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i 

54–058 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–107] 

AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ: PERSPECTIVES 

ON U.S. STRATEGY, PART 3 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

NOVEMBER 17, 2009 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

DREW WALTER, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

TREY HOWARD, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009, Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on U.S. 

Strategy, Part 3 .................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 .................................................................................. 41 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2009 

AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ: PERSPECTIVES ON U.S. STRATEGY, PART 3 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Clark, Gen. Wesley K., USA (Ret.), Chairman and CEO, Wesley K. Clark 

& Associates ......................................................................................................... 2 

Dorronsoro, Dr. Gilles, Visiting Scholar, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ........................................................................ 8 

Kagan, Dr. Kimberly, President, Institute for the Study of War ........................ 6 

Krepinevich, Dr. Andrew F., President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary 

Assessments .......................................................................................................... 10 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Clark, Gen. Wesley K. ...................................................................................... 48 

Dorronsoro, Dr. Gilles ...................................................................................... 67 

Kagan, Dr. Kimberly ........................................................................................ 55 

Krepinevich, Dr. Andrew F. ............................................................................. 79 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 45 

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) 

AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ: PERSPECTIVES ON U.S. 

STRATEGY, PART 3 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Tuesday, November 17, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m., in room 

210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. 

I am going to dispense with any statement of my own so we can 

get right to the witnesses. Mr. Wittman, anything you would like 

to say? 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. No, Mr. Chairman, I would do the same. I would 

ask unanimous consent for my comments to be entered into the 

record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 45.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Your statement will be made part of the record. All 

of the witnesses’ written statements will be made part of the 

record, including the two articles by Dr. Kagan, two articles by Dr. 

Kagan, correct? 

Dr. KAGAN. Correct. 

Dr. SNYDER. And we are very pleased today to have you all here 

with us. This is our third in a series of hearings on directions in 

Afghanistan, of course in relationship with what is going on in Iraq 

also. 

Our witnesses today are General Wesley Clark, a retired United 

States Army General, Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & 

Associates; Dr. Kimberly Kagan, the Founder and President of the 

Institute for the Study of War; Dr. Gilles Dorronsoro, Visiting 

Scholar at the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace; and Dr. Andy Krepinevich, the President of 

the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. 

We appreciate you all for being here. As some of you may know, 

Wes Clark lives like one block from me, and this is the only time 

I see him is when he is testifying in Washington. 
2 

We will turn the five-minute clock on for your oral statements, 

but more to give you an idea of the time. If you have more things 

you want to tell us, even when you see the red light go on, that 

is fine, too. 

So, General Clark, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. WESLEY K. CLARK, USA (RET.), 

CHAIRMAN AND CEO, WESLEY K. CLARK & ASSOCIATES 

General CLARK. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, distinguished members of this committee. It is a pleasure to be here with 

you to talk with you about the important questions of national 

strategy and our military endeavor in Afghanistan. I have given 

you a prepared statement. Let me just summarize the key points 

from it. 

First of all, I want to say up front I am greatly in sympathy with 

the military commanders, especially General McChrystal, who has 

asked for more troops. He needs them to provide for security for 

the population, to train the Afghan forces, to impede and constrain 

Taliban reinforcement and replenishment along the border with 

Pakistan. If I were in his position, I would have undoubtedly asked 

for more troops. 

But that is not the principal question we should be addressing 

here today, however great the outcry is demanding an answer. 

What we should be talking about here is the purpose of our engagement, our specific mission, the strategy and its requirements for 

success in diplomatic, political, economic, and military terms. And 

only after these requirements have been established are we able to 

get into the specific troop requirements. 

I want to say at the outset that I am very proud of the Obama 

Administration, because I think they are taking the time that is required to do the kind of in-depth strategic review. And this is not, 

as best I can determine, just a strategic review that is a bunch of 

number crunching and budget calculations and in and out between 

the Pentagon and across the Potomac. I think this is a searching 

examination of the basis for U.S. policy in the region and a thorough exploration of alternatives. I don’t know when it is going to 

be concluded, I am not a part of that, but everything I see about 

it gives me assurance that we are asking the kinds of fundamental 

questions that need to be asked. 

The legacy of Vietnam, and as someone who fought there and 

came home on a stretcher and who was deeply involved in thinking 

about the policy for my entire military career, it is particularly 

painful to me to see where we are in Afghanistan. I recall from the 

early- and mid-sixties similar issues being talked about when we 

were escalating our presence in Vietnam. The same pleading for 

more troops. The same diplomatic constraints hindering cross-border operations. 

There was never any doubt the source of the war was North Vietnam, its military, its political leadership. And yet we were self-deterred from taking the kind of appropriate actions against that, 

and we tried to fight the war in South Vietnam. We tried to balance military needs, strategic concerns outside of Vietnam, and political support in the United States. And in the case of Vietnam we 

mostly did it wrong. When we could have used decisive military 
3 

means early on, we were self-deterred. When we piecemealed and 

gradually reinforced, we lost public support anyway. And when we 

finally attempted to use decisive force, it was too late strategically. 

Now every conflict is different, and Afghanistan is not Vietnam, 

but we got to learn from our experiences there. There are some 

worrisome similarities in both conflicts, including a local government that lacks legitimacy and of course the whole bureaucratic 

politics of military escalation, U.S. public support, that have 

changed little in 40 years. 

So you have to begin by asking, ‘‘What is the purpose in Afghanistan?’’ Well, it is not to defeat al Qaeda because they are largely 

not there. It is not to create a functioning Western-style democracy, 

because that is clearly beyond our means in a nation that is 90 percent illiterate, imbued with a much different value system. So it 

must be something less. What it seems to me that we seek there 

is to prevent the emergence of a terrorist state that would physically harbor al Qaeda and use its diplomatic and legal authority 

as weapons against the very international system of which it is a 

member. 

Now these are minimalist objectives. They could be met by diplomacy, by promoting economic development, regional economic integration, acting through allies, threats, preemptive strikes, and limited incursions. And of course you can strengthen your defenses at 

home. In principle our purpose there does not require the reconstruction of Afghanistan any more than reconstructing Somalia, 

Sudan, Yemen, and other locations where terrorist are or have 

found shelter. 

We should have declared the war in Afghanistan over when we 

broke the back of the Taliban force and captured Osama bin Laden 

in the mountains of Tora Bora, but of course we didn’t take Osama 

bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora. He and the senior leadership of al Qaeda remain a threat, and so now together with our 

NATO allies we have about 100,000 troops, we are in Afghanistan, 

and we simply cannot abruptly reverse U.S. policy. We can’t abandon government in Afghanistan. We can’t withdraw promptly our 

forces there, however much we might want to, without having adverse consequences far beyond Afghanistan and especially impacting on the government of Pakistan. 

We can see experience after experience with this. Al Qaeda 

would claim credit, terrorist recruitment would surge, subversion 

within states allied and friendly with us would intensify, Pakistan’s stability would be further undercut, and U.S. power and 

prestige would wane. We would be dramatically increasing the 

threat. 

But on the other hand, the longer we stay, the larger our force, 

the more resistance and resentment that we might create by disruptive influences, by the casualties we inflict accidentally. We are 

a foreign element in a culture which doesn’t tolerate diversity. 

However appealing it is to us to say that we have got to be strong 

enough and resolute to stay there, that is not our problem. The 

United States is one of the most resolute of countries. Our problem 

is that we are dealing with an Islamic revival, a struggle to cope 

with the spiritual impact of modernization and globalism, and that 

revival draws energy from the antagonisms our presence creates. 
4 

So we need to find a way out, we need to seize credit for the successes we have achieved and then continue to deal with the region. 

So the approach I am recommending is focused on understanding 

an exit strategy and working toward it. The best exit strategy 

would be after we have taken down the complete leadership of al 

Qaeda in Pakistan. Now I know we have the number three guy, 

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, going on trial in New York and he 

claims he is responsible for everything. If that were true, that 

would be great. I am not sure if it is true, but we do believe that 

there is still substantial al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. 

The discussion of this has been publicly suppressed and probably 

should remain so, but I hope it will be foremost in the minds of 

the Administration. 

In the meantime, in Afghanistan we have to build an exit strategy around four factors: Attempting to reduce the level of violence 

by seeking a political amelioration of the conflict; greater assistance to the government of Pakistan in dealing with al Qaeda and 

the Taliban remaining in Pakistan; economic development in Afghanistan and Pakistan; and developing a more capable security 

structure for the Afghans. 

Just to highlight some of the details, I think you have got to provide incentives to create a more representative, more legitimate 

government there. 

You could frame these incentives around individual leaders, you 

could you talk about specific structural changes in the government, 

you could provide economic development opportunities. These could 

be positive or negative incentives. They have got to be worked, it 

has got to be a process. This is not about simply going to Hamid 

Karzai and say, ‘‘Oh, that’s it, Mr. Karzai, here is the five things 

you got to do and you got 24 hours to get them done.’’ So but he 

should be—he has to take the lead one way or another in this. 

Your military strength, your reinforcements or your withdrawals, 

maybe that is an inducement to various parties, but I would say 

that additional troop reinforcements in spite of the strategy are not 

unreasonable. And if I were the commander I would sure be asking 

for them. You cannot achieve what you want to achieve there if you 

are forced off the battlefield. You have got to have a platform of 

military success to achieve the rest of it. 

So as the political process moves forward, maybe you talk about 

an exit date, maybe you have it conditioned, maybe it is a specific 

timeline. I don’t rule anything out on the process. Maybe you have 

an outside presence like a United Nations umbrella as we did in 

Haiti in 1994–1995 with a U.S. Government advisory and assistance mission that works in parallel with that, but you have got to 

find a way to deal with the process in some way politically. 

You have got to help Pakistan. They have got to be leased the 

additional hardware, provided access to intelligence, intelligence 

collection systems, given appropriate incentives to deal with al 

Qaeda. They have got to have the systems to strengthen their internal security. And at the same time we should be focusing on a 

very strong Pakistani economic development effort, and we should 

take credit for it publicly. One of the things that Pakistanis always 

tell me is, ‘‘You all don’t leave any monuments, you try to make 
5 

your assistance a secret, why don’t you build a monument and advertise what the United States has done there.’’ 

But we must encourage and demand that Pakistan take direct 

action again the al Qaeda leadership. That won’t be easy because 

there must be someone in Pakistan who must believe that if it 

weren’t for al Qaeda being there, that we would be totally aligned 

with India. And so somehow we have got to disabuse the government of Pakistan of that suspicion. And it has got to be driven 

down through the ranks and we have got to have their wholehearted support to clean up their own internal security problems. 

For them it is not just a matter of teaching the Taliban a lesson 

and making them skedaddle back into the frontier areas, but it is 

a matter of their taking care of our principal threat for us so we 

don’t have to. 

Afghan economic development needs to be promoted in the agricultural sector through providing an enhanced market for Afghan 

crops. If you don’t outbid the price for opium, you can’t compete in 

this market. Afghanistan should be a world granary for wheat and 

we should pay a premium to have the Afghans grow wheat, and we 

should export it. There are a lot of places in the world that need 

it. We should be encouraging and developing mineral and hydrocarbon resources in Afghanistan and promoting a long-range gas 

pipeline that connects India and Pakistan to Central Asian gas resources. 

As far as security is concerned, we have got to give them the additional security forces they need, primarily the police and the militia that they need. We are never going to be able to walk away 

from U.S. responsibilities for the support for the intelligence, intelligence collection, the logistics. We tried to do it in Vietnam, and 

it failed. 

So here are four elements of an exit strategy, and it is a dynamic 

process. I believe that what we have to do is work within these four 

elements and construct the exit strategy for Afghanistan. It is a 

multiyear effort, it may or may not entail at this point setting up 

the conditions or the timeline to do it, but the strategy has to be 

pointed towards getting us out of this conflict because there is no 

long-term, lasting role for Western military forces there. 

