Gordon Brown has given a speech this afternoon defending Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan. Although the speech was scheduled before Eric Joyce, a junior defence minister, resigned over the war, there is no doubt that Brown is responding to a growing mood of disquiet about mounting violence and casualties and an unconvincing election.
The trouble is that that Brown doesn’t have much new to say. He makes the link to terrorism and claims that - “A safer Afghanistan means a safer Britain.” He talks about training up the Afghan army and he stresses that the war must be “won on the ground and not in the air”. (This, on a day, when it seems as if Nato may have killed a great many Afghan civilians in a bombing raid.)
All of this echoes the counter-insurgency plans laid out by the new Nato commander in Afghanistan - Stanley McChrystal, an American general. McChrystal’s “new” strategy emphasises not just clearing but “holding” ground and concentrating on providing security for local Afghans. There will be less bombing and more boots on the ground.
All of this is being presented as some sort of intellectual and strategic breakthrough. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. Last March, I sat in the Kabul office of McChrystal’s predecessor, David McKiernan and heard him explain his strategy. It was the same stuff: train up the Afghan army, concentrate on the protection of civilians, less bombing. Like McChrystal, McKiernan wanted more troops. (A western diplomat in Kabul groaned to me, “the military always want more troops.”)
The sense of deja vu is compounded, in a childish sort of way, by the fact that all commanders of Nato in Afghanistan seem to be called Mac something. The first time I visited Kabul in 2008, the head of ISAF was an American general called Dan McNeill. He wanted more troops as well. McNeill, McKiernan, McChrystal. Plus ca change…