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89–517 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–124] 

RISKS TO STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN: 

POLITICS, SECURITY, AND 

INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 30, 2014 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

ALEX GALLO, Professional Staff Member 

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2014 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, July 30, 2014, Risks to Stability in Afghanistan: Politics, Security, and International Commitment .................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, July 30, 2014 ....................................................................................... 33 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 2014 

RISKS TO STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN: POLITICS, SECURITY, AND 

INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Cordesman, Anthony, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies .......................................................................... 8 

Dale, Dr. Catherine, Specialist in International Security, Congressional Research Service ....................................................................................................... 3 

Neumann, Ambassador Ronald E., President, American Academy of Diplomacy ...................................................................................................................... 11 

O’Hanlon, Dr. Michael, Director of Research for the Foreign Policy Program, 

Brookings Institution ........................................................................................... 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cordesman, Anthony ........................................................................................ 78 

Dale, Dr. Catherine .......................................................................................... 40 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 37 

Neumann, Ambassador Ronald E. .................................................................. 88 

O’Hanlon, Dr. Michael ..................................................................................... 57 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 38 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

RISKS TO STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN: POLITICS, 

SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ 

McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Good morning, 

ladies and gentlemen. The committee meets to receive testimony on 

the risk to stability in Afghanistan as we transition to a post-2014 

residual presence there. 

Our witnesses include Dr. Catherine Dale, Dr. Michael O’Hanlon, 

Mr. Anthony Cordesman, and Ambassador Ronald Neumann. 

Thank you all for joining us today. I know you have been here before, but it is important for us to find out the latest. 

The United States and its coalition partners have made significant achievements in Afghanistan, from building the Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF] to advancing growth in civil society, 

to achieving significant counterterrorism successes against our enemies. All of these efforts have served our national security interest. However, these gains are fragile and reversible. 

Afghanistan has entered a period of transition, one that carries 

significant risk in my view to its stability and security because the 

critical elements of that transition have not yet been achieved. 

Politically, the Afghan presidential elections remain unresolved. 

Diplomatically, the Bilateral Security Agreement remains unsigned. And from a security perspective, sustainment of an adequately sized and capable ANSF remains uncertain. 

We are witnessing an uptick in violence not only because of the 

summer fighting season, but also because the Afghan Taliban and 

the Haqqani Network are testing the ANSF and their ability to secure the country. 

If we don’t get this transition right, do what is necessary to provide U.S. and international commitment to a long-term sustainable 

strategy for Afghanistan, then we risk a similar future for Afghanistan as we are seeing today in Iraq, where there are few good options and sizeable limits on our ability to affect the situation even 

though the risks to our security are clear and present. 

Our security interests in Afghanistan are clear and we have sacrificed too much to focus solely on short-term exit strategies. Now 
2 

is the time when we have more options to consider, when we have 

an opportunity to shape and influence the situation and when the 

President must engage and engage often. 

However, I fear that the totality of the President’s interest on Afghanistan is simply to do what is necessary to finish the job and 

withdraw. And I worry that the 9,800 U.S. troops, which will be 

halved within a year, are not going to be sufficient to provide the 

necessary support to the ANSF given the threat from Al Qaeda, the 

Haqqani Network, and other jihadist groups in Afghanistan. 

On a final note, I hope the President will heed the advice of his 

military commanders. He has a superb Army General, John Campbell, taking command of ISAF [International Security Assistance 

Force], following after General Dunford’s tremendous leadership 

there. 

I will encourage General Campbell to conduct his own assessment [of] the situation in Afghanistan and to provide that assessment up through the chain of command, as well as to Congress. 

Today, we will gain more insights into where we are at and 

where we need to go along the key lines of effort of the transition 

that I outlined earlier during this critical phase in Afghanistan. 

Our panel of experts has a wealth of experience and, again, I thank 

you for being here today to share them with us. 

I look forward to your testimony and your insights. 

Mr. Smith. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to our witnesses for being here today. I look forward to the conversation. And 

I agree with the chairman’s remarks. 

Certainly, we have made significant progress in Afghanistan in 

terms of training their forces, fighting back in the south and elsewhere to regain security and some control. The efforts of the last 

3 or 4 years in particular by our service men and women, and all 

of the supporting folks as well, have borne real fruit and have 

moved us forward. 

However, as the chairman says, those gains are fragile and reversible because the problems with the Afghan Government remain. We are going to the difficult transition, trying to figure out 

who the next president is going to be. We do not yet have the Bilateral Security Agreement, which would give us some security going 

forward. 

And just, overall, the stability of the Afghan Government, it still 

is plagued with corruption and plagued with a number of difficulties. While the security forces in Afghanistan have gotten better, 

they are not as well-equipped as they could be. I am particularly 

concerned about the lack of close air support going forward and 

their overall ability to deal with what is still a very robust Taliban 

insurgency. 

That said, we have got to hand off responsibility at some point 

and I think it is important we have done this in a stairstep man-
3 

ner, that we have sort of slowly gradually handed over responsibility. And hopefully, if we can get the Bilateral Security Agreement signed, we will not be in the same place that we were in in 

Iraq, where we couldn’t get a similar agreement signed, and we 

had to just go down to nothing in 1 year. 

That quick transition, I think, was at least the small part of the 

problem in Iraq. We would like to see a smoother transition in Afghanistan. 

But as these challenges confront us, we are always interested in 

learning more about how best we can meet them, how best we can 

deal with them, because we do have national security interest in 

that region. You know, the violent extremist groups that are 

present there are obviously closely linked to Al Qaeda and the 

ideologies that threaten us. 

We need to find some way to contain that and hopefully get us 

to the point where we can have a peaceful and reasonably stable 

regime in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, as Pakistan is also threatened by many of these terrorist groups. 

So I look forward to the testimony. I thank the chairman for having the hearing. And I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 38.] 

STATEMENT OF DR. CATHERINE DALE, SPECIALIST IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Dale. 

Is your mic on? 

Dr. DALE. It is not. Sorry, but it is now. Chairman McKeon—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And you have to talk right into it. 

Dr. DALE. I have been accused of many things over time, seldom 

of being too quiet. But I am happy to accommodate. Again, thank 

you for the invitation to join you today, the CRS [Congressional Research Service] and myself, to testify about risks to stability in Afghanistan. 

It is a great time for this discussion, not long after President 

Obama’s announcement in May about the timeline for further U.S. 

troop drawdowns and changes in their mission and footprint. The 

U.S. still does face tough choices ahead, choices that will powerfully shape the prospects for stability in Afghanistan, the protection of U.S. interest, and the U.S. reputation and influence on the 

world stage. 

A genuinely strategic approach to those choices would start with 

the interests we had at stake, what it would take to protect those 

interests, how long that would take, how much it would cost, and 

the risks if we don’t take those steps, and then given limited resources, the importance of this effort compared to all the other 

things that we care about. 

Afghanistan’s future stability is at risk in at least four different 

arenas. First of all security. In just 5 years, the Afghan National 

Security Forces have made remarkable progress, with support from 

the U.S. and other NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies and partners. They have grown in capacity, in capabilities, in 

their unity of effort, their ability to generate effects against the 

enemy, and they have largely succeeded in providing security for 
4 

major events across Afghanistan over this past year, including the 

two rounds of elections. 

But the insurgency has not been defeated. They are able to stage 

traumatic attacks, to intimidate some Afghans in some communities, and to mount some large-scale assaults. So at issue is how 

much the insurgency may be further emboldened by the ongoing coalition troop drawdown and how well the ANSF will respond to any 

increased insurgent pressure. 

Security in Afghanistan is fragile. Let me mention three aspects. 

The ANSF are still in the process of integrating their own organic 

enablers in arenas such as lift, casualty evacuation, and fires. They 

will face enabler gaps as coalition forces draw down and before Afghan enablers, which will be more limited in scope and scale, come 

fully online. 

Afghan forces on the ground also need better institutional support from the systems like logistics and personnel and resourcing 

against requirements. The coalition is working with Afghans both 

at ministries in Kabul, national level headquarters, and then down 

on the ground with the army and police to help them vertically integrate those systems. 

The current policy calls for pulling advisory efforts back into 

Kabul by the end of next year, and it is not yet clear how much 

progress will have been made by that point. 

The ANSF feel that the tools they have are insufficient or that 

their own systems cannot support them. They may choose to retract their reach, to hunker down, to cut local level deals with insurgents, or they may overextend and fail so catastrophically that 

they lose confidence in themselves. 

In addition, U.S. troop drawdowns will sharply curtail our ability 

to target Al Qaeda and affiliates, which still do pose a threat. 

There are three options, essentially, if you choose an option. One 

is to eliminate the threat beyond prospect of regeneration. Another 

is to ensure that Afghan and Pakistani forces can handle that 

threat. Or you could preserve U.S. ability to act directly, more or 

less indefinitely. We need to be clear about which of these solutions, if any, we intend to pursue. 

Second arena is governance. Security in Afghanistan cannot hold 

without governance that the Afghan people accept. An architecture 

of responsible governance is needed to direct the ANSF and hold 

it accountable to provide access to justice in the rule of law, to ensure some minimum foundation of economic viability and opportunity, and to inspire the trust of both regional neighbors and the 

Afghan people. 

But governance in Afghanistan faces two fundamental challenges. One is simply a lack of capacity, the ability to get things 

done. The other is corruption: pervasive, voracious contestation for 

political and economic power and influence, backed up by personalized militias, that consistently cannibalizes the Afghan state. 

The best long-term solution would be an increasingly inclusive 

constitutionally grounded Afghan political order. Successful resolution of the current electoral impasse in a way that most Afghans 

accept could be an important catalyst of that longer-term process. 