These aren’t easy measures and there is no guarantee of success, 

but I think what we have to do is face the reality. We have done 

a lot already. We have been really pretty tough and pretty effective 

against the leadership of al Qaeda, but they are still around. Our 

obligations to Afghanistan are limited. We are not required to 

make them eligible for statehood. There will never be a complete 

and wholly satisfactory solution. 

And so we have to meet our own security needs, and the principal security need in this region is to reduce the continuing threat 

of al Qaeda, which is reportedly based principally in Pakistan. It 

is their decisive defeat that we must seek. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Clark can be found in the 

Appendix on page 48.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, General Clark. Dr. Kagan. 
6 

STATEMENT OF DR. KIMBERLY KAGAN, PRESIDENT, 

INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR 

Dr. KAGAN. Mr. Chairman, committee members, it is a great 

pleasure to talk with you today about Afghanistan and the strategy 

that the United States needs to adopt going forward. The mission 

of U.S. forces and indeed U.S. diplomatic engagement in Afghanistan is clear. We do need to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al 

Qaeda and see to it that neither the Taliban nor any other enemy 

group within Afghanistan is able to provide sanctuary and safe 

haven for the kinds of terrorist groups that threaten not only the 

United States, but also the region—Pakistan, India, and the countries surrounding Afghanistan. And our role in Afghanistan therefore is to neutralize the Taliban, perhaps to defeat the Taliban, to 

see to it that that organization which has historically been extremely supportive of al Qaeda is actually not capable of considering itself any longer the legitimate government of Afghanistan. 

And that is how the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar sees 

itself. And that is how al Qaeda sees Mullah Omar: as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan, the leader of the caliphate that is rightful and rightfully guided in terms of its vision of the Islamic tradition. 

What we face inside Afghanistan, however, is more complex than 

simply al Qaeda or a Taliban group. Rather we face an indigenous 

insurgency within Afghanistan; that is to say, the people of Afghanistan are dissatisfied with their government and are fighting 

their government in order to establish some sort of alternative that 

suits them better than what it is that the government of Afghanistan is providing them. It is a classic insurgency. And when I say 

indigenous, I mean that most of the people fighting in Afghanistan 

are Afghans; they are not Pakistanis coming across the border but 

rather residents of Afghanistan with Afghan leadership, which happens to be sometimes dwelling in Pakistan as a government in 

exile. 

That means that in order to succeed in Afghanistan we actually 

have to defeat the insurgency, neutralize it, reduce its capability to 

be effective within Afghanistan and create the conditions whereby 

some form of legitimate government can actually take root and ensure that that government does not support the Taliban, does not 

support al Qaeda, and does not support the network of insurgent 

and terrorist groups that are linked into al Qaeda and other groups 

and cells working in the Pakistani region. 

How do we do this? Well, first, it is actually important to recognize who the enemy is and actually engage that enemy decisively. 

This is why more forces are required in Afghanistan, and not just 

a few more forces, a decisive amount of force, because in fact neither the United States nor its coalition partners have been able to 

engage the enemy decisively in key terrain; that is to say, terrain 

that is important to them, to the government of Afghanistan, and 

to us. Places like Kandahar, where we have essentially two battalions of Canadian forces and one battalion of U.S. forces operating 

in the spiritual heart of the Taliban insurgency, its location, its 

stronghold, and the spiritual capital of the Pashtun region. 

We need in fact to engage in order to not only prevent the enemy 

from launching attacks against us, but to prevent the enemy 
7 

groups from actually intimidating the population of Afghanistan, 

compelling the population of Afghanistan in key areas such as 

Kandahar, Helmand, or Khost to deter them from actually participating and actively supporting enemy groups and to persuade those 

groups—those groups that they cannot win, and to persuade the 

population that we are there to safeguard them and support them. 

I have been to Afghanistan twice this year on battlefield circulations, and I can assure you that there are very few places in Afghanistan where we have the kind of force ratios that would allow 

the population to be protected from al Qaeda, to be protected from 

the Taliban, to be protected from the Haqqani network, and therefore the United States and its coalition partners are failing in Afghanistan in their fundamental mission of counterinsurgency. 

And here we have many lessons that we can draw from our experiences in Iraq, not just our experiences in Vietnam, where we were 

successful at reducing an indigenous insurgency through decisive 

use of military force and also through a comprehensive civil-military program in which we actually reduced the malign capabilities 

of the government, reduced their bad behavior, and fundamentally 

increased the kinds of services that the population actually needs. 

We do not need to build a modern state in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan does have a history of governance, and what the people 

of Afghanistan want is something that we can build. They want security, and they want the provision of justice, particularly in dispute resolution, and those are services that can be provided by engaging intensively in a counterinsurgency campaign, using all instruments of U.S. and coalition power and leverage in order to 

jump-start local government, to connect the people with their government, to reduce the malign behaviors of government, those that 

actually accelerate the insurgency, and to develop an Afghan national army that is actually capable of securing the population of 

Afghanistan and meeting the national security needs of this important country situated as it is amongst great powers, many of whom 

have nuclear weapons, and many of whom in the instance where 

Afghanistan is insecure will continue to wage proxy engagements 

against one another in order to see to it that they have leverage 

and they have control. 

This is something that the United States can do with its coalition 

partners. It is something that requires more force, it is something 

that requires a different kind of engagement by our civilian leaders. But it is something that we have to do, it is something that 

we have to do soon, and it is something that we have to do in order 

to meet our overarching strategic objective of preventing a kind of 

terrorist state from regaining control of Afghanistan, something 

that is dangerously close to transpiring right now. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kagan can be found in the Appendix on page 55.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Dr. Kagan. Dr. Dorronsoro. 
8 

STATEMENT OF DR. GILLES DORRONSORO, VISITING SCHOLAR, SOUTH ASIA PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

Dr. DORRONSORO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will address three 

points. One, the counterinsurgency strategy is not working in Afghanistan currently. My second point will be about what we should 

do; that is to say, a more focused strategy. And the third point will 

be about resources, what kind of resources we need to avoid the 

further deterioration of Afghanistan. 

But the first point, the current shape, clear, or build strategy in 

Afghanistan requires that we control the territory and separate the 

insurgents from the population. As we have seen in Helmand Province, the strategy is not working for several reasons. The first reason, the relationship between the Taliban and the population is not 

what is generally said. The Taliban are local. It is impossible right 

now in the context of the south and east of Afghanistan to separate 

the insurgency from the population. Furthermore, there is no Afghan structure there to replace the coalition forces once the 

Taliban have been removed. 

The coalition forces are not accepted locally. Actually they are 

quite unpopular in places where they are fighting, such as 

Helmand, Kandahar, Kabul, and so on. This is a key problem, the 

more we are sending troops, the more we alienate the local population. 

The population’s association with soldiers is counterproductive. 

Since they do not speak the language, they are constantly targeted 

by these ambushes, and they cannot do the kind of work for the 

population that could be a real counterinsurgency. 

Moreover, Pakistan doesn’t control its border. I don’t think it is 

possible to defeat the Taliban when the old Pakistani-Afghan border is quite open and when the Taliban have reached support in 

Pakistan where they have a sanctuary. 

The current offensive in Waziristan and the one before in Swat 

and the one before in Bajaur Agency were not directed at the Afghan Taliban. They were strictly directed against the Pakistani 

Taliban. So at this point I don’t see any sign that the Pakistani 

Government is changing its policy of supporting the Afghan 

Taliban. That is a key element, and I don’t think that we can defeat an insurgency in these conditions. 

What should we do? What are the priorities? I think that in the 

longer perspective on exit strategy we should now focus our limited 

resources on urban center and strategic course. The poorest population in Afghanistan lives in urban centers, and sadly you don’t 

see practical results of the Western presence in Afghanistan since 

many years now in the cities; for example, Kabul. Kabul, not a lot 

of development, and after the billions of dollars we sent to Afghanistan I think it is a very sad result. 

Those cities are key because first, as I said, the poorest of the 

population lives there. Second, the Taliban are frightening more 

and more the cities. They are inside in city of Kandahar, inside 

most of the cities in the south and also in the east. I am thinking 

about Khost, Gardez, large parts of the towns in Lowgar Province. 

This is a natural strategic fight, because if we want to build Af-
9 

ghan institutions, it will be in the cities. It is not going to be in 

the countryside. 

So what the United States, and marginally the coalition, should 

do is to define three areas. First area: strategic zones, where the 

coalition should have total military control. It doesn’t mean that 

you don’t have some incidents from time to time, but it is under 

control. Main roads, cities, most of the towns when it is possible, 

it is not always possible, and that is where we must send most of 

our resources to protect this area. 

Second area is what I would call a buffer area around the cities 

and the towns. In this area the idea is to have a place where the 

military intervention is focused avoiding civilian casualties and, 

whenever possible, to probably to use militia, mostly not tribal militia because tribal militia are very difficult to manage, but local 

militia in the village. There are a lot of caveats, some dangerous, 

but basically it is doable. 

I would say that in the last territory, the opposition territory, 

that is the mountains, a large part of the countryside in the south 

and in the east. We don’t have the resources to roll back. We don’t 

have the resources to push the Taliban outside these territories. So 

the only thing to do is to have different strategy in the sense that 

the idea is not to put this under military control, but the proactive 

one in the sense that the U.S. forces must deter the opposition 

from launching operations outside these places against the strategic zone. 

What are the advantages of this strategy? First: time. We need 

time to build an Afghan army that is able to defend at least the 

cities. We need probably more than 5 years, between 5 and 10 

years. Currently the Afghan army is probably around—the real 

number is around 60,000. To double that number, to go, let’s say, 

to 150,000 we need minimum 5 years. We don’t have officers. We 

need—it is a very long-term project to build officers, petty officers 

as they are called, you know. 

Second, we cannot go with this level of casualties. From 2008 to 

2009 we are more than 50 percent increase in casualties for the coalition. So we are going from a little under 300 to probably this 

year over 500. If we do the same thing, if we extend the strategy 

we had in Helmand, to all south of Afghanistan it is going to be 

700 or 800. I don’t think it is politically doable. 

Another element, of course you have seen the results of the election in Afghanistan. We are now in the first democratic Afghanistan. People are cynical and I think they are right to be cynical 

about the current government, about the election, about the political process. We need a lot of time to build again some kind of Afghan regime able to survive the withdrawal of the Western countries. It is not doable with a high-level casualty strategy. 

My third point is about resources. First, I don’t think we are suffering from underfunding, but there is a strikingly better location 

of resources in Afghanistan. 

Should I stop? 

Dr. SNYDER. No, we have a series of votes coming up, but if you 

can finish up in a couple or three minutes and give Dr. Krepinevich 

his time, then we will go vote and come back and start questions. 

As it were, we will just pick up where we left. Go ahead. 
10 

Dr. DORRONSORO. Contrary to what is often said, it is not a problem of underfunding, but bad location of resources. First, we are 

sending resources mostly to places that we do not control. Actually 

drugs are not the first source of finance for the Taliban. We are financing the Taliban because we are giving money to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who are working the countryside. 

They are obliged to pay the Taliban when we are sending trucks 

from Karachi to Peshawar. They have to pay from Peshawar to 

Kabul, they have to pay from Kabul to Kandahar, they have to pay 

again. And this money for large part is going to the Taliban. So we 

have to focus aid on places where we have control, some provinces 

in the north, the cities, and so on. 

Second, the troops are over-focused in the south. It was a major 

strategic mistake. Twenty thousand men in Helmand is exactly the 

kind of thing that is going to victory to the Taliban. We have lost 

control of Kunduz Province. We have lost control of part of Baghlan 

Province. We have lost control of Badghis Province. That is in the 

north, and the city of Herat is now directly threatened by the 

Taliban. We cannot spend all our resources in the south when the 

north is becoming the major, major problem. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dorronsoro can be found in the 

Appendix on page 67.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Krepinevich. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, PRESIDENT, 

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In summarizing my 

remarks, I will speak primarily to Afghanistan but also to Iraq, 

and then finally to our overall strategic posture. 

To begin, I think if we are going to talk about strategy it is important to note that strategy in its basic terms is how you apply 

the means at your disposal to achieve the ends you seek. And as 

the definition suggests, the means to be employed, which include 

levels of troop strengths for example, are an integral part of 

crafting a strategy. 

Clausewitz said the first and foremost thing that any leader 

needed to do before contemplating war is to understand the character and the nature of the enemy and the war that they were 

about to engage. I think in its March 2009 white paper, the Obama 

Administration demonstrated that it does have a good appreciation 

for the character of the war in which we are engaged and the nature of the threat—I didn’t know I was going to bring my theme 

music with me today. 

Second, to have a strategy it is necessary to set an objective. And 

in fact the Administration has: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al 

Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to 

either country in the future. 

The President, I think in line with this, improved—approved 

rather wisely a strategy that emphasizes traditional counterinsurgency principles. 

I would say if you look at General McChrystal’s leaked report a 

lot of the themes that are expressed in that are similar to the 
11 

themes that Dr. Dorronsoro just mentioned: an emphasis on security and on improved governance. 

Based on the President’s statements as recently as August, he 

views the risks of failing to achieve our war objectives as quite 

high. He has declared this not a war of choice but a war of necessity and stated that if left unchecked the Taliban insurgency will 

make an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda will plot to 

kill more Americans. 

The core issue at present doesn’t seem to be a debate over the 

objective necessarily or the strategy for how to achieve it, but levels 

of troops that we are dispatching to Afghanistan, specifically General McChrystal’s request for 40,000 troops over and above what he 

currently has to implement the strategy. 

I will offer six observations or suggestions on how the committee 

might view that request. Three have to do with risk. Obviously 

there is a risk associated with not supporting the troop request. 

There is also a risk associated with sending those 40,000 additional 

troops. 

One potential risk, and of course we have heard it, is the risk 

of—the term is ‘‘breaking the army.’’ In fact our Army will so be 

overstretched and—so overstressed that it risks becoming a nonfunctioning combatant force. 

I would just offer two things here. One, it would appear with the 

ongoing drawdown in Iraq that even if we get to 30 to 40,000 troop 

level in Iraq, that combined a 40,000 troop increase in Afghanistan 

would still leave us significantly below the troop levels we had deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq during the surge. First point. 

Second point is that thanks to the efforts of the previous Administration and this Administration over the past few years there has 

been an authorized increase in Army end strength of 65,000, plus 

8,000 in the Reserves, 27,000 additional Marines, and then more 

recently an additional 22,000 temporary plus-up in the Army’s end 

strength. So you are not only talking about relatively lower troop 

levels than what we saw during the surge, but also a larger ground 

force component by a substantial margin. 

There is also the risk that such deployments might leave us unprepared for other contingencies. So that is sort of my second point. 

And again I think the questions here you have to address are, are 

these other contingencies likely to occur? If they did, for example 

in Korea or Iran, would we have a higher risk of failure? If we did 

fail would the consequences of failure be greater than those of failing in Afghanistan and Iraq? My only personal estimate, as outlined in my testimony, is that again those risks I think are workable right now, but again different people interpret risk differently. 

I would say the third area having to do with risk is whether or 

not General McChrystal is, to use a phrase, ‘‘padding the force.’’ Is 

he requesting far more troops than he actually needs to begin to 

engineer a decisive turnaround of the kind that Dr. Kagan and Dr. 

Dorronsoro talked about? 

His report, the one that was leaked, indicates that he is, for example, not looking to secure the entire country at once, but progressively over time, which is very consistent I think with the Administration’s strategy and with traditional counterinsurgency 

strategy. 
12 

I do think though that it would be wise to find out specifically 

how the force is going to be used, what constitutes a decisive shift, 

what the campaign is, what the phases are, and how we would 

measure progress. 

Apart from the risk of deploying this force is also the matter of 

the strategy itself, and there are three issues that relate to this. 

One is one might want to undertake a review of one’s strategy very 

shortly after one had put it in place if there were some dramatic 

change in the situation. There may be some dramatic change we 

are not aware of. I am not sure the Afghan elections really constitute that in the sense that to the extent there is corruption in 

Afghan that has pretty much been a known factor for some time 

now, almost since the advent of the Karzai administration. 

Second, I think you might want to review your strategy if it was 

a failed strategy. Yet the strategy really hasn’t been fully implemented yet, and so it seems to me it is premature to say we have 

a failed strategy on our hands. 

And the third would be is there a better strategy out there, one 

that was not evident to us when the Administration set its strategy 

in March that is now available. I think there is one that goes by 

the name the counterterrorism strategy with emphasis on over-thehorizon air strikes, special forces, covert operations, and a focused 

attempt to kill terrorist leaders, insurgent leaders. 

My feeling here is we have tried this before, it has failed. The 

character of the conflict doesn’t really lend itself to kinetic kinds 

of operations. The current term for it is ‘‘whack-a-mole,’’ going after 

and using kinetic strikes to kill key leaders. In Vietnam we tried 

it on a broader scale. It was called ‘‘search and destroy.’’ Go find 

the enemy; kill the enemy. Kill enough of them, kill their leaders, 

and eventually we win. It was tried to some extent in the late 

1990s. We had the cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan. Some 

people called it ‘‘therapeutic bombing,’’ others, ‘‘antiseptic warfare.’’ 

Obviously that didn’t do the job. We tried it early on in Iraq where 

the term ‘‘whack-a-mole’’ really originated in this iteration. And to 

a certain extent we tried in Afghanistan the last few years with 

our drone operations and our special forces operations. 

We have succeeded in killing a lot of leaders of the Taliban and 

al Qaeda and other related groups, but as we have pretty much acknowledged here, the situation really hasn’t gotten better by emphasizing these kinds of operations. To make matters worse, they 

tend to alienate the population, which is the war’s center of gravity. 

Final point on Afghanistan is: does a protracted review matter? 

Does it really matter? Obviously there is an advantage in taking 

your time and thinking things through carefully, getting all the 

facts, getting all the data. But there is also a down side, and the 

down side is that there are a lot of fence sitters, in this kind of 

war. Lawrence of Arabia once said that insurgencies are made of 

2 percent of the population being active and 98 percent passive. To 

defeat them you need to mobilize the population on your side. 

If there is a sense that we are not serious or a sense that we are 

waffling back and forth, I think that creates problems for us. In a 

sense it is almost ironic that some things, some of the problems we 

are really trying to tackle, the Administration is really trying to 
13 

focus on to some extent are undermined by a protracted strategic 

review in a sense that, if you want Karzai to seriously crack down 

on corruption, what he needs I think is a strong expression of 

American support. But it is support with conditions. The absence 

of that support really encourages him to strike deals with the 

locals, many of whom have to be paid off in forms of patronage and 

corruption. 

Similarly the Pakistanis, their attitude is that they, at least 

some elements of the Pakistani Government, view the Taliban as 

their hedge against an American withdrawal from Afghanistan and 

Indian ascendance in that country. They essentially accept the 

United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

as the dominant external power in Afghanistan but are very reluctant, I think, to go after the Taliban if the feeling is that we may 

leave the path open for Indian ascendance in Pakistan. 

With respect to Iraq, just a couple of points. One is the drawdown is continuing. I think we have to look at a significant residual 

force. General Clark talked about the need for such a force in Afghanistan. I think we also need one in Iraq. In terms of Iraq also 

I think we do need to have a sense of what happens the day after 

the drawdown to a minimum force. We never really thought 

through the day after we pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. I think it would be a mistake to assume that the 

situation there is inevitably going to remain as stable as it is now 

without some serious effort on our part. 

My final point is to look at the broad picture. Again I commend 

the committee for taking a serious look at the strategy in Afghanistan and links in terms of the regional perspective. I would point 

out that if you look out over the coming decades and you look at 

key trends, whether they are economic, technical, demographic and 

so on, it is difficult to conclude otherwise than that the challenges 

to our security are increasing, they are going to continue to increase, the threats are going to become significantly more dangerous. And our ability to address them I think is eroding rather 

dramatically, not only in terms of the treasure we have poured into 

this conflict but our rather seriously eroding economic foundation 

and the similar difficulties that longstanding allies are experiencing in the same way. 

So in closing, let me applaud the committee’s determination to 

both raise the level of awareness on these important issues and 

also its efforts to raise the quality of the discourse as to how we 

might best resolve them. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich can be found in the 

Appendix on page 79.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

We have four votes. We hopefully won’t be gone very long, and 

we will take up questions when we get back. We have been joined 

by Mr. Coffman, who will participate. We are in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Dr. SNYDER. We will come back in session. 

Mr. Wittman will be joining us here shortly, and we will put ourselves on the five-minute clock. 
14 

I think, General Clark, you have to leave 4:00-ish is that correct? 

And we will try to get a round at least once with all of the witnesses and then additional time with whoever is left. 

The first question I wanted to direct is to General Clark and Dr. 

Dorronsoro. 

Dr. Dorronsoro, at the end of your written statement, which I 

don’t think you mentioned in your oral statement, your very last 

sentence you said is, ‘‘The only solution to this problem is a political negotiation and the awareness of what is really at stake here: 

the credibility of NATO that is a military alliance.’’ And I met with 

a European diplomat a few weeks ago, I guess a couple weeks ago, 

who also espoused the view that the world’s perception of NATO’s 

success or failure should be an important consideration of what we 

do. 

I would like to hear, General Clark, your response to that or 

what you think about that? 

And, Dr. Dorronsoro, to amplify on that. 

General CLARK. It sounds like something that would have been 

in my statement. 

Dr. SNYDER. It did. I saw it, but it was in his. 

General CLARK. But it wasn’t. 

Dr. SNYDER. It wasn’t. 

General CLARK. NATO is a problem because it is a, it is a onestrike-and-you-are-out organization. It has been successful thus far. 

We took it into Afghanistan without NATO demanding of us an effective strategy. And were we to simply fold our tent and go home, 

I think we would have a problem with NATO. 

I think it is incumbent upon us to create an effective strategy 

that brings us success and an exit, and I think NATO can participate in that. But I think that the emphasis on troop contributions 

from other NATO countries has been a little misplaced over the 

years. 

It is going to take a lot more than simply troops for NATO to be 

successful in Afghanistan. And I think we should be looking for 

economic contributions, police training contributions, that are 

broader. And we should do the best we can to require NATO countries to cough up the other contributions when they say they can’t 

provide those extra two helicopters that we wanted. 

Rather than simply doing the pressure on the two helicopters 

give them some alternative means of contributing. We do need 

more contributions from all the NATO members right now. I don’t 

see this as—I see what we have to do is create a success strategy 

that is premised on leaving. And I think if you can build a strategy 

that is clear, that has some clear turnover points in it, that it is 

possible to keep NATO on board, give NATO the sense of success 

it needs and provide the sense of resolution that you need to resolve the problem on the ground in Afghanistan with the Pakistanis. 

I know I am asking for a lot. But that is why I think that the 

Administration is doing the right thing by taking the time to get 

the strategy right. Because there is a lot of seemingly contradictory 

pieces that have to be put in place to make the strategy work. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Dorronsoro. 
15 

Dr. DORRONSORO. I think, first, that we think is that NATO is 

failing as a major alliance in Afghanistan. It is a clear failure. It 

is a dangerous failure, and I am not sure that NATO could survive 

this kind of war. 

Now, what to do about it. First, to be true, it is going to be extremely difficult for especially European governments to send more 

troops in Afghanistan. You have now over 70 percent of the British 

population who are supporting an exit from Afghanistan right now. 

So we are, politically speaking, on the verge of a real political point 

for all European governments. 

The second—and I would say, why? Because there is no perception of threat, perception of threat from Afghanistan. European 

populations do not perceive Afghanistan as a threat. That is a very 

general thing, and that is important. 

