more than autocracies. In his analysis of 286 insurgencies from 1800–2005, Lyall argues that “democracy appears to exert almost no causal effect on either war outcomes or duration.” Jason Lyall, “Do Democracies Make Inferior Counterinsurgents? Reassessing Democracy’s Impact on War Outcomes and Duration,” International Organization 64, no. 1 (winter 2010): 167–192, 168.
6. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 18. Others using statistical analysis include Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies,” 373–396. Libicki’s 89 insurgencies reach back to 1934 and include ongoing ones. He classifies 28 as government wins, 25 cases as government defeat, 20 as mixed outcomes, and 16 as ongoing. Paul et al. added four cases that appeared to meet Libicki’s criteria for inclusion, eliminated 17 that were ongoing or unresolved, cut out insurgencies prior to World War II, as well as four others that Paul et al. considered were not insurgencies. Libicki’s original list was drawn from Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” A key difference in the assessment of wins and losses is that Paul et al. assign a winner to the mixed outcome, depending on which side appeared to get the better outcome. For Paul et al.’s assessment criteria, see Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 16–20. I will rely primarily on Paul et al.’s study because it focuses on concluded insurgencies where outcomes can be assessed and correlations drawn more precisely. The specificity of Paul et al.’s analytic categories is more useful for the purposes of this study.
7. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, xxi–xxvii. Paul et al.’s 71 cases include 12 that he argues are unfit for comparative purposes because the governments in question were “fighting against the tide of history” (end of colonialism, end of apartheid, etc.). The authors use these 59 in determining the 15 good practices and 11 bad practices.
8. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 149.
9. Ibid., xxiii–xxiv.
10. Ibid.
11. Lyall, “Do Democracies Make Inferior Counterinsurgents?,” 188–189. The other two are the status of the external power as an occupier and its degree of mechanization (i.e., is the counterinsurgent comfortable operating among the people or more tied to machines). Lyall observes that democracies “do struggle to defeat insurgencies—but not because they are democracies.” Libicki’s statistics also show significant correlation between outside support and insurgent success. Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies,” 387–388.
12. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 130–132.
13. Ibid., 129.
14. Ibid., xxiv. In cases where an external force demonstrated resolve but the host nation government and forces failed to do so, the result was a loss. Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies,” also notes the strong outcome correlations with government popularity and competence (388–391).
15. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 156.
16. Ibid., xxix; Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies,” 391–392.
17. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, xxix; Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, and Beth Grill, Victory Has a Thousand Fathers: Sources of Success in Counterinsurgency, Case Studies (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2010), 11–24 (Afghanistan 1978–1992), 126–135 (Liberia), 136–146 (Rwanda); Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 177–197 (Vietnam). For Iraq, see Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Vintage, 2012).
18. Paul et al., Victory Has a Thousand Fathers, 158–167 (Sierra Leone), 108–116 (Uganda), 87–97 (Turkey against PKK); Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 54–55, 58. For further reading on the Turkey case, see Aliza Marcus, Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence (New York: New York Univ. Press, 2007); Andrew Mango, Turkey and the War on Terror: For Forty Years We Fought Alone (London: Routledge, 2006). For Uganda, see Paul Nantulya, “Exclusion, Identity and Armed Conflict: A Historical Survey of the Politics of Confrontation in Uganda with Specific Reference to the Independence Era,” in Politics of Identity and Exclusion in Africa: From Violent Confrontation to Peaceful Cooperation, Conference proceedings, Senate Hall, University of Pretoria, ed. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (July 25–26, 2001); Thomas Ofcansky, “Musevenis War and the Ugandan Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Studies 19, no. 1 (spring 1999). For Sierra Leone, see Dena Montague, “The Business of War and the Prospects for Peace in Sierra Leone,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 9, no. 1 (spring 2002): 229–237; Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2005); Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth, and Resources in Sierra Leone (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996); Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008); David Richards, Taking Command (London: Headline Publishing, 2014).
19. Paul et al., Victory Has a Thousand Fathers, 77–86 (Senegal); 57–66 (Peru); Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 363–373 (Angola). For Senegal, see Andrew Manley, “Guinea Bissau/Senegal: War, Civil War and the Casamance Question,” Writenet/United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, November 1998; Linda Beck, Robert Charlick, Dominique Gomis, Geneviève Manga, Nana Grey Johnson, and Cheiban Coulibaly, West Africa: Civil Society Strengthening for Conflict Prevention Study, Conflict Prevention and Peace Building Case Study: The Casamance Conflict and Peace Process (1982–2001) (Burlington, Vt.: ARD, December 2001); Pierre Englebert, “Compliance and Defiance to National Integration in Barotseland and Casamance,” Afrika Spectrum 39, no. 1 (2005): 29–59. For Peru, see Philip Mauceri, “State Development and Counter-Insurgency in Peru,” in The Counter-Insurgent State: Guerrilla Warfare and State Building in the Twentieth Century, ed. Paul B. Rich and Richard Stubbs (London: Macmillan, 1997). For Angola, see Fernando Andresen Guimarães, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1998); Assis Malaquias, “UNITA’s Insurgency Lifecycle in Angola,” in Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics, ed. Klejda Mulaj (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2010); Alex Vines and Bereni Oruitemeka, “Beyond Bullets and Ballots: The Reintegration of UNITA in Angola,” in Reintegrating Armed Groups After Conflict: Politics, Violence and Transition, ed. Mats Berdal and David H. Ucko (London: Routledge, 2009).
20. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 177–178.
21. Ibid., 158–159.
1. Bette Dam, A Man and a Motorcycle: How Hamid Karzai Came to Power (IpsoFacto Publishers, 2014), 188–191.
2. Thom Shanker, “Rumsfeld Pays Call on Troops and Afghans,” New York Times, December 17, 2001.
1. Peter Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (New York: Perseus, 2011), 587–618; Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2010), 283–285; Jon Lee Anderson, “The Surrender: Double Agents, Defectors, Disaffected Taliban, and a Motley Army Battle for Kunduz,” New Yorker, December 10, 2001.
2. For US concerns about Northern Alliance forces in Kabul, see Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 230–234, 236–241, 306–311.
3. Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 1, no. 1 (2012): 4–19. According to Woodward, State of Denial, 52, 114, the CIA briefed that the Taliban and al Qaeda were “joined at the hip.” Nonetheless, the administration’s initial approach was to allow the Taliban “time to do the right thing” and turn over bin Laden, 121–130; for discussion about inducing a Taliban coup against Mullah Omar, see 128–129.
4. James Dobbins and Carter Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan: How to Talk to the Taliban,” Foreign Affairs 94, no. 4 (July–August 2015): 53–64.
5. Seth Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: Norton, 2009), 163–182.
6. Sarah Chayes, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (New York: Norton, 2015), 3–66, 135–155.
7. See, for instance, Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 2000); Khalid Hosseini, The Kite Runner (New York: Riverhead, 2003).
8. Davood Moradian, “Ethnic Polarisation: Afghanistan’s Emerging Threat,” al Jazeera, July 26, 2016.
9. Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014 (New York: First Mariner, 2014), xxi. See also Husain Haqqani, Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding (New York: Perseus, 2013).
10. See also Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking Press, 2008), and Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (New York: Penguin Books, 2012).
11. Barnett R. Rubin, “Saving Afghanistan,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 1 (January–February 2007): 57–78; and Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013); see also Christina Lamb, Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World (London: HarperCollins, 2015); Jack Fairweather, The Good War: Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan, Kindle ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan (New York: Vintage, 2012.); Vali Nasr, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (New York: Anchor Books, 2013), 1–94; Zalmay Khalilzad, “Here’s What I Think Went Wrong in Afghanistan after I Left There,” Foreign Policy, March 24, 2016.
12. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), and Chayes, Thieves of State.
13. Stephen M. Walt, “The REAL Reason the U.S. Failed in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, March 15, 2013; Bolger, Why We Lost.
14. Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Grove Press, 1999); Afyare Abdi Elmi, Understanding the Somalia Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding (New York: Pluto Press, 2010).
15. Nina M. Sefarino, “Peacekeeping: Issues of U.S. Military Involvement,” Congressional Research Service, August 2000; Jack Spencer, “The Facts About Military Readiness,” Heritage.org, September 15, 2000; Frederick H. Fleitz Jr., Peacekeeping Fiascos of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and U.S. Interests (Westview, Conn.: Praeger, 2002).
16. Michael R. Gordon, “The 2000 Campaign: The Military; Bush Would Stop U.S. Peacekeeping in Balkan Fights,” New York Times, October 21, 2000.
17. Stephen Robinson, “Nation-Building Ambition Baffles Bush,” The Telegraph, December 10, 2001.
18. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires.
19. See Richard B. Andres, Craig Wills, and Thomas Griffith Jr., “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model,” International Security 30, no. 3. (2006): 124–160; Donald H. Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 360.
20. Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Transforming the Military,” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 3 (May–June 2002): 20–32; Paul C. Light, Rumsfeld’s Revolution at Defense, Policy Brief #142, Brookings Institution, July 2005; Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 124, no. 1 (January 1998): 161–188; Stuart E. Johnson and Martin C. Libicki, eds., Dominant Battlespace Knowledge (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Univ. Press, 1995). For critiques, see Christopher D. Kolenda, “Transforming How We Fight: A Conceptual Approach,” U.S. Naval War College Review 56, no. 2 (2003): 100–122; Frederick W. Kagan, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy (New York: Encounter Books, 2006); Donald Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan, While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
21. Stephen A. Biddle, “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 2 (2003): 31–46; Woodward, State of Denial, 53.
22. Interviewees M. and J; Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 372–373; see, for instance, Richard Holbrooke, “Four Things Afghanistan Needs,” Reuters, November 15, 2001: “As for the United States, it would not be in anyone’s interests for it to supply more than a limited number of logistics and communications support troops. Its presence in fixed positions on the ground in Afghanistan would be just the target the next generation of suicide bombers would most welcome.”
23. Lakhdar Brahimi, “State Building in Crisis and Post-Conflict Countries,” 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government: Building Trust in Government, June 26–29, 2007, Vienna, Austria, 4, 16–17. Acclaimed UN envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi discussed the concept of “light footprint” during a UN conference in 2007. He argued that the idea should not fixate on a small international presence. Instead, he proposed that international experts should avoid creating parallel structures and engaging in capacity-substitution efforts that undermine legitimacy and create dependency. “A golden principle for international assistance,” he said, “should be that everyone shall do everything possible to work himself or herself out of a job as early as possible.” See also the description by Rubin, “Saving Afghanistan,” 65; Barbara J. Stapleton and Michael Keating, “Military and Civilian Assistance to Afghanistan 2001–14: An Incoherent Approach,” Briefing, Afghanistan: Opportunity in Crisis Series No.10, Asia Programme, Chatham House, July 2015.
24. George W. Bush, “Presidential Address to the Nation,” October 7, 2001.
25. Sanjiv Miglani, “12 Die in Indian Parliament Attack,” The Guardian, December 14, 2001; “Timeline of Attacks in India,” Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2011. Notably, both attacks were actually part of a longstanding conflict between India and Pakistan.
26. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster 2004), 24–27; Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Penguin, 2015), 101–125.
27. Bush, “Presidential Address to the Nation.”
28. The White House, “President Delivers State of the Union Address,” January 29, 2002.
29. As noted in a November 3 US State Department cable outlining discussion points to be conveyed to other capitals, “The president has made clear that the campaign against terrorism is a sustained campaign that will outlast the immediate efforts in Afghanistan, but our immediate focus is the al-Qaida network and its base in Afghanistan.” US Department of State cable, “Afghanistan’s Future—Next Steps,” November 3, 2001.
1. Cognitive bias refers to systemic errors in thinking people use when interpreting information. Availability heuristics are mental shortcuts that rely on recent examples that people use to understand a subject. For instance, a recent airline crash might cause someone to prefer to drive rather than fly, even though flying is safer. Intuitive decision-making emphasizes the use of emotion or “gut-feel” or other subjective factors over objective analysis. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 252; Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” Science 185, 4157 (1974): 1124–1131; Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Variants of Uncertainty,” Cognition 11, no. 2 (1982): 143–157; and Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5, no. 4 (1992): 297–323.
2. For instance, “Imagine that you face the following pair of concurrent decisions. First examine both decisions, then make your choices. Decision (i) Choose between A: sure gain of $240; B: 25 percent chance to gain $1,000 and 75 percent chance to gain nothing; Decision (ii): Choose between C: sure loss of $750; D: 75 percent chance to lose $1,000 and 25 percent chance to lose nothing.” (The best combination is B and C, but most [73 percent] choose A and D). Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 334–335.
3. In fact, the entire discipline of behavioral economics grew out of the persistence of such human decision-making. See, for instance, Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics, and Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (New York: HarperCollins, 2011); Arielly, Predictably Irrational, and Dan Arielly, The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and Home (New York: HarperCollins, 2010); Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006) and Harford, The Logic of Life.
4. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 253; Branislav L. Slantchev and Ahmer Tarar, “Mutual Optimism as a Rationalist Explanation of War.” American Journal of Political Science 55, no.1 (2011): 135–148.
5. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 250–252. Risk deals with decisions in which the probabilities associated with possible outcomes are known. In uncertainty, such probabilities are not known. Amos Tversky and Craig R. Fox, “Weighing Risk and Uncertainty,” Psychological Review 102, no. 2 (1995): 269–283, 269.
6. Clausewitz, On War, 75–123; Handel, Masters of War, xxiii, 26–32; Alan D. Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” International Security 17, no. 3 (1992): 59–90.
7. Gareth Price, “India’s Policy towards Afghanistan,” Chatham House, August 2013; Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 91–96, 455; Satinder K. Lambah, “The US Needs to Change Its Attitude towards Indo-Afghan Relations,” The Wire, November 12, 2015; “New Priorities in South Asia U.S. Policy Toward India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 2003; Jayshree Bajoria, “India-Afghanistan Relations,” Council on Foreign Relations, July 22, 2009.
8. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 47–48; Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 6 (November–December 2008): 30–44, 35–38.
9. Brad L. Brasseur, “Recognizing the Durand Line: A Way Forward for Afghanistan and Pakistan?,” EastWest Institute, November 7, 2011.
10. See Abubakar Siddique, “The Durand Line: Afghanistan’s Controversial, Colonial-Era Border,” The Atlantic October 25, 2012; for the Pashtun nationalist viewpoint, see Afghanland.com.
11. Treaty between the British and Afghan Governments, February 6, 1922 (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1922).
12. Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 41–42, 237–240; Joseph V. Micallef, “Afghanistan and Pakistan: The Poisoned Legacy of the Durand Line,” Huffington Post, November 21, 2015.
13. Price, “India’s Policy towards Afghanistan”; Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 91–96, 455.
14. Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2004), 8, 55, 62–63, 302.
15. Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 105–106.
16. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 113–114; Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 237–241.
17. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times (New York: Grover Press, 2003); Coll, Ghost Wars, 19–186.
18. Rosanne Klass, “Afghanistan: The Accords,” Foreign Affairs 66, no. 5 (summer 1998): 922–945.
19. Coll, Ghost Wars, 187–238.
20. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1995), 247–264; Coll, Ghost Wars, 235–239; 262–265; Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2010), 164–271.
21. Coll, Ghost Wars, 289–290; Marvin G. Weinbaum, “Afghanistan and Its Neighbors,” US Institute of Peace, June 2006; Nicholas Howenstein and Sumit Ganguly, “India-Pakistan Rivalry in Afghanistan,” Journal of International Affairs 63, no. 1 (2009): 127–140.
22. Qais Akbar Omar, A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2013).
23. Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: US Institute of Peace, 2007), 89–90. Rob Crilly, “Former Islamist Warlord Who Brought bin Laden to Afghanistan to Run for President,” The Telegraph, October 3, 2013; “Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf,” GlobalSecurity.org, April 5, 2014.
24. Abdul Salaam Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2010).
25. US Department of State cable, “The Political Future of Afghanistan (Corrected copy),” October 11, 2001.
1. James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2008), 20–21.
2. Ibid., 23.
3. M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 11.
4. McChrystal et al., Team of Teams, 69
5. Ibid., 56.
6. Ibid., 132.
7. A loya jirga is a traditional governance council in Afghanistan, in which elders from across the country representing the various ethnicities, tribes, and communities come together to discuss and decide upon issues of national importance.
8. James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008), 51, 54, 85, 87–88; “Kabul Falls to Northern Alliance,” BBC News, November 13, 2001.
9. John Kifner with Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Officials Say Al Qaeda Is Routed from Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 17, 2001.
10. Woodward, Plan of Attack, notes that the administration was concerned about a security vacuum after the Taliban were overthrown, citing the parallels in the early 1990s that led to the rise of the Taliban, 192–193, 214–219, 321. For a critical view of overreliance on the Northern Alliance allies (but an overly optimistic view of a particular Pashtun alternative), see Lucy Morgan Edwards, The Afghan Solution: The Inside Story of Abdul Haq, the CIA and How Western Hubris Lost Afghanistan (London: Bactria Press, 2011).
11. Terrence K. Kelly, Nora Bensahel, and Olga Oliker, Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2011); Paul O’Brien and Paul Baker, “Old Questions Needing New Answers: A Fresh Look at Security Needs in Afghanistan,” paper presented at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) e-conference Afghanistan: Assessing the Progress of Security Sector Reform, One Year after the Geneva Conference, June 4–11, 2003; “Yunus Qanooni / Muhammad Yunus Qanuni,” Global Security.org.
12. The so-called “Rome Group” that represented the deposed Afghan king Zahir Shah was also in attendance but had limited influence.
13. US Embassy Rome cable, “Afghanistan: Zahir Shah’s Future Plans, Closing out ESF Grant to Zahir Shah Foundation,” April 3, 2002.
14. Thomas Ruttig, “Flash to the Past: Power Play before the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga,” Afghan Analysts Network, April 27, 2012, 3.
15. Dam, A Man and a Motorcycle; Robert L. Grenier, 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015). For background on former Popalzai king Shah Shuja, see William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839–42 (New York: Vintage Books, 2013).
16. Coll, Ghost Wars, 286–287.
17. “Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG),” Institute for the Study of War, https://understandingwar.org/hizb-i-Islami-gulbuddin-hig.
18. “US Designates Hekmatyar as a Terrorist,” Dawn, February 20, 2003; “Profile: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” BBC News, March 23, 2010; “Hizb-i-Islami,” GlobalSecurity.org.
19. “Hekmatyar’s Party Joins Peace Process,” Reuters, May 4, 2004; Thomas Ruttig, “The Battle for Afghanistan: Negotiations with the Taliban: History and Prospects for the Future,” New America Foundation, May 2011.
20. Interviewees J and Z.
21. Ahmed Rashid, “The Mess in Afghanistan,” New York Review of Books, February 12, 2004.
22. Ruttig, “Flash to the Past.”
23. See The Rumsfeld Papers, Donald Rumsfeld Email to Doug Feith, “Strategy,” October 30, 2001, https://papers.rumsfeld.com; Colin Powell letter to Donald Rumsfeld, April 16, 2002; Donald Rumsfeld letter to Colin Powell, April 8, 2002; James Dao, “Bush Sets Role for U.S. in Afghan Rebuilding,” New York Times, April 17, 2002.
24. Anders Fänge, “The Emergency Loya Jirga,” in Snapshots of an Intervention: The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–2011), ed. Martine van Bijlert and Sari Kouvo (Kabul, Afghanistan: Afghan Analysts Network, 2012), 2–4.
25. Ibid.; “Loya Jirga Dispute Prompts Mass Walk-Out,” The Guardian, June 17, 2002; Philip Smucker, “Afghans Put Off Key Decisions,” Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 2002.
26. “The September 2005 Parliamentary and Provincial Council Elections in Afghanistan,” National Democratic Institute, 2006, 2–7.
27. Thomas Ruttig, “The Failure of Airborne Democracy: The Bonn Agreement and Afghanistan’s Stagnating Democratisation,” in Snapshots of an Intervention: The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–2011), ed. Martine van Bijlert and Sari Kouvo (Kabul, Afghanistan: Afghan Analysts Network, 2012).
28. Ibid. The SNTV system can be used to fill multiple seats in a single electoral district and can help to ensure better minority representation. It also rewards better organized parties, who can earn multiple seats in a single district, while splitting votes of non-party-affiliated candidates.
