Latest News

"If we allow Afghanistan to become completely unstable, Pakistan's stability is really difficult," the former American commander in Afghanistan said in a recent interview. "So I think there's a geostrategic argument for it."

General McChrystal offered his analysis of Afghanistan in the interview, which coincided with the release of his book "My Share of the Task: A Memoir," published by Portfolio/Penguin.

The general, who is retired from the Army, was fired by President Obama from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff as making dismissive comments about the White House.

His comments come as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is scheduled to begin a series of high-level meetings this week in Washington.

Regarding Afghanistan, some analysts have urged that the United States rely mainly on small numbers of commandos to carry out raids against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

But General McChrystal asserted that such "counterterrorism" operations work best when they are coupled with "counterinsurgency" efforts to build up the ability of the host nation to govern and bolster the capability of its forces.

He also noted that to carry out commando raids, the American military needs bases, an intelligence network and arrangements for medical evacuation. "But if you don't have the support of the Afghan people, if you are just in there doing what you want to do on their terrain, there's no reason for them to be supportive of this," he said. "We'd be fighting our own war on their territory, and they're just not that interested in that."

On troop numbers, General McChrystal declined to say how many troops the United States might need to keep in Afghanistan after 2014. (The White House is considering retaining a force of 3,000 to 9,000 troops, which would be complemented by a much smaller number of troops from other NATO nations).

General McChrystal agreed that the American force, currently 66,000 troops, should be substantially reduced. But he cautioned advised against retaining too small a force.

"We had 7,500 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 when I was first stationed there," he said. "And 7,500 wouldn't do much."

An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy would allied nations advise. Under the largest of the troop options under consideration by the White House, it is generally expected that NATO would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters.

It is unlikely that NATO officers will advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield under this option as that would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster.

But General McChrystal suggested that a more extensive advisery effort was needed to make the Afghan military more effective. "My personal tendency would be to get advisers a little bit lower than corps; I'd want them down to battalion level," he said.

General McChrystal said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 but declined to say whom he had voted for in 2012. He would not discuss the Rolling Stone article in detail but insisted that he had intended no disrespect for the president or his aides.

After the article was published, General McChrystal said that he arrived at his fateful meeting with Mr. Obama on June 23, 2010, with his resignation in hand. The decision whether to accept it was up to the president.

"I walked in with it in my pocket and I said, 'Whatever's best for the mission,'" General McChrystal recalled. "And we had a good conversation and then he said he was going to accept it."

The interview was conducted at General McChrystal's consulting firm in Alexandria, Va., which has the trappings of a military headquarters, including a horseshoe-shape table for the general and his staff facing an array of wall clocks that showed the time in political and economic power centers: Washington, London, Dubai and Beijing.

Following are excerpts from interview. Some questions have been edited.

QUESTION: You wrote in your book that there was a "deficit of trust" between the White House and the Defense Department on Afghanistan at the start of the Obama administration. Did this exist during the Bush administration?

GENERAL McCHRYSTAL: I think with the beginning of any political administration, you have to build trust, and it takes time. The challenge that we faced with the arrival of the Obama administration is, they didn't really have time to build trust before they had to make big, difficult decisions.

I go back and think of President Kennedy, who had a military service background, but he comes into the presidency and he's faced with a decision on the Bay of Pigs, with the C.I.A. and the military giving him data, and it turns out very badly. It really set back their ability to build trust over time.

With the start of the Obama administration, we had a financial crisis, we had a new administration, and yet we had this compressed decision-making timeline on Afghanistan before people had been able to mature relationships and trust to go at this as effectively as I think they would have liked to.

Q. Do you think the trust has improved?

A. I think it's a problem that needs to be worked at.

Q. During the Afghanistan review you conducted in 2009, the options ranged from sending 80,000 troops on the high end and 40,000 as your recommended course of action. President Obama decided to send 30,000 American troops and to seek 10,000 troops from allied nations. Did those allied contributions materialize, and did this meet your requirement?

A. In December, when the president made the decision, I thought that I had generally gotten what I had asked for. I was concerned about the allied 10,000, and at the end of the day I'm not sure how many of those came. … I know there was an intent to get the full 10,000.

Q. How did you design and carry out your strategy in Afghanistan?

A. I went over there with the expectation that we didn't need additional forces. … We did an operational assessment, and we identified 80 key districts out of 364 in the country. … It was a little like David Plouffe might do for an election strategy: those places that make a big difference.

We assessed that if we could control — achieve a decent level of security — in those 80 key districts over a reasonable period of time, that would be enough to make the Taliban strategy irrelevant. They wouldn't be able to influence enough of the population enough of the time to win. We thought we'd be able to "change Afghan perceptions," which of course was the key thing.

So we did the analysis, and we ran computer runs over and over. And we came down to that we were going to need the equivalent of 40,000 more forces to give us enough bridge capability until we could grow Afghan forces. …

Q. How did you interpret the mission in Afghanistan at that point?

A. At that point, I thought the primary focus was to keep Afghanistan from being a potential safe haven for Al Qaeda, but it also said that we were to create, essentially, a stable Afghanistan. Implied in that was, the state of Afghanistan had to survive as a sovereign state. To do that, you had to solve the biggest problem, which was this uncertainty caused by this insurgency. There was no way to cure the patient partially. You had to cure the patient "mostly" to do that. And I thought everybody understood that.