Now, Afghanistan’s increasingly vibrant civil society can also 

help. That is non-governmental organizations, women’s groups, 
5 

media outlets, youth organizations, the private sector, traditional 

local councils. National dialogue in Afghanistan is alive and well. 

It just needs time to grow. 

Third is Pakistan. There is no such thing as a stable Afghanistan 

in isolation. And the neighbor most crucial to Afghanistan’s stability is Pakistan. But that bilateral relationship is marked by a 

fundamental lack of good faith at the strategic level. 

ISAF actively facilitates Afghan-Pakistani mil-to-mil ties, but 

those opportunities will be more limited as our troops draw down. 

More fundamentally, it is not clear how well mil-to-mil ties can actually aggregate up to resolve tensions at that political level. 

What may make sense for the longer term is sustained strategiclevel U.S. engagement, leveraging all the instruments of national 

power to help shape a stable region. There is some danger that 

without a continued significant U.S. force presence in Afghanistan, 

this region will simply disappear from our strategic radar screen 

amidst the panoply of competing demands. 

Fourth, and finally, economics. The biggest elephant in the room 

is this—who will pay for future security in Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself simply will not be able to foot the bill anytime soon. And 

without funding, Afghanistan security architecture would almost 

certainly collapse quickly and perhaps with it the Afghan state. 

The international community has pledged support, but the bill is 

large and it faces competing exigencies in each national capital. As 

the international presence in Afghanistan diminishes and with it, 

the ability to monitor implementation, donors would want concrete 

reassurance that any funding they provide would be utilized accountably. And would-be donors are hardly likely to sign up for a 

10-year commitment if there is no prospect that Afghans at the end 

of that time will be able to assume responsibility. 

The step that could come next is a real dialogue about future 

funding requirements over time, including Afghanistan’s ability to 

contribute. It would also be helpful for the international community 

to pool its efforts more concertedly and leverage tools like the 

Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework. 

One final word. One of the greatest risks looking ahead is that 

in the mad rush of competing global crises, the U.S. Government 

will not be able to find any more time to think about Afghanistan. 

It will effectively decide not to decide. Far better to approach the 

way forward strategically with due consideration of the interests 

the U.S. has at stake, what it would take to protect them, and the 

consequences for the United States should stability in Afghanistan 

collapse. 

Thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dale can be found in the Appendix on page 40.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Dr. O’Hanlon. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL O’HANLON, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH FOR THE FOREIGN POLICY PROGRAM, BROOKINGS 

INSTITUTION 

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be 

before the committee that I have admired for so long, and I want 
6 

to say a special word of gratitude and admiration to your service 

as chairman, as you think about a next stage in life in the coming 

months. 

I really want to just focus on one point. I know we have a lot 

of subjects before us on Afghanistan, and I am here with my distinguished colleagues and frequent travelling companions to Afghanistan who are, like Catherine, going to add so much. 

So I just want to focus on the proposal to pull all of our main 

combat units out by 2016 or by the end of that year, which of 

course is part of the drawdown plan the President has now put on 

the table in his May remarks. 

And, Mr. Chairman, you alluded to the 9,800 goal, the total number of American men and women in uniform that will start next 

year in Afghanistan according to the current plan if we get the Bilateral Security Agreement. And like you, I have some concerns 

about that number, but I have even greater concerns about the 

plan to go to zero by the end of 2016. 

And I think it is actually based on a paradigm or on a set of assumptions that I would disagree with. And let me begin by saying 

I think the President has been very patient, as has this committee, 

as have the American people in supporting a long, frustrating, ugly 

mission. 

And it hasn’t gone nearly as well as most of us would have liked, 

and yet, I think it has done better than many realized, and the importance of the mission remains. And the President and the Congress deserve a lot of credit for sticking with it. 

But I fear there is a little bit now of a loss of patience, that there 

is a narrative that says we somehow have to end this. And maybe 

the President feels that he is doing his successor a favor by getting 

out by the end of 2016. But I actually worry the President will be 

taking away tools that his successor needs. 

And so the way I would suggest we think about 2017 or the end 

of 2016, this is not a period where we need to pursue an exit strategy. It is a period where we need to establish a new partnership 

with Afghanistan. 

We have core American interests above and beyond the development of the Afghan National Security Forces, and those interests 

are important themselves. But we have a counterterrorism interest 

in staying in Afghanistan with a limited military capability of perhaps a few thousand total forces, anywhere between one and four 

bases. 

For the indefinite future, I see no reason that exit strategy or a 

declaration of the end of America’s role should be our guiding principle. We have an enduring plan for forces in Djibouti. We are 

probably going to have to do more in Iraq. We have forces in and 

out of the Persian Gulf all the time. We had forces in Korea for 

many decades and still have them today. I don’t see why exit strategy should be the defining objective. 

And the reason I say this fundamentally is because I cannot rule 

out in my own mind that Al Qaeda is still going to be a threat in 

Pakistan after 2016. And to be blunt, we need places nearby from 

which to attack Al Qaeda even after 2016. 

Now, I would hope very much we don’t have to do this nearly as 

much as we did in the past. I am glad to see the number of drone 
7 

attacks and the frequency has gone down. I would hope it could 

continue to go down. But we have seen Al Qaeda and its affiliates 

move and take advantage of new opportunities, again, in recent 

months in the Levant and in Iraq. There is no reason to rule out 

that they might do that again in Pakistan or Afghanistan. 

We need tools, especially drones, intelligence, and special forces, 

to be able to address the possibility of Al Qaeda, starting with Mr. 

Zawahiri and working down, using Pakistan or Eastern Afghanistan as sanctuary, as planning centers, training bases, operational 

headquarters in the future. 

And to me there is simply no reason that we should think that 

this has to stop or should stop by the end of 2016. Our threat assessments are not precise enough and even if Al Qaeda and affiliates are stronger now in the broader Middle East and maybe a little less worrisome in Pakistan and Afghanistan compared to how 

the tables were different 5 years ago, they could change again. 

Al Qaeda as a global movement is a very adaptive, very opportunistic, set of organizations. And if they sense an opportunity in 

the tribal areas of Pakistan or Eastern Afghanistan again, I believe 

they could use those kinds of geographic locations to do much of 

what they have done in the past. And this includes, of course, the 

Haqqani Network, a number of other groups that are affiliated 

with Al Qaeda, whether or not we describe them by that formal Al 

Qaeda central construct or name. 

And so, just one last point as I make this overall argument. 

When I think about the President’s overall approach towards Afghanistan during his 51⁄2 years in office, again, I think he has been 

remarkably patient. He has always felt the need to talk about getting out. And it seems that we have always been working towards 

an exit strategy and yet he has taken his time to actually make 

the cuts. 

They have been, as Congressman Smith said, in a staircase manner with the support of the committee and others in Congress, and 

I think that has been very prudent. And I think that should continue. 

If I look back at 2011—and this committee remembers very well 

the debate from that period of time—in June 2011, as General 

Petraeus was here for CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Director 

confirmation hearings and John Allen was about to take over in Afghanistan, at that time the President announced a plan to cut our 

forces by one-third, from roughly 100,000 down to 68,000 by the 

end of the summer of 2012. So it was going to be over about a 16- 

month period. 

As you will recall, General Petraeus voiced some concerns that 

was a little too quick in his mind, but he thought it was reasonable. Some of his friends were encouraging him to resign in protest 

or what have you, but he said, no, you know, President Obama has 

to take a little broader perspective than I do as commander. And 

he said, if it is a little faster than I would like, so be it, we can 

still work within that kind of approach. 

We got down to 68,000 troops by the end of September 2012. And 

then, the President made no further declarations of any drawdowns 

until after he had been reelected and gave his State of the Union 
8 

address in February of 2013. At which point, he said he would take 

a full 12 months to get down to 34,000 troops. 

In other words, there was a certain amount of patience and a 

conditions-based approach. And even if it was a little faster of a 

drawdown than I might have preferred myself, at least it had that 

kind of a logic to it. 

Now I fear that we are lumping everything altogether in one 

plan. So we are getting from our current 30,000 down to about 

10,000 by the end of the year, then we are going to cut it again 

in half by the end of 2015, and then we are going to be virtually 

all the way out by the end of 2016. 

I think it is piling too much on top of competing plans or overlapping plans. We would be better off going one step at a time and 

probably planning to keep several thousand forces even after 2016, 

fundamentally, for counterterrorism purposes, even if the Afghan 

forces may not need us as much at that point. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. O’Hanlon can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Cordesman. 

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A. BURKE 

CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman 

Smith, members of the committee. 

This is the third war in my lifetime where I have seen us headed 

out of a war where we are denying or understating the risks in 

what we are doing, where the United States Government is systematically spinning the facts to try to justify a structure which is not 

supported by outside forms of analysis, and where we have little 

real public debate over the strategic impact of our actions. 

To be blunt, I think we already have transitioned wrong. As was 

raised by both Dr. Dale and Dr. O’Hanlon, I think we are repeating 

a mistake that I saw us make in Vietnam, that has been clearly 

demonstrated in Iraq. We are rushing advisory groups out too 

quickly, setting levels too low. We are not integrating a civil-military plan and we are creating metrics which basically are not supported by looking at the facts. 

The problem I have always seen in our approach to 

counterinsurgency is we face three threats. One is the enemy. The 

other is the government and allies that we have to work with, and 

the third is our ability to adapt with some degree of transparency 

and realism to the actual nature of the war we are fighting. 

Now, people have mentioned already the accomplishments or the 

gains we have made in Afghanistan. Well, I think the problem is, 

that when you shift from the reporting that comes in the 1230 report or USAID [United States Agency for International Development] or the State Department and you look at the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the World Bank, the U.N. [United Nations] and other sources, you get a completely different picture of 

the risks and problems we face. 

