THE ASPEN INSTITUTE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2015 COUNTERTERRORISM, COUNTERINSURGENCY, AND CONTRADICTIONS: AMERICA'S LESSONS LEARNED IN AFGHANISTAN

Transcription

1 THE ASPEN INSTITUTE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2015 COUNTERTERRORISM, COUNTERINSURGENCY, AND CONTRADICTIONS: AMERICA'S LESSONS LEARNED IN AFGHANISTAN Hotel Jerome Aspen, Colorado Monday, June 29,

2 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN Deputy Editor-in-Chief The Wall Street Journal KARL EIKENBERRY William J. Perry Fellow in International Security Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University Former US Ambassador, Afghanistan Retired Lieutenant General United States Army * * * * * 2

3 COUNTERTERRORISM, COUNTERINSURGENCY, AND CONTRADICTIONS: AMERICA'S LESSONS LEARNED IN AFGHANISTAN MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Hotel Jerome. This is the Challenge to the Democracy track, just to remind you of where you are and which session this is. I'm very honored today to be joined by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who actually spent three stints in Afghanistan, and is here to tell us about his views, not only of Afghanistan but the US and ISIS, and really your role about policy in general, which will be quite fascinating. Ambassador Eikenberry comes to this with a very unique lens, both a military lens, because you headed up our military operations there twice, and also as the former ambassador to Afghanistan. Just a couple of ground rules here. We're going to speak for probably about 45 minutes and then invite you all to ask questions for about 15 minutes. And then the Ambassador has volunteered afterwards to go, if you have any additional questions, to the back because they'll need to clear out the room for yet another event. And finally, my name is Rebecca Blumenstein. I'm the deputy editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal. And I've worked at the Journal for about 20 years and led our Beijing bureau for about five years from 2005 to 2009 where I got hooked on foreign correspondence. So, first, Ambassador, I'd like to start out at the beginning of when you told me earlier this morning your life really changed, which was quite poignant. It was on 9/11, you were sitting on the third floor of the Pentagon when one of the planes struck. MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah. Well, at first, if I could, thank all of you for coming. It's a privilege to be here. And one reason that I wanted to thank you all for coming is that there's been a lot of members of our armed forces and the Department of State in the United States government that have had a lot of sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm delighted to know that this many 3

4 people from the Aspen Ideas Festival would feel it's important to come and attend this. So back to the question, Rebecca. On 9/11, I was in the Pentagon I was with the army staff, a major general. And I was sitting on the third floor in my office, which was the outer ring of the Pentagon. And suddenly there was a tremendous shock and an explosion. And that was American Airlines flight 77 that was plunging into the Pentagon. And from -- on the third floor, from, say, about here to where that table is over there, two people were killed in the office adjacent to mine. I think what happened is American Flight Airlines Flight 77 as it plunged into the Pentagon, the vertical stabilizer of the aircraft tore through the third floor. But the real casualties were just below my office. And as you know, we lost 125 on that day. And life and contingency, everybody here, your life changed on 9/11. For myself, little did I know that I would go on from there to spend, as you said, five years in Afghanistan on three different tours of duty. But a certain irony with this, that as I entered the United States military in 1969 as a cadet at West Point, we had 500,000 troops in Afghanistan. When I was commissioned, the war had left a very bitter divided nation behind, a bitter military, and the school of thought was never again, never again will the United States go into foreign civil wars that we do not understand and we're not ready to commit to. That was a deep impression that was given to me by the young officers and the generals at that time. The irony was that then for the next seven or eight years of my career, I would spend it until I was retired fighting in foreign civil wars that became increasingly unpopular in the United States. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: And I think you meant to say five -- you have -- when you were coming up through West Point 5,000 soldiers in Vietnam. MR. EIKENBERRY: 500,000. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: 500,000. 4

5 MR. EIKENBERRY: 500,000 in Vietnam at that time, yeah. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: So at that point, 9/11 happens and there are some critical decisions made about strategy and what the response should be to the tragedy. We knew right away that it was -- that pretty much right away that it was Bin Laden and that there should be a direct response. At that point, what did you know about Afghanistan? MR. EIKENBERRY: Well, I knew very little about Afghanistan, the nation, knew little about Afghanistan. What I did know, I had learned in the 1980s as an army infantry officer preparing for our number one contingency of the 1980s, and that was to do battle against the Red Army if required, at the height of the Cold War. So the studying I did on Afghanistan was the tactical lessons learned from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. When I went to Afghanistan, though, Rebecca, with very short notice in 2002, I'll tell you very quickly if I could a story that illustrates my knowledge or lack thereof of that country. In Kabul, in the fall of 2002, I had just arrived and I was being hosted by Brigadier General Asify (phonetic) commander of Afghan border police, and we're at the Kabul restaurant -- at the Khyber restaurant, and I'm just trying to learn about the country. I have my interpreter with me. He's very good but he's not at a hundred percent accuracy, he's about 97%. But as he would get more excited, his accuracy would plunge. So General Asify was really warming to my questions about Afghanistan, and he reached -- he -- Asify reached the culminating point where now my interpreter is telling me what Asify is saying, I'm not sure, and my interpreter says, "General Asify --" listen to this very carefully, now, "General Asify has just said we Afghans, we have a long and proud history of inviting foreigners to our country and then hospitalizing them." 5

