The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War

This set of chapters marks a bizarre trend whereby Mission Creep accelerated even further in Afghanistan, even as it faded from the attention of not merely the public but the very administration charged with running the war. Citing a number of political events and conditions, Whitlock makes the case that US military and political objectives grew immensely over the course of a few short years. For example, though expecting another quick and decisive victory, Iraq quickly succumbed to disorder and violence, and a war that already took up a lion’s share of resources and attention at its outset would dominate the Bush administration’s attention for the rest of his time in office.

Whitlock also argues that US strategic goals were fueled by political concerns and optics: With all eyes on Iraq, it became more important than ever to present Afghanistan as a success story, as two unsuccessful wars would have been politically ruinous. To be sure, there were positive signs, most notably the formation of the Afghan constitution in 2004 and the successful democratic election that same year. However, in order to safeguard those gains, administration officials began to abandon the pretense of an imminent departure, with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad admitting publicly that “given the stakes involved, [they had to] remain committed for as long as it [took] to succeed” (51).

Whitlock also traces the interconnections between Mission Creep and American Solutions for Afghan Problems. Loath as they might have been to admit it, a long presence meant nation building, and suddenly the US was not only trying to build up state institutions such as police, military, and a judiciary but also attempting a kind of psychological reengineering of the Afghan people to make them suitable for Western-style democracy. Even Special Forces troops “studied foreign cultures so they could exploit religious, linguistic, and social nuances to their advantage” (67). As the scope of the mission expanded, however, Afghanistan did not merit the resources that could even potentially accomplish the intended tasks, and so soldiers pursued psychological operations with a ludicrously poor understanding of Afghan culture, with very few capable of speaking their languages, understanding the dynamics of tribal politics, or respecting the Islamic religion. Instead, it was cheaper and easier to apply American solutions to Afghan problems, pulling military training manuals off the shelf rather than undertaking the hard work necessary to understand how Afghanistan might be able to take responsibility for its own security. The book therefore attributes a significant portion of US mismanagement in Afghanistan to failures of cultural awareness and an inability to approach Afghan culture without a pervasive sense of American superiority.

When the Afghan army proved ineffective and corrupt, the military and political leadership opted for Willful Blindness, pretending that things were going well, despite full knowledge to the contrary, rather than have to own their failures. Whitlock offers bureaucratic inertia as a cause for such deception, with no one institution wanting to take blame for a policy where many agents were contributing to the problem. Perhaps some believed that things would eventually turn for the better or did not want to offend superiors who, in some cases, were more removed and therefore did not understand how bad things were (in part because their underlings kept telling them everything was fine). In any case, insistence that the war was going well would help to perpetuate it week by week, month by month, and year by year, until it consumed six presidential administrations. In this way, the text highlights underlying political and institutional problems that offer a more general understanding of how mismanagement can become insidious in government affairs.