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ASSESSING THE PRESIDENT’S STRATEGY IN

AFGHANISTAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Serial No. 114–131

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D., Christopher DeMuth chair and director, Critical 

Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute ................................................ 6

Mr. David. S. Sedney, senior associate, Center for Strategic and International 

Studies .................................................................................................................. 13

Andrew Wilder, Ph.D., vice president, Asia Programs, United States Institute 

of Peace ................................................................................................................. 29

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................. 8

Mr. David. S. Sedney: Prepared statement ........................................................... 15

Andrew Wilder, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .......................................................... 32

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 58

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 59

Andrew Wilder, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record ................................... 60

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 65

(1)

ASSESSING THE PRESIDENT’S STRATEGY IN 

AFGHANISTAN 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. With the approval of the ranking member, 

we are going to start. And thank you very much. The subcommittee 

will come to order. 

After recognizing myself and the ranking member for 5 minutes 

each for our opening statements, I will then recognize any other 

member seeking recognition for 1 minute. We will then hear from 

our witnesses. Thank you for your patience. Without objection the 

witnesses’ prepared statements will be made a part of the record 

and members may have 5 days to insert statements and/or questions for the record subject to the length and limitations in the 

rules. The chair now recognizes herself for a loosely defined 5 minutes. 

As we are all aware, earlier this week the Department of State 

issued a notice warning of a possible imminent attack in Kabul. 

With so much of our attention focused on the threat from ISIS and 

the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, it is important that we do 

not lose sight of some of the other areas of concern for our national 

security interests, and this security warning is a stark reminder of 

that. 

It took a resurgent Taliban seizing control of Kunduz for President Obama to adjust his strategy, announcing a halt to the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. It was an acknowledgement that the strategy of gradual withdraw was not in line 

with the reality on the ground. Yet concerns remain that the President isn’t leaving behind enough troops to support our objectives in 

Afghanistan. What was lost in the discussion was the fact that Afghan security forces were able to regain Kunduz back from the 

Taliban. 

Our military leaders on the ground feel confident that the Afghan security forces have done a good job fighting during this season, and are more professional than the Iraqi security forces. Today 

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curity forces, and to conduct counterterrorism operations against 

al-Qaeda and its many affiliates. 

Last month I led a bipartisan congressional delegation (codel) 

visit and was pleased to be joined by one of our members of our 

subcommittee, Dr. Yoho, to Afghanistan to meet with our troops 

carrying out this important mission, as well as to discuss pressing 

issues with President Ghani, CEO Abdullah, General Campbell, 

and other U.S. military leaders. I had also visited in 2013 when we 

met with President Karzai. 

The one thing that was abundantly clear to me this time around 

and echoed by everyone with whom I met was that the Afghan 

Government’s eagerness to cooperate with us has greatly improved 

and that the team of Ghani and Abdullah is an improvement over 

any combination of Karzai and anyone else. 

The current Afghan leaders are saying the right things and are 

undertaking efforts to root out corruption, to secure and stabilize 

their own country. We cannot abandon our ally. We must redouble 

our efforts to remain engaged to seek a more stable Afghanistan. 

ISIS is growing in its presence in Afghanistan, mainly by attracting some of the more radical elements of the Taliban who have broken away and have sworn allegiance to ISIS. And that makes our 

strategy in Afghanistan that much more important. General Campbell told Congress that the terror group status in Afghanistan has 

grown from nascent to operationally emergent over the course of 

just a year. Yet when I led our congressional delegation to Afghanistan, I was shocked to hear that our mission does not give our commanders and troops the authority to go after ISIS, that the tasks 

for containing and defeating this rising threat falls squarely on the 

Afghan Government and its security forces. 

The day the codel departed from the region, we learned that 

seven people in Afghanistan were beheaded by ISIL, and thousands 

of people came out to the streets to protest this horrific act of terror. We must rethink the scope of our mission to include taking on 

more than just al-Qaeda and its affiliates. We should also re-assess 

our counternarcotics approach in Afghanistan. Terror and drugs 

are linked as much as the profits from the drug trade in Afghanistan fund these terror groups. While it is encouraging that the new 

Afghan Government has signed a new counterdrug plan, we need 

to ensure that it has the resources it needs to succeed in action. 

I remain concerned that the number of DEA agents has decreased substantially. Our state INL staff are limited in their 

movements, and the Afghan counternarcotics forces cannot concentrate on the drug trade because they are busy fighting terrorism. Both the U.S. forces and the security forces of Afghanistan 

have a limited amount of air lift capabilities, which further limits 

their ability to tackle any major security or counternarcotics concern. This runs the danger of leaving a wide area of Afghanistan 

unexposed to our security efforts, and it could have terrible and 

tragic consequences. 

The administration needs to revisit its strategy, and not just put 

a halt on the withdrawal because artificial timelines will not work, 

and it needs to also get buy-in from Pakistan. President Ghani has 

reached out his hand to Pakistan, but has been rebuffed. The U.S. 

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stan and to continue to allow terrorists safe haven inside its borders. We currently have a pending military package for Pakistan 

before us in this committee. We need to use this leverage to get 

Pakistan to do more on the counterterrorism front and to collaborate rather than work against the Afghan Government and its security forces. 

During our trip we were also honored to meet with the courageous women of Afghanistan and were proud to hear of the strides 

that they are making on behalf of women’s rights thanks to their 

hard work and leadership. The stakes are too high in Afghanistan 

for the Afghan people, for the region, and for U.S. national security 

interests to allow Afghanistan to fall back on any of the progress 

we have made together thus far. 

Lastly, I want to thank the men and women who so bravely 

serve and protect our national security interests in Afghanistan. 

We had an opportunity to meet with so many of these truly heroic 

and courageous individuals who continue to put their lives at risk 

each and every day so that we can sleep safely at home while they 

are out there defending our freedom and our values. 

And it says say this, it says here. Say this: Congressman Deutch 

got pulled into a last minute meeting, but he will show up a little 

bit later. 

So now I am going to recognize other members for their statements. And we will begin with Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman and Ranking Member Deutch for 

convening this very important hearing relating to U.S. strategy in 

Afghanistan. Over the previous 14 years, the U.S. has spent an estimated $1 trillion and lost more than 2,300 American lives in Afghanistan. Military gains by the Taliban and the growing presence 

of groups like Daesh, as well as a growing number of loosely 

aligned armed groups provide grave uncertainty regarding Afghanistan’s security and stability. It also reveals tremendous challenges 

and even uncertainty about what role we can effectively play in resolving these conflicts. 

The President’s recent shift in strategy will leave a significant 

number of American forces in Afghanistan beyond 2016, creating 

an unclear future regarding our presence in the region and when 

it will finally conclude. 