6 (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: Now, what the interpreter meant to say was I think, and showing them great hospitality. (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: But the fact that we're in Aspen 2015 and I'm still not sure shows that my learning about Afghanistan is -- well, it was better than 2002, but still not sufficient. MS. BUMENSTEIN: So looking back on it now, with that in mind, was the mission clear enough? When you talk about our strategy there and lessons learned, did we have any idea what we were getting into? MR. EIKENBERRY: No, we didn't. Look, Rebecca, if -- imagine President Bush, let's say on the 15th of September where it is now clear by this time it was Bin Laden, came out of Afghanistan, command and controlled it. Imagine President Bush sitting at the table four days after 9/11 with the cabinet and saying okay, I want some options, and somebody raising their hand saying Mr. President, I have an option for you. This campaign that I'm going to recommend my option is going to take 15 years, it's going to take ten years to get Bin Laden, 10 years from now, Mr. President, you won't be president, we will have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, my course of action will cost the US taxpayers $1 trillion dollars, it will cost them 2,600 US soldiers killed, it will cost them 20,000 wounded, and it will cost the veterans administration for the next several decade about $500 billion to take care of those who were wounded. And Mr. President, there's going to be a lot of strategic opportunity costs that are coming with this, because over the next decade while we focus on Afghanistan, we won't be as focused on China, Iran, Russia. Now, could you imagine somebody saying that on the 15th of September? They would be dismissed -- 6

7 MS. BUMENSTEIN: Right. MR. EIKENBERRY: -- at that point in time. And yet, here we are. So yes, we -- there was a lack of clarity of what we were getting into, and maybe something that we can talk about this afternoon here. MS. BUMENSTEIN: So you were in charge of the military operations, going over there, learning your first stud, through the dinners and such, your first lessons about Afghanistan. Could you tell then that there was -- there were mistakes being made, that in essence people have said that we were raging three wars at once. And was that obvious from the beginning? MR. EIKENBERRY: No, it wasn't. And that's an important -- that's important. And to get back to the beginning, whether it's Iraq, whether it's Afghanistan, having political and intelligence clarity on what is the threat that we're fighting and want to deal with and then having a better understanding of the contextual situation, there's no question when we first went into Afghanistan with a light group of special forces and some incredible support from the United States Air Force, we were aimed at Bin Laden. But incrementalism over a period of time led the mission to continue to expand and expand. So we go from focusing on Bin Laden to focusing on Taliban to state building. And that leads to what you had talked about to me this morning when we -- over breakfast when you talked about the three wars in one. And I think that's a very good way of trying to understand how we were waging the war. What do we mean by three wars in one? You have first of all the central intelligence agency war, get Bin Laden. The United States was struck by Al-Qaeda, it's about get Bin Laden. The military, the second war in Afghanistan, it expands beyond Bin Laden to now it's Taliban. And it's in the problem of an insurgency. And until we beat this insurgency, Afghanistan will never be safe again from the potential for Al-Qaeda sanctuary. So they're fighting 7

8 their war. And then later, the third war, the Department of State, and as an ambassador leading that war. What was that war about? It was to build an accountable Afghan state. Now, to take that a step further, then imagine the United States ambassador in Afghanistan going into President Karzai's office saying President Karzai, I'm here to talk to you today about the Kabul bank scandal. And you really need to get a grip on this, your brother is involved we think. And, President Karzai, we also need to talk about getting that parliament seated. I know, Mr. President, when the parliament is seated that they'll come after you, but that's democracy, Mr. Karzai. (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: And so I walk out, and the CIA walks in behind me, Mr. President, we understand your pains here. It's about Bin Laden. And to help you then with some of the pains you feel, Mr. Karzai, here's a bag of money. Now, this is the problem with the contradictions of the missions then that we have in Afghanistan. We're up on the stage saying we're here to build a transparent, accountable government, to build a new Afghanistan, but there's contradictions there. We're fighting a war in the shadows that has to be won. And if you fight a war in the shadows that has to be won, you're not talking about rule of law, you're not talking about accountable government, it's get done what has to be done to get Bin Laden. So those are the kind of tensions that existed in that mission. MS. BUMENSTEIN: So, so much has been -- so much blame has been really placed on Karzai. And we can talk about that in a bit. But you would say that the US really shoulders some of the blame for lack of clarity and over time in terms of what we were trying to accomplish? 8

