Flournoy says pulling US forces from Afghanistan will take time

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy is appealing for public patience to give American forces in Afghanistan time to make more progress on the ground and to train Afghan forces to take over the battle against Taliban insurgents.

Flournoy, a former research fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, was the keynote speaker at a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Tuesday evening, Nov. 16. Joining her in the event titled "Women on War and Peace" were Meghan O'Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School and a Belfer Center board member, and Belfer Center adjunct senior fellow Paula Dobriansky, both of whom also held top U.S. government security positions in the last decade.

Flournoy, a Harvard College graduate, called on Harvard students to consider serving in their country's military, noting that the proportion of Harvard grads who have joined the military has fallen steadily since the Vietnam War. With the end of the draft, she said the burden of fighting today's wars is borne by less than 1 percent of the US population. "I'm asking you to think beyond the well-worn paths that lead from Harvard to the world of think tanks and policy offices," and to consider joining "one of the most impressive and diverse institutions in the world, the United States military."

She also called on the Harvard administration to lift the ban on the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program. Harvard and some other schools bar ROTC because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays. Flournoy said: "This estrangement between the military and some of our finest institutions of higher learning has had deeply negative consequences - for all involved."

On Afghanistan, Flournoy said the deployment of an additional 30,000 US troops has helped US and coalition forces to secure rural areas where Taliban insurgents had made strides in previous years. She also said the Afghan National Army was gaining skills and experience that would enable US forces to hand over more combat responsibilities, and allow Afghan forces to consolidate security gains.

But Flournoy, the highest-ranking woman ever in the Pentagon, said: "it will take time. It will require patience."

She cautioned that President Obama's declaration of a July 2011 goal for starting to draw down US forces depends on progress on the ground. "It will mean the end of the current troop surge, and the beginning of some U.S. combat-troop reductions - when and where conditions warrant. [But] July 2011 won't mean the end of our commitment to Afghanistan, or even necessarily a reduction in the intensity of our operations. Not by a long shot."

"In fact, we do not talk about an ‘end date' at all, but rather a ‘transition process,' in which Afghanistan takes the lead in providing for its own security," she said, adding that President Hamid Karzai, Obama and coalition partners will meet at a NATO summit in Lisbon this week "to reaffirm our shared desire to attain this goal by the end of 2014."

Flournoy, O'Sullivan and Dobriansky all said they felt that opportunities had increased for women in the fields of defense and security, and that younger women were being welcomed into demanding policy roles. Flournoy, 49, is the highest-ranking woman to have served in the Pentagon. She said that early in her career, all the women in leadership roles in the Pentagon could fit around one table. Now, she said, women would spill out of the dining hall.