I look forward to hearing the perspective of today’s witnesses 

who will help provide an assessment of the President’s strategy in 

Afghanistan and its impact on our overall national security. And 

with that I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, sir. 

Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am glad you called 

this hearing because I don’t know what the President’s strategy 

really is in Afghanistan. I don’t know what his strategy really is 

to deal with terrorism in other parts of the Middle East. I haven’t 

quite been able to figure out his overall foreign policy generally 

apart from making concessions to regimes that are adverse to our 

interests like Iran and Russia. So I am hoping to be enlightened, 

and I am glad you called the hearing. And I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. 

4

Ms. Frankel, who was actually here before Mr. Cicilline, because 

she welcomed you with great pomp and circumstance. I did not realize that, Ms. Frankel. 

Ms. FRANKEL. That is all right. Mr. Cicilline can go ahead of me 

any time. 

Thank you, Madam Chair, for this hearing. I will be short just 

to—as the chairlady knows, my son served in the United States 

Marines in Afghanistan. He also went back to Afghanistan as a 

member of USAID. So I have a great deal of interest in hearing 

what you have to say today. And I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you for your family’s sacrifice, Ms. 

Frankel. 

Mr. Zeldin. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I want 

to echo Ron DeSantis’ point, how grateful we are that you are holding this hearing. And I think it is important for our constituents 

to know exactly what the President’s strategy is in Afghanistan, in 

Iraq, and Syria. A strategy which is questioning what is the realty 

on the ground overseas, not so much what is the rhetoric here at 

home to best serve one’s domestic politics. 

We want to know what the rules of engagement are. Are we giving flexibility to our local commanders so that they could adapt to 

changing circumstances? Who exactly are the forces on the ground? 

Who is in charge? What is their mission? What is their skill set? 

What’s the long-term plan? What is the vision for where we want 

to be a year from now or 5 years from now? Whenever we send 

servicemembers into harm’s way, it is important for them, their 

families, for our country to know that they are being sent with a 

strategy to win to keep them safe. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Boyle of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. BOYLE. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and I really am 

going to refrain from an opening statement except to say two 

things. So I guess I am not refraining from an opening statement, 

in typical congressional fashion. 

The first is I am very anxious to hear from this august panel. 

I have had the opportunity to hear from one of the members before 

and am familiar with the work of all three of you. That is number 

one. And, number two, because I might not get the opportunity 

later to say it, absolutely anyone would be better than Hamid 

Karzai, who seemed to in no way appreciate the sacrifice that the 

American people have gone through over the last 14 years. So, if 

anything, we can celebrate that we actually do have somewhat of 

a partner in Afghanistan to move us forward. I will yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Amen. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chabot of Ohio. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for holding this hearing. And we thank our witnesses. Looking forward to 

hearing what they have to say this afternoon. 

It seems in recent months due to the growing problems in Syria, 

and the Iran nuclear agreement, and ISIS and a litany of other 

major issues all across the world, that Afghanistan to some degree, 

has kind of been, I think, on the back burner of this administration, has kind of fallen from view in many ways. However, without 

5

question the increase in terrorist attacks across the globe is a real 

threat to stability in the world, the future of Afghanistan, and 

could really undermine U.S. interests. All of us on this committee 

have paid particular attention of the mounting threat ISIS has 

posed. And I think it is fair to stay that the administration fails 

to do due diligence to ensure stability in Afghanistan, that we are 

going to see a resurgence in terrorism there as well. 

A thoughtful and cohesive strategy continues to be essential in 

preventing the expansion of al-Qaeda and ISIS and other terrorist 

organizations in Afghanistan. And it is my hope that the administration and our regional partners give Afghanistan the long-term 

strategic outlook it deserves as we move forward. And thank you 

very much, Madam Chair. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chabot. 

Mr. Clawson of Florida. 

Mr. CLAWSON. I appreciate you all coming in today. This whole 

situation feels to me like the folks that we support in Afghanistan 

don’t get along. They don’t get up to speed. And our allies don’t get 

to pay their fair share. And so while we risk the lives of our brave 

men and women it kind of feels like no one else, no one else, Europe, in the region, even the people we support, put chips on the 

table. And we are the only one getting wet. And so it kind of adds 

to this never-ending quagmire that we are the only ones really paying the price. And so I am hoping that you all will explain if you 

see a way out from that, and so I appreciate you all coming. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Clawson. And we have been 

joined by Mr. Weber of Texas, in case you have a off-the-cuff opening statement, we would love to hear it. You do your best work that 

way. 

Mr. WEBER. I think most of my statements are off the cuff, 

Madam Chairwoman. But, no, I am ready to go. Thank you for 

holding this hearing. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, thank you. Then I am pleased to welcome our panelists. First we are pleased to welcome back Dr. Frederick Kagan who comes from a well-respected esteemed—they are 

a think tank, that family, all to themselves. He is the DeMuth 

chair and director of the Critical Threat Project at the American 

Enterprise Institute. Previously Dr. Kagan served as a professor of 

military history at the United States Military Academy at West 

Point, and was part of General McChrystal’s strategic assessment 

group in Afghanistan. Welcome back. 

Secondly we would like to welcome Dr. David Sedney. How 

should I do that? 

Mr. SEDNEY. That is fine. I am only a juris doctor. So it doesn’t 

count, my wife tells me. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Who is senior associate for the Center of 

Strategic International Studies. In the past he served as Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia; Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul; 

and senior advisor to then U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte. 

Welcome, sir. 

And last but certainly not least, we would like to welcome Dr. 

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tor for politics and policy at the Feinstein Center at Tufts University, and has managed humanitarian development programs in Afghanistan for NGOs such as Save the Children, the International 

Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps. Welcome, Dr. Wilder. 

And we will begin with you, Dr. Kagan. Thank you. Your statements will be made a part of the record. Please feel free to summarize. 

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. KAGAN, PH.D., CHRISTOPHER 

DEMUTH CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS 

PROJECT, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. KAGAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. To the absent ranking, I 

thank him also. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If you can hold that a little bit closer. 

Mr. KAGAN. I do not usually have a problem being heard. And 

I am very grateful for the committee for holding a hearing on this 

topic at this time. As Representative Chabot pointed out, Afghanistan really has fallen from the headlines. And, in fact, I have to 

confess that I had to rip my head out of a planning session that 

the Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats Project 

have been engaged on in Syria and Iraq and ISIS generally in 

order to try to refocus on Afghanistan. 

And I will start there by saying that we need to recognize that 

we are facing multiple overlapping threats and conflicts. And they 

cannot be stove piped, and they cannot be siloed. You cannot have 

a strategy for defeating ISIS that does not include defeating the 

Wilayat’s that it has established in Afghanistan, Sinai, and Libya. 

That it is trying to establish in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. It is a global problem. And so we have to concern ourselves 

with the fact that there is a small ISIS Wilayat at this point in Afghanistan. 