9 MR. EIKENBERRY: Absolutely, Rebecca, yeah. MS. BUMENSTEIN: So we have some issues with strategy for -- with mission, with what victory will ever look like, then we get to implementation. Can you talk about what that was like on the grounds? Did it go well initially? And then with also Iraq happening, did it become much more of a challenge? MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah, two great questions. First of all, did it go well initially? Yes, it did. What was interesting in the initial years is that both the Afghans and the Americans and the international community, we really thought that time was on our side. Taliban had been vanquished. I think that historians will say there was a great mistake made in not trying to figure out a way to bring Taliban back into the political process. It doesn't end with shooting, it ends with the political reconciliation. But that aside, yes, in the first years we thought things were going relatively well. Problems started to mount, though, by Taliban reconstituted their sanctuary inside of Pakistan -- had a sanctuary inside of Pakistan and began to reconstitute themselves, and started then to conduct insurgency operations against our forces. The Karzai government was overwhelmed as more cash was flooding into the country, and they couldn't stand up state institutions. Poppy production became a problem. So at this very point that if you did subscribe to the view that the state building was a worthwhile enterprise and building a stronger Afghan army and police was needed, it's at precisely this time that Iraq is now raging to the west. And our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2007, Admiral Mike Mullen, testifying before Congress, he said it so well in senate testimony. He said in Iraq we do what we must, in Afghanistan we do what we can. So as a commander in Afghanistan during that period of time I 9

10 needed more intelligence capabilities, we needed more predators, we needed more troops, we needed more money for the US embassy for reconstruction and development. But the priority had shifted to Iraq. So we have a few years where we don't really understand the political situation very well, the security situation it deteriorates, we realize that. But now it's not until 2009, it's really not until President Obama takes office that we're going to have the resources that we need in order to try to deal with the problems that have emerged. MS. BUMENSTEIN: You are dealing with that lack of resources, and also early signs of the issues of dependency, which obviously has become a very big issue in Iraq right now. Could you talk about -- you told me a story this morning about Karzai and helicopters and how you could see that as much work as you were doing, it wasn't going to amount too much if the Afghan forces couldn't stand on their own. MR. EIKENBERRY: Well, dependency and the risk of dependency when we conduct these large scale military interventions, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan, that's something that you have to really work to and try to guard against. Now, let's take as an example, security forces. But we could talk about the government of Afghanistan, we could talk about any sector of Afghanistan or Iraq where we were committing a lot of resources. Well, what about the security forces of Afghanistan? By the way, look at what's happened to the Iraqi army right now. So this conversation we're having is something we should pay attention to. What can go wrong with building security forces? The idea that you go into a country, we got to get stability. So let's not worry about the politics of the country, let's just get an army and police force up and running and with that then we'll have stability and politics will come together. You need to stand that on its head. 10

11 You want to build an army and a police force you have to have it standing upon a sound political inclusive system. And we didn't have that in Iraq and that's what's happened to the Iraqi army. We did better in Afghanistan on that count to be fair. Other problems with dependency though. So the United States military, we're out in combat action in Iraq or Afghanistan and we dominated. Any time we want to dominate we will, we're the best military in the world. Our armed forces is magnificent. And guess what, if you're an American army commander, you don't want to win 51 to 49, you want to win a 100 to nothing, of course you want to win a 100 to nothing. And in counterinsurgency warfare we can win a 100 to nothing if we want. But now we've got this Afghan army with us and you're partnered with them, I'm an American army commander, I don't want to tell my Afghan partner we will win a 100 to nothing, you need to get used to winning 51 to 49, of course not. We get them to win a 100 to nothing, but they win a 100 to nothing because they're dependent upon our air power, our artillery, our intelligence, you name it. So they get to be more and more dependent. There's a very interesting story with President Karzai. As President Karzai and I when I was the US military commander meeting with the Afghan chief of defense and the minister of defense, a district --like a county here, a district in eastern Afghanistan in Nuristan -- by the way Nuristan Province makes those mountains look like little foothills. In Nuristan Province the Taliban had seized a district at the time of the parliamentary election. Karzai actually thinking, well, as a politically informed commander-in-chief calls me and calls his commanders and he says, we got to do something about it, we got to get that district back. His chief of defense looks at him and his chief of defense is a good soldier. He looks at President Karzai and says, President Karzai, look, we have a limited number of helicopters available and the Americans are not going to fly into that area. And with 11

12 that limited number of helicopters we're at great risk because the only way we can get our soldiers into those mountain passes is with helicopters. And when we get them into those mountain passes, we're going to have to resupply them, we're going to have to evacuate them medically with helicopters, we're going to lose all our helicopters, President Karzai. And President Karzai said, chief, I have got one question for you. He said, how many helicopters does the Taliban have? And the answer was zero. And if you ask in 2015 how many helicopters does Taliban have, it's still zero, and gets back to that question of dependency. But it's very difficult for the American military as we conduct these foreign interventions not unwittingly to end up building an army which is not going to be able to sustain itself, doesn't have the -- and doesn't really have the will to take the fight to the enemy, unless it's got all the American enablers with them. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: So looking through both your military lens and your lens as the ambassador, how big of a problem was President Karzai? Did we underestimate the complexity and, you know, some say the corruption that was playing out here? MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah. It also an important question as we try to draw lessons learned from Afghanistan. My final tour duty as the American ambassador, it was difficult. Now, what was interesting, my first tour of duties with President Karzai as an American military commander with all the power that our American military brings and also the guarantee of President Karzai's security that comes with the military command, I had this wonderful relationship with President Karzai when I was wearing uniform. And the ambassador he had such a difficult relationship with President Karzai. So this -- you know, this guy doesn't get diplomacy very well. I -- you know, I've really got this diplomacy stuff down until I was the US ambassador, I saw the US military commander having this wonderful relationship with them. 12

