America as Jackie Chan

George Friedman argues that by fighting terrorism with allies — and not just Pakistan — who are themselves part of the terrorist nexus, the U.S. has enmeshed itself in an insoluble contradiction. It has denied itself any chance at victory as the price of having to fight terrorism. He asks whether America, by the choice of its allies, has implicitly adopted the strategy of not winning, lest it destabilize its friends.

This is the ultimate contradiction in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and even the so-called war on terror as a whole. …  Broadly fighting terrorism requires the cooperation of the Muslim world, as U.S. intelligence and power is inherently limited. …

The United States must either develop the force and intelligence to wage war without any assistance — which is difficult to imagine given the size of the Muslim world and the size of the U.S. military — or it will have to accept half-hearted support and duplicity. Alternatively, it could accept that it will not win in Afghanistan and will not be able simply to eliminate terrorism. These are difficult choices, but the reality of Pakistan drives home that these, in fact, are the choices.

Both sides are fighting in a manner that recalls the Jackie Chan movie in which our hero must fight multiple bad guys while preserving a museum full of priceless Ming vases. The question Friedman never answers completely is whether the choices of accepting “half-hearted support and duplicity” and “that it will not win in Afghanistan and will not be able simply to eliminate terrorism” are equivalent. Whether they amount to the same thing. In other words, whether it is, in the president’s favorite phrase, “a false choice”: heads you win, tails I lose.

The desire not to have to make a choice may account for why the Obama administration wants less — and not more — authority from Congress to prosecute the war it denies exists. The Danger Room describes the administration’s contradictory desire to both expand the war while simultaneously limiting its authority to do so.

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