The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

assist a government in conducting COIN in its territory, as with the Huk rebellion in the Philippines in the 1950s. The difference between doing and assisting is not a minor one; it is fundamental. Unfortunately, too much current commentary on the subject — including the Army’s new COIN doctrine publication — does not make this important distinction clear. Yet it is crucial to recognize, as Clausewitz insisted, that war is a branch (not an extension) of politics. It is the first obligation of political leaders to understand what kind of war they are intending to embark upon as well as being careful to identify the political objectives. For instance, although they may not have started out that way, Afghanistan and Iraq now appear to be experiments in conducting warfare (in this case COIN) while attempting to jump-start local governance (as opposed to profiting from local conflict to install a colonial regime). The historical record of this type of activity is not encouraging. It is likely that many military pro- fessionals understand this. I am not sure that our political leadership does. After all, the American public and its leadership have grown up in a popular culture of movies, TV programs and popular novels that identifies only two heroic actors in foreign affairs: the soldier and the spy. (Diplomats are those stuffy characters who sternly warn Our Hero or Our Heroine that what they want to do is illegal, dan- gerous and probably immoral.) With this mindset, COIN (and the equally fashionable Post-Conflict Sta- bilization and Reconstruction con- cept) can seem to emphasize the role of the military option in a successful foreign policy. However, as Gerald Loftus points out in his insightful Speaking Out column (December), the military- diplomatic dynamic is currently badly out of kilter. Not because our intelligent, serious, well-educated military professionals are over-reach- ing, but because our political leaders apparently too often think of the mili- tary option as the preferred option and our military professionals are, in ad- dition to their other virtues, fervently obedient to civilian rule. They are also, by and large, Type A activists who always feel obliged to “do something” in their areas of assign- ment. When called upon, they will go, and go and go. Told to run the world, military professionals will make an effort to do so. If you don’t believe this, then you haven’t spent any time around them. They have the faults of their virtues. The new Africa Command is only the latest example of the expansion of the military instrument. It is supposed to be a new sort of bureaucratic creature not focused on military affairs; but if so, why is it in the Defense Department and headed by a military officer? Expansion is the main issue, as military affairs have always been and always will be a significant part of foreign affairs, despite the traditional American view that peace was one thing and war the other and they should not be intermingled — the so- called American Way of War. The key is the relationship between the mili- tary option and the other instruments of national power, which many believe is currently out of balance. A major political question for the United States is how to arrive at a sustainable equilibrium. One ap- proach is to replace the National Security Act of 1947 and the resulting organization of the U.S. government for foreign and security affairs with a new National Security Act of 200X. In fact, there is a movement, the Pro- gram for National Security Reform ( www.pnsr.org ), that is attempting to do exactly that. Yet even if the PNSR crowd comes up with a reasonable draft proposal for a new national security structure, there are enormous political obstacles to implementing it — President Eisen- hower’s military-industrial complex to begin with. Also, where will we find today’s Truman and Vandenberg? Any nominations? Edward Marks Ambassador, retired Washington, D.C. Local Staff Kept Embassy Kabul Standing Thomas Eighmy notes in his December article, “Remembering USAID‘s Role in Afghanistan, 1985- 1994,” that Embassy Kabul “closed” before the Soviet military withdrew from that long-suffering country in February 1989. In fact, Embassy Kabul never closed. On Jan. 31, 1989, the embassy officially suspended operations and Chargé Jon Glassman lowered the flag. The American staff departed Afghanistan shortly there- after, citing security concerns as making it too risky to maintain an American official presence. Even with the Americans gone, the U.S. held on to its diplomatic facilities and continued to recognize Afghani- stan‘s sovereignty. Local staff main- tained the chancery‘s exterior and other embassy facilities through- out the tumultuous years of the Naji- bullah regime, mujahedeen rule and the Taliban. A local consular assistant at the embassy, supervised by Con- sulate Peshawar in neighboring Paki- stan, provided limited services to the handful of American citizens living in Afghanistan. Throughout those dark years Embassy Kabul‘s local staff, at great personal risk and with exceptional bravery and honor, did everything in their means to ensure that the U.S. mission‘s facilities would be in the best possible condition when conditions M A R C H 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 L E T T E R S