13 (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: Now, all that said, so what were the challenges with President Karzai. Well, he's -- President Karzai, Rebecca, he is something out of a Shakespearean tragedy and a very complicated man. I could sit here if we had a half-a-day I could persuade all of you that President Karzai's viewpoint was the correct viewpoint. What were the chief -- what were the key dilemmas that we had with President Karzai; number one, ironic, he gets elected in a democratic -- by democratic vote, he's reelected. And President Karzai as the first time he comes into office on his first term, he was absolutely the very best for Afghanistan; heal, inclusive, big tent. But then we reached this point, then Afghanistan reaches a point -- because this will be an Afghan historical critique, reach a point that perhaps by 2005 what's needed is a state builder, they need George Washington and Ataturk combined, but that's a pretty rare combination. And so President Karzai was not a state builder. And that caused increasing frustration for us -- and certainly actually behind closed doors President Karzai would say that as well, that just wasn't his cup of tea. The second problem was a problem of misalignment of our strategies in Afghanistan, the US and the Afghan strategy. So, when we went to talk, we the military commander and myself, went to talk to President Karzai in 2009 about President Obama's likely decision, we knew it was coming, to surge into Afghanistan. We gave one up to give President Karzai a briefing. And the military commander had 16 beautifully prepared PowerPoint slides and was going to then convince President Karzai based upon these PowerPoint slides to make the most consequential presidential decision of his career. President Karzai looked at the 16 PowerPoint slides and I think what was in the back of his head as he's watching these slides wondering why can't my staff 13

14 make slides like that. (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: But after he got over that, he had a very, very important question that he asked. He said, look, military commander and ambassador, you're saying that this is a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, I don't understand. And so the military -- I understood because I had been there before as a military commander, I could have answered for Karzai at that point. But the military commander said, I don't understand. Karzai said, I'll make this brief. He said, look, as I understand an insurgency, an insurgency is when people who are good citizens of their country think that their government is a bad government. So they're fighting against that government, which means that we've got good Afghans fighting against my government thinking it's illegitimate, which means that they can declare a jihad against me because I'm allied, pardon the expression, with a group of infidels who have forces in this country. So, let me be clear -- this is President Karzai talking, -- if we're talking about an insurgency, we don't have one. What we have is a war against terror and that war against terror is to be found in Pakistan. So if you want to ally your efforts to fight against Pakistan, I'm with you. But if you want to continue to fight this war in the Afghan countryside against Taliban junior commanders knowing that their senior commanders -- and he's correct on this, the senior commanders are in Pakistan, then no, I'm not with you. But at the end of the day it was an offer that President Karzai couldn't refuse. So on we went with very misaligned strategies. Now, I'm not sure what President Karzai's alternative strategy was. He tried to be kind of a Gandhi figure, I'm a man of peace. And he had no real teeth into his arguments, and you needed some at some point. But that's a long way of pointing to what were the difficulties we had with President Karzai. And then the third, the obvious problem of power 14

15 corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and at some point in time as President Karzai and his coalition are getting a lot of money, courtesy of US taxpayers donations, as they are massing more money, then I started to see a very different President Karzai emerge by about 2007 and '08. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: So, moving on to another president, you seemed to give President Obama credit for the surge being something that finally, you know, made a difference on the ground. I know we're trying to compress time here, so it's difficult, but looking back on it, did President Obama's decision to put a deadline on our -- a deadline that's still evolving, but a deadline on our involvement in Afghanistan, was that the best thing, would you, you know, in your assessment just looking at President Obama's actions here, how do you rate them? MR. EIKENBERRY: Well, that's a real tough question. Now, the critique of giving the timeline -- of one critique of giving a timeline saying as President Obama said in his speech at West Point, were he announces the surge on December 1, 2009, says, I am surging. He's - - remember, now, he's already put as president quickly as he comes to office 20,000 more troops into Afghanistan, he announces with the surge 30,000 more troops will go. So he's got a lot there, he's doubled our presence. But he says that in the summer of 2011 we'll start to pull those surge troops out. He doesn't say when the end of the military commitment will be, but the meaning is clear that there's a time limit here. He goes on to say in the speech, if there's any nation I want to build, if there's any country I want to do nation building in it's the United States of America. So you read the speech, you know Rebecca, that at least by 2020 we're still not going to have a 100,000 troops in the country. He's criticized for that. His criticizing why would you possibly show your hand to the enemy, so to speak. So there's Taliban sitting up in their hills around the campfires and apparently reading that President Obama has just said the surge will culminate in 2011, it's now These guys have been fighting for almost a 15