And a lot of my testimony—a lot of my written testimony is 

about the long-term or midterm threats that I see emerging to the 

U.S. homeland from having—from allowing that organization to retain even a relatively small area of ground in Afghanistan that it 

can govern and in which it can radicalize Afghan youth and train 

them rather uncharacteristically for Afghans to be focused on attacking us here, and attacking the Europeans in Europe, which is 

historically not something that Afghan insurgents have mostly focused on. 

But my testimony focuses on that because it is the most immediate, most significant threat to the U.S. homeland. And as we ask 

questions about why do we need to be in Afghanistan at all and 

what are our interests, I do think that it is important to begin with 

what is required to ensure the security and safety of the American 

people. And I think that we do have the problem, that that is now 

in the question from Afghanistan over time not at this moment, but 

it will be, both from ISIS and from al-Qaeda which has re-established itself, and we were just speaking before this hearing about 

the large al-Qaeda training camp that was attacked and destroyed 

in Southern Kandahar province which is—represents in its own 

way the complete and utter failure of a strategy that was begun 

in 2001 to drive al-Qaeda out and keep it from returning. Clearly 

that isn’t accomplishing its objective at this point. 

7

But I think it is equally important to say that if we simply oriented our fight in Afghanistan against ISIS and al-Qaeda, the 

groups that most imminently—or most deliberately target us here, 

we will fail. That fight will fail. And we will fail our larger national 

security interests as well. Because those groups do not pose an existential threat to the Afghan Government or the Afghan security 

forces which are our necessary partners. The groups that do post 

an existential threat are the Taliban groups and the Haqqani network and a number of their internally focused allies. 

So we face a logical conundrum, that in order to facilitate the 

survival of a partner, and I do salute the partnership of President 

Ghani and Dr. Abdullah, and I do agree that almost anyone is preferable to Hamid Karzai as a so-called partner, we need to ensure 

that that partner can survive. And I would submit that at this 

point, given the rise in capability of the Taliban and Haqqani 

forces, and the significant decrease in the overall capability of the 

partnered coalition and Afghan forces, that the survival of the Afghan state is very much in question now. I am not confident that 

there will be an Afghanistan when the next President takes office. 

I see the mobilization of northern alliance forces to wage their own 

battle in the north as extremely problematic. I think that it runs 

a high risk of igniting or reigniting the ethnic civil war that rent 

the country in the 1990s and before that, and that created space 

for the Taliban to grow in the first place. 

I think, in other words, that the vacuum that has been created 

by the withdrawal of primarily U.S. but also allied forces, drawing 

away from Afghan forces that have actually bled quite a lot, and 

I think it is very important to note that there are many, many, 

many, many, many more dead on the Afghan National Security 

Forces side than there have been on the coalition forces side, and 

I remember Sundays at ISF headquarters when we, the coalition, 

would read out the list of those coalition members who had been 

killed in the previous week. And the Afghan Security Force representative would simply say 50 or 60 or 70 or 100 members of the 

ANSF were killed. The list was, in his view, too long to read. 

So we have partners who are willing to engage. We have partners who are willing to fight, and who are willing to die. And, unfortunately, we have not been giving them the support that they 

need and deserve, frankly, against a common threat that we need 

them to fight and they need our help to fight. And I sincerely hope, 

then, there will be some prospect for changing that strategy over 

time. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kagan follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Dr. Kagan. Dr. 

Sedney. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID. S. SEDNEY, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. SEDNEY. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Push that button there and hold it close to 

you. 

Mr. SEDNEY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank 

you and your colleague the ranking member, Representative 

Deutch, for holding this hearing. Afghanistan is important. And it 

has the potential to be a disaster for U.S. national security if we 

continue along the current policies. I will make five points, and I 

have three recommendations. I will work hard to get it into the 5 

minutes. 

First, Afghanistan and its people can succeed. In my written testimony, I describe the many foundational areas, health, education, 

women’s rights, media freedoms, and an army, and soldiers who 

are fighting and dying in larger numbers than ever to defend their 

own country. The current president and CEO are a great improvement. I very much second Representative Boyle’s point, but I also 

point out that we are giving a better president and a better governing team less, much less, support than we ever gave President 

Hamid Karzai. 

Second, the security situation in Afghanistan has changed significantly for the worse. What I will tell you, Madam Chair, is 

somewhat different than you heard in Afghanistan. The security 

situation in Afghanistan is much worse than we had planned for 

and/or that we had prepared the Afghan military to face. The 

Taliban this past year mounted their largest, most violent and 

most successful offensive since they took over the country in the 

late 2000s. 

Daesh, the so-called Islamic State is a growing threat in Afghanistan. Foreign radicals and Pakistani extremists who were forced 

out of Pakistan by a Pakistani offensive in North Waziristan have 

taken to fighting in Afghanistan. The battlefield is more complex, 

and as a result, Afghan civilian and military causalities this year 

will be higher than they have been before. More Afghans are being 

killed after American forces left than—in a combat role than when 

we were there. And all the indications are is that we will see a bigger, stronger, more violent and more successful Taliban offensive in 

2016. 

Third, the security architecture that we have in place in Afghanistan is not working. The so-called train, advise, and assist commands, TAACs, as they are called, are not doing a sufficiently good 

job of training, advising, or assisting. Of Afghanistan’s six army 

corps, two are completely uncovered. The other four are only partially covered in terms of the advice and assistance they are getting. The Taliban this year captured seven district capitals, of 

which they retained two, captured for a short period of time 

Kunduz, and almost captured two other capital cities in Afghanistan’s north, provincial capitals, Faisabad in Badakshan, and 

Maimana in Faryab province. 

14

Those kind of advances came about despite the brave fight of Afghan forces. But it came about because they didn’t have air support, because they didn’t have intelligence report. They didn’t have 

the kind of air transport that they need. They will need even more 

next year, and they won’t have it, according to our current plans. 

Of course there are things the Afghans haven’t don’t right. With 

only an acting defense minister, many key jobs left unfilled for 

most of the year, the National Unity Government has tried hard 

but still has much to do. But what we haven’t done is a huge contributor to this worsening security situation. 

My fourth point is Afghanistan’s National Unity Government 

which we forced down their throats is not doing the job it should. 

There is much better that they can do, and they need to do more. 

But we need to do more to help them. Our President and our Secretary of State forced two competing candidates to rule together. 

They are actually working hard and trying hard, but they are not 

doing a good enough job. We should be doing a better job of helping 

them. 

Fifth, Pakistan’s offensive in North Waziristan was the most successful counterinsurgency operation the Pakistan/Afghanistan theater has ever seen. They went in with large numbers of ground 

support, huge amounts of air pressure, and they cleaned out the 

Taliban, making Pakistan today a much safer place. However, they 

forced into Afghanistan hundreds of thousands of refugees and put 

into Afghanistan many who are now killing Afghans. We should be 

putting pressure on Pakistan to clean up the mess in Afghanistan 

that it has made because of the actions it took to make Pakistan 

itself safer. 

