An Abdication of Duty

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/06/trump_letting_mattis_decide_afghanistan_troop_levels.html


June 15 2017 11:06 AM
An Abdication of Duty

By letting James Mattis decide U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Trump is proving once again how unfit he is to lead.
By Fred Kaplan


President Trump has decided to let Secretary of Defense (and retired four-star general) James Mattis set U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan—a move that amounts to yet another indication, in some ways an admission, that the commander in chief is not up to the job.

It would be one thing if Trump laid out his political and strategic aims in the war, then let his military chiefs calculate how many troops would be needed to accomplish those goals. This is what presidents usually do, though some take the chiefs’ advice as just that—a proposal, which they can accept, reject, or modify—rather than as a dictum.

But Trump hasn’t done that. (By contrast, President Obama ordered a review after one week in office, then chaired 10 National Security Council meetings to discuss the subject.) What is the goal of the war—to defeat the Taliban, to defeat only the jihadi fighters, or to drive one or the other to the negotiating table, and if so, with what desired end-state? Should U.S. troops engage in combat or just train and assist the Afghan army, and, if the latter, how close should they get to the battlefields? Is it possible to win this war (and what does win mean?), if the Afghan regime remains corrupt? If not, are there ways for us to help the regime reform? And if not, should we phase out our involvement?

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In other words, by turning over his authority to Mattis, Trump has all but guaranteed that more American troops will soon be sent to Afghanistan. Senior officers in the Pentagon have reportedly asked for another 5,000 troops in addition to the 8,000 still there. It’s a fair bet that Mattis will endorse the request. And it’s also a fair bet that they won’t be the last American troops sent over. When things go badly in a war, an officer’s natural instinct is to believe that a few more battalions or brigades might turn the tide. President Lyndon Johnson acceded to this instinct in Vietnam. President Obama quashed it in Afghanistan. (Obama let the generals have 30,000 more troops at the end of 2009 but said he’d start withdrawing them 18 months later if they failed to accomplish the mission by then—and, to everyone’s surprise, he kept his promise.)

Trump, at least for now, has decided to let the retired general running the Pentagon do as he pleases. He has abdicated his powers as commander in chief, and maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing; no doubt Mattis, for all his limitations, has a keener strategic acumen than Trump. But Trump should realize that presidents are held responsible for every decision made in their tenure. Letting a Cabinet secretary make the call does not let him off the hook; deciding not to decide is itself a decision. And in this case, Trump has decided to prolong and intensify our involvement in this war—to what end, no one can say.