16 decade. And the critics would say around the campfire -- the Taliban are saying, great we just got to hang on for 18 more months and we got them. I'm dubious. Now, what are the arguments for saying there's a time limit here, and there are several. First of all, there's the question of dependency with the Afghans. So the question of dependency if it's open ended, the Afghans don't have the incentive to start leading their military to get their political system fixed. There's a second problem as well, and that is that it's -- I think it's difficult to understand unless you've been in the circle and seen it from a military and civilian side. If you're a military commander and you've got a mission to perform in Iraq or Afghanistan, saying, okay, I've got a 100,000 troops. Mr. President, with those 100,000 troops here's what I'm going to be able to achieve. I'm going to be able to flatten the Taliban in these provinces, I'm going to be able to build the Afghan army up to this level and hopefully State Department colleagues will help build the government up to this level of capability. And then the commander-in-chief turns to the military commander and said, great, how long is that going to take? Mr. President don't ask that question because it's going to be conditions-based. I will tell you when it happens. And so the President, the commander-in-chief now is looking at the military commander and saying, well, you know, 2020, Mr. President it is conditions-based. Now, the president is also thinking about a few other problems besides Afghanistan. He's thinking about a financial collapse of the United States, he's thinking about Russia, China, he's thinking about Iran, he's thinking about a lot of other problems. So the President is trying to find a way then to get from the military, when will we be able to move on? And so there is a tension, not between President Obama and the military which there was, but between any commander-in-chief and the military; republican, democrat it's a tension that's there. 16

17 And so how do you go about then if you're a commander-in-chief, how do you go about managing a big military campaign 150,000 in Iraq at one point, you got a 100,000 in Afghanistan at one point. One course of action is for the President of the United States to micromanage the military campaign and follow LBJ's example during the Vietnam War, not necessarily a good solution. And so what does the president have, he's got -- if he doesn't want to micromanage and they shouldn't be managing it -- micromanaging it, then they've got some blunt instruments to use. One blunt instrument is change of mission, in other words time, we're going to cap it and you've got to -- the troops will start coming home. Another blunt instrument is troop levels, and a third blunt instrument is change your military commanders and President Obama did all three. Look back over our history though, since the Second World War and all commanders-in-chiefs to include President Nixon in the Vietnam War used all three of those instruments. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: So now we get to the rise of ISIS and the Islamic State. What is your view of how the US is handling things now? Some say that the fact that we're really so exhausted and then so exhausted by Afghanistan and Iraq has -- you know, has really tied our hands because everybody knows it. And the US should be doing more. How has ISIS affected the Taliban on the ground in Afghanistan and what do you think -- what kind of position do you think the US is really in at this point? MR. EIKENBERRY: Well, ISIS represents a danger to the extent that their ideology can spread to other countries and other regions. There are some early indicators that it is becoming a problem in Afghanistan and one that can't be taken lightly. Now, against that Rebecca, in a sense I think the Afghani lead would say that ISIS has been good for Afghanistan because in the sense that President Obama as 17

18 he's declared war on ISIS is certainly not going to allow Afghanistan to collapse while we are saying to the world we're at war with ISIS, and now ISIS showing some signs of being in Afghanistan. So why is that good for Afghanistan, more commitment from the United States of America and the international community. All of that said though, you have Afghani lead that whenever a bomb goes off is now turning to the media and the United States saying ISIS. And so the case can be overstated in Afghanistan. For the United States though, if we look at the Middle East right now, North Africa a spread of ISIS, I think we should be very cautious about declaring war on ISIS. ISIS is a symptom of a problem at least in Iraq and Syria, that even if we were to defeat ISIS whatever that means, I'm not sure how you defeat ISIS, but let's say you do defeat ISIS and goes away, if there's no political reconciliation in that country in that part of the world there will be a replacement for ISIS. Maybe it won't be head captives, but it will still be fighting on. There's great turmoil in that part of the world and it's now -- you have tectonic historical plates, religious wars that are being fought out. And for the United States to think that we can go in and somehow inside of Iraq or Syria that we can defeat ISIS, I don't understand how we might actually get there. You know, it's as if the 30 years war is being fought. And to think that people watching 30 years war in the 1600s were looking at these wars going on and saying, I know what we need to do, we just need a few special forces on the ground and a couple of air strikes and that will make the difference. So how do you deal with these challenges? You probably have to think in terms of containment, and let the -- let history run its course. But I find it peculiar to see that we're in a war against ISIS. And to the north of where ISIS is operating is Turkey, pretty capable military and NATO member and they're not in the war on ISIS, they don't have any troops in there. I look at 18

