Obama-Era Afghanistan War Surge Debated

Commissioners scrutinized the U.S. military and civilian surge in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012 during its third public hearing at the U.S. Capitol today, pressing generals, diplomats, policy advisors, and development officers holding key roles at the time on the decision to escalate and its impact on the 20-year Afghanistan War. 

“Today’s hearing examines the U.S. decision to initiate a major military and civilian surge in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012 under President Barack Obama—a period that marked the largest deployment of American personnel, military and civilian, in the entire war,” said co-chair Shamila Chaudhary in her opening statement. “This moment demands close scrutiny—not just as a shift in U.S. strategy, but as a deeply consequential human commitment. It reflects the height of U.S. investment in the war, and we must ask: What did that commitment achieve? What did it cost? And what did it ultimately produce?”

“Our hearing today focuses on the zenith of the American war effort,” added co-chair Dr. Colin F. Jackson in his opening statement. “At the time and in retrospect, the surge debates raise an array of first-order questions.  Why was the surge necessary?  How had the Taliban rebound and the survival of core Al Qaeda forced a reevaluation of U.S. policy and strategy?  What combination of ‘ways’ – counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, state building, economic development or negotiations – was most appropriate to the problems of fixing the Afghan state, rolling back the Taliban, and defeating core Al Qaeda?  And how much was enough in terms of troops, money, and time?”

Amb. Douglas Lute, Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan at the White House from 2007 to 2013, opened the first panel of the hearing focused on surge debates and decisions. “I believe the roots of our failure in Afghanistan lay at the strategic level, not at the tactical level where our troops, intelligence officers, diplomats and development officers on the ground sacrificed in the toughest conditions,” Amb. Lute said. “Enormous energy and debate went into crafting and making policy decisions, but too little attention was paid to how those decisions were being executed in Afghanistan.”

Mr. David Sedney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia from 2009-2013, analyzed the surge’s shortcomings in his prepared statement. “We sought an Afghanistan that would not be a home for terror, one where Americans and our allies would be safer, and in which the Afghan people would have the future they deserved,” he said.  “For why we failed there is no simple, easily identifiable answer. There is no single villain.  There is no one policy error, which, if gotten right, would have led to success. Rather there are many factors at play, interacting in ways sometimes obvious, sometimes not.”

Amb. Jawed Ludin, Chief of Staff to Afghan President Hamid Karzai prior to the surge (2005- 2007), and Afghanistan’s ambassador to Norway and Canada during the surge, as well Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided a critical Afghan perspective on the period. “By 2009 when President Obama announced a course correction, the contours of the unwinnable war were already in place, and the surge did little except to intensify the status quo ante.  Despite the stated goal of the surge, and the hugely unhelpful introduction of meaningless timelines, the U.S. never actually transitioned the ownership or execution of the war to Afghans,” Amb. Ludin said.

Amb. Karl Eikenberry, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011, discussed the surge of civilians paralleling the military escalation. “In some ways the civilian surge from 2009-2011 achieved impressive results,” he testified.  “It was marked by reasonably good combined planning, implementation, and unity of effort.”  Amb. Eikenberry warned, however, that “the use of military force will take on a logic of its own, the aim being winning the war as opposed to winning a sustainable peace.  More, as the application of military force begins to dominate intra-governmental discussions, the space for creative diplomacy gets crowded out, many arguing it is ‘now time to support the troops’ and ‘listen to the generals’.”

LTG Michael Nagata, USA (Ret.), Deputy Chief in the Office of the Defense Representative at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan (2009-2011) focused on the evolution of U.S.-Pakistan counterterrorism cooperation at the time.  “The U.S. announcement of the Afghan Surge in 2009, that there was an 18-month time limit, after which U.S. forces would begin returning home.  Whatever the merits of this were, it injected an element of doubt among Pakistani leaders about U.S. seriousness that we could never completely shake,” he said.  General Nagata argued that he announcement of a surge timetable was the first of four “meteor strikes… that tragically brought all of these various elements of progress [in U.S.-Pakistan counterterrorism cooperation] I have described to an end.”

In the hearing’s second panel on the implementation of the surge, LTG Daniel Bolger, USA (Ret.), Commander of NATO’s Training Mission in Afghanistan from 2011-2013, focused on efforts to strengthen Afghan security forces against the Taliban insurgency.  “In building Afghanistan’s security forces, we made some fundamental mistakes,” he said, including trying to “do too much ourselves,” substituting money and people for a “real commitment,” and forgetting “what we already understood about combat advising,”

General Sher Karimi, who served as Afghan National Army’s Chief of Operations and later Chief of the General Staff during the surge period, said, “It was encouraging to have 30,000 extra international troops. I thought it would make a positive change and boost Afghan security forces’ morale. Unfortunately, with troop withdrawal in 2011 and 2012, the morale of Afghan forces dropped. Coalition troops were disappointed. The enemy became bolder.”

Amb. Dawn Liberi, Coordinator for the Interagency Provincial Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from 2009 to 2011, focused on the “civilian uplift” she helped implement during the surge, which sought “to triple the number of civilians in the field from 320 in 2009 to 1261 by 2011,” she argued.  “The consequences of not achieving the desired outcome has less to do with whether or not the civilian surge was a success or failure, but rather the impact of U.S. Government engagement on the Afghan population,” she testified.  “For better or worse, many lessons were learned while implementing the civilian surge which could serve for future operations.”

Amb. Earl Anthony “Tony” Wayne, who served as Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs from 2009 to 2010 and as Deputy U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, spoke about the need for humility in his opening remarks.  “We need to be humble about our capacities to ‘win’ or to bring about change,” he said. “We should not be haughty given our technology and military might.  We need to realize that changing people, norms, and practices, and building new institutions takes immense effort and time and needs dedicated local partners and support.”

In his opening remarks, BG Michael Meese, USA (Ret.), Assistant Chief of Staff for International Security Assistant Force in Kabul (2010-2011), argued, “The Afghanistan War Commission is vital because America will be attacked again. We must distill lessons from 20 years of war in Afghanistan to develop well-informed leaders who can prepare the next generation of warriors, diplomats, and public servants to effectively advance American national security interests.”

Co-chair Dr. Colin F. Jackson echoed similar sentiments in his opening statement.  “Our examination of the surge highlights the seminal importance and enormous difficulty of learning from experience,” he said.  “The work of this commission is predicated on the notion that current and future leaders can and should derive insights from our experience in Afghanistan and apply them to current and future interventions.”

The prepared testimony of all hearing witnesses can be found at https://www.afghanistanwarcommission.senate.gov/hearing-content3/.

The Afghanistan War Commission is an independent legislative commission established by Congress in the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, Sec. 1094).  For detailed information, including material on the Commission’s first public hearing and interim report, visit www.afghanistanwarcommission.senate.gov.

The following 16 commissioners were appointed by Congressional leaders on a bipartisan basis: