A Far Cry From Failure
A Far Cry From Failure by Michael O'Hanlon, Foreign Affairs.
Stephen Biddle and Karl Eikenberry are outstanding public servants and scholars, but their respective articles on Afghanistan (“Ending the War in Afghanistan” and “The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan,” September/October 2013) convey excessively negative assessments of how the war is going and of Afghanistan’s prospects. Their arguments could reinforce the current American malaise about the ongoing effort and thereby reduce the odds that the United States will continue to play a role in Afghanistan after the current NATO-led security mission there ends in December 2014. That would be regrettable; the United States should lock in and solidify its gains in Afghanistan, not cut its losses.
Biddle argues that the U.S. Congress and other donors are unlikely to keep funding the Afghan government after 2014. Based on this conclusion, he states that the only other viable options for Washington are to broker a power-sharing deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban or to end its mission immediately…
I read this short piece with considerable interest. After all, I disagreed with the message contained in the title on its face, but Brookings is a highly respected think tank, and O’Hanlon is a brilliant and respected analyst. Clearly I must be missing something.
But upon reading, I found that I disagreed with the arguments supporting Dr. O’Hanlon’s position every bit as much as I did with his overall assessment.
He faults Dr. Biddle for comparing the US relationship with Afghanistan to the one we had with Vietnam, but then he contrasts that by comparing it to the relationships we had with “…partners such as Egypt, Greece, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey.” My memory (or access to CIA records) may have limits, but to my knowledge the US did not conduct regime change and prop up inherently illegitimate governments of our choosing in any of those partners cited by Dr. O’Hanlon. There are probably two primary strategic lessons we should take away from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan:
1. Any government elevated into office by a foreign power, regardless of how pure the foreign power perceives its justification and goals to be, will be perceived as illegitimate by much of the population it affects and will provoke a resistance insurgency. (Much cited exceptions, such as post-WWII Germany and Japan often overlook how completely defeated and equally completely vulnerable to the revenge of their recent adversary neighbors those countries were. We were the lesser of two evils. They both needed our protection, and that is a very different thing than being a welcome guest)
2. When one does seek to engage in a foreign country, one is best served by defining one’s goals as narrowly as possible and one’s interests as pragmatically as possible. In Iraq and Afghanistan we did the opposite, and the resultant quagmires are the expected result of such ambition.
Dr. O’Hanlon then makes this rather odd statement: that we could “…still achieve its core strategic goals there by building up a state that is at least resilient enough to fend off the Taliban in most population and economic centers.”
Ok, here are a couple of important thoughts on that comment:
1. Anytime a government is dedicated to the exclusion of some significant segment of the population from full and unbiased participation in economic, social and political participation in the future of that place, one may call it “democracy” but it is in fact a form of tyranny; and revolutionary insurgency is the typical, and natural response from that excluded population.
2. The Taliban were not our reason for going to Afghanistan, they were victims of mission creep and our desire to find someone and something we could actually target (kick). Our mission for going to Afghanistan was to punish AQ for their acts of 9/11 and to evict them from their physical sanctuaries in that region. Our continued efforts against “the Taliban” were largely at the encouraging of a Northern Alliance-based government that was happy to have us enforce their tyrannical monopoly on governance.
Some hard terms we don’t like to use, but when we sugar coat our actions to soothe or conscience with inaccurate terms, the only ones we fool are ourselves. No, we framed our operations in Afghanistan for failure from the very beginning in terms of the policies and politics we applied, and no amount of good COIN, CT, or any other military approach was apt to fix that in a reasonable time or at a reasonable cost. And THAT is exactly like Vietnam.
Respectfully,
Bob
Sir,
Your analysis and accompanying expression of it gets better and better as time goes on. A few more paragraphs and it would make for the perfect counterpoint article.
Ah, Brookings and South Asia and Afghanistan analysis!
Good old Brookings: Michael O’Hanlon! The Shaffers! Strobe Talbott! William Dalrymple! Vali Nasr! Stephen P. Cohen! Write, write, write. Conference, conference, conference. Lecture, lecture, lecture! Oh, Washington Consensus, how may I worship you even more?
