新浪尚文

　　导语：本期《经济学人》封面文章对美驻阿富汗军队高层出现的，羞辱美政府官员的事件评论到，奥巴马虽因此撤掉美军驻阿最高指挥官，但让人们担心的是这场战争正走向失败。

　　近日爆出的美驻阿最高军事指挥官麦克里斯托(StanleyMcChrystal)将军身边军官在媒体前羞辱白宫官员，低看奥巴马总统的言论在美国内掀起的风暴，无疑造成了如同塔利班袭击一样的危害。美国历来珍视文职政府控制武装力量的传统，勇于决策的奥巴马总统最终让麦克里斯托为自己和身边人员不负责任的言论付出代价。但奥巴马果断决定无法掩盖的事实是美国和盟友在阿逐渐失利。

　　奥巴马总统虽有充足理由撤换麦克里斯托将军，但塔利班不再会有比麦克里斯托将军离开的事情更高兴。他是反游击战专家，还是少数几位能与卡尔扎伊总统共事的美国人之一。由麦克里斯托亲自挑选的指挥官在负责坎大哈地区的清剿塔利班行动，这可能决定此次行动的成败。因奥巴马的信任，伊拉克战场之星和反游击战手册的作者，彼得雷乌斯(DavidPetraeus)将军将替代麦克里斯托。但无论如何，把麦克里斯托解职让美国清剿塔利班的行动看起来正处于失败边缘。

　　奥巴马总统曾把阿富汗战争视为一场“必要的战争('a war of necessity')”。他现在应把必要性放在一边来回答以下两个问题，美国领导的联军能否在阿富汗取胜？若能，将以何种办法取胜？

　　政治家与将军们闹翻是最可怕的事情。截止6月，阿富汗已超过越南成为美国史上采取军事行动时间最长的国家。这场战争已让1000多名军人阵亡，近6000人受伤。但塔利班仍四处活动，刺杀部落长老和胁迫民众。一项对占全阿三分之一的120个闹暴乱地区进行的民调显示，当地人不支持现任总统卡尔扎伊，有三分之一以上支持暴乱者。

　　奥巴马总统虽在去年11月承诺向阿增兵3万以上，支持清缴行动，但局势几乎无变化。麦克里斯托将军的计划是要形成一个能从塔利班手中夺回地盘，为阿政府扩大活动空间，并由当地人负责社会管理的迅猛势头。但这一幕在实际中未出现，本应展现联军行动效果的地区因政府官员腐败造成的局势无改观。但美国在年底之前可能还有展现反游击战效果的一丝希望。

　　混乱和踌躇释放出盖过奥巴马为战争辩解，但缺乏承诺的信号。这使得战争获胜的机会降低。能与西方阵营同舟共济的阿富汗和巴基斯坦人少之又少，因太多人相信美国没有把战争进行下去的决心。

　　西方领导人在向选民解释这场战争时表现极糟，并且战争失败对他们也是个灾难。已受到恐怖主义分子自由地在巴基斯坦北部地区、也门和索马里活动的制约，像清除基地组织活动地盘这样单一目的可能都变得难以实现。

　　若西方力量从阿富汗撤出，将造成当地人饱受包括有受伊、巴、印和俄势力影响的当地各种势力参与的一场混战之苦。阿富汗的失败对西方，对北约是个耻辱，也让在该国进行援助的救援人员处于宿敌的威胁中。更不应忘记的是阿富汗人民，因西方入侵才造成了今天的混乱，所以它有责任让当地人回到还算过得去的生存状态。

　　阿富汗当今的形势仍严峻，暴力活动程度甚至超过伊拉克最糟糕时期。阿军队和警察正在缓慢地扩编。有理由相信众多当地人想避开塔利班，若他们相信还有其他可选择的道路。

　　这正是彼得雷乌斯将军要达到的目的。呈现失败因素并不会自动形成失败。伊拉克局势证明了这一点。阿个别地区的战事虽失利，但剿灭暴乱需要时间和众多军队，更理想的是当地军队的参与。真正的考验来自对坎大哈的行动，因当地有迹象显现人们未做好支持这类军事行动的思想准备。尽管如此，在其亲自任命的最佳指挥官的指挥下，究竟反游击战能否成功，奥巴马应向西方和阿富汗人民有交代。阿富汗战争可能会以不光彩的撤退方式终结，但这不是人们想看到的结局。(皖东)

　　After McChrystal

　　Barack Obama has sacked his commander in Afghanistan. But the real worry is that the war is being lost

　　THE national security adviser of the world’s greatest superpower is a “clown”， its vice-president a nobody and its president “uncomfortable and intimidated”. With those words the officers around General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, engulfed America in a storm as damaging to its war effort as any Taliban raid. America rightly sets great store by civilian control of its armed forces and on June 23rd a distinctly unintimidated President Barack Obama made General McChrystal pay for his insubordination with his job. But presidential decisiveness cannot conceal a deeper truth. America and its allies are losing in Afghanistan。