My recommendations. First, we need a complete review of our 

policy. I very much second you on this, madam chair. The security 

situation is deteriorating so fast, the capabilities that we have are 

so limited, that if we don’t this and do it quickly, disaster is possible, along with what Fred Kagan said. 

Second, in the interim we need to change our rules of engagement. The rules of engagement are not clear. The rules of engagement don’t allow us to do many things that are necessary. The 

rules of engagement don’t give the Afghan forces the support they 

need. 

And, third, we should work with Pakistan to get Pakistan to stop 

allowing the fighters, the weapons, the explosives to come out of 

Pakistan into Afghanistan. Make no mistake about it. Safe havens 

in Pakistan are the key to the Taliban’s success. Regardless of 

what the Pakistanis have told us directly, all that really matters 

is what they do. And so far they have taken no steps, no steps at 

all, to stop the flow of weapons, fighters, and explosives into Afghanistan. That flow is increasing right now. The situation on the 

ground in Afghanistan is perilous, and unless we act, I see serious 

problems and a government that we should be supporting could 

fail. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sedney follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yikes. It is getting worse. 

Dr. Wilder, any good news there? 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW WILDER, PH.D., VICE PRESIDENT, 

ASIA PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE 

Mr. WILDER. I will try. But anyway, Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen 

and Ranking Member Deutch, when he joins us, and members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to give my views 

on the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. I would like to note 

that the views I give today are my own, as the U.S. Institute of 

Peace does not take policy positions. 

I am currently the vice president of USIP’s Asia Center where 

my responsibilities include overseeing our work in Afghanistan. I 

began to work in this region 30 years ago with U.S. humanitarian 

organizations and witnessed firsthand the tragic consequences for 

Afghans, and eventually the U.S. as well, when peace settlements 

failed and when the world lost interest in Afghanistan. 

My main message today, therefore, is that the U.S. should not 

once again prematurely disengage from Afghanistan. In my view, 

the foremost interest of the U.S. in Afghanistan should be to help 

ensure that it remains relatively peaceful and stable, and does not 

slide back into all-out civil war and anarchy, precisely the same 

conditions that gave birth to the Taliban in the 1990s, and gave alQaeda sanctuary. 

The collapse of the Afghan state would nearly certainly result in 

Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for transnational 

terrorist groups, and would al risk destabilizing its neighbors, including nuclear armed Pakistan. In this regard, I welcome President Obama’s recent announcement that the U.S. will maintain the 

current level of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next 

year. Perhaps more importantly, President Obama reversed his 

earlier plan to close down U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and instead 

to maintain beyond 2016 at least, 5,500 troops in bases in Bagram, 

Kandahar, and Jalalabad. 

Significantly, for the first time since May 2014, the U.S. no 

longer has a calendar deadline by which to pull out U.S. forces. 

This not only serves to keep options open for the next President, 

but it also sends a strong message to the Afghan people as well as 

the Taliban of the U.S. commitment to achieve our objective of a 

stable Afghanistan. 

I suspected my two colleagues would focus mostly on the security 

situation, and so I thought I would in my oral testimony touch on 

the economic and political situation as well. I think the security situation is often the focus of attention, but the current economic crisis in Pakistan—in Afghanistan is one of the most serious threats 

to the stability of the current government and the constitutional 

order in Afghanistan. 

The Afghan economy is in dire straits. Economic growth has been 

very weak. A 1.3 percent in 2014 when in the decade before we are 

achieving rates of 8 to 9 percent on average. It has been frequently 

noted but worth repeating that it was not the withdrawal of Soviet 

troops that lead to the downfall of the Najibullah regime in 1992, 

and the resulting descent into a bloody civil war. But the end to 

the Soviet subsidies following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 

30

order not to make the same make mistake, I would make the following two recommendations in terms of economic assistance. 

First, the U.S. should play a strong leadership role at the International Donor Conference on Afghanistan, taking place in Brussels next October, to ensure that major donor countries renew their 

commitments to maintaining robust levels of civilian assistance to 

Afghanistan and so that it isn’t just the U.S. having to foot that 

bill. 

And, second, the U.S. and other donors should provide the Afghan Government with more flexible financial resources that can 

be used to help stimulate the economy and create jobs in the short 

to medium term. This would help reduce the possibility of civil unrest due to economic discontent, and buy the Ghani administration 

some political space to get a reform agenda and a peace process on 

track. And if anyone is interested, I have copies with me today of 

a USIP paper by our expert, Bill Byrd, on reviving Afghanistan’s 

economy, which goes into more detail. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Would you like that to be entered into the 

record, sir? 

Mr. WILDER. Yes, please. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. WILDER. And my written comments also have more details. 

And then lastly, on the political situation, while the U.S. and 

other friends of Afghanistan need to continue to support the Afghan Government through security and economic assistance programs, the effectiveness of this support will be seriously undermined if the National Unity Government does not live up to its responsibilities to overcome political divisions and govern more effectively. 

Afghanistan’s National Unity Government was created to resolve 

the political crisis that developed following the disputed 2014 Presidential elections. It was built for political inclusiveness among contending elite groups, not for effectiveness. As a result, its main 

achievement so far has been not to fall apart. This in itself is not 

an insignificant achievement given the major security and economic 

challenges the country is confronting and given that several other 

countries in the region are falling apart, but it is not enough. Afghanistan’s National Unity Government must begin to act more 

like a unified government of a country facing a national crisis rather than a government endlessly litigating the past election and 

bickering over government positions. 

The price of just hanging together has been a great loss of legitimacy among the Afghan public. The government has been extremely slow to complete such basic tasks as filling key government 

positions, let alone the far more complex tasks that are required 

to address Afghanistan’s simultaneously deepening economic, security, and governance crises. 

To conclude, I believe that a long-term U.S. commitment to remain actively engaged in Afghanistan is the best way to achieve 

our national security interests of ensuring a relatively stable Afghanistan in this troubled region of the world. In my written testimony, I recommend ways this can be done and outline some of the 

obstacles and opportunities for an inclusive peace process in Afghanistan. 

31

There will be no better way to help redeem the commitments of 

blood and treasure that have been made since 2001 by the United 

States, our allies, and the Afghan people than by remaining engaged and working together to achieve the objective of peace in Afghanistan. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilder follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Thank you to all three of you for 

excellent testimony. I would first like to recognize Major Adrian 

Foster who served in Iraq and accompanied our codel to Afghanistan. Take a bow; come on. Thank you, Major, for your service. 

Thank you. 

My questions are in three categories: Afghan security forces capabilities, drug trade, and then, thirdly, Afghan governance. Dr. 