29. Rubin, “Saving Afghanistan,” 66.
30. US Embassy Rome cable, “GOI Thinks Some Kind of Resolution on Afghanistan Is Inevitable,” March 28, 2003.
31. Interviewee R; these views were corroborated by interviewees J and Z.
32. Theo Farrell, Unwinnable: Britain’s War in Afghanistan, 2001–2014 (London: The Bodley Head, 2017), chapter 3; Alan Sipress and Peter Finn, “US Says ‘Not Yet’ to Patrol by Allies,” Washington Post, November 30, 2001.
33. Sipress and Finn, “US Says ‘Not Yet’ to Patrol by Allies.”
34. Farrell, Unwinnable, chapter 3; Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Penguin, 2005).
35. US Embassy New Delhi cable, “Afghan FM Abdullah Discusses Taliban Violence, US-Afghan Partnership with GOI,” July 5, 2005; US Embassy New Delhi cable, “GOI Wants to Help US in Afghanistan,” July 14, 2005.
36. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain,” 37.
37. Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 588–595; Barfield, Afghanistan, 326–330.
38. For Afghanistan claims on Pakistani territory, see Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 44.
39. C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014), 103–135; Stephen Tankel, “Beyond the Double Game: Lessons from Pakistan’s Approach to Islamist Militancy,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 4 (2018): 545–575.
40. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 50–52.
41. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Northern Views on Afghanistan’s Future,” May 15, 2004; US Embassy Rome cable, “Ex-King Determined to Go Home, But Concerned About Arrangements,” February 27, 2002; Michael Kugelman, “The Iran Factor in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, July 10, 2014; Mohsen Milani, “Iran and Afghanistan,” US Institute of Peace, October 5, 2010.
1. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1973).
2. Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 4 (July/August 2003): 41–58.
3. Paul et al., Paths to Victory; Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies”; Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”
4. Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality, 13.
5. Such integration seems particularly difficult for modern states with professional national security bureaucracies. Ivan Arreguín-Toft, a scholar who studies the challenges of irregular warfare, argues that stronger powers have been losing to weaker ones increasingly often since the 19th century. Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, 3–5.
6. US Department of State cable, “Afghanistan’s Future.”
7. The White House, “Joint Statement on New Partnership Between U.S. and Afghanistan,” January 28, 2002, “We [President Bush and Chairman Karzai] agree that the United States will work with Afghanistan’s friends in the international community to help Afghanistan stand up and train a national military and police, as well as address Afghanistan’s short-term security needs, including through demining assistance.”
8. George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Random House, 2010), 205. According to Woodward, State of Denial, 160, 192–193, 220, Bush was adamant from the beginning about humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, but cabinet officials were less enthusiastic.
9. Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Random House, 2011), 96, 148; Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 398; Dobbins, After the Taliban, 137; Woodward, State of Denial, 192–195, 220, 237; Sten Rynning, “ISAF and NATO: Campaign Innovation and Organizational Adaptation,” in Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, ed. Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga, and James A. Russell (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2013), 83–107; David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad,” New York Times, August 12, 2007; Dao, “Bush Sets Role for U.S. in Afghan Rebuilding”; Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, 116–117.
10. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Rumsfeld Memo to Powell, Rice, ‘U.S. Financial Commitment,’” April 8, 2002.
11. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Powell Letter to Rumsfeld,” April 16, 2002.
12. The White House, “President Meets with Afghan Interim Authority Chairman,” January 28, 2002; “President Bush Speaks at VMI, Addresses Middle East Conflict,” CNN, April 17, 2002; David Barno, “Fighting ‘The Other War’: Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003–2005,” Military Review, September–October 2007; Farrell, Unwinnable, chapter 3.
13. Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013), 311–312; Alison Laporte-Shapiro, “From Militants to Policemen: Three Lessons from U.S. Experience with DDR and SSR,” US Institute of Peace, November 17, 2011, 3; Robert M. Perito, “Afghanistan’s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform,” Special Report 227 (Washington, D.C.: US Institute of Peace, August 2009), 2.
14. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1444, November 27, 2002; Lieutenant General James M. Dubik, “Afghan National Police (ANP),” Institute for the Study of War, 2009.
15. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld Note to General Franks, ‘Afghan National Army,’” January 28, 2002.
16. Antonio Giustozzi, “Military Reform in Afghanistan,” paper presented at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) e-conference Afghanistan: Assessing the Progress of Security Sector Reform, One Year after the Geneva Conference, June 4–11, 2003.
17. Kelly et al., Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan, 5; Jason Howk, “A Case Study in Security Sector Reform: Learning from Security Sector Reform/Building in Afghanistan (October 2002–September 2003),” Strategic Studies Institute, November 2009; see also US Embassy Abu Dhabi cable, “CENTCOM Commander Discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, Regional Threats,” July 28, 2004.
18. Antonio Giustozzi, The Army of Afghanistan: A Political History of a Fragile Institution (London: Hurst, 2016.), 125–132; O’Brien and Baker, “Old Questions Needing New Answers.”
19. US Embassy Ottawa cable, “ISAF: Canadian Defense Minister’s Visit to Afghanistan,” July 7, 2003; James Risen and Mark Landler, “Accused of Drug Ties, Afghan Official Worries U.S.,” New York Times, August 26, 2009.
20. The Afghan National Police Working Group, “The Police Challenge: Advancing Afghan National Police Training,” Project 2049 Institute, June 2011, 6–7.
21. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld Letter to Doug Feith and General Myers, ‘Afghanistan,’” May 2, 2003; Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 685.
22. Perito, “Afghanistan’s Police.”
23. The Afghan National Police Working Group, “The Police Challenge,” 6–8; Perito, “Afghanistan’s Police”; “Reforming the Afghan National Police,” The Royal United Service Institute and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2009, 7–13; Chayes, Thieves of State, 20–38.
24. Vanda Felbab-Brown, “No Easy Exit: Drugs and Counternarcotics Policies in Afghanistan,” Brookings Institution, 2016, 1, 6–10; William Byrd and David Mansfield, “Afghanistan’s Opium Economy: An Agricultural, Livelihoods, and Governance Perspective,” World Bank, June 23, 2014; David Mansfield and Adam Pain, “Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan: The Failure of Success?” Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, December 2008.
25. Danny Singh, “Explaining Varieties of Corruption in the Afghan Justice Sector,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 9, no. 2 (2015): 231–255; “Reforming Afghanistan’s Broken Judiciary,” International Crisis Group, November 17, 2010.
26. See, for instance, US Embassy Kabul cable, “Northern Views on Afghanistan’s Future”; DeeDee Derksen, “The Politics of Disarmament and Rearmament in Afghanistan,” US Institute of Peace, May 2015; Ruttig, “The Failure of Airborne Democracy.”
27. Mark Sedra, “Police Reform in Afghanistan: An Overview,” paper presented at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) e-conference Afghanistan: Assessing the Progress of Security Sector Reform, One Year After the Geneva Conference 2003, June 4–11, 2003, 34; Antonio Giustozzi, “Good’ State Vs. ‘Bad’ Warlords? A Critique of State-Building Strategies in Afghanistan,” Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, October 2004, 12–15.
28. Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014).
29. Christopher D. Kolenda, Rachel Reid, and Christopher Rogers, “The Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm: Applying Lessons from Afghanistan to Current and Future Conflicts,” Open Society Foundations, June 2016, 17–28.
30. Zalmay Khalilzad, The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey Through a Turbulent World, Kindle ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 2618 of 7203. See also The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld Letter to Douglas Feith and Condoleezza Rice,” April 1, 2002, and “Principles for Afghanistan: Policy Guidelines,” July 7, 2003, 2.
31. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Rumsfeld to Abizaid, ‘Karzai’s Strategy on Warlordism,’” September 15, 2003.
32. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Congressman Rohrabacher’s April 16 Meeting with President Karzai,” April 23, 2003.
33. “Killing You Is a Very Easy Thing for Us: Human Rights Abuses in Southeast Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch, July 2003; DeeDee Derksen, “Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Afghanistan,” Centre for Security Governance, March 2016.
34. Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan”; Kolenda et al., “The Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm.”
35. Antonio Giustozzi, The Taliban at War: 2001–2018 (London: Hurst, 2019), 238.
36. United Nations News Centre, Press Briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Spokesman for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Afghanistan, July 31, 2003. See also Elizabeth Olson, “UN Official Calls for Larger International Force in Afghanistan,” New York Times, March 28, 2002; International Crisis Group, “Securing Afghanistan: The Need for More International Action” (Kabul and Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2002); Alan Sipress, “Peacekeepers Won’t Go Beyond Kabul, Cheney Says,” Washington Post, March 20, 2002.
37. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain,” 37–38.
38. Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan”; Brian Knowlton, “Rumsfeld Rejects Plan to Allow Mullah Omar ‘To Live in Dignity’: Taliban Fighters Agree to Surrender Kandahar,” New York Times, December 7, 2001.
39. Rubin, “Saving Afghanistan,” 58.
40. Pamela Constable, “U.S. Hopes to Attract Moderates in Taliban,” Washington Post, October 17, 2001; Dexter Filkins, “Rebel Leader Rejects Role for Taliban in New Regime,” New York Times, October 17, 2001.
41. Knowlton, “Rumsfeld Rejects Plan to Allow Mullah Omar ‘To Live in Dignity’”; Barnett R. Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace,” New Yorker, June 4, 2016.
42. Thom Shanker, “Rumsfeld Pays Call on Troops and Afghans,” New York Times, December 17, 2001.
43. Brahimi, “State Building in Crisis and Post-Conflict Countries,” 13.
44. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, January 26, 2004; interviewee J. The “jihad” is associated with the Soviet war, the “resistance” is code for the fight against the Taliban.
1. Interview with Lieutenant General Terry A. Wolff, Washington, D.C., May 2, 2016.
2. See Susan David, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (New York: Penguin, 2016); Zachary Shore, A Sense of the Enemy: The High Stakes History of Reading Your Rival’s Mind (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014).
3. Sun Tzu, Art of War, 84, 145–146.
4. H. R. McMaster, “How China Sees the World: And How We Should See China,” The Atlantic (May 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/.
5. Interviewee Y.
6. Liz Sly, “Rumsfeld, Karzai Declare Taliban No Longer a Threat,” Chicago Tribune, February 27, 2004.
1. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, 163–182.
2. Kolenda et al., “The Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm,” 17–28.
3. Chayes, Thieves of State, 20–38.
4. For example, US Department of State, “President Bush Discusses Progress in Afghanistan, Global War on Terror,” February 15, 2007; NATO, “Progress in Afghanistan,” Bucharest Summit, April 2–4, 2008. Secretary of Defense Gates told the House Armed Services Committee, “Our progress in Afghanistan is real but fragile,” Robert M. Gates, “Statement to the House Armed Services Committee,” December 11, 2007.
1. Stanley and Sawyer, “The Equifinality of War Termination,” 657.
2. Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t (New York: Penguin, 2012), 12–13; McChrystal et al., Team of Teams, 233.
3. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 81.
4. Christopher Graves, “Why Debunking Myths About Vaccines Hasn’t Convinced Dubious Parents,” Harvard Business Review, February 20, 2015.
5. Iklé, Every War Must End, 17–37; Stanley, “Ending the Korean War,” 53–55.
6. For more on organizational silos, see Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, The Military’s Business: Designing Military Power for the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015); “Improving Performance by Breaking Down Organizational Silos: Understanding Organizational Barriers,” Select Strategy, 2002; Gillian Tett, The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 25–138; McChrystal et al., Team of Teams, 20, 118.
7. Farrell, Unwinnable, chapter 4; Khalilzad, The Envoy, 78–180; 183–186; Jack Fairweather, The Good War: Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan, Kindle ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 122 of 9507; Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, 139–142.
8. Rohde and Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad.”
9. US National Security Council memorandum, “Accelerating Success in Afghanistan in 2004: An Assessment,” January 18, 2005 (emphasis added).
10. For the UN Security Risk Maps, see US Government Accountability Office, “Afghanistan Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten Achievement of U.S. Goals,” GAO-05-742, July 2005, 56.
11. Rohde and Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad.”
12. Eric Schmitt and David S. Cloud, “U.S. May Start Pulling Out of Afghanistan Next Spring,” New York Times, September 14, 2005.
13. See also Khalilzad, The Envoy, 2618 of 7203.
14. Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Afghan National Security Forces: Afghan Corruption and the Development of an Effective Fighting Force,” Testimony to House Armed Services Committee, August 2, 2012; Danny Singh, “Corruption and Clientelism in the Lower Levels of the Afghan Police,” Conflict, Security and Development 14, no. 5 (2014): 621–650.
15. Interview with former SRAP senior advisor Barnett R. Rubin, September 12, 2016.
16. Carlotta Gall, “Dispute Prompts Afghan Leader to Delay Trip,” New York Times, July 26, 2004; and Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Leader, in a Surprise, Picks a New Running Mate,” New York Times, July 27, 2004; Bruce Pannier, “Afghanistan: Unexpected Candidate Emerges in Presidential Race,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 26, 2004; Pamela Constable, “Karzai’s Talks Raise Fears about Elections,” Washington Post, May 29, 2004.
17. US Embassy Brussels cable, “Coordinator for Afghanistan Quinn Meetings with European Commission, Council,” January 21, 2005; Kenneth Katzman, “Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,” Congressional Research Service, December 28, 2004, 14–16.
18. Carlotta Gall, “Protests Against U.S. Spread Across Afghanistan,” New York Times, May 13, 2005; N. C. Aizenman and Robin Wright, “Afghan Protests Spread,” Washington Post, May 14, 2005; “Afghanistan: Violence Surges, Karzai Needs More Support from U.S.,” Human Rights Watch, May 24, 2005; Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls, Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (New York: Seven Stories, 2006), 117–168; Rohde and Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad”;“Lessons in Terror Attacks on Education in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch, July 2006, 13–17; Duncan Campbell, “Afghan Warlords ‘Bigger Threat than Taliban,’” The Guardian, July 13, 2004; “Conflict Analysis Afghanistan Update,” Cooperation for Peace and Unity, May 2005.
19. Andrew Wilder, “A House Divided? Analysing the 2005 Afghan Elections,” Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, December 2005; Erich Marquardt, “Insurgents, Warlords and Opium Roil Afghanistan,” EurasiaNet.org, November 17, 2005; Tom Lansford, 9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Chronology and Reference Guide (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2012), 146; “The September 2005 Parliamentary and Provincial Council Elections in Afghanistan,” National Democratic Institute, 2006.
20. Interview with Barnett R. Rubin.
21. Chayes, Thieves of State, 3–66, 135–155.
22. Afghanistan in 2018: A Survey of the Afghan People, The Asia Foundation, 2018, 117–118.
23. See Matt Waldman, “Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan,” ACBAR Advocacy Series, Oxfam, March 2008, 11.
24. Discussion with Afghan elders, August 2009, Kabul.
25. Carlotta Gall, “Anti-U.S. Rioting Erupts in Kabul; at Least 14 Dead,” New York Times, May 30, 2006.
26. “100 Dead in Afghanistan Air Strike,” The Guardian, May 22, 2006.
27. US Embassy Dushanbe cable, “President Karzai Worries about Russian Intentions in Central Asia and Afghanistan,” July 28, 2006.
28. Griff Witte and Ellen Nakashima, “Cartoon Protests Stoke Anti-American Mood Three Killed Outside U.S. Base in Bagram,” Washington Post, February 7, 2006; Mirwair Harooni, “Muslim Protesters Rage at United States in Asia, Middle East,” Reuters, September 17, 2006.
29. US Embassy Kabul cables, “PRT/TARIN KOWT—Taliban Remain Potent Threat in Southern Afghanistan,” March 14, 2006; “Karzai Nervous on Provincial Security: Resurrects Idea of Auxiliary Police, Swipes at Pakistan,” April 17, 2006; “Karzai: A Lame Duck President?” July 17, 2006; “Karzai Comments on Counter Narcotics Policy,” September 6, 2006.
30. US Embassy Kabul cable, “PAG Makes First Recommendations to President Karzai,” August 21, 2006.
31. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Karzai Dissatisfied; Worries About Newsweek; Plans More War Against Narcotics,” January 10, 2006. See also Fairweather, The Good War, 140–162 of 9507.
32. Carlotta Gall, “Taliban Surges as U.S. Shifts Some Tasks to NATO,” New York Times, June 11, 2006.
33. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld to General Peter Pace, ‘General McCaffrey’s Report on Afghanistan,’” June 15, 2006.
34. US Embassy Kabul cable, “PAG Makes First Recommendations to President Karzai.”
35. US Embassy New Delhi cable, “Afghan FM Abdullah Discusses Taliban Violence”; US Embassy New Delhi cable,“GOI Wants to Help US in Afghanistan,” July 14, 2005; Rohde and Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad.”
36. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain,” 35–38; “Afghanistan’s Forgotten War,” editorial, New York Times, August 5, 2005.
37. US Embassy Kabul cables, “Karzai Nervous on Provincial Security”; “President Karzai’s Visit to India,” May 2, 2006; “Codel Hayes Meets Karzai, Wardak,” June 15, 2006; “Scenesetter for President Karzai’s Upcoming Visit to Washington,” September 19, 2006.
38. US Embassy New Delhi cable, “India Strengthens Resolve in Afghanistan Despite Taliban Beheading of Engineer,” May 1, 2006.
39. Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, US Army, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Defense Intelligence Agency Statement for the Record, Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2006, 7.
40. The United States continued wanting to limit the Afghan Army to a “more sustainable” 50,000.
41. The London Conference on Afghanistan, “Building on Success: The London Compact,” January 31–February 1, 2006, 6–8. In the event, barely any of the milestones would be met by the end of 2010 or even the end of 2014.
42. US Embassy Kabul cable, “PAG Makes First Recommendations to President Karzai.”
43. Ronald Neumann and Karl Eikenberry, “Strategic Directive for Afghanistan,” US Embassy—Kabul, September 11, 2006, 5–7.
44. Ibid., 52, 55. See also “5-Year Plan for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF),” Office of Security Cooperation—Afghanistan, September 3, 2005, 3–15, 18–21.
45. Barry R. McCaffrey, “Academic Report: Trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” US Military Academy Department of Social Sciences, June 3, 2006.
46. James Dobbins, John G. McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G. Jones, Rollie Lal, Andrew Rathmell, Rachel M. Swanger, and Anga R. Timilsina, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2003), 25–26, Figure S-2; US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, 2013, 1–13, para. 1-67.
47. Combined Security Transition Command—Afghanistan (CSTC-A), “Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) End Strength Analysis,” briefing slides, February 21, 2007, slides 4–8.
48. The Rumsfeld Papers, “General McCaffrey’s Report on Afghanistan.”
49. Vance Serchuck, “Don’t Undercut the Afghan Army,” Washington Post, June 2, 2006.
1. The US Department of Defense defines insurgency as “the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region.” US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, 2013, GL-5.
2. Conversation with political scientist Stephen Biddle, July 2009, Kabul, Afghanistan; Daniel Byman, Going to War with the Allies You Have: Allies, Counterinsurgency, and the War on Terrorism (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), 3.
3. Thomas A. Grant, “Government, Politics, and Low-Intensity Conflict,” in Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World, ed. Edwin G. Corr and Stephen Sloan (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992), 261.
4. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 103.
5. Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Effectiveness of Security Force Cooperation,” typescript, George Washington University, 2016, 9.
6. Daniel Byman, “Friends Like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism,” International Security 31, no. 2 (fall 2006): 79–115, 82.
7. George W. Downs and David M. Rocke, “Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection: The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War,” American Journal of Political Science 38, no. 2 (1994): 362–380; Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations, Kindle ed. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2003); Idean Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (2010): 493–515.
8. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 105.
9. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 2 (2007): 251–284, 254.
10. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 99.
11. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 9.
12. Stanley and Sawyer, “The Equifinality of War Termination,” 657. See also Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Randolph M. Siverson, “War and the Survival of Political Leaders: A Comparative Study of Regime Types and Political Accountability,” American Political Science Review 89, no. 4 (1995): 841–855; Giacomo Chiozza and H. E. Goemans, “International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still Ex Post Efficient?” American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 2 (2004): 604–619; Goemans, “Fighting for Survival.”
13. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Harvard: Balknap Press, 1957), 80–83.
14. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 10. See also Michael Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2001).
15. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 103.
16. William E. Odom, On Internal War: American and Soviet Approaches to Third World Clients and Insurgents (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1992), 9, 103–104, 213–215; Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 104; Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 6–7.
17. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 12; Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 104.
18. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 12.
19. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency,” 105–108.
20. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff.” 11–13.
21. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Allegations of Secret Prisons in Kurdistan,” September 19, 2006.
22. US Department of State, “President Bush Discusses Progress in Afghanistan.”
23. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 17.
24. Christine Fair, “America’s Pakistan Policy Is Sheer Madness,” The National Interest, May 15, 2015; Tim Craig and Karen DeYoung, “Pakistan Fears That U.S. Will Slash Military Aid over Counterterror Efforts,” Washington Post, August 20, 2015; “Pentagon Withholds $300 Million In Aid To Pakistan Over Haqqani Network,” Gandhara, August 5, 2016.
25. Kelly et al., Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan, 35–45; US Government Accountability Office, “Afghanistan Security: Further Congressional Action May Be Needed to Ensure Completion of a Detailed Plan to Develop and Sustain Capable Afghan National Security Forces,” GAO-08-661, June 18, 2008, 11, 27–30.
26. US Government Accountability Office, GAO-08-661, 3.
27. David H. Bayley and Robert Perito, The Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism, and Violent Crime (New York: Lynne Reiner, 2010), 22; Kelly et al., Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan, 50; US Government Accountability Office, GAO-08-661, 4.
28. US Government Accountability Office, GAO-08-661, 17.
29. Interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik, Washington, D.C., February 3, 2017.
30. “Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, 2005, 2009.
31. Astri Suhrke, When More Is Less: The International Project in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2012), 133.
32. Chayes, Thieves of State, 59.
33. See Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007); Paul Collier, Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); and Larry Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (New York: Henry Holt, 2008).
34. US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, January 2009, 61.
35. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as Reported by the Victims (New York: UNODC, January 2010).
36. Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People, The Asia Foundation, 2010, 3, 6, 85–90.
37. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 19; Kolenda et al., “The Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm,” 17–28; Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living.
38. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, Annual Report 2008, January 2009, ii. Kolenda et al., “The Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm,” 17.
39. For example, US Department of State, “President Bush Discusses Progress in Afghanistan”; NATO, “Progress in Afghanistan”; “The Situation in Afghanistan,” hearing transcript, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), March 22, 2012.
40. This cycle is part of the reason highly fragile states rarely become self-reliant. See Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews, “Capability Traps? The Mechanisms of Persistent Implementation Failure,” Center for Global Development, December 2010.
1. Clausewitz, On War, 88; Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 63–71, 96–101; US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operations Planning, 2011; US Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 5-0: The Operations Process, May 2012.
2. Clausewitz, On War, 80–81.
3. US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operations Planning; US Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 5-0: The Operations Process.
4. Richard K. Betts, “Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable,” World Politics 31, no. 1 (1978): 61–89; Richard K. Betts, “The New Politics of Intelligence: Will Reforms Work This Time?” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 3 (May/June 2004): 2–8; Michael T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan,” Center for New American Security, January 2010.
5. Betts, “The New Politics of Intelligence.”
6. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 13–14.
7. The White House, “Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” March 27, 2009.
8. McChrystal directed me to lead a team of civilian and military experts and draft the strategic assessment.
9. Stanley A. McChrystal, “COMISAF’s Initial Assessment,” August 30, 2009, 1-1; Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York: Penguin, 2013), 292–315; Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Knopf, 2014), 367–368.
10. Karl Forsberg, “The Taliban’s Campaign for Kandahar,” Institute for the Study of War, December 2009.
11. McChrystal, “COMISAF’s Initial Assessment,” 1-1 to 1-4, 2-1 to 2-15; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 316–338; Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, ix.
12. McChrystal, “COMISAF’s Initial Assessment,” 2-22.
13. Matthew C. Brand, General McChrystal’s Strategic Assessment: Evaluating the Operating Environment in Afghanistan in the Summer of 2009 (Maxwell AFB: Air Univ. Press, 2011).
14. As the leader of the strategic assessment team and drafter of the document’s core ideas and recommendations, I accept my responsibility for that shortcoming.
15. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 331.
16. Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, “General Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure,” New York Times, September 21, 2009.
17. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “McChrystal Preparing New Afghan War Strategy,” Washington Post, July 31, 2009; Peter Baker and Dexter Filkins, “Obama to Weigh Buildup Option in Afghan War,” New York Times, August 31, 2009; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 344–345.
18. Personal knowledge as lead of the assessment team. We put the early drafts of the assessment on a NATO computer system that did not interface with American secret networks and carefully restricted access to prevent leaks. McChrystal sent the assessment to Defense Department senior leaders using a classified US email system. The assessment was leaked to the Washington Post, which published it on September 21. For an article speculating on the leak, see Ben Smith, “A D.C. Whodunit: Who Leaked and Why?” Politico, September 22, 2009; Gates, Duty, 367, said he was told that someone on McChrystal’s staff leaked the assessment.
19. Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010.
20. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 345–346.
21. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 22–25.
22. Holbrooke would publicly deny these allegations from Karzai and others, but Holbrooke’s efforts were confirmed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his memoirs, Gates, Duty, 340–341, 358–359; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 342–343; US Embassy Kabul cable, “Karzai on Elections and the Future: September 1 Meeting at the Palace,” September 3, 2009.
23. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Karzai on the State of US-Afghan Relations,” July 7, 2009.
24. See Shan Carter, Matthew Ericson, and Archie Tse, “Setting the Stage for the Recount,” New York Times, October 16, 2009.
25. US Embassy Kabul cable, “Tensions Rise between Karzai and Abdullah Camps,” September 10, 2009.
26. Sabrina Tavernise and Abdul Waheed Wafa, “U.N. Official Acknowledges ‘Widespread Fraud’ in Afghan Election,” New York Times, October 11, 2009.
27. US Embassy Kabul cables, “Abdullah’s Concerns: Fraud, Security, and His Future,” October 6, 2009; “Balkh Governor Atta on Possible Karzai-Abdulla Power-Sharing Arrangements,” October 16, 2009; “Karzai and IEC Announce Second Round,” October 20, 2009; “The Day After: Meetings with the Candidates,” October 21, 2009; “Abdullah’s Second-Round Brinkmanship,” October 26, 2009; “Abdullah Deflated,” October 27, 2009; “Abdullah and Karzai to Meet Alone Oct 28,” October 28, 2009; “Elections Endgame: Abdullah Close to Conceding,” October 31, 2009; “Abdullah’s Withdrawal: The Door Stays Open,” November 1, 2009.
28. For an analysis of the election, see “The 2009 Presidential and Provincial Council Elections in Afghanistan,” National Democratic Institute, 2010.
29. Helene Cooper and Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Warns Karzai to Focus on Tackling Corruption,” New York Times, November 2, 2009.
30. Alissa J. Rubin and Mark Landler, “Karzai Sworn In for Second Term as President,” New York Times, November 19, 2009. Interviewee L suggests that the United States recommended this language to Karzai.
31. Rod Nordland, “Afghan Presidential Rivals Finally Agree on Power-Sharing Deal,” New York Times, September 20, 2014.
32. For descriptions of the process, see McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 354–357; Gates, Duty, 370–385; Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 28.
33. Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler, “U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Worries on Afghan Plans,” New York Times, November 11, 2009.
34. Peter Baker, “Biden No Longer a Lone Voice on Afghanistan,” New York Times, October 13, 2009.
35. Interviewee L; Mark Landler, “The Afghan War and the Evolution of Obama,” New York Times, January 1, 2017.
36. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X.
37. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 357; Gates, Duty, 375, 379–380; Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 21–22.
38. Gates, Duty, 378–379.
39. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X; Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 25.
40. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X; Gates, Duty, 375, 382.
41. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X.
42. Interviewee M.
43. Interview with Michèle A. Flournoy, Washington, D.C., March 9, 2016.
1. James D. Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (1994): 577–592; Michael Tomz, “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations: An Experimental Approach,” International Organization 61, no. 4 (2007): 821–840; Han Dorussen and Mo Jongryn, “Ending Economic Sanctions: Audience Costs and Rent Seeking as Commitment Strategies,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, no. 4 (2001): 395–426; Joe Eyerman and Robert A. Hart Jr., “An Empirical Test of the Audience Cost Proposition: Democracy Speaks Louder than Words,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40, no. 4 (1996): 597–616; Branislav L. Slantchev, “Politicians, the Media, and Domestic Audience Costs,” International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2006): 445–477; Alastair Smith, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene: A Biased Decision,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40, no. 1 (1996): 16–40.
2. Tomz, “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations,” 822.
3. Stephen M. Walt, “Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies,” International Security 23, no. 4 (1999): 5–48.
4. Tomz, “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations,” 836.
5. Ibid., 829.
6. Tomz, “Domestic Audience Costs in International Relations,” 831–833; Brandice Canes-Wrone and Scott de Marchi, “Presidential Approval and Legislative Success,” Journal of Politics 64, no. 2 (2002): 491–509; J. A. Krosnick and D. R. Kinder, “Altering the Foundations of Support for the President Through Priming,” American Political Science Review 84, no. 2 (1990): 497–512.
7. This study is agnostic on the question of whether and to what extent democratic leaders are more affected than leaders of other regime types.
8. The White House, “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” December 1, 2009.
9. Karzai called for the same timeline in his 2009 inaugural speech, Rubin and Landler, “Karzai Sworn In for Second Term as President.” This timeline was affirmed publicly in NATO’s Lisbon Summit Declaration of November 20, 2010, paragraph 4.
10. Interviewees L and M.
11. Frances Z. Brown, The U.S. Surge and Afghan Local Governance Lessons for Transition (Washington, D.C.: US Institute of Peace, September 2012), 3.
12. Interview with Douglas E. Lute, Washington, D.C., September 20, 1016; interviewees M, N, and X.
13. Interviewees R, S, V, and U.
14. Sarah Chayes, “What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong,” Foreign Policy, March 12, 2013.
15. Peter Erickson, Muhsin Hassan, Leigh Ann Killian, Gordon LaForge, Sarah Levit-Shore, Lauren Rhode, and Kenneth Sholes, “Lessons from the U.S. Civilian Surge in Afghanistan, 2009–2014,” Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School, January 2016; “Waiting on a Civilian Surge in Afghanistan,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 31, 2010.
16. Interviewees H, J, L, M, and X; Chayes, “What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong.”
17. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 45–46.
18. Eikenberry, for instance, cosigned 2009 and 2011 versions of the “Integrated Civilian–Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan,” which led to improved coordination in some areas. Major issues such as strategic priorities and managing trade-offs were beyond its remit.
19. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 35–41.
20. Ibid., 25, 28.
21. Interviewees L, M, N, P, and X; Gates, Duty, 375, 382.
22. Gates, Duty, 299.
23. Interviewee L.
24. According to that poll, the percentage of those who thought the war was going well dropped from 54 percent in mid-2009 to 31 percent in December 2009; accordingly, the percentage of those who thought the war was going badly jumped from 43 percent to 66 percent. See Frank Newport, “Americans Divided on How Things Are Going in Afghanistan: Views Are More Positive Than in Recent Years,” Gallup.com, April 8, 2011.
25. For Gates’s recollection of the process, see Gates, Duty, 370–385.
1. Gates, Duty, 375, 382.
2. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 380–383.
3. Brett van Ess, “The Fight for Marjah: Recent Counterinsurgency Operations in Southern Afghanistan,” Small Wars Journal (September 30, 2010): https://smallwarsjournal.com.
4. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 373–375.
5. Dion Nissenbaum, “McChrystal Calls Marjah a ‘Bleeding Ulcer’ in Afghan Campaign,” McClatchy, May 24, 2010.
6. Interview with General Stanley A. McChrystal, Alexandria, Virginia, January 23, 2017; interviewee E; personal recollections.
7. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 353–354. The small team included me, one other US officer, and a couple of British officers.
8. Interviewee E.
9. Seth Jones, Reintegrating Afghan Insurgents (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2011), ix; Jake Tapper, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 330–340.
10. See also Emily Winterbotham, Healing the Legacies of Conflict in Afghanistan: Community Voices on Justice, Peace and Reconciliation, Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, January 2012.
11. Interviewee E; interviewees H and J held similar views.
12. Interviewee E.
13. Interviewee E; personal recollection of discussions at ISAF at the time. See also Chayes, Thieves of State, 39–57.
14. Holbrooke’s successor, Marc Grossman, described reintegration as “retail” politics and reconciliation as “wholesale” politics. Mark Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011: A Reflection,” Prism 4, no. 4 (December 2013): 21–37, 31.
15. Interviewees E, H, and J; personal recollection of events at ISAF at the time. For a discussion of Holbrooke’s views, see Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 56.
16. Interview with General Stanley A. McChrystal.
17. Holbrooke had poor relations with Karzai and Kayani, recalled interviewees E, H, and J. See also Gates, Duty, 296; Ronald E. Neumann, “Failed Relations between Hamid Karzai and the United States: What Can We Learn?,” US Institute of Peace, May 2015, 6–7.
18. Hastings, “The Runaway General”; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 387–388.
1. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 98.
2. Ibid., 138–140.
3. Bolger, Why We Lost, 366–367; Michael Hirsch and Jamie Tarabay, “Washington Losing Patience with Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” The Atlantic, June 28, 2011.
4. Bolger, Why We Lost, 366–367.
5. I returned from Afghanistan in October 2010 to the Pentagon to continue work on reconciliation.
6. For skeptical views in the ISAF staff, see Chandrasekaran, Little America, 245–246.
7. Fred W. Baker III, “Petraeus Parallels Iraq, Afghanistan Strategies,” American Forces Press Service, April 28, 2009. See also the Iraq Case Study below, especially chapter 29.
8. See the discussion in chapter 29.
9. Interviewees H, J, L, M, N, P, and X.
10. Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?,” International Security 37, no. 1 (2012): 7–40.
11. Barfield, Afghanistan, 277, 285, 337, 339–342; Nathaniel C. Fick and Vikram Singh, “Winning the Battle, Losing the Faith,” New York Times, October 4, 2008; Christopher D. Kolenda, “Winning Afghanistan at the Community Level,” Joint Force Quarterly 56, 1st Quarter 2010: 25–31.
12. McChrystal, “COMISAF’s Initial Assessment,” 2-6 to 2-8; Antonio Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2009), 293–300; Taliban Code of Conduct (Layha), “Taliban 2009 Rules and Regulations Booklet Seized by Coalition Forces on 15 Jul 2009 IVO Sangin Valley”; Stephanie Nijssen, “The Taliban’s Shadow Government in Afghanistan,” Civil-Military Fusion Centre, September 2011.
13. “The Future of the Afghan Local Police,” Asia Report No. 268, International Crisis Group, June 4, 2015; “Just Don’t Call It a Militia: Impunity, Militias, and the Afghan Local Police,” Human Rights Watch, September 12, 2011.
14. DeeDee Derksen, “Impact or Illusion? Reintegration under the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program,” US Institute of Peace, September 22, 2011.
15. Ibid. Not all Afghan local police were raised in this manner. Most were developed in a coordinated effort between local coalition special operations forces and Afghan officials. Performance was uneven. Some Afghan local police improved local security. Others undermined it.
16. Briefings to me by ISAF officials in 2011 and 2012.
17. See, for instance, US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, July 2013, 37–43, and November 2013, 25–30.
1. Tett, The Silo Effect, 43 of 5577.
2. Ibid., 3482 of 5577.
3. Ibid., 1257–1683 of 5577.
4. Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 1972).
5. Joshua Partlow, “Elaborate Ruse Behind Vast Kabul Bank Fraud,” Washington Post, June 30, 2011; Emma Graham-Harrison, “Afghan Elite Ransacked $900m from Kabul Bank, Inquiry Finds,” The Guardian, November 28, 2010.
6. “Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, 2010.
7. Interview with Michèle A. Flournoy.
8. Interview with General David H. Petraeus, Washington, D.C., December 8, 2016.
9. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Intelligence Reports Offer Dim View of Afghan War,” New York Times, December 14, 2010.
10. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 26, 56–57.
11. Karen Parrish, “Gates: Afghanistan Progress Exceeds Expectations,” Armed Forces Press Service, December 16, 2010.
12. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 26–27.
13. Gates, Duty, 385; interviewees H, M, and P, who were involved in the review; personal recollections as the Department of Defense lead strategist for the review.
14. Bumiller, “Intelligence Reports Offer Dim View of Afghan War.”
15. The White House, “Statement by the President on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review,” December 16, 2010; US Department of Defense, “Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,” December 2012, 11; The White House, “Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review,” December 16, 2010; US Department of State, “Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Launch of the Asia Society’s Series of Richard C. Holbrooke Memorial Addresses,” February 18, 2011.
16. Interviewees H, J, L, M, P, W, and X.
17. See the testimonies by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, “Hearing to Receive Testimony on the U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Senate Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2011.
18. US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, October 2011, 1. See also subsequent reports through October 2014.
19. The military did make efforts to address corruption but could only do so effectively in military contracting. General David Petraeus tasked Brigadier General H. R. McMaster to lead Task Force Shafafiyat (Transparency), but the effort had no overall impact on the kleptocratic nature of the Afghan government or its corrosive effects on the security forces.
20. Testimony by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, “Hearing to Receive Testimony on the U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Senate Armed Services Committee.
21. Ibid. See also General David H. Petraeus, “Nomination of General David H. Petraeus to Be Director, Central Intelligence Agency,” Hearing Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, June 23, 2011, 18.
22. Mullen did note during his testimony: “We must work toward a reconciliation process internal to Afghanistan that provides for redress of grievances and a state-to-state interaction between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve matters of mutual concern.”
23. Officials in the State Department were not given the same level of scrutiny by their congressional committees or by the White House, so the risks to success were never fully examined.
24. Interviewee M.
25. US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, October 2014, 8.
26. Interviewee S. Ghost soldiers are soldiers listed on the rosters, but who do not actually exist. Their being on the roster means pay is sent for them, but then the unit commanders keep those funds for themselves.
27. Jonathan Goodhan and Aziz Hakimi, “Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan,” US Institute of Peace, January 2014; “The Future of the Afghan Local Police,” Asia Report No. 268, International Crisis Group, June 4, 2015; “Just Don’t Call It a Militia,” Human Rights Watch; Mujib Mashal, Joseph Goldstein, and Jawad Sukhanyar, “Afghans Form Militias and Call on Warlords to Battle Taliban,” New York Times, May 24, 2015.
28. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Evaluating U.S. Foreign Assistance To Afghanistan,” June 8, 2011; “Report: U.S. Aid to Afghanistan Encouraging Dependency, Corruption,” PBS NewsHour, June 8, 2011.
29. Nicolas Schmidle, “Getting Bin Laden: What Happened That Night in Abbottabad,” New Yorker, August 8, 2011.
30. Mark Mazzetti, “How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States,” New York Times, April 9, 2013.
31. Salman Masood and Eric Schmitt, “Tensions Flare Between U.S. and Pakistan After Strike,” New York Times, November 26, 2011.
32. Elisabeth Bumiller and Jane Perlez, “Pakistan’s Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy,” New York Times, September 22, 2011.
33. Opening statement by Senator Carl Levin, “Hearing to Receive Testimony on the U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Senate Armed Service Committee, September 22, 2011. See also Tankel, “Beyond the Double Game.”
34. “Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, 2011.
35. Alissa J. Rubin, “Karzai Says Foreigners Are Responsible for Corruption,” New York Times, December 11, 2011.
36. Testimony by Mullen, Mullen response to Senator Carl Levin, Senate Armed Service Committee, September 22, 2011.
37. Chayes, Thieves of State, 149–154.
38. Interviewees L, M, N, P, Q, W, and X.
39. NSC meetings are chaired by the president. Principals meetings are chaired by either the vice president or the national security advisor.