The second thing is, what to do about it. I would suggest, first, 

the truth that, in certain places, non-U.S. troops are not trying to 

do counterinsurgency or to do war. They cannot accept, for a political reasons, casualties. And we have a situation like Kunduz in 

the north or Mazar-e-Sharif, where the German army is not only 

inefficient against the Taliban but mostly counterproductive. I 

think we should offer an exit to the German troops, a means to use 

the German troops to train the Afghan army or to do something 

else. But I would prefer from my point of view to have 200 Marines 

in Kunduz than 5,000 or 6,000 German soldiers. 

I think we are in the wrong way. We are putting always the political regiment first in NATO, and we are killing NATO in the 

long term because NATO is losing the war. We should be clear 

even if it is creating a political crisis inside NATO. We have to ask 

the question, why the Germans are not doing their work in the 

north? What is happening with the Italians in Herat, and so on 

and so on? 

And I would say the last point, quickly, is that NATO is not 

working because there is no unified strategy in Afghanistan. You 

know, there is always this question how the Taliban is a unified 

movement. But honestly, if I had a very theoretical choice between 

leading the Taliban and leading the NATO, I would prefer to lead 

the Taliban. Much more simple, you know. NATO is really not able 

to produce a clear-on strategy at the national level in Afghanistan. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman for five minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you members of the panel for joining us today. We appreciate your patience and your indulgence with us as we move back 

and forth between votes. 

General Clark, to begin with you, you made a statement in the 

beginning saying you are very proud of the Administration and the 

time they are taking to be very deliberative in this decision-making 

process. I want to kind of put that into perspective on the timeliness issue. I know there has been a lot of focus on the timeliness 

of a decision. Obviously, we want to make sure we get the decision 

right, but I am wondering, at what point does timeliness become 

a significant element in that decision-making process? 

I know I have heard from a number of our men and women in 

uniform who are starting to get a little anxious about this. I am 

wondering what you see as the effect on our combatant com-
16 

manders, men and women in uniform, and our allied partners as 

a decision continues to move on and on and on, and where do you 

think we are as far as the impact of timeliness on the effect on the 

effort there in our partners? 

General CLARK. Well, I don’t know that there is any hard deadline. Obviously, everyone wants a decision sooner rather than later. 

I believe that we are getting much closer to a decision. And I am 

not on the inside of this process. 

As I see it work from the outside, what I am looking at is a process in which all of the strategic actors are engaged, including the 

foreign governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan that we are 

working with. So I would go back to my own experience with things 

like the Dayton Agreement in which there was a war going on. We 

didn’t have our troops on the ground at the time. But people were 

impatient for an agreement. And yet the trick was to be able to use 

the impending decisions as leverage in producing the overall process outcome that you sought. 

And as best I can see, the Administration is in fact doing that. 

So there is a lot of impatience about this. I know the troops want 

to know what is going on. I know the military leaders are concerned about planning. But that should not drive the process. In 

fact, I think as best I can see, there is a lot of good coming out of 

this in terms of the work through the nations in the region. And 

that work cannot be done in a series of quick overnight phone calls, 

position papers. And I don’t think it is being done that way. 

I think it is being done through back-and-forth over a period of 

weeks with the host nation governments. And I think that is a constructive process. So I think we should be patient. I think the Administration is going to wrap this up pretty quick. But I think it 

has been a very productive process, and I commend them for it. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. I disagree. 

I do believe that there is a role for strategic deliberation, but I 

also believe that the extent and the time being taken for the strategic deliberation does actually impose risks within the theater of 

war, and we need at least to be cognizant of the risks that are 

being taken as this discussion protracts. 

First and foremost, I do not actually agree with General Clark 

that it is possible or wise to use a decision about force levels as leverage, either with our allies or with our enemies or with the government of Afghanistan. 

On the contrary, what we learned from Iraq and from other 

counterinsurgency efforts is that commitment and a strong statement of commitment early on is actually what changes the balance 

of calculations among political actors and among the population. 

And so what the people of Afghanistan are looking for and what 

the government of Afghanistan is looking for and what Pakistan is 

looking for is the statement of commitment and having that statement backed up with action. 

Secondly, I do believe that we are starting to see a degree of 

pressure being put on our NATO allies, who are trying to be responsive to whatever the strategy is and will be but, because of the 

indeterminate nature of this process, are not being able to allocate 
17 

the forces and the resources because they will be guided not by 

their own assessment of their objectives but by the U.S. lead. 

Thirdly, there are forces available for Afghanistan that could 

have been on the way and should be on the way by now. In particular, there could be a decision to commit the Ready Brigade of 

the 82nd. There could be a decision to accelerate the training of Afghan army and Afghan security forces, the funds committed in 

order to do that. All of those things could be under way. 

And the delays that are now ongoing do shift the ability of our 

commanders on the ground to conduct decisive operations in 2010. 

In fact, I would say that, in fact, it is unlikely that our commanders on the ground will be able to accomplish a set of decisive 

operations in 2010, nor do I think that they will meet the 12- to 

18-month turnaround timeline that President Obama initially gave 

to General McChrystal as sort of the bellwether for how fast he 

wanted to see results in Afghanistan. So we have to acknowledge 

those risks. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mrs. Davis, for five minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to all of you for being here. 

Dr. Krepinevich, in your written remarks, you state that President Karzai should understand that our support is conditional on 

his willingness to remove ineffective or corrupt administrators. And 

I wonder if you could address, what if he doesn’t? I mean, what do 

you think we should be looking for, and others as well, and what 

if this doesn’t happen? I mean, there are a lot of people who just 

don’t believe that, even with what has occurred in terms of the 

election, that that is likely to change. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I think if you look at, at least what the 

Administration’s strategy is, if you look at what General 

McChrystal has proposed to do, a significant part of that was not 

just helping the Afghan national army or the Afghan forces; it was 

beginning the work in a sense of embedding ourselves in the Afghan government, not only to help them to improve the efficiency 

and the effectiveness of governance but also as a good means of 

identifying those individuals who are competent or incompetent, 

corrupt or honest, and who are loyal or who have a different agenda. 

And I think President Karzai has got to understand that, you 

know, that is a condition of our involvement. It serves his interest. 

It serves the interest of the country. And also conditional is our 

recommendations about people when we identify them as corrupt 

or incompetent or disloyal, that he has got to remove them. I think 

the incentive on his part goes up if he feels like the United States 

is engaged over time and that he has less of an incentive or less 

of a need to cut deals and to grant patronage, which of course is 

one step away from corruption, in government to play off different 

factions, one from the other. 

Ultimately, I think if that fails, then what you are left with is 

a decision about whether the situation in Afghanistan is hopeless 

or whether Karzai is hopeless, and whether, in fact, there are other 

leaders within Afghanistan who can better represent the needs of 

the people and be more legitimate. I think we are a long away from 

that point, especially if we get buy-in on the conditions that the 
18 

Administration and General McChrystal seem to be intent on setting. 

I would also say, a colleague of mine, Dr. Strmecki, testified I 

guess a few weeks back, and his point—he spent a lot of time over 

there early on after the Loya Jirga and the elections and so on. 

There are a number of things that have worked with Karzai in the 

past. And again, I think that involves not only commitment on our 

part but also a very effective country team. And at that time, we 

had a country team that seemed to be able to get productive output 

from Karzai. And I suspect it is not a lost cause. 

And given the stakes that the President has said we have at risk 

here in terms of a war of necessity and concerns about not only instability in Afghanistan but a nuclear-armed Muslim state, Pakistan, and then in the broader region, and as General Clark says, 

the implications for the alliance and so on, I certainly think that 

it is worth a try, but again, I think it has got to be conditionsbased. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I don’t know if anyone else wants to comment, especially in 

terms of any economic incentives or lack of thereof that you would 

like to address. 

I guess the other piece just really quickly, because I think what 

you are saying, we need to depend on some type of a military-civilian partnership, and that also, I think, would involve certainly a 

certain number of troops. 

And perhaps, General Clark, you could comment on that as well. 

Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. Thank you very much. 

The question of how it is that we use our leverage, vis-a-vis 

Karzai and the Afghan government, is really what is at hand right 

now, because we do have a lot of leverage. And that leverage comes 

in troops. It comes in money that the international community provides for the government of Afghanistan. It comes in terms of the 

training and support that we provide for the Afghan security 

forces, through our support of NGOs and other international elements working in Afghanistan. 

That is to say, troops are one source of leverage; money is another. We have a lot of leverage that we can bring to bear. 

The question is allowing our country team to bring that leverage 

to bear in the most productive way and in the most gentle way, or 

sometimes in the most effective way. And I really—I really do 

think that we have a lot of lessons that we have learned from our 

experience in Iraq in terms of how to apply that leverage. And I 

also think that it is essential that we not look at conditioning the 

troop levels going in as the only source of leverage. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I appreciate that. Thank you. I think the chairman 

is going to gavel you down. Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Jones for five minutes. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me read a paragraph and then I have got a couple of questions. ‘‘ ‘Yesterday,’ reads the e-mail from Allen, a Marine in Afghanistan, ‘I gave blood because a Marine while out on patrol 

stepped on a pressure plate and lost both legs. Then another Marine was hit with a bullet wound to the head and was brought in. 
19 

Both Marines died this morning.’ ’’ This is from the column by 

George Will, September, ‘‘America’s Unwinnable Afghan War.’’ 

My question to General Clark as well as Dr. Kagan, two parts, 

is Afghanistan in our vital national security interest? 

Second, I will be glad to repeat, if it is, what is our goal, secondly, our objective, the end state? What are we seeking? 

General Clark. 

General CLARK. Congressman, I think what is in our vital interest is the defeat of al Qaeda. And it is also in our vital interest not 

to be, not to have been defeated in Afghanistan. So, in my testimony, what I have tried to lay out is a somewhat realignment of 

our attention to where al Qaeda is primarily. They are primarily 

in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan must do more. It must be 

incentivized and assisted to do more. And what we must do is take 

the fight to al Qaeda. 

Now, principally al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan. But as a necessary but not sufficient component of taking the fight to al Qaeda, 

we have got to clean up the mess in Afghanistan. That means 

building the Afghan security forces; not getting forced off the battlefield; creating a more legitimate government that reduces conflict; and leaving behind something that can sustain and prevent— 

sustain itself and prevent the takeover of the Afghan government 

by a group that would use the organs of state and the rights of a 

state to promote international terrorism. 

Those are pretty minimalist objectives when they are stated that 

way. They don’t require us to bring statehood conditions of probity 

to Afghanistan, but they do require a sustained commitment there 

for some period of time, and they require a lot more attention by 

the government of Pakistan on its responsibilities. 

Mr. JONES. Before Dr. Kagan, very quickly, how much longer can 

the military continue to go at this pace before we start seeing, because I have Camp Lejeune in the district, the number of post 

traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases have gone up astronomically? And how much longer can we keep going without an end 

point to what we are trying to achieve militarily? Do you have any 

idea? 

General CLARK. I can’t give you a time zone on it. But I would 

tell you this: that it is manifestly unfair to the men and women in 

uniform to have been sent back again and again and again on repetitive tours. So they are owed by their national command authority a strategy for success. That strategy hasn’t yet been adequately 

defined for the context of the region. 

And that is why I am hopeful that the Obama Administration 

will do that now. And I think it will, and I think that is the purpose of the delay. And that involves intensive work with both the 

governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

And then I think it is up to the—it is up to Congress to provide 

adequate support, including the right manning levels for the men 

and women in uniform so that we have a national security apparatus that can do that which we believe it is asked to do. And if 

we are not prepared to do that, then we as a nation have to adjust 

our objectives. 

We don’t have enough men and women in the Army and Marine 

Corps to sustain the kind of commitment that—if we put the same 
20 

number of troops in Afghanistan that we had in Iraq for the next 

10 years we are going to break this force. So that is not an option, 

not under the current conditions. Something has got to the give. 

Mr. JONES. General, thank you. 

My time is about up. Dr. Kagan, I will go a round with you if 

we have another round. 

But I wanted to say I am one of the few Republicans that have 

thanked the President for taking time to figure out what our policy 

should be. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. As I indicated earlier, we have been joined by Mr. 