You also find something that is totally lacking in U.S. Government reporting, which are assessments of uncertainty, definitions 
9 

of where our data come from, and frankly, timeliness, because so 

much of our reporting lags 3 to 6 months, in some cases even a 

year behind the current status inside of Afghanistan. 

I think that one of the key issues you see almost immediately, 

and this is in the 1230 report, but even clearer in the U.N. report. 

The surge in Afghanistan had none of the effects it had inside Iraq. 

You have not seen a decline in violence. You have not seen a decline in casualties. You have seen a steady rise in all of these 

metrics, including acts of violence as measured by people outside 

the ISAF structure, like the U.N. and other sources. 

You have seen a rise in civilian casualties that is very significant. And you have not seen a decline in the areas of conflict. You 

have seen just the opposite. In the U.N. reporting in every area except the south, you have seen a major expansion of insurgent activity in terms of acts of violence, in terms of casualties, in terms of 

IEDs [improvised explosive devices], and the other measurements 

involved. 

I think as SIGAR [Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction] reporting has shown, you have seen very serious 

problems emerge in the training and support effort and transition 

of the Afghan National Security Forces. I don’t think that these are 

fatal, but they are real. 

And one of the lessons in both Vietnam and Iraq is precisely the 

issue that Dr. O’Hanlon raised. You need to have sufficient advisors long enough to make the transition from generating forces to 

creating effective combat forces. 

If you look at the official U.S. Army history of what happened 

in Vietnam, you will see measured in detail the cost of following 

the course of action we plan to follow in Afghanistan. If you look 

at reports on what happened in Iraq, units began basically to collapse, became corrupt, failed to support maintenance within a matter of months of the departure of U.S. advisers in the field. 

And these were forces considerably better developed than the 

ones in Afghanistan and far less dependent on a police force which 

is roughly half of the Afghan National Forces and is rated by every 

source as ineffective, corrupt, and not tied to an effective rule of 

law structure. 

I think that we are looking at numbers which this committee 

really needs to examine. The public data on the number of Afghanled operations ignored desertion rates, absentee rates, in the units 

involved. They do not characterize who is leading what and the definition of Afghan-led even in elite forces like Afghan Special Forces 

is a little amazing because when you go to the latest 1230 report, 

you will see there are 488 Afghan Special Forces units or led operations. 

The problem is, if you read into the fine print, 378 of those actually have U.S. participation and strong U.S. involvement. And defining data is a critical issue even within the military in terms of 

police effectiveness, the effectiveness of the ALP [Afghan Local Police]. There is a very serious risk. 

But the problem, I think, that is equally critical is the civil dimension. One of the things that is stunning is the gap between 

World Bank assessments of the quality and movements in governance, the U.N. indications of basic human development measures, 
10 

and the reporting that has come out of USAID and the U.S. Government. 

You see a major set of improvements through about 2005, 2006 

in international reporting by the World Bank, the IMF, the U.N. 

You do not see that as being sustained. You see a major drop as 

the level of violence rise. You do not see claims as you saw in a 

White House factsheet that the GNP [gross national product] is improving. And the reason, as the World Bank explains, is that has 

been an improvement almost completely dependent since 2005 on 

rainfall. 

So when the White House quoted 2012 for an average improvement, that was a great year for the rains. The problem was, in 

2013, the GDP [gross domestic product] growth radically dropped. 

And I think, frankly, in politics, taking credit for the weather may 

be a little ambitious on the part of anyone. 

The World Bank does not show rising income. The World Bank 

presents just the opposite argument. It is that you have had a serious increase in poverty, largely for population pressures, largely 

because of hyper-urbanization, problems with water and agriculture. 

All of these are laid out in detail in terms of World Bank and 

IMF reporting. They are laid out by reporting by the Afghans. You 

see a level of dependence on outside aid and military spending, 

which is, again, well-presented in the World Bank data and the 

IMF data. 

All of our aid programs, to the extent we have any plan, ignore 

that economic risk; they are essentially program or project aid 

plans. And let me note, this is now 2014. We became actively involved in war and aid programs in 2002. 

We have, in two wars, never had the State Department or 

USAID present any meaningful effectiveness measures of what aid 

has actually accomplished on the civil side. The one document in 

two wars we have is this one, and not one of the statistical areas 

listed can be sustained by an examination of where the data came 

from. 

I think that we face critical problems that we have ignored in 

terms of the infrastructure. We have talked about the ring road, we 

have talked about the improvement we have made, but these are 

not being sustained or maintained. Security is an issue, but basically we are watching a lot of that infrastructure deteriorate before 

we even leave. 

We see that we have not done anything to remove critical barriers by World Bank or IMF or U.N. estimates to industrial development. And again, these are all laid out in detail in a formal 

statement that I would like to have entered in the record. All of 

the data are taken from sources other than the U.S. Government 

to illustrate the issues involved. 

Finally, we are not even coming to grip with the issue of dependence on narcotics and power brokers. We are watching a steady increase in production, we are watching an increase in the area of 

cultivation, and one of the key problems is that, as we pull down 

on aid and military spending, the percentage of Afghan dependence 

on narcotics has to go up because there is no other area of development which the World Bank or the IMF has been able to identify. 
11 

So let me close by saying, I do not believe in looking at what is 

a poor developing country, virtually at the bottom of the world in 

terms of rankings of governance and corruption. Transparency 

International ranks Afghanistan as 93 percent of the worst country 

in the world in terms of corruption and the ineffectiveness of government after all of our aid and other efforts. 

But, if we are going to leave Afghanistan and we want it to work, 

we need to keep the advisers in, we need to keep the military 

spending up, and we need an honest and realistic assessment of 

economic and governance risks that takes account of the fact that 

the only source I can think of that is talking about these accomplishments of all the rating groups is the United States Government. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cordesman can be found in the 

Appendix on page 78.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Ambassador Neumann. 

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR RONALD E. NEUMANN, 

PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DIPLOMACY 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Thank you, Chairman McKeon, Representative Smith. Thank you for your invitation to appear today. 

Far too much has been accomplished to say that Afghanistan is 

without hope and far too little is finished to claim that we have accomplished our purpose. We are ending our active combat participation in a bloody continuing war. We retain a strong interest in 

supporting stability. As we consider how to confront the new Islamic caliphate, we should not start by losing the war with its Al 

Qaeda parent. 

There are some positive aspects. Despite white-knuckle confrontations, it appears Afghanistan will emerge with a peaceful 

transition of power to a legitimately elected president. That individual will have a stronger hand to govern and to negotiate because he is broadly legitimate. 

Afghan political leaders, albeit with international help, are able 

to compromise. The Afghan Security Forces, with 100,000 fewer 

foreign troops in the country than in 2009, credibly managed security through the election. 

I want to focus particularly on those areas where U.S. policy and 

actions can make a difference. My colleagues have discussed economic security and politics. There is a psychological element that 

links all three. Afghans and neighbors, friends and enemies alike, 

pay a great deal of attention to what they think the U.S. will do. 

When they are unclear, they make policy based on assumptions. 

Our recent policy decisions need to be reviewed in that light. 

I support the decision to leave just under 10,000 troops in Afghanistan in 2015, although like my colleagues, I wish it had been 

a few more. However, many problems are occasioned by the President’s having already decided without reference to what will or 

won’t happen on the ground that our presence will be reduced by 

half in 2016 and ended by 2017, except for forces under embassy 

control. 

These decisions raise doubts about our effectiveness, about what 

Afghans think they may expect from us, and about the future of 

NATO. The change in configurations will diminish our effective-
12 

ness. In the next 6 months, our forces will consolidate one posture, 

only to radically change it 12 months later, when we shrink to a 

Kabul base. 

Physically, a lot of work is going to be taken away from advising 

and go into shifting locations and organizations. We will become 

more ignorant of what is going on in the war and in governance 

in the provinces. Most important, these decisions radiate doubts 

about our commitment, since we are going to end our mission on 

the same timetable no matter what. 

Uncertainty gives hope to our enemies, it leads Afghans to fight 

or govern with one eye watching to see what they can do to protect 

themselves if we bail out faster than we now claim will be the case, 

and these considerations affect stability and performance. 

U.S. troop decisions need to be integrated with NATO planning. 

We have a double interest in extending the NATO mission beyond 

2016. First, we will continue to have an important training mission 

that should be shared with our NATO allies. That is what the people that are going to stay under embassy control are going to be 

doing. Second, when nations have troops engaged, they are far 

more likely to maintain financial support and share the burden of 

stabilizing Afghanistan. 

Therefore, we need to decide how to coordinate the NATO mission with U.S. forces under embassy control. Otherwise, we will 

end up with separate parallel and probably duplicatory functions, 

or no NATO. 

We know that many NATO nations are prepared to extend their 

stay beyond 2016, but to stay, they will need support from us and 

that apparently is not decided. 

Finally, I want to stress the interrelationship of force, money, 

and diplomacy. In the recent electoral crisis, our diplomacy was 

undergirded by the very real threat to reduce assistance if the crisis worsened. 

The lesson here is really important. Threats alone, which was 

sort of where we started, you work it out or we are going home, 

were not sufficient to resolve the crisis. Diplomacy was essential. 

But it is because of the weight of our commitments of military and 

financial aid that we had real influence to use in brokering a process. 

We are not out of the woods. Whatever level of Afghan political 

cooperation has been agreed, will be carried out with one eye constantly on future political advantage and power politics, as they 

maneuver against each other. That shouldn’t surprise us, it isn’t 

terribly unfamiliar. 

The resulting political maneuvers will strongly affect the next Afghan president’s ability to improve internal governance, a critical 

issue for future stability, women’s advancement, and economic and 

justice sector development. There will be a continuing need for 

careful diplomacy to help the next Afghan president work through 

these challenges. 

Maintaining our aid and our presence are vital to providing the 

tools with which successful diplomatic outcomes can be built. 

Thank you for your attention and I await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Neumann can be found 

in the Appendix on page 88.] 
13 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Ambassador Neumann, it appears 

there is going to be—that there will be negotiations between Ghani 

and Abdullah campaigns or some type of power-sharing arrangement. 

Could you provide more detail on what options there may be for 

a power-sharing arrangement? Also, can you describe any risks to 

security in Afghanistan in rushing a political deal among the candidates? 

Ambassador NEUMANN. I want to be careful not to exceed my actual knowledge at the moment in an area which is pretty opaque. 

I think there are several different kinds of negotiations going on. 

First of all, power needs to be shared no matter who wins. That 

was clear even before the election. I was in Afghanistan in March 

and both Ghani and Dr. Abdullah, and for that matter, Sayyaf and 

Rassul, all said to me that if they won, they understood they would 

have to govern with a broader coalition than that that elected 

them, because the country is still riven by political factions at the 

moment, although not nearly as brutally so as Iraq. 

So there is a need to spread out. What you have got now is a 

kind of double-balancing, where on the one hand, you have the negotiations over how you are going to count ballots—that might remind us of certain Florida events—and at the same time, you are 

using the tension there to play for how you are going to get more 

positions. 

I think there are two risks, but they are manageable. One risk 

is that so much is given away to power brokers in this balancing 

that the next president has a constrained ability to actually govern 

any better than President Karzai has been able to do. 

The other is that this process is probably going to break down 

after the election. I am not so worried that you will have—can’t resolve it. Afghans have shown an incredible ability to resolve issues, 

people who were shooting at each other in the ruins of Kabul have 

managed to be holding hands and drinking tea together in the parliament for some years. 

So I don’t think at the end of the day that they are going to let 

this go over the edge. They understand how serious it is. But I 

don’t think you will get a stable situation out of it, because you will 

continue to see a maneuvering for power. 

And that is where I think our role is really critical, to keep reminding them of the dangers of letting this get out of control and 

keep the boundaries in place, which I think we could do creatively. 

We have good diplomats who have done a good job. But you have 

to have assets. 

When you take all the assets out, then you look like Iraq, where 

you are not even jawboning, you are just doing toothless gumming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Dr. O’Hanlon, in my opening statement, I made the parallel between the situation currently unfolding in Iraq and the potential for something familiar in Afghanistan 

should we pull out too hastily on an arbitrary timeline. 

I am concerned that the 9,800 troops are not robust enough to 

support the mission in Afghanistan post-2014, that there is a risk 

associated with the President’s decision to go to zero on an arbitrary timeline by the end of 2016. 
14 

Could you describe in detail the nature of the risk of leaving on 

an arbitrary timeline? What needs to be achieved in Afghanistan 

before the United States departs with its residual presence in your 

view? 

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of things. 

First, Tony made, I thought, the very good point that we need to 

stay in the field with Afghan forces. And that gets to the question 

of what the numbers are. 

Of course, commanders have been discrete about their public 

statements, but I think if we read the tea leaves and read between 

the lines, we can tell the commanders would prefer to be a little 

higher than 9,800, but it is not out of the realm of at least what 

you can debate or consider. 

So I think that number is probably low for the reasons, again, 

that Tony is getting at and the reasons that Congressman Smith 

was alluding to with air support, as well as a couple of other specific needs. But I am less worried about that, putting that aside for 

the moment. 

What I am more worried about is that, as soon as we get to that 

number, we immediately need to start making plans to cut it in 

half. As Ron points out, that is going to distract us from the actual 

job at hand in 2015, because by the end of that very next calendar 

year, we have to be down to 4,900, which means we will be implementing that drawdown in the late summer and fall, which means 

we will be planning it in the spring. 

So there will be no period during which we are actually just 

using that number of 9,800 to do whatever we can do with it. We 

will almost immediately be figuring out how to cut it. 

And then, even worse yet in my eyes is the plan to go to essentially zero operational units in the field by the end of 2016. And 

there I have my concerns about how we nurture and steward the 

Afghan forces. But I also have my concerns, as I mentioned earlier, 

about the Al Qaeda threat. 

We don’t know how to predict where Al Qaeda is going to be 

strongest in 2 to 3 years globally, but I think we can all be fairly 

sure of one thing. It is not going away. And I think this committee 

has been very good at getting that message out. 

We all—a lot of us were hopeful that Al Qaeda was maybe not 

on the ropes, but at least diminishing in overall influence 2 or 3 

years ago. That became a partisan issue. Leave aside the partisan 

issue. 

Empirically speaking, there was a serious debate in 2011/2012 

about whether the global threat was getting a little bit less. I don’t 

think there is any such debate anymore. Empirically speaking, the 

threat is very serious and the only thing we don’t really know is 

where it is going to be most serious come 2016, 2017. 

So, taking away tools to deal with it in South Asia, to my mind, 

is not a logical thing for American counterterrorism purposes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One question in terms of Taliban and Al Qaeda, you know, back 

when the Taliban was in power, they made the deal to allow Al 

Qaeda to be there and they have had an alliance of some sorts ever 
15 

since. As the Taliban are ascended, to what extent do you see Al 

Qaeda being intricately linked with them? 

Let’s say that the worst happens and the Taliban take over at 

least some portion of Afghanistan, are able to govern it, how would 

any of you assess the risk that Al Qaeda will again be able to enjoy 

safe havens or that whatever that group of violent extremists looks 

like that the threat would then become external, that they would 

try to attack Western targets, that they would try to sort of recapture what Al Qaeda used to do in terms of plotting, you know, 

wars, terrorist attacks against Western interests outside of Afghanistan? 

What is that link? It doesn’t seem to be as strong as it was prior 

to 2001, but I am interested in your assessment. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Mr. Smith, I think that we need to be very 

careful because the Al Qaeda has a sanctuary in Pakistan, and that 

has not been challenged and none of the fighting that is taking 

place in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] area will 

be affected, because that sanctuary is in the—— 

Mr. SMITH. Well, it has been challenged. I mean, witness the 

drone strikes and some other things. It is not—— 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Well—— 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Well, the strikes have been essentially not on 

Al Qaeda, however. We have had a challenge in the raid, we have 

gotten bin Laden. But I think the real issue here is Al Qaeda was 

never a controlling force in the Taliban government. Al Qaeda central has now been replaced by more influential centers of operational activity by Al Qaeda in Yemen, North Africa. 

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. It has been displaced by groups like ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and 

the Levant]. I think that quite frankly our concern really is not Al 

Qaeda as much as the fact that, when you look at the Haqqani 

Network, if you look at what is happening in the Taliban, there are 

significant numbers of foreign fighters in those groups. They interact with people moving in and out of areas like Syria, now Iraq and 

elsewhere. 

It is not Al Qaeda anymore that is probably the primary threat, 

at least Al Qaeda central, of terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan. It is the flow and interaction of activity through the Haqqani 

Network and the Taliban. 

Mr. SMITH. And the foreign fighters as well. The other question 

I had is in—— 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Could I just make a short addition to 

that? 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. I think we want to be careful because 

you could get lost in the technical definitions and miss the threat, 

and we also have the problem as we have with the expanding 

threats that we can end up doing policy a little like small children 

playing soccer, where everybody runs to the current ball. 

Intellectually, these groups that Tony was talking about, the foreign fighters, old Al Qaeda, new Islamic caliphate, have a very 

strong intellectual link. And I think it is a mistake to try to be too 
16 

precise and say that one is a threat and this one isn’t. I think that 

begins to exceed our knowledge. 

I think it is also important to remember that there were a lot 

of writings that said, we will get the United States in, they will 

lose the war because they will be exhausted, and we will come 

back. It doesn’t mean that they will be back as a huge presence, 

but I think there is a psychological element also, which will invigorate the general movement. And we need to be careful about that. 

I cannot imagine them not coming back to some extent because 

I don’t see any pressure on the Taliban sufficient to keep them out 

when they are useful linkage and ally. 

Mr. SMITH. And as Mr. Cordesman mentioned, they are beginning to sort of cross-pollinate there. It is not just a matter of Al 

Qaeda; the Haqqani Network or other groups that aren’t even affiliated with Al Qaeda can still present a threat to us. 

I guess, you know, one of the things we really struggle with is— 

and I think, Mr. Cordesman, you did a decent job of explaining the 

limitation in Afghanistan—but how long would we have to stay 

there before those limitations would change? 

It seems to me that we are on sort of a perpetual motion machine 

here. We could go back up to 100,000 troops and stay for 20 years 

and somehow I feel that 20 years from now, hopefully a different 

group of people would be having this same conversation about, you 

know, a corrupt, incompetent government, we can’t leave because 

they are not going to be able to stand. 

And if that is true, what does that mean in terms of how we 

adopt our policy? I mean, isn’t there some sort of containment policy that is short of well, we just have to try to stay there forever 

to hopefully keep the lid on this. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Mr. Smith, we are already in many ways out. 

And when we talk about advisers, you are talking about advisers, 

not combat forces. 

Mr. SMITH. Right, but that dodges the question to some extent. 

Okay, so take us back a couple of years to where we were in. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Let me just say though that I think the honest 

answer to your question is, until there is some resolution of what 

is a set of religious, demographic, economic, and political tensions 

that now extends, really, from North Africa in some ways to the 

Philippines, we can contain, we can limit area by area according 

to how serious the issue is, but this threat is going to remain. 

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. There is no way we can physically defeat it. 

