    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                 ASSESSING THE PRESIDENT'S STRATEGY IN AFGHANISTAN

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                        THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                DECEMBER 2, 2015

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 114-131

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

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                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                     EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         BRAD SHERMAN, California
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California         GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas             THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
    TED POE, Texas                       BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    MATT SALMON, Arizona                 KAREN BASS, California
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina          ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   AMI BERA, California
    PAUL COOK, California                ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
    RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas            GRACE MENG, New York
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    TED S. YOHO, Florida                 ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
    CURT CLAWSON, Florida                BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
    REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
    DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
    TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
        15 deg.
    DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
        of 5/19/15 deg.

         Amy Porter, Chief of Staff      Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director

                   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
                                     ------

                Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa

                     ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas            DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         GRACE MENG, New York
    TED S. YOHO, Florida                 LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    CURT CLAWSON, Florida                BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                                   WITNESSES

    Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D., Christopher DeMuth chair and director,
      Critical Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute........     6
    Mr. David. S. Sedney, senior associate, Center for Strategic and
      International Studies..........................................    13
    Andrew Wilder, Ph.D., vice president, Asia Programs, United
      States Institute of Peace......................................    29

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................     8
    Mr. David. S. Sedney: Prepared statement.........................    15
    Andrew Wilder, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.........................    32

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing notice...................................................    58
    Hearing minutes..................................................    59
    Andrew Wilder, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record..........    60
    The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
      from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement..........    65

               ASSESSING THE PRESIDENT'S STRATEGY IN AFGHANISTAN

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015

                         House of Representatives,

               Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa,

                         Committee on Foreign Affairs,

                                Washington, DC.

