Experienced strategic thinkers all pretty much accept a common truth: that in wars where mass politics is a factor, national will is crucial.
I’ve seen national will defined as “popular dedication to the nation and support for its policies, even when that support requires sacrifice.” I think that definition mistakes popular will for national will. In our country popular will refers to (reasonably) ordinary private citizens. It is in fact a sebset of national will. National will incorporates the power elite, particularly those in positions of formal political power: the President, Cabinet, Congress, etc. Even if President Obama’s address were directed primarily to a domestic audience — which has been among the many criticisms leveled at him — that would be no bad thing, since its object would be to consolidate domestic support for the strategy he and his advisers have chosen to pursue in Afghanistan. In fact, one could argue that domestic support is the single most critical factor in terms of accomplishing our objectives there. It’s not just a matter of influencing public opinion, important as that may be. It’s also a matter of influencing the power elite, particularly members of Congress.
Many commentators have assumed, with varying degrees of emphasis, that mentioning a July 2011 deadline was a serious if not fatal blunder, because it encourages the Taliban to wait us out. That may be because just about all of us within the national security community are on board with the war effort, so we tend to look primarily at the deadline’s effect on their will to continue to fight. But it also makes sense — and I would argue even more sense–to consider the extent to which mention of the deadline was important to consolidate our national will to fight.
4 Comments
It’s important to keep in mind that we only have debates of national will when the importance of an endeavor is fragile or questionable. The problem in Afghanistan is that the American commitment is built on a a fragile and, I think, false foundation: that the only options are an American engineered national government or a return to the 1990s in which the Taliban controls the country and provides bases and sanctuary to al Qaeda. The American public–at least the non-Fox News segement of it–senses that might not be true. I think that all of the “strategic communications” in the world by the administration won’t sustain national will when the public senses that it’s being misled.
It may well be that the public senses that it’s being misled. If so, I think it’s also been poorly informed.
I’m far from an expert on national security affairs, but to me any reasonably serious reader of the news could see that the Obama administration was looking for other ways of framing the problem. For a long time a counter terrorism approach, aimed at containing Al Qaeda and preventing the destablization of Pakistan, but rejecting a nation-building approach, seemed very much on the table. Judging by Peter Baker’s lengthy reconstruction of the strategy review in the New York Times, it appears the President was at first very skeptical of a counterinsurgency approach and surprised himself by coming around to it.
That said, I do think a lot of media coverage does portray our options in Afghanistan as an either/or proposition, so perhaps I’m mistaken to believe that a reasonably informed citizen could see that other possibilities were also considered.
Although this was more implied than overtly emphasized, the stability of Pakistan is now very much in play. You have to wonder what role that had Pres. Obama’s decision.
As someone who is not part of the national security community, I am not surprised by the deadline set by the president. As a historian, d I think its worth asking, if it only took the US, UK, USSSR and France six years to defeat the Nazis, how long are we supposed to fight in Afghanistan? Its nice to see that the president has set a deadline.
More to the point of your post, I appreciate the distinction you are making between public opinion and national will. My sense is that the national will was lost a long time ago, say 2003, and that the war in Afghanistan has been stumbling along on auto pilot since then. Obama needs to now build both national will and public opinion for the war. Otherwise there is no chance for success.