Mr. SMITH. But if that is the case, isn’t that an argument for 

doing it in more containments. Instead of putting all of our eggs, 

a 100,000 troops in Afghanistan when the threat could be in a 

whole bunch of different places, isn’t it an argument for coming up 

with a broader containment strategy where you don’t try to, you 

know, put 100,000 in Iraq or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, because in no place can you actually eliminate it. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Well, I think you are absolutely correct, but it— 

to the extent that talking to people in the special forces or the 

Joint Staff and elsewhere, I think that really is their strategy. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 
17 

Mr. CORDESMAN. It is to find areas where we do not abandon security partners, as Ambassador Neumann, Dr. Dale, and Dr. 

O’Hanlon have mentioned. We create the kind of presence and role 

which is both affordable and sustainable. And we will find ourselves with new areas emerging. 

I don’t think anyone a year ago would have said that we would 

face a proto-state in eastern Syria and western Iraq. People have 

talked about our progress in Yemen quite frankly as optimistically 

as they have our presence in Iraq—or rather Afghanistan. But we 

are at the point where we can’t provide sufficient forces to control 

that threat, we may be able to limit it. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, thank you. I want to let somebody else, and I 

yield back. I appreciate the answer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank each of you for 

being here today. And my hopes for the people of Afghanistan are 

very personal. My youngest son served as an engineer there last 

year with the South Carolina Army National Guard. And he was 

really inspired by the people of Afghanistan. 

My former National Guard unit, the 218th Brigade, served for a 

year in Afghanistan, led by our Adjutant General Bob Livingston, 

and they developed a real identity and bond with the people of Afghanistan as Afghan brothers. So I am hopeful. 

Additionally, though, I am so concerned. We certainly should remember that it was from the caves of Afghanistan that Osama bin 

Laden directed the attacks against the United States on September 

11, 2001. Somehow we—the American people have forgotten that. 

They need to remember. 

And, Mr. Cordesman, as you are indicating the spread of Al 

Qaeda across the globe from North Africa through the Middle East, 

Central Asia, and you added to it, the Philippines, too. We have 

people who are dedicated, according to this diagram by Dr. Fred 

Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, of death to Israel and 

death to America. That is their plan. 

At the same time, again, it is personal, I have had an opportunity to visit with our troops 12 times in Afghanistan, but something that was, again, very uplifting to me is to visit with our diplomatic corps led by Ambassador Neumann. And so, I know we 

have extraordinary people. 

As we face this, I would like to know—the President has correctly identified that there was a direct relationship between the 

stability of Afghanistan and the stability of nuclear Pakistan. If 

what—what would be—how could this be missed that the President 

was very clear that this is—the instability there could result in extraordinary threat to the American people. 

Each of you, if you would comment in regard to the importance 

of the interrelation with Pakistan. 

Dr. DALE. Sir, thank you for your question, and thanks to your 

sons as well for their terrific service. You raised a terrific issue. 

Stability in Afghanistan, many would say, is important from a U.S. 

national security interest perspective for multiple reasons. One is 

the threat of violent extremism, violent extremists, who as my colleagues were just discussing have found a genial home in Afghanistan in the past and currently. 
18 

But in addition, the South Asia region raises other concerns for 

us. One is the prospect, and a very scary one, of nuclear proliferation in Pakistan which could be triggered by state instability or collapse. 

A stable Afghanistan could go a long way to lowering the temperatures and the tensions in the Afghan-Pakistani relationship 

and perhaps bolster state stability in Pakistan. And that is something worth thinking about as we make future decisions. 

One more facet is the Pakistani-Indian relationship and the prospect there of a potential nuclear standoff. Afghanistan has traditionally served as grounds for proxy contestation between those two 

states. Again, a stable Afghanistan could go a long way to lowering 

those temperatures and reducing that tension. 

Thank you. 

Dr. O’HANLON. Congressman, I will just make one brief point, 

which is a scenario that I worry about somewhat if Afghanistan 

were to fall apart, and whether the Taliban itself would invite a 

group like Lashkar-e-Taiba into part of eastern Afghanistan or not, 

I don’t know. But if the state collapsed, a group like Lashkar-eTaiba, which of course was behind the Mumbai terrorist attack of 

2008 in India, could have another place from which it could do 

planning. 

At the moment, it may not need that because, historically, of 

course, the Pakistani security forces have tolerated and even 

helped Lashkar-e-Taiba. But there hasn’t been another attack like 

Mumbai in the last 6 years and there could come a point where 

Lashkar-e-Taiba wants more freedom of maneuver to operate beyond the controls of the Pakistani state. 

So I would worry that an Afghanistan in chaos could provide the 

sanctuary not only for the groups that might threaten us directly, 

but for groups that might want to start Indo-Pakistani conflict, and 

specifically Lashkar-e-Taiba. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. I think that Mike has raised a key issue, as has 

Dr. Dale. There is something to remember about Pakistan. The 

United States State Department Report on Terrorism ranks it as 

having the highest level of terrorist incidents of any country in the 

world. Almost all of those incidents are not related to any aspect 

of Afghanistan. 

Many of them take place in areas that have nothing to do with 

the FATA area. It is an economy which basically faces a crisis because of demographic pressures, because this is a country that 

spends less on education than virtually every country in the world. 

It is a country which is always on the edge, in many ways, of being 

a failed state. 

It is also a country where we don’t seem to tie our strategy to 

Pakistan to our strategy in Afghanistan. It virtually went unmentioned in the Quadrennial Defense Review, there is no mention of 

it in the West Point speech, and we are cutting aid very seriously. 

Most of that military aid never went to counterinsurgency. It 

went to buying equipment to fight India. And as is the case in Afghanistan on the economic side, in spite of efforts by the Congress 

over the last 10 years, we have never had a single report from 

USAID to explain what the benefits or impact of the economic aid 
19 

to Pakistan has been. And quite frankly, it is not quite clear what 

the program did. 

The questions you raised are very serious, but we have a Pakistan problem, and not just an Afghanistan-Pakistan problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time expired. Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being before us today. I just want to try to understand whoever or 

as many of you who want to answer this question, what do you 

think—what is the real assessment of the capability of the Afghan 

National Security Force? 

Where are their gaps in capability? What key resources do they 

need? What is it that the international community needs to do in 

order to get them to a point where they can really do things on 

their own? 

Ambassador NEUMANN. I want to make a couple quick comments, 

but Catherine is the one who runs around the most out in the 

boonies. But I think first of all, as Tony was talking about with the 

police, you have got considerable variation in forces. 

It is important to remember how little time we have actually 

been at this. When I left Afghanistan in 2007, my official departure, but I keep going back, we were building less than 200,000 

forces for the total of Afghan security forces. We had 600,000 in 

Iraq already under arms. 

We didn’t raise our level of building until the decisions of 2009. 

And given our budget processes and our political processes, that 

means those people start coming on line in 2010 being recruited. 

For your advanced equipment, your logistics, that doesn’t even 

start arriving until 2010 because you all have to appropriate 

money, contracts have to be signed, stuff has to be built. 

So you are actually looking at a force generation process that is 

about 4 years old for the majority of the force. And we tend to forget that because we think, well, we have been at this 13 years, why 

is this so screwed up. 

Secondly, I remember very clearly when I visited in 2010, I was 

getting a lot of briefings that we were not even beginning the development of most of the—what we call the enablers, the logistics, 

the medevac, the artillery, because we were using every inch of 

space in basing to create infantry so we can get them into the fight. 

But there was no big neon sign in 2010 that said, hey, we are 

going to quit this in 2014, you are done, or 2016. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. But, Ambassador, the capacity. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Okay. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. What is our current capacity? 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Their capacity—okay, their capacity 

is—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. That is really my question, because I got news for 

you. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Yes. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I have talked to plenty people, plenty of people 

who told me that, you know, all these numbers that we saw over 

the years, hundreds of thousands of people recruited, we were recruiting 63-year-olds, we were recruiting people who were illiterate. 
20 

You know, I would really want to know what is their capability 

and what do we have to do to get them into place so that we can 

get out of there. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Tony will tell you in great detail that our 

statistics are rotten, with which I agree. The overall ability to fight 

has been fairly high. The variance is extreme so that we have a 

huge amount of anecdotal evidence—you know, Afghanistan is a 

place where if you have your mind made up, you can find the anecdotes that fit your belief. 

What we don’t have is the air support that we have had. What 

we don’t have yet developed is casualty evacuation. We don’t have 

well-developed targeting and intelligence processes, all of which are 

things we started very late. 

We have a lot of willingness to fight when you contrast—and you 

can—we can debate this pretty long because it will be different 

with different stories. But the point I would make is, when you 

look at the falling apart of the Iraqi army in the last year, you are 

not yet seeing anything equivalent to that with Afghan units in the 

fight. That is a fairly high degree of willingness to carry out the 

battle. 

But the competence question and the effectiveness question are 

much, much harder to get at and we are still, I think, in fairly 

early days to measure that. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. Does anybody else on the panel have— 

before I lose all my time here? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Very quickly, in two wars, Iraq and Vietnam, 

we discovered the hard way that all of the metrics we had in generating forces, as Ambassador Neumann, did not give us a measure 

what happened when we left and they went into combat. 

The truth is, we can’t answer your question until we actually 

watch them seriously fight on their own. And if we don’t have advisers or presence that is with those units, the historical case is, 

the chance of their collapsing, or a significant amount of the order 

of battle collapsing, is very high. 

Dr. DALE. Ma’am, thanks for the question. Just two words: my 

colleagues are kind; I’ve spent a lot of time on the ground with Afghan army and police commanders over 5 years in a lot of different 

parts of the country. They are capable, they are confident, they integrate their efforts much better than they did, and they have been 

successful operationally, in particular over the last year, but they 

do lack some key enablers. 

As we draw down and stop providing our enablers for their use, 

there will be a gap before their own enablers are fully online. And 

then more fundamentally, they need institutional systems that can 

support them, and those are not fully in place. 