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in
    room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-
    Lehtinen (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. With the approval of the ranking member,
    we are going to start. And thank you very much. The
    subcommittee will come to order.
        After recognizing myself and the ranking member for 5
    minutes each for our opening statements, I will then recognize
    any other member seeking recognition for 1 minute. We will then
    hear from our witnesses. Thank you for your patience. Without
    objection the witnesses' prepared statements will be made a
    part of the record and members may have 5 days to insert
    statements and/or questions for the record subject to the
    length and limitations in the rules. The chair now recognizes
    herself for a loosely defined 5 minutes.
        As we are all aware, earlier this week the Department of
    State issued a notice warning of a possible imminent attack in
    Kabul. With so much of our attention focused on the threat from
    ISIS and the problems in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, it is important
    that we do not lose sight of some of the other areas of concern
    for our national security interests, and this security warning
    is a stark reminder of that.
        It took a resurgent Taliban seizing control of Kunduz for
    President Obama to adjust his strategy, announcing a halt to
    the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. It was an
    acknowledgement that the strategy of gradual withdraw was not
    in line with the reality on the ground. Yet concerns remain
    that the President isn't leaving behind enough troops to
    support our objectives in Afghanistan. What was lost in the
    discussion was the fact that Afghan security forces were able
    to regain Kunduz back from the Taliban.
        Our military leaders on the ground feel confident that the
    Afghan security forces have done a good job fighting during
    this season, and are more professional than the Iraqi security
    forces. Today our core mission is to train, to advise, and to
    assist the Afghan security forces, and to conduct
    counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda and its many
    affiliates.
        Last month I led a bipartisan congressional delegation
    (codel) visit and was pleased to be joined by one of our
    members of our subcommittee, Dr. Yoho, to Afghanistan to meet
    with our troops carrying out this important mission, as well as
    to discuss pressing issues with President Ghani, CEO Abdullah,
    General Campbell, and other U.S. military leaders. I had also
    visited in 2013 when we met with President Karzai.
        The one thing that was abundantly clear to me this time
    around and echoed by everyone with whom I met was that the
    Afghan Government's eagerness to cooperate with us has greatly
    improved and that the team of Ghani and Abdullah is an
    improvement over any combination of Karzai and anyone else.
        The current Afghan leaders are saying the right things and
    are undertaking efforts to root out corruption, to secure and
    stabilize their own country. We cannot abandon our ally. We
    must redouble our efforts to remain engaged to seek a more
    stable Afghanistan.
        ISIS is growing in its presence in Afghanistan, mainly by
    attracting some of the more radical elements of the Taliban who
    have broken away and have sworn allegiance to ISIS. And that
    makes our strategy in Afghanistan that much more important.
    General Campbell told Congress that the terror group status in
    Afghanistan has grown from nascent to operationally emergent
    over the course of just a year. Yet when I led our
    congressional delegation to Afghanistan, I was shocked to hear
    that our mission does not give our commanders and troops the
    authority to go after ISIS, that the tasks for containing and
    defeating this rising threat falls squarely on the Afghan
    Government and its security forces.
        The day the codel departed from the region, we learned that
    seven people in Afghanistan were beheaded by ISIL, and
    thousands of people came out to the streets to protest this
    horrific act of terror. We must rethink the scope of our
    mission to include taking on more than just al-Qaeda and its
    affiliates. We should also re-assess our counternarcotics
    approach in Afghanistan. Terror and drugs are linked as much as
    the profits from the drug trade in Afghanistan fund these
    terror groups. While it is encouraging that the new Afghan
    Government has signed a new counterdrug plan, we need to ensure
    that it has the resources it needs to succeed in action.
        I remain concerned that the number of DEA agents has
    decreased substantially. Our state INL staff are limited in
    their movements, and the Afghan counternarcotics forces cannot
    concentrate on the drug trade because they are busy fighting
    terrorism. Both the U.S. forces and the security forces of
    Afghanistan have a limited amount of air lift capabilities,
    which further limits their ability to tackle any major security
    or counternarcotics concern. This runs the danger of leaving a
    wide area of Afghanistan unexposed to our security efforts, and
    it could have terrible and tragic consequences.
        The administration needs to revisit its strategy, and not
    just put a halt on the withdrawal because artificial timelines
    will not work, and it needs to also get buy-in from Pakistan.
    President Ghani has reached out his hand to Pakistan, but has
    been rebuffed. The U.S. cannot afford to have Pakistan play
    into the instability in Afghanistan and to continue to allow
    terrorists safe haven inside its borders. We currently have a
    pending military package for Pakistan before us in this
    committee. We need to use this leverage to get Pakistan to do
    more on the counterterrorism front and to collaborate rather
    than work against the Afghan Government and its security
    forces.
        During our trip we were also honored to meet with the
    courageous women of Afghanistan and were proud to hear of the
    strides that they are making on behalf of women's rights thanks
    to their hard work and leadership. The stakes are too high in
    Afghanistan for the Afghan people, for the region, and for U.S.
    national security interests to allow Afghanistan to fall back
    on any of the progress we have made together thus far.
        Lastly, I want to thank the men and women who so bravely
    serve and protect our national security interests in
    Afghanistan. We had an opportunity to meet with so many of
    these truly heroic and courageous individuals who continue to
    put their lives at risk each and every day so that we can sleep
    safely at home while they are out there defending our freedom
    and our values.
        And it says say this, it says here. Say this: Congressman
    Deutch got pulled into a last minute meeting, but he will show
    up a little bit later.
        So now I am going to recognize other members for their
    statements. And we will begin with Mr. Cicilline.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman and Ranking Member Deutch for
    convening this very important hearing relating to U.S. strategy
    in Afghanistan. Over the previous 14 years, the U.S. has spent
    an estimated $1 trillion and lost more than 2,300 American
    lives in Afghanistan. Military gains by the Taliban and the
    growing presence of groups like Daesh, as well as a growing
    number of loosely aligned armed groups provide grave
    uncertainty regarding Afghanistan's security and stability. It
    also reveals tremendous challenges and even uncertainty about
    what role we can effectively play in resolving these conflicts.
        The President's recent shift in strategy will leave a
    significant number of American forces in Afghanistan beyond
    2016, creating an unclear future regarding our presence in the
    region and when it will finally conclude.
        I look forward to hearing the perspective of today's
    witnesses who will help provide an assessment of the
    President's strategy in Afghanistan and its impact on our
    overall national security. And with that I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, sir.
        Mr. DeSantis.
        Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am glad you called
    this hearing because I don't know what the President's strategy
    really is in Afghanistan. I don't know what his strategy really
    is to deal with terrorism in other parts of the Middle East. I
    haven't quite been able to figure out his overall foreign
    policy generally apart from making concessions to regimes that
    are adverse to our interests like Iran and Russia. So I am
    hoping to be enlightened, and I am glad you called the hearing.
    And I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Frankel, who was actually here before Mr. Cicilline,
    because she welcomed you with great pomp and circumstance. I
    did not realize that, Ms. Frankel.
        Ms. Frankel. That is all right. Mr. Cicilline can go ahead
    of me any time.
        Thank you, Madam Chair, for this hearing. I will be short
    just to--as the chairlady knows, my son served in the United
    States Marines in Afghanistan. He also went back to Afghanistan
    as a member of USAID. So I have a great deal of interest in
    hearing what you have to say today. And I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you for your family's sacrifice,
    Ms. Frankel.
        Mr. Zeldin.
        Mr. Zeldin. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I want
    to echo Ron DeSantis' point, how grateful we are that you are
    holding this hearing. And I think it is important for our
    constituents to know exactly what the President's strategy is
    in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and Syria. A strategy which is
    questioning what is the realty on the ground overseas, not so
    much what is the rhetoric here at home to best serve one's
    domestic politics.
        We want to know what the rules of engagement are. Are we
    giving flexibility to our local commanders so that they could
    adapt to changing circumstances? Who exactly are the forces on
    the ground? Who is in charge? What is their mission? What is
    their skill set? What's the long-term plan? What is the vision
    for where we want to be a year from now or 5 years from now?
    Whenever we send servicemembers into harm's way, it is
    important for them, their families, for our country to know
    that they are being sent with a strategy to win to keep them
    safe. I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Boyle of Pennsylvania.
        Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and I really am
    going to refrain from an opening statement except to say two
    things. So I guess I am not refraining from an opening
    statement, in typical congressional fashion.
        The first is I am very anxious to hear from this august
    panel. I have had the opportunity to hear from one of the
    members before and am familiar with the work of all three of
    you. That is number one. And, number two, because I might not
    get the opportunity later to say it, absolutely anyone would be
    better than Hamid Karzai, who seemed to in no way appreciate
    the sacrifice that the American people have gone through over
    the last 14 years. So, if anything, we can celebrate that we
    actually do have somewhat of a partner in Afghanistan to move
    us forward. I will yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Amen. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Chabot of Ohio.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for
    holding this hearing. And we thank our witnesses. Looking
    forward to hearing what they have to say this afternoon.
        It seems in recent months due to the growing problems in
    Syria, and the Iran nuclear agreement, and ISIS and a litany of
    other major issues all across the world, that Afghanistan to
    some degree, has kind of been, I think, on the back burner of
    this administration, has kind of fallen from view in many ways.
    However, without question the increase in terrorist attacks
    across the globe is a real threat to stability in the world,
    the future of Afghanistan, and could really undermine U.S.
    interests. All of us on this committee have paid particular
    attention of the mounting threat ISIS has posed. And I think it
    is fair to stay that the administration fails to do due
    diligence to ensure stability in Afghanistan, that we are going
    to see a resurgence in terrorism there as well.
        A thoughtful and cohesive strategy continues to be
    essential in preventing the expansion of al-Qaeda and ISIS and
    other terrorist organizations in Afghanistan. And it is my hope
    that the administration and our regional partners give
    Afghanistan the long-term strategic outlook it deserves as we
    move forward. And thank you very much, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chabot.
        Mr. Clawson of Florida.
        Mr. Clawson. I appreciate you all coming in today. This
    whole situation feels to me like the folks that we support in
    Afghanistan don't get along. They don't get up to speed. And
    our allies don't get to pay their fair share. And so while we
    risk the lives of our brave men and women it kind of feels like
    no one else, no one else, Europe, in the region, even the
    people we support, put chips on the table. And we are the only
    one getting wet. And so it kind of adds to this never-ending
    quagmire that we are the only ones really paying the price. And
    so I am hoping that you all will explain if you see a way out
    from that, and so I appreciate you all coming.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Clawson. And we have been
    joined by Mr. Weber of Texas, in case you have a off-the-cuff
    opening statement, we would love to hear it. You do your best
    work that way.
        Mr. Weber. I think most of my statements are off the cuff,
    Madam Chairwoman. But, no, I am ready to go. Thank you for
    holding this hearing.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Well, thank you. Then I am pleased to
    welcome our panelists. First we are pleased to welcome back Dr.
    Frederick Kagan who comes from a well-respected esteemed--they
    are a think tank, that family, all to themselves. He is the
    DeMuth chair and director of the Critical Threat Project at the
    American Enterprise Institute. Previously Dr. Kagan served as a
    professor of military history at the United States Military
    Academy at West Point, and was part of General McChrystal's
    strategic assessment group in Afghanistan. Welcome back.
        Secondly we would like to welcome Dr. David Sedney. How
    should I do that?
        Mr. Sedney. That is fine. I am only a juris doctor. So it
    doesn't count, my wife tells me.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Who is senior associate for the Center of
    Strategic International Studies. In the past he served as
    Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan,
    Pakistan, and Central Asia; Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S.
    Embassy in Kabul; and senior advisor to then U.N. Ambassador
    John Negroponte. Welcome, sir.
        And last but certainly not least, we would like to welcome
    Dr. Andrew Wilder who is Vice President of Asia Programs at the
    United States Institute of Peace. He has served as research
    director for politics and policy at the Feinstein Center at
    Tufts University, and has managed humanitarian development
    programs in Afghanistan for NGOs such as Save the Children, the
    International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps. Welcome, Dr.
    Wilder.
        And we will begin with you, Dr. Kagan. Thank you. Your
    statements will be made a part of the record. Please feel free
    to summarize.

      STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. KAGAN, PH.D., CHRISTOPHER DEMUTH
        CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS PROJECT, AMERICAN
                          ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

        Mr. Kagan. Thank you, Madam Chair. To the absent ranking, I
    thank him also.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. If you can hold that a little bit closer.
        Mr. Kagan. I do not usually have a problem being heard. And
    I am very grateful for the committee for holding a hearing on
    this topic at this time. As Representative Chabot pointed out,
    Afghanistan really has fallen from the headlines. And, in fact,
    I have to confess that I had to rip my head out of a planning
    session that the Institute for the Study of War and Critical
    Threats Project have been engaged on in Syria and Iraq and ISIS
    generally in order to try to refocus on Afghanistan.
        And I will start there by saying that we need to recognize
    that we are facing multiple overlapping threats and conflicts.
    And they cannot be stove piped, and they cannot be siloed. You
    cannot have a strategy for defeating ISIS that does not include
    defeating the Wilayat's that it has established in Afghanistan,
    Sinai, and Libya. That it is trying to establish in Yemen,
    Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. It is a global problem. And so we
    have to concern ourselves with the fact that there is a small
    ISIS Wilayat at this point in Afghanistan.
        And a lot of my testimony--a lot of my written testimony is
    about the long-term or midterm threats that I see emerging to
    the U.S. homeland from having--from allowing that organization
    to retain even a relatively small area of ground in Afghanistan
    that it can govern and in which it can radicalize Afghan youth
    and train them rather uncharacteristically for Afghans to be
    focused on attacking us here, and attacking the Europeans in
    Europe, which is historically not something that Afghan
    insurgents have mostly focused on.
        But my testimony focuses on that because it is the most
    immediate, most significant threat to the U.S. homeland. And as
    we ask questions about why do we need to be in Afghanistan at
    all and what are our interests, I do think that it is important
    to begin with what is required to ensure the security and
    safety of the American people. And I think that we do have the
    problem, that that is now in the question from Afghanistan over
    time not at this moment, but it will be, both from ISIS and
    from al-Qaeda which has re-established itself, and we were just
    speaking before this hearing about the large al-Qaeda training
    camp that was attacked and destroyed in Southern Kandahar
    province which is--represents in its own way the complete and
    utter failure of a strategy that was begun in 2001 to drive al-
    Qaeda out and keep it from returning. Clearly that isn't
    accomplishing its objective at this point.
        But I think it is equally important to say that if we
    simply oriented our fight in Afghanistan against ISIS and al-
    Qaeda, the groups that most imminently--or most deliberately
    target us here, we will fail. That fight will fail. And we will
    fail our larger national security interests as well. Because
    those groups do not pose an existential threat to the Afghan
    Government or the Afghan security forces which are our
    necessary partners. The groups that do post an existential
    threat are the Taliban groups and the Haqqani network and a
    number of their internally focused allies.
        So we face a logical conundrum, that in order to facilitate
    the survival of a partner, and I do salute the partnership of
    President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah, and I do agree that almost
    anyone is preferable to Hamid Karzai as a so-called partner, we
    need to ensure that that partner can survive. And I would
    submit that at this point, given the rise in capability of the
    Taliban and Haqqani forces, and the significant decrease in the
    overall capability of the partnered coalition and Afghan
    forces, that the survival of the Afghan state is very much in
    question now. I am not confident that there will be an
    Afghanistan when the next President takes office. I see the
    mobilization of northern alliance forces to wage their own
    battle in the north as extremely problematic. I think that it
    runs a high risk of igniting or reigniting the ethnic civil war
    that rent the country in the 1990s and before that, and that
    created space for the Taliban to grow in the first place.
        I think, in other words, that the vacuum that has been
    created by the withdrawal of primarily U.S. but also allied
    forces, drawing away from Afghan forces that have actually bled
    quite a lot, and I think it is very important to note that
    there are many, many, many, many, many more dead on the Afghan
    National Security Forces side than there have been on the
    coalition forces side, and I remember Sundays at ISF
    headquarters when we, the coalition, would read out the list of
    those coalition members who had been killed in the previous
    week. And the Afghan Security Force representative would simply
    say 50 or 60 or 70 or 100 members of the ANSF were killed. The
    list was, in his view, too long to read.
        So we have partners who are willing to engage. We have
    partners who are willing to fight, and who are willing to die.
    And, unfortunately, we have not been giving them the support
    that they need and deserve, frankly, against a common threat
    that we need them to fight and they need our help to fight. And
    I sincerely hope, then, there will be some prospect for
    changing that strategy over time. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Kagan follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                         ----------

        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Dr. Kagan. Dr.
    Sedney.

    STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID. S. SEDNEY, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CENTER FOR
                  STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

        Mr. Sedney. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Push that button there and hold it close
    to you.
        Mr. Sedney. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you
    and your colleague the ranking member, Representative Deutch,
    for holding this hearing. Afghanistan is important. And it has
    the potential to be a disaster for U.S. national security if we
    continue along the current policies. I will make five points,
    and I have three recommendations. I will work hard to get it
    into the 5 minutes.
        First, Afghanistan and its people can succeed. In my
    written testimony, I describe the many foundational areas,
    health, education, women's rights, media freedoms, and an army,
    and soldiers who are fighting and dying in larger numbers than
    ever to defend their own country. The current president and CEO
    are a great improvement. I very much second Representative
    Boyle's point, but I also point out that we are giving a better
    president and a better governing team less, much less, support
    than we ever gave President Hamid Karzai.
        Second, the security situation in Afghanistan has changed
    significantly for the worse. What I will tell you, Madam Chair,
    is somewhat different than you heard in Afghanistan. The
    security situation in Afghanistan is much worse than we had
    planned for and/or that we had prepared the Afghan military to
    face. The Taliban this past year mounted their largest, most
    violent and most successful offensive since they took over the
    country in the late 2000s.
        Daesh, the so-called Islamic State is a growing threat in
    Afghanistan. Foreign radicals and Pakistani extremists who were
    forced out of Pakistan by a Pakistani offensive in North
    Waziristan have taken to fighting in Afghanistan. The
    battlefield is more complex, and as a result, Afghan civilian
    and military causalities this year will be higher than they
    have been before. More Afghans are being killed after American
    forces left than--in a combat role than when we were there. And
    all the indications are is that we will see a bigger, stronger,
    more violent and more successful Taliban offensive in 2016.
        Third, the security architecture that we have in place in
    Afghanistan is not working. The so-called train, advise, and
    assist commands, TAACs, as they are called, are not doing a
    sufficiently good job of training, advising, or assisting. Of
    Afghanistan's six army corps, two are completely uncovered. The
    other four are only partially covered in terms of the advice
    and assistance they are getting. The Taliban this year captured
    seven district capitals, of which they retained two, captured
    for a short period of time Kunduz, and almost captured two
    other capital cities in Afghanistan's north, provincial
    capitals, Faisabad in Badakshan, and Maimana in Faryab
    province.
        Those kind of advances came about despite the brave fight
    of Afghan forces. But it came about because they didn't have
    air support, because they didn't have intelligence report. They
    didn't have the kind of air transport that they need. They will
    need even more next year, and they won't have it, according to
    our current plans. Of course there are things the Afghans
    haven't don't right. With only an acting defense minister, many
    key jobs left unfilled for most of the year, the National Unity
    Government has tried hard but still has much to do. But what we
    haven't done is a huge contributor to this worsening security
    situation.
        My fourth point is Afghanistan's National Unity Government
    which we forced down their throats is not doing the job it
    should. There is much better that they can do, and they need to
    do more. But we need to do more to help them. Our President and
    our Secretary of State forced two competing candidates to rule
    together. They are actually working hard and trying hard, but
    they are not doing a good enough job. We should be doing a
    better job of helping them.
        Fifth, Pakistan's offensive in North Waziristan was the
    most successful counterinsurgency operation the Pakistan/
    Afghanistan theater has ever seen. They went in with large
    numbers of ground support, huge amounts of air pressure, and
    they cleaned out the Taliban, making Pakistan today a much
    safer place. However, they forced into Afghanistan hundreds of
    thousands of refugees and put into Afghanistan many who are now
    killing Afghans. We should be putting pressure on Pakistan to
    clean up the mess in Afghanistan that it has made because of
    the actions it took to make Pakistan itself safer.
        My recommendations. First, we need a complete review of our
    policy. I very much second you on this, madam chair. The
    security situation is deteriorating so fast, the capabilities
    that we have are so limited, that if we don't this and do it
    quickly, disaster is possible, along with what Fred Kagan said.
        Second, in the interim we need to change our rules of
    engagement. The rules of engagement are not clear. The rules of
    engagement don't allow us to do many things that are necessary.
    The rules of engagement don't give the Afghan forces the
    support they need.
        And, third, we should work with Pakistan to get Pakistan to
    stop allowing the fighters, the weapons, the explosives to come
    out of Pakistan into Afghanistan. Make no mistake about it.
    Safe havens in Pakistan are the key to the Taliban's success.
    Regardless of what the Pakistanis have told us directly, all
    that really matters is what they do. And so far they have taken
    no steps, no steps at all, to stop the flow of weapons,
    fighters, and explosives into Afghanistan. That flow is
    increasing right now. The situation on the ground in
    Afghanistan is perilous, and unless we act, I see serious
    problems and a government that we should be supporting could
    fail. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Sedney follows:]
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                                  ----------

