Analysis: Better inputs, uncertain outcomes

State-building efforts

First, though, some details on state-building in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration seems to be on the right track. Agricultural policy, for example. Otto Gonzalez, the Agriculture Department official in charge of Afghanistan, pointed out that America had been spending more on poppy eradication than on farming projects. Now Holbrooke's team is investing millions in education programs and farm equipment.

The U.S. has also stopped destroying poppy crops; as Holbrooke put it, "we're not at war with poppy farmers, we're at war with somebody else." The Pentagon is still, however, targeting high-level drug dealers, which some observers call a classic example of "mission creep" in Afghanistan. Holbrooke said these efforts will continue.

There's also a massive public information/"counter-propaganda" campaign underway, according to several of Holbrooke's advisers -- not just in Afghanistan, but also across the border in Pakistan.

"[Taliban] propaganda has gone unchallenged," said Ashley Bommer, Holbrooke's chief of staff. "We need to empower the people and denigrate the enemy... to shift the paradigm so the debate is not between the U.S. and the militants but between the people and the militants."

To translate that into English: The U.S. wants to convince people in Afghanistan and Pakistan that supporting the Taliban is not in their best interests. Given the deep unpopularity of the group in both countries, that seems an achievable goal.

Define success

But as Holbrooke himself noted, these are inputs, not outputs. A multi-million dollar investment in farm equipment doesn't necessarily mean that Afghan farmers will actually produce more food. It certainly doesn't guarantee democracy, security or meaningful economic developments.

Barnett Rubin, an NYU professor and one of Holbrooke's advisers, offered one definition of "success" in Afghanistan.

We're not waging a war until Afghanistan is a perfect democracy... I wouldn't expect people to believe such an unrealistic commitment... but we are committed to fight there until we are secure from terrorist attacks launched from there and until the region is safe from nuclear terrorism.

Security is hard to measure, of course: After all, many U.S. intelligence analysts thought the U.S. was safe from terrorism before 9/11. And Rubin's conditions for success might be difficult to achieve because, as Holbrooke noted, Afghanistan's security forces are proving hard to develop.

The biggest single problem is going to be strengthening the police... the police, in any analysis of guerrilla wars, counterinsurgencies... you can't do it unless the police take over a key role in security after the military forces do the clearing.

And what of the myriad other state-building efforts? How will the U.S. know if those are working? The Obama administration has struggled to develop meaningful benchmarks for its occupation. Holbrooke didn't offer any clarity; instead, he offered what he called a "Supreme Court test": "we'll know it when we see it."

This is how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously defined pornography in a 1964 opinion.

It's also a non-answer: The U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan when... Richard Holbrooke decides it's a good idea?

Justifying the occupation

Holbrooke also, at least in my mind, did not satisfactorily explain why the Afghan war is in the U.S. national interest. He rhetorically asked why the U.S. continues to fight Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan if the group has largely moved its operations to Pakistan. Then he tried to answer:

The connections are clear. If Afghanistan is fertile recruiting territory for the Taliban, it gives Al-Qaeda more terrain from which to operate... they are basically fighting in support of one another.

There's some truth to this, at least at the upper echelons of both organizations. Your average Taliban insurgent fights because of local grievances: tribal rivalries, lack of economic opportunity, etc. It is true, though, that Taliban leaders made the decision to harbor Al-Qaeda in the 1990s.

But there are a few problems with this argument. I would question the notion that Afghanistan is "fertile" territory for the Taliban: Peter Bergen estimated last month that the Afghan Taliban has maybe 20,000 men -- in a country of more than 30 million. I would also point out, again, that Al-Qaeda is able to operate in plenty of other countries: Yemen, for example, and a large swath of North Africa. Why would it need a base in Afghanistan? And why is the U.S. so obsessed with denying it a base in Afghanistan?

Holbrooke didn't engage with those questions. Presumably that's because they are "above his pay grade": Obama wants to escalate in Afghanistan, and Holbrooke's job is to run the civilian side of that escalation.

So, for what it was worth, Holbrooke's talk was reassuring: His team obviously has a number of good ideas about state-building in Afghanistan. But they still seem unsure about what kind of state they ultimately expect to build.