19 Saudi Arabia and they're dropping bombs, but they're dropping bombs in Yemen, they're not really dropping a lot of bombs against ISIS right now. So be careful about entanglement. I was riding down in the airplane from Denver here to Aspen with Tom Friedman, we were talking about containment. And he said something I thought that was wise, he said I agree with containment and then maybe add, amplify. And the idea of amplify, if the Turks want to get engaged in a positive way, if the Saudis want to get engaged in a positive way, if the Egyptians want to get engaged in a positive way, support them, amplify their effects. But I'm very nervous about the United States getting ourselves now plunged into yet another Middle Eastern war. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: You just arrived to Aspen from Beijing. And I must commend you, you're very articulate despite being completely jet lagged. You earlier in your career, you're fluent in Mandarin, you have deep ties to Asia and China in particular. What is what's your view of -- I mean, you know, China's relationship with the world is obviously changing. And you said that actually their involvement in Afghanistan is greater than people might believe. MR. EIKENBERRY: They're much more involved now, Rebecca, for a couple of reasons. First, it's just another vignette here. I remember in 2003 when I was meeting in a stop to Tokyo, we did a refueling in Beijing with President Karzai. And so I was talking to one of my old friends who went on to be a state counselor in China, who have the foreign affairs portfolio. And I said, minister, I have to tell you that -- this is 2003 now, I have to tell you I'm somewhat disappointed, I'm speaking to you as an old friend. I mean, China is now a great power and you're not doing a lot in Afghanistan. He looked at me and said, well, Karl, thanks for saying we're a great power, we aspire to be one, we're not one yet, but thank you. He said, but what we do is we study our history and we study great powers and what we've learned is that 19

20 no great power ever does well in Afghanistan. (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: So -- but now -- but now, they are getting more involved, why would that be? For a couple of reasons, first of all, they have more power and they've got -- they had more capital now to spend. Secondly, Afghanistan is a border country, albeit a small border. And what they're worried about though is whether across that border or through other means of infiltration that international terrorist moving into northwest China. I think that you're aware -- you are with all your time in Beijing, Rebecca, about the challenge that the Chinese have -- the Han Chinese have in trying to deal with the terrorist problem of their own -- MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Right. MR. EIKENBERRY: -- up in their northwest, those are the Uyghurs. And some of those Uyghurs are being trained in Pakistan, in Uzbekistan and now again, in Afghanistan, so, they're concerned. The only thing the Chinese fear more than a 100,000 troops in Afghanistan is no US troops in Afghanistan. So, they're trying to figure out how to work with us to deal with the security problems. Third is interestingly, the Chinese now have embarked upon what they called the One Belt, One Road concept. In other words, expanding their influence to the west and the idea of trying to reopen, recreate the old Silk Road from western China all the way to Europe. If you're going to succeed with that, then Afghanistan has to be stabilized, not only that but there's a lot of resources inside of Afghanistan that are there for potential exploitation. So, a combination of China having more influence, China having security concerns and having an economic vision. Extraordinary though, is that they've taken this a step further and they're actually hosting talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban and we 20

21 wish them well, that I'm sure that they're right now having a very steep learning curve. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: So they're going beyond the traditional infrastructure role to a political role which seems potentially very significant? MR. EIKENBERRY: Absolutely. And you know we have a -- look, we've got a lot of challenges in our relationship with the China. But when we sit down in Beijing, I had two long talks with the Chinese about cooperation with the Asia Foundation which I'm with, and with Stanford University who I'm with. And talked to them about collaborative programs on Afghanistan, and they were enthusiastic. I think that this -- it's a security concern for both of us. And I think that we get a win-win there because it allows the United States and China to be actually cooperating on a big concrete problem. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: You mentioned in your opening remarks about graduating from West Point really at the end of the Vietnam War, and that after watching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you've developed some different views about the role of really the volunteer military. I don't get a sense that you think we should go back to the draft, but you think that we should ponder hard just how distant these words have been. MR. EIKENBERRY: We do. We're -- you know, unless we have a national - a really colossal national emergency we're not going to go back to a draft. And a draft is problematic even if there was a general support for the American people and believe me, there's not, because how do you work through a draft system that's looked at as equitable. How do you -- because you don't need every young men and women in the United States to enter the armed forces or you can have a National Service Act. But even then, how do you get the competency in the United States military that the volunteer force has given us? Still that said, I don't think it should be this choice, binary choice, let's just continue on as we are or do nothing at all. David Kennedy and I, tomorrow, will be 21