That is a key focus of the campaign, including beyond this year, 

going into Resolute Support, helping Afghans build those systems 

that my friends and colleagues here have talked about. But it takes 

work both in Kabul and out on the ground for end-to-end integration, and there is a question about how long we are going to be able 

to sustain that; current policy calls for us to pull back to Kabul by 

the end of next year. 

It is a great question. As Tony points out, how will we know how 

much is enough, but also how much time we will have. 
21 

Thank you. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And really to build on 

what you were just testifying to, you know, I had a son in Afghanistan for 15 months in—I think around the 2006, 2007 time period. 

And then I had two in Iraq right at the drawdown. 

And my concern is, we don’t want to create the same situation 

that we currently have in Iraq. And I know that you have struggled to try to explain what we think the capacity is of the Afghan 

national forces, and I think you do have different motivation on the 

fight level, I will tell you. 

But what do you think—and I have heard you, you have all 

talked about this. You know, we are drawing down to 9,800 and 

then we are drawing down to half of that. It seems like all the 

planning that is going to take place is going to be not planning 

about how we sustain, but planning on how we get out. 

How does that put us in a sustainable position? And I would like 

to hear from any of you what you think that causes us to do or not 

do. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Real quickly. It does not put us in a sustainable position. And the doubts it creates about us directly 

undercut effectiveness. When people look over their shoulder to 

think are they about to be let down, then they are not putting their 

back into the fight. 

So there is not one answer to how good they are, because the answer is partly a reciprocal of how much confidence and faith they 

have in support. Just as troops going into battle think a lot about 

whether they are going to be inside or outside artillery range or air 

cover or the other things. That is a reciprocal. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. If I could just say from Vietnam and Iraq, one 

of the key lessons we should have learned and haven’t is, once you 

generate forces, you have to keep advisers with them in the field 

long enough for them to actually become a fully functioning force. 

Under the current plan, we will not come close to that. With 

9,800 people, we can advise at the core level. We cannot put people 

into the field. If we cut it down to half that at the end of 2015, we 

will have rushed forward through a plan which originally was supposed to have advisers through 2018. 

And as Ambassador Neumann pointed out, this really started in 

2009. And if you go back to testimony before this committee, you 

were only at about 60 percent of the required advisers even in 

2010. 

Mr. NUGENT. So let me ask you this. At the 4,800 level, what exactly can they do? What can those U.S. troops provide? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Pack. 

Mr. NUGENT. Pack. 

Dr. O’HANLON. Yes, I don’t like that number. I think it is good 

that you are honing in on that aspect of the plan, because it strikes 

me as a somewhat meaningless number. It is in the rough range 

of what I think should be our enduring force past 2016 for counterterrorism purposes, maybe a little bit bigger than would be absolutely required, but roughly in the range that I probably want to 

see the next American President sustain. 
22 

But as a halfway point between 2014 and 2016, it seems to me 

that it is really just, you know, a packing-up force, because it 

hasn’t yet had a clear mission defined. And presumably, we need 

that 9,800 force for something. In 2015, they are not going to have 

time to do whatever they are being asked to do. 

Mr. NUGENT. But doesn’t all this really relate back to what our 

foreign policy is or the lack of, I think, a cohesive foreign policy? 

Doesn’t this kind of speak to that and particularly to our friends 

and to our enemies as to what our true, I guess, where we come 

from as to what we are willing to do to help our friends and to sustain a relationship? 

Dr. O’HANLON. Can I just add one point on that. Thank you for 

putting it that way. I feel like collectively as a nation, we have 

shown a lot of patience in Afghanistan. 

Mr. NUGENT. I agree. 

Dr. O’HANLON. And it is—and we should keep it going. And it 

feels to me like we are losing our—the patience we have had. And 

people like to say America is not a strategically patient country. I 

see a lot of patience in our country. We stuck with Korea for many 

decades when it was still essentially a dictatorship. 

We stuck with a lot of messy friends in the Middle East because 

we had no better alternative. In Afghanistan, we have been at it 

for now two Presidencies and several terms, and that has been, I 

think, to our credit, because we haven’t figured out a strategy that 

has really given us a resounding success, but we kept at it. Now 

we are losing our patience and I don’t think that is smart. 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, and one of the things and, lastly, that I am 

concerned about is, as a parent of those that actually have to go 

out and project that force is I want to make sure that they have 

the ability to protect themselves. 

You know, when my kids were over there in Iraq leaving—and 

one of my sons, you know, they lost five members of that unit from 

an IRAM [improvised rocket-assisted munition] attack the night I 

was there. And they knew where the bad guys were laying their 

heads and the Iraqi Government had to okay the ability to go out 

and get those folks and they were stopped from doing that, from 

protecting their own forces because Iraq, as corrupt as they are, 

were protecting those particular minorities. 

I yield back. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Excuse me. Thanks to you all for being here. In response to the last question, I think trying to understand sometimes 

what really was different in those countries, I wonder—and particularly having this, Ambassador Neumann here—was there a real 

difference in how we saw the role of civil society? 

I think one of the frustrations that Americans have is they didn’t 

see a functioning government. They didn’t see the ability of governance throughout the country, even where you might have a kind of 

remarkable governor, you didn’t have the support for that governor, you certainly didn’t have the role of women put on any kind 

of—not even an equal footing, but at least some acknowledgment 

of. 

And I—you know, we just talked about South Korea and sticking 

with South Korea. Do you think that there—what role does the, 
23 

our perception of civil society in Afghanistan play in all this? And 

do you see any changes? 

What should our embassy look like there if we sustain the level 

of support that we are talking about? We obviously need the ability 

for some kind of counterterrorism activities, but, you know, what 

role does the embassy play on that? Where do we anticipate that 

we will have a different kind of outlook because we hopefully have 

had—maybe even a perception of a transition in terms of the election. 

Where does that play and what can we do about that? What 

should we be doing about that? How should we see that and how 

should it be different and not normal, as I think the President has 

said? 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Thank you. It is an important question. 

I think actually we have had more integration of effort. We tend 

to talk about and be focused on the military so much that there is 

very little understanding of what we are doing in the other places. 

Having said that, though, we are flighty and impatient and we 

want to—often we want to see change in civil society and governance, which is important. But we demand a rate that is probably 

impossible, that has never happened in any country developing 

from similar circumstances, and then when we don’t get it, we get 

disgusted and we throw up our hands. 

So the first thing we need is a longer term plan with a longer 

term basis of understanding that when you are talking about societal change, you are talking about something that takes a long 

time. And in fact, a lot of your training and education doesn’t 

produce immediate effect, but it builds up, and then the effects 

come in if they come, and you can’t be certain, later. 

In the civil society area particularly, there has been a huge 

amount of development. But we have by our project approach created a project-driven civil society groups which tend to ebb and 

flow depending on the dollars and where the projects are, rather 

than sort of working out their own priorities. We need to help stabilize that. 

There is a big development in women’s programs. It is very uneven. It is strongest in the urban areas, weakest in the rural. We 

have tended to be too dominant in trying to lead it rather than 

support what they lead, and I think not always very effective. 

In the NATO planning, it tends to—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Excuse me, Mr. Ambassador, if I could interrupt for 

a second. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Yes, please. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Because I think one of the other issues that clearly 

has been a problem is accountability in terms of many of those programs, as you say, sort of the target. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. I am sorry. When you say accountability, 

you mean political accountability of Afghans or dollar accountability in our programs, as I want to make sure I am speaking to 

your question. 

Mrs. DAVIS. It is probably both. I mean, I think that we have not 

developed very good tools for evaluating whether or not anything 

is working. And so, that complicates whether we actually can be 

more aggressive in how we proceed. 
24 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Our tools are not good. Tony has talked 

about that. And if you will give a chance he will talk a lot more. 

But I also think that we sometimes demand tools that are unrealistic, that we—you know, we can measure how many schools are 

built but it is very hard to measure the quality of education coming 

out of them which is actually the only thing that really matters. 

And I don’t think we are—I think we have a lot of trouble developing that, but some of that is legitimate trouble. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I was going to try and ask Mr. Cordesman but I— 

unfortunately my time is up, to respond and I know you are frustrated about that issue as well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CONAWAY [presiding]. Mr. Coffman, 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, obviously, we can’t—one mistake we made in Afghanistan, we have made—but, you know, it is—but I have a question 

about how realistic is our policy there, how realistic is our objectives given the political culture of the country. 

You know, it seemed to me that what the Bush administration 

did first was brilliant. That we were attacked in 9/11. That the 

Taliban who controlled much of the country gave safe harbor to Al 

Qaeda that planned their attack and operation from that area. 

We then, after 9/11, we supported the anti-Taliban forces, the 

Northern Alliance, who pushed the Taliban out of most of the country, I think. And then I think we made a big mistake. Instead of 

saying to the Northern Alliance, the victors on the ground, you are 

in charge now, and you ought to probably expand out your governance to make sure all of the factions in the country are included. 

I think we pushed them aside and superimposed a political process 

that gave the people of Afghanistan the government that we wanted them to have. 

But it is what it is. 

And one question I have for you, after the Soviets pulled out, and 

I think the Government of Afghanistan that they established failed. 

After they ceased supporting the government, after the Soviet 

Union dissolved, what, how dependent—after 2016, assuming that 

U.S. forces are out there, how dependent will the Afghan Government be on continued U.S. support in order to sustain itself? And 

what happens if we don’t? 

Dr. Dale, we will start with you. 

Dr. DALE. So thank you for the question. 

Right now Afghanistan is extraordinarily dependent on the international community, not only to sustain the Afghan National Security Forces, but for most everything else that the government does. 

The international community has pledged support for an additional 10 years, the decade of transformation out to 2024. But those 

pledges face competing exigencies in national capitals. And in any 

case, quite frankly, that is not a permanent solution. 