        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yikes. It is getting worse.
        Dr. Wilder, any good news there?

        STATEMENT OF ANDREW WILDER, PH.D., VICE PRESIDENT, ASIA
               PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

        Mr. Wilder. I will try. But anyway, Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen
    and Ranking Member Deutch, when he joins us, and members of the
    subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to give my views
    on the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. I would like to
    note that the views I give today are my own, as the U.S.
    Institute of Peace does not take policy positions.
        I am currently the vice president of USIP's Asia Center
    where my responsibilities include overseeing our work in
    Afghanistan. I began to work in this region 30 years ago with
    U.S. humanitarian organizations and witnessed firsthand the
    tragic consequences for Afghans, and eventually the U.S. as
    well, when peace settlements failed and when the world lost
    interest in Afghanistan.
        My main message today, therefore, is that the U.S. should
    not once again prematurely disengage from Afghanistan. In my
    view, the foremost interest of the U.S. in Afghanistan should
    be to help ensure that it remains relatively peaceful and
    stable, and does not slide back into all-out civil war and
    anarchy, precisely the same conditions that gave birth to the
    Taliban in the 1990s, and gave al-Qaeda sanctuary.
        The collapse of the Afghan state would nearly certainly
    result in Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for
    transnational terrorist groups, and would al risk destabilizing
    its neighbors, including nuclear armed Pakistan. In this
    regard, I welcome President Obama's recent announcement that
    the U.S. will maintain the current level of 9,800 troops in
    Afghanistan through most of next year. Perhaps more
    importantly, President Obama reversed his earlier plan to close
    down U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and instead to maintain beyond
    2016 at least, 5,500 troops in bases in Bagram, Kandahar, and
    Jalalabad.
        Significantly, for the first time since May 2014, the U.S.
    no longer has a calendar deadline by which to pull out U.S.
    forces. This not only serves to keep options open for the next
    President, but it also sends a strong message to the Afghan
    people as well as the Taliban of the U.S. commitment to achieve
    our objective of a stable Afghanistan.
        I suspected my two colleagues would focus mostly on the
    security situation, and so I thought I would in my oral
    testimony touch on the economic and political situation as
    well. I think the security situation is often the focus of
    attention, but the current economic crisis in Pakistan--in
    Afghanistan is one of the most serious threats to the stability
    of the current government and the constitutional order in
    Afghanistan.
        The Afghan economy is in dire straits. Economic growth has
    been very weak. A 1.3 percent in 2014 when in the decade before
    we are achieving rates of 8 to 9 percent on average. It has
    been frequently noted but worth repeating that it was not the
    withdrawal of Soviet troops that lead to the downfall of the
    Najibullah regime in 1992, and the resulting descent into a
    bloody civil war. But the end to the Soviet subsidies following
    the collapse of the Soviet Union. In order not to make the same
    make mistake, I would make the following two recommendations in
    terms of economic assistance.
        First, the U.S. should play a strong leadership role at the
    International Donor Conference on Afghanistan, taking place in
    Brussels next October, to ensure that major donor countries
    renew their commitments to maintaining robust levels of
    civilian assistance to Afghanistan and so that it isn't just
    the U.S. having to foot that bill.
        And, second, the U.S. and other donors should provide the
    Afghan Government with more flexible financial resources that
    can be used to help stimulate the economy and create jobs in
    the short to medium term. This would help reduce the
    possibility of civil unrest due to economic discontent, and buy
    the Ghani administration some political space to get a reform
    agenda and a peace process on track. And if anyone is
    interested, I have copies with me today of a USIP paper by our
    expert, Bill Byrd, on reviving Afghanistan's economy, which
    goes into more detail.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Would you like that to be entered into
    the record, sir?
        Mr. Wilder. Yes, please.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. Wilder. And my written comments also have more details.
        And then lastly, on the political situation, while the U.S.
    and other friends of Afghanistan need to continue to support
    the Afghan Government through security and economic assistance
    programs, the effectiveness of this support will be seriously
    undermined if the National Unity Government does not live up to
    its responsibilities to overcome political divisions and govern
    more effectively.
        Afghanistan's National Unity Government was created to
    resolve the political crisis that developed following the
    disputed 2014 Presidential elections. It was built for
    political inclusiveness among contending elite groups, not for
    effectiveness. As a result, its main achievement so far has
    been not to fall apart. This in itself is not an insignificant
    achievement given the major security and economic challenges
    the country is confronting and given that several other
    countries in the region are falling apart, but it is not
    enough. Afghanistan's National Unity Government must begin to
    act more like a unified government of a country facing a
    national crisis rather than a government endlessly litigating
    the past election and bickering over government positions.
        The price of just hanging together has been a great loss of
    legitimacy among the Afghan public. The government has been
    extremely slow to complete such basic tasks as filling key
    government positions, let alone the far more complex tasks that
    are required to address Afghanistan's simultaneously deepening
    economic, security, and governance crises.
        To conclude, I believe that a long-term U.S. commitment to
    remain actively engaged in Afghanistan is the best way to
    achieve our national security interests of ensuring a
    relatively stable Afghanistan in this troubled region of the
    world. In my written testimony, I recommend ways this can be
    done and outline some of the obstacles and opportunities for an
    inclusive peace process in Afghanistan.
        There will be no better way to help redeem the commitments
    of blood and treasure that have been made since 2001 by the
    United States, our allies, and the Afghan people than by
    remaining engaged and working together to achieve the objective
    of peace in Afghanistan. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Wilder follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                  ----------