22 talking about civil-military relations, I think midmorning. And so we'll address this a bit more. But one of -- yes, one of the lessons I walked away from Afghanistan with and very troubled with is well, I'll just ask this -- I'll ask the group, raise your hand when I ask this question. Let's say that we had a volunteer force that you knew was good enough to do whatever had to be done, whatever the mission was, that's heroic leap I know, with a conscript force, a draft force that is. Let's say that we had a draft force that was good enough to do what the mission was. And now, let's go back to 2003, we're getting ready to go onto Iraq, it's not a volunteer force detached from American society, not connected by parents, to congressmen, to the White House, raise your hand if you think we would have invaded Iraq in 2003 with a conscript force? Okay. One more question. This all-volunteer force in the year 2012 had 50 soldiers murdered by Afghan army and policemen in direct contact with them, they just turned on them and killed them, 50 over 18 months. If we had a conscript force, raise your hand if you think we would have had congressional hearings on soldiers getting murdered by Afghan army and police allies, raise your hand? Well, you'll be disappointed when you put your hand down to know that with the volunteer force we had no hearings. So, that then takes you to the next step of thinking about how we're employing our military force. I have no doubt that after 9/11, if we had a conscript force we would have gone into Afghanistan, we got hit and we'd counterattack. I don't think in the year 2011 with the conscript force, we would have had 100,000. So it allows the executive, with Congress taking a pass on this to employ our military power in ways that might not necessarily be appropriate. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: And in terms of lessons 22

23 learnt, you told me earlier about a very interesting class you're teaching at Stanford where you're deliberately trying to bring in significant actors from the wars to tell their vantage point. What is there's been a lot of books written, there's been a lot said, but you think that for young people today, they need to grapple with some of these issues in a different way? MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah. Well, we need to have a sense of history, otherwise we -- the Mark Twain line, "that history doesn't repeat itself, but it can rhyme." If I could -- MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Absolutely. MR. EIKENBERRY: Let me -- okay, going to the Vietnam War. I'm going to read you several brief quotes and what I want you to do is whenever you hear Vietnam, substitute Afghanistan, whenever you hear President Diem, substitute Karzai, and whenever you hear communism, substitute terrorism. Number one, from a 1967 book, "The United States in Vietnam" by one of my professors John Lewis (phonetic). He writes, "USA thus provided South Vietnamese President Diem," read Karzai, "with the degree of financial independence that isolated him from the basic economic and political realities and reduced his need to appreciate or respond to his people's wants and expectations." Second last, "Certain of the superiority of their own methods, institutions and values and of South Vietnam's," substitute Afghanistan's, "need for help, Americans firmly believed that they knew what was best for their client's state. They set out to build a modern nation based upon their own model. They would be invulnerable to communism," substitute terrorism "and would demonstrate the magic of the American way. However, well-intentioned, the visitor's," that's us, "cultural arrogance and determination to impose their own ways could not come across to many South Vietnamese," read Afghans, "as yet another form of colonialism," substitute occupation, "from their own history." 23

24 So the class that I'm teaching at Stanford, it's the undergraduate masters graduate combined seminar in over a 10 week period. What we do every week is that a metaphor about trying to understand -- the blind man trying to understand the elephant. So, one's got the trunk, one's got the tail. And what we do every week then, Rebecca, is we've talked about these various actors; CIA, the White House, the Department of Defense. I have somebody come in and lead the week's seminar and these are consequential people, people that held positions and I work hard with them. Say, before you come into the seminar I want you to give your view as you remember it when you occupied the position, what chair were you sitting in. Now, you've got the wisdom, you can speak globally, speak how it looked. And it's been fascinating because each week, the students walk out and the first week, they got the tail of the elephant, they got the White House view and President Obama, he had it right, the military end - gave an end run to him. The next week, they've got the trunk and the CIA saying, no, Panetta had it right, it was about killing Bin Laden. What was all that state building stuff about, followed by the military coming in. And now the military didn't get good political guidance, did they, and on it goes. So, I'm hoping that at least to do my small part with -- over the next several years with a very bright group of Stanford graduate students and undergraduate students to make them think comprehensively the next time that America ponders a civil -- going into a civil war. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Those final papers will be very interesting. I'd like to open it up to questions for the ambassador. We have some mikes. The gentleman in the back, sorry to make you -- right in the back with the blue shirt, and then the gentleman with the black shirt, here for second. SPEAKER: Ambassador Eikenberry, thank you very 24

25 much for your service, thanks for being here today. I'm a personal friend of Matthew Houz (phonetic) who I know you know very well. MR. EIKENBERRY: I do. SPEAKER: And he resigned his post as civilian representative Zabul Province under your leadership. Did you ever consider resigning to make a statement? Did you really truly believe in the mission? MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah, that's a -- it's a great question. Look if you're -- you know whether you're in the private or the public sector, if you're in an organization and any time a decision doesn't go your way that you'll contemplate resigning, then you'll spend your whole time with that organization contemplating resigning. There's compromises that have to be made. I respect Matt's decision. And in fact, I called Matt in when -- after he'd made that had sent me a note saying he wanted to resign. I called Matt in and said, Matt, I respect your judgment, we all have our concerns, I recommend stay -- come here, work in the embassy, I need people like you giving advice. And I think you'll actually do better with further understanding of the mission. If you want to resign in a year or two years, you'll be better off. And Matt wanted to follow what his heart and his mind told him, so he left. To get back to me, when the president made the decision that he was going to time limit the surge that we would reach that inflection point of 2011 in the summer, for me, that was what I needed to get behind the mission 100 percent at that time. I had to express concerns in writing about this and in meetings, but my major concern was the possibility of the open-ended commitment. And the president, he called in myself after he announced his -- before he announced his decision, he talked with the General McChrystal and myself together. He talked to us separately and said can you support this decision? And both of us said, yes, we can. 25