Kagan, the first one is to you. As much as we want the Afghan security forces to take the lead in the defense of Afghanistan. It is 

their country, and they have shown vast improvements no doubt. 

We still have many national security interests at stake that are too 

important to leave to uncertainty. 

You have warned that enemy expansion in Afghanistan, including ISIL, will accelerate under our current strategy. You have also 

argued that we must reconsider our current force posture in Afghanistan as well as our rules of engagement that several of you 

have pointed out. 

So I ask, why is our current mission limited to only counterterror 

operations against al-Qaeda and not all insurgent groups including 

ISIS, and how would you assess the Afghan security forces’ current 

capability to counter the threats it faces from ISIS, other terror 

groups? What should our rules are engagement be? 

Mr. KAGAN. The Afghan security forces were never built having 

in mind that they would have to operate under the conditions that 

they are now operating in as David Sedney pointed out. First of all, 

the assumptions underlying their structure were that they would 

face a much more mild insurgency that had been beaten down significantly. That is not the case. 

And it was also assumed that the United States and the international coalition would continue to provide significant high-end 

enablers in their fight against the Taliban as well as in their fight 

against al-Qaeda and other such organizations. So they are now engaged in a fight for which they were never designed and structured, which is one of the reasons why they are struggling so badly. 

It is important for us to recognize that their primary enemy is not 

al-Qaeda, and their primary enemy is not ISIS, nor will it be. Their 

primary enemy is the group that can destroy the Afghan state. 

And so in the sense, to the extent that we define our only interest in Afghanistan as going after terrorists and we limit our support to the Afghan security forces to that, we will not succeed in 

eliminating terrorists because we can’t do that without a partner, 

and our partner will die because it is not those terrorists that are 

threatening it. 

So in my opinion, it is an enormous mistake that this administration has made consistently over the years to try to narrow the 

scope of our interests in Afghanistan exclusively to target its attacks fundamentally on terrorist leaders without recognizing the 

cataclysmic failure of that approach across the globe, but also without recognizing that it creates a high likelihood of what we are now 

seeing, which is that whatever gains we might make there will be 

washed out as insurgent groups that we are not allowing our 

troops to fight properly alongside the Afghans take over and destroy our partners. 

47

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much Dr. Kagan. I would like 

to discuss our counternarcotics operation in country. We know that 

much of the profits from the elicit drug trade in Afghanistan goes 

to fund terror activities in Afghanistan and worldwide. However, 

our DEA and INL presence has been dramatically decreased there. 

The Afghans aren’t yet fully capable of leading this kind of largescale mission. Since these two are tied together, the drug trade and 

terror, shouldn’t we place a greater emphasis on ending the drug 

trade in Afghanistan? Is that possible realistically? 

We go after the financing of other terror groups as part of our 

plan to counter and defeat them. We need to do so in Afghanistan 

as well. Why do we not? Is it because we don’t think that that 

would be successful? To whoever would like to answer. Thank you, 

Dr. Sedney. 

Mr. SEDNEY. Others can add as well. But counternarcotics was 

an area that when we were doing our counterinsurgency efforts in 

Afghanistan in 2009, 2010, and 2011 and into 2012, we did take 

some efforts there, and USAID and others have cooperated as well. 

What we found by looking around the globe, however, is the only 

way you can effectively go after the narcotics industry is a holistic 

way. It is not just a security threat. It is not just the traffickers. 

You have to find ways to work with the farmers, give alternate 

crops, and you have to continue that. We did for about 2 years have 

some success in Helmont province, where a crop substitution program, a voucher program, combined with very aggressive enforcement efforts and military action against traffickers, that was making progress, but then we pulled back from that. 

We don’t have the resources right now to carry that out. So sadly 

I would say as a consequence of our decision to pull back across 

the board in Afghanistan, counternarcotics, which I agree with you 

on the importance of, is an area where we are just not positioned 

to do really much at all that can be effective. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Wilder? 

Mr. WILDER. Yeah. If I can just add on that point. I have some 

good news and bad news. The good news is the cultivation area decreased this year by about 19 percent for opium poppy, and opium 

production actually reduced by nearly 48 percent. The bad news is 

it doesn’t seem to be a result of counternarcotic efforts, but more 

due to farmer decisions about harvest, crop issues. But I agree with 

David that I think the larger issue is ultimately you do need a holistic approach, and it relates to broadly improving the security situation and then working with our Government, the Afghan Government, to try to improve governance and the rule of law. And I 

think that is though an area where we can be more optimistic because we do have a partner in the new government that I think 

does want to promote the rule of law and takes the issue of poppy 

production seriously in contrast to his predecessor. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And speaking of governance, as part of our 

assistance to Afghanistan, the U.S. provides at least half of that 

development aid directly through the Afghan budget. How can we 

take steps to ensure that we are mitigating all of the risks inherent 

in our direct assistance, and for sure the new management is tackling the problem of corruption? How can we help Afghanistan to 

step it up more? 

48

Mr. WILDER. Well I will take a stab at it, but then if others also 

want to add. I am actually very supportive of the idea of more onbudget assistance. The evidence actually shows that most corruption in Afghanistan was not the corruption from what went 

through the budget. That was actually a good control system. It 

was largely a lot of the money that was spent off budget, and now 

again with a more reform-oriented government in place which is 

trying to take measures to crack down on corruption, I would be 

supportive of trying to give the new government the support it 

needs through a more on-budget assistance. 

I do think, however, that the issue of performance is mixed. We 

have some ministers who are more reform oriented and more effective than others. And the issue of improved government is critically 

important. I mean if there is one lesson from the last 14 years in 

Afghanistan, it is that military gains on the battlefield are not sufficient. They really have to be matched by better governance. And 

I think that is where maybe with our assistance we need to have 

some more conditions attached of rewarding the better performing 

ministers and ministries and penalizing those that don’t. 

So I do think there is room for conditions, and I actually think 

President Ghani himself is supportive of this, and I would actually 

laud the new development partnership agreement between the U.S. 

and Afghanistan which actually targets $800 million which is released in tranches based on performance measures being achieved 

by the Afghan Government. So I think that kind of assistance, we 

are getting smarter at this, and I am confident with the new government we will have better achievements than we had in the past. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Let’s hope so. Thank you so much. Mr. Boyle 

is recognized. 

Mr. BOYLE. Thank you. I just was struck by how positively received President Ghani was when he spoke here in his joint session 

to Congress, so it is not just the failure of the previous President, 

but also a positive reflection on the new President himself. 

But, I wanted to just shift focus for a second. One of you talked 

about this in your opening statements. But the current relationship 

and partnership between Abdullah and President Ghani, how likely 

is this to be a durable alliance? 