40. Interviewees L, M, and W.
41. Michael Pizzi, “As US Withdrawal Looms, Taliban Ponders Talking Peace,” al Jazeera, March 21, 2014.
42. The White House, “Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan,” June 22, 2011.
43. See US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, October 2014; United Nations, “The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International Peace and Security: Report of the Secretary-General,” December 9, 2014.
44. Vanda Felbab-Brown, Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2013).
45. General John Allen, quoted in The Economist, “Outta here: After a Decade in Afghanistan, the United States Rushes for the Exit,” February 4, 2012.
46. Interviewees F, S, U, and V; David Jolly, “U.S. to Send More Troops to Aid Afghan Forces Pressed by Taliban,” New York Times, February 9, 2016.
47. Interviewee S.
48. Joseph Goldstein and Mujib Mashal, “Taliban Fighters Capture Kunduz City as Afghan Forces Retreat,” New York Times, September 28, 2015.
49. Halimullah Kousary, “Taliban in Kunduz, ISIS in Nangarhar: Fiefdoms of Conflict in Afghanistan,” The Diplomat, October 5, 2015.
50. Jessica Donati and Ehsanullah Amiri, “U.S. Military Moves to Clear ‘Ghost Soldiers’ from Afghan Payroll,” Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2017.
51. Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss, “Taliban Controls or Contests Scores of Districts in Afghanistan,” FDD’s Long War Journal, October 5, 2015; Sarah Almukhtar and Karen Yourish, “More Than 14 Years After U.S. Invasion, the Taliban Control Large Parts of Afghanistan,” New York Times, April 19, 2016.
1. Interview with Douglas E. Lute.
2. Interviewee T.
3. Interviewee AB. Interviewees AA, R, S, and Z expressed similar sentiments.
1. Rod Nordland, Elisabeth Bumiller, and Matthew Rosenberg, “Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel Talks,” New York Times, March 15, 2012.
2. Alissa J. Rubin and Rod Nordland, “U.S. Scrambles to Save Taliban Talks after Afghan Backlash,” New York Times, June 19, 2013.
3. Rod Nordland, “Elders Back Security Pact That Karzai Won’t Sign,” New York Times, November 24, 2013.
4. Jon Boone, “Afghan Delegation Travels to Pakistan for First Known Talks with Taliban,” The Guardian, July 7, 2015; Saeed Shah and Margherita Stancati, “Taliban Name Chief as Peace Talks Are Canceled,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2015.
5. Halimullah Khousary, “The Afghan Peace Talks, QCG and China-Pakistan Role,” The Diplomat, July 8, 2016.
6. Matthew Rosenberg and Michael D. Shear, “In Reversal, Obama Says U.S. Soldiers Will Stay in Afghanistan to 2017,” New York Times, October 15, 2015; Missy Ryan and Karen DeYoung, “Obama Alters Afghanistan Exit Plan Once More, Will Leave 8,400 Troops,” Washington Post, July 6, 2016.
7. Mark Landler, “Obama Says He Will Keep More Troops in Afghanistan Than Planned,” New York Times, July 6, 2016.
1. Donald Wittman, “How a War Ends: A Rational Model Approach,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 23, no. 4 (1979): 743–763, 743.
2. It is possible that to avoid the potential costs of war both sides would negotiate for lesser outcomes than they might achieve via conflict. See R. Harrison Wagner, “Bargaining and War,” American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 3 (July 2000): 469–484, and Paul R. Pillar, Negotiating Peace: War Termination as Bargaining Process (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1983).
3. Reiter, How Wars End, 8–21; Branislav L. Slantchev, “The Principle of Convergence in Wartime Negotiations,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 4. (2003): 621–632; Dan Reiter, “The Bargaining Model of War,” Perspectives on Politics 1 (March 2003): 27–43; James D. Fearon, “Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation,” International Organization 52, no. 2 (1998): 269–305; Darren Filson and Suzanne Werner, “A Bargaining Model of War and Peace: Anticipating the Onset, Duration, and Outcome of War,” American Journal of Political Science 46 (October 2002): 819–838; Wagner, “Bargaining and War”; Pillar, Negotiating Peace.
4. Wagner, “Bargaining and War,” 481. See also Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1966).
5. Clausewitz, On War, 91; Pillar, Negotiating Peace, 200; Wagner, “Bargaining and War.”
6. Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives,” 8; Wittman, “How a War Ends,” 747–748, especially note 6; Reiter, How Wars End, 8–21.
7. Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives,” 9.
8. Wagner, “Bargaining and War”; Slantchev, “The Principle of Convergence in Wartime Negotiations.” A more mature insurgency could have a much higher expected utility, which would likely limit potential bargaining space even further.
9. See Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare; Taber, War of the Flea; O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism.
10. For further discussion of incentives for negotiation, see Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives,” 8; Wittman, “How a War Ends,” 747–748, especially note 6; Reiter, How Wars End, 8–21.
11. For Vietnam: Henry Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), and Karnow, Vietnam. For the Soviets in Afghanistan: Rodrick Braithwaite, Afghantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011), and Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan. Note, these negotiations were with third-party states providing tangible support to the insurgency, not with the insurgent groups themselves.
12. Wittman, “How a War Ends,” 750–754; Wagner, “Bargaining and War,” 479; Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives.”
13. Jack Holland, Hope against History: The Course of Conflict in Northern Ireland (London: Holt, 1999); Marianne Elliot, ed., The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland: Peace Lectures from the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University (Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool Institute of Irish Studies, Liverpool Univ. Press, 2007); David McKittrick and David McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict (Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2002); Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003).
14. Dermot Keogh and Michael H. Haltzel, eds., Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994); Elliot, The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland.
15. Barbara Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,” International Organization 51, no. 3 (1997): 335–364. See also Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building, 316; James Dobbins and Laurel Miller, “Overcoming Obstacles to Peace,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 55, no. 1 (February–March. 2013): 103–120.
16. Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan, 367–450; Coll, Ghost Wars, 189–224. Al Qaeda was invited to Afghanistan by the Rabbani government before the Taliban took power.
17. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 38; for a critique of Nasr’s views, see Chayes, “What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong.”
18. Thomas Waldman, “Reconciliation and Research in Afghanistan: An Analytical Narrative,” International Affairs 90, no. 5 (2014): 1049–1068, 1062.
19. Chayes, “What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong.”
20. Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan.”
21. James D. Fearon, “Iraq’s Civil War,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 2 (March/April 2007): 2–15.
22. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 16–21. The side which got the better end of the major concessions was declared the winner.
23. Fearon, “Iraq’s Civil War.”
24. Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement.”
25. For a detailed overview of scholarship on reconciliation, see Waldman, “Reconciliation and Research in Afghanistan.”
26. Amin Saikal, “Don’t Cave In to the Taliban,” New York Times, October 18, 2007; William Maley, “Talking to the Taliban,” The World Today 63, no. 11 (2007): 4–6. For an expert analysis of Northern Alliance views, see Bette Dam, “To Talk or Not to Talk? Abdullah Abdullah’s Likely Stance on Negotiating with the Taliban,” Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, August 2014.
27. Michael Semple, “Talking to the Taliban,” Foreign Policy, January 10, 2013.
28. Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan”; Knowlton, “Rumsfeld Rejects Plan to Allow Mullah Omar”; Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
29. See, for instance, Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain”; Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, “Thwarting Afghanistan’s Insurgency: A Pragmatic Approach Towards Peace and Reconciliation,” Special Report 212, US Institute of Peace, September 2008; Adam Roberts, “Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan,” Survival 51, no. 1 (Feb.–March 2009): 29–60; Mariet D’Souza, “Talking to the Taliban: Will It Ensure ‘Peace’ in Afghanistan?,” Strategic Analysis 33, no. 2 (2009): 254–272; Michael Semple, Reconciliation in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: USIP Press Books, 2009); Matt Waldman, “Dangerous Liaisons with the Afghan Taliban: The Feasibility and Risks of Negotiations,” Special Report 256 (Washington, D.C.: US Institute for Peace, October 2010); Giles Dorronsoro, Afghanistan at the Breaking Point (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010); Jonathan Steele, Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground (London: Portobello, 2011), 340; “A New Way Forward: Rethinking US Strategy in Afghanistan,” Afghanistan Study Group, 2010; Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas Pickering, Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace (New York: Century Foundation International Task Force on Afghanistan and Its Regional and Multinational Dimensions, 2011); Matt Waldman and Thomas Ruttig, “Peace Offerings: Theories of Conflict Resolution and Their Applicability to Afghanistan,” discussion paper, Afghan Analysts Network, 2011; Sherard Cowper-Coles, Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
30. Cowper-Coles, Cables from Kabul; personal recollections from the Obama review leading to the Reidel Report (February–March 2009) and discussions with UK officials during the McChrystal assessment (June–August 2009).
31. “A New Way Forward,” Afghanistan Study Group.
32. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Interview: McChrystal Says Solution in Afghanistan Is Developing Governance,” August 30, 2009; Baker, “Petraeus Parallels Iraq, Afghanistan Strategies.”
33. Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, “Why Negotiate with the Taliban?,” American Enterprise Institute, March 17, 2010; Chayes, “What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong.”
34. Discussion with a veteran of the Northern Ireland peace process, hosted by the British Foreign Commonwealth Office, October 15, 2014.
35. For other examples, see Stanley and Sawyer, “The Equifinality of War Termination,” 656–657.
36. For Taliban views on the importance of sanctuary, see Theo Farrell and Michael Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” Survival 57, no. 6 (December 2015–January 2016): 79–110, 92.
37. Ibid.
38. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain,” 35–38.
39. For ripeness theory, see Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives.”
40. Interview with General David H. Petraeus.
41. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011”; Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan.”
42. Interview with Douglas E. Lute. He argues that the best time to have advanced reconciliation was when 140,000 international troops were in country.
1. Iklé, Every War Must End, 59–83.
2. Tversky and Kahneman, “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions”; Benedetto De Martino, Dharshan Kumaran, Ben Seymour, and Raymond J. Dolan, “Frames, Biases, and Rational Decision-making in the Human Brain,” Science 313, no. 5787 (2006): 684–687; William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser, “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1, no. 1 (1988): 7–59; Alex Mintz, “Applied Decision Analysis: Utilizing Poliheuristic Theory to Explain and Predict Foreign Policy and National Security Decisions,” International Studies Perspectives 6, no. 1 (2005): 94–98; Frank C. Zagare, “Analytic Narratives, Game Theory, and Peace Science,” in Frontiers of Peace Economics and Peace Science (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, vol. 16, ed. M. Chatterji, C. Bo, and R. Misra (Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2011), 19–35; Graham T. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review 63, no. 3 (1969): 689–718; Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Longman, 1999).
3. Iklé, Every War Must End, 84.
4. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis”; Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 255–324; Bendor and Hammond, “Rethinking Allison’s Models.”
5. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 304–305; Iklé, Every War Must End, 84–105.
6. Stanley and Sawyer, “The Equifinality of War Termination,” 657; Iklé, Every War Must End; Downs and Rocke, “Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection”; Feaver, Armed Servants; Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision; Dominic D. P. Johnson and Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2006).
7. See also Goemans, “Fighting for Survival”; Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and the Danger of War,” International Security 20, no. 1 (1995): 5–38.
8. Reiter, How Wars End. See also Stanley, “Ending the Korean War,” 52–56.
9. Interviewees H and J; personal recollections as Department of Defense lead for the 2010 Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review.
10. Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace”; Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, 113–136.
11. Several US officials were concerned that the Taliban might use talks for deception (taqiyya) to undermine the Afghan government and/or relieve military pressure until the United States completed its drawdown. See Raymond Ibrahim, “How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War: Defeating Jihadist Terrorism,” Middle East Quarterly (winter 2010): 3–13.
12. US Department of State, “Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” February 18, 2011.
13. Ibid.
14. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 34–35.
15. Chandrasekaran, Little America, 247.
16. Interview with General David H. Petraeus.
17. General John Allen, quoted in “Outta Here,” The Economist.
18. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain.”
19. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 35–36.
20. Personal conversation with a senior SRAP official, March 2011. See also Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 26–27.
21. Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement”; Fearon, “Iraq’s Civil War.”
22. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 41.
23. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011.”
24. Such works included Rose, How Wars End; Iklé, Every War Must End; Reiter, How Wars End; Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building; Lee and Walling, Strategic Logic and Political Rationality; Stanley, “Ending the Korean War”; Stanley, Paths to Peace; and Zartman, “The Timing of Peace Initiatives.”
25. When Obama announced delays to the drawdown timeline after 2014, American public opinion did not register any political costs to Obama (in fact, those surveyed were less inclined to see the war as a mistake). See Andrew Dugan, “Fewer in U.S. View Iraq, Afghanistan Wars as Mistakes,” Gallup, June 12, 2015.
26. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 38, notes that it was given a slow death in the interagency process.
27. Interviewees H, J, L, and M.
28. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 30.
29. Confidential conversations with two ISAF commanders.
30. Interviewees H, J, M, and W. Grossman argues that he consulted closely with Defense officials about reconciliation, Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 30–31.
31. See, for instance, Henry Mintzberg and James A. Waters, “Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent,” Strategic Management Journal 6 (1985): 257–272.
32. Interviewees H and M.
33. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 49.
34. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 23.
35. Interview with Vikram Singh, Washington, D.C., December 10, 2016.
1. Rahim Faiez and Kimberly Dozier, “Karzai Accuses U.S. of Collaborating with Taliban,” Associated Press, March 10, 2013; “Hamid Karzai Says U.S.-Afghan Relationship ‘Has Been at a Low Point for a Long Time,’” Washington Post, March 2, 2014.
2. Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
3. Ernesto Londoño and Kevin Seiff, “Afghan Officials Accuse U.S. of Snatching Pakistani Taliban Leader from Their Custody,” Washington Post, October 10, 2013; Matthew Rosenberg, “U.S. Disrupts Afghans’ Tack on Militants,” New York Times, October 23, 2013.
4. Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez, “Karzai: Afghan Government Should Lead Peace Talks,” Associated Press, January 29, 2013; Alissa J. Rubin and Declan Walsh, “Renewed Push for Afghans to Make Peace with Taliban,” New York Times, February 16, 2013.
5. Interviewees F, H, L, M, and W.
6. Bill Roggio, “Afghan Taliban Denounces Former Senior Official, Denies Involvement in Peace Talks,” FDD’s Long War Journal, February 22, 2014; Julian Borger, “Afghan Insurgents Want Peace Deal, Says Ex-Taliban Minister,” The Guardian, September 20, 2014.
7. Dam, A Man and a Motorcycle.
8. “Too Many Missed Opportunities: Human Rights in Afghanistan under the Karzai Administration,” Amnesty International, 2014, 5–6; Sari Kouvo, “After Two Years in Legal Limbo: A First Glance at the Approved ‘Amnesty Law,’” Afghan Analysts Network, February 22, 2010.
9. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain.”
10. Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Peace Talks End with Plea to Combatants,” New York Times, June 4, 2010; Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, “The Resolution Adopted at the Conclusion of the National Consultative Peace Jirga,” June 2–4, 2010, Loya Jirga Tent, Kabul.
11. Interviewees F, G, H, I, J, and Y; personal conversations with former and then-current senior Taliban officials, 2011–2013. Clinton later explained them as end conditions.
12. For Taliban views on the intensity of the military pressure, see Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 82–83.
13. Interview with Barnett R. Rubin. The preamble notes, “Appreciating the sacrifices, historical struggles, jihad and just resistance of all the peoples of Afghanistan, admiring the supreme position of the martyrs of the country’s freedom.” According to Taliban experts and former Taliban officials, the jihad refers to the Soviet war and “just resistance” signifies opposition to the Taliban rule. For additional Taliban views on the Afghan constitution, see Michael Semple, Theo Farrell, Anatol Lieven, and Rudra Chaudhuri, “Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation,” Royal United Services Institute, September 2012, 4.
14. Personal conversations with former and then-current senior Taliban officials, 2011–2013.
15. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Statement of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding Negotiations,” January 3, 2012. See also Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 97–98.
16. “Letter from Mohammad Tayib,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released March 1, 2016.
17. Interviewees F, G, I, M, and S; Matthew Rosenberg and Alissa J. Rubin, “Taliban Step Toward Afghan Peace Talks Is Hailed by U.S.,” New York Times, June 18, 2013.
18. Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 101; Semple et al., “Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation.”
19. Personal discussion with Tayyab Agha in Doha, September 2011.
20. Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 97–99.
21. Interviewees F, G, and I.
22. National Security Presidential Directive 12 (NSPD-12), “United States Citizens Taken Hostage Abroad,” was signed by President George W. Bush on February 18, 2002, forbidding the United States from negotiating with terrorists. This was later modified by President Obama on June 24, 2015, with Presidential Policy Directive 30 (PPD-30), “Hostage Recovery Activities.”
23. For a detailed discussion of the Taliban’s relationship with al Qaeda, see Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010 (London: Hurst, 2012).
24. “Recommendations for the Mujahideen Entering Afghanistan,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released March 1, 2016. Wahabbism is an ultra-conservative religious movement prominent in the Gulf Arab countries, and supported by al Qaeda. Deobandis are Hanafi Muslims. Hanafi is one of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence. They view the writings of scholar Abu Hanifa as authoritative. Wahabbis do not.
25. “Summary on Situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released May 20, 2015.
26. “Letter from Mohammad Tayib,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released March 1, 2016.
27. “Updated letter RE: Afghanistan,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released May 20, 2015.
28. See also Semple et al., “Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation,” 3, 5–7. Verification, of course, would be a major challenge, as would prevention of cheating. For a good discussion of the challenges, see Waldman, “Dangerous Liaisons with the Afghan Taliban.”
29. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Message of Felicitation of Amir-ul-Momineen on the Occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr,” September 19, 2009.
30. Vahid Brown, “Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban: ‘Diametrically Opposed’?” Foreign Policy, October 22, 2009.
31. “Open Letter of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to the Shanghai Summit,” Voice of Jihad, October 14, 2009.
32. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Layha” (Code of Conduct) 2006, and 2009; Conference statements, June 29, 2012; December 24, 2012; May 5, 2015; Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr statements since September 19, 2009. Alex Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn, Felix, Separating the Taliban from Al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan (New York: Center on International Cooperation, 2011); Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 60–61. Bin Laden encouraged Mullah Omar to avoid shedding Muslim blood. See “Letter to Our Honored Commander of the Faithful,” Bin Laden’s Bookshelf database, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released March 1, 2016
33. Semple et al., “Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation,” 12.
34. By contrast, the Taliban had to deal with internal turmoil when talks about a political office in Doha leaked to the press in January 2012.
35. Personal discussions with Tayyab Agha, 2011, Doha; interviewees F, H, J, and L; Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
36. Mehran Kamrava, Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 2015).
37. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Text of Speech Enunciated by Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at Research Conference in France,” December 24, 2012; Graham Bowley and Matthew Rosenberg, “Afghan Officials Hail Talks with Insurgents,” New York Times, June 28, 2012.
38. Tankel, “Beyond the Double Game,” 1–2.
39. Ahley J. Tellis, “The Menace That Is Lashkar-e-Taiba,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2012.
40. US National Counter Terrorism Center, “Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan,” Counter Terrorism Guide, January 26, 2017.
41. Interviewees F, H, I, and J; Hekmatullah Azamy, “It’s Complicated: The Relationship Between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Taliban,” Foreign Policy, March 2, 2015.
42. Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 92.
43. Fair, “America’s Pakistan Policy Is Sheer Madness”; Peter Bergen, ed., Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics, and Religion (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013); Vahid Brown and Don Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973–2012 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2013). For an alternative view, see Anatol Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (New York: Perseus, 2011).
44. Barnett R. Rubin, “Afghanistan and the Taliban Need Pakistan for Peace,” al Jazeera, January 10, 2016; Bruce Reidel, “Pakistan, Taliban and the Afghan Quagmire,” Brookings Institution, August 24, 2013; Matt Waldman, The Sun in the Sky: The Relationship Between Pakistan’s ISI and Afghan Insurgents, Crisis States Research Center, January 2010. Both Reidel and Waldman note significant limitations on Pakistan’s influence. Azmat Khan, “Leaked NATO Report Alleges Pakistani Support for Taliban,” PBS Frontline, February 1, 2012; “Afghan Army Chief: ‘Pakistan Controls Taliban,’” Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, July 3, 2013; Sanjay Kumar, “Afghanistan’s Ex-Intelligence Chief Reflects on Mullah Omar’s Death,” The Diplomat, July 30, 2015; Lisa Curtis, “How Pakistan Is Tightening Its Grip on the Taliban,” National Interest, August 15, 2015.