　　Mr Obama had every reason to cashier General McChrystal. Officers, including his predecessor, have gone for less. Not to act could have left the president looking weak. And yet it was a heavy price to pay. Nothing could cheer the Taliban more than seeing General McChrystal out on his ear. He is a master of counterinsurgency (COIN)， he was one of the few Americans who could work with President Hamid Karzai and his hand-picked commanding officers are in charge of a forthcoming operation in Kandahar that will probably determine the course of the campaign (see article). To Mr Obama’s credit, his place has been filled by General David Petraeus, the star of the war in Iraq and the man who wrote the manual on COIN. Even so, the dismissal leaves America’s campaign pitched on the edge of failure。

　　Mr Obama once described the fighting in Afghanistan as “a war of necessity”. The president must now put necessity aside and pose two fundamental questions. Can the American-led coalition still win in Afghanistan? And if so, how?

　　Kabul fighting

　　This is a terrible moment for the generals to fall out with the politicians. In June Afghanistan surpassed Vietnam to become, by some measures, the longest campaign in America’s history. More than 1,000 of its men and women have been killed and almost 6,000 injured. Yet the Taliban are rampant, assassinating tribal leaders and intimidating their people. A survey in 120 districts racked by insurgency, a third of Afghanistan’s total, found little popular support for Mr Karzai. Over a third of their inhabitants backed the insurgents。

　　Since November, when Mr Obama promised 30,000 more of his country’s soldiers to the campaign, little has gone right. General McChrystal’s plan was for a “surge” that would seize the initiative from the Taliban and create the scope for Afghanistan’s government, backed by its army and police, to take charge. In practice that has not happened. Marja, a farming district in Helmand, was supposed to show how COIN would win over the people and send the Taliban packing. General McChrystal himself now calls Marja a “bleeding ulcer”. Mr Karzai’s supposedly corrupt half-brother was meant to go, but he remains in charge in Kandahar. Fanciful Pentagon talk of Afghanistan’s huge mineral wealth smacks of desperation. America has, perhaps, until the end of the year to show that COIN can work。

　　The charitable view is that frustration lay behind the reckless insults dished out by General McChrystal and his team in front of a journalist from Rolling Stone. COIN manuals stress the importance of “unity of effort”： damning the idiots back in Washington does not help. But if the generals have not always done well by the politicians, the politicians have far more often let down the generals. George Bush and his defence chiefs neglected the war in Afghanistan while they devoted themselves to bungling the war in Iraq. Mr Obama and his advisers, at odds over strategy, dithered over allocating troops and, far worse, set a date for them to start their withdrawal (see Lexington)。

　　This infighting and hesitancy signal a lack of commitment that has drowned out Mr Obama’s warlike rhetoric. That has blighted the war’s chances of success. Too few Afghans and Pakistanis have thrown in their lot with the West, because too many think America has no stomach for the fight。

　　Were so much not at stake, it would be tempting to give up and call the troops home. Yet, although Western leaders have done a poor job at explaining the war in Afghanistan to their voters, a defeat there would be a disaster. The narrow aim of denying al-Qaeda a haven, already frustrated by the terrorists’ scope to lodge in unruly parts of northern Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, would become impossible to achieve. A Western withdrawal would leave Afghanistan vulnerable to a civil war that might suck in the local powers, including Iran, Pakistan, India and Russia. Sooner or later, the poison would end up harming America too: it always does. Defeat in Afghanistan would mark a humiliation for the West, and for NATO, that would give succour to its foes in the world. And do not forget the Afghan people. Having invaded their country, the West has a duty to return it to them in a half-decent state。

　　It would be idle to harbour such dreams if they were unattainable. Yet, grim as it is, the violence in Afghanistan even now pales beside Iraq at its worst. In the pit of that conflict tens of thousands of people were dying each year, at least ten times more than in Afghanistan today. The ranks of the Afghan army and police force are slowly filling with recruits. There are reasons to think that many Afghans would like to be rid of the Taliban, if only they could believe in an alternative。

　　Still the right plan

　　That is where the appointment of General Petraeus comes in. A losing cause does not automatically have to become a lost one: Iraq showed that. The operation in Marja went badly, but putting down an insurgency needs time and lots of troops, preferably local ones. The real test will come in Kandahar. Worryingly, one of General McChrystal’s last acts was to postpone the operation there until the autumn, amid signs that local people were not yet ready to back it. Even so, Mr Obama owes it to the West and to the Afghan people to determine whether COIN can in fact succeed under his best general. The Afghan war may yet end in an ignominious retreat. But nobody should welcome such an outcome。

　　(文章来源：经济学人)