Coffman, who is not a member of the subcommittee but a member 

of the full committee, and recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It appears already, and let me preface this with, I think there 

were nine soldiers recently lost in northeastern Afghanistan in a 

small forward operating base where it was hit fairly aggressively 

by the Taliban in a remote area that was pretty isolated. The tragedy is I think that they already had orders where they were going 

to withdraw in the next couple of days and abandon that particular 

forward operating base. 

And it seems that General McChrystal has already come to a 

conclusion that we ought to have a bifurcated strategy of counterterrorism with counterinsurgency; with counterinsurgency in the 

populated areas, and counterterrorism in the rural areas. I wonder 

if you all could comment on, number one, do you think that that 

is accurate, and number two, how effective would that strategy be? 

General Clark, why don’t we start with you? 

General CLARK. Well, I haven’t spoken to General McChrystal 

about the strategy. I am not on the inside of this debate. 

I am worried about surrendering the border to the Taliban. You 

have got to maintain as tight a grip on the border region as possible. It is just that it is too big in relation to the forces. And I don’t 

mean just forces on the ground; I mean the artillery that needs to 

be there in support, the Apache helicopters that come in. As one 

officer said to me, ‘‘this is fast-mover country.’’ I mean, you have 

got have fighter planes in the air all the time to deliver ordinance 

because this is a big country. 

So, you know, I really felt bad when I heard about the loss of 

the outpost, and I know that maybe there are tactical issues here 

that have to be worked, and maybe that was in the wrong place, 

and maybe it was going to be readjusted. But I hope that in the 

strategy we don’t surrender that border to the Taliban. That will 

be a mistake. 

And one of the things we have got to do is we have got to give 

the commander the resources he needs to fight and win. If we are 

going to hold him responsible for winning, we have got to give him 

the resources. So I don’t know what the right number is. I don’t 

know if it is 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 or 80,000. I do know that at 

this period of the war in Vietnam, when we were searching for objectives, we piecemealed the reinforcements. And we didn’t provide 

enough to the military, and the military didn’t ask for enough. 

So I hope General McChrystal has asked for everything he has 

needed. But he is not the final authority. That is the President of 
21 

the United States. And he has got to put together the whole strategy. And again, I want to underscore, that is why it is important 

that we have taken the time to try to get this right. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. In order to understand where to put our forces and 

how to use them, we have to understand where the enemy is and 

how it functions. And although we can talk very much about the 

enemy groups operating within the cities and the cities as being 

important to Afghanistan, what we actually see when we look specifically at the way the enemy behaves is that actually the enemy 

fights in and operates in essentially the suburban areas around cities, suburban perhaps is an overstatement, and uses safe havens 

in those areas to project force into cities, precisely because, in fact, 

fighting within cities is not a culturally acceptable way of conducting a campaign. 

Therefore, although we can talk about the need to secure important cities, such as Kandahar or Khost, we have to be careful to 

differentiate between securing the cities and placing forces inside 

the cities, because the best way to secure an area such as 

Kandahar may be actually to deploy forces in the surrounding 

areas. 

And the reason I raise that is that we have had a lot of conversations here in Washington about exactly where to put our forces and 

how to use them. And it is actually important to give the command 

some degree of leeway about where actually to use forces in a way 

that maximizes their contribution to the fight rather than prejudging where the enemy is, how the enemy is operating, and 

whether we should put our forces in cities, countries, or on the border. 

Secondly, on the border issue, we need to mitigate risks on the 

border which is too large for our forces to protect by a strong set 

of outposts through the use of special operations forces, other national assets, other technological assets. But the border is only one 

component of our strategy. We have an indigenous insurgency, and 

that is why, in fact, we need to be focusing on population centers 

within the country rather than trying to protect Afghanistan from 

infiltration from Pakistan. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Would anyone else like to comment? 

Dr. DORRONSORO. Yeah quickly, maybe. The border is out of control, and we don’t have the resources to control the border with 

Pakistan. It is absolutely impossible to control. It is a very long 

border. The terrain is absolutely terrible. So you are not going to 

make it anyway. 

So what is happening is a more general phenomenon. The 

Taliban are now strong enough to—more than ambushes; it is really frontal attack on the isolated post. So it is a good idea to evacuate this kind of outpost. I think it is a good decision. And there 

is no way you can control Kunar and those places. 

The second point is that here we have something that—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Dorronsoro, I need you to get to your completing 

comment here. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. It is a general phenomenon that Western outposts are totally isolated, cut from the population. It is through everywhere in Afghanistan. Ask the Spanish forces in Badghis, the 
22 

same thing. German in the north, same thing. French, same thing. 

So people they control what they see and no more. 

Dr. SNYDER. We have also been joined by Dr. Steve Kagen who 

is not a member of the Armed Services Committee, but wanted to 

participate today. Dr. Kagen for five minutes. 

Dr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I really appreciate the opportunity to sit in with you this afternoon on this very deadly serious subject. 

I welcome General Wes Clark, who I have become friends with 

over a long period of time since he was moving from the military 

ranks into the civilian civil servant—well, he almost did. I appreciate your many years of service, and I appreciate your testimony. 

I think perhaps the most pressing comments are in the statements that have been submitted. And Dr. Kagan presents us with 

this sentence, ‘‘the fact that we have not been doing the right 

things for the past few years in Afghanistan is actually good news 

at the moment.’’ I think I am just going to accept that statement 

from you to be agreeable to the idea that we really have not been 

doing the right things. 

I have just three questions. Whatever the strategy is going to be, 

it must answer these questions. 

First, will it work? 

Secondly, can we afford it? 

And thirdly, is it the right thing, is it the ethical thing to do? 

I don’t see how the United States of America, without the full cooperation in every sense of the term from NATO, will be successful 

by anyone’s definition of what success is going to look like. 

I am concerned, General Clark, because in a way you are expressing the Cheney philosophy that what he was seeking in Iraq 

was a ‘‘stable government that could take care of itself and its people.’’ Is that really what we are trying to do in Afghanistan? Are 

we trying to establish a government that can take care of itself and 

its people by training up some police and other military forces? 

And to follow up on that, do you really believe that a military 

solution is possible within that region? 

General CLARK. Well, Congressman, in my opening statement, 

what I called for is a strategy based on an exit. And I did not call 

for a military solution. I called for a balanced strategy that required economic, diplomatic, and other work, and more emphasis 

on the government of Pakistan. 

But I don’t think you are going to persuade the governments of 

NATO to suddenly mobilize and send tens of thousands of troops 

to Afghanistan simply because we ask it. So I think it is incumbent 

upon the Administration to craft the right strategy that can succeed, to explain it, to get the support of the American people, and 

to do it within a means that is affordable for us. 

If I were in General McChrystal’s position, I probably would have 

asked for a lot more troops than he asked for, and I hope he has 

asked for enough to do the job. I think that amount is affordable 

within the context of the armed forces. But it won’t succeed on the 

basis of military action alone. 

And in particular, I hope that we will reverse course from the 

Bush Administration, which wanted to ignore the presence of al 

Qaeda, or largely ignore it, in Pakistan. Look, the people that at-
23 

tacked this country are in Pakistan. They are primarily not in Afghanistan. And so we are asking our Marines to fight and our 

Army people to fight a supporting battle in Afghanistan, while the 

Pakistanis and our Predators take the main fight to al Qaeda. 

Something is a little bit wrong with the distribution of resources, 

and something is wrong with the understanding of this. 

I realize the government of Pakistan is terribly conflicted about 

this, but on the other hand, so have we been. So I think we need 

to get our objectives thought through. We need to put the emphasis 

where it is. I was delighted to see that the Administration, according to the press, has put more pressure on the Pakistanis. I hope 

we will give them the kind of leased military equipment, intelligence support, training, and economic assistance they need. And 

I hope that we will get al Qaeda out of there. 

As for the Taliban in Afghanistan, there is a military component 

and a security component to dealing with it. 

So I am not sure what the Cheney solution ever was to Iraq, sir, 

but I can’t associate myself with it. 

Thank you. 

Dr. KAGEN. Thank you. 

Dr. Krepinevich. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I do think the—you have the three questions. 

Can it work? I think, yes, it can work. Can we afford it? Yes, I 

think we can afford it. Is it ethical? Again, I am not quite sure how 

to answer that question. 

With respect to whether the priority should be Afghanistan or 

Pakistan, I think we have a situation now where, through a combination of efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have reduced 

the core of the problem to areas in western Pakistan. 

I would agree with General Clark that it is not one or the other. 

There has to be an effort in both areas. It has to be a significant 

effort. I think a critical part of that effort is not just the current 

troop levels. I think there has to be some sense of an American 

commitment. 

And of course, people in this part of the world remember that 

when we thought our commitment had been met in 1989 when the 

Soviets began to withdraw, we essentially abandoned that area 

after having operated very successfully to get the Soviets out. We 

set the conditions for the Taliban to come into power, for instability 

in Pakistan. 

Again, the Pakistanis look at the Taliban, at least some of them 

do, as their hedge to have an influence in Afghanistan if we pull 

out to preclude an Indian ascendency in Afghanistan. 

You know, Karzai looks to dealing with warlords and other corrupt elements as his hedge against our pulling out precipitously. 

So I do think that part of our demonstration that, yes, we have 

a workable strategy, yes, we have a way, a path to victory, which 

I do think enables us to withdraw, as General Clark says, I think 

that is important. 

But again, why do we have troops in Afghanistan? Well, we know 

why. Because of 9/11. Our troops have not been invited into Pakistan, and they won’t be, and I don’t think we should send any. 

However, if you solved the problem in Pakistan and did not solve 

the problem in Afghanistan, they would just migrate back to where 
24 

they were prior to 9/11. So really you need a holistic approach, and 

I think that is one of the reasons why Congressman Snyder is saying, let’s not just look at Afghanistan in isolation; let’s look at the 

larger issue. 

And I just want to make one final point. In terms of this issue 

of the border/not the border, I think General McChrystal’s strategy 

to me makes a lot of sense. If you look at the essence of insurgency 

warfare, it is all about intelligence. When I was in the Army in the 

Cold War, we always worried, do we have enough tanks, do we 

have enough artillery to stop the Soviets in Europe? We don’t 

worry about firepower with these guys. We don’t worry about our 

ability to win any battles. It is all about intelligence. If we know 

who these people are and where they are, we win. 

Okay, who has that information? Primarily in Afghanistan, it is 

the Afghan people. How do you get them to give you that information? I think some of my colleagues will point out, it is going to 

take awhile. But it all starts out with security, providing an enduring level of security so you can enable reconstruction that can be 

sustained over time that shows these people that they have a better life, that shows them that local government officials aren’t corrupt; they can actually provide justice and adjudicate disputes. 

And that is what General McChrystal is saying; I need these 

40,000 troops to begin to jump start that effort and gradually expand and essentially backfill with local Afghan police, Afghan national army. Over time, they are taking on greater and greater responsibility. 

With respect to the sort of counterterrorism campaign, that is an 

economy of force. That is what people in the Pentagon call a costimposing strategy. That is not going to win the war for you. But, 

if by using drones, if by using special forces, we force more of al 

Qaeda’s leaders and the Taliban leaders to spend more and more 

of their time and energy worrying about surviving as opposed to 

planning, organizing, and executing attacks in Afghanistan, in 

Pakistan, that is a worthwhile economy of force use. 

With respect to controlling the border, in a sense, we have been 

at this rodeo before. We tried to control the border in Vietnam, 

didn’t have enough troops; tried to control the border in Iraq, didn’t 

have enough troops; found out in both cases, the enemy was really 

inside, not outside, primarily. And again, if you can deny them access to the population, it is like denying them oxygen in this kind 

of war. If you can convince the people that you are on their side, 

that they have a brighter future ahead of you, that they have a legitimate government, and that you are going to win; that is when 

they start providing the intelligence, that is where we really began 

to get the tipping point going in Iraq. 

So, again, I think General McChrystal really has a good handle 

on things. Again, based on his report, it just makes a lot of sense 

in looking back over the history of insurgency warfare and a lot of 

our recent experiences, not just in Afghanistan but also in Iraq. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask, I think, General Clark, you are 

about to slip out, and we may lose Dr. Dorronsoro here, too. But 

before you leave, I wanted to ask the following question. And I 

have asked this of other panels. We went into Afghanistan in October of 2001. We all made some pretty strong statements as a coun-
25 

try and as a Congress about, we would not abandon the Afghan 

people again. 

General Keane testified, and he was there at the time, I think 

number two in the Army, that toward the end of 2002, resources 

began being pulled out of Afghanistan and that the war has been 

under-resourced ever since, severely under-resourced. But my question is, given what we said for that first year and prior to going 

in and after we were there and the encouragement we gave to a 

lot of Afghan people to assist the coalition, where should the concept, the moral responsibility to the Afghan people, fit into this discussion? 

And we will begin with you, General Clark. I know you have to 

leave fairly soon. 

We will give each of you a chance to comment on that question. 

General CLARK. Well, clearly we have a responsibility to the people who threw their lot in with us. Those are the people who are 

identified and committed and publicly committed to the United 

States. We have had that responsibility in every case where we 

have operated in insurgent-counterinsurgent warfare. 

But I think our primary responsibility is to our own national security interests and to the men and women who serve in combat 

to meet those interests. And so we have got to get the strategy 

right. So I couldn’t in good conscience look at young men and 

women and say, you should join the Army because, and serve this 

country because we have a moral obligation in principle to the government of Afghanistan. 

We did, we are doing and are going to do the best we can do, 

I think, and I think this Administration will do that. And we have 

a personal responsibility to the people that committed themselves 

to us. But our obligation is to get the strategy right and to take 

care of our own men and women in uniform and preserve our 

armed forces for the good of the country. So that is where I would 

put the priority on that. 

Dr. SNYDER. And, Wes, I know you have to leave. 

Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. This is a circumstance where the moral responsibility 

and the moral obligations that the United States has to the people 

of Afghanistan align with our national security interests, and so I 

do not actually think that we have a tradeoff here. We have a situation where, in order best to suit U.S. interests, to secure Afghanistan, to create an opportunity for it to be governed, to create an 

opportunity for it to survive as a state in a dangerous neighborhood, we need to conduct a counterinsurgency strategy. That is a 

strategy that helps the population of Afghanistan, protects them 

from intimidation, and uses our presence, the presence of our 

forces, as a way of conferring safety, security, and benefits to the 

people. 

And so although I agree with General Clark that we have to ask 

the question about whether our national security interests and our 

moral responsibilities align, since in this case I do believe that they 

do, the ethics of the situation are very clear; the United States 

needs to continue to be involved in Afghanistan and needs to conduct a counterinsurgency strategy in accordance with its stated objectives and its stated objectives since 2001. 
26 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Dorronsoro. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. I would say that the first moral responsibility 

is to be sure that conducting the war, the United States and the 

coalition are reasonably fair. For example, avoiding civilian casualties, treatment of prisoners, and so on. That would be the first 

thing: how we do the war in Afghanistan. And there has been a lot 

of progress the last few months. 

But let’s remember that, let’s say between 2002 or 2001 and 

2006, there has been a perfect disaster. And in a lot of places people are hearing very bad stories about the behavior of the Western 

forces in Afghanistan. That would be my first remark about the 

moral responsibility. 

Second, there are things we should absolutely not do. For example, to encourage people like Rashid Dostum or the warlords who 

are potentially extremely dangerous in Afghanistan. We should 

never play with ethnic groups, creating the condition of an ethnic 

conflict in Afghanistan. That is a huge moral responsibility. 

And if the situation is worse next year, and I think it is going 

to be worse next year, a lot of people will say, ‘‘okay, we should 

arm the tribes; we should end the creation of the condition of an 

ethnic conflict.’’ And in the longer term, I would say the people in 

Afghanistan are extremely divided about the presence of the Western coalition. Note, you have a small minority, a small minority, 

supporting more troops in their own country, more foreign troops 

in their own country. I think that is a point we should think about. 

And there is a limit between foreign forces here to help and foreign 

occupation. And we should very well cross this border if we are 

sending more troops in Afghanistan. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Krepinevich. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I think we do have a moral obligation 

to the people of Afghanistan. I think that moral obligation holds 

until such time as either we accomplish our objectives, or we see 

that it is impossible under the circumstances to accomplish our objectives, or the situation is such that our commitments that we 

have made to the U.S. people, to people in uniform, and also to 

other allies and partners around the world, that those become so 

compromised that we have to make a difficult choice. 

In the past when we have had to make that choice, we have 

taken the people that General Clark said who have thrown their 

lot in with the United States, and we have done our best to make 

sure that they were able to leave the combat area and be resettled. 

I just would like to say something very quickly. We have heard 

the phrase, ‘‘get the strategy right,’’ over recent months. And I 

must say, at some point, you begin to wonder about the strategic 

competence of the U.S. Government. And I don’t mean this particular Administration. It took us arguably four years to get the 

strategy right during the Vietnam War. It took us from 2003 to 

2007 to get the strategy right in Iraq. How long have we been in 

Afghanistan? 

Can you imagine President Roosevelt, halfway through 1942 in 

World War II, and we still don’t know what our strategy is? Or 

President Truman, in the wake of the invasion of South Korea, saying, well, give me eight months and I will get the strategy right? 
27 

If you look at President Truman, as a matter of fact, the famous 

National Security Council Report 68 (NSC 68) strategy that lays 

the foundation for the entire Cold War was done between January 

and April of 1950. Eisenhower’s famous Solarium Strategy was 

done six weeks. 

And again, this isn’t Republicans or Democrats; this is the U.S. 

Government. Somewhere, somehow, along the way, we seem to 

have lost the facility for doing strategy. And there is a real issue 

here because time is a resource, just as well as bullets and soldiers 

and allies and so on. And it is not clear to me based on what has 

been said today that time is on our side. And so if this is a precious 

resource and if it is not on our side and if we are spending time, 

as we try to come up with the very best strategy we can, on the 

one hand, that is to be applauded, but on the other hand, I think 

it makes me scratch my head from time to time. 

Dr. SNYDER. Maybe we don’t have enough solariums, Dr. 

Krepinevich. Maybe we all need more solariums. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Probably just one more. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

An observation, we talked a lot over the past month in this committee with our folks that have come to testify before us concerning 

the strategy and what does that mean, increased troop presence. I 

think we all realize that whatever we are going to do, it is going 

to be increased contact with the Taliban, increased military activity, increased casualties, and in the end, that is going to create 

some negative impact here with the American public. 

And we all know the issues we have gone through historically, 

as casualties begin to mount, the public’s appetite for conflict tends 

to wane. And I think that is certainly a potential with this particular scenario as we ramp up presence there if that is the course 

of action the President chooses. 

Let me ask this. In that scenario, how do we as best we can 

counter that? In other words, how do we keep the American public 

engaged? How do we make sure that they know that the effort that 

it is going to take there is worthwhile, whether it is in resources, 

whether it is in human sacrifice, all those list of things that we 

know it takes to be successful there? How do we engage the public 

in a way to make sure that they are knowledgeable about that sacrifice and then again that we convey to them that there is a worth 

to that sacrifice? And that is really where the discussion boils down 

to. I would like to hear your thoughts on that. 

Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think that we have to recognize that, 

in a democratic country, obviously public opinion plays a role in 

shaping the way our leaders make decisions. 

But we also have to acknowledge the fact that our leaders play 

a role in shaping public opinion. And I think that as we pursue 

whatever strategy the President should choose in Afghanistan, the 

President has a responsibility to explain to the American people 

what course he has chosen, why he has chosen that course, what 

the likely results are of that course of action on the ground, and 

how it is that he thinks that the campaign in Afghanistan will pro-
28 

ceed, so that American expectations are correctly shaped on the 

basis of reality. 

I am quite concerned that, in the formulation of this strategy, an 

overemphasis could be placed on what it is that the American people believe is the best course of action. We have strategic decisionmakers to evaluate what is the best course of action in a military 

engagement and in our foreign policy. So in order to go forward, 

the President has to take leadership over his strategy and really 

explain it to all of us so that we can support it in the ways that 

we can and so that we can evaluate it in ways that are credible. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Dr. Dorronsoro. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. I would say that the first thing is that there 

is no credible narrative about Afghanistan right now. We cannot 

say, cannot explain that we are fighting for a new democracy in Afghanistan. That is not credible after the election of August, you 

know. So we have to define the narrative in a very narrow manner. 

It is a potential threat because al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan, so 

it has become extremely difficult to explain. 

The second thing is that we have to lower the level of casualties. 

So we have, for example, to go from 500 this year to 400 next year, 

and to show people that we are building something that is an exit, 

that is a responsible exit. In the sense that we are taking our time, 

we should not, absolutely not negotiate with the Taliban while taking our time, while building Afghan army, but we are leaving. It 

must be sure. And doesn’t mean that we are not going to support 

the Afghan state for decades, and I mean decades, 50 years, possible, you know, but not with fighting troops. 

And that is the only way to build a consensus, because if you ask 

people what are you—okay, you don’t want this war because of too 

many casualties, but what do you want to do? And then people are 

obliged to say, okay, we have to exit, but on the other hand, we 

have to protect the Afghan people. That is the moral responsibility. 

And it means that we have to be clear about an exit strategy. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Dr. Krepinevich. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I think the Administration has some 

really strong factors in its favor. As I said, I think the Administration has correctly diagnosed the character of the conflict. I think 

it has set clear objectives, and I think it has a strategy that can 

move you towards accomplishing those objectives. 

We have a President who is a very persuasive, dynamic speaker, 

so the ability to convey this message to the American people is certainly there, a person to explain the narrative, as Dr. Dorronsoro 

says, to the American people. 

And then I think, of course, one thing I mentioned earlier is, and 

this is something I think the committee ought to be interested in, 

is, okay, if we buy into this, if we buy into the 40,000 troops or 

whatever and the strategy, how do we know that we are moving 

toward achieving our objective and we are moving forward at a reasonable rate? And again, I think there are metrics. 

In most counterinsurgency wars, there is the, they call the stoplight chart. You have got green for areas that are secure, yellow for 

areas that are contested, and red for areas that are controlled by 

the insurgents. Well, what does that snapshot look like today? 
29 

What does it look like 6 months from now, a year from now, 18 

months from now? 

And I think, again, the President, and he has already said this, 

he preaches patience, you know, this isn’t going to turn around in 

a day. 

Other issues. What about economic growth in the country? What 

about employment in the country? Are people being removed from 

office because of issues of corruption? Are they being prosecuted? 

What about Taliban defectors? You know, we are beginning to see 

more and more defect from the ranks of the Taliban. 

Are the Pakistanis becoming serious about cracking down on the 

Taliban? I mean, I have spoken to many American senior policymakers. They go to Pakistan, and it is almost routine; a day or two 

before they get there inevitably some Taliban guy is arrested and 

it is, ‘‘Aha, look, we are really cracking down.’’ And then you leave, 

and they would go back to business as usual. 

The ring road, is the ring road secure? How often is the ring road 

attacked, is that becoming an avenue of commerce and an integrating function for the nation? Where are we in terms of substituting a different crop in a different economic base from the 

opium crop? 

So again, I think, again, we have a President who is a very effective communicator. He has got a good strategy. There are metrics 

I think that the American people can understand and certainly the 

Congress can understand. So again, you are right to be concerned; 

this is going to cost more both in terms of lives and resources. People, I think, are willing to accept that cost as long as they can see 

a payoff and progress. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mrs. Davis for five minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, I mean, this is really difficult. It is really tough. I 

think that is why we are struggling. It is obviously why the President is struggling as well. 

The last time I came back from Afghanistan, having had an opportunity to actually sit down with women in the villages, which 

was quite impressive actually to hear their sense of even a possible 

future, I came away believing that if we provide that space, as you 

mentioned, that eventually, over time, training the troops, changing governance, that something that is defined as success with certain metrics, and I certainly have always wanted them to involve 

the building of some kind of civil society, not going as far as nationbuilding perhaps, but doing that. 

But I have also had a chance lately to speak to some people who 

have really been on the ground and just believe, I think, that there 

are some ancient divisions there that we just can’t overcome, that 

are difficult to do that. And I think that we do talk strategy, which 

is appropriate, to try and understand that. 

But the difficulty is that there may not be a real opportunity for 

reconciliation, that we are talking about people dividing along societal lines, longstanding Pashtun and non-Pashtun, et cetera, et 

cetera. And I just wish you would comment on that, and are we understanding that enough? Do you all understand that enough? I 
30 

mean, do we know enough to really know how to respond in some 

way? 

Dr. Dorronsoro, please go ahead. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. There are three main divides I am thinking of 

in Afghanistan. The first is an ethnic one. And obviously, the 

Pashtun, most of the Pashtun don’t feel very comfortable with 

Karzai. They have the feeling that they are alienated from the government. Plus the majority of the fight is in their region, so they 

are losing civilians, of course, property destruction and so on. So 

this part of the population clearly has a major problem with the 

way it is working in Kabul. Even if Karzai himself is a Pashtun. 

And this divide is, I mean, it is back to the 1980s, I mean, or the 

1990s at least. 

The second divide is a social one between people who are in the 

cities and people who are in the countryside. Kandahar is not really a city. It is something very special, but most of the cities, 

Jalalabad, Kabul, Mazar, Herat, have a special culture that is more 

open to foreigners, to modernity, and that is the only social asset 

we have in Afghanistan, basically. That is where we can have some 

kind of success that is not military. 

But in the countryside, let’s say that people react very badly 

when they see foreigners with guns. And the idea that we are going 

to protect the population is somewhat naive. You know, you do not 

protect the Pashtun people. That is not historically what has been 

done. You can make a deal with them, but it is better to stay outside. 

And the third divide is an ideological one between, first, people 

who welcome us and now are working with the coalition, and fundamentalist people who are sometimes working with the coalition 

but not very clearly, and of course the Taliban. So you have a very 

deep ideological divide. 

And the fundamentalist movement is extremely strong in Afghanistan and is not committed to the Taliban. You have fundamentalist people in Kabul working with Karzai. You have fundamentalist people in the north. And that is why it is so difficult. 

You can speak with a woman in the village, you know, but at the 

same time, let’s be clear, the real social order in villages is not exactly what we would like in terms of the woman’s role and place 

in society. We cannot go against that. We cannot go because we are 

not very credible, speaking about human rights, for different reasons. And we just don’t have the control of the countryside. And we 

cannot enter their houses. It is very difficult to do something. 

So, yes, we have all these divides in the Afghan society. And we 

must be extremely careful to play with it carefully so the situations 

don’t get out of control. I am thinking about the ethnic divide. If 

we are not careful, if we are giving arms to the wrong people—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. If I could just interrupt, I think part of the question 

is the ability, the capacity, in many ways, to do that, whether or 

not you can do it without the kind of civilian and, really, international kind of support that we have been seeking. That needs to 

be done on a whole different level than what it has done before. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. We don’t have the resources to send civilians 

in the villages. We don’t have the resources to do that. It is clear 

that we tend to portray the Afghans as some kind of passive peo-
31 

ple. No, no, they are taking charge of things. And the idea that we 

can remodel the Afghan society is wrong. We have to play with 

what we have. And we don’t have a very good hand. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I guess my question is, let’s assume that the President gives 

General McChrystal the resources that he requires to have a high 

probability of success in Afghanistan. Can you give me an estimate 

of where you think what I would call the tipping point is? 

In other words, in Iraq we had the surge in 2007, along with 

other factors, that led to success. And then, in 2009, we started a 

drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. Clearly, what we want is—we 

don’t want to win the war, we want the Afghan army to win the 

war. 

And so, can you tell me—I mean, can any of you give an estimate 

on where would that tipping point be where we would start being 

able to phase out our presence in Afghanistan? 

Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, thank you. 

The complexity of Afghan society makes it more difficult for our 

command to deal with and means that we will not necessarily see 

in Afghanistan a grand bargain or a huge systematic effect as 

quickly as we saw in Iraq, where the combination of the troop 

surge, the new civil-military team, and the new strategy and the 

extraordinary engagement with the people of Iraq truly had a 

transformative effect in a short time, such that, in early 2007, we 

wouldn’t know what a Son of Iraq was and, by July, we were meeting them left and right in our visits to Iraq. 

We can’t imagine that there is going to be a crescendo of sudden 

change in Afghanistan. So we have to set that expectation aside. 

Nevertheless, we can expect large change in Afghanistan and systemic change, just more slowly. What we ought to look for is, first 

and foremost, the securing of key areas such as Kandahar, 

Helmand River valley, Khost, in order to contain and, ultimately, 

neutralize the enemy systems. 

The second thing that we ought to be looking for is a substantial 

increase, an exponential increase, in the size and capability of the 

Afghan national security forces. It is one of the reasons why we 

need more U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Because hitherto we have 

not had the kind of relationship, the partnering relationship, with 

the Afghan army that we have had with our counterparts in Iraq. 

I have been to Iraq eight times since May 2007. And, since July 

2007, I have rarely, if ever, met a U.S. battalion or brigade commander without his Iraqi counterpart. In Afghanistan, in my two 

visits this year, including with General McChrystal’s assessment 

team, I did not actually have the opportunity to meet an Afghan 

counterpart to a battalion or brigade commander. That tells you 

something about how we are doing our partnering and how we are 

increasing the size of the Afghan army. 

So what we actually have to do is create a decisive situation on 

the ground. And I think that that will take several years. And it 

will also take several years to increase the strength of the Afghan 

army and the size of the Afghan army enough to be able to start 

handing over responsibilities to them. 
32 

That is to say, we should not expect a sudden change in 2010 the 

way we saw a sudden change in 2007 in Iraq. Rather, we should 

expect a two- to three-year process if General McChrystal gets 

what he wants, if those forces come into theater in a timely fashion, and then, finally, if those forces have the effect that he believes 

that they will have. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you so much. 

I am short of time. Dr. Krepinevich, let me go to you next, because I had Dr. Dorronsoro, I think, before. So go ahead. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Just very quickly, I agree with Dr. Kagan. 

I would also add that, again, to a great extent, it is not just what 

is going on internal to Afghanistan; it is, obviously, also what is 

going on in Pakistan. To the extent that the Pakistanis take a 

more active role in this effort, that could accelerate progress in Afghanistan. 

Also, I wouldn’t rule out the consequences of what happens in 

Iraq. If, for some reason, our position in Iraq really begins to erode, 

I think that makes things just all the more difficult in Afghanistan 

and Pakistan. 

And there are some metrics. Again, I think as Dr. Kagan said, 

you should be looking for some of the things I mentioned earlier: 

increased role on the part of the Afghan National Army; you know, 

what percentage of the overall effort has been assumed by them. 

I think one intriguing metric that we looked at during the operations in Iraq were what percentage of contacts with the enemy are 

initiated by our side. And if that percentage is growing over time, 

what that means is we are getting better and better intelligence 

about who the enemy is and where the enemy is. And so that is 

one surrogate for identifying whether or not you are winning the 

intelligence war, which is a surrogate for where the center of gravity, the population’s disposition is. 

But, again, as Congresswoman Davis said, it is difficult. And I 

think, whether you like Rumsfeld or not, his phrase, ‘‘long, hard 

slog,’’ just keeps coming back again and again to mind. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Kagen. 

Dr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just preface my questions with my own personal experience as a physician, having treated our veterans in military hospitals and Veterans Affairs hospitals (VAs) and my own clinics for 

a number of decades. And there is no greater national treasure 

than our veterans who have served. And for those that have come 

back damaged, not just mentally but physically, it is really hard to 

put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Not just the soldiers, 

both men and women, but their families, their communities, the 

businesses that they had or that they worked for. So this is a deadly serious conversation that we are having, and I would like to 

share with you that perspective. 

So, what the soldiers have told me for 33 years as their doctor 

about the region we are talking about is it is real easy to get into 

Afghanistan and real difficult to get out. It is easy to get in, and 

it is hard to get out. 

And the Russians found that out when they went in. And when 

they left, they were being shot in the back end. And what did they 

win? What victory was theirs? Two thousand three hundred years 
33 

ago, when Ashoka conquered the region, Ashoka turned to become 

a pacifist because of the carnage and the destruction that he had 

led his people into. 

So, is it possible for the United States—because that is who we 

represent—to align our own national goals with the existing tribal 

entities and groups that are present on the ground and allow those 

tribal entities to share their values, their goals with our strategic 

values about pushing back against and eliminating al Qaeda? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. That one is for me? 

Dr. KAGEN. Take all three. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I would say that, in a sense, there are crosscutting goals. Obviously, the tribes in Afghanistan do not share 

every goal that we have, you know, given our different role in the 

world from theirs. I do think that there are some goals in common. 

I do think, if you look at the period immediately after 9/11 when 

we went into Afghanistan, the population there was very happy to 

be rid of the Taliban. 

And I think, in an insurgency, you know, there is the old phrase, 

‘‘You have to win the hearts and minds, but if you have to choose, 

win the minds.’’ In other words, it is more important to convince 

the population that you are going prevail than it is to convince 

them that they ought to like you. Because, whether they like you 

or not, they are going to have to make their peace with whoever 

prevails in the conflict. So I think that is an important element. 

I think that, to a certain extent, we squandered a lot of the gains 

we made in the first couple of years. Their expectations were low, 

and we failed to meet them. In a sense, a very gradual slope, hoping things would get better. And, in effect, as was pointed out, resources were withdrawn toward the end of 2002, not only—— 

Dr. KAGEN. I would like to extend your answer also to the Pakistan region, because these are also—it is a mutual area; it is 

‘‘Pashtunistan,’’ in my view. 

So how do we align their interest with ours so that we don’t have 

to waste our national resources and our men and women? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I think you are talking on a much 

broader plain over a much deeper or longer period of time. I am 

no expert on Pakistani ethnic groups, but, certainly, one area that 

has to be an area of enormous concern is the rise of madrassas that 

form a ready recruiting center for a lot of the young people who 

turn to radical Muslim agendas and so on. 

And, you know, how do you cut that pipeline? Is it a case of 

where parents in Pakistan, if given a choice between sending their 

child to a madrassa or to a public school that gives you an education that you can really use in modern Pakistani society, if they 

had that choice to make, you know, which way would they make 

it, I guess. 

There are huge issues in that country with respect to, for example, water resources. And I think solving that is key to essentially 

avoiding an even greater disaster and then potentially radicalizing 

even more people. 

So, you know, this cuts so wide and cuts so deep. And, again, 

Congresswoman Davis’s point about, you know, this is certainly 

very difficult. I keep coming back to President Kennedy’s speech 

that he made down at Rice University in 1962. He talked about the 
34 

Cold War, in general, and the space race and so on. He ended up 

saying, ‘‘We choose to do these things not because they are easy but 

because they are hard.’’ And a sense that each generation is defined not by the easy challenges they surmount but the difficult 

and hard challenges that they are willing to take on and prevail 

in. Of course, the $64 question here is, is that challenge possible 

to prevail in? 

Dr. KAGEN. Dr. Dorronsoro. 

Dr. DORRONSORO. I would say that the values are very different 

between the Afghan people, generally speaking, except a few in the 

cities, but the values, our values, are very different. 

The second point is that a minority of the population is tribalized 

in Afghanistan. So the tribes are not that important. You have two 

different things. People can have a tribal identity, but it doesn’t 

mean that they are organized with tribal institution. And the only 

place where you have tribal institution is in the east, actually, 

functioning tribal institution. 

And there it would have been possible in 2002, 2003, 2004, to do 

something, but it is lost now, because the Taliban have undermined 

the tribal system in Afghanistan. They are revolutionary in local 

terms, and they are fighting the tribes very much but not enough 

to create the kind of social program you have in Iraq. 