And it goes on and on and on….And on and on and on:
From a comment I left at zenpundit:
Young people reading and lurking, my only hope. You are starting to “get” it aren’t you? No conspiracy. Sometimes, analysis is terribly weak and the reasons are complicated and varied, including the fact that many good people are driven by emotion and personal friendships and habits and passions and messy humanness as much as anything else.
Don’t despair. Yes, this board’s negative Nelly is trying to change ways.
There is no reason for despair. The thing of it is, you are better educated about the world than you once were about many things, including the passions that your elders developed during the Cold War and the twenty year cycle after. The passions that run the Washington Consensus. From this, you will build. I see it starting already. Good luck to you. I mean that sincerely. Be nicer than I am.
You too will develop your own passions and struggle to overcome them and in the future your own children will say, “hey, what were you thinking?” And the answer will be that we are human which means being fallible. Which ought to mean humility. A thing I struggle with so I should shut my trap, really.
But seriously, young ones. Read up on Brookings and its history of analysis in the region. Go back and read what was written and what happened subsequently. Aid not gonna work, oldster Brookings. Hyphenating not gonna work, oldster Brookings. Wrong and wrong again.
LOL indeed. Laughter is the only sane response.
RCJ wrote:
‘The Taliban were not our reason for going to Afghanistan, they were victims of mission creep and our desire to find someone and something we could actually target (kick)’
I am puzzled by the labeling of the Taliban as a Pathan ‘Revolutionary’ or ‘Resistance’ movement and not as the proxy UW force of the Pakistan Army. I have no doubt there are many Pathans who have a desire for revolution and resistance but why label them as a Pakistan UW force and not Pathan Revolutionary/Resistance fighters?
The original Taliban fighter was literally stood up with 6 to 7 year old boys in the refugee camps of Pakistan in the mid eighties. Unlike the Mujahedeen none fought the Soviet Army nor the Saurists owing to their age and the simple fact the political purpose for their existence was to fight UW in Afghanistan and India. Many of those children now have their own children in the ranks of the present-day Taliban and are fighting the ISAF and ASF.
Needless to say the possibility exists that in the ensuing 30 odd years the Taliban’s original purpose may have morphed into a Pushtoonistan revolutionary or resistance movement. However considering they remain trained, supplied, rotated, financed, disciplined, hospitalized, rehabilitated and pensioned by the Pakistan Army I would suggest such a major change to be unlikely. The proof in the pudding is the Pakistan Army’s attitude towards Pakistan’s home-grown Pathan secessionists. These Pathans are indeed revolutionary and resistance fighters but unlike the Taliban survive independently from any outside aid other than funding from Saudi/Wahhabi dissidents and the small-arms they beg, borrow and steal. These Pathan fighters are duly shot on sight by the Pak Army.
The Taliban only come to Afghanistan to kill or be killed at the behest of their Pakistani masters and rather than attacking the ISAF or GIRoA security personnel ( as one would expect of a genuine revolutionary/resistance movement) 90% of their victims are innocent civilians blown to pieces in mosques, bazaars and on public roadways. IMHO if the Talibs were inclined to pursue or merely express any secessionist intentions they would find themselves in one of the NWFP prisons of no return.
RCJ wrote:
‘Anytime a government is dedicated to the exclusion of some significant segment of the population from full and unbiased participation in economic, social and political participation in the future of that place, one may call it “democracy” but it is in fact a form of tyranny; and revolutionary insurgency is the typical, and natural response from that excluded population.’
IMHO this Jeffersonian argument in support of the Talban and the subsequent characterization of the ISAF/GIRoA effort as a tyranny warrants a close examination of the political will of the Afghan population so as to establish who in fact is the freedom fighter and who is the tyrant.
I think all would agree none of the Tajiks, Hazaris, Uzbecks, Nuristanis etc want the Taliban back so that’s 52% (16 million people) native opponents straight off the bat. The 300,000 Pathan members of the ASFs (150K military/150K police/VSO) would be the first to be ‘rescued’ by a Taliban bullet so I would hazard a guess that they are not for the Taliban. Include the ten direct family members of each of these 300K Pathan security personnel ( who probably represent the family’s major/sole bread-winner) and the anti-Taliban bloc side has another 3 million supporters. Add another 3 million or so more distant cousins/in-laws/neighbors and you are talking 6 million ethnic Pathans with a direct financial linkage to GIRoA and ISAF rule. So the so-called ‘tyranny’ has 21 million supporters or 70% of the Afghan population.
