People of World Influence / Anthony Cordesman No Easy Answers for Afghanistan, Or for Larger Complex Threats Ahead by Michael Coleman Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies doesn’t deal in simplicity — at least not when it comes to analyzing the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and the so-called “war on terror.” That’s because Cordesman, a former State and Defense Department official, says there is nothing simple about either. And the sooner U.S. presidential administrations tell Americans there are no cut-and-dry solutions, the better the nation will be able to confront the problem of terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, Cordesman told The Washington Diplomat in an extensive interview. “There has been a tendency by both the Bush Administration and the Obama administration, in very different ways, to try to avoid complexity and simplify,” Cordesman said. “But you’re not going to simplify your way to victory. “You’re either going to learn to live with complexity, or you’re going to have complexity known the hard way,” he added. “Complexity basically rams its reality down the throats of political figures involved.” Judging by his long and distinguished career, Cordesman is clearly adept at embracing complexity. Cordesman — who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and serves as a national security analyst for ABC News — is a prolific writer and one of Washington’s leading thinkers on war and terrorism. A former director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, Cordesman is the author of more than 60 books, including a four-volume series on the lessons of modern war. His most recent publications include “Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region”; “Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race?”; “Withdrawal from Iraq: Assessing the Readiness of Iraqi Security Forces”; “Winning in Afghanistan: Creating Effective Afghan Security Forces”; and “The North African Military Balance: Force Developments in the Maghreb.” During his time at CSIS, Cordesman has completed a variety of studies on energy, U.S. strategy and defense plans, defense programming and budgeting, NATO modernization, Chinese military power, the lessons of modern warfare, proliferation, counterterrorism, armed nation building, the security of the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. In particular, he has scrutinized President Obama’s carefully planned strategy in Afghanistan, publishing multiple papers through CSIS on topics ranging from the legitimacy of the Afghan elections to Obama’s leadership on the issue. In his writings and his Diplomat interview, Cordesman stressed that the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan — sometimes referred to as the Af-Pak strategy — isn’t just about eradicating the terrorist threat of al-Qaeda or the Taliban insurgents. He argues that destroying those enemies won’t eliminate the dangers to the United States, despite official rhetoric that lead many to believe otherwise. “The fact is that Islamic extremism will be an enduring threat throughout the region no matter how well we do in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Cordesman wrote. “You are only dealing with a small minority of extremists which are violent,” he elaborated in his interview with The Diplomat. “Many of these groups interact with, or are loosely affiliated with, al-Qaeda — but even if al-Qaeda disappeared tomorrow, all of these social and economic, religious and political forces involved would mean there would still be this type of Islamic extremist terrorist violence.” Cordesman criticizes U.S. leaders for oversimplifying this problem by focusing on one or two threats, or even personalities, leading Americans to be confused about the real mission. “Part of the problem that Americans are having is because we have demonized [Osama] bin Laden rather than honestly say, ‘You are involved in a really complex global struggle and there is no one center of gravity,’” Cordesman explained. “Any given victory, as important as it is, doesn’t mean you somehow put an end to threats and problems involved, which are generational, not tied to any given country or organization.” To that end, Cordesman said U.S. officials must go beyond the “war on terrorism” and keep abreast of a dizzying array of challenges in myriad nations, each with different agendas that cut across different regions of the world — not to mention small, agile groups of radicals that also tailor their approaches to shifting national circumstances. Effective U.S. strategies for dealing with each threat must be individualized and different — and Cordesman predicts these efforts will last well into 2020 and beyond. Moreover, direct military intervention is often not the best option, or even feasible. “The choices are often going to be highly uncertain,” he said. “In some cases, like Yemen, the problem and the scale of dealing with a complex society and set of challenges almost force you to try to aid the host country and [practice] containment. You don’t have the option of direct military invention.” Iran, for example, poses an entirely different set of challenges than Yemen, though an invasion there is also practically out of the question, according to Cordesman. “You really don’t have that option in the case of Iran,” he said. “It is simply too big, too powerful, and too complex a military challenge relative to the threat it poses.” Likewise, the United States cannot use military means alone to address the range of failed, or potentially failing states throughout the world — not just Somalia and Yemen but a host of nations vulnerable to political instability. “The Arab-Israeli conflict is now tied to a deeply divided Palestinian movement that risks becoming the world’s first failed protostate,” Cordesman wrote in his most recent CSIS commentary titled “The New War on Terrorism: Yemen is Only a Symptom of a Far More Complex Mix of Threats.” Next Page