[BRIEF NOTE] On respecting our betters

[rfmcdonald]

In a recent Los Angeles Times article that the paper stands by, United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates managed to trigger a non-trivial diplomatic and public relations crisis when he suggested that the United States' NATO allies in Afghanistan weren't doing a good job.

In the interview, Gates compared the troubled experience of the NATO forces in the south -- primarily troops from the closest U.S. allies, Britain and Canada, as well as the Netherlands -- with progress made by American troops in the eastern part of Afghanistan. He traced the failing in part to a Cold War orientation.

"Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap," Gates said, referring to the German region where a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was deemed most likely.

Gates said he raised his concerns last month in Scotland at a meeting of NATO countries with troops in southern Afghanistan and suggested additional training.

But he added that his concerns did not appear to be shared by the NATO allies. "No one at the table stood up and said: 'I agree with that.' "

The NATO forces are led by a U.S. commander, Army Gen. Dan McNeill, who has called for greater contributions by NATO countries. Some member nations are reluctant to deepen their involvement.

NATO officials bristled at suggestions that non-U.S. forces have been ineffective in implementing a counterinsurgency campaign. They argued that the south, home to Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal heartland that produced the Taliban movement, has long been the most militarily contested region of the country.

The European NATO official, who is directly involved in Afghan planning, angrily denounced the American claims, saying much of the violence is a result of the small number of U.S. troops who had patrolled the region before NATO's takeover in mid-2006, a strategy that allowed the Taliban to reconstitute in the region.

"The reason there is more fighting now is because we've uncovered a very big rock and lots of things are scurrying out," the NATO official said.

Gates has since been trying to recover. His statements made the Netherlands call in the American ambassador for consultations, and angered Britain. Canadian defense minister Peter Mackay had to play down the remarks, coming so soon after another Canadian casualty. in a press conference after Gates apologized/clarified.

(Funny fact: The Netherlands, Britain, and Canada have contributed relatively more troops to Afghanistan than the United States.)

My first response to these news was a mixture of (I admit it) old-school nationalism mixed with depression at Gates' failure to recognize that, say, Canadians and others might disagree with American methods of counterinsurgency warfare, or that some countries which experience heavy casualties might be inspired to pull out of Afghanistan altogether with unknown consequences for the integrity of the alliance.

That's when I realized I was wrong. I'm trying to make excuses, after all. Gates is the man who controls the single most powerful military in the world. With his words, Gates may have succeeded in helping us Canadians come to face with the difficult reality of our incompetence. Aren't Canadians just embarrassing ourselves if we pretend that we can fight? Seriously.

No, it's best for us Canadians to leave Afghanistan before we embarrass ourselves with something stupid like a NATO intervention in Pakistan, and let Gates and his cohort lead their country to another glorious victory. After all, they've done an unprecedented job already: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan produced five million refugees out of a total population of something like 12-15 million in the early 1980s, but even the several hundred thousand dead that the studies from The Lancet and elsewhere are tacked on, the United States' invasion produced only four million out of of a pre-invasion population of 25 million Iraqis. Allowing for the uncertainties in Afghanistan's population records, that still means that the American military has been twice as effective in maintaining counter-insurgency war as the Soviets--and, doubtless, their Canadian successors--ever were in Afghanistan.

It's best for us to let them do their job their own way, don't you all think?