President Obama announced plans to send 4,000 more troops, er, “military trainers” to Afghanistan on Friday, causing concerns from both his left and right flanks. However, he gave the troops a targeted mission—to train Afghan troops—contrary to the advice of Richard Holbrooke, his own envoy to South Asia, who argued for a more expansive role. While Obama has made the correct decision in limiting the mission of these extra troops, he inadvertently may be setting up the United States for indirect rule in South Asia for longer than anyone anticipates.

Both Holbrooke and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Obama to ask the troops to help the Afghan government in a wide variety of tasks, from promoting agriculture to combating corruption. As the British, the Russians, and the Taliban themselves have learned at different times, Afghanistan is a difficult place to govern. Unlike Iraq, which has always been fairly urban, Afghanistan is upwards of 70% rural. Moreover, the rural areas are still ruled by clan and tribal customs rather than by the central government. While any number of NGOs or even government-sponsored organizations could help with agricultural or economic development, a large-scale, (dare I say it) Clintonian nation-building project is simply unworkable from a military standpoint. So why did the officials argue for it?

Part of the reason has to do with poppy production, which is used to make heroin and funds Taliban and other insurgent activities. Holbrooke and Clinton argued that stopping poppy production might cut off the Taliban at the knees. That’s a fair point, but otherwise innocent farmers grow most of the poppy. “Cutting off production” could be a polite way of saying “burn down their fields.” This is the problem inherent to military dominated nation-building. Militaries must take harsh steps to complete their missions. This is not to say that these steps are unnecessary or even bad, but they can make attempts at building up the country carry less credibility with the local populace.

Obama has done the right thing, then, in limiting the mission of these extra troops, but the seeds of nation-building remain. The New York Times reported that “[p]art of Mr. Obama’s plan includes sending hundreds of additional diplomats and civilian experts into the region.” This sounds great, but neither the President’s announcement nor the White House’s white paper on the new way forward gives any indication of where these new civilians are coming from.

Clinton, in a message leaked to ABC News, implies that most of them shall come from USAID (which funds international development projects) or contracts assigned by it. This is better than the military, but reports have circulated that the United Nations is looking into allegations than an American official in Afghanistan spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury items for himself. An Afghan former assistant to President Hamid Karzai told me that such things are not uncommon. More importantly, it renders the Afghan government dependent on American and other Western aid for even longer. There is a fine line between “civilian assistants” and “colonial administrators.”

This column has expressed skepticism in the past for the so-called “surge in Afghanistan.” While I give Obama credit for limiting the mission of these 4,000 extra troops he announced Friday, he has given no such limits to the 17,000 he announced previously. It is clear that the administration does not want to indirectly rule Afghanistan in the long term, but it may be setting us up for that anyway.

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