Any Pathan revolution/resistance mandate must now draw its democratic legitimacy from 30% of a total population of 30 million. Impacting their legitimacy credentials is the simple fact that most live near the Pak border.
Half of these remaining 10 million people are female. Does anyone seriously suggest any female living in Afghanistan would wish to see the return of the Taliban if given a choice? I very much doubt it. So those 5 million females make it 83% with very little interest in the Taliban’s return.
RCJ wrote :
‘Our continued efforts against “the Taliban” were largely at the encouraging of a Northern Alliance-based government that was happy to have us enforce their tyrannical monopoly on governance.’
It is possible that all of the remaining 5 million want the Taliban back but I have my doubts. Which dominant Pathan tribal group might represent the core of the Taliban’s legitimacy? It would help if they actually lived in Afghanistan and or at the very least were born there. The Popalzai are the dominant Pathan tribe and they are centered around Kandahar. Importantly in a country where the sentiment for political leadership is ultra conservative the Popalzai of Kandahar boast seven Shahs of the Durrani dynasty that ruled all of Afghanistan and as far as Kashnmir for nearly a century and are considered the founders of the ‘modern’ Afghan State.
Some other prominent Pathans – Mullah Omar is a landless peasant from Urozgun and is a Hotak, Jellaudden Haqqani has lived in Pakistan since 1975 and is from Paktia on the Pak border. Gulbuddin Hekmatyr is from the far northern town of Kunduz and was a pro-Soviet student who came to prominence at the University of Kabul by throwing acid on female under-graduates and subsequently fled to Pakistan and lived there for nearly 40 years.
However there is one Pathan dude who was born in Kandahar, is a member of the Popalazi tribe, currently resides in Afghanistan and so happens to be the President of Afghanistan. IMHO any suggestion the current President has a weaker political mandate than any other possible Pathan candidate from the Pathan heartland strikes me as doubtful.
Certainly Karzai is far from ideal but his lousy performance in no way explains the lack of political support the Taliban possess in their heartland and the complete absence mandate in the rest of Afghanistan.
IMO the suggestion that any organization that less than 5% of the population is in some way denied nation-wide representation as a result of tyranny flies in the face of reason.
Pakistan has existential reasons for waging UW against its westerly neighbor and like all sovereign states it will do anything to ensure its national security. Unless her strategic insecurities are dealt with Afghanistan will never know peace. The notion that Pakistan’s national security will somehow be strengthened by an ethnic Persian resurgence along the Durrand Line is insane.
Only Israel fears the expansion of Persia more than Pakistan. Our strategic blunder in Iraq and the subsequent empowering of Iran has completely freaked them out.
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has the measure of any nuclear threat posed by India. A MAD balance is maintained by the simple fact that Pakistan missiles can reach enough major Indian cities to render an existential threat from India highly unlikely. Unfortunately these same missiles located in the Pakistani Punjab wouldn’t get halfway to Tehran.
Obviously Pakistan should not get a pass for what it is doing in Afghanistan but think October 1962, Cuba, missile flight times and what the US was prepared to risk to ‘fix’ the problem and ask yourself why are we abandoning our ally and giving up our strategic foothold in the epic-center of this unfolding catastrophe.
We all have one.
RC
Should the potential for success or failure be judged along these lines, to wit:
— To create a regional environment more conducive to stable democracies and open societies? —
If so, then in which of these ways is this objective most likely to be achieved:
a. As per Biddle and Eikenberry’s suggestion regarding a power-sharing deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban?
b. Or via O’Hanlon’s idea that we and our allies continue to build up the Afghan state such that it is at least resilient enough to fend off the Taliban in most population and economic centers?
(Herein, understanding that the mission of the Taliban et al would seem to be: To ensure that we ARE NOT able to create a regional environment more conducive to stable democracies and open societies.)