Su Slate, l’analisi del nuovo piano d’azione di Obama per l’Afghanistan (e il Pakistan) fatta da Fred Kaplan spiega molto bene l’inedito tentativo di riunire in una sola strategia tattiche tra loro differenti e da sempre contrapposte nel dibattito militare e politico.
The internal debate leading up to today’s announcement pitted officials who advocated a broad counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy against those calling for a more direct, less ambitious counterterrorism (CT) campaign. The COIN-dinistas, as some call them, argue that the best way to defeat insurgents is to protect the population and provide basic services, thus drying up the insurgents’ base of support and strengthening loyalty to the government. (…) Those more strictly CT advocates, led I’m told by Vice President Joe Biden, concede that the COIN camp has a point. But they say that following that course would require too many troops, too much money, and way too much time—more of all three than the United States and NATO could muster—and that the insurgents might still win anyway. Better to focus U.S. efforts more narrowly on simply fighting the insurgents themselves, especially in the border areas with Pakistan. In the end, Obama went for an option that might be called “CT-plus”.
(…) “To succeed, we and our friends and allies must … promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.” This will require “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort,” and he called for sending the Afghans “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers”. (…) Now that sounds like a counterinsurgency strategy. (…) The problem is, we can’t do both. The numbers – in terms of troops, dollars, and the years of patience it will take – don’t allow it.
I dubbi sono reali e comprensibili, ma almeno sembra un tentativo un po’ più pianificato del solito.