What the ideal would be a way for Afghanistan to pay, more or 

less, for its own security, and that requires an Afghan economy 

that can generate revenues, collect those revenues, execute budgets 

in a reasonably accountable way with, ideally, diminishing international community assistance over time. 
25 

I think—I call it the elephant in the room because I think that 

it is, without international community funding for some period over 

the next years, security in Afghanistan is likely to fall apart and 

perhaps with it the Afghan state. 

And so, I think what we urgently need is a real dialogue about 

what those costs actually look like, what international community 

commitment might be, and what the plan is to help Afghans cultivate their own and grow an economy that can eventually sustain 

security there. Our decision in any case may be not to engage. But 

that is the conversation, I think, that we need to have. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Dr. O’Hanlon. 

Dr. O’HANLON. Just one brief word, if I could, Congressman. 

I think Afghanistan will crucially need our continued help. And 

I actually think the committee and the Congress have played a 

very constructive role therefore in empowering Secretary Kerry to 

do what he just appears to have done, at least temporarily averting 

electoral crisis, because I think Afghans understand the message, 

that they need our help, and that you are not going to provide if 

there is a hijacking of the election process or a breakdown of the 

state. 

And I think this is understood by people like Dr. Abdullah and 

Dr. Ghani, which is part of why Kerry has leverage when he goes 

and demands some kind of a compromise. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Cordesman. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. I think that the World Bank estimates that the 

Afghan Government under a much tighter funding profile than the 

Tokyo Conference called for would be at least 70 percent dependent 

on outside aid and money through at least 2020. 

I think that the other problem we have seen is that where we 

expected the Afghan Government to improve its fundraising and 

ability to manage assets it has actually declined significantly in the 

last year and a half, according to World Bank and other estimates. 

We either provide them with continuing support or on the military and civil level this structure collapses. That doesn’t mean they 

aren’t improving. It doesn’t mean they can’t make this work. But 

you can’t go from a plan that extended to 2020 to one that doesn’t 

have a plan at all for the future and really expect success. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. CONAWAY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. Speier, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank you all for your astute comments. One of you, I think it 

was you, Mr. Neumann, Ambassador Neumann, had indicated that 

power must be shared. And it appears that they are moving in that 

direction with Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani. 

But there is no reference to the Taliban. And as we move forward 

in this new world order in Afghanistan, does not the Taliban have 

to be part of the shared power within the country? 

Ambassador NEUMANN. This question of negotiations obviously 

has a two-part piece. Ideally, you need a political solution. You only 

get a political solution though in this kind of war when both sides 

reach the point of believing that they can’t achieve their maximal 

positions through force, and then they get to negotiations. 
26 

Whether you can have successful negotiations with the Taliban 

is a big question but it is actually it is an umbrella term for multiple groups which are within it and with some you can probably 

get negotiations. But there needs to be a clarity of process. That 

will have to be addressed by the next government because the current one is out of time. 

I think a key piece of that is going to be our own consistency of 

support. If the insurgents think they have an easy job waiting us 

out, you have a very different dialogue inside the insurgency about 

whether to engage in negotiations from one that happens if they 

think that they don’t even have that luxury because we are staying 

around. So we lose a lot of our pressure on them by the lack of clarity about our long-term intentions. 

The second question of course is whether they are prepared in 

fact to make any kind of a deal; whether you could have a shared 

relationship with a Mullah Omar, I think, is pretty questionable, 

no matter how necessary it is. 

But there is room for opening. That of course is something that 

interested President Karzai a lot. It is one about which I think Dr. 

Abdullah and the northerners are particularly sensitive and question whether it can be done. But it can only be explored if there 

is a sense of firmness. 

You have got to have the position that I think late Prime Minister Rabin expressed once when he was asked how can you negotiate with terrorists, and he said, I have to negotiate as though 

there is no terrorism and I have to fight terrorism as though there 

are no negotiations. 

You have got to be able to go full bore on both tracks without 

letting one handicap you or cripple you on the other. 

Ms. SPEIER. Do any of you have additional comments on that? 

Dr. DALE. Ma’am, thank you for the question. 

It is important for Afghans, first of all, to think about how this 

conflict genuinely comes to an end. It is not with our unilateral 

withdrawal and it is not with a great victory on the battlefield. It 

is in some form of reconciliation over time. 

What I would suggest though, that it may be worth thinking 

about, is that the first requirement is for reconciliation within Afghan society. That is first of all a resolution of the current political 

impasse. But an increasingly inclusive, dynamic, vibrant Afghan 

national dialogue about what that state is and what it becomes, together with checks and balances that can hold the system accountable, is a better foundation for reintegrating Taliban and other insurgents than a fractious, torn polity like the one that we currently 

have. It might make sense to think of this then as a longer term 

process over time rather than a deal that ought to be cut tomorrow. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. If I could add just one quick point. We really 

need to start thinking of what happens if beginning in 2015 the 

central government runs out of the money that has preserved political unity and kept the structure together. And that is a very real 

prospect at this point. 

Dr. O’HANLON. And my one quick point if I could is that because 

of uncertainty about money, uncertainty about the battlefield as we 

draw down, I don’t think the Taliban, at least not Taliban Central, 
27 

is likely to be interested in a negotiation for 1 to 2 years at a minimum. So I think that is one more argument in favor of strategic 

patience in my book. 

Ms. SPEIER. All right, my time is expired. 

Mr. CONAWAY. The gentlelady yields back. 

Dr. Wenstrup, for 5 minutes. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Cordesman, you, I think, answered one of my questions already which referred to aid to Pakistan, but not only Pakistan, 

wherever we are giving aid. I have always wondered where we can 

go to find the information that tells us what the goal of that aid 

would be and what the results of our aid have produced. If I understood you correctly we really don’t have that information. Would 

that be correct? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. We were supposed to, under Secretary Clinton’s 

QDDR [Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review], have 

USAID and the State Department develop and report on effectiveness measures. That commitment was made by both agencies. They 

have produced no product and no results. 

Worse than that, if you go back to 2009, 2010 in areas like governance, in some aspects of aid we were providing maps by district 

to progress. When that progress did not continue because of the 

fighting we stopped publishing the maps. 

And if you look at the reporting of SIGAR and the GAO [Government Accountability Office] they have, again and again, raised specific areas we could do this. The problem basically is not that it is 

impossible, as Ambassador Neumann points out, it is not precise, 

you have to make judgments. The real problem is that people seem 

to be much more interested in reporting success that doesn’t exist 

than making success actually happen. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. When was the last time we had an actual report? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. The only report that aside from the President’s 

fact sheet, which came out when he gave his speech on Vietnam, 

was this color comic that was provided by USAID which creates all 

of the usual nonsensical data about GDP, education, and the rest. 

Other than that, the 1230 report does not have any report on the 

effectiveness of aid. USAID doesn’t report, the State Department 

doesn’t report, and the U.N. organization, which is supposed to report on aid effectiveness, has never issued any report on aid, even 

in dollar terms. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. You know, we were talking about 

role of Taliban. And I look back at the first election that occurred 

in April. And Secretary Hagel was here and he mentioned how well 

things went and how the Taliban was virtually ineffective in trying 

to foil that election. 

And, you know, what occurred to me as a military person with 

some idea of strategy, if I am the Taliban I lay down because if 

that—if the idea that we say that everything is okay here, we are 

more likely to leave, and not press having a greater presence. And 

that was what he was saying at that time, that basically things are 

pretty good. They had that election, it is okay. 

You know, understanding this enemy a little bit, that would be 

the approach that I would take, and from what I am hearing today 
28 

is that we really don’t know what the Taliban is still capable of or 

where they might go. Does anyone care to comment on that? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. If I can make just a quick—the U.N. casualty 

report, IED reports, show that today’s level of violence in every 

part of Afghanistan, broken out into nine different areas, is higher 

than it was in 2011, sometimes by a factor of five. Now these numbers are not that high. But, yes, we have a lot of data on the level 

of violence and it doesn’t show we are winning. 

What we don’t have, and this gets back to your military question, 

insurgency and counterinsurgency is essentially a political struggle. 

Every metric we have is a tactical metric without any metric of 

government influence, or Taliban and insurgent influence by district. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Anybody else? 

Dr. O’HANLON. If I could add one point, Congressman. The way 

I would generalize the overall situation on violence is first of all to 

agree with Tony’s point, there is a lot we don’t know and there are 

some negative trends. 

And also I would emphasize the Afghan forces have taken tremendous losses in the last couple of years, 4,700 fatalities last 

year. It is not a number that ISAF has wanted to publicize, although they don’t classify it either. 

I actually think we should talk about it more, because to me it 

proves they are willing to fight for their country, with all the caveats and concerns that they may or may not hold together as we 

draw down. 

But I also would say and Tony may disagree, but I think I am 

saying something consistent with his point because he did say the 

overall absolute levels of violence are not that high statistically 

compared with certain other combat zones. But even though some 

of the trends are worrisome, Afghanistan cities and major roads 

are actually not that bad, certainly by the standards of war zones, 

even by the standards to some of the more crime-ridden societies 

in Latin America today, for example, or in certain parts of Africa. 

So there is a basis for hope if that Afghan force can hold together 

and sustain those high casualty levels and keep finding recruits 

and not fracture because of political disunity. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. Could I just add a couple of things quickly. 

I have seen over the years us speculate that the Taliban will, at 

this or that point, lay back and wait for us to leave. I have never 

seen them do it. And frankly I think they have a lot of trouble 

doing it because they can’t concede the ground for the development 

of authority. 

In the election they made a quite concerted effort to prevent the 

election. They had a difficult issue they had to manage which is 

doing it without so far alienating Afghans at a kick-back. But there 

were actually a lot of attacks on the—especially on the first day of 

the election. 