Mr. SEDNEY. I mentioned it; I think Andrew did as well. I think 

it is likely to be a durable alliance. I know both men. I consider 

both of them personal friends, and I admire what they have done. 

The issue is that the whole structure of governance in Afghanistan 

is filled with people who are rich, are powerful, and in many cases 

are criminal, and fixing that is a job that would be a challenge for 

anyone who didn’t have an insurgency at their door and all the 

other problems Afghanistan would have. I don’t think the United 

States has done enough to help this partnership work together, and 

I think that is an area where we could do more politically to make 

it effective. 

I think, however I will stress that I think the two individuals involved are actually trying very hard to work together, but there are 

huge networks out there that are fighting each other. 

Mr. WILDER. If I could add just one point there. I very much 

agree with David on that, but I think the problem is not so much 

Dr. Ghani and Dr. Abdullah who I think have been able to work 

49

along. It is some of the groups around them which have become 

more problematic, but it is a serious problem, and I think the dysfunction is now creating a big rumor mill in Kabul; maybe we need 

plan B arrangements, and maybe we should loya jirga to rethink 

this whole process or have early elections, and I would strongly recommend that the U.S. Government position continue to be that 

there really isn’t a plan B. 

Plan B is to make plan A work and not give any encouragement 

to those who want to try to destabilize the current government. Because it is not, I think, performing nearly as well as it needs to, 

but it would be I think a real political disaster and very politically 

destabilizing if we start looking at alternative arrangements. 

Mr. BOYLE. You wanted to add, Dr. Kagan? 

Mr. KAGAN. I do. Thank you. I agree with almost everything that 

was just said. I think unfortunately a loya jirga was a part of the 

plan under which this government was set up, and I think the government is going to run into some very serious problems when it 

does not conduct a loya jirga, much as I agree with you about the 

risks that that poses and the undesirability of that. 

This government reflects much of what U.S. policy toward its 

problems in the region has been consistently for the past couple of 

decades, which is an attempt to use, to cajole elites to form an elite 

settlement of some sort on the assumption that that would solve 

societal problems that are creating openings for our enemies. It has 

not worked hardly anywhere we have tried it. 

And I raise the point because we are doing something similar in 

Syria right now, where we are imagining that if we bring the elites, 

many of whom don’t even represent anyone on the ground at this 

point, together and get them to sign up to some sort of agreement, 

that that will have a practical manifestation that will be important. 

The truth of the matter is that what has to happen in Afghanistan 

and many other places that are now riven by internal conflict, is 

that the populations and the affected constituencies have to form 

a new agreement about how the state is going to run. 

And the more that we, for very pragmatic reasons having to do 

with our own timelines and our desire to have partners that we can 

work with to execute our timelines, the more that we drive toward 

elite settlements that exclude the interests of large portions of the 

constituency, the more we create instability and governments that, 

as the one in Afghanistan, I do agree with David, that both men 

are trying to make it work, and I agree with Dr. Wilder that the 

people around them are the principal problem. But the fact that 

this is simply an elite settlement at this point is the core problem 

in my view. 

Mr. BOYLE. So let me ask you, because you provided kind of a 

natural segue then, and it is touching upon something that you reference in your written testimony. To what extent in Afghanistan 

is our fight against the Taliban, our fight against remnants of alQaeda, our fight against ISIS or really just one small battle in the 

larger war against the caliphate? 

Mr. KAGAN. Well the struggle against ISIS is a battle in the war 

against the caliphate, and it needs to be seen in that way, the 

struggle against al-Qaeda likewise. And so if the difficulty that we 

are all having figuring out how the administration sees the connecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:34 Feb 01, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_MENA\120215\97753 SHIRL
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tions between these battles in Afghanistan and the struggles 

against al-Qaeda and ISIS elsewhere is a measure of the failure to 

articulate a meaningful strategy in that regard. 

The Taliban is a fascinating phenomenon because it is not in 

itself directly a threat to the United States in the sense that it continues not to have as its objective attacking us here, but it is a 

threat to the United States in the sense that it persists in a willingness to work with and host and support those groups that do. 

And so we continue to face the risk that a resurgent Taliban, because it wishes to or whether it is because it has no alternative—

because after all, the Taliban government didn’t exactly control all 

of the territory that it claimed to—will allow itself once again to 

become the host on which the terrorist parasites can breed and 

grow and attack us. 

Mr. BOYLE. Which was the case with September 11 of course. 

Mr. KAGAN. Exactly, exactly. 

Mr. BOYLE. I know I went over, and so I guess I will yield to the 

next person up on the other side. Thank you. 

Mr. DESANTIS [presiding]. I think that that is me since I am the 

only one up here. 

Mr. BOYLE. I believe this is our opportunity to rewrite the rules. 

Mr. DESANTIS. That is right. I will go ahead and recognize myself 

for 5 minutes. You know, the frustrating thing about this, I think 

is that when the President ran for election he specifically 

demagogued the issue of Afghanistan and said, look, Iraq is this 

bad war. Afghanistan is a great war. We have got to do it right. 

I am sick of what we are doing with this administration. They took 

their eye off the ball. And I am going to go get that done, and we 

are going to win that. 

And really I think that that was just rhetoric that made him, because he was against one of the conflicts, it made him appear to 

the voters that he was tough about terrorism, but really has not 

had his heart in this from the very beginning, and I think the results really speak for themselves. 

Now, Mr. Sedney, what specifically in terms of the rules of engagement is your recommendation? 

Mr. SEDNEY. Well, first of all, we should make the rules of engagement clear. But, secondly, the rules of engagement reflect the 

problem that has been identified and Dr. Kagan mentioned as well. 

Because we don’t see the Taliban as a threat, we are not allowed 

to use our air forces, our air support, our close air support, against 

the Taliban unless our forces are in danger or if Afghan forces are 

in some great extremis. 

So when Afghan forces plan operations, when they try to do what 

we have trained them to do, they don’t get any close air support. 

We are not allowed to promise them that, and they aren’t allowed 

to try and anticipate it, and they don’t get it. So our rules of engagement are so narrow and so complex that most of our troops 

don’t really understand them well. The Afghans don’t understand 

them. 

Over this year, the way the Taliban have operated, I think they 

have been probing so see where air power is used and where it 

isn’t. And where it is not used, they have gone from using tens and 

scores of fighters to using masses of hundreds of fighters. In the 

51

coming year I expect them to use thousands of fighters. We need 

to change those rules of engagement so we can support the Afghan 

forces and give them the fire power they need. And the reason they 

need the fire power is because we meant to build them an air force, 

but we didn’t, so the Afghans don’t have their own close air support. We promised them, with the stress on promised them, Super 

Tucanos to arrive in 2018. That will be too late. 

So even if the Afghans, even if our rules of engagement are 

changed, we still need to help the Afghans on that in the longer 

term. But the rules of engagement need to be changed to reflect the 

situation on the ground and allow us to aid the Afghan forces, including in planned engagements. We have to recognize that the 

Taliban are the enemy of our ally, and we need to be prepared to 

fight them. 

Mr. DESANTIS. See, I think our rules of engagement have been 

problematic for quite some time predating this administration, but 

this is just totally farcical. If you are engaged in a stabilization, 

counterinsurgency-type mission, and you have these ridiculously 

restrictive rules of engagement, you are going to lose. You are 

going to lose. That is just the bottom line, because you are giving 

the enemy a huge advantage when you are talking about engaging 

in the conflict. And why would we want to cede to the bad actors 

in the area, these huge advantages by having these, yes, not just 

restrictive, and I think as you point out, very complex rules of engagement. I think that is the worse thing to put a trigger puller 

out there or have people who could—I mean, we are seeing it a little bit with the air campaign against ISIS where it is very difficult 

to even know if you have authorization to strike a target. So this 

is not the way, I think, that we should be fighting these campaigns. 

And the problem is so much of it is based on political considerations, worried about bad headlines, and so on and so forth. 

And so, I think it is an absolutely critical point that you made. 

I think everything you said, I agree with. And I would go even further than yes, in this situation, but I think overall as we have 

looked at the war on terrorism, I think we have had rules of engagement that have just been too restrictive from the very beginning. Yes. 

Mr. SEDNEY. Can I had that in addition to the rules of engagement, one thing that is really hurting us is the lack of effective intelligence. We have removed most of the intelligence collection ability that we had in Afghanistan just a year ago. And I am talking 

about drones here, but not just predators, but the smaller ones, the 

handheld Scan Eagles and the ones in between that gave us a complete picture of the battlefield. 

So even with the rules of engagement, we don’t have the visibility that is necessary to identify targets and strike them accurately and capably. We can’t find out where those Taliban attacks 

are coming from and go after them. This is a technical capability 

the Afghans just don’t have——

Mr. DESANTIS. And it compounds the rules of engagement issue 

because when you have very restrictive rules of engagement, you 

rely on having all this wonderful intelligence. Otherwise you can’t 

do anything. You have to wait for people to start shooting at you. 

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gagement, you absolutely have got to do very robust intelligence; 

and yet we seem to be failing on both ends. And so I appreciate 

the comments and thank the chairwoman. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [presiding]. Where did you serve, Mr. 

DeSantis? 

Mr. DESANTIS. I was in Iraq, but we had similar situations. I 

mean, part of it is when you are a counterinsurgency situation, you 

can’t necessarily tell who is bad and who is good just by looking 

at them. They all wear man dresses or what have you. But, if you 

put our troops in these situations where they have to wait until 

they get shot at, well that is not fighting to win. And from what 

the testimony in Afghanistan, I think the problem is even worse 

than it was in Iraq. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, we thank for your service. My stepson 

and daughter-in-law served in Iraq in that confusing situation, and 

she served in Afghanistan as well. And the rules of engagement are 

still so crazy. Thank you for your service. Mr. Clawson is recognized. 

Mr. CLAWSON. So we thank you again for coming and for your 

viewpoints. Appreciate it. We roll back our support, our financial 

commitment, resource commitment, at all levels and from what I 

am hearing kind of to the point that the place is held together by 

contractors that just keep the HUMVEEs running, and if the contractors left, we might not even get the maintenance done—and I 

am not talking about drones. I am just talking about vehicles. 

Right? 

And then at the same time we put together, I think it was you, 

Mr. Sedney, that said a government of elites—or was that Dr. 

Kagan—of corrupt elites, and while the common man and woman 

is dying in the battlefield, so underresourced, elite leadership at 

the top that is viewed as corrupt. And, you know, I just kind of 

wonder if I was a typical Afghan combatant, if all the leaders had 

second homes in Virginia as their golden parachute, which is the 

rumor out there, right, and probably a lot of them do. Why would 

their soldiers want to fight, and why would we send our soldiers, 

people that are important to us on a personal level, to fight and 

die for folks who have a golden parachute already established because they have a summer home in the United States, and they are 

corrupt to begin with? 

If there is not a leadership change, in any company, if the top 

guy is corrupt, then it is all the money for him or her, you can get 

anybody to work. So if there is no—you know, I would like to say 

rules of engagement ought to be changed, which is what Ron is 

saying, or we ought to put in more commitments or more resources 

and get our allies to do the same thing, but if we have elite folks 

with summer homes in California or Virginia running the show 

and they are corrupt, why would we do any of that? And if we don’t 

start with leadership, where do we start? Am I missing here, or are 

you all agreeing with me? 

Mr. KAGAN. Sir, I would disagree with you on a couple of points. 

First of all, I have never advocated and never would advocate sending American soldiers into Afghanistan to fight for the——

Mr. CLAWSON. No, no. I am not saying you are advocating. I am 

sorry if you took it that way. 

53

Mr. KAGAN. No, no. I am not. I didn’t. But to fight for the Afghan 

leadership. We send American troops to Afghanistan to fight for 

the American people. And so, at the moment that I become convinced that it is not necessary to have American troops in Afghanistan because of the vital national interests of the American people, 

I will be here telling you that I think we shouldn’t have American 

troops in Afghanistan. 

Mr. CLAWSON. But are we asking too much by asking folks to go 

to war with leaders that are not committed and that have different—when their incentives are not aligned with the incentives 

of the frontline folks, you have a disaster, and I just think that is 

unethical. 

Mr. KAGAN. And the second point I would make is that I think 

that that point was extremely valid when we were talking about 

Hamid Karzai. I think it is not valid when we are talking about 

Ashraf Ghani. 

Mr. CLAWSON. All three of you all agree with that? And I am 

talking about the layers below that. 

Mr. KAGAN. Well I think it is very complicated when you get to 

the layers below that, and I think that what we have with President Ghani is a President who actually is committed to doing everything that you want him to do, and he is finding a great difficulty in doing that and we have frankly not been, as my colleagues on the panel—providing him a lot of support in that effort 

because for all of the discussion of smart power in this administration, fundamentally the only strategy that they really focus on is 

swatting bad guys. 

And I think that this is an area where you are right, that we 

need to have a major leadership change below the level of President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah. But President Ghani is trying to 

make that happen. What are we doing to help? That is a great 

question to direct to the administration and ask them. What are 

you doing to help empower the guy who is trying to change the 

toxic environment that you have been describing, because that was 

not the case when President Karzai was in power. 

Mr. SEDNEY. If I can just add, I am going to second very strongly 

what Fred said about Dr. Ghani. Dr. Ghani was an American citizen. He did have a home in Bethesda. He sold the home. He gave 

up his American citizenship. Went back to Afghanistan 6 years 

again. Has been the target of multiple, very serious attempts on his 

life. He is not a corrupt person, and I think he deserves our support in ways that President Karzai never did. 

