Ashley Jackson

His entire career and training has been about winning and defeating enemies. He has no understanding of negotiation, compromise, or win-win outcomes. He uses sports metaphors (games with winners and losers) to describe international conflict. And he is venerated.https://twitter.com/a_a_jackson/status/1195154410973716480 …

I’ve spent a lot of time with him and I would offer that he indeed does understand those things. However, you and Ashely (and myself) are looking at this with the bias of emotion and looking for a “good” outcome for all, especially Afghans. He is not. It’s math, cold, but math.

You have spent more time with him than I have, but I have spent time with him in meetings focused precisely on seeking a political settlement in Afghanistan. He told Holbrooke to stop until we were in the ever receding “stronger position.” Still waiting.

I’ve never spent anytime with him, but my trouble is the math. Forget the moral or human concerns. The calculus he’s applying no longer holds imho. It did, once. But I suspect the strategy is delivering diminishing returns. And the rate at which they’re diminishing is speeding up

While the Taliban are hurting from air strikes etc, they’re also adapting. Just as they did with the surge. I often feel no one with a Petraeus-like narrative of the war has been to an Afghan village on the frontlines (or whatever we call these multitudinous gray areas).

If they had, they would see that this is not 2011 or 2014 or even 2016. The taliban are taking district centers but leaving govt buildings encircled. They are creeping in. And where they’ve been knocked back, they are lying in wait.