And one of the interesting things was to the degree to which the 

Afghan press refused to publicize it, in part because they were 

angry at the killing of a journalist in the Serena Hotel, and they 

simply said we are not going to help you discourage our election. 
29 

And they really put practically a news blackout which really frustrated the Taliban. 

What you are seeing now, I think, is pulling out as many stops 

as they can to have as many attacks as possible in as many parts 

of the country, both high profile and taking on the Afghan army. 

And I think it—we are really going to have to wait out this fighting 

season and then do some kind of serious analysis rather than trying to do an incident by incident and anecdote by anecdote discussion. 

I think you are probably looking at something that is going to be 

called the Battle of Helmand, that is a 3- or 4-month engagement 

in various places. And we are going to have to assess on that basis 

at the end of time, both in terms of competence in forces, as well 

as competence in leadership, as well as fighting will. 

So far I would say we are doing moderately—Afghans are doing 

moderately well, but we are a long way from where we should even 

be trying to make that judgment, frustrating as that is, I think, for 

people who would like an instant answer. 

Mr. CONAWAY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Barber, 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for 

being here today. 

Recently with my colleague and others we spent some time in Afghanistan and I have to say I, you have to be there on the ground 

to realize how challenging the situation is for our troops and for 

the diplomatic corps. 

I remember being rushed from the airport to the embassy in armored vehicles, and once we got there realized that the embassy 

is essentially a fortress. You work there, you live there, you rarely 

go off—one young man who escorted us said he has been off once 

in 8 months and that was because he had a bad tooth that needed 

to be taken out. 

So that is the situation now with, you know, there was a pretty 

substantial number of our troops still there. We went out to Camp 

Leatherneck where a Marine Corps and British Army are training 

the Afghan Army to protect their country. 

And I must say I was impressed with that, as well as the way 

in which they essentially protected their election process. I was 

quite skeptical when I saw what was happening out there, but I 

think they acquitted themselves fairly well. 

So that is what I saw just in my brief visit. And I think it is affirmed by many other observations about the current situation 

where we have an essentially, you know, a pretty substantial number of troops on the ground. 

And I am concerned about, obviously, as we all are of what happens with the election process and where we end up. And then I 

want to also focus my question on the relationship with Pakistan 

and Afghanistan. 

Two questions. First of all, would you comment on where you 

think this election process is going? I mean, Secretary Kerry apparently forged an agreement which may or may not last between the 

two presidential candidates. The audit is going on. Comment, if you 

will, on where you think we end up. We have an agreement that 
30 

was worked up by Secretary Kerry to have the president and the 

loser, if you will, share power in a sense. 

And then secondly—and this is really the more important question for me. It has to do with the relationship between Afghanistan 

and Pakistan. Obviously there will be some changes when the new 

President takes office. And we have seen over the course of the last 

decade that security at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been interdependent on both countries’ efforts of fighting 

terrorism in the border regions. However, the relationship between 

the two countries has ebbed and flowed over time. 

And as Pakistan continues to depend on U.S. military, economic 

support, as we draw down our forces in Afghanistan, how can we 

work with, how can we encourage more Pakistani involvement in 

security at the border, and how do you see Pakistan engaging with 

the new Afghan Government? I think this is an essential question 

going forward once we leave. Can they work together to make the 

area more secure? 

Could you respond, any or all of you, please, to those two questions? 

Dr. DALE. Sir, thank you for the questions and to comment on 

your second. 

The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is clearly 

very critical. The good news is that both states in theory have 

strong vested interest in the same thing, right, regional stability 

that is to everyone’s benefit, economic growth and opportunity—so 

that is a good starting point. 

But in practice there is a fundamental lack of good faith up at 

the strategic level and what we see, that exacerbates every time 

there is a tactical level dispute at the border, for example, it very 

rapidly escalates and runs the risk of something much greater. 

ISAF under NATO has played a terrific role in facilitating milto-mil ties at the tactical level at the border, at the operational 

level in terms of combined planning, and also up at the strategic 

level in terms of contacts between Afghans and Pakistanis and that 

is a great start. 

It is hopeful. And those conversations can yield practical progress 

that may be a helpful foundation for the future, but it still leaves 

out the lack of confidence and good faith up at the strategic level 

which is fundamentally a political problem. And so it is worth 

thinking about, from a U.S. Government perspective, if we are concerned how we continue to engage not only from a military perspective, but with the other instruments of national power to help 

shape that relationship in the interests of stability. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARBER. Thank you, Doctor. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. The problem I would say is that start is purely 

political at the top. In the field you—actually in the FATA area 

have a significant number of people fleeing Pakistan because of a 

Pakistani operation in the border, going back into Afghanistan, and 

at this point making our problems worse. 

The history of how the Pakistani army also fights is basically 

drive out the civilian population, arrest or kill whoever is left, some 

of which is probably innocent civilians. And then as in the case of 
31 

the Swat you end up going back to pretty much the problems you 

had at a lower scale. 

At this point too Pakistan is competing actively with India for influence over Afghanistan on terms, for example, that the Afghan 

Government sees as a major threat. So we have to be very careful. 

What Dr. Dale points out is the world that should be, the world 

that exists in the middle of transition is moving in exactly the opposite direction. 

Ambassador NEUMANN. I am not sure—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. The gentleman’s time has expired. If the other 

witnesses would like to submit a written response that would be 

great. 

Mr. BARBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Jones, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I thank 

the panel for being here today. And I went to Walter Reed about 

4 weeks ago to visit the wounded and I saw three Army soldiers 

who had lost one leg each from Fort Bragg, not my district. I represent Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point Marine Air Station. 

Then I visited the two Marines from my district in addition to 

the soldiers and one had lost both legs and an arm, 23 years of age. 

The other Marine I saw was 24, very proud of his 8-month-old little 

baby girl who was not there obviously. She was home with her 

mother. He had lost both legs and is going to have to have his rectum rebuilt. I wonder what it is all about. 

I listen to you very carefully. I know you have different views but 

to think that we have accomplished any great success is absolutely 

ridiculous based on history. I am looking today in the Washington 

Post where it says, ‘‘Afghanistan may have lost track of more than 

200,000 weapons’’; 200,000 weapons, that is the security force. 

They say in the article we have no idea what the police force has 

lost. I doubt if those weapons are going to anywhere but our enemies within Afghanistan, maybe a few outside. 

And then Mr. Ambassador, I appreciate your patience on Afghanistan. Obviously you have got the experience I don’t have. But let 

me give you another title. ‘‘Is the Pentagon Wasting Taxpayer’s 

Money in Afghanistan?’’ Then another title is, ‘‘The United States 

Military Was No Match for Afghan Corruption.’’ Then the last one 

I want to read to you the title is, ‘‘Money Pit, the Monstrous Failure of U.S. Aid to Afghanistan.’’ 

These are all articles this year, 2014. And then we hear today, 

you are the experts. You are with think tanks, some of you, you 

have had experience being as the ambassador. And yet we continue 

to play the game we are changing Afghanistan. Am I worried about 

the terrorists, the jihadists? Absolutely I am. That is why if Saddam was still sitting in Iraq we wouldn’t have the problem that we 

got there now. 

Yes, was he an evil man? Absolutely. But the world we live in 

is not like America. It is not going to be like America. And when 

I look at the history of Afghanistan and going back to Alexander 

the Great and all the great nations that tried to influence and to 

occupy Afghanistan, they all failed. And we can play this game 

with the taxpayers, spending all their money, and quite frankly, we 

all know it is not our money anyway. 
32 

We are a debtor nation. We are borrowing from China, Japan, 

the UAE [United Arab Emirates], to pay our bills. That is why we 

have these debates about raising the debt ceiling every year so we 

can borrow more money to pay the bills from last year. 

This brings me to my point. What in the world are we trying to 

do when other countries and this is from your report, Mr. 

Cordesman, and I read the subtitle, ‘‘The second threat is the mix 

of weakness and failures in the host country and a lack of commitment from our key allies.’’ 

Why is Uncle Sam, meaning the taxpayers of America, taking 

this burden on and continue a 10-year agreement known as the Bilateral Strategic Agreement to keep a commitment going and you 

would sit here—I might not be here. You will sit here 3 or 4 years 

from now and tell the same story. 

Where is the honesty in an evaluation of the policy when some 

people like you would come and say, you know, we need to take 

what we take, cut our losses and let’s take a different view. I am 

all for the statesmanship. I am all for working with other countries 

and let them share the lead and the burden, and the pain of our 

country. 

But, Mr. Cordesman, I will let you start this because this was 

your subtitle. Apparently they are not doing their part either, by 

the way. Thank you. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Congressman, in context that referred to generic problems in counterinsurgency. 

I think that as Ambassador Neumann mentioned, we, I think, 

are planning on a significant, continued amount of military support 

from Germany and Italy in terms of providing support for the 

training effort. But the fact is that, yes, we should have an integrated plan, we should have integrated military assistance and aid. 

But that is an area, quite frankly, where to have that, you need 

U.S. leadership, as Ambassador Neumann pointed out. And you do 

have to decide what your strategic objectives are and limit them. 

And at this point, quite frankly, we have had allied support in Afghanistan. What we have not had is a great deal of leadership in 

shaping this transition process. 

Mr. CONAWAY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. Dr. Dale and 

Dr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Cordesman and Ambassador Neumann, 

thank you very much. 

This is a tough subject and it is one that where we can’t just simply ignore or do away with, or wish it was going to be something 

different, as some have intimated on the panel this morning. But 

it is just tough stuff. 

Lives are at stake. Millions of young ladies or young women are 

in schools, however affected those might or might not be, they are 

at least learning something they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. 

And so, this is tough stuff and to take a cavalier approach to simply tossing in the towel and leaving I think is irresponsible and extreme. 

Thank you very much for your patience this morning and we are 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JULY 30, 2014 

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JULY 30, 2014 

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