A) No he didn't. McCrystal asked for enough to push into both regional commands bordering Pakistan in order to effectively shut down the taliban's ability to project force across that border and into the country. Obama gave him enough to push into
one, apparently not realizing that these guys are like water, and if you push them down
here they will squirt up over
there unless you push that down too.
B) In the very next breath after the one that he used to promise to send troops there, he doomed their mission. The strategy that has become known by the nomenclature of "Surge" works when you are able to convince a native populace that you are going to be the ultimate victor in the contest, and their incentives are thus to side with you. When you announce that you intend to force an early withdrawal of troops in-line with political datelines as opposed to conditions on the ground, you are effectively announcing to every Afghan villager out there that you
intend to lose, and it is in his best interest to do nothing for us, and quietly support the Taliban, but as little as possible.
C) Furthermore, incredibly restrictive ROE's have created a no-win discontinuity between command and field that damages the efforts of both. When you impose impossible standards, you are effectively ensuring that the standards will be ignored by those who think they can get away with it, and obeyed by those who think they can't, even if doing so costs them the lives of those under them and ultimately victory in combat. The top therefore loses it's ability to effectively communicate direction and intent. Which, it seems, there wasn't much of, anyway. In the Civil War, Sherman knew he had to bring the South to its' knees in order to end the war. Soldiers in WWII said that the road home went through Berlin. Obama seems to have thought that victory in Afghanistan would come from pretending that it didn't exist.
Remember, it's not just how big a Surge is, it's how you use it :mrgreen: