Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Hi, everybody, and welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. 0:16 I'm Judah Grunstein, WPR's Editor-in-Chief. 0:20 Before we get started on today's interview, just a quick reminder that you can subscribe to Trendlines on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast app of your choice, and you can find links to do so at worldpoliticsreview.com/podcast. 0:37 When U.S. 0:37 President Joe Biden announced his decision last week to fully withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by September 11th of this year, he justified it in part by pointing to an agreement signed by the Trump administration committing the U.S. 0:51 to withdrawing by May 1st. But he spent more time highlighting the disconnect between the original reasons the U.S. deployed its military to Afghanistan and the reasons now being used to justify its continued presence. 1:06 War in Afghanistan, he said, was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking. And yet, as Biden acknowledged in his speech, that's just what the forever war has become, with U.S. 1:19 soldiers now serving in Afghanistan who had not even been born at the time of the attacks of 9/11. What impact has this long and in many ways forgotten war had on the U.S. military? 1:31 And what has it meant for the role of the military in American society? In today's Trendlines interview, I'm joined by Andrew Exum to discuss those questions and more. 1:41 Andrew is a partner at Hacklett & Company, a global advisory firm. From 2015 to 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy. He began his career as an officer in the U.S. 1:56 Army, leading platoons of both light infantry and Army Rangers in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2009, he returned to Afghanistan to serve as a civilian advisor. 2:07 He was also a longtime WPR contributor and weekly columnist, and is a personal friend. Andrew, thanks so much for joining us on Trendlines. Yeah, thanks for having me. So you served in Afghanistan. 2:21 Uh, subsequently, you had a, uh, let's say a, a privileged position as an observer and an advisor in Washington, uh, to the mission in Afghanistan. So what, what... 2:33 Given that background and that experience, what was your immediate reaction, uh, to President Biden's decision to order a full withdrawal, uh, by September 11th? 2:44 You know, here in, as I heard the news here in Texas, my, my three young children were playing in the yard outside. 2:52 And I think my first reaction was of sadness, but also of, of just a realization that the war seemed very far away. 3:01 Um, like most people who fought in Afghanistan, my service was in the first 10 years of the war, not the second 10. Um, we've been at pretty low troop numbers for the past six to eight years, 3:14 um, had very few casualties, you know, in the, in the past, uh, most recent few years. So, you know, the combat is not as intense as it was for the, for the Americans at least. 3:25 Um, and, you know, most of us who fought in Afghanistan are forever shaped by the conflict, but have also in some ways moved on. Um, and the last time I personally went to Afghanistan was 2010. 3:40 Of course, uh, during the second term of the Obama administration, I was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, but that writ, uh, only extended to Iran. 3:51 So I would often go on trips with the secretary where he went to Afghanistan, but I usually didn't go with him, um, to, to Afghanistan. But I was able to, to, you know, speak to the people who did. 4:03 And I, I, um, you know, I was often in conversation with my colleagues who had that unenviable position of coordinating our policy towards Afghanistan. 4:13 And I asked one, this must have been in December of 2016 when we were on one of our last trips with the secretary, um, you know, kind of saying, you know, Merry Christmas and farewell to the, uh, to the troops before we left office. 4:28 And, uh, and of course, I went with him to Iraq, um, but my, my colleague went with him to Afghanistan. And I asked her, I said, I said, "Why are we still there? You know, what, what are the policy conversations like?" 4:40 Because I had my hands full with the, the fight against the Islamic State, and I wasn't, you know, really paying attention to the conflict in Afghanistan. 4:46 And, and she said, "You know, the, the reason we're still there is because the known risks of staying seem less scary than the unknown risks of leaving." 4:58 And what I think has happened over the past, you know, four or five years even, has been that the risk calculus has changed somewhat. Um, you know, 5:07 Obama was followed by a President Donald Trump, who clearly, um, did not, uh, have any time for the conflict in Afghanistan, although he, he wasn't able to, to bring it, the U.S. participation to a conclusion. Um, 5:22 and what that means is that there's really no kind of pro-war constituency, no meaningful pro-war constituency in either party. 5:30 And I, I think that provided, uh, President Biden, um, who himself has, has long doubted the, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to, to bring things to a, uh, to a conclusion. It's a, it's a hard decision. 5:43 Um, there are risks both for U- U.S. interests, uh, as well as for the Afghan people, um, as well as for the coalition. Um, I think that the U.S. can probably mitigate more of the former than the latter. 5:56 So you think it's the right decision? I do. Um, I, you know, I, I went back and forth on this because, um, 6:05 Based on my limited knowledge, you know, what I don't know is I don't know the risk and cost associated with the small residual troop presence. And so I don't know what that is. 6:18 And so it's hard for me to do a real good cost benefit analysis just because I'm not fully aware of what the costs are. But I think on balance, 6:30 I think what this president is trying to do is not just end the war in Afghanistan, but do something that, frankly, his two predecessors tried to do, both Obama and Trump, I think, in their own unique ways, which is turn the page on the post-9-11 era 6:48 and get the United States refocused towards future challenges, 6:53 which are, as we've seen from this president, both in his focus on China, but also, frankly, his overwhelming focus on things like economic recovery at home, climate change, racial justice, 7:08 fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, you know, the challenges at home and abroad, which seem, you know, much more daunting in some ways than the challenges in Central Asia. Just looking back at 7:22 that sort of the major period of the war when it was most in the spotlight in the U.S., I checked the last time I interviewed you was July 2009. 7:34 You'd just gotten back from the trip to Afghanistan advising Stanley McChrystal when he was the commanding general of U.S. and coalition forces. And 7:47 that whole period, in a sense, kind of also grows out of the history of the war in Iraq and the debates and adoption of counterinsurgency as a central mission of those wars, but also of the focus of the U.S. 8:03 military at the time. 8:06 Just looking ahead now that we're in this period of competition with great powers and the Trump administration's national security document already kind of turned the page on terrorism being a focus, how much of that 8:22 sort of muscle memory of counterinsurgency and stability operations and all of that sort of intellectual and doctrinal work that the U.S. 8:33 military really had to do on the fly and rediscover in Iraq, will that be mothballed now or is it going to sort of stick around in terms of the U.S. military's toolkit? So those are great questions. 8:45 I think where I would start is let me start big picture because the conflict in Afghanistan and the escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan, it grew out of Iraq in a couple of different ways. 8:56 First, it was the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. efforts were in some ways retarded by the commitment to Iraq, which took up a tremendous amount of resources. 9:06 You know, I think people think about resources in terms of troops and in terms of money spent, in terms of lives lost. 9:14 What they people who have not served in the government at a high level sometimes fail to realize is that sometimes the most important resource you have or is the attention of the senior leadership. Right. 9:26 And so the United States did not spend a lot of time thinking about Afghanistan from about late 2002 until, you know, early 2008 or so. 9:39 And within the Democratic Party and the party in which President Obama ran in 2008, the framing was that Iraq was the bad war. Afghanistan was the good war. 9:50 And that what we are going to do is that we are going to put our focus and our attention back where it should have been in the first place, which is on the war in Afghanistan. 9:59 And so there was a lot of momentum politically and strategically to refocus efforts there. I think once we did so, we discovered that the war in Afghanistan is in some ways much harder than the war in Iraq. 10:16 You're starting from a much lower baseline in terms of building up local security forces. It's a rural population, less of an urban population. So it was tough to find kind of the center of gravity in Afghanistan. 10:30 And in some ways, we just didn't know in the places that we did think were important, like Kandahar, like Kabul. We actually didn't even know if we were winning. So it was hard. 10:39 It was a hard place to wage any type of counterinsurgency campaign, much less one where you're working on behalf of a host nation government that has very low capabilities. And one of the ironies in Afghanistan is that 10:54 in some ways a driver of conflict, making the government stronger in some places was actually a driver of conflict, not something that was helping things. 11:02 So I always use the expression that having grown up in East Tennessee, mountain people want to be left alone. And people move to the mountains for a reason. 11:12 And so when you start, there's a great book that just came out by the journalist Wes Morgan about the campaign in the Pesh Valley, this 10-year campaign that the United States waged in the Pesh River Valley, where arguably the United States never should have been in the first place. 11:26 This very remote area of Afghanistan where I think something absurd like six or seven medals of honor were awarded for heroism, but heroism towards what end? You could say maybe the same thing about 11:42 Helmand Province where the Marines and others fought so bravely. 