TW: See below for my parsing of some German thoughts on AfPak. We need the Germans and the Germans should want to be engaged in AfPak, else they are free-riders. But if our policies suck (as they have frequently have) then engaging for them is very challenging.
From George Packer at New Yorker:
"Among those waiting for the outcome of the White House review of its Afghanistan strategy are the Germans. The country’s politicians refuse to call the war in Afghanistan a war. Germany’s participation was sold to the public here as peacekeeping and reconstruction, and that’s what it must remain to prevent any further erosion of support...The German politicians and journalists I’ve spoken with want Germany to do more, not less, in Afghanistan, even if that means fighting. Public opinion in this amazingly pacifist country runs otherwise, though only the extreme left and right want an immediate withdrawal. This gap between élite and mass opinion is a dangerous one, since there’s so little attempt by German leaders to explain the country’s position in the war and why it might be necessary to do more than build roads and schools. A single mass-casualty blow against German forces in Afghanistan (or against a soft target here in Germany—the intelligence traffic has been unusually heavy recently) could significantly change the terms of this non-debate.
I spoke with a senior German diplomat earlier this month, and several points he made struck me:
1.The Germans are waiting for an American position to emerge before they come up with their own. [TW: seems fair, they are not the only ones, if we back off most others will flee, on the other hand if we escalate we will need all hands on deck]
2.There is little to no real consultation of the NATO allies on the part of the White House—its strategy review is an internal affair. If so, this is really too bad. We have a lot to learn from our Europeans allies in Afghanistan. Germans in particular have ties there that go back to the nineteenth century. [TW: hopefully this is not literally true, allies always claim to be under-consulted, we should be engaging our allies strenuously, if we want their help we owe them engagement]
3.Germans have a hard time accepting the narrow rationale for the war in Afghanistan, based on preventing another 9/11. For them, the reason to be in Afghanistan is to prevent a return to power of the Taliban and with it an enormous propaganda victory for Islamists all over the world. In other words, Obama’s turn away from Bush’s more ideological agenda and toward a narrow focus on national security is not necessarily persuasive here, in spite of the former’s huge popularity and the latter’s abysmal reputation. (How’s that for irony?) [TW: I disagree with how Packer frames this. If Obama is merely trying to avert another 9/11 he is going to make big mistakes. On the other hand Bush's neo-con ideology was about imposing democracy and asserting American imperial capabilities. What Obama will hopefully do is ignore that ideology whilst pursuing realpolitik policies to stabilize the AfPak region which have little to do with democracy and U.S. imperialism but much to do with containing radical Islam and maintaining a stable Pakistan.]
4.The German attitude toward the fraudulent Afghan election is: what did you expect? It happens all the time in that part of the world. The problem comes when you raise expectations to an unreasonable level. I’ve also heard this view from a couple of American officials. Here, it seems connected to a sense of European realism, if not cynicism, toward America’s universalist approach to democracy when applied to non-European countries...
[TW: I agree with this attitude, getting wrapped up in Karzai's "democratic" credentials is a false errand]."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2009/10/the-german-view-of-afghanistan.html
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