So I don’t see which tribe is going now to work with the United 

States against the Taliban. It is too late. One of the last tribes that 

wanted to do that, on the border, is not in a neutral position. So 

they do not attack anymore the Taliban when they cross their territory. So we have lost the tribal potential ally, you know. That is 

dead. 

On the Pakistan side, I don’t see how we can really align our interests with Pakistanis’ interests, being the Pakistani army is totally obsessed by India. So their only problem is with India. So 

they want us out of Afghanistan and the Taliban back in Kabul for 

one reason, is that if the Taliban are back in Kabul, India will be 

no more in Afghanistan. And they think it is going to be good for 

their strategies there. At the same time, we can have other ideas 

about what would be the consequences on Pakistan if the Taliban 

are back in Kabul, but whatever. 

So I don’t see any possibility to align our interests with Pakistan 

on this subject. But fighting al Qaeda could be a common interest 

with Pakistan—the Pakistani army, Pakistani Government. That is 

not a big deal. The big deal is the Afghan Taliban, specifically. 

And let’s think, if we think about Pakistani tribes on the Pakistani side the border, it is hugely, hugely anti-American. I mean, 

it is just crazy. So there is absolutely no possibility to do anything 

on this side of the border. 

Dr. KAGEN. Thank you. 

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think we need to look at this question at a micro-level and then at a macro-level. 

We, at the Institute for the Study of War—I have a team of analysts who work with me doing open-source analysis—have been 

preparing a report on Kandahar city and its environs and, really, 

what the history of U.S. coalition force engagement in Kandahar 

has been and how that has interacted with local tribal family political structures. And we hope to release it next week. 
35 

What is very interesting, as we start looking at the most localized dynamics, is that the United States and its coalition partners 

have not gone out of their way to support those individuals, families, and tribes that have historically been pro-government or antiTaliban. Rather, we have not really taken into consideration the 

leanings of a tribe, a family, or an area as we have deployed our 

forces and given our resources. 

As a result, the Taliban has consistently been able to undermine 

those tribes, families, leadership structures that either actively 

support the government or actively detract from the Taliban; the 

Arghandab district of Kandahar Province being one key example 

that we explore in our paper. 

So, at a microscopic level, what we can see is that the allocation 

of forces to specific areas can change the dynamics of the power 

structures at a local level and, actually, do so in ways that have 

national political ramifications. For example, because the Karzai 

family is from Kandahar, the effect that our troops will have in the 

Arghandab River and region will have an impact on how it is that 

the Karzai family is able to use its power not only within 

Kandahar but nationally. 

And I think, as we start to look at the McChrystal strategy, we 

have to, again, be aware that these kinds of nuances, they are the 

kinds of nuances that our commanders on the ground make when 

they actually allocate the resources that they are given to objectives. 

But when we ask the question at a macro level, can we align the 

interests of the government of Afghanistan with U.S. interests, or 

the government of Pakistan with U.S. interests, I would remind all 

of you that, of course, there are different interest groups within 

these governments, and they compete with one another. 

Certainly, we have an opportunity under way in Pakistan right 

now, as a constituency within the Pakistani Government has decided actively to pursue common enemies, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, in not only Bajaur, Swat, and Waziristan, but that 

has ramifications, of course, in Afghanistan writ large. We have opportunities to harness these particular and somewhat transient 

alignments that are now under way. 

But we do not actually have to align all of the government factions and all of their interests with ours. We just need to create 

an alignment that allows us to achieve the kinds of narrow objectives that we have. For example, a functional government in Kabul 

that can secure Afghanistan through its use of force, that can regulate disputes, and that probably won’t get in the way of the average 

ordinary person much more than that. 

So we can’t, certainly, align all of our interests, but we can see 

to it that we accomplish those objectives by aligning those handful 

of interests that we really need to compel our friends and foes to 

put up with. 

And I think, as Dr. Krepinevich stated earlier in this Q&A session, the best way to do that is through strength. You can try to 

persuade people that their interests have something in common 

with yours, or you can try to persuade them that it is not useful 

for them to have other interests right now. And that is one of the 

roles that force plays in a counterinsurgency conflict. 
36 

Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

Most congressional hearings, as they proceed through the hour or 

two that they endure, we gradually lose members. I think this is 

the first time I have been in one where we have gradually lost witnesses. But we appreciate the two of you being here. 

I actually want to end, Dr. Krepinevich, with two military personnel-related questions for you, if I might have you put on your 

old Army hat. 

At the end of—about a year ago, this subcommittee put out this 

report, ‘‘Building Language Skills and Cultural Competencies in 

the Military: DOD’s Challenge in Today’s Educational Environment.’’ I will just read the first couple sentences from the executive 

summary. 

‘‘There is no doubt that foreign language skills and cultural expertise are critical capabilities needed by today’s military to face 

the challenges of our present security environment. But only a 

small part of today’s military is proficient in a foreign language. 

And, until recently, there has been no comprehensive, systematic 

approach to develop cultural expertise.’’ 

I was reminded of our report, the unclassified version of General 

McChrystal’s assessment. On page 1–2, he says, ‘‘As formidable as 

the threat may be, we make the problem harder. International Security Assistance Force is a conventional force that is poorly configured for counterinsurgency, inexperienced in local languages and 

culture, and struggling with challenges inherent to coalition warfare.’’ 

That phrase, ‘‘inexperienced in local languages and culture,’’ 

what does it say—maybe this is a bit related to the solarium question. What does it say, after eight years in a country fighting a 

war, that we still have to say one of the things that is holding us 

back is inexperience in local languages and culture? What does 

that say about us and how we are going about doing things? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think one aspect is the work of your committee and the fact that the services—I have talked to people in 

the Army and the Marine Corps. They really are beginning to emphasize issues like cultural awareness, in particular, and also language proficiency. 

What it says, I guess, from my own observation, is that I think, 

for a number of years, some of the military services, the Army and 

Marine Corps probably most, were in kind of a state of denial. You 

know, there was this issue of, A, we just didn’t understand. You 

know, the Army had gotten out of the counterinsurgency business 

after Vietnam. 

When I went down to Training and Doctrine Command 

(TRADOC) in 2003, they said, ‘‘We don’t have any counterinsurgency—we have this old thing that nobody ever read. And we are 

going to have to sit down and start rethinking it.’’ This was General Byrnes and his staff. They were very candid, and at least they 

recognized the problem. 

So, not even understanding what kind of conflict they were in, 

asking him, ‘‘Well, what is our campaign plan in Iraq?’’ And it was, 

well, brigade commanders—it is kind of the jazz era; brigade commanders kind of doing what that brigade commander thinks he 
37 

ought to be doing. So I think there was this lag in understanding 

just what the problem was. 

And then came the issue—and I think it is one of the reasons 

why you didn’t see Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles 

(MRAPs)—that this was a one-off. I mean, the strategy was, as 

President Bush said, as they stand up, we will stand down. Well, 

we are training these guys. If they are going to be ready to go in 

Iraq in 2005 and 2006, we don’t need MRAPs. By the time we get 

them, we are going to be out of there. So there was this, ‘‘Well, we 

are getting out of town here, and this is really kind of a one-off.’’ 

And I had an Army general tell me, ‘‘Look, we have had our hand 

on the stove for a while now,’’ meaning we have been in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. ‘‘Once we take our hand off the stove, and it isn’t 

going to be long, we are not going to do this again. The American 

people won’t tolerate it. Look at all the dissension it is causing.’’ 

So I think there was a combination of just not knowing what we 

had gotten ourselves into. We had gotten out of that business, in 

a sense. And so there was a lag in understanding what exactly the 

requirements were. And then I think there was a bit longer of a 

lag as a consequence of a belief, at least on the part of many, that 

this was kind of a one-off. You know, ‘‘Okay, we understand what 

we are in, but we really aren’t going to be in it much longer. We 

are going to turn it over to those guys, and then we will go back 

to business as usual.’’ 

And, you know, there is always the institutional resistance, you 

know, officers, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), trying to acquire 

these skills. I talked to Marines, and their attitude was, ‘‘Well, 

yeah, we will do it, but each Marine is going to do it on his or her 

time. We are not going to put any of this in’’—you know, because 

Marines are just too darn busy. Well, you have to make that a priority. And so that became an issue. 

So, again, it is very encouraging to see people like yourself and 

the Members pushing this issue. I know Congressman Skelton has 

been a long-time advocate of the importance of military education. 

And it is also encouraging to see some kind of a payoff. Because, 

obviously, when people like General McChrystal highlight it and 

are really banging the table on it, I think we have finally turned 

a corner. 

Dr. SNYDER. The second question I want to ask—and any of you 

should feel free to punt on this one since you had no—this was not 

in McChrystal’s report. But you mentioned earlier the increase in 

the size of the Army and the increase in the size of the Marine 

Corps. And I think all of you in some way have discussed the stress 

on the force and the numbers, that a large deployment can cause 

stress on the military families. 

One of the issues that has been discussed through the years by 

the American people and this Congress is the role of women in the 

military. And they have played such an important role in both Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

We have some very convoluted and complex statutory restrictive 

language that, I would think, would be difficult for the military to 

comply with, although they assure us that they do, with regard to 

both Afghanistan and Iraq. 
38 

Is it time just to get rid of that legislative language and tell the 

Department of Defense that they need to do with the personnel 

what is in the best interest of the military, assuming there will be 

some units that they may conclude they are not going to have 

women in or there may be some military occupational specialties 

(MOS) they may conclude—but is it time just to say it needs to be 

up to the military to make that decision rather than Congress? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I am no expert, but my gut tells me 

that your gut instinct right. 

I was out on an aircraft carrier a couple years ago. Admiral 

Stavridis invited me out. And you see these planes coming in. It 

is amazing, these 19- and 20-year-old kids basically running the 

entire operation. And this one Marine jet lands, F–14, this pilot 

gets out, and I think, ‘‘That is one heck of a small pilot.’’ The pilot 

takes her helmet off, and it is a ‘‘her.’’ And it is just—I mean, I 

have spent most of my life in the Army; it was dominated by men. 

And you come to realize that, in so many jobs, combat and noncombatant jobs, that you don’t have to be a pro wrestler in order 

to do the job. If you are physically fit, you are probably qualified. 

And a lot of it involves mental agility and technical expertise. And 

that is not the domain, you know, purely of men, if it is in their 

domain at all. Sometimes I wonder. The other aspect is, obviously, 

there are a lot of women who are more physically fit than men, so 

the notion that only men can do this, I think, has certainly been 

proven wrong. 

I would say the only concern—and it would certainly fall within 

the parameters of what you just defined—is anything that would 

be detrimental to good order and discipline. And I guess we are 

going to get a test when we have females on submarines. That is 

a very tough environment to be in, very closed, constricted, long periods of time. 

But, again, I think you are right. I mean, if we try and eliminate 

common sense and the needs of the service out of this by being 

overly restrictive, I don’t think we help the soldiers and the other 

service members, I don’t think we help our military, and I don’t 

think we help our country. And, again, I am a big fan of common 

sense in those situations. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think all of us have participated in welcome-home 

events and award ceremonies, and the number of women that have 

been indispensable in the success of the missions has been very impressive. 

And I think it has probably been brought home, just in the last 

two or three weeks. I think it may have been The New York Times 

that had the wonderful photograph of the four Marines sitting 

down taking a break, doing a classic military thing, which is a boot 

off and a sock off, trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong 

with that foot. And they were all four women Marines in Afghanistan. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Well, the other thing is that, you know, there 

really are, in these wars, no front lines, no rear lines. It is not as 

though, if you are here, you are safe. 

Dr. SNYDER. Which makes it—and that is the beginning of my 

question. The difficulty, I think, the difficulty of trying to comply 

with the kind of statutory restriction we put on them that may 
39 

make sense in a Cold War scenario with a potential for a hot war, 

but I think it makes it very convoluted. 

We appreciate both of you still being here. Thank you. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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