        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. Thank you to all three of you
    for excellent testimony. I would first like to recognize Major
    Adrian Foster who served in Iraq and accompanied our codel to
    Afghanistan. Take a bow; come on. Thank you, Major, for your
    service. Thank you.
        My questions are in three categories: Afghan security
    forces capabilities, drug trade, and then, thirdly, Afghan
    governance. Dr. Kagan, the first one is to you. As much as we
    want the Afghan security forces to take the lead in the defense
    of Afghanistan. It is their country, and they have shown vast
    improvements no doubt. We still have many national security
    interests at stake that are too important to leave to
    uncertainty.
        You have warned that enemy expansion in Afghanistan,
    including ISIL, will accelerate under our current strategy. You
    have also argued that we must reconsider our current force
    posture in Afghanistan as well as our rules of engagement that
    several of you have pointed out.
        So I ask, why is our current mission limited to only
    counterterror operations against al-Qaeda and not all insurgent
    groups including ISIS, and how would you assess the Afghan
    security forces' current capability to counter the threats it
    faces from ISIS, other terror groups? What should our rules are
    engagement be?
        Mr. Kagan. The Afghan security forces were never built
    having in mind that they would have to operate under the
    conditions that they are now operating in as David Sedney
    pointed out. First of all, the assumptions underlying their
    structure were that they would face a much more mild insurgency
    that had been beaten down significantly. That is not the case.
        And it was also assumed that the United States and the
    international coalition would continue to provide significant
    high-end enablers in their fight against the Taliban as well as
    in their fight against al-Qaeda and other such organizations.
    So they are now engaged in a fight for which they were never
    designed and structured, which is one of the reasons why they
    are struggling so badly. It is important for us to recognize
    that their primary enemy is not al-Qaeda, and their primary
    enemy is not ISIS, nor will it be. Their primary enemy is the
    group that can destroy the Afghan state.
        And so in the sense, to the extent that we define our only
    interest in Afghanistan as going after terrorists and we limit
    our support to the Afghan security forces to that, we will not
    succeed in eliminating terrorists because we can't do that
    without a partner, and our partner will die because it is not
    those terrorists that are threatening it.
        So in my opinion, it is an enormous mistake that this
    administration has made consistently over the years to try to
    narrow the scope of our interests in Afghanistan exclusively to
    target its attacks fundamentally on terrorist leaders without
    recognizing the cataclysmic failure of that approach across the
    globe, but also without recognizing that it creates a high
    likelihood of what we are now seeing, which is that whatever
    gains we might make there will be washed out as insurgent
    groups that we are not allowing our troops to fight properly
    alongside the Afghans take over and destroy our partners.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much Dr. Kagan. I would like
    to discuss our counternarcotics operation in country. We know
    that much of the profits from the elicit drug trade in
    Afghanistan goes to fund terror activities in Afghanistan and
    worldwide. However, our DEA and INL presence has been
    dramatically decreased there. The Afghans aren't yet fully
    capable of leading this kind of large-scale mission. Since
    these two are tied together, the drug trade and terror,
    shouldn't we place a greater emphasis on ending the drug trade
    in Afghanistan? Is that possible realistically?
        We go after the financing of other terror groups as part of
    our plan to counter and defeat them. We need to do so in
    Afghanistan as well. Why do we not? Is it because we don't
    think that that would be successful? To whoever would like to
    answer. Thank you, Dr. Sedney.
        Mr. Sedney. Others can add as well. But counternarcotics
    was an area that when we were doing our counterinsurgency
    efforts in Afghanistan in 2009, 2010, and 2011 and into 2012,
    we did take some efforts there, and USAID and others have
    cooperated as well. What we found by looking around the globe,
    however, is the only way you can effectively go after the
    narcotics industry is a holistic way. It is not just a security
    threat. It is not just the traffickers. You have to find ways
    to work with the farmers, give alternate crops, and you have to
    continue that. We did for about 2 years have some success in
    Helmont province, where a crop substitution program, a voucher
    program, combined with very aggressive enforcement efforts and
    military action against traffickers, that was making progress,
    but then we pulled back from that.
        We don't have the resources right now to carry that out. So
    sadly I would say as a consequence of our decision to pull back
    across the board in Afghanistan, counternarcotics, which I
    agree with you on the importance of, is an area where we are
    just not positioned to do really much at all that can be
    effective.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Mr. Wilder?
        Mr. Wilder. Yeah. If I can just add on that point. I have
    some good news and bad news. The good news is the cultivation
    area decreased this year by about 19 percent for opium poppy,
    and opium production actually reduced by nearly 48 percent. The
    bad news is it doesn't seem to be a result of counternarcotic
    efforts, but more due to farmer decisions about harvest, crop
    issues. But I agree with David that I think the larger issue is
    ultimately you do need a holistic approach, and it relates to
    broadly improving the security situation and then working with
    our Government, the Afghan Government, to try to improve
    governance and the rule of law. And I think that is though an
    area where we can be more optimistic because we do have a
    partner in the new government that I think does want to promote
    the rule of law and takes the issue of poppy production
    seriously in contrast to his predecessor.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And speaking of governance, as part of
    our assistance to Afghanistan, the U.S. provides at least half
    of that development aid directly through the Afghan budget. How
    can we take steps to ensure that we are mitigating all of the
    risks inherent in our direct assistance, and for sure the new
    management is tackling the problem of corruption? How can we
    help Afghanistan to step it up more?
        Mr. Wilder. Well I will take a stab at it, but then if
    others also want to add. I am actually very supportive of the
    idea of more on-budget assistance. The evidence actually shows
    that most corruption in Afghanistan was not the corruption from
    what went through the budget. That was actually a good control
    system. It was largely a lot of the money that was spent off
    budget, and now again with a more reform-oriented government in
    place which is trying to take measures to crack down on
    corruption, I would be supportive of trying to give the new
    government the support it needs through a more on-budget
    assistance.
        I do think, however, that the issue of performance is
    mixed. We have some ministers who are more reform oriented and
    more effective than others. And the issue of improved
    government is critically important. I mean if there is one
    lesson from the last 14 years in Afghanistan, it is that
    military gains on the battlefield are not sufficient. They
    really have to be matched by better governance. And I think
    that is where maybe with our assistance we need to have some
    more conditions attached of rewarding the better performing
    ministers and ministries and penalizing those that don't.
        So I do think there is room for conditions, and I actually
    think President Ghani himself is supportive of this, and I
    would actually laud the new development partnership agreement
    between the U.S. and Afghanistan which actually targets $800
    million which is released in tranches based on performance
    measures being achieved by the Afghan Government. So I think
    that kind of assistance, we are getting smarter at this, and I
    am confident with the new government we will have better
    achievements than we had in the past.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Let's hope so. Thank you so much. Mr.
    Boyle is recognized.
        Mr. Boyle. Thank you. I just was struck by how positively