45. Abubakar Siddique, “Aziz Admits Pakistan Housing Afghan Taliban Leaders,” Dawn, March 3, 2016.
46. Mujib Mashal, “How Peace Between Afghanistan and the Taliban Foundered,” New York Times, December 26, 2016.
47. Dexter Filkins, “Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest,” New York Times, August 22, 2010.
48. For instance, the Taliban reportedly arrested members of Tayyab Agha’s family in connection to his relocation to Doha. Interviewees F and J; Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
49. Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to Grand Bargain,” 36.
1. The National Security Act of 1947, 80th Congress, 1st sess., Public Law 253, chapter 343, S. 758, July 26, 1947.
2. Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision.
3. Ibid., 143–196.
4. Ibid., 255–324.
5. See Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, 113–136; Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 28.
6. Missy Ryan, Warren Strobel, and Mark Hosenball, “Exclusive: Secret U.S., Taliban Talks Reach Turning Point,” Reuters, December 19, 2011; personal recollections from meetings in Doha, August and September 2011.
7. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 28.
8. The White House, “Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan.”
9. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 28.
10. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Statement of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding Negotiations,” January 3, 2012; Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Declaration About the Suspension of Dialogue with the Americans, the Office in Qatar, and Its Political Activity,” March 15, 2012; Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Regarding the Participation of Its Representative in an Academic Conference in Japan,” June 29, 2012.
11. Interviewees F, J, I, Y, and Z.
12. Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: Regaining Momentum,” Parameters 37, no. 4 (winter 2007–2008): 5–19, 12; Theo Farrell and Antonio Giustozzi, “The Taliban at War: Inside the Helmand Insurgency, 2004–2012,” International Affairs 89, no. 4 (2013): 845–871; interviewees F, G, J, I, Y, and Z.
13. For a detailed discussion of the evolution of Taliban command and control systems, see Claudio Franco and Antonio Giustozzi, “Revolution in the Counter-Revolution: Efforts to Centralize the Taliban’s Military Leadership,” Central Asian Affairs 3 (2016): 249–286. See also Rashid, Taliban, 41–42; Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 93–96.
14. Ryan, Strobel, and Hosenball, “Exclusive”; personal recollection as participant in discussions.
15. Interviewees F, H, J, L, M, P, and Q.
16. The Inteqal framework was established in 2010 to manage the Afghan-led transition process. The Joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board (JANIB) is responsible for approving transition implementation plans and recommending areas to enter or complete the transition process. See US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, December 2012, 27–31; NATO, “Inteqal: Transition to Afghan Lead,” January 7, 2015. No similar effort was made to coordinate reconciliation.
17. Interview with Lieutenant General Terry A. Wolff.
18. Discussion with senior SRAP official, November 2011.
19. Neumann, “Failed Relations between Hamid Karzai and the United States,” 11; Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 58.
20. Robert D. Blackwill, “Plan B in Afghanistan: Why a De Facto Partition Is the Least Bad Option,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 1 (January/February 2011): 42–50.
21. Interviewees F, G, I, M, P, Q, and W; Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 58.
22. Alissa J. Rubin, “Assassination Deals Blow to Peace Process in Afghanistan,” New York Times, September 20, 2011.
23. Discussion with former senior Afghan official, January 2014; interviewees F, J, L, and M.
24. Rod Nordland and Sharifullah Sahak, “Afghan Rebuke of Qatar Sets Back Peace Talks,” New York Times, December 15, 2011.
25. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 57–58.
26. Personal recollections from the meetings. For more on the discussions with Congress, see Ed O’Keefe, “White House First Discussed Bergdahl Prisoner Exchange with Lawmakers in 2011,” Washington Post, June 3, 2014; Tim Mack, “Obama Shut Out Congress for 2 Years About Bergdahl Deal, Key Senator Says,” Daily Beast, June 3, 2014; for the attack on the US embassy, see Alissa J. Rubin, Ray Rivera, and Jack Healy, “U.S. Embassy and NATO Headquarters Attacked in Kabul,” New York Times, September 13, 2011.
27. See previous chapter.
28. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 34; Deirdre Walsh and Ted Barrett, “Congressional Leaders Initially Pushed Back on Bergdahl Swap,” CNN, June 4, 2014; Charlie Savage, “Negotiations with Taliban Could Hinge on Detainees,” New York Times, June 2, 2013; Jason Leopold, “What Congress Really Told the White House About the Bowe Bergdahl Swap,” Vice News, March 4, 2015; David E. Sanger and Matthew Rosenberg, “Critics of P.O.W. Swap Question the Absence of a Wider Agreement,” New York Times, June 8, 2014.
29. See Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 57.
30. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA 2103), Public Law 112-239, Section 1033, “Requirements for Certifications Relating to the Transfer of Detainees at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Foreign Countries and Other Foreign Entities,” January 2, 2013.
31. Rafaella Wakeman, “The Senate Armed Services Committee’s GTMO Transfer Provisions in the 2014 NDAA,” Lawfare, June 25, 2013.
32. Interviewees J, L, M, and X.
1. Oren Dorell, “Taliban May Be Ready to Try Talking,” December 27, 2011; “Taliban Will Open Office in Qatar for Peace Talks,” USA Today, January 4, 2012; Matthew Rosenberg, “Taliban Opening Qatar Office, and Maybe Door to Talks,” New York Times, January 4, 2012.
2. Interviewees F, G, I, and J; Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
3. “Taliban Will Open Office in Qatar for Peace Talks.” USA Today.
4. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Statement of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding Negotiations”; Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Declaration About the Suspension of Dialogue with the Americans, the Office in Qatar, and Its Political Activity,” March 15, 2012.
5. See the Taliban’s Voice of Jihad website, https://alemarahenglish.net.
6. Interviewees F and J. Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 98–99.
7. Grossman, “Talking to the Taliban 2010–2011,” 29.
8. Personal recollection from the January 2012 meetings in Doha with Qatari officials and Taliban representative Tayyab Agha.
9. Interviewees F, J, L, and M.
10. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “Declaration About the Suspension of Dialogue with the Americans”; Kate Clark, “The End of the Affair? Taleban Suspend Talks,” Afghan Analysts Network, March 16, 2012.
11. The White House, “Remarks by President Obama in Address to the Nation from Afghanistan,” May 1, 2012.
12. The White House, “Joint Statement by President Obama and President Karzai,” January 11, 2013.
13. Interviewees J and L; personal recollections. Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi incorrectly blamed Ambassador James Dobbins for rejecting an agreement between Qatar and the Afghan government. See Borhan Osman and Kate Clark, “Who Played Havoc with the Qatar Talks? Five Possible Scenarios to Explain the Mess,” Afghan Analysts Network, July 9, 2013.
14. The letter’s assurances were confirmed by a White House official to the New York Times. Rubin and Nordland, “U.S. Scrambles to Save Taliban Talks after Afghan Backlash”; “Faizi Reveals Details of Karzai’s Letter to Obama,” Pajhwok, June 27, 2013.
15. NATO, “NATO Secretary General in Kabul as Afghan Security Forces Take Lead Countrywide,” June 18, 2013.
16. Personal recollections of meetings and discussions in the lead-up to the office opening; interviewees F, H, and J.
17. “Afghan Taliban Opens Qatar Office, Says Seeks Political Solution,” Reuters, June 18, 2013. The Taliban have always referred to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to have not used that term could have created unrest in the Taliban ranks.
18. Kate Clark, “The Opening of the Taleban Office in Qatar: A Propaganda Coup and an Angry Government,” Afghan Analysts Network, June 19, 2013.
19. Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 57.
20. Nasr, The Dispensable Nation, 58–59.
21. Clark, “The Opening of the Taleban Office in Qatar.”
22. “Protests Staged in Kabul City Against Taliban Office in Qatar,” Khaama Press, June 29, 2013.
23. Karen DeYoung, Tim Craig, and Ernest Londoño, “Despite Karzai’s Ire, U.S. Confident That Talks with Taliban Will Be Held,” Washington Post, June 19, 2013.
24. Osman and Clark, “Who Played Havoc with the Qatar Talks?”
25. Interview with Vikram Singh.
1. Dalrymple, Return of a King.
2. Nordland, “Elders Back Security Pact That Karzai Won’t Sign.”
3. Embassy of Afghanistan, “President Obama’s Letter to President Karzai on BSA,” November 20, 2013.
4. William Booth, “Israel’s Prisoner Swaps Have Been Far More Lopsided than Obama’s Bergdahl Deal,” Washington Post, June 5, 2014.
5. The United States included family support provisions in the detainee transfer agreement to make relocation in Doha even more attractive.
6. Kamrava, Qatar.
7. Charlie Savage and David E. Sanger, “Deal to Free Bowe Bergdahl Puts Obama on Defensive,” New York Times, June 3, 2014.
8. Sanger and Rosenberg, “Critics of P.O.W. Swap Question the Absence of a Wider Agreement”; Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan,” 57. Some of the exchangees participated in 2018–2019 in talks with the United States.
9. “Transcript of Siraj Haqqani’s Interview,” BBC News, October 3, 2011.
10. Interviewees F and J.
11. William A. Byrd, Casey Garret Johnson, and Sanaullah Tasal, “Compounding Uncertainty in Afghanistan: Economic Consequences of Delay in Signing the Bilateral Security Agreement,” US Institute of Peace, February 4, 2014; Jason Campbell, “The Pernicious Effects of Uncertainty in Afghanistan,” War on the Rocks, March 12, 2014.
12. Vanda Felbab-Brown, “The Stakes, Politics, and Implications of the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement,” Brookings Institution, November 17, 2013; General Joseph F. Dunford, “Statement of General Joseph F. Dunford Commander U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Situation in Afghanistan, 12 March 2014,” Senate Armed Services Committee, March, 12, 2014, 8–9; Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, “Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, United States Senate, 11 February 2014,” Defense Intelligence Agency, February 11, 2014.
13. Margherita Stancati, Nathan Hodge, and Dion Nissenbaum, “Afghan Crisis Risks Splitting Country: Presidential Candidate Claims Victory, Defying Early Vote Count, and Considers Forming Own Government,” Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2014; Matthew Rosenberg and Azam Ahmad, “Tentative Results in Afghan Presidential Runoff Spark Protests,” New York Times, July 7, 2014.
14. Interview with Carter Malkasian, Washington, D.C., August 25, 2016.
15. Barnett Rubin and Georgette Gagnon, “The U.S. Presence and Afghanistan’s National Unity Government: Preserving and Broadening the Political Settlement,” Center on International Cooperation, August 2016.
16. Mujib Mashal, “Afghan Government Faces New Set of Rivals,” New York Times, December 2, 2015; and Mujib Mashal, “Afghanistan Is in Chaos. Is That What Hamid Karzai Wants?” New York Times, August 5, 2016; Martine van Bijlert and Ali Yawar Adili, “When the Political Agreement Runs Out: On the Future of Afghanistan’s National Unity Government,” Afghan Analysts Network, May 29, 2016.
17. Farrell and Semple, “Making Peace with the Taliban,” 88–89; Aimal Faizi, “Karzai’s Stand for Afghan National Interests,” Gandhara, June 4, 2015; note: Faizi is a Karzai spokesman. Frud Behzan, “Afghan Unity Government Split on Intelligence-Sharing Deal,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 21, 2015.
18. Kay Johnson and Mehreen Zahra-Malik, “Taliban, Afghan Officials Hold Peace Talks, Agree to Meet Again,” Reuters, July 8, 2015. Borhan Osman, “The Murree Process: Divisive Peace Talks Further Complicated by Mullah Omar’s Death,” Afghan Analysts Network, August 5, 2015.
19. Osman, “The Murree Process”; Mujib Mashal, “Taliban Were Authorized to Talk, Afghan Envoys Say,” New York Times, July 9, 2015.
20. Rubin, “An Assassination That Could Bring War or Peace.”
21. Statista, “Number of Fatalities among Western Coalition Soldiers Involved in the Execution of Operation Enduring Freedom from 2001 to 2020,” https://www.statista.com/statistics/262894/western-coalition-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan/ (accessed August 2, 2020).
1. Interviewees H, J, L, M, W, and X. The White House did hold many meetings about the more tactical aspects of reconciliation, particularly in advance of meetings with the Taliban. These, however, mostly focused on coordinating talking points and sequencing of confidence-building measures.
2. See also Matt Waldman, “System Failure: The Underlying Causes of US Policy-Making Errors in Afghanistan,” International Affairs 89, no. 4 (July 2013): 825–843, 829–832.
1. “In Their Own Words: Iraq’s ‘Imminent’ Threat,” Center for American Progress, January 29, 2004; George W. Bush, “Third State of the Union Address,” January 29, 2003.
2. For maps of the evolving situation, see “Operation Iraqi Freedom Maps,” GlobalSecurity.org.
3. James P. Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq: De-Baathification and Disbanding the Army,” Intelligence and National Security 25, no. 1 (2010): 76–85.
4. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 36–39; Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 196–200.
5. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 195.
6. Ibid., 267–295.
7. Ibid., 35–37.
8. Ibid., 15–16; Ricks, Fiasco, 158–166; James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas, Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2009); Nora Bensahel, Olga Oliker, Keith Crane, Richard R. Brennan Jr., Heather S Gregg, Thomas Sullivan, and Andrew Rathmell, After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2008); “The Lost Year in Iraq: Interview with Robert Blackwill,” PBS Frontline, October 17, 2006; Larry Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 34–56.
9. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xix; Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006), 503–504; “The Lost Year in Iraq,” PBS Frontline; Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq.”
10. Ricks, Fiasco; John A. Nagl, Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice (New York: Penguin Books, 2014); Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency; Bolger, Why We Lost.
11. Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq”; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 78–88.
12. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xv, xxii–xxiii, xxvi, 52–60, 107–119.
13. Ibid., xxxviii–xli. See also Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building. For a less favorable view of the CPA, see Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
14. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xiii, 326–333; see also “The Lost Year in Iraq,” PBS Frontline; Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq.”
15. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xli.
16. Ibid., xl.
1. The White House, “President Discusses the Future of Iraq,” February 26, 2003.
2. Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “A Nation at War: The Pentagon; Rumsfeld Says Iraq Is Collapsing, Lists 8 Objectives of War,” New York Times, March 22, 2003.
3. Strategic Studies Institute, “A War Examined: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003, A Discussion with Kevin Benson, COL (USA Retired),” Parameters 43, no. 4 (winter 2013–14): 119–123, 120.
4. General Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), 315.
5. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 27.
6. Franks, American Soldier, 329; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 6–7.
7. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xviii.
8. Ibid., 7.
9. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 38–54.
10. Franks, American Soldier, 366; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 7. In the event, Turkey did not allow a ground assault from its soil.
11. “Generated Start” envisioned a large-scale 90-day build-up in Kuwait prior to invasion. “Running Start” envisioned a force-flow into Kuwait during an ongoing air campaign, with the ground invasion to commence about 25 days after the air strikes began. In the event, ground forces built up in advance of the war. Air and ground operations commenced simultaneously on March 19, 2003. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 48–51, 551.
12. Strategic Studies Institute, “A War Examined,” 120.
13. Franks, American Soldier, 351.
14. Ibid., 366; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 8. These would include forces in theater but not on the ground in Iraq.
15. Franks, American Soldier, 422, 424.
16. Ibid., 366, 419; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 9.
17. Franks, American Soldier, 419; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xli.
18. UNSCR 1441 demanded that Hussein disarm alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles.
19. Sir John Chilcot, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Roderic Lyne, and Baroness Usha Prashar, The Report of the Iraq Inquiry (London: Williams Lea Group, 2016), vol. 3, section 3.6, 135–138.
20. Ibid., vol. 3, section 3.6, 135–138, 165; see also vol. 5, section 6.1, 175; section 6.5.
21. Ibid., vol. 3, section 3.6, 140–141.
22. Ibid., vol. 3, section 3.6, 147–148.
23. Ibid., vol. 5, section 6.4 and section 6.5, 333–338.
24. Ibid., vol. 5, section 6.5, 360–407.
25. Franks, American Soldier, 441 (emphasis in original).
26. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xix.
27. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 82–84.
28. A “Rock Drill” is simply a rehearsal, often using a model of the area of operations and icons representing friendly and enemy forces, in which commanders brief their actions in support of the campaign.
29. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 87–94.
30. Ibid., 93–94.
31. Ibid., 92.
32. Ibid., 138–163. The Joint Staff conducted its own war game in the fall of 2002, Prominent Hammer II, which highlighted the need for a military headquarters for Phase IV.
33. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 15.
34. Ibid.
35. Paul D. Wolfowitz, “Deputy Secretary of Defense Testimony to House Budget Committee,” House Budget Committee, February 27, 2003.
36. The US government did outline a series of unclassified bullet points capturing the essence, but without using the ends-ways-means approach to strategy. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Principals Committee Review of Iraq Policy Paper,” October 29, 2002.
37. Franks, American Soldier, 392–393.
38. Franks, American Soldier, 366; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xx; Wolfowitz, “Deputy Secretary of Defense Testimony to House Budget Committee.” Lieutenant General William Scott Wallace, the ground force commander, recalled, “But what in fact happened, which was unanticipated at least in [my mind], is that when [we] decapitated the regime, everything below it fell apart.” “Interview with General William Scott Wallace for Frontline: The Invasion of Iraq,” PBS Frontline, February 26, 2004.
39. Three days before the war, Vice President Richard Cheney clearly articulated this view, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Richard Cheney, “Remarks to Meet the Press,” NBC Meet the Press, March 16, 2003. See also Joel Brinkley and Eric Schmitt, “Iraqi Leaders Say U.S. Was Warned of Disorder after Hussein, but Little Was Done,” New York Times, November 30, 2003. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 9–11.
40. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 9–11.
41. Franks, American Soldier, 419. See also Woodward, State of Denial, 111–131.
42. Commission on Presidential Debates, “The Second Gore-Bush Presidential Debate Transcript,” October 11, 2000; “Rumsfeld Opposed to Any U.S. Role in Nation Building,” Washington Times, December 2, 2001; “Interview with John Hamre,” PBS Frontline, July 23, 2004; Jonah Goldberg, “Bush, Gore, and Nation-Building,” The National Review, October 23, 2000.
43. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 503–504; Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Beyond ‘Nation-Building,’” Washington Post, September 25, 2003.
44. Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building.
45. James T. Quinlivan, “Force Requirements in Stability Operations,” Parameters 15, no. 4 (winter 1995–96): 59–69.
46. US Department of State, Somalia 1992–3, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/somalia.
47. Laurent Dubois, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012); Jonathan M. Katz, The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster (New York: Palgrave, 2013).
48. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 17.
49. “Interview with James Fallows for Frontline: The Invasion of Iraq,” PBS Frontline, February 26, 2004.
50. “American Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq,” New York Times, June 22, 2011; “Iraq War in Figures,” BBC, December 14, 2011.
51. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 9; Franks, American Soldier, 366.
52. See Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 8, note 11.
53. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 6–8.
54. Ibid., 9.
55. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 31–33.
56. Ibid., 33.
57. “New State Department Releases on the ‘Future of Iraq’ Project,” National Security Archive; “Turf Wars and the Future of Iraq,” PBS Frontline, October 9, 2003; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 29–33.
58. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 32.
59. Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Little Learning,” New Yorker, May 9, 2005.
60. “Turf Wars and the Future of Iraq,” PBS Frontline; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xx, 31. The Department of Defense, in fact, reportedly blocked the effort’s leader, Tom Warrick, from becoming ORHA chief Jay Garner’s deputy.
61. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld: A Parade of Horribles,” October 15, 2002.
62. Reported in Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 468, 570–571. For an excerpt from the report, see “A Long, Difficult, and Probably Turbulent Process,” New York Times, October 20, 2004.
63. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 9–10.
64. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 27; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 9–11.
65. Brent Scowcroft, “Don’t Attack Saddam,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2002.
66. Brinkley and Schmitt, “Iraqi Leaders Say U.S. Was Warned of Disorder after Hussein.”
67. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xxi–xxiii; for Task Force IV, see also 41–51, for ORHA, see 53–72.
68. Ibid., xix–xx.
1. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 478–479.
2. The Rumsfeld Papers, “Donald Rumsfeld: President’s Goal,” October 14, 2003.
3. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Exile Finds Ties to U.S. a Boon and a Barrier,” Washington Post, April 27, 2003; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 27–32.
4. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 478–479.
5. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 30; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xiii–xiv; 106–107.
6. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 114–118.
7. Scott Wilson, “U.S. Delays Timeline for Iraqi Government,” Washington Post, May 22, 2003; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xxii–xxiii, 53–72.
8. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Iraqis Assail U.S. Plans for Council,” Washington Post, June 3, 2003; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 268.
9. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.S. to Appoint Council in Iraq,” Washington Post, June 2, 2003.
10. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, 167. Sunni Arabs make up roughly 20 percent of the Iraqi population.
11. Dan Murphy, “Baghdad’s Tale of Two Councils,” Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2003.
12. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xxvii. Dobbins notes that Bremer restrained more aggressive de-Ba’athification measures proposed by the IGC. Ricks, Fiasco, 154–155.
13. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 476; Chandrasekaran, “Exile Finds Ties to U.S. a Boon and a Barrier.”
14. Ricks, Fiasco, 162.
15. Dexter Filkins and Ian Fisher, “U.S. Is Now in Battle for Peace after Winning the War in Iraq,” New York Times, May 3, 2003; Edmund L. Andrews and Patrick E. Tyler, “As Iraqis’ Disaffection Grows, U.S. Offers Them a Greater Political Role,” New York Times, June 7, 2003.
16. Ricks, Fiasco, 164.
17. Ibid.
18. “Two Killed in Baghdad Protest,” CNN, June 18, 2003.
19. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 484.
20. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 26.
21. See L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 23–49.
22. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xxxvi–xxxvii.
23. Ibid., xxiii–xxv.
24. Ibid., xxvi.
25. Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq.”
26. David Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East,” The Atlantic, November 1, 2015.
27. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Leading Sunni Arab Slate Rep on Elections, U.S. Role in Iraq,” December 5, 2005.
28. “Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Falluja,” Human Rights Watch, June 16, 2003.
29. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 491–492.
30. Ricks, Fiasco, 232–240, 258–261; “Iraq: ICRC Explains Position over Detention Report and Treatment of Prisoners,” International Committee of the Red Cross Resource Centre, May 8, 2004; David S. Cloud, Carla Anne Robbins, and Greg Jaffe, “Red Cross Found Widespread Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2004.
31. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 93.
32. McChrystal et al., Team of Teams, 2, 24, 27; McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 107–108, 119–122.
33. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 298–301.
34. Ibid., 298; The Rumsfeld Papers, “Info Memo from Hume Horan to the Administrator, ‘Subject: Muqtada al-Sadr’s Published Threats,’” July 31, 2003; The Rumsfeld Papers, “Memo from Secretary Rumsfeld to L. Paul Bremer, III, ‘Re: CPA Issues,’” August 4, 2003.
35. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 301–307.
36. Ibid., 301
37. Coalition Provisional Authority, “Vision for Iraq,” July 11, 2003.
38. Coalition Provisional Authority, “Achieving the Vision: Taking Forward the CPA Strategic Plan for Iraq,” July 18, 2003, 1.
39. Coalition Provisional Authority, “Vision for Iraq.”
40. Dexter Filkins, “Iraqi Council Picks a Cabinet to Run Key State Affairs,” New York Times, September 2, 2003. One position, minister of information, remained unfilled. By contrast 14 of 24 members were Shi’a and 4 were Kurds.
41. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “How Cleric Trumped U.S. Plan for Iraq,” Washington Post, November 26, 2003.
42. Ian Sipress, “Once-Dominant Minority Forms Council to Counter Shiites and Negotiate Future,” Washington Post, January 6, 2004. For the IGC vote, see Joel Brinkley, “Iraqi Council Agrees on National Elections,” New York Times, December 1, 2003.
43. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 269–270.
44. Ibid., 114–119.
45. Yochi J. Dreazen, “Insurgents Turn Guns on Iraqis Backing Democracy,” Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2003; Douglas Jehl, “CIA Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in U.S. Efforts,” New York Times, November 13, 2003; Gregg Zoroya, “Danger Puts Distance Between Council, People,” USA Today, October 21, 2003; Scott Wilson, “Iraqi Council’s Leader Is Slain,” Washington Post, May 18, 2004.
46. Dexter Filkins and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Truck Bombing; Huge Suicide Blast Demolishes U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad,” New York Times, August 20, 2003.
47. Patrick E. Tyler, “Iraqi Factions Seek to Take Over Security Duties,” New York Times, September 19, 2003; Alex Berenson, “Security: Use of Private Militias in Iraq Is Not Likely Soon, U.S. Says,” New York Times, November 6, 2003.
48. Steven R. Hurst, “Shi’ite Picked to Be Iraq’s First President,” Washington Times, July 31, 2003.
49. “Arab League Nations Agree to Grant Seat to Iraq’s Council,” New York Times, September 9, 2003; John Daniszewski and Jailan Zayan, “Iraqi Council’s Foreign Minister Takes a Seat at the Arab League’s Table,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2003; Bruce Stanley, “Iraq to Attend Next Week’s OPEC Meeting,” New York Times, September 17, 2003.
50. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Iraqi Council Denies Access to Two Arab Satellite Networks,” Washington Post, September 24, 2003.
51. L. Paul Bremer, “Iraq’s Path to Sovereignty,” Washington Post, September 8, 2003. See also “Bremer’s Seven-Step Plan for Iraqi Sovereignty,” PBS Frontline, October 17, 2006.
52. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 14–15; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, xxxv.
53. “The Lost Year in Iraq,” PBS Frontline.
54. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, 210–243; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.N. Envoy Backs Iraqi Vote,” Washington Post, February 13, 2004; Colum Lynch, “U.N. Plan for Iraq Transition Released,” Washington Post, February 24, 2004; Nick Wadhams, “U.N. Says No to Iraq Elections Until at Least 2005,” Associated Press Worldstream, February 23, 2004; Dexter Filkins, “Iraqi Ayatollah Insists on Vote by End of Year,” New York Times, February 27, 2004; Tom Lasseter, “Top Cleric Spurns U.S. Plans,” Miami Herald, January 26, 2004; Maggie Farley and Sonni Efron, “U.N. Envoy May Provide the Key to a Transfer of Power in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2004; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 40–48; Edward Cody, “Influential Cleric Backs New Iraqi Government,” Washington Post, June 4, 2004; William Douglas and John Walcott, “U.S. Focuses on Faster Handover to the Iraqis,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 13, 2003; Robin Wright and Daniel Williams, “U.S. to Back Re-Formed Iraq Body,” Washington Post, November 13, 2003; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 271–273.
55. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 20–21.
56. Ibid., 22–23, 703.
57. Mark Danner, “Abu Ghraib: The Hidden Story,” New York Review of Books, October 7, 2004; Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Scott Wilson, “Mistreatment of Detainees Went Beyond Guards’ Abuse,” Washington Post, May 11, 2004.
58. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 36–37.
59. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East.”
60. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 57–58.
61. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 89–109; Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East”; William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015).
62. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 58–59.
63. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 307.
64. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 66.
65. Ricks, Fiasco, 330–335; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 56–66.
66. Ricardo Sánchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 350–355.
67. Ibid., 364–365.
68. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 67–73.
69. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 312–314; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 66.
1. David Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “Hot Topic: How U.S. Might Disengage in Iraq,” New York Times, January 10, 2005.
2. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 95–97.
3. Quoted in ibid., 97.
4. The White House, “President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror,” June 28, 2005.
5. To deflect growing criticism about the direction of the war, the Bush administration released an unclassified version of its strategy. See US National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, November 30, 2005.
6. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Sunni Leaders on Constitution Drafting,” June 16, 2005.
7. Meghan O’Sullivan and Razzaq al-Saiedi, “Choosing an Electoral System: Iraq’s Three Electoral Experiments, Their Results, and Their Political Implications,” Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center, Working Paper, April 29, 2014, 10–11. See also United Nations, “Iraq Electoral Factsheet,” January 2005.
8. O’Sullivan and al-Saiedi, “Choosing an Electoral System,” 10–11; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 135.
9. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 135.
10. “Election Guide: Republic of Iraq, 30 January 2005,” International Foundation for Electoral Systems; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 135.
11. US Embassy Ankara cables, “GOT and Turkmen Raise Grievances over Kirkuk,” January 19, 2005, and “Iraqi Turkmen Groups Square Off in Turkey,” June 6, 2005; US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Sunni Negotiators Stick to Call for Leaders Discuss Current Political Obstacles, Delay on Federalism Until New National Assembly,” August 22, 2005; “New Election Law Highlights,” September 16, 2005; “Shi’a Independent Alleges IECI Corruption,” December 8, 2005, and “Electoral War Heats Up—Jazeera and Furat Channel Feuds Spark Demonstrations in Baghdad,” December 15, 2005.
12. Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, 336.
13. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “AMB Urges Sunni Political Leaders to Denounce Violence, Help End the Insurgency,” January 9, 2006; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 140–141.
14. “173 Sunnis Freed from Secret Iraqi Torture Bunker,” Washington Times, November 16, 2005; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 144–150; 185–187.
15. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 142–143, 151–157, 188–189, 191–195; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 327–328.
16. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “TNA Member Qasim Daoud on Constitution, Sistani, and Possible Breakup of United Iraqi Alliance,” July 3, 2005.
17. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “New Election Law Highlights.”
18. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Watch Salah Ad-Din and Ninewa Provinces to Determine Fate of the Draft Constitution,” October 11, 2005.
19. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “First Reactions to Referendum: Shi’a Confidence, Sunni Arabs Reflective,” October 15, 2005, and “Official Result Shows the Constitution Passes—Mixed Sunni Arab Reactions,” October 25, 2005.
20. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Review of Election Campaign Status with U.S. NGO’s,” December 8, 2005; “Shi’a Independent Alleges IECI Corruption”; and “Election Update: Special Voting, Kirkuk Decision, and Complaints,” December 13, 2005.
21. US Embassy Riyadh cable, “Ambassador Khalilzad Seeks Post-Iraqi Elections Support from Saudi Leaders,” January 2, 2006.
22. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Electoral War Heats Up”; “AMB Urges Sunni Political Leaders to Denounce Violence”; and “Constitution Review Should Be Delayed Says Sunni Hard-Line Leader Mutlak,” January 20, 2006; Anthony Cordesman, The Impact of the Iraqi Election: A Working Analysis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 10, 2006, 4.
23. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Sunni Leaders Fear Street Reaction to Election Review Report,” January 21, 2006.
24. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Shi’a Alliance Leaders Blame MNF-I and Sunnis for Current Security Situation,” January 7, 2006, and “PM Ja’afari, MOI Jabr, MOD Dulime Blame Coalition for Current Security Situation,” January 8, 2006.
25. Ayad Allawi, “How Iraq’s Elections Set Back Democracy,” New York Times, November 2, 2007.
26. “What the Iraqi Public Wants,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), January 31, 2006, 8.
27. Ali Khedery, “Why We Stuck with Maliki—and Lost Iraq,” Washington Post, July 3, 2014.
28. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 211–219. JAM was part of Maliki’s governing coalition.
29. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Leading Sunni Arab Slate Rep on Elections.”
30. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 216.
31. US Embassy Riyadh cable, “Ambassador Khalilzad Seeks Post-Iraqi Elections Support from Saudi Leaders.”
32. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 210.
33. “Iraq Index,” Brookings Institution, September 27, 2007, 7–8.
34. Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti, “Toll in Iraq’s Deadly Surge: 1,300,” Washington Post, February 28, 2006.
35. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 211–212.
1. Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xvii; “The Lost Year in Iraq,” PBS Frontline; Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, 326–333; Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq.” Bremer argued that failure to provide security was the biggest obstacle to progress and lamented in 2006 the persistent lack of a military plan to defeat the Sunni insurgency. See Bremer, My Year in Iraq, 397–399.
2. Paul R. Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 2 (March/April 2006): 15–27, 18–19; Conrad C. Crane, “Phase IV Operations: Where Wars Are Really Won,” Military Review (May–June 2005): 27–36.
3. Wolfowitz, “Deputy Secretary of Defense Testimony to House Budget Committee.”
4. Interview with Lieutenant General Terry A. Wolff.
5. Michael Eisenstadt and Jeffrey White, “Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency,” Policy Focus No. 50, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, December 2005, 2–3.
6. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 503.
7. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 2.
8. Dobbins and Miller, “Overcoming Obstacles to Peace.” See also Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building, 316; Kolenda, The Counterinsurgency Challenge.
1. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 158–179.
2. Ibid., 267–311.
3. Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013); Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 329–350.
4. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East.”
5. Woodward, State of Denial.
6. Stanley, Paths to Peace, shows that a change in regime is normally needed to alter a “sticky” strategy.
1. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1546, June 8, 2004, and 1723, November 28, 2006; see also US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress, October 2005, 6.
2. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 20.
3. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, October 2005, 2–4.
4. Gareth Porter, “US/IRAQ: General Reveals Rift with Rumsfeld on Insurgents,” Inter Press Service, April 15, 2006; National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 6–7.
5. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 6–7.
6. David Morgan, “U.S. Trying to Understand Iraq Insurgency: Negroponte,” Reuters, September 29, 2005.
7. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress, March 2008, 18; events and red trend-lines added. For more on the challenges of assessing insurgencies, see Thomas C. Mayer, War without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985). On analytical measures, see James G. Roche and Barry D. Watts, “Choosing Analytic Measures,” Journal of Strategic Studies 14, no. 2 (1991): 165–209.
8. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 13. Security metrics included: “The quantity and quality of Iraqi units; the number of actionable intelligence tips received from Iraqis; the percentage of operations conducted by Iraqis alone or with minor Coalition assistance; the number of car bombs intercepted and defused; offensive operations conducted by Iraqi and Coalition forces; and the number of contacts initiated by Coalition forces, as opposed to the enemy. . . . These indicators have more strategic significance than the metrics that the terrorists and insurgents want the world to use as a measure of progress or failure: number of bombings.”
9. See Etienne Vincent, Philip Eles, and Boris Vasiliev, “Opinion Polling in Support of Counterinsurgency,” in The Cornwallis Group XIV: Analysis of Societal Conflict and Counter-Insurgency (Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command Operational Research Team Centre for Operational Research and Analysis, Defence Research and Development, 2009).
10. “Nationwide Poll of Iraq,” USA Today/CNN/Gallup, March/April 2004.
11. US Department of State, “Opinion Analysis,” M-106-04, Office of Research, September 16, 2004, Appendix 6A; Bensahel et al., After Saddam, xxvi, note 7.
12. Several polls in 2004 and 2005 showed Sunni support for insurgent attacks ranging from 43 percent to 85 percent. See Michael Eisenstadt, “The Sunni Arab Insurgency: A Spent or Rising Force?” Policy Watch 1028, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 26, 2005; “What the Iraqi Public Wants,” World Public Opinion.org, January 2–5, 2006; see also “Iraq Index,” Brookings Institution, September 27, 2007.
13. Woodward, State of Denial, 471.
14. “Iraq Insurgency in ‘Last Throes,’ Cheney Says,” CNN, June 20, 2005. The article refers to a May 30, 2005, interview of Cheney on Larry King Live.
15. “Interview with General John Abizaid,” Face the Nation, CBS, June 26, 2005. In a population of 27 million Iraqis, 0.1 percent would be 27,000 people. If accurate, such a percentage would be historically very low by comparison. See Eisenstadt and White, “Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency,” 8–11, who assess a more likely figure of 100,000.
16. “Rumsfeld: Iraq Not Fated to Civil War,” CNN, August 23, 2005; Ricks, Fiasco, 168–172.
17. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, October 2005, 3.
18. Woodward, State of Denial, 475.
19. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 7. By August 2006, the Department of Defense acknowledged the increasing risk of sectarian civil war but noted optimism that movement toward civil war could be prevented. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress, August 2006, 34.
20. Interviewee K: Elements in Iraqi society were mobilizing against foreign occupation. See also David Ignatius, “A Shift on Iraq,” Washington Post, September 26, 2005; Nagl, Knife Fights, 161.
21. “Rumsfeld: Don’t Call Iraqi Enemy ‘Insurgents,’” NBC News, November 29, 2005.
22. Interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik, commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, 2007–2008.
23. Gerry J. Gilmore, “Iraqis, Not Coalition, Must Defeat Insurgents, Rumsfeld Says,” American Forces Press Service, March 30, 2005.
24. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 137–139.
25. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, August 2006.
26. Woodward, State of Denial, 400.
27. Nir Rosen, “If America Left Iraq: The Case for Cutting and Running,” The Atlantic, December 2005, forecasted, “If the occupation were to end, so, too, would the insurgency. After all, what the resistance movement has been resisting is the occupation.”
1. Interview with Douglas E. Lute, who emphasized the lack of a coordinated diplomatic-political-military strategy; interviewees A, B, C, D, and O.
2. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Deputy Secretary Covers Political Process, Economics and Sectarian Violence in May 19 Meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Shaways,” June 1, 2005; “Charge Advances USG Approach to Constitution and Sunni Inclusion with UNAMI,” June 13, 2005; “SCIRI Leader Hakim Offers Charge Assurances of Flexibility on Sunni Inclusion, Constitutional Issues,” July 5, 2005; “Iraq Beginning to Focus on Planning for Reconciliation and Consolidating National Unity,” June 5, 2006; “The National Reconciliation and Dialogue Project,” June 22, 2006; “Prime Minister Ready to Launch National Reconciliation Proposal,” June 25, 2006; “Ambassador’s August 6 and 7 Meetings with PM Maliki,” and “Iraqi MOD—Quelling Violence Top Priority,” August 12, 2006; “Iraqi Prime Minister Upbeat to CODEL Frist,” October 7, 2006; “PM Raises Sunni Leadership, UNSCR and International Compact with Ambassador,” November 13, 2006; “Prime Minister Maliki Discusses Moderate Front and Security with Senators Dodd and Kerry,” December 20, 2006.
3. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Sunni Arab Outreach in Iraq: Mission Plans,” September 6, 2005.
4. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 6–7.
5. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraq Beginning to Focus on Planning for Reconciliation.”
6. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Jafari Pledges More Sunni Dialogue, Says Insurgency Appears Isolated, Desperate,” June 1, 2005.
7. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Iraq Beginning to Focus on Planning for Reconciliation”; “The National Reconciliation and Dialogue Project,” June 22, 2006; and “Prime Minister Ready to Launch National Reconciliation Proposal,” June 25, 2006.
8. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 173. For other examples, see ibid., 26, 35–37, 82–84, 96–97, 131–133, 135–139, 141, 168–175, 216–219, 228–229, 239, 241–263.
9. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “The President’s 28 June Speech Provokes Both Applause and Complaints from Iraqi Politicians,” July 11, 2005; “July 2 Meeting of Charge MNF-I CG with Iraqi Interior Minister,” July 15, 2005; “Sectarian Violence Hampers Sunni Participation in Political Process,” August 30, 2005.
10. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Action Plan to Build Capacity and Sustainability Within Iraqi’s Provincial Governments,” October 1, 2005.
11. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “MOI Press Conference Misses Human Rights Mark”; July 11, 2005; “Militias and Other Armed Groups in Iraq—Confronting the Sectarian Divide,” March 13, 2006; “Security Still Main Concern for Sunni Leaders,” March 24, 2006; “Demarche to Iraqi Interior Minister on Site 4,” August 7, 2006; and “Ambassador and General Casey Urge PM Maliki to Act Decisively to End Violence,” October 16, 2006.
12. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Deputy Secretary Covers Political Process, Economics and Sectarian Violence,” “Jafari Pledges More Sunni Dialogue,” “Deputy Speaker of Council of Representatives: Problems with the Speaker and Fear of Baathists,” August 6, 2006; and “Senator Brownback Meets with Iraqi PM Maliki,” January 12, 2007.
13. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “US Forces in Baghdad Implement Large-Scale Human Rights Initiatives,” June 3, 2005.
14. Ibid.; US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Rusafa Prison Conditions Surprisingly Good,” July 5, 2005; “Hard-Line Sunni Arab Group Urges U.S. Stay in Iraq,” July 7, 2005; “MOI Press Conference Misses Human Rights Mark”; “New Cases of Apparent Abuses Raise More Sunni Arab Complaints against Interior Ministry,” July 21, 2005; “Sectarian Violence Hampers Sunni Participation in Political Process”; “MCNS Meets to Discuss Security in Baghdad, Tal Afar, Sectarian Strife,” October 6, 2005; “CODEL Shays Calls on Iraqi Minister of Interior,” October 10, 2005; “CODEL Hoekstra Meets Iraqi Minister of Interior,” and “District Council Members Declare No Trust in Iraqi Police,” March 24, 2006; “Fallujah: Army-police Friction and Perceived U.S. ‘Mixed Messages,’” April 3, 2006; “Meeting with New Minister of Interior, Jawad Al-Bolani,” June 22, 2006; “Demarche to Iraqi Interior Minister on Site 4”; “Allegations of Secret Prisons in Kurdistan”; “SECDEF Meets with Iraqi National Security Team,” December 24, 2006.
15. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Charge Satterfield Meeting with Iraqi Minister of Interior,” June 8, 2005.
16. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “July 2 Meeting of Charge MNF-I CG with Iraqi Interior Minister.”
17. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Updated Status of Iraq Detainee Abuse Investigations,” December 1, 2005, and “Bunker Investigation Falters, Nationwide Inspections Gather Steam,” December 15, 2005.
18. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Under Secretary of Defense Edelman Meets with Iraqi Minister of Interior,” October 20, 2005.
19. Robin Wright and Jim VandeHei, “Unlikely Allies Map Future,” Washington Post, June 24, 2005.
20. Eric Schmitt, “2,000 More M.P.’s Will Help Train the Iraqi Police,” New York Times, January 16, 2006.
21. For a description of the sectarian strategy for control of Baghdad, see Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 298.
22. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Fallujah: Grass Roots Politics—Leaders Initiate Political and Security Meetings,” June 20, 2005.
23. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Successful Damage Control after Raid on Leading Sunni Party Leader,” June 11, 2005.
24. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Dulame and Rubaie Disucss Iraqi Security with Ambassador,” July 27, 2005.
25. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East”; Knickmeyer and Sebti, “Toll in Iraq’s Deadly Surge.”
26. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Fallujah: Army-Police Friction and Perceived U.S. ‘Mixed Messages.’”
27. Dexter Filkins, “What We Left Behind in Iraq,” New Yorker, April 28, 2014.
28. Nussaibah Younis, “The US-Iraq Disconnect over Fighting ISIS,” Atlantic Council, December 18, 2015.
29. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Dawa Hardliner Insists Deep-seated Fear of Former Regime Drives Shi’a Politics,” March 20, 2006.
30. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Prime Minister Maliki Discusses Moderate Front and Security with Senators Dodd and Kerry,” December 20, 2006; “Deputy Speaker of Council of Representatives: Problems with the Speaker and Fear of Baathists,” August 6, 2006; “Senator Brownback Meets with Iraqi Pm Maliki,” January 12, 2007.
31. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 227, 239.
32. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Ambassador’s Meeting with Mindef Al-Dulime,” September 4, 2005; “PM Ja’afari Plans Major Shakeup of Iraqi Military Leadership; Warned by MNF-I and Embassy,” December 4, 2005; “The Disillusioned MINDEF Dulime,” March 25, 2006; “MINDEF Dulime Conveys Security Concerns to Ambassador,” April 30, 2006.
33. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Collaboration and Confrontation Between MOI and MOD Forces,” March 3, 2006.
34. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi MOD—Quelling Violence Top Priority.”
35. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi Army Officers Discuss Internal Militia Influence, U.S. Troop Levels,” January 14, 2007.
36. Filkins, “What We Left Behind in Iraq.”
37. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Meeting with New Minister of Interior, Jawad Al-Bolani.”
38. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Demarche to Iraqi Interior Minister on Site 4.”
39. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Leahy in Iraq,” October 9, 2006.
40. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “CODEL Reed Advises MOI That Time Is Running Out,” October 13, 2006.
41. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 272.
42. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “MOI Bolani Slow to Develop Reform Plan,” January 7, 2007.
43. Nouri al-Maliki, “Our Strategy for a Democratic Iraq,” Washington Post, June 9, 2006; Solomon Moore, “U.S. Diplomat Defends Maliki’s Strategy,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2006; Dan Murphy, “Kerry Has Advice for Maliki, but the US Has Few Good Options in Iraq,” Christian Science Monitor, June 23, 2014.
44. Filkins, “What We Left Behind in Iraq.”
45. Nancy Trejos, “U.S. Report Rejected by Iraqi President,” Washington Post, December 11, 2006.
46. Quoted in Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 273.
1. Huntington, The Soldier and the State.
2. Interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik, who recalled that Maliki expressed such concerns to him. Although the prime minister did not use the word coup himself, Dubik said Maliki was clear what was meant. Interviewee A also noted Maliki’s fears about a coup.
3. Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Anchor Books, 2007).
4. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Joint Working Group to Assess Iraqi Armed Forces,” July 3, 2006; “August 18 Meeting Between Iraqi PM, Ambassador, and MNF-I CG,” August 22, 2006; “Ambassador and General Casey Urge PM Maliki to Act Decisively to End Violence”; “Iraqi PM Seeks Greater Authority but Questions Troop Readiness,” October 29, 2006; and “PM Raises Sunni Leadership, UNSCR and International Compact with Ambassador,” November 13, 2006.
5. US Embassy cable, “Iraqi PM Seeks Greater Authority but Questions Troop Readiness” (emphasis added).
6. Ibid.; US Embassy Baghdad cables, “PM Tells CODEL Mccain Better Weapons and Quicker Transfer Needed, Not More Troops,” December 14, 2006; “Iraqi PM Maliki Tells CODEL Pelosi 50,000 U.S. Troops Could Be out in Three to Six Months, Iraq Seeks Lead on Security,” January 30, 2007; and “PM Maliki Frustrated with the Slow Pace of the BSP,” February 8, 2007.
7. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi Prime Minister Upbeat to CODEL Frist.”
8. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Ambassador’s August 6 and 7 Meetings with PM Maliki”; “August 18 Meeting Between Iraqi PM, Ambassador, and MNF-I CG”; “Ambassador and General Casey Urge PM Maliki to Act Decisively to End Violence”; and “PM Maliki Frustrated with the Slow Pace of the BSP.”
9. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi PM Maliki Urges Iraqi Control over Security, in Meeting with NSA Hadley,” November 9, 2006.
10. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “PM Maliki Frustrated with the Slow Pace of the BSP.”
11. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Ambassador and General Casey Urge PM Maliki to Act Decisively to End Violence.”
12. Interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik; interviewees A, D, and O.
13. For a discussion of the operation, see Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 470–504.
1. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 284.
2. Ibid., 273, 283–286.
3. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Choices, Values, and Frames,” American Psychologist 39, no. 4 (1984): 341–350.
4. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 285.
5. Ibid., 292–299; Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler, “Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem,” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 6 (1990): 1325–1348; Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, no. 2 (1979): 263–292. For criticism of the endowment effect, see Michael W. Hanemann, “Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: How Much Can They Differ? Reply,” American Economic Review 81, no. 3 (1991): 635–647.
6. Iklé, Every War Must End, 83; Reiter, How Wars End, 15–16, notes that belligerents will raise demands after successes and lower them after defeats. Reiter, however, does not account for prospect theory’s notion that potential future gains tend to be less important than previous ones.
7. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 278–288; Kahneman and Tversky, “Prospect Theory.”
8. Downs and Rocke, “Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection.”
9. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 317, 354–345.
10. National Security Council, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, 2–6 (emphasis added).
11. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress, July 2005, October 2005, February 2006, May 2006, and August 2006.
12. Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., “How to Win in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (September/October 2005): 87–104.
13. Mansoor, Surge, 5–33.
14. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Leslie H. Gelb, “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq,” New York Times, May 1, 2006
15. Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006–2008 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 4–13.
16. Mansoor, Surge, 32–33.
17. James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward: A New Approach (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 2006), 50; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 279–280.
18. Quoted in Woodward, The War Within, 10.
19. Kimberly Kagan, The Surge: A Military History (New York: Encounter Books, 2009), 27–29.
20. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 304.
21. Matthew Kaminski, “Why the Surge Worked,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2008; Woodward, The War Within, 281.
22. “Text of U.S. Security Adviser’s Iraq Memo,” New York Times, November 29, 2006; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 287–291.
23. Bush, Decision Points, 93–94; Michael A. Fletcher and Peter Baker, “Bush Ousts Embattled Rumsfeld; Democrats Near Control of Senate,” Washington Post, November 9, 2006.
24. Woodward, The War Within, 232–234.
25. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 293–294.
26. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, August 2006.
27. Sabrina Tavernise and John F. Burns, “Promising Troops Where They Aren’t Really Wanted,” New York Times, January 11, 2007; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 308.
1. George W. Bush, “President Bush Addresses Nation on Iraq War,” Congressional Quarterly Transcripts Wire, January 10, 2007.
2. According to a Gallup survey, support for the war continuously decreased from 72 percent on March 22/23, 2003, to 36 percent on January 15–18, 2007, Gallup.com, “In Depth: Topics A to Z: Iraq” (accessed April 30, 2019).
3. Interviewees A, B, C, D, and O; quotation from interviewee O.
4. Interview with Douglas E. Lute.
5. US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress, March 2007, 1–2.
6. Biddle et al., “Testing the Surge.”
7. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 369–388.
8. Filkins, “What We Left Behind in Iraq”; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 213–219.
9. Interviewees A and D; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 502–503.
10. Interviewees C, K, and B.
11. Interview with Douglas E. Lute; interviewees A, B, and D.
12. Interview with Douglas E. Lute.
13. General (Ret.) James L. Jones, USMC, The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, September 6, 2007, 17–20.
14. For a detailed discussion of reform efforts, see Lieutenant General James M. Dubik, “Building Security Forces and Ministerial Capacity: Iraq as a Primer,” Institute for the Study of War, 2009.
15. Interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik.
16. Warrick, Black Flags; Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East”; McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse.
17. Interview with General David H. Petraeus.
18. Interviewee A.
19. Interviewees A, B, D, K, and O.
20. Interviewees A, B, D, and K.
1. Clausewitz, On War, 100–112.
2. “Public Attitudes Toward the War in Iraq: 2003–2008,” Pew Research Center, March 19, 2008.
3. “U.S. Politics and Policy, Section 2: Views of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Pew Research Center, September 24, 2008.
4. Barack Obama, “My Plan for Iraq,” New York Times, July 14, 2008; “Obama’s Key Promises,” Washington Post, January 20, 2010.
5. “Exit Polls: Obama Wins Big Among Young, Minority Voters,” CNN Election Center, November 4, 2008.
6. Joseph Logan, “Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq, Ending War,” Reuters, December 18, 2011.
1. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 21–26; 184–189.
2. Ibid., 369–388.
3. Priyanka Boghani, “James Jeffrey: Iraq Was a ‘Historic, Dramatic’ Failure for Bush and Obama,” PBS Frontline, July 29, 2014.
4. US CENTCOM commander Admiral Fox Fallon argued in June 2007 that the United States should reduce its presence in Iraq due to failures to advance reconciliation, among other issues. Gates, Duty, 68–70.
5. “Iraqi PM backs Obama Troop Exit Plan: Report,” Reuters, July 19, 2008.
6. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 673–688.
7. Stephen Wicken, “Iraq’s Sunnis in Crisis,” Institute for the Study of War, May 2013; Jessica Lewis, “The Islamic State of Iraq Returns to Diyala,” Institute for the Study of War, April 2014.
8. McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse; Warrick, Black Flags; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 230.
9. Lewis, “The Islamic State of Iraq Returns to Diyala.”
10. Michael R. Gordon and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “In Shift, U.S. Will Send 450 Advisers to Help Iraq Fight ISIS,” New York Times, June 10, 2015.
1. Some contend even the military success was illusory, arguing that ethnic cleansing had been so successful that there were simply fewer targets for sectarian rivals to attack. See Nils B. Weidmann and Idean Salehyan, “Violence and Ethnic Segregation: A Computational Model Applied to Baghdad,” International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2013): 52–64; Lawrence Korb, Brian Katulis, Sean Duggan, and Peter Juul, How Does This End? Strategic Failures Overshadow Tactical Gains in Iraq (Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, 2008). For a compelling refutation of this argument, see Biddle et al, “Testing the Surge.”
2. Kagan, The Surge; John McCain and Joe Lieberman, “The Surge Worked,” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2008; Max Boot, “The Truth about Iraq’s Casualty Count,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2008; James R. Crider, “A View from Inside the Surge,” Military Review 89, no. 2 (March/April 2009): 81–88; General David H. Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq,” Foreign Policy, October 29, 2013; Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq (New York: Perseus, 2008); Baker, “Petraeus Parallels Iraq, Afghanistan Strategies.”
3. Austin Long, “The Anbar Awakening,” Survival 50, no. 2 (April/May 2008): 67–94; Steven Simon, “The Price of the Surge,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (2008): 57–76; Marc Lynch, “Sunni World,” American Prospect (September 13, 2007); Jim Michaels, A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq’s Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War (New York: St. Martin’s, 2010); Daniel R. Green, “The Fallujah Awakening: A Case Study in Counter-Insurgency,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 21, no. 4 (December 2010): 591–609.
4. Biddle et al., “Testing the Surge”; Stephen Biddle, “Stabilizing Iraq from the Bottom Up,” testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 2, 2008; Gates, Duty, 51; Stephen Biddle, Michael O’Hanlon, and Kenneth Pollack, “How to Leave a Stable Iraq: Building on Progress,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 5 (September/October 2008): 40–58; Carter Malkasian, “Did the Coalition Need More Forces in Iraq?,” Joint Force Quarterly 46, no. 3 (2007): 120–126; Mansoor, Surge, 266. Colin H. Kahl, “Walk before Running,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 4 (July/August 2008): 151–154, also credits congressional threats of withdrawal.
5. Biddle et al., “Testing the Surge,” 9–10, 36–40.
6. Bush, “President Bush Addresses Nation on Iraq War.” See also Mansoor, Surge, 260–274.
7. Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq.”
8. Ibid.; Zachary Keck, “History’s Judgment: The Iraq Surge Failed,” The Diplomat, June 13, 2014; Peter Beinart, “The Surge Fallacy,” The Atlantic, September 2015; Mansoor, Surge, 269; Emma Sky, The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (New York: Perseus, 2015); Amber Phillips, “On Iraq, President Obama Is Getting as Much Blame as George W. Bush,” Washington Post, June 3, 2015. See also “Who Lost Iraq?” Politico (July/August 2015), https://politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/24/iraq-roundtable; Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East.”
1. George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation on the War on Terror from Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” June 28, 2005. See also Octavian Manea and John A. Nagl, “COIN Is Not Dead: An Interview with John Nagl,” Small Wars Journal, February 6, 2012.
2. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 7.
3. Paul et al., Paths to Victory, 177–178.
4. Jeanne F. Hull, “Iraq: Strategic Reconciliation, Targeting, and Key Leader Engagement,” Strategic Studies Institute, September 2009; Mansoor, Surge, 86.
5. Interviewees B and C.
6. Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq”; Boghani, “James Jeffrey.”
7. Gates, Duty, 38–57.
8. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Clinton’s Speech on Iraq, March 2008,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 17, 2008; Thom Shanker, “Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Muted by Reality,” New York Times, December 3, 2008.
9. United Nations, “Security Council, Acting on Iraq’s Request, Extends ‘For Last Time’ Mandate of Multinational Force,” December 18, 2007, renews UNSCR 1790.
10. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 530–539.
11. “Interview with Iraqi Leader Nouri al-Maliki: ‘The Tenure of Coalition Troops in Iraq Should Be Limited,’” Der Spiegel, July 19, 2008. American forces, said Maliki, should withdraw “As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
12. Dan Balz, “Obama Makes War Gains,” Washington Post, July 22, 2008; Chris Weigant, “Maliki’s Leverage over Bush,” Huffington Post, September 10, 2008; “Iraqi Backing of Obama Plan Irks White House,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
13. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “President Barzani—Nothing Is as It Should Be,” November 23, 2008; Beinart, “The Surge Fallacy.”
14. Interviewee B.
15. Interviewees A and B; Campbell Robertson and Tariq Maher, “35 Iraq Officials Held in Raids on Key Ministry,” New York Times, December 17, 2008; Rod Nordland, “Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote,” New York Times, March 27, 2010; David Ignatius, “Beyond the Coup Rumors, Options for Iraq,” Washington Post, October 13, 2006.
16. Maliki explored plans in July 2008 for downsizing the ISF, potentially to reduce the influence of opponents. See US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Maliki Calls for Downsizing Iraqi Security Forces,” July 24, 2009. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 539.
17. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Maliki Says Neighbors and JAM Are Serious Threats,” May 22, 2007, and “The Ambassador’s and General Petraeus’ April 14 Meeting with PM Maliki,” April 17, 2008; Christopher M. Blanchard, “Iraq: Regional Perspectives and U.S. Policy,” Congressional Research Service, December 1, 2008; US Embassy Doha cable, “U.S.-Qatar Gulf Security Dialogue (GSD),” December 18, 2007. For the Saudi Arabian government position, as told to US officials, see US Embassy Riyadh cables, “Saudi King Abdullah and Senior Princes on Saudi Policy Toward Iraq,” April 20, 2008, and “Saudi Mfa Official on Iraq,” August 6, 2008; Robert Kennedy, “Iraqi PM: Saudi Has a ‘Culture of Terrorism,’” al Jazeera, September 9, 2011); for Kuwaiti government views, see US Embassy Kuwait cable, “For Kuwait, the SOFA a Litmus Test of Iraqi Intentions and Iranian Influence,” October 29, 2008.
18. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi NSA Rubai on Ahmedi-Nejad’s Visit—Corrected Copy,” March 25, 2008; Michael Eisenstadt, Michael Knights, and Ahmed Ali, “Iran’s Influence in Iraq: Countering Tehran’s Whole-of-Government Approach,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 2011.
19. Interviewees B and K. For growing tensions with the Kurds, see US Embassy Baghdad cables, “AMB, CG and PM Discuss SOFA, SOI, Ambassador’s Trip to Erbil, GOI/KRG Relations and Elections Law,” September 21, 2008, “President Barzani—Nothing Is as It Should Be”; “Defense Under Secretary Edelman Meets Leaders of Kirkuk’s Ethnic Blocs; Kurds Refuse to Attend,” November 1, 2008, and “KRG Officials on Article 140 and Kirkuk,” January 11, 2008.
20. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Maliki Confidante Careful on SOFA and Disputes Importance of Sunni Arab Tribes for Security,” August 29, 2008.
21. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “AMB, CG and PM Discuss SOFA, SOI, Ambassador’s Trip to Erbil, GOI/KRG Relations and Elections Law.”
22. The White House, “Press Briefing by Dana Perino,” July 21, 2008; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 529–532; Karen DeYoung and Sudarsan Raghavan, “U.S., Iraqi Negotiators Agree on 2011 Withdrawal,” Washington Post, August 22, 2008; Julian E. Barnes and Paul Richter, “Bush Agrees to ‘Horizon’ for Pullout,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2008.
23. “Bush Vetoes War-Funding Bill with Withdrawal Timetable,” CNN, May 2, 2007.
24. Gates, Duty, 51–52.
25. See US Department of State, “Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq,” January 10, 2007; Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq”; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 585.
26. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 532–535.
