The Long Game by Derek Chollet Page A

administration sent hundreds of civilian experts to Afghanistan to administer rule of law, good governance, and agriculture programs, more than tripling the American government’s civilian presence there.
    The administration also restructured US civilian assistance to Afghanistan to reward good performance and ensure careful oversight and transparency (coming into office it found that too much of American aid was unaccounted for, and only 10 percent of US assistance flowed through the Afghan government—meaning our aid was actually undermining the government we were trying to build). In Pakistan, the administration initiated a massive influx of financial and development assistance to strengthen Pakistan’s ability to partner with the United States and reassure them that we would be there for them for the long haul (in order to reduce their incentives to cut deals with extremist groups).
    O BAMA ’ S A F -P AK STRATEGY followed several essential elements of the Long Game. It tried to achieve balance between the military,political, and economic components of the strategy—although the question of troop numbers took the most time and got the most attention, everyone agreed that the political and economic aspects of the strategy were more important for long-term success. It also sought to balance the approach itself—it was not simply an Afghanistan problem, but one of “Af-Pak.”
    Most broadly, Obama sought to design a policy aimed toward narrower goals, properly weighted relative to America’s other global interests. The additional troops, civilians, and resources were never designed to be permanent—the idea was to escalate in order to exit, enabling and empowering the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to take control over time. No one ever believed that this approach would lead to perfection, but the administration sought to achieve an end state that, as we said at the time, was “good enough.”
    What this meant—and I believe what in hindsight the strategy achieved—is a decimated al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and an Afghan government and security apparatus that is more capable of standing on its own (although that is relative—the Afghan government does remain weak and vulnerable). To be sure, Afghanistan in 2016 still faces endemic political turmoil and significant security challenges—and will require outside military support for some time, as Obama is prepared to do by leaving a small enduring presence of troops there beyond 2016.
    The strategy was also precise, most importantly in military terms. The “disrupt, dismantle, defeat” formulation as the aim for military power was focused specifically on al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and denying the Taliban the ability to overthrow the Afghan government. This narrowed the goal militarily, but also left open the prospect of a diplomatic negotiation with the Taliban, which the administration would quietly pursue later. By emphasizing the core goal against al-Qaeda, such precision allowed us to assess progress better and holdourselves accountable (something that Obama was very focused on), and to prevent this from morphing into a massive, military-led nation-building effort like Iraq. The problem, however, was that the rhetoric of Obama’s strategy sometimes veered beyond this more modest goal, embracing the logic of counter-insurgency (which at that time was the prevailing fad in the military) but without the kinds of resources necessary to achieve such ambition.
    Finally, Obama’s choices were driven by his assessment of what was sustainable. Throughout his deliberations Obama remained focused on the costs of the strategy, especially as his top priority overall was to deal with the financial disaster at home. This would be expensive—estimates were the US would spend $30 billion on Afghanistan in 2009 alone. One of the key lessons Obama had taken from the over $1 trillion war in Iraq was how it