So what are the metrics? In Pakistan, they’re … way counterinsurgency heavy. It’s a lot of subjective stuff on governance, like the government’s “actions to create necessary steps to ensure economic stability, job creation and growth,” and “demonstrable action” against corruption; as well as military measures like the power of the Pakistani military to conduct “counter-insurgency operations across the clear-hold-build phases to defeat insurgent groups.” That’s not to say there aren’t counterterrorism-relevant metrics. Three of them include the “level of militant-initiated violence”; “extent of militant-controlled areas in Pakistan”; and “effectiveness of Pakistani border security efforts.” These may not be strictly counterterrorism metrics, but they’re certainly counterterrorism-relevant. The bigger concern is that the measurement doesn’t include any criteria for reaching a judgment, though the document refers to a “classified annex,” so perhaps that has more detail.

On Afghanistan, the metrics get more granular. There are 14 security-specific metrics, including the “degree to which security operations are integrated into the overall COIN campaign”; “level of insurgent-related violence”; “percent of population living in districts/areas under insurgent control”; “percent of populations living in districts/areas ‘held’ by coalition and/or [Afghan security forces] and where ‘build’ activities are ongoing”; “capability, to include size, of the [Afghan army] and [Afghan police]“; “level of corruption within the [Afghan security forces].” There’s a lot in here to appeal to the Carl Levins of the Senate, who want to focus on bolstering Afghan security capacity ahead of increasing troop levels again: “level of trust and confidence by the Afghan people in the [army and police's] ability to provide sustained security”; “ability of the [Afghan security forces] to assume lead security responsibility” and so on.

On the Afghan governance side, there are ten metrics, including on that already looks to have bit the dust: “Afghan government’s institutions at the national, provincial and local level, including ability to hold credible elections in 2009 and 2010.” Oh well. There’s also “support for human rights”; “demonstrable action by government against corruption”; “public perception at the district level of the Afghan Government’s effectiveness and sustained ability to provide services” (interestingly, not the volume or consistency of the services themselves); “volume and value of narcotics”; and perhaps most importantly, “Afghan Government’s efforts to develop and execute reconciliation programs at the national, provincial and local levels with U.S. and international support.” Finally, there are seven metrics about the international community’s support for Afghanistan, including the “effectiveness of international security, governance, and development assistance” and relations between Afghanistan and its neighbors.

Most of these look unfamiliar to the benchmarks established for Iraq in 2007, which included such granular measurements as electricity kilowatt-hours and sectarian-caused deaths and so forth. That’s what happens when Congress lets the administration write its own benchmarks instead of writing them for it. One pledge that the metric document makes is that by “March 30, 2010 and on regular intervals thereafter” — whatever that means — the Obama administration will provide assessments to Congress of how it’s doing, as well as a “Red Team” assessment to check the self-applied grade, conducted by a team led from the National Intelligence Council.

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There are eleven COIN Transformative Effects set out by the document, some of which should come as no surprise: Population security; giving the Afghan government an “information initiative” to “tell a story of substantial, though uneven, progress in providing security, economic opportunity, and social justice”; access to justice (a breach into which the Taliban has stepped); the “expansion of accountable and transparent governance”; elections and “continuity of governance” (officials acquiescing to elections that might kick them out, in other words); sustainable jobs for Afghans; agricultural opportunity and market access; “action against irreconcilables,” which is to say confronting and defeating insurgents militarily, after “distinguish[ing] irreconcilables on the operational battlefield”; going after the “nexus” of “insurgency, narcotics, corruption and criminality”; reintegrating former “mid-to-low level insurgents”; and border security.

This is ambitious, as the document concedes, and “requires additional resources,” which paves the way for more money, civilian officials and troops. It promises “3-year objectives, roles and responsibilities.” That’s the closest we’ve come yet to the Obama administration actually saying outright how long the Afghanistan campaign will go on — not that it promises the war will be over in three years.