11:48 I think that because that war was so hard and because the application of a counterinsurgency strategy was so inconclusive, that there is really a temptation to turn your back on that. 12:00 I'm optimistic and less than optimistic about our ability to To, to, uh, to do so and whether or not we'll, we'll try to do so. 12:13 On the one hand, um, you know, low intensity conflict, America's now, or the world has now seen that if you really wanna challenge America, if you really wanna, you know, uh, see America struggle or at least get it bogged down is, you know, fight it in some sort of low intensity conflict. 12:26 So if you, if you, you know, are unable to prove at least to stay in power, and I think, you know, in some ways the United States did prove it stay in power in Afghanistan and, and I think in some ways the United States in the second iteration of Iraq during the campaign to roll back the Islamic State proved that, you know, we have internalized some lessons learned, and that we do know how to wage these campaigns in a way that, um, that are able to, um, to, to roll back these insurgent groups. 12:52 I mean, of course, the Islamic State made a mistake by declaring themselves a state, so fighting a state [chuckles] is much easier in some ways than fighting a, you know, a, an insurgency. 13:01 But I think that the United States, um, [lips smack] 13:06 on the one hand, within the US military, you are gonna have specialized units like US Army Special Forces, where things like unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense are, are baked into the DNA in a way that means 13:26 that we will not lose everything that we, um, that we've learned, um, in, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, 13:35 within even the non-special operations units, you've seen the, uh, the US Army at least stand up these advisory, um, brigades. 13:44 And these advisory brigades, which would've been incredibly useful in the early years in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think there's a sense that, you know, as you prepare for kind of steady state operations in East Asia, on Southeast Asia, those units will also be really, really helpful as you're trying to build up partnership capacity. 14:05 So I'm optimistic in that sense, and I also don't think we're gonna have this post-Vietnam moment where we're just gonna kind of literally burn [chuckles] the, uh, the counterinsurgency doctrine that we developed, which I think is what they did at Leavenworth. 14:17 They, they threw it away at least. Um, I don't think you're gonna see that. Where I also, though, think that you're gonna see a US military 14:26 that's impatient to get back to its comfort zone, which is gonna be, uh, large scale conflict, uh, great power competition, which is gonna necessitate big budget items, um, uh, which, uh, which is just kind of, I think is, is the, the comfort zone of, of the US military. 14:44 But, uh, so I... 14:45 It's a long way of saying that, um, that I do believe that you, you know, we're not gonna totally turn our back on the lessons learned and the doctrine, and you'll see it, um, you'll see that doctrine, those lessons learned, um, in certain specialized units. 15:00 But, uh, but I do think it's also true that, that the big military is, is eager to move on to something else. 15:04 And, and I understand why, because the, the war in Afghanistan has been, um, you know, very, very painful for it. You mentioned a, a, a sadness, uh, when you heard the decision to withdraw, uh, to withdraw. 15:16 Um, and, and just looking back at the, the, the discussions and the debates at the height of the US involvement in Afghanistan, and I'm thinking of things like, uh, the human terrain systems and the provincial reconstruction teams, and at a certain point, these, these sort of in the weeds discussions of road and school building projects in various p-provinces of, of Afghanistan, and how deeply, um, the, the... 15:44 and granular the debates online and, and among the observers and advisors and participants in the war got. 15:52 Um, when you look back at all that, do you think if we'd done it better, it, it, we had a chance, or was it just hubris to think that those kinds of approaches might have made a difference or worked? 16:05 You know, I think about a year into really studying Afghanistan closely, and, you know, I went over to Afghanistan in 2009, um, when I was still in graduate school. So I'd left the Army in 2004. 16:17 Um, I'd done a, you know, master's in Middle Eastern studies and was then doing a, a PhD in London, but was working at a think tank in DC, and I got asked to come over and, and, you know, advise, help advise Stan McChrystal, who was my commanding general in, um, in, in the US Army, and a man for whom I had a tremendous amount of respect. 16:36 And 16:38 I think that at some point, I reme- I don't remember when I said this, [chuckles] but I think it was about a year in, said, "You know, if we are developing a strategy where you kinda have to have a graduate degree to figure it out, like, 16:52 we're, we're, we're not gonna be successful here." Because when you think about the people that actually have to execute the strategy, we were just never gonna have, um, a cadre of 17:04 Pashto and Dari speakers and people who are gonna be really deep into the con- you know, conflict. We developed some of them. The Afghan Hands program, um, you know, was remarkable. 