There seems to be some confusion: the spectacular al Q engineered 9/11 attack, the wretchedness of their Taliban hosts and the wish of people in the region – rightfully worried about and weary of Jihadi violence – to be rid of the problem have caused many observers to conclude that since, in light of all these factors, SOME sort of action needed to be taken the action that WAS taken, the US invasion, was the best available, and perhaps only, option.
Putting aside moral dilemmas for the sake of argument, the invasion was marred by significant tactical flaws.
These imperfections increase the probability of further terrorist action, making the entire operation only a violently enforced yet fragile pause in an ongoing drama that will unfold many years into the future.
The tactical flaws are clearly visible, but hiding in plain sight, buried beneath the triumphalist blinders many put on following the Talib's ouster.
As the Afghan operation took shape several of my friends, aware of my lefty politics asked me “what should have been done?” They expected a pacifist manifesto but instead of that I told them the following...
The US' case against the Taliban was Kabul's support for al Qaeda, the group most sensible observers believe to be responsible for the large-scale terrorist attack of 9-11-01.
Every nation (even one that's very often an international bad actor, such as the US) has the right of self-defense and an act of mass murder surely qualifies as a situation warranting counter action. Yes, there are ironies aplenty in that statement.
Considering the Taliban's well-deserved unpopularity, it would've no doubt been possible for Washington to rapidly assemble a multinational force composed of regional players (led by Russia, India, Pakistan and the US - countries with the most well developed logistical capabilities, but also comprised of troops from smaller nations in the area) The goal of this force would have been to restrict al Q's range of motion outside of Afghanistan – to encircle them.
With encirclement in place, the US should have presented its actual case (no doctored material, no linkages to Saddam, etc) to the UN so the entire world would have had an opportunity to hear the brief against al Q and the Taliban – an essential step to firmly establish justification for collective military action, if it came to that (the ideal, from the US' POV, being the Taliban peacefully surrendering al Q to international justice).
Once hostilities started...
The use of cluster, thermobaric and other sub-nuke, mass anti-personnel ordinance – as likely to kill civilians as the intended targets – would've been limited to pure combat zones. If no such zones existed in the field (i.e. war fighting occurred in areas where civilians were intermingled with al Q and Talib targets) ground combat with close air support would've been the preferred method of engaging the enemy. High altitude deliverance of ordinance from B52s, B1s, B2's, cruise missiles and other supposedly super accurate but often indiscriminate weapons systems would have been used sparingly if at all. Air forces would not have patrolled Afghan skies on search and destroy missions (which, as we saw again and again, killed wedding parties and other groups of non-combatants as often as hostiles).
Even with careful planning and precautions, there would have been gray areas of action – such as the rules of engagement for cross border hot pursuit. These would have been worked out with regional partners on an evolving basis.
...
US war fighting methods since Vietnam are excessively air power dependent (the area where American military capability is unchallenged); Rumsfeld's ascendancy has strengthened this habit and added to it an even greater reliance on high tech/personnel light killingry. This approach is precisely not what was needed in Afghanistan, which required the careful attention of a skilled hegemon – one that takes the long view.
Instead of a strategy involving the isolation of hostiles and coordinating the active (rather than merely passive – e.g. basing and overflight rights and after-the-fact clean up operations) participation of regional powers and the wholesale reconstruction of the country the US launched a combination proxy war (via Northern Alliance) air blitzkrieg and under-manned invasion that succeeded in deposing the Taliban and scattering al Q to the four corners – reducing, it appears, their operational effectiveness - but failed in accomplishing the longer term objective of creating a self sustaining inhospitable environment for a future resurgence of the problem.
We are only a few years out from the assault. It took over a decade for the full impact of the Soviet invasion/US proxy war/super power withdrawal/Afghan civil war/rise of the Talib/manifestation of al Qaeda saga to bring us to the destruction of the Twin Towers.
It seems a bit premature to declare the US operation, so obviously plagued by design and execution blunders (and the immense shadow of the real goal, which was to get the thing over with as quickly as possible so war Plan Iraq could proceed), to be a success.
.d.
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Quantum mechanics is the coolest thing ever invented, ever.
Sean Carrol, physicist