General McChrystal’s plea for a major surge in US troops in Afghanistan has once again drawn attention to the most wrenching foreign policy dilemma of the Obama presidency: its Afghanistan strategy. There are basically two positions now on

offer. One is what might be called the maximalist strategy. On this view, the US has to be committed to Afghanistan for the long haul. It has to be reconciled to the proposition that Afghanistan will require an immense commitment of troops, financial resources and political will, for at least two decades if not more. Although no one uses the word, America will have to act like a radical imperial power: creating a state where there is none, controlling the economy, restructuring social relations, and vigilantly attending to its security concerns.

The idea that Afghanistan could be secured on the cheap, without a good old-fashioned blanketing of the troops on the ground, was a colossal illusion. At its core such a strategy was self-defeating thrice over. But having an adverse troop to territory ratio, the US has to rely on more air-strikes and the collateral damage simply produces more backlash. By not appearing fully in command, the US has not given Afghans an incentive to fully support it. And if it does not commit fully, it will send a message out to all its adversaries that they simply need to wait for the US to cut bait and run. In some ways the argument hopes that the act of sending the signal itself, that the US is prepared to do all that it takes, will itself help the effort. It will convince Afghans that there is only one game in town. Paradoxically, sending a signal that the US is ready to stay for as long as it takes may be the only way of ensuring that it does not have to stay long. Anything less would be regarded as a failure; it might expand the space for unsavoury political movements like the Taliban and put American security at risk.

... contd.