Q. How did you determine the sequencing of the strategy geographically and in terms of fighting seasons?

A. The war in Afghanistan is all about people's minds. It is not a military campaign like World War II. So you're trying first to convince the Afghan people that this is going to succeed, and as you go over time they'll be able to solve the problem.

When I took over, the forces that had been approved for General McKiernan [Gen. David D. McKiernan, the former American commander in Afghanistan] were already focused and had begun to arrive into Helmand. Helmand was the area with the highest levels of violence. … I made the decision that we needed to continue with that strategy for several reasons.

First, we needed to take advantage of the forces. If — if I tried to change them elsewhere, it would take me time to figure out where. It would take time to build, and it would be months to change. I didn't think we had months. We had the election coming up in August, and those forces had been brought to help secure certain areas for the election. … If we could secure the Helmand River Valley, it was going to be a clear indication that, if the Taliban couldn't be effective in their heartland, they weren't going to be effective elsewhere. …

Now, there was a certain argument that says, "Why don't you go to Kandahar first?" Well, the first thing: Kandahar wasn't under siege. Kandahar wasn't about to fall. … So we made a decision to use the next set of forces to secure Kandahar — not to capture it, because it wasn't enemy-controlled, but to secure it.

We felt that that would tremendously increase confidence, particularly in the Pashtun south, which we needed.

Q. How did eastern Afghanistan fit into your strategy?

A. The east was important — obviously, Kunar, Nuristan and all were important. And if you consider the host area and the Haqqani network [a militant group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan] it's their key — they affect Kabul. RC-East [Regional Command East], the U.S. division there, the 82nd and then the 101st, they needed additional forces but they were in pretty good shape. I thought that, if anybody could continue to make progress without additionalforces initially, they could.

Q. Did you intend to shift effort there later?

A. Yes, as we achieved what we wanted in Helmand and Kandahar, I felt we could continue to increase forces in the east and, if necessary, in the north, although I was hoping to arrest the problem in the north partially by arresting it elsewhere.

Q. What did you accomplish by the end of your Afghanistan tour?

A. When I arrived in 2009 … there was this sense of gloom. The allies that I talked to were literally saying, "Let's get ready to turn the lights out."

I think we turned the mind-set, not completely, but we changed the mind-set of the ISAF forces [the International Security Assistance Force, the American-led NATO command in Afghanistan] towards protecting the population — not 100 percent but a huge shift toward effective counterinsurgency.

We changed the mind-set of the Afghans in several ways. We continued to affect President Karzai's view of it. He didn't become a robust, war-fighting president, but he went a lot farther than he ever had before.

We started to build the Afghan National Police and the army in a very serious way.

Q. How did this affect Pakistan's behavior?

A. It was in their interest for us to succeed, and I think they knew that, but they didn't think we were going to succeed. So their actions were often in contradiction to what they wanted to happen, because they felt we were going to lose and were trying to hedge their bets by doing other things. They were supporting the Haqqanis, they were allowing the Afghan Taliban to have refuge inside Pakistan and things like that — pretty clearly.

I was trying to convince the Pakistanis that we were going to pull this off, so it was in their interest to help us. And I think we convinced them we were moving in the right direction — General Kayani [Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief] told me face to face, "I think you've got the right strategy now."

Q. What did you accomplish on the ground?

A. Two things. One, we don't write a lot about it in the book, but we increased the pressure through our special operations. We quadrupled them, and we started the pressure that had worked so well in Iraq. But it only worked in Iraq, really, when we were complemented by an effective counterinsurgency effort. So what I was trying to do here was, increase that in a precision way and help tamp down the enemy network while we got the counterinsurgency part going as well.

I think in areas like Helmand and — it was just starting, when I left, in Kandahar — we did make progress. If you go down to the Helmand River Valley now, it's very different. … We thought we had to prove to people that counterinsurgency worked in Afghanistan. I think we proved part of that.

Q. Which part?

A. That the military part of counterinsurgency works in Afghanistan. … I don't think it's proven yet that the government of Afghanistan could rise to meet what they have to do. Because if they can't do it, another pillar of counterinsurgency is missing, and you have to have it.

Q. There is a sense that Afghanistan is a lost cause.

A. In fall 2001, there had been 22, 23 years of constant turmoil inside the country. They'd lost 1.2 million Afghans during the Soviet war. They had this big diaspora of people leaving. The memory of what happened during the civil war, '92 to '96, the first part of it — that's deeply etched on people, particularly inside Kabul. We kind of gloss over it, we go, "Yeah, that civil war ended, move on." It was as long as our civil war, and 40,000 people were killed in Kabul by [former mujahedeen commander Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar's shelling. People had deep animosities, hatreds and what not that came from that era. And the Taliban era was, of course, problematic at best. … If a country can be psychologically damaged, Afghanistan was psychologically damaged. … My biggest criticism of all of us is that we didn't make a great effort to understand that. … We didn't really say, "This is a badly abused nation, and helping this get on its feet is going to be a long-term, difficult, expensive project."

