Should armchair critics just cut it out?

I always start my on-line day day with a visit to this website run by the Canadian Forces College Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs. I highly recommend it because it is updated everyday and searchably archived. I also like the simple categorization (Canadian News/Canadian Commentary and International News/International Commentary). Being ethnically Canadian I am occasionally interested in sampling the Canadian debate. This article on Canada.com 'Armchair critics must halt drumbeat of defeatism over Afghan mission' caught my eye. As a self-confessed Armchair General I'm sensitive to the thrust of what he's saying here:

It's a golden rule of military operations that, unless you know what it is you are trying to do, you will fail -- at best suffering humiliation -- at worst needlessly losing lives.

There is another impediment to success, just as malignant. It's when you have a chorus of armchair observers shouting unsolicited advice, amplified by a gullible media.

At the risk of coming over all postmodern I think there is a tendency of the West to create a reality of defeat out of nothing but our tendency to jabber on in the endless societal echo chamber of which the Internet (case in point this blog) is a megaphonic amplifier. I sympathize with the urge of the author to scream 'shut up!' I paraphrase, actually what he says is:

Dithering politicians -- and blinkered academics -- are blurring the focus of the mission in Afghanistan.

In doing so, they risk weakening a military alliance that is a bulwark against terror for millions living in western democracies.

But my sympathy only goes so far. Frankly, I am apprehensive about the mission in Afghanistan as I wrote here. It seems to me that Afghanistan tends to be seen as 'the war that can be won' which is true but it could equally truly be called the 'war that can also be lost' if we repeat the mistakes of post March-April 2003 Iraq which it seems to me in some respects is happening:

• There are not enough troops on the ground and the ones that are there in the tough areas are so busy nailing insurgents while staying alive themselves that the goal of securing the population's support risks being compromised.

• The central government is weak and sectarian divisions (admittedly not of the Manichean proportions of the Sunni-Shiite divide in Iraq) pervade the country.

• Ungoverned regions of Pakistan (possibly with the compliance and/or tacit support of parts of the Pakistani security services) act as a staging point and logistical base for attacks inside Afghanistan.

• Suicide bombings are on the rise and the conflict is internationalizing with the arrival of enthusiastic Jihadis from all parts of the Islamic world eager to join the fight.

In short, defeat is a plausible outcome here. So with all respect to the author what I want to say is not 'Shut up!' but 'Wake up!' which is a very different thing. The problem is as Edward Luttwak once wrote that 'The West has become comfortably habituated to defeat.' (On the Meaning of Victory, Simon and Schuster, 1986, p. 289) This is civilizationally insanely suicidal. So, sure, let's cut the defeatism and start a real dialogue on how we can win--and for what it's worth I think his idea that what's needed is more firepower and more armour is the sort of short-termist band-aid-ism that leads to strategic failure. There's a debate to be had here to which even Armchair Generals like me can contribute. I fear, however, that the situation is even worse than the author acknowledges: the first step, and it's a big one, is shaking people out of their comfortable habituation with the idea that losing doesn't matter.

Update: Two good articles on Afghanistan from the On Point blog here