What To Watch for in Today’s Af-Pak Hearing

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East and South Asia, and Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, are set to go before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 (ish) this morning to discuss/explain the Obama administration’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. Here are a couple things to watch for:

Benchmarks. President Obama said on Friday that he’ll be frequently reviewing the strategy to determine if it needs to be modified; at the end of the year the administration plans a big omnibus review. But according to what criteria? The benchmarks that the administration has said its strategy needs to meet don’t exist yet. Some will follow from legislation like the upcoming Kerry-Lugar bill on aid to Pakistan later this week. But listen to hear how Petraeus and Flournoy explain how they’ll judge success and failure.
COIN in Afghanistan but not Pakistan? The strategy acknowledges that the United States can’t prosecute a war in a country it won’t invade, and the administration went out of its way (with some minor-tiny-maybe-caveats) Friday to say it isn’t contemplating an invasion of Pakistan. But with al-Qaeda and the Taliban increasingly taking and holding territory in western Pakistan, what will cleave the population from the extremists? In some ways, Pakistan is a hard-case for counterinsurgency strategists in particular: if they’re not contemplating future Iraqs or Afghanistans, what do they recommend as counterinsurgency tools in situations where the United States can only apply an indirect approach? The new strategy boosts governance aid to the civilian aspects of the Pakistani government, and training/equipment to the Pakistani forces that will be used in the tribal areas against the extremists. Listen to hear if Petraeus and Flournoy, premier counterinsurgents, explain the strategy along counterinsurgency principles. What, for instance, will they say about the drone strikes, which might (or might not) alienate the Pakistanis the strategy seeks to win over?
**Reconciliation. **The strategy calls for efforts in every Afghan province to help mid-to-low level insurgents receive incentives from the government, backed by NATO, to end their fight. What if they don’t work? Indeed, what happens to them if they do? The Afghan government talks about agricultural jobs for frontline insurgent fighters. Who runs those programs; how will they be reviewed; and what are the targets? Listen to hear if reconciliation has been fleshed out beyond a conceptual level.
Targets for the Afghan army and police. The size envisioned for the Afghan security-force training effort is 134,000 soldiers and 82,000 police by 2011. I could be wrong about this, but I *think *those are accelerations of targets that were talked about before the new strategy. Here’s the Afghan defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, discussing the 134,000-troops-by-2011 plan in February, for instance. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported there was to be a more dramatic expansion. Did the strategy ultimately reject that? Are these recruits the most that the Afghan security forces can competently accept in a hurry? Or might the training effort get expanded again in the future? Listen to hear how Petraeus and Flournoy explain the Afghan security-force numbers.