Q. What is our stake today?

A. I think it's both emotional and geostrategic. I'll start with the emotional part. The emotional part is, we did come in. We fought Al Qaeda, and threw apart their government. And we did incur a certain responsibility there. We raised expectations as well. We raised expectations for the 15 million Afghan females, that they might have a different future. We raised expectations of Afghan children that they'd be able to go to school, and all of these things. They may have been unrealistic expectations, but we raised them. …

I think that, over time, there's been a certain cynicism that has risen, by people in the U.S., that "It's so hard, and the Afghans won't help themselves, and the Pakistanis can't be trusted — we should just stay away from that."

And there's been a cynicism on the part of people in the region, saying: "You use us when it's helpful. You use us when Henry Kissinger needs to sneak into China in 1971, or you use us when you need the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban so you can get at Al Qaeda, or you use us when you need to fight the Soviet Union during the cold war — but you don't help when you don't need us." That's sort of the emotional part of it. …

I don't think there are many places in the world that "don't matter" anymore. … If we allow Afghanistan to become completely unstable, Pakistan's stability is really difficult. … So I think there's a geostrategic argument for it.

Q. Is it possible to succeed in Afghanistan today?

A. I believe it can succeed for several reasons: one, the Taliban are not really very strong. They're not a popular National Liberation Front, they don't bring a compelling narrative of a better future. In fact, they are antithetical to what a certain percentage of the Afghan population wants. The more educated part, the females, don't want a Taliban regime. … Having said that, Afghanistan has got to take a multiethnic society with some huge fissures in it, meld that back into a country. And it's been a nation before. The idea that it hasn't is incorrect, in my view. … They've got this level of corruption which undermines and corrodes the legitimacy of everyone. Anyone in a position of power is either corrupt or assumed to be corrupt, and the assumption of corruption is as bad as the reality of it.

Q. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is going to be here next week. Can the United States work with him?

A. I might put myself inside the Afghan government and say, "Can they work with the United States?" And they might write equally interesting memos about the challenges of working with us. …

My opinion is, we have to stop any idea that says, "Well, we don't like Karzai — let's get another." Stop. They elected him — you can argue about the election, but I believe they did elect him. There's a lot of corruption, but I think he would have been the winner anyway. So that's the first thing and we've got to respect that. …

I think President Karzai's successor is unclear. I don't see any heir apparent, and that's a little disturbing to me.

Q. Can one maintain a counterterrorism capability in Afghanistan without a complementary counterinsurgency effort?

A. If you take the raid into Abbotabad, that was years of gathering intelligence, some on the ground, some in the air, some signals intelligence. It was launched from bases — not just a single base, it needed a network. It had medevac available. It had this infrastructure that supported it that isn't seen by people who just look at a couple helicopters landing in a compound.

CT [counterterrorism] typically requires that. … Otherwise, it's really, really hard. It's like trying to do Desert One that was going to go into Tehran. …

If you don't have the support of the Afghan people. … There's no reason for them to be supportive of this. … I think any country where we're just launching from or operating within becomes a target for the terrorists, too. And then they have a legitimate reason to go, "What's in it for us?"

Q. For counterterrorism efforts to be effective, you need to do more than counterterrorism?

A. The most important CT thing you can do is strengthen the countries it's operating in. Terrorism is two things: it's a symptom of frustration, but it also operates in areas that are less governed and can't deal with it. So you have to try to create places where you have enough stability in the government where they can provide for the people and you're not causing terrorists to grow, or not encouraging terrorists. …

What we need is a stable Afghanistan. … I personally think there's going to be a military component that I urge be mostly enabling for the institution building, and them doing most of the fighting. I think it's trainers, logistics support, institutions, leadership, things like that. I don't think it's a huge footprint on the ground. I would be very reticent to put a lot there because of the resistance to it, there's a negative side. And helping the governance get better.

Q. The White House is considering keeping 3,000 to 9,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014. What can one accomplish with 3,000 or 6,000 or 9,000 troops?

A. I honestly haven't done the math on it. We had 7,500 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 when I was first stationed there. And 7,500 wouldn't do much, because by the time you had a pretty small headquarters at Bagram, you were running the airfield, you had some people starting to train A.N.S.F. (Afghan National Security Forces). … Pretty soon you don't have much reach.

Q. What is needed politically?

A. It goes back to, "What do you think the mission is? What are you trying to do?" If you make the decision that Afghanistan is a strategic, important priority for the U.S. and we're going to have a reasonable level of effort…that doesn't end the civilian requirement. That doesn't end the requirement for governance help or U.S.A.I.D.-kind of assistance. It actually opens the way for it.

Q. Do the Afghans want that?

A. I thought that they did. I thought there was a great thirst for stable, credible government at the local level. Now, sometimes it's the eye of the beholder. … But I think the average Afghan desperately wants that.

Q. Was Afghanistan worth it?

A. I think it should have been done differently from the beginning. … People ask me what we should have done, and I say, "On Sept. 12, 2001, we should have sent 10,000 people to language school."