Surprisingly undiplomatic language came out of last week's London conference on
Afghanistan. [1] Statements from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
chiefs and Kabul politicians are usually less direct. But all recognized that
conflict is at a stalemate and peace talks with the Taliban the only
alternative to a longer, perhaps inconclusive, war that has ravaged Afghanistan
for most of the past 32 years.
Insurgent limitations
Since their expulsion from power in 2001, the Taliban have been able to
reconstitute. In the past three years they have been built an impressive
insurgency based on opposition to foreign
occupation, corrupt and incompetent government, and perceived non-Pashtun
danger. Missteps by the West and the government of President Hamid Karzai have
been as important in the rise of the insurgency as the adeptness of the
Taliban.
Since a British force that crossed the Khyber Pass in 1838 did not return, it
has been well understood that tribal customs prepare the Pashtun to be
warriors. Knowledge of local terrain, kinship ties, and a tradition of fierce
resistance to outsiders make for formidable guerrilla bands, as Russian forces
learned decades ago, and NATO forces are now learning too. But the same tribal
customs limit the military efficacy of Pashtun insurgents. Fire discipline is
not good; infiltration routes and ambush sites are often predictable; kinship
and zealotry are key attributes of command; and tactical advantages during
engagements are not seized upon.
The insurgent leadership has suffered many casualties over the years, sometimes
in engagements but more often from Predator and Reaper drone attacks. In recent
years, Dadullah Akhund and Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, two valued regional
commanders, were killed in security sweeps or by drones. Some reports indicate
that members of the Quetta shura, which directs the war, have fled the
Af-Pak line for fear of similar strikes.
Taliban forces cannot engage Western forces without suffering fearsome and
likely problematic casualties. Occasionally, insurgent bands mass and attack in
force (as in Kunar) and though the engagements make headlines, they are of
little military significance. Attacking disciplined troops in fortified
positions almost certainly results in egregious casualties for the attackers.
They are unable to deliver a decisive military blow that will elevate the
insurgency to a force that can oust the government in Kabul or completely
undermine support for the war among the American public. Insurgents have come
to rely increasingly on improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings of
Western targets in Kabul and other cities.
Western limitations
Neither can Western forces deliver decisive victory. So far, their efforts to
get insurgent commanders to switch sides have not been effective. The Afghan
army remains largely on the sidelines, preferring positions in relatively
secure areas and negotiating local truces with insurgents - hardly a stalwart
ally that will buoy support in Western capitals. Western forces have
insufficient intelligence on insurgent forces, an American general has recently
admitted, making most operations pointless displays of organizational and
logistical skill that result in little enemy attrition.
In the past year, the US has placed a great deal of hope in counter-insurgency
warfare - this from its apparent success in squelching the Sunni insurgency in
Iraq. But two critical differences between Iraq and Afghanistan stand out.
First, Sunni insurgents in Iraq faced a dismal strategic position in fighting
the quantitatively superior Shi'ite militias supplied by Iran and the
qualitatively superior American troops backed by almost limitless resources.
Second, al-Qaeda forces, by their haughtiness and disrespect for locals,
alienated local Sunni tribes, encouraging them to turn on the foreign fighters.
Sunni insurgents won US protection and money.
It is difficult to discern relevant parallels in Afghanistan. Pashtun
insurgents do not as yet face large numbers of domestic enemies, as did the
Iraqi Sunnis. They have long-standing enemies in northern provinces, but their
militias are now held in reserve by local warlords. Haughtiness and disrespect
for locals has been in evidence of al-Qaeda fighters and their mujahideen
forerunners in the 1980s. But their numbers inside Afghanistan are negligible,
as is their impact on the war and Pashtun sensibilities.
The US military has long eschewed developing counter-insurgency doctrines and
training programs. That type of warfare was seen as a diversion of resources
from conventional orientation, which was seen as the likely form of conflict
from World War II through the Cold War and the first Gulf War in 1991.
The recent discovery of counter-insurgency's usefulness has led some in the US
military to embrace it with zeal. But reorientation from reliance on
conventional means and massive firepower will not come quickly. Further, many
US troops are on their fifth or more deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Exhaustion is setting in, and many find it hard to conceal their disdain for
locals, whom they see, regardless of any evidence, as insurgents or
sympathizers.
Though the almost limitless resources of Western powers could make for an
effective counter-insurgency, as previous wars in Malaysia and Algeria suggest,
there are distinctive aspects of the Afghan insurgency (as there are in any
such conflict) that must be taken into account.
Afghans are historically suspicious of outsiders. Much of their history
concerns repelling invading force, from antiquity to the present day. After so
much fighting against the Soviet Union and in the aftermath of its withdrawal
in 1989, many Afghans looked to the outside world for help in political
stabilization and reconstruction. But eight years into a foreign presence, with
little to show for it, many locals view Westerners with disdain, as just
another occupying force. Winning hearts and minds now will be far more
difficult than several years ago.
Whatever hope is placed on counter-insurgency programs, it would be best to
remember that successful ones take well over a decade to achieve results, and
of course many others have been unsuccessful.
International context
There are many useful comparisons between the insurgency today and the one that
fought the Soviet Union, but the international context isn't one of them. When
the mujahideen fought the Soviet Union they had considerable support from the
outside world. The US and Saudi Arabia sent billions of dollars, most of the
Islamic world supported the mujahideen with funds and jihadis, and the
Pakistani military directed men across the frontier.
Today, many of those forces oppose the Taliban. US and NATO concerns are clear.
Russia does not want to see an Islamist movement on its periphery, and neither
do former Soviet republics in the region, some of whom had to fight
Taliban-supported insurgencies in the 1990s. India wants to counter any group
tied even to Kashmir guerrillas and other terrorist groups. Iran loathes the
Taliban for their massacre of Iranian envoys and mistreatment of the (Shi'ite)
Hazara people of central Afghanistan.
Though there is some international Islamist concern with Western forces, much
of it is directed toward the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Southeast Asia and the
Maghreb. Only the Pakistani military and intelligence services support the
Taliban. It is difficult to find any successful insurgency with so few
supporters and so many powerful opponents.
Taliban control of most of Afghanistan would not be acceptable to regional
powers. The Taliban keep watch on the international scene and know that they
can never rule Afghanistan as they once did. They well remember that even at
their zenith, they never truly controlled the country, but faced tenacious,
foreign-supported insurgencies and redoubts in the west and north.
Even in the unlikely event of a US/NATO withdrawal, regional powers would
support Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara peoples with money and equipment, transforming
the conflict from an insurgency into a civil war. Again, foreign support would
greatly favor any enemy of the Taliban. The war would be protracted and
pitiless, as outside powers are willing to fight to the last Afghan.
Furthermore, should the Taliban control the Pashtun south and east, they would
have to defend territory and fight in a more or less conventional manner - a
form of warfare in which it proved utterly incompetent in 2001. The Northern
Alliance, with only a modicum of US firepower, rolled up Taliban positions and
drove them out of the country in short order. Paradoxically, defeating the West
would bring about a conventional war with a fiercer, more tenacious coalition.
Contours of a negotiated settlement
The principal points of a settlement are not hard to find. Dialogue among the
West, the Karzai government and the Taliban could give each side much of what
it seeks, without one side overtly winning, without a decade or more of
fighting.
The West gets the Taliban to:
Restrict their ambitions to provinces in the south and east and to a handful of
cabinet posts.
Break with, if not help kill, the al-Qaeda leadership, and never allow it in
its areas of control.
Agree never to support, directly or indirectly, the Kashmir conflict in India.
The Taliban gets the West to:
Withdraw all military forces from the country.
Guarantee that drone aircraft and other weapon systems will not target its
leaders as long as they abide by the agreement.
Fund reconstruction programs in Afghanistan, including Taliban-controlled
areas, channeled through the government in Kabul. This will help restore a
balance between Kabul and various regions of the country - a balance on which
periods of tranquility and prosperity have rested.
It is unlikely that an agreement can be reached soon. The Taliban have been
winning over tribe after tribe and attaching their young men to their bands.
The heady experience of success is not always conducive to sound judgment.
Another season of fighting may be in the offing. Negotiations today, however,
can impress on the Taliban the foreboding international context it faces.
No agreement can be imposed on the country regardless of the amicability and
magnanimity of the West, Karzai, regional powers and the Taliban. Any
settlement will have to be arrived at in conjunction with and ratified by a loya
jirga - the venerable general assembly of Afghan tribes and peoples. It
will be the loya jirga, not the government in Kabul or the Quetta shura
or foreign powers that will solidify any agreement and impose the likely
sanctions that will hold it together.
Note
1. The more than 70 countries and international organizations present at the
London conference agreed, among other things, with the Government of
Afghanistan (GoA):
To develop a plan for phased transition to Afghan security forces taking the
lead province by province to begin, provided conditions are met, by late
2010/early 2011.
Targets for significant increases in the Afghan army and police force supported
by the international community: 171,000 Afghan army and 134,000 Afghan police
by the end of 2011, taking total security force numbers to over 300,000.
Confirmation of a significant increase in international forces to support the
training of Afghan forces. In total, the US has increased levels by 30,000 and
the rest of the international community by 9,000, including the German
contribution taking total force levels to around 135,000.
Measures to tackle corruption, including the establishment of an independent
Office of High Oversight and an independent Monitoring and Evaluation Mission.
Better coordinated development assistance to be increasingly channelled through
the GoA, supported by reforms to structures and budgets.
A civilian surge to match the military surge, including new civilian leadership
of the international community's programs, with the appointment of Mark
Sedwill, previously British ambassador to Afghanistan, as NATO's senior
civilian representative, a new UN representative plus more civilians on the
ground to support governance and economic development.
Enhanced sub-national government to improve delivery of basic services to all
Afghans.
Support for the GoA's national Peace and Reintegration Program, including
financial support for a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, to offer economic
alternatives to those who renounce violence, cut links to terrorism and agree
to work within the democratic process.
Support for increased regional cooperation to combat terrorism, violent
extremism and the drugs trade, to increase trade and cultural exchange and to
create conducive conditions for the return of Afghan refugees.
Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and the author of
The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War
and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com
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