    received President Ghani was when he spoke here in his joint
    session to Congress, so it is not just the failure of the
    previous President, but also a positive reflection on the new
    President himself.
        But, I wanted to just shift focus for a second. One of you
    talked about this in your opening statements. But the current
    relationship and partnership between Abdullah and President
    Ghani, how likely is this to be a durable alliance?
        Mr. Sedney. I mentioned it; I think Andrew did as well. I
    think it is likely to be a durable alliance. I know both men. I
    consider both of them personal friends, and I admire what they
    have done. The issue is that the whole structure of governance
    in Afghanistan is filled with people who are rich, are
    powerful, and in many cases are criminal, and fixing that is a
    job that would be a challenge for anyone who didn't have an
    insurgency at their door and all the other problems Afghanistan
    would have. I don't think the United States has done enough to
    help this partnership work together, and I think that is an
    area where we could do more politically to make it effective.
        I think, however I will stress that I think the two
    individuals involved are actually trying very hard to work
    together, but there are huge networks out there that are
    fighting each other.
        Mr. Wilder. If I could add just one point there. I very
    much agree with David on that, but I think the problem is not
    so much Dr. Ghani and Dr. Abdullah who I think have been able
    to work along. It is some of the groups around them which have
    become more problematic, but it is a serious problem, and I
    think the dysfunction is now creating a big rumor mill in
    Kabul; maybe we need plan B arrangements, and maybe we should
    loya jirga to rethink this whole process or have early
    elections, and I would strongly recommend that the U.S.
    Government position continue to be that there really isn't a
    plan B.
        Plan B is to make plan A work and not give any
    encouragement to those who want to try to destabilize the
    current government. Because it is not, I think, performing
    nearly as well as it needs to, but it would be I think a real
    political disaster and very politically destabilizing if we
    start looking at alternative arrangements.
        Mr. Boyle. You wanted to add, Dr. Kagan?
        Mr. Kagan. I do. Thank you. I agree with almost everything
    that was just said. I think unfortunately a loya jirga was a
    part of the plan under which this government was set up, and I
    think the government is going to run into some very serious
    problems when it does not conduct a loya jirga, much as I agree
    with you about the risks that that poses and the undesirability
    of that.
        This government reflects much of what U.S. policy toward
    its problems in the region has been consistently for the past
    couple of decades, which is an attempt to use, to cajole elites
    to form an elite settlement of some sort on the assumption that
    that would solve societal problems that are creating openings
    for our enemies. It has not worked hardly anywhere we have
    tried it.
        And I raise the point because we are doing something
    similar in Syria right now, where we are imagining that if we
    bring the elites, many of whom don't even represent anyone on
    the ground at this point, together and get them to sign up to
    some sort of agreement, that that will have a practical
    manifestation that will be important. The truth of the matter
    is that what has to happen in Afghanistan and many other places
    that are now riven by internal conflict, is that the
    populations and the affected constituencies have to form a new
    agreement about how the state is going to run.
        And the more that we, for very pragmatic reasons having to
    do with our own timelines and our desire to have partners that
    we can work with to execute our timelines, the more that we
    drive toward elite settlements that exclude the interests of
    large portions of the constituency, the more we create
    instability and governments that, as the one in Afghanistan, I
    do agree with David, that both men are trying to make it work,
    and I agree with Dr. Wilder that the people around them are the
    principal problem. But the fact that this is simply an elite
    settlement at this point is the core problem in my view.
        Mr. Boyle. So let me ask you, because you provided kind of
    a natural segue then, and it is touching upon something that
    you reference in your written testimony. To what extent in
    Afghanistan is our fight against the Taliban, our fight against
    remnants of al-Qaeda, our fight against ISIS or really just one
    small battle in the larger war against the caliphate?
        Mr. Kagan. Well the struggle against ISIS is a battle in
    the war against the caliphate, and it needs to be seen in that
    way, the struggle against al-Qaeda likewise. And so if the
    difficulty that we are all having figuring out how the
    administration sees the connections between these battles in
    Afghanistan and the struggles against al-Qaeda and ISIS
    elsewhere is a measure of the failure to articulate a
    meaningful strategy in that regard.
        The Taliban is a fascinating phenomenon because it is not
    in itself directly a threat to the United States in the sense
    that it continues not to have as its objective attacking us
    here, but it is a threat to the United States in the sense that
    it persists in a willingness to work with and host and support
    those groups that do. And so we continue to face the risk that
    a resurgent Taliban, because it wishes to or whether it is
    because it has no alternative--because after all, the Taliban
    government didn't exactly control all of the territory that it
    claimed to--will allow itself once again to become the host on
    which the terrorist parasites can breed and grow and attack us.
        Mr. Boyle. Which was the case with September 11 of course.
        Mr. Kagan. Exactly, exactly.
        Mr. Boyle. I know I went over, and so I guess I will yield
    to the next person up on the other side. Thank you.
        Mr. DeSantis [presiding]. I think that that is me since I
    am the only one up here.
        Mr. Boyle. I believe this is our opportunity to rewrite the
    rules.
        Mr. DeSantis. That is right. I will go ahead and recognize
    myself for 5 minutes. You know, the frustrating thing about
    this, I think is that when the President ran for election he
    specifically demagogued the issue of Afghanistan and said,
    look, Iraq is this bad war. Afghanistan is a great war. We have
    got to do it right. I am sick of what we are doing with this
    administration. They took their eye off the ball. And I am
    going to go get that done, and we are going to win that.
        And really I think that that was just rhetoric that made
    him, because he was against one of the conflicts, it made him
    appear to the voters that he was tough about terrorism, but
    really has not had his heart in this from the very beginning,
    and I think the results really speak for themselves.
        Now, Mr. Sedney, what specifically in terms of the rules of
    engagement is your recommendation?
        Mr. Sedney. Well, first of all, we should make the rules of
    engagement clear. But, secondly, the rules of engagement
    reflect the problem that has been identified and Dr. Kagan
    mentioned as well. Because we don't see the Taliban as a
    threat, we are not allowed to use our air forces, our air
    support, our close air support, against the Taliban unless our
    forces are in danger or if Afghan forces are in some great
    extremis.
        So when Afghan forces plan operations, when they try to do
    what we have trained them to do, they don't get any close air
    support. We are not allowed to promise them that, and they
    aren't allowed to try and anticipate it, and they don't get it.
    So our rules of engagement are so narrow and so complex that
    most of our troops don't really understand them well. The
    Afghans don't understand them.
        Over this year, the way the Taliban have operated, I think
    they have been probing so see where air power is used and where
    it isn't. And where it is not used, they have gone from using
    tens and scores of fighters to using masses of hundreds of
    fighters. In the coming year I expect them to use thousands of
    fighters. We need to change those rules of engagement so we can
    support the Afghan forces and give them the fire power they
    need. And the reason they need the fire power is because we
    meant to build them an air force, but we didn't, so the Afghans
    don't have their own close air support. We promised them, with
    the stress on promised them, Super Tucanos to arrive in 2018.
