Afghanistan Escalation as a Case Study in Decision Making

It is surely the height of arrogance to propose an expert point of view on Afghanistan unless you have the relevant information.  I don’t have foreign policy or military expertise, but I do have a point of view on decision making, so at the risk of hubris, here goes . . .

One of the problems I see (already I’m in trouble) is that there is no shared problem definition.  That’s pretty typical of a class of puzzles many refer to as “wicked problems.”  No surprise here but this is where the problems begin. In the case of Afghanistan, it’s easy to spot the following problem definitions or frames:

According to one piece I read recently, the problem as defined by Sec Def Gates is, “How do we signal resolve and at the same time signal to the Afghans as well as the American people that this is not an open-ended commitment?”

The problem that General McChrystal sees relates specifically to the mission he’s been tasked with, which is to fight an insurgency.  Current Army doctrine on that topic says protect the civilians from the bad guys, kill bad guys, and work on building a civil society.

The problem many politicians see is “How do I position myself to score political points?”

The problem that many US citizens see is a pointless war.

The problem that many who think about these things see is how to not destroy the finest military our country, and maybe the world, has ever seen because of eight years of nonstop war.

You see where I’m going with this and you can further appreciate that each of these problem definitions, or “frames,” lead the honest thinker in different directions, both in terms of the alternatives you would consider and the trade-offs you might make.

What is true is that the collective we will not arrive at a common definition of the problem.  There was a time that could have happened, indeed did happen, but that time is now long past.  The question President Obama and his aides are asking is both geopolitical as well as simply political: Balancing the perceived need to continue to prosecute two wars in the Middle East while keeping the general populace onboard.  None of the alternatives are appealing on a good day, and it’s no longer a good day.

As a citizen, I have a point of view on what I think should happen.  As someone that thinks daily about quality decision making, I am annoyed by those who think Obama is dithering or prevaracating.  His predecessors had the dual luxury of having starting this war when the public was with them as well as an ideological lens that eliminating competing points of view and the alternatives that came with them.  Obama is not an idealogue when it comes to foreign policy and is genuinely trying to make a quality decision.  What must trouble him is the abiding fear that despite his best intentions, the outcomes will most likely not be good.