And there are many other Afghans like them, the current acting 

minister of defense, the Taliban, the suicide bomber that blew up 

5 feet from him and virtually killed him. He is now back working, 

but he will never be the same person because of that. The commander of the second corps of Afghanistan lost four brothers to the 

Taliban. He fights because he knows that if he doesn’t fight, his 

people will die. I have talked to Afghans who are fighting because 

they want their daughters to go to school. 

I think there are lots—yes, there are corrupt people in Afghanistan and in their government, and they need to be gotten rid of; 

but there are many more who are fighting for many of the same 

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cause by keeping the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, that 

will make us safer. So while I agree with the concerns about corruption, and it is very serious, I have personal experience with 

many, many Afghans who I admire. 

I would like to mention one more thing, Mr. Clawson, because 

you talked about our allies. Last week Germany said it would increase its forces by 130. That is a 15-percent increase. And so while 

our President is getting kudos from people—and I think it was a 

good thing that he decided not to decrease our forces—the Germans 

who have I think, a better understanding, are putting more of their 

troops on the line and increasing their forces by 15 percent. That 

is something I think we should be thinking about doing, too, not 

for corrupt people, but for our own national security. 

Mr. WILDER. If I could just add to that, to highlight again the 

high cost that is being paid by the Afghan armed forces now. Just 

in the first 7 months of this year, we had 4,300 Afghan national 

defense service forces killed in Afghan and 8,000 wounded. That 

contrasts with the tragic loss of 2,300 approximately, Americans in 

the last 14 years in Afghanistan. But in the first 7 months, there 

was 4,300 killed, 8,000 injured. 

So that to me that is one of the biggest differences in Afghanistan and say an Iraq situation where we have an ANDSF which 

is fighting hard, and we now do have new leadership in Afghanistan that I think does want to be a strong partner, and I think as 

David mentioned earlier, the irony is that we gave a lot more resources when we didn’t really have a partner and we are pulling 

them away now when actually we do have a government that 

wants to partner with us. 

Mr. CLAWSON. What I hear all three of you saying is that we are 

off to a better start this time around and a lot more work to do. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much Mr. Clawson, and if I 

could ask each of you three to give us a 2-minute summary of the 

one takeaway that you want us to make sure that we do in Congress or that we don’t do. 

Mr. KAGAN. Ma’am, we have a vital national security interest in 

ensuring that Afghanistan does not become again a base for 

transnational terrorists who intend to attack the United States and 

its allies. We are at severe risk of having that happen. The current 

strategy that the President is pursuing will allow that to happen. 

We must reverse that strategy. There are a lot of things that are 

involved in reversing that strategy. As an early champion of Task 

Force Shafafiyat, which was all about the anticorruption effort, I 

agree with the criticality of dealing with governance issues, helping 

President Ghani do that. I think that the administration needs to 

be a lot more engaged in that, and I recognize that there is no 

purely military solution to a problem. However, this is a war, and 

there is no purely political solution to most wars. 

And so we need to look to what our military approach here is. 

There is a tyranny of terrain in Afghanistan. If you want to have 

bases where you need them to fight the enemy, there is a certain 

minimum footprint that you need to have. I have gone through this 

drill myself with my own teams. I have watched this drill in theater multiple times. The bottom line is if you are below about 

55

20,000 troops total, you are going to leave uncovered critical areas 

and critical units, and you are going to invite the reestablishment 

of certain kind of safe havens. No one wants to hear that number, 

and I am going to tell you, ma’am, that is a bottom end number. 

But the truth of the matter is that where we are is not sustainable 

from the standpoint of a strategy that can secure our homeland in 

Afghanistan. 

And I would only add because I have the privilege of speaking 

to Congress, Congress is part of the problem here because if you 

go back to the Army and ask them to put 20,000 or 30,000 troops 

in Afghanistan right now, they are going to talk to you about how 

difficult that is and about how impossible it is going to become if 

sequester is allowed to hit, if the Budget Control Act remains, if 

we continue to disarm our Nation as the world becomes more dangerous and wars and enemies expand. Thank you ma’am. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Message received. Thank you. Mr. Sedney. 

Mr. SEDNEY. As I said, I think the situation in Afghanistan is 

worse today than people realize, and next year it is going to be 

much worse. We need an immediate reevaluation of our policies. I 

would urge Congress to take the lead in calling for such a study 

and for Congress to fund such a study to force the administration 

to go ahead and relook at it and bring in other voices besides the 

political ones that you mentioned before to look at it, people like 

Dr. Kagan, people who know the situation. 

Secondly, Pakistan. Pakistan is not only not doing what it can 

to make Afghanistan more stable. What Pakistan is doing is making it less stable. You mentioned that you have before you aid 

packages for Pakistan. While Pakistan in some areas has helped 

us, in other areas it has not. I urge Congress to take very seriously 

the opportunity to put pressure on Pakistan to do the right thing 

and make Afghanistan safer. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. You can’t look at Afghanistan as a standalone. You are right. Pakistan is part of that. Thank you. Dr. Wilder? 

Mr. WILDER. Yes. Thank you. There is a tendency in these hearings, but also in the media to have all the news, the doom and 

gloom from Afghanistan. And I think the situation is, indeed, very 

serious, and we need to take it seriously. But I think we also need 

to put into perspective the incredible achievements that we have 

attained in Afghanistan. 

I mean, in my wildest imagination as the Save the Children Director working in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s, I 

could not have imagined that we would have achieved by 2015 

what we have achieved in terms of progress, in terms of women’s 

rights, social indicators, the media revolution, where Afghanistan 

has one of the freest medias in the region, and I could go on and 

on. So I think it is really important to remember those tremendous 

gains that have been made but could be lost, which is why I come 

back to my point of the need to remain engaged is the single most 

important message I would have today. 

I think 5 or 6 years ago I was testifying on the Senate side and 

arguing that we were actually trying to spend far too much money 

in Afghanistan, you know, far too quickly and that that scale of 

funding that we are trying to spend in the most insecure areas of 

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Afghanistan was fueling the corruption that was delegitimizing the 

government that was fueling the insurgency and so having all 

these perverse consequences. 

My concern today is that we not go from that extreme of trying 

to do too much in Afghanistan to the other extreme of doing too 

little in Afghanistan. We need to find the balance of how do we remain engaged in a much more sustainable way than before but for 

the long term, because as I said in my opening remarks, we paid 

a heavy price before when we walked away from Afghanistan prematurely. And I really think that to protect the U.S. national interests in Afghanistan, we need to remain engaged for the long-term. 

Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. Wonderful statements. Thank you to our excellent panelists. And with that, the 

subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY ANDREW WILDER, PH.D., VICE PRESIDENT, 

ASIA PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE


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