    That will be too late.
        So even if the Afghans, even if our rules of engagement are
    changed, we still need to help the Afghans on that in the
    longer term. But the rules of engagement need to be changed to
    reflect the situation on the ground and allow us to aid the
    Afghan forces, including in planned engagements. We have to
    recognize that the Taliban are the enemy of our ally, and we
    need to be prepared to fight them.
        Mr. DeSantis. See, I think our rules of engagement have
    been problematic for quite some time predating this
    administration, but this is just totally farcical. If you are
    engaged in a stabilization, counterinsurgency-type mission, and
    you have these ridiculously restrictive rules of engagement,
    you are going to lose. You are going to lose. That is just the
    bottom line, because you are giving the enemy a huge advantage
    when you are talking about engaging in the conflict. And why
    would we want to cede to the bad actors in the area, these huge
    advantages by having these, yes, not just restrictive, and I
    think as you point out, very complex rules of engagement. I
    think that is the worse thing to put a trigger puller out there
    or have people who could--I mean, we are seeing it a little bit
    with the air campaign against ISIS where it is very difficult
    to even know if you have authorization to strike a target. So
    this is not the way, I think, that we should be fighting these
    campaigns. And the problem is so much of it is based on
    political considerations, worried about bad headlines, and so
    on and so forth.
        And so, I think it is an absolutely critical point that you
    made. I think everything you said, I agree with. And I would go
    even further than yes, in this situation, but I think overall
    as we have looked at the war on terrorism, I think we have had
    rules of engagement that have just been too restrictive from
    the very beginning. Yes.
        Mr. Sedney. Can I had that in addition to the rules of
    engagement, one thing that is really hurting us is the lack of
    effective intelligence. We have removed most of the
    intelligence collection ability that we had in Afghanistan just
    a year ago. And I am talking about drones here, but not just
    predators, but the smaller ones, the handheld Scan Eagles and
    the ones in between that gave us a complete picture of the
    battlefield.
        So even with the rules of engagement, we don't have the
    visibility that is necessary to identify targets and strike
    them accurately and capably. We can't find out where those
    Taliban attacks are coming from and go after them. This is a
    technical capability the Afghans just don't have----
        Mr. DeSantis. And it compounds the rules of engagement
    issue because when you have very restrictive rules of
    engagement, you rely on having all this wonderful intelligence.
    Otherwise you can't do anything. You have to wait for people to
    start shooting at you. And so the premium, if you are going to
    do restrictive rules of engagement, you absolutely have got to
    do very robust intelligence; and yet we seem to be failing on
    both ends. And so I appreciate the comments and thank the
    chairwoman. I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [presiding]. Where did you serve, Mr.
    DeSantis?
        Mr. DeSantis. I was in Iraq, but we had similar situations.
    I mean, part of it is when you are a counterinsurgency
    situation, you can't necessarily tell who is bad and who is
    good just by looking at them. They all wear man dresses or what
    have you. But, if you put our troops in these situations where
    they have to wait until they get shot at, well that is not
    fighting to win. And from what the testimony in Afghanistan, I
    think the problem is even worse than it was in Iraq.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Well, we thank for your service. My
    stepson and daughter-in-law served in Iraq in that confusing
    situation, and she served in Afghanistan as well. And the rules
    of engagement are still so crazy. Thank you for your service.
    Mr. Clawson is recognized.
        Mr. Clawson. So we thank you again for coming and for your
    viewpoints. Appreciate it. We roll back our support, our
    financial commitment, resource commitment, at all levels and
    from what I am hearing kind of to the point that the place is
    held together by contractors that just keep the HUMVEEs
    running, and if the contractors left, we might not even get the
    maintenance done--and I am not talking about drones. I am just
    talking about vehicles. Right?
        And then at the same time we put together, I think it was
    you, Mr. Sedney, that said a government of elites--or was that
    Dr. Kagan--of corrupt elites, and while the common man and
    woman is dying in the battlefield, so underresourced, elite
    leadership at the top that is viewed as corrupt. And, you know,
    I just kind of wonder if I was a typical Afghan combatant, if
    all the leaders had second homes in Virginia as their golden
    parachute, which is the rumor out there, right, and probably a
    lot of them do. Why would their soldiers want to fight, and why
    would we send our soldiers, people that are important to us on
    a personal level, to fight and die for folks who have a golden
    parachute already established because they have a summer home
    in the United States, and they are corrupt to begin with?
        If there is not a leadership change, in any company, if the
    top guy is corrupt, then it is all the money for him or her,
    you can get anybody to work. So if there is no--you know, I
    would like to say rules of engagement ought to be changed,
    which is what Ron is saying, or we ought to put in more
    commitments or more resources and get our allies to do the same
    thing, but if we have elite folks with summer homes in
    California or Virginia running the show and they are corrupt,
    why would we do any of that? And if we don't start with
    leadership, where do we start? Am I missing here, or are you
    all agreeing with me?
        Mr. Kagan. Sir, I would disagree with you on a couple of
    points. First of all, I have never advocated and never would
    advocate sending American soldiers into Afghanistan to fight
    for the----
        Mr. Clawson. No, no. I am not saying you are advocating. I
    am sorry if you took it that way.
        Mr. Kagan. No, no. I am not. I didn't. But to fight for the
    Afghan leadership. We send American troops to Afghanistan to
    fight for the American people. And so, at the moment that I
    become convinced that it is not necessary to have American
    troops in Afghanistan because of the vital national interests
    of the American people, I will be here telling you that I think
    we shouldn't have American troops in Afghanistan.
        Mr. Clawson. But are we asking too much by asking folks to
    go to war with leaders that are not committed and that have
    different--when their incentives are not aligned with the
    incentives of the frontline folks, you have a disaster, and I
    just think that is unethical.
        Mr. Kagan. And the second point I would make is that I
    think that that point was extremely valid when we were talking
    about Hamid Karzai. I think it is not valid when we are talking
    about Ashraf Ghani.
        Mr. Clawson. All three of you all agree with that? And I am
    talking about the layers below that.
        Mr. Kagan. Well I think it is very complicated when you get
    to the layers below that, and I think that what we have with
    President Ghani is a President who actually is committed to
    doing everything that you want him to do, and he is finding a
    great difficulty in doing that and we have frankly not been, as
    my colleagues on the panel--providing him a lot of support in
    that effort because for all of the discussion of smart power in
    this administration, fundamentally the only strategy that they
    really focus on is swatting bad guys.
        And I think that this is an area where you are right, that
    we need to have a major leadership change below the level of
    President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah. But President Ghani is trying
    to make that happen. What are we doing to help? That is a great
    question to direct to the administration and ask them. What are
    you doing to help empower the guy who is trying to change the
    toxic environment that you have been describing, because that
    was not the case when President Karzai was in power.
        Mr. Sedney. If I can just add, I am going to second very
    strongly what Fred said about Dr. Ghani. Dr. Ghani was an
    American citizen. He did have a home in Bethesda. He sold the
    home. He gave up his American citizenship. Went back to
    Afghanistan 6 years again. Has been the target of multiple,