27. Ibid., 528; US Embassy Baghdad cable, Vice President Hashimi On: the Provincial Elections Law, SFA/SOFA Negotiations,” July 10, 2008.
28. Gates, Duty, 235–236.
29. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 539–540.
30. Interviewee K.
31. Rice, No Higher Honor, 694–695. Rice complained that Maliki reneged as soon as Rice returned to Washington.
32. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 541; Gates, Duty, 236–237. According to Gates, Petraeus reported that an Iranian brigadier general had been arrested for bribing Iraqi officials with $250,000 each to vote against the SOFA.
33. Interviewee K.
34. John R. Crook, “Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law,” American Journal of International Law 103, no. 1 (2009): 132–135; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 558; Alissa J. Rubin and Campbell Robertson, “Iraq Backs Deal That Sets End of U.S. Role,” New York Times, November 28, 2008.
35. A revised de-Ba’athification law and a law governing the distribution of oil revenues were among the US congressional benchmarks for Iraq in term of Iraqi national reconciliation (Gates, Duty, 60, 231), but the causal linkage between the laws and durable political conclusion are highly suspect. Lionel Beehner and Greg Bruno, “What are Iraq’s Benchmarks?” Council on Foreign Relations, March 11, 2008.
36. Nonetheless, Iraq’s Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, threatened to veto the SOFA, which led to unspecified resolutions for reform in the Council of Representatives (CoR), US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraq 201: The Council of Representatives,” March 18, 2009.
37. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 542–548; interviewees O, A, and D.
38. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 569–570.
39. Interviewees K and D.
40. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “PM Maliki: Strengthened Center or Emerging Strongman,” February 13, 2009, quoted in Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 586.
41. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 582.
42. Interviewees A, B, C, D, and K; Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), 263–264, 341.
43. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 581–586; Rick Brennan, Charles P. Ries, Larry Hanauer, Ben Connable, Terrence Kelly, Michael J. McNerney, Stephanie Young, Jason H. Campbell, and K. Scott McMahon, Ending the U.S. War in Iraq: The Final Transition, Operational Maneuver, and Disestablishment of United States Forces-Iraq (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2013), 77–78; Thomas E. Ricks, “Iraq, the Unraveling (XXIV): U.S. Embassy vs. U.S. Military, Again,” Foreign Policy, September 28, 2009.
44. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Scenesetter for Visit of Vice President Biden to Iraq, September 14–17, 2009,” September 12, 2009. See also US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Scenesetter: Maliki Heads to the Washington Investment Conference amid Signs of Promise and Risk,” October 16, 2009.
45. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Scenesetter for Iraqi Vice President Hashimi’s Visit to Washington,” January 27, 2010; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 597.
46. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “KRG President Barzani’s Visit to Washington,” January 20, 2010.
1. A similar strategy review for Afghanistan and Pakistan was ongoing concurrently.
2. US Department of State cable, “U.S. Policy on Political Engagement in Iraq,” April 8, 2009.
3. D3 Systems and KA Research Ltd., “Iraq Poll February 2009,” survey conducted for ABC News, the BBC and NHK (2009), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_03_09_iraqpollfeb2009.pdf (accessed May 14, 2019), 5ff.
4. Interviewees A, C, and D; Sky, The Unraveling, xi.
5. Interviewee C; US Embassy Baghdad cable, “After the Awakening: Tribes as Government in Anbar?” March 19, 2009; Boghani, “James Jeffrey.”
6. In an October 16, 2009, cable to Ambassador Susan Rice, Hill discussed reconciliation only in the context of a $225 million program focused on community leaders. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Scenesetter for Ambassador Rice’s Visit to Iraq,” October 16, 2009.
7. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Sunni Sheikhs Feeling Excluded from the Process,” August 29, 2008; “Sunni Political Landscape: Sectarian Versus Secular,” March 13, 2009; “PM Maliki Salting Intel Agencies with Dawa Loyalists,” February 4, 2010.
8. Interviewees A, C, and D; US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Sons of Iraq (SOI) Program Update,” August 2, 2008. Maliki began developing “Support Councils” as rival political organizations to SOI, likely to improve grassroots mobilization in advance of the elections. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Support Councils: What They Are,” November 28, 2008, and “Sunni Arab Insider Warns PM Maliki Will Reignite Insurgency,” August 29, 2008.
9. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 591.
10. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Arrest of ‘Sons of Iraq’ Leader Leads to Fighting in Capital, Rising Tension,” March 30, 2009.
11. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Arrest of Sunni Leader Highlights Challenges on Many Fronts,” May 18, 2009, quoted in Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 591.
12. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Arrest of Sunni Pc Member Stokes Cries of Election Shaping in Diyala,” February 20, 2010, and “PRT Diyala: Election Official Points to Frictions with IHEC,” August 27, 2009; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 592.
13. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East.”
14. Craig Whiteside, “War, Interrupted, Part I: The Roots of the Jihadist Resurgence in Iraq,” War on the Rocks, November 5, 2014.
15. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East”; Whiteside, “War, Interrupted, Part I.”
16. Political reconciliation was not mentioned at all, according to the cable reporting about the secretary of state’s July 24 meeting with Maliki. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Secretary Clinton’s July 24, 2009 Conversation with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki,” July 30, 2009. The issue was not mentioned in a scene-setter to Vice President Biden in advance of his September 2009 trip to Iraq, US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Scenesetter for Visit of Vice President Biden to Iraq, September 14–17, 2009.”
17. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq,” May 22, 2009.
18. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Prime Minister Maliki’s Visit: Launching the Strategic Framework Agreement,” July 16, 2009.
19. These were representatives of the Strategic Engagement Cell in MNF-I, who facilitated reconciliation efforts between insurgents and the coalition military. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 597–598.
20. Gates, Duty, 471; US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Uncertainty about Presidency Council, Presidential Veto Authority after Next Election,” January 13, 2010. For a good overview of Iraq’s Presidency Council and Council of Ministers, see US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraq 201: Iraq’s Presidency and Cabinet,” March 16, 2009.
21. See, for instance, comments by a Shi’a political leader in US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Election Prospects and U.S. Role in Iraq,” February 28, 2010, and “GOI Attempts to Link Referendum on Security Agreement to January 2010 Elections,” June 11, 2009.
22. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Iraqi Election Campaign Update: February 22, 2010,” February 22, 2010; “Week One of Election Campaign: Political Roundup,” February 18, 2010; “Army Intervention in Salah ad-Din ‘Governor’ Dispute Locks out Provincial Government,” February 7, 2010; “Army Withdraws; Salah ad-Din Government Reopens; Governor Dispute Remains,” February 8, 2010; “Ayad Allawi Comments on Iraqi Political Environment as Campaign Season Nears,” February 11, 2010; “Political Maneuvering and Iraqi Security Forces,” February 13, 2010; and “Scenesetter for Visit of Vice President Biden to Iraq, September 14–17, 2009.” For a detailed description of Shi’a political parties, see US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraq 201: Shi’a Political Landscape Colored by Internal Rivalry,” March 18, 2009.
23. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi Election Campaign Update: February 22, 2010.”
24. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Delayed Gratification: Election Law Adopted,” December 7, 2009. The Obama administration was beginning to establish a pattern of extracting Kurdish concessions, which created animosity among the Kurds that the United States took them for granted. For further discussion on the election law debate, see US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Stage Is Set for Action on Iraq’s Election Law,” October 12, 2009, and “Impasse on Kirkuk: Leaders Disagree but Offer Few Solutions to Break Election Law Deadlock,” October 24, 2009.
25. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Election Commission Reviews Preparations Ahead of March Elections,” January 8, 2010: “After two major elections in 2009, IHEC shows more confidence in asserting itself as Iraq’s election authority, and commissioners show a serious commitment to IHEC’s obligation to educate parties and the public about the electoral process.” According to a later cable, the IHEC was overwhelmingly Shi’a in make-up and its employees’ contracts were for only two to three months. They threatened to strike just before the election in hopes of forcing the government to make them full-time civil servants. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Election Commission Seeks Civil Service Status, Threatens Strike,” December 23, 2009. The short-term contracts and sectarian composition likely heightened the risk of the IHEC being influenced by Maliki and the incumbent government.
26. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Election Commission Reviews Preparations Ahead of March Elections,” January 8, 2010; “De-Escalating the De-Baathification Debate: Post Election Vetting Gains Traction,” January 18, 2010; “Sunnis Divided in Reaction to Candidate Disqualifications,” February 1, 2010.
27. US Embassy Baghdad cables, “Sunnis Divided in Reaction to Candidate Disqualifications,” and “PM Maliki Claims De-Ba’athification Controversy under Control; Predicts Appeals Decisions Within Days,” January 31, 2010.
28. In the event, Sunnis did not boycott the election. See US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Iraqi Election Campaign Update: February 22, 2010.”
29. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “PRT Muthanna: Muthanna Governor Cancels Meeting with Ambassador, Purportedly at PM Maliki’s Insistence,” February 15, 2010; Maliki reportedly insisted Iraqi officials not meet with Ambassador Hill due to US concerns over disqualification of candidates under de-Ba’athification law.
30. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “The Vice President Discusses Pre- and Post-Election Iraq with Unami,” February 6, 2010.
31. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “VPOTUS Meeting with PM Maliki,” February 8, 2010. See also US Embassy Baghdad cables, “DPM Shaways Discusses Arab-Kurd, Regional Integration and Presidency Council Issues with A/S Feltman,” February 2, 2010, and “Ambassador Meets with PM Maliki, ISCI Chairman; Parliament Session Postponed,” February 8, 2010.
32. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 607–614.
33. Ibid., 614–615.
34. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “PM Maliki Salting Intel Agencies with Dawa Loyalists.” For an example in Anbar, see US Embassy Baghdad cable, “PRT Anbar: Abu Risha Discusses Political Environment, National Elections,” February 4, 2010.
35. Quoted in Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 615.
36. Interviewee C. On February 25, Secretary of State Clinton issued an instruction cable to the US embassy in Iraq that listed talking points on the election, urging nonviolence, inclusion, and rapid formation of a new government. US Department of State cable, “Talking Points on Iraq Government Formation,” February 25, 2010.
37. Timothy Williams and Rod Nordland, “Allawi Victory in Iraq Sets Up Period of Uncertainty,” New York Times, March 26, 2010; Nordland, “Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote.”
38. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 615.
39. Nordland, “Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote”; Gates, Duty, 472.
40. Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed, “Maliki Seeks Recount in Iraq Elections,” Los Angeles Times, March 22, 2010; Nordland, “Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote.”
41. Sky, The Unraveling, 317.
42. For a detailed discussion, see Kenneth Katzman, “Iraq: Politics, Elections, and Benchmarks,” Congressional Research Service, July 1, 2010.
43. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 617–620.
44. Interviewee C; Ian Black, “Iraq Election Chaos as 52 Candidates Are Disqualified,” The Guardian, April 26, 2010; Jomana Karadsheh, “Alleged Baath Ties Disqualify Candidates from Iraqi Elections,” CNN, April 26, 2010.
45. Richard Spencer, “Iran Attempts to Broker Shi’a Coalition Government in Iraq,” The Telegraph, March 31, 2010; Rod Nordland,” Iran Plays Host to Delegations after Iraq Elections,” New York Times, April 1, 2010; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 639–640.
46. “Iraqi Court Dismisses De-Baathification Cases,” Reuters, May 17, 2010.
47. Interviewees A, C, and D; Kenneth M. Pollack, “Middle East Memo, Number 29,” Brookings Institution, January 29, 2015, 14–15.
48. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 628–640.
49. For Jeffrey’s views on the election, see Boghani, “James Jeffrey.”
50. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 634, 643–644.
51. Eli Lake, “Obama Bid to Pick Iraq Leader Spurned: Talabani Rebuffs Request to Resign,” Washington Times, November 10, 2010; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 628–635.
52. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 646–649. See also US Embassy Baghdad cable, “KRG President Barzani’s Visit to Washington.” Ambassador Hill asked US officials “from the highest levels of government” to dissuade Barzani on a referendum on Kirkuk. US Embassy Baghdad cable, “Secretary of Defense’s Meeting with KRG President Masoud Barzani on December 11, 2009,” December 13, 2009.
53. Mohammed Tawfeeq, Jomana Karadsheh, and Arwa Damon, “Iraq Leaders’ Deal on Power Sharing Appears to Fall Apart,” CNN, November 12, 2010; Michael R. Gordon, “In U.S. Exit from Iraq, Failed Efforts and Challenges,” New York Times, September 22, 2012.
54. Gates, Duty, 472.
55. Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East”; Filkins, “What We Left Behind in Iraq”; Brennan et al., Ending the U.S. War in Iraq, 108.
56. Peter Beinart, “Obama’s Disastrous Iraq Policy: An Autopsy,” The Atlantic, June 23, 2014.
57. Gates believed the United States “should and would have a residual military presence in Iraq after the end of 2011 . . . even though that would require a follow-on agreement with the Iraqis,” but acknowledges that he should have been more realistic about the prospects given the difficult negotiations on the 2008 SOFA. Gates, Duty, 238.
58. Ibid., 501–523.
59. Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 247–248; 311–313; Ernesto Londoño and Craig Whitlock, “Syria Crisis Reveals Uneasy Relationship Between Obama, Nation’s Military Leaders,” Washington Post, September 18, 2013; Gates, Duty, 563, 573–577.
60. Boghani, “James Jeffrey.”
61. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 654–658; Gates, Duty, 552–553.
62. Peter Baker, “Relief over U.S. Exit from Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope,” New York Times, June 22, 2014.
63. Gates, Duty, 555.
64. The chairman’s role as the president’s principal uniformed military advisor is enshrined in the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. Donilon was reportedly outraged and called in a tirade to Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy demanding she keep better control of the military. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 658–660.
65. Gates, Duty, 554. In an April 2011 meeting with Maliki, for instance, Gates focused on the needs of Iraqi security forces and the strategy to build Iraqi support for the SOFA.
66. Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt, “Should U.S. Stay or Go? Views Define Iraqi Factions,” New York Times, May 10, 2011; Sahar Issa and Roy Gutman, “Iraq’s Maliki Signals He May Let U.S. Troops Extend Their Stay,” McClatchy, May 12, 2011.
67. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 666; Leon Panetta, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 356.
68. Brennan et al., Ending the U.S. War in Iraq, 13.
69. Some US officials believed that Maliki was trying to increase his leverage by delaying any agreement and believed until the end that the Iraqis would ask the United States to keep forces in Iraq. Brennan et al., Ending the U.S. War in Iraq, 104.
70. Interviewees B and K.
71. Gates, Duty, 555.
72. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 672; Panetta, Worthy Fights, 392–399.
73. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 671–673. After the Islamic State emerged, the United States sent commandos and trainers to Iraq in 2014 under an executive agreement.
74. Baker, “Relief over U.S. Exit from Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope.”
75. Laith Hammoudi, “Iraq’s Maliki Lashes out at Sunni Province Seeking Autonomy,” McClatchy, October 29, 2011; Waleed Ibrahim, “Provincial Autonomy Risks Sectarian Rift in Iraq,” Reuters, November 24, 2011; Gregg Carlstrom, “The Breakup: More Iraqis Bid for Autonomy,” al Jazeera, December 22, 2011.
76. Kirk H. Sowell, “Iraq’s Second Sunni Insurgency,” The Hudson Institute, August 9, 2014.
77. The White House, “Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq in a Joint Press Conference,” December 12, 2011.
78. Arwa Damon and Mohammed Tawfeeq, “Iraq’s Leader Becoming a New ‘Dictator,’ Deputy Warns,” CNN, December 13, 2011.
79. Beinart, “Obama’s Disastrous Iraq Policy.”
80. Struan Stevenson, “Outside View: A New Dictator Takes Iraq to the Brink,” UPI, December 31, 2014.
81. Sowell, “Iraq’s Second Sunni Insurgency.”
82. Craig Whiteside, “ISIL’s Small Ball Warfare: An Effective Way To Get Back into a Ballgame,” War on the Rocks, April 29, 2015; Malcolm Nance, The Terrorists of Iraq: Inside the Strategy and Tactics of the Iraq Insurgency 2003–2014 (Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor and Francis, 2015); McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse.
83. David Ignatius, “James Clapper: We Underestimated the Islamic State’s ‘Will to Fight,’” Washington Post, September 18, 2014.
84. Brennan et al., Ending the U.S. War in Iraq, 17. The underestimation of US forces’ centrality in preventing sectarian violence was noted by interviewees B, C, and O.
1. Kenneth M. Pollack, “Iraq Situation Report, Part I: The Military Campaign Against ISIS,” Brookings Institution, March 28, 2016.
2. Freedman, Strategy, 23–24.
1. General David H. Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon, “America’s Awesome Military: And How to Make It Even Better,” Foreign Affairs 95, no. 5 (September/October 2016): 10–17.
2. Chilcot et al., The Report of the Iraq Inquiry.
3. See the critical factors framework in chapter 2.
4. Humphrey et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 3, Vietnam, document 40, “Paper by the Under Secretary of State (Ball).”
5. James Dobbins, “Iraq: Winning the Unwinnable War,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 1 (January/February 2005): 16–25.
6. Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy (New York: Macmillan, 2018).
7. For a discussion of strategic distance in a different context, see Patrick Porter, The Global Village Myth: Distance, War, and the Limits of Power (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press, 2015), 2–9.
1. Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building.
2. Sunni Arab resistance reemerged quickly after the US withdrawal, with many groups eventually either supporting ISIS or not standing in their way.
1. Interview with Lieutenant General Terry A. Wolff.
2. Interview with General Stanley A. McChrystal.
3. For a Department of Defense dictionary of military terms, see US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1-02: Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 2016.
4. Cathal Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2019).
5. Clausewitz, On War, 81
6. Colin S. Gray, “Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory,” Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, April 2002, 13; Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), chapter 1; Richard K. Betts, “Is Strategy an Illusion?” International Security 25, no. 2 (fall 2000): 5–50.
7. Gray, “Concept Failure?,” 22.
8. US Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1-02, 227.
9. John Hampden Jackson, Clemenceau and the Third Republic (London: Hodder and Stouton, 1946), 228.
10. Waldrop, Complexity, 11–13.
11. See also Dennis Blair, Ronald Neumann, and Eric Olsen, “Fixing Fragile States,” The National Interest (August 27, 2014).
12. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency”; Michael J. McNerney, Angela O’Mahony, Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, Caroline Baxter, Colin P. Clarke, Emma Cutrufello, Michael McGee, Heather Peterson, Leslie Adrienne Payne, and Calin Trenkov-Wermuth, Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool (Washington, D.C.: RAND, 2014); Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff.”
13. Anne Barnard, “Syrian Opposition Groups Sense U.S. Support Fading,” New York Times, February 9, 2016; Carol Morello, “Syria Talks in Switzerland Produce Only a Decision to Keep Talking,” Washington Post, October 15, 2016.
1. Paul et al., Paths to Victory; Libicki, “Eighty-Nine Insurgencies.”
2. Colonel Gian Gentile, Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency (New York: New Press, 2013).
3. Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 8; Bruce Stokes, “Which Countries Don’t Like America and Which Do?” Pew Research Center, July 15, 2014.
4. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife; Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency; Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare; Kolenda, The Counterinsurgency Challenge.
5. An important effort to define operational art in counterinsurgency is in Lieutenant General James M. Dubik, “Operational Art in Counterinsurgency: A View from the Inside,” Institute for the Study of War, May 2012. He views the operational art as a series of geographic and functional transitions (transfers to host nation lead).
6. Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision.
7. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing.
8. Rasmussen, The Military’s Business.
9. Ladwig, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency”; Biddle et al., “Small Footprint, Small Payoff.”
10. Keefer, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 4, Vietnam, document 380, “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, Letter from President Johnson to General Minh,” Washington, D.C., December 31, 1963, 745–746.
11. Adam Grissom, “Shoulder-to-Shoulder Fighting Different Wars: NATO Advisors and Military Adaptation in the Afghan National Army,” in Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, ed. Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga, and James A. Russell (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2013), 263–287, 276.
12. Huntington, The Soldier and the State.
13. Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002), 208–224.
14. Feaver, Armed Servants.
15. Ibid., location 3893–3902 of 5012.