Faust and the Padshah Sphinx: Reshaping the NATO Alliance to Win in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is the greatest challenge that we face in the post-Cold War period. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force ISAF in Afghanistan faces challenges that inhibit its ability to accomplish the mission. Amongst the challenges NATO faces are a lack of unity of effort, divergent political wills, and divergent U.S. and European reactions to the complex Afghan strategic environment. To remedy this situation, NATO, and its most influential member, the United States, must undertake a concerted effort to provide realistic solutions to these challenges. Among the remedies suggested in this paper are establishing unity of effort and unity of command through competent strategic leadership, employing forces where they appropriately suit the mission, and developing a C2 structure that increases effectiveness and mutually supports all members of the alliance. Perhaps the most important ingredient for success in Afghanistan is having strategic leaders with the tact, will, and skill to create an environment in which NATO can succeed. What is at stake in Afghanistan for NATO and the United States It is hard to imagine a positive outcome with failure. Apocalypse-like scenarios seem probable if things go terribly wrong. Failure of the ISAF mission will fragment NATO, with American influence in Europe diminishing in the face of an emerging European Union army and its potential economic power. Afghanistan will certainly collapse into a failing state in a vicious civil war, dragging with it the nuclear and fragile Pakistan. Emboldening radical Islamists, now gaining inspiration from the defeat of the last superpower, will likely stimulate additional struggles and destabilize more fragile states. This is not an outcome palatable to NATO, the United States or the global community. They simply must do the hard work to create unity of effort and unity of command through capable leadership because losing is not an option.