17:16 Now, whether or not we actually used those people, whether or not they fit into the military in a way where we made sure they were promoted and rewarded for the, the work that they did to, to learn the language, to spend time in Afghanistan, I think that's an open question, and the answer is probably we didn't. 17:30 But, um, but I think overall, you know, in conflict, 17:37 your strategy needs to be more simple than complex, and I think that there was a danger that folks like me, frankly, who were so focused on, you know, often the minutiae and trying to win at the local level, um, failed to generate a coherent strategy at the, uh, you know, at the political level. 17:57 I mean, I, I... That in some ways wasn't my responsibility. [chuckles] That's the responsibility of kind of the senior leadership. 18:03 But I do think it's true that a lot of the debates that you had, often between kind of junior officers and former junior officers who'd fought over there, um, were very tactical in nature. 18:13 And, um, and in some ways, those debates replaced the debates that, um, that we should've been having at m-more of the strategic level. Um, 18:24 but again, um, I, I do think that actually when you look back Those debates probably were happening in 2009 and 2010 within the Obama administration at least, um, but I don't think we've yet seen a full accounting of those, uh, or, uh, good account of those, uh, those debates. 18:41 So, so in some ways, maybe the public debates that we were seeing, they were insufficient, but they were also, you know, they were also only the debates that you, you were actually able to see. 18:54 Um, there could have been, you know, debates that are taking place. 18:56 And there have been some accounts, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's account of the conflict in Afghanistan, um, you know, I think were pretty good and outlined some of those debates. 19:06 You saw, uh, Obama's War by Bob Woodward, it gets into a little of this. 19:10 But, um, but I think maybe, you know, uh, uh, those debates were not often fully seen, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, when we get a, a full and official account, un-unclassified account of those debates in 2009, 2010, and, you know, how people acquitted themselves in those debates. 19:28 Having now been a-as part of those debates in, you know, in our campaign to, uh, roll back the Islamic State in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, it just underlines the fact that, you know, what you see in public often does not line up with, um, um, with, with all of the positions that are being aired in private. 19:47 And that's necessarily so. I mean, the public sees, um, you know, uh, a, a debate at one level, um, and it's a very healthy and it takes place, you know, in the open. 19:58 But, um, but, you know, in order to have a good strategic discussion, sometimes it has to be behind closed doors as, as it usually is, and it's often in, in, you know, the situation room and, and classified setting. 20:10 Uh, j-talking about that, that public debate, um, for me at least, and I think for a lot of people, um, inseparable from the war in Afghanistan was, um, this emergence of an online debate, um, and community. 20:27 I'm thinking of sites like Small Wars Journal by, uh, run by, uh, the, the late Dave Dilegge. 20:33 Um, your own blog, which, uh, which I, I think also kinda helped you, uh, get a foothold in Washington in terms of being someone who people listen to. 20:43 Um, and just a, a whole host and range of, uh, private security contractors in Afghanistan, humanitarian aid workers, academics, where there was just this, this, um, this, this almost flowering of debate and discourse. 20:58 Um, it... The disagreements were sometimes fierce, but it seems almost innocent in retrospect given, uh, the way things look online these days. I guess, uh, a few questions. 21:09 First, do you f- did, did, do, do you feel like the military insta-institutionalized, um, that kind of feedback loop, uh, to take advantage of those kind of discussions moving forward? 21:23 Um, and, and w-was there, was there a, a welcoming approach to that, um, i- for, for, uh, ideas from outside the military, or was it sort of seen as, as intrusion and, and, and irrelevant? 21:37 No, I think, I, I think actually it, it was... You're right to point out to the fact that it was a, it was a time of real intellectual ferment, um, you know, kind of the, among those, kind of the junior officer level. 21:47 You know, traditionally, the lessons learned process in the US military had been very top-down. 21:52 So you had a Center for Army Lessons Learned at, you know, Fort Leavenworth, to use the Army example, and, and each service is different. 21:58 But, you know, we'd go into the field, conduct interviews, figure out what, you know, what people were learning on the ground. 22:05 We'd come back up to Fort Leavenworth, we'd think for a while, and then a year or two later, we'd, you know, publish a report. 22:11 Uh, well, that was not very conducive [chuckles] to learning on the fly in an actual, uh, an actual conflict. 22:17 But I remember when I was first commissioned in, this would've been in 2000, we heard about this thing called companycommand.com and platoonleader.org, which were these kinda early online ways in which, they were informal, 22:32 for kind of, you know, US, uh, junior officers to trade tips and lessons learned, and, you know, "Here's how I write an op order," or, "Here's, you know, one way to, you know... 22:44 Here's one way to, you know, brief a warning order to your, to your troops." Like, "Here's a format that I use," you know, "Here's a three-by-five card that I use." 22:52 And it was, it was all, you know, it was peacetime military, right? So it was, um, it was very, um, you know, it was very focused on kinda garrison stuff. 23:01 But, uh, as the wars kicked off, then you still had these fora, and suddenly it was like, well, you, people were trading kind of TTPs, tactics, techniques, procedures, um, online in a way that, um, really kind of undercut the, um... 23:17 or left, uh, the traditional Army lessons learned process, um, left it scrambling to catch up in some ways. And this overwhelmingly was a positive thing. 23:25 So then those, you know, those very, you know, kind of tactical lessons learned, exchanges of ideas, debates spread to the rest of the internet. 23:33 The US Army, wisely I think, um, you know, kind of took charge of platoonleader.org, companycommand.com, encouraged it, brought it into the tent, so to speak. 23:42 And then kinda outside, you had, you know, sites like Small Wars Journal where, you know, there's kind of a place of open debate. Um, and I think overall, um, you know, very, it was very healthy. 23:54 Um, and, uh, I mean, I say so with a degree of self-interest because, of course, as you, as you mentioned, you know, I had a blog at this time, um, that, um, that was also the site for a lot of this, um, you know, this kind of ferment. 24:07 Um, and, um, overall, I think that, uh, that's gonna continue because in some ways, there, it, it was just reflective of a transition that was being made from, you know, kind of old media to new media. 24:21 And now, now that you have true social media, um, you know, you're seeing, I think, more exchange of ideas, um, more lateral exchange of ideas rather than kind of hierarchical or vertical exchange of ideas. 24:34 And that's a positive thing, and I expect that to, uh, that to continue. I, I think that those blogs in some ways came about at just the time in which 24:43 People were transitioning from one media to another, and as a result, it just hit a sweet spot where, you know, that, those became kind of fora in which people debated ideas. And it was fun to be a part of, frankly. 24:54 You know, it was, um, it, y- you're exactly right. I mean, it was, it was great for, um... 24:59 I started that blog as kind of a joke when I was in grad school, and then suddenly it became, like, this serious thing, and I was, like, getting jobs because of it. [laughs] It was, uh, it was a bit disorienting. 25:08 I'd say the name, but I don't know how to pronounce it, so if you wanna say the name. Yeah, yeah. So the blog was Abu Muqawama, which be- became, like... It w- It was a total joke. 25:16 It means, you know, father of the resistance in, in Arabic. But it was meant to be, like, a nom de guerre, you know, kind of like Abu Nidal or Abu Jihad or something like that. 25:24 And it came about 'cause I was doing research on Hezbollah at the time, which is the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiya Fi Lubnan. 25:32 Um, and, uh, and so I just, you know, I, I made this as my kind of nom de guerre/internet commenting, you know, handle. And, uh, and it just became, you know, something that a lot of people read. 25:42 I mean, you know, I, I was here in Dallas. It's so funny. Um, 25:46 um, I live in Dallas, Texas, and I was talking to a neighbor, and, uh, this is a guy who lives a block away, and he said, "Wait a minute, you're Abu Muqawama." I was like, "What? How, uh, how do you...?" 25:59 He was like, "I spent a year on a PRT in Eastern Afghanistan. Like, I used to read your blog all the time." 26:04 And so even, you know, here in Texas, you know, you, um, uh, you, you come about people who, who, you know, know the blog and, and, and are, are aware of it. 26:12 But at the same time, it, it points out that the, these, these, uh, like you said, some things that started out at, as a joke often had these, these long tails and, and far-lasting impacts or far-reaching impacts to someone who you meet, uh, 15 years later or 12 years later and, and realize, uh, that they were reading you every day. 26:31 So just a testament, I think, to, to what was going on at that time. Yeah. 26:36 I mean, where it became really embarrassing/funny, uh, was when I was, uh, I was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy. 26:43 I was traveling with the secretary to a, uh, an, a partner of ours in the Middle East, and a very senior, uh, Middle East defense official came up to me and said, "You're Abu Muqawama." And, and, like, you know, [laughs] 26:58 this, this, this Arab military officer had been reading my blog, you know, 10 years ago and is now a very senior official in his, uh, in his ministry of defense. It was very funny. Um, but, uh, but that was... 27:12 I was kind of sheepish, and you know, the secretary of defense is like, "How does he know you?" And I was, "Oh, well, uh, you know, stuff I've written." [laughs] Hard, hard to explain. Yeah. That's right. 27:21 I, I wanna look a little bit at the impact that, uh, that this war has had on, on the military, the military community writ large, and also on, on American society. 