    very serious attempts on his life. He is not a corrupt person,
    and I think he deserves our support in ways that President
    Karzai never did.
        And there are many other Afghans like them, the current
    acting minister of defense, the Taliban, the suicide bomber
    that blew up 5 feet from him and virtually killed him. He is
    now back working, but he will never be the same person because
    of that. The commander of the second corps of Afghanistan lost
    four brothers to the Taliban. He fights because he knows that
    if he doesn't fight, his people will die. I have talked to
    Afghans who are fighting because they want their daughters to
    go to school.
        I think there are lots--yes, there are corrupt people in
    Afghanistan and in their government, and they need to be gotten
    rid of; but there are many more who are fighting for many of
    the same ideals we are, and that is where our interests are
    congruent, because by keeping the Taliban from taking over
    Afghanistan, that will make us safer. So while I agree with the
    concerns about corruption, and it is very serious, I have
    personal experience with many, many Afghans who I admire.
        I would like to mention one more thing, Mr. Clawson,
    because you talked about our allies. Last week Germany said it
    would increase its forces by 130. That is a 15-percent
    increase. And so while our President is getting kudos from
    people--and I think it was a good thing that he decided not to
    decrease our forces--the Germans who have I think, a better
    understanding, are putting more of their troops on the line and
    increasing their forces by 15 percent. That is something I
    think we should be thinking about doing, too, not for corrupt
    people, but for our own national security.
        Mr. Wilder. If I could just add to that, to highlight again
    the high cost that is being paid by the Afghan armed forces
    now. Just in the first 7 months of this year, we had 4,300
    Afghan national defense service forces killed in Afghan and
    8,000 wounded. That contrasts with the tragic loss of 2,300
    approximately, Americans in the last 14 years in Afghanistan.
    But in the first 7 months, there was 4,300 killed, 8,000
    injured.
        So that to me that is one of the biggest differences in
    Afghanistan and say an Iraq situation where we have an ANDSF
    which is fighting hard, and we now do have new leadership in
    Afghanistan that I think does want to be a strong partner, and
    I think as David mentioned earlier, the irony is that we gave a
    lot more resources when we didn't really have a partner and we
    are pulling them away now when actually we do have a government
    that wants to partner with us.
        Mr. Clawson. What I hear all three of you saying is that we
    are off to a better start this time around and a lot more work
    to do. Thank you. I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much Mr. Clawson, and if I
    could ask each of you three to give us a 2-minute summary of
    the one takeaway that you want us to make sure that we do in
    Congress or that we don't do.
        Mr. Kagan. Ma'am, we have a vital national security
    interest in ensuring that Afghanistan does not become again a
    base for transnational terrorists who intend to attack the
    United States and its allies. We are at severe risk of having
    that happen. The current strategy that the President is
    pursuing will allow that to happen. We must reverse that
    strategy. There are a lot of things that are involved in
    reversing that strategy. As an early champion of Task Force
    Shafafiyat, which was all about the anticorruption effort, I
    agree with the criticality of dealing with governance issues,
    helping President Ghani do that. I think that the
    administration needs to be a lot more engaged in that, and I
    recognize that there is no purely military solution to a
    problem. However, this is a war, and there is no purely
    political solution to most wars.
        And so we need to look to what our military approach here
    is. There is a tyranny of terrain in Afghanistan. If you want
    to have bases where you need them to fight the enemy, there is
    a certain minimum footprint that you need to have. I have gone
    through this drill myself with my own teams. I have watched
    this drill in theater multiple times. The bottom line is if you
    are below about 20,000 troops total, you are going to leave
    uncovered critical areas and critical units, and you are going
    to invite the reestablishment of certain kind of safe havens.
    No one wants to hear that number, and I am going to tell you,
    ma'am, that is a bottom end number. But the truth of the matter
    is that where we are is not sustainable from the standpoint of
    a strategy that can secure our homeland in Afghanistan.
        And I would only add because I have the privilege of
    speaking to Congress, Congress is part of the problem here
    because if you go back to the Army and ask them to put 20,000
    or 30,000 troops in Afghanistan right now, they are going to
    talk to you about how difficult that is and about how
    impossible it is going to become if sequester is allowed to
    hit, if the Budget Control Act remains, if we continue to
    disarm our Nation as the world becomes more dangerous and wars
    and enemies expand. Thank you ma'am.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Message received. Thank you. Mr. Sedney.
        Mr. Sedney. As I said, I think the situation in Afghanistan
    is worse today than people realize, and next year it is going
    to be much worse. We need an immediate reevaluation of our
    policies. I would urge Congress to take the lead in calling for
    such a study and for Congress to fund such a study to force the
    administration to go ahead and relook at it and bring in other
    voices besides the political ones that you mentioned before to
    look at it, people like Dr. Kagan, people who know the
    situation.
        Secondly, Pakistan. Pakistan is not only not doing what it
    can to make Afghanistan more stable. What Pakistan is doing is
    making it less stable. You mentioned that you have before you
    aid packages for Pakistan. While Pakistan in some areas has
    helped us, in other areas it has not. I urge Congress to take
    very seriously the opportunity to put pressure on Pakistan to
    do the right thing and make Afghanistan safer.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. You can't look at Afghanistan as a
    standalone. You are right. Pakistan is part of that. Thank you.
    Dr. Wilder?
        Mr. Wilder. Yes. Thank you. There is a tendency in these
    hearings, but also in the media to have all the news, the doom
    and gloom from Afghanistan. And I think the situation is,
    indeed, very serious, and we need to take it seriously. But I
    think we also need to put into perspective the incredible
    achievements that we have attained in Afghanistan.
        I mean, in my wildest imagination as the Save the Children
    Director working in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the
    1990s, I could not have imagined that we would have achieved by
    2015 what we have achieved in terms of progress, in terms of
    women's rights, social indicators, the media revolution, where
    Afghanistan has one of the freest medias in the region, and I
    could go on and on. So I think it is really important to
    remember those tremendous gains that have been made but could
    be lost, which is why I come back to my point of the need to
    remain engaged is the single most important message I would
    have today.
        I think 5 or 6 years ago I was testifying on the Senate
    side and arguing that we were actually trying to spend far too
    much money in Afghanistan, you know, far too quickly and that
    that scale of funding that we are trying to spend in the most
    insecure areas of Afghanistan was fueling the corruption that
    was delegitimizing the government that was fueling the
    insurgency and so having all these perverse consequences.
        My concern today is that we not go from that extreme of
    trying to do too much in Afghanistan to the other extreme of
    doing too little in Afghanistan. We need to find the balance of
    how do we remain engaged in a much more sustainable way than
    before but for the long term, because as I said in my opening
    remarks, we paid a heavy price before when we walked away from
    Afghanistan prematurely. And I really think that to protect the
    U.S. national interests in Afghanistan, we need to remain
    engaged for the long-term. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much. Wonderful
    statements. Thank you to our excellent panelists. And with
    that, the subcommittee is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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