So, how to measure the COIN Transformative Effects? The campaign plan sets up a quarterly process  to “roll up in to” the “metrics required by the National Security Council.” Since those metrics are still TBD, it’s hard for a document dated August 10 to actually contribute substantively those. But it promises a “common methodology”  that starts from the district level on up to the national level to view progress in Afghanistan province by province, with “quantitative analysis” provided by “statistical data and surveys” alongside “qualitative assessment” based on “criteria-defined observations from the field” in support of measuring “agreed-upon measures of effectiveness.” Teams from across Afghanistan, “integrated across civilian and military entities,” will provide these assessments.

So: how’s it going so far? Not auspiciously. The areas of focus are broad. And some of them are already showing checks in the Setbacks column. For instance, on elections, one of the stated “Priority Objectives 2009-2010″ reads: “national, provincial and district (TBD) elections [that] are seen as legitimate.” Understandable, most definitely. But with the widespread fraud that’s been reported, it’s unlikely that such an outcome will occur.

The pending 2010 budget legislation for the first time requests more money for Afghanistan-Pakistan operations than for Operation Iraqi Freedom — $68 billion compared with $61 billion. Administration officials said they expected congressional debate on the larger Defense Department appropriation of more than half a trillion dollars to focus on Afghanistan spending.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee who spent the weekend in Afghanistan with Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), told the Providence Journal last week that he anticipated “a very vigorous debate” over the way forward. Reed, the Rhode Island paper reported, said he thinks that U.S. strategy is on the right track but that there is an urgent need for more Afghan forces.

That’s on top of the upcoming delivery to Congress of the administration’s metrics for measuring Afghanistan success. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has already called for a “flexible timetable” for withdrawal. But Feingold, for better or worse, still isn’t someone his Democratic colleagues look to for national security questions. Levin, however, is. So watch what Levin says now that he’s back from Afghanistan, which I believe is his first trip there since Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command, especially since it comes right on the heels of the Kunduz bombing disaster. Levin has been a consistent supporter of the administration on Afghanistan, a war whose value he frequently contrasted with his criticisms of the Iraq war, and delivered McChrystal a quiet, controversy-free confirmation hearing. Levin’s continued support — or lack thereof — will be a bellwether to his Democratic colleagues, who look to him for national security stewardship. Same goes, to a slightly lesser degree, for Reed.

In the House, the business is in the House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) has no share of ethical problems. He also has the chairmanship of the defense appropriations subcommittee. Last December, he publicly emphasized the need for an “achievable” Afghanistan strategy, a measurement at the heart of the Afghanistan debate. Murtha, a consistent hawk, denounced the Iraq war in 2005, giving Democratic colleagues and the bigfoot journalists who respect Murtha greater cover to move leftward on Iraq. His relentless ethics problems — he looks like he’s sold his office, basically — probably prevent anyone from saluting any flag Murtha raises on Afghanistan, but he still has management over the billions of dollars the administration wants for the war.

If Murtha wasn’t enough, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the appropriations committee chairman, has told the administration it has what’s now less than a year to demonstrate progress in Afghanistan or come springtime, he’s going to start cutting war funding. That was before McChrystal was in place but after Obama announced his new strategy. And more than anything else, that has influence over the metrics, since it creates an incentive for the administration to juke the stats and create tests that it can pass in order to avoid Obey’s threatened cuts. On Sept. 24, the metrics are due to Congress, so we’ll get a clue then whether that’s how the administration is treating this first fall test.

Fielding questions from me through his staff, Kerry said that the metrics are “still being finalized and coordinated throughout the interagency.” Gen. Douglas Lute, the so-called White House “war czar,” briefed Kerry last week on the process of developing the metrics, but the senator declined to discuss their conversation. Kerry, by the way, through spokesman Frederick Jones, also declined to comment on potential troop increases and what the senator makes of them. said it would be premature to “speculate as to if  additional troops will be requested.”

I’ll have more tomorrow in a longer piece about all this. But Kerry sounded some cautionary notes about a mission some see as drifting away from the counterinsurgency-for-counterterrorism approach President Obama described in March. Kerry said he thought it was “critical” that “our footprint in Afghanistan match the mission President Obama laid out in his strategy and that we have realistic expectations for what we can accomplish.”

Update: As you can see, this post has been amended.