27:33 Um, there have been other wars, and I'm thinking, uh, specifically of, of the Vietnam War, uh, where the individual soldiers' or, or service members' experience was radically different depending on when they served. 27:48 Uh, I remember reading an oral history, uh, of a, a number of, uh, Vietnam vets, and this one guy who had served in the very early parts of the advisory mission, he was almost embarrassed to call himself a Vietnam vet because he'd spent most of the time surfing and hanging out in the officers' mess. 28:05 Um, but, uh, uh, but at the same time, Afghanistan is really the first war, uh, where a generation of US soldiers inherited a war that had begun before they were even born. 28:19 W- What, what effect does that have on, on the military community writ large? 28:23 Which, uh, y- I've, I've never served, so I don't know, but I, I imagine that it's a lifelong membership, uh, in terms of active service members, veterans, retired service members. 28:36 Uh, what, what effect does that have in terms of the kind of the f- the trust and the faith and, and the bonds that hold that community together? Well, I, I think that, um... 28:47 So, so they're very good questions, and I think the same dynamic that applied to Vietnam apply to Iraq and Afghanistan. 28:52 You know, I, I'm always very quick to say that I, you know, I served two short tours in Afghanistan early on in the war. I served one short tour in Iraq early on in the war. 29:01 I think I had one soldier wounded in Iraq, not badly. I had one soldier wounded in Afghanistan a little more badly. We had to medevac him, um, out of the country. Um, but never lost a, uh, a soldier in combat. 29:13 Um, and, uh, and then I contrast that. You know, I got out of the Army. 29:17 I had a knee injury that led me to get out of the Army, but then I, um, but you know, I was in grad school when the surge happened in Iraq, and suddenly all of my peers, who were company commanders, they're losing, you know, six, seven guys in their companies of, you know, 120. 29:31 That's a lot of people. Um, and it had a really tr- and, you know, and many more wounded, um, you know, real traumatic, uh, experiences. 29:39 And so I, I feel sheepish, you know, when, when talking about my own military service compared to theirs. By contrast, you know, my cousin, my cousin John served as a Marine in, in Iraq for a year. 29:49 I never served in, in either Iraq or Afghanistan for a year. Um, but you know, John is like, "Oh, you know, I, I barely served in Iraq." 29:59 He's very sheepish about it himself because, um, because he, you know, was kind of past the, uh, the, I think it was in 2008, 2009, so he's kind of past the hard fighting in, uh, in Iraq. 30:09 Um, or in between, rather, because there was also some hard fighting once the Islamic State, you know, started knocking on the door in 2015, but, um, or 2014. But, um, so I think the same dynamic applies there, right? 30:20 And so we've all gotta be a little bit humble about our, our military service unless you're one of these guys that, you know, did six or seven, you know, back-to-back-to-back-to-back tours, um, which, which some guys unfortunately did. 30:32 Um, uh, but regardless, 30:35 you know, when you look at it, I think what separates Vietnam from Afghanistan is, you know, 800,000 or so Americans fought in, uh, in Afghanistan, but It doesn't seem as if Afghanistan has had the impact on American society that the conflict in Vietnam did on American society. 30:56 Um, you know, it didn't have the cultural impact. It didn't have the widespread impact. There was never a draft. Um, and so, you know, 31:04 you talk about that guy who did back to back to back to back to back to back tours, there are a lot of those guys in Afghanistan, especially in my old unit, the Ranger Regiment, which did short tours. 31:12 So you had guys who'd deploy, you know, 10, 11, 12 times to Afghanistan, which sounds crazy. Let me tell you something. Nobody [chuckles] went to Vietnam 10, 11, 12 times. 31:22 You know, occasionally you'd find someone who did one year-long tour and then maybe did one more year-long tour. I mean, I think Colin Powell did that, and he made a career out of the military. 31:31 But most guys went over for, you know, six to 18 months, that was it. And they did kind of their one tour, and then they were done. But it affected a much larger swath of the American population, I think. 31:43 By contrast, you know, Afghanistan, I, I think it will not have a big impact on the American population writ large, just because the sacrifices and the, the service were borne by just a very small number of people. 31:56 And, you know, look, uh, at the end of the day, um, as expensive as these wars were, they were relatively cheap in terms of, uh, in terms of the lives lost, in terms of the, um, the money spent. 32:08 That sounds really callous, but, you know, but, but when you think about, um, these conflicts, you know, unless these... There was no tax to pay for the war, right? Like, we just put these wars on our credit card. 32:20 And, um, and the people who did die, they were from a pretty small cross-section of American society. So when I say the wars were cheap, 32:29 you know, what I really mean, of course, is that the, the, the costs of the wars were, were borne by few. Um, and, uh, and so I, I just don't think it's gonna have that much of an impact. On the US military, um, 32:44 you know, it's harder to say. The thing about the US military is it turns over pretty quickly. 