26 MR. MANCONIE: Hi. Ambassador, my name is Aaron Manconie (phonetic) and this is on ISIS. For Assad, ISIS is an asset. For Saudi Arabia, it's more threatened by the Houthis than ISIS. Turkey uses ISIS to keep the PKK at bay. And to quote Jon Stewart, "we're finally in a proxy war with ourselves." (Laughter) MR. MANCONIE: So I want to get to your opinion as to what we're -- why are we in the Middle East? Is this an eminent threat? Is this just some kind of containment? In the last 14 years, we've spent over $1 trillion and over one and a half million people have lost their lives and tens of millions of refugees, what are we doing there? MR. EIKENBERRY: Yeah, great question. I'd seen a variant of Jon Stewart and it's a political cartoon in which it -- at the roundtable, there's a sign for what the dinner is going to be and it's called Iraq-Syria Peace Talks, and there's a character of President Obama talking with the maitre d saying, okay, for tonight's table arrangements, make sure that you don't put the enemy of an enemy sitting next to the friend of a friend. (Laughter) MR. EIKENBERRY: And then, he goes on, has a couple of other pieces of guidance and maitre d's eyes are up at ceiling, very, very complicated there. So what are our interests in the Middle East? Our interest in the Middle East, first of all, I won't give these a priority, but they're enduring interest. One is Israel and the safety of the state of Israel, second, of course, is Iran. Iran that gets nuclear weapons makes this world much more dangerous. You can make the argument, well, why, because North Korea has got them. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, Turkey will go nuclear, Saudi Arabia with go nuclear and I think we could all agree that part of the world with nuclear proliferation would be extraordinarily dangerous 26

27 for the United States of America and our allies and our partners. A third interest remains energy, although clearly, energy is less of a compelling interest because of the extraordinary gains that the United States has had over the last five years in terms of our own energy production. It's estimated now by the year 2020, the United States will be energy independent and by the year 2035, with the time -- with the growth rates that we're expecting, the United States will be a dominant producer of energy. So energy is not what it was in 1979 when President Carter, as the Soviets moved into Afghanistan, declared the Carter Doctrine about vital interests in the Persian Gulf that was very much driven by energy, but it's still there. And then the fourth is this challenge as we've talked about, containment. When we've moved in with our foreign interventions, we've created antigens against us, that's happened in Afghanistan, that's happened in Iraq. There's a great thesis by David KilCullen who talks about "The Accidental Guerrilla," that is, the Americans move into fight terrorists and we create insurgent guerrillas against us. So, as I said earlier, we do have to be very cautious about our use of military power. But I think it combines judicious use of diplomacy, economic influence and military power and also, of course, intelligence to contain the problems that are there but keeping an eye on the possibility which, I don't know if it's great or not, none of us do, is that ideology, this ISIS cocktail, is that risk spreading out of that region. MS. BLUMENSTEIN: We have time for just a couple quick questions. Anymore out there? We'll take one here and a second. Why don't you both ask your questions and then we'll have the ambassador respond? SPEAKER: Ambassador, thank you very much for your candid views. If we can turn to China given your expertise and personal experience, there seemed to be a series of policy failures in regards to China. China 27

28 continues to develop regional order, continues its salami slicing in the South China Sea. And the combination of engagement and confrontation by the US doesn't appear to be either deterring China or preventing things such as major cyber attacks. So do you think this is a problem with the Obama administration's policy or is it just the fact that you can't do anything to prevent the rise of China currently? MR. EIKENBERRY: No, China is a -- John (phonetic) and I had an expression about China, that the only country that can contain China is China. It -- its growth that it's achieved over the last several decades is absolutely stunning. As it acquires more -- as I talked about earlier, it acquires more capability and it looks at global economic interest. It will start to develop military capabilities then to defend those interests. So things are changing, to talk about the South China Sea as an example. Well, the United States in the 1820s, we declared the Monroe Doctrine. I think it was 1823 that President Monroe declares the Monroe Doctrine. And that's a rising young power that says, the Caribbean and parts of Latin America are vital national interest. Europe, thank you very much, you're not welcome. China, now, as its rise continues it looks at its near maritime domain and are the Chinese at some point in time, going to have their equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine. I don't know that as China looks at their maritime domain, they don't look at freedom of navigation quite like we do as they look at their near maritime domain, they see alliance, they see Russia, they see alliance South Korea, alliance Japan, alliance Philippines, tight relationship with Taiwan, alliance Australia, tight partnership with Singapore. They see the ring fenced on the maritime domain. Now, we can talk to them about the merits of blue water freedom of navigation but they're I think, reaching a point right now in terms of their accumulation of power and interest that we're going to have tension. 28