32:48 So, um, so very few people have fought in Afghanistan relatively, um, within the US population, or within the US military even, over the past 10 years. And guys, you know, a, a career in the US military is 20 years. 33:01 So within 10 years, you may see people, you know, you may see, actually see very little Afghanistan experience within the US military, [chuckles] which is pretty remarkable, right? 33:11 Um, uh, and, um, and so I, I wonder, you know, how much even, kind of how much Afghanistan and Iraq will persist in the US military, even in living memory. 33:22 When I look at my peers, look, those guys are, like, brigade commanders now. [chuckles] You know? They're at the tail end of their military careers. 33:29 I have guys coming to me who I commissioned with asking me for retirement advice, right? Um, and that was just 20, 21 years ago. 33:37 So, or, you know, asking me what they should do, you know, once they retire out of the military, you know, what their next job's gonna be. 33:43 So I think the war is gonna fade shockingly fast from the military in terms of living memory. At the same time, uh, it, it's been the forever war. 33:52 It's also, as you, as you said, it's been the forgotten war in a lot of ways. 33:56 Um, and at the same time, there's been, in American society, this adoption of what, what seems often like a, a perf- performed theater of recognition. 34:08 Um, thank you for your service, veterans pre-boarding on flights, uh, uh, the, the, the recognition at, uh, at major sporting events, things like that. You've been critical of some of that. 34:20 Uh, I'm not sure of all of it, but I know, uh, you wrote a column for us, you wrote a column for us at one point criticizing the pre-boarding on flights, for instance. Why? 34:28 Explain, explain what, what, uh, what your, your objection to that was. You know, I think a lot of veterans, not just myself, feel like we are creating this entitlement complex among US veterans. 34:41 Now, it's important to realize, like, why we have all this thank you for your service type, you know, type stuff and, you know. 34:48 Um, I, I feel sheepish when, you know, in church on, you know, Veterans Day, um, I'm am asked to stand up. 34:55 It just feels, I feel, I feel, you know, it just feels weird, uh, to, to me personally, and I'm sure I'm not the only veteran who feels that way. 35:02 But a lot of that's a response to the thought that we didn't treat our veterans well after the Vietnam conflict. 35:08 Um, and so, you know, recognizing that and recognizing that we may be overcorrecting a little bit, um, but we are, you know, we are very much correcting a perceived wrong, and, and that's, um, I think that's important to, to note. 35:21 Um, I do worry 35:23 that we are, um, creating a, a sense of entitlement among veterans, and we're also creating a sense that, um, veterans are somehow better than their other, than their fellow citizens and the people that didn't serve. 35:36 And that, you know, creates for me a concern about, um, about s- civil military relations, you know, going forward. 35:45 You know, uh, when we have this military that has borne all the sacrifices of, um, the, the post 9/11 era, um... 35:54 I say the military, of course, there's, you know, intelligence services and, and the foreign service, diplomats. 35:59 Of course, you know, people beyond the military, you know, contributed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but mostly the, the burden was borne by, by the US military. 36:06 Um, we keep telling them, you know, the problem is if you keep telling people they're special, um, they will, um, they might believe it, and, um, they might believe that they are, um, they are somehow super citizens or something, something greater. 36:18 So, um, so that's my, that's my main concern. 36:22 Uh, at the same time, the US military has become, uh, the most trusted institution, uh, among the American population, uh, far more trusted and far more popular than, for instance, Congress or elected representatives. 36:37 Um, do you see that, uh, those perceptions of the US military perhaps evolving now that the, the operational deployments are winding down in Afghanistan and, uh, Iraq and other ar- uh, other places where it had been in such a spotlight that it, that it created that, that perception? 36:55 Yeah, I hope so. I, I hope so for, 'cause I don't think it's healthy for the military. I actually think that we need a, um, we need a US military that is going... 37:05 We need a, a, frankly, an American population that's gonna ask hard questions of its military. Um, we need a, a US population that's going to, 37:15 frankly, be a little less reverential towards its, um, towards its, its military. And I, uh, I think that frankly, we need a, a US military that can take the criticism. 37:27 Um, you know, at the end of the day, it can't just be US veterans, uh, or those who have served in, in the US military who ask hard questions about US defense policy, for example, or about the US defense budget. 37:40 That can't become a taboo subject for anybody who hasn't served. 37:44 Um, uh, we have to, uh, I think, y- every American from, you know, my next door neighbor, um, who ne- who's never served, um, to my other next door neighbor who's, you know, an immigrant here from the United Kingdom, has every much a right as I do to ask questions of the US defense budget and the way we spend, uh, our precious national, national resources that, um, that, that, you know, any, any veteran does. 38:08 And so, um, so I, I hope that we... And then, you know, separate from that, look, um, let's, let's be honest here. 38:15 Um, we, I think we have a lot to be proud of, um, in, with respect to the way in which our military performed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, yet I completely understand [chuckles] the frustration you hear and the, the vitriol you see directed at some senior generals in, um, in Afghanistan certainly. 38:33 Um, because year after year, we were told that we were making progress, we were told that we just need a little more time. We were told that, um, you know, we were given a pretty rosy assessment. 38:41 And I know of several examples where, um, general officers, um, pushed back in a, what I think is a very unhelpful way against, um, the, the US intelligence community. 38:53 Um, and, uh, and doubted the conclusions that the US intelligence community had reached, the correct conclusions they had reached, in places like Southern Afghanistan. 39:03 I, I know of examples where, you know, CIA analysts, um, delivered very bleak assessments that ended up being correct, and, um, and general officers, uh, commanding officers, um, you know, publicly berated them for it, or semi, or, uh, I guess semi-publicly berated them for it in front of, you know, other military officers. 39:24 Um, and so I think there's, you know, we're right to be, uh, a little bit critical of some of our military leadership. 39:30 Um, and, and every American, regardless of whether or not you served, has a right to be critical of that, that leadership and to ask hard questions of that leadership and to ask, "Well, look, we spend a lot of money on the, the US military. 39:41 Why, why weren't we more successful? Tell me, tell me why we weren't more successful." 39:45 Or, you know, "Were, were these sacrifices that we made, these decisions that we made, these decisions that you made, were they, were they right ones?" 39:51 Look, I, you know, I've served at a, as a senior, uh, official in government. 39:56 Um, I would encourage all Americans [chuckles] to ask me hard questions about the decisions we made between, you know, 2015 and 2017 with respect to the fight against the Islamic State. 40:06 You know, hold us to account for those, uh, for those, uh, those decisions we made. 40:10 I think I've got reasonably good answers, um, but they all involved, you know, trade-offs where we, we knew we were, we were accepting risks and we knew, um, you know, in some cases, decisions didn't come off. 40:21 Andrew, last question before we wrap up. You were among the first US soldiers to enter Afghanistan, uh, after 9/11. 40:29 Uh, what would you say to the last ones leaving if you were greeting them onto the plane flying them out? 40:36 You know, as cheesy as it sounds, especially given the, the conversation we just had, I think the only thing you can say is, you know, "Thank you for your service. Thank you for a race well run." 40:44 Um, you know, um, this has been a hard conflict. 40:48 I imagine that that soldier, because they've probably been in an advisory capacity, they might have served in, you know, one of our, our special operations units where they're doing, you know, some, some hard fighting, kinda tip-of-the-spear type stuff, but they might feel quite sheepish, you know, to be, to be closing the door on, uh, on that, on US involvement in that conflict. 41:06 Um, but I think we can just show our appreciation because, look, um, anytime you come back from conflict, um, the conversation that I would have with someone leaving Afghanistan immediately might be different than the conversation I would have with them two years later. 41:20 Immediately when leaving a combat zone, I think there's a, there's a degree of sensitivity there, there's a degree of vulnerability there that you have to be respectful of, and you just have to be supportive of them, and I think we, we as a society owe that. 41:31 Um, and then, you know, when they're back for a while, then let's have a hard conversation about, you know, "What did you see? Um, do you think we made the right decision? 41:39 Um, tell me, you know, tell me about kind of your impressions now that you've had time to process it." 41:44 Um, so I think to, to, to revisit my answer, um, I would have a different conversation with someone who's just left Afghanistan than I would have with someone who's been back for two or three years. 41:56 Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. It's been a, a privilege to be back, um, to be back in the, the warm braces of, uh, of, of you guys. 42:06 Um, I miss, I miss writing for you guys on a regular basis. Um, but, uh, but I'm, I'm looking forward to, to hearing how this came out. 42:14 [outro jingle] If you like what you hear on Trendlines, you can subscribe to it on the podcast platform of your choice, and you can also find links to do so at worldpoliticsreview.com/podcast. 42:29 Trendlines is edited by Peter Dury. You can follow him, myself, and World Politics Review on Twitter. Thanks for listening, and tune in again next week. 42:38 [outro jingle]
