ASG Blog
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Looking Back on the Surge in Afghanistan
Published: February 18th, 2011
It has been one year since the surge and the Afghanistan Study Group is marking this anniversary by taking a look at notable posts and commentary on the Afghanistan War.
In our survey last month, the poll showed that two-thirds of conservatives (including Tea Party supporters) support a reduction in troop levels in Afghanistan faster than what the Administration is proposing. And a majority of conservatives agree that the United States can dramatically lower the number of troops and money spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk. (You can read the full poll results here.)
Here are some of the most important pieces we’ve written or read in 2011 (and one great outlier from 2010.)
The Solution in Afghanistan: Get out
2/18/11
By James P. McGovern and Walter B. Jones
No one, it seems, wants to talk about the war in Afghanistan. This week the House debated a budget bill that is touted as reflecting new fiscal restraint, yet borrows tens of billions more for the war. In an hour-long State of the Union address last month, President Obama devoted less than one minute to the conflict. Given the investment and sacrifices our country has made for nearly 10 years, the phones in our offices should be ringing off the hook with calls from those who are tired of being told that the United States doesn’t have enough money to extend unemployment benefits or invest in new jobs.New Gallup Poll Echoes our Tea Party Survey: 72% of Americans Want Congress to Reduce Afghan Troop Presence Faster
2/8/11
Afghanistan Study Group by Will Keola Thomas
A USA Today / Gallup poll from January found that 72% of Americans favor Congressional action this year to speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The party breakdown of the poll showed that 86% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 61% of Republicans would support a move by Congress to speed the withdrawal.A Tale of Two GDPs
2/11/11
Afghanistan Study Group by Will Keola Thomas
The latest report from the outgoing Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) summarizes the progress made in laying the foundation for long-term and sustainable economic growth in Afghanistan, a key requirement of the U.S. stabilization strategy for the region.N.Y.U. Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties With Al Qaeda
2/8/11
The New York Times by Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban have been wrongly perceived as close ideological allies of Al Qaeda, and they could be persuaded to renounce the global terrorist group, according to a report to be published Monday by New York University. The report goes on to say that there was substantial friction between the groups’ leaders before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that hostility has only intensified.Memorials to Purposelessness
2/17/11
The Huffington Post by Matthew Hoh, Director Afghanistan Study Group
“This week marks the one-year anniversary of the US military offensive into Marjah in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. Operation Moshtarak, as it was called, was the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban regime in the fall of 2001. However, it served not just as a military operation, but also as a high profile public relations campaign and the “official” start of America’s escalation of the Afghan War.”Afghanistan and Vietnam
11/23/10
New York Times by Robert Wright (Opinionator section)
“Last week at the NATO summit President Obama pushed the light at the end of the tunnel further down the tracks. By the end of 2014, he now tells us, American combat operations in Afghanistan will cease.It’s not as if we need those four years to set any records. At just over nine years of age, this war is already the longest in American history. And this Saturday we’ll eclipse the Soviet Union’s misadventure in Afghanistan; the Soviets brought their own personal Vietnam to an end after nine years and seven weeks.
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Afghanistan Surge One Year Later—The Data Doesn’t Lie
Published: February 18th, 2011
Edward Kenney
Afghanistan Study Group BloggerDerrick Crowe, the Executive Director of Brave New World, wrote this week about the one-year anniversary of the Afghanistan surge that began with the offensive in Marjah. A quick survey of trends coming out of Afghanistan suggests that the new strategy is not looking so good.
With virtually every metric continuing a downward spiral after a full year, it is disheartening that the Obama administration has thus far refused to have an honest review of the strategy.
We put together a few charts of key measurements: fatalities, cost, and corruption to illustrate that it’s all going the wrong way. If last February marks the beginning of the “new strategy”, data for 2010 and 2011 represents post-surge.
Fatalities
U.S. and coalition casualties are up by almost 60%, as are civilian casualties (up 30% for the first ten months of 2010).
Source: icasualties.org
Cost:
The cost to U.S. tax payers is now $119 billion a year and growing, having increased more than fivefold in the last five years alone.
Source: CRS: The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and other War’s on Terror[1]
Corruption
“Government in a box” has been transformed into “corruption by the bucket-load,” exacerbated by a stolen election and a massive bank scandal that directly implicates several senior members of Karzai’s government.
Source: Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index
[1] 2012 data comes from President’s Obama’s request to Congress.
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Memorials to Purposelessness
Published: February 17th, 2011
Matthew Hoh
Director, Afghanistan Study GroupThis week marks the one-year anniversary of the US military offensive into Marjah in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. Operation Moshtarak, as it was called, was the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban regime in the fall of 2001. However, it served not just as a military operation, but also as a high profile public relations campaign and the “official” start of America’s escalation of the Afghan War.*
Occurring just two months after President Obama’s announcement at West Point in December 2009 to “surge” an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, Operation Moshtarak would prove the chance for the Pentagon and its boosters, desperate for a clear “win” post-Iraq, to demonstrate a smart and new vision of war.
American forces, both in uniform and as elements of the much-heralded “civilian surge”, a self-stylized modern day mating of McNamara’s Whiz Kids and Lawrence of Arabia**, riding in together and wearing white hats, would deliver democracy and justice to a beleaguered, oppressed and yearning rural, tribal and poor population. Root causes of the conflict in Afghanistan, a tragedy unbroken since the 1970s, were too complex or too messy to be of much concern for Operation Moshtarak; while any legitimate political grievances the local population possessed for supporting the insurgency, to include political disenfranchisement or victimization due to exclusion and predation, as a result of US, NATO and Afghan government policies, were given similar little regard or consideration. The fact that the conflict in Afghanistan, multi-layered and complex, and characterized through a kaleidoscopic host of reasons and causes including, but not limited to, regional, tribal or ethnic civil war, a proxy war between Pakistan and India and an amazing multitude of local feuds which could aptly be described to Americans as Hatfield and McCoy type narratives, many pre-dating America’s arrival into the conflict in 2001, and most importantly, completely irrelevant or tangential to al-Qaeda, were similarly unconsidered.
This hubris and arrogance should not be surprising, since the everlastingly nasty, brutish and terrifying nature of warfare, the fact that the enemy always gets to make decisions too and that, just possibly, the local population may not see Americans, or any other occupiers, as the ones wearing the white hats, are as troublesome and unfitting to today’s promoters of counter insurgency warfare, as they were to the advocates of shock and awe, speed and the Revolution in Military Affairs in the spring of 2003.
To the politicians, generals, policy makers, pundits, theorists and bloggers, many of whom are resident in Washington DC and to whom the title “Chickenhawk” would not be unfairly applied, the question of conflict and war, so far as they are removed from it, in physical, emotional and existential connections, consistently remains how we should conduct war and almost never as to why or to what end. So, noting the nature of those who offered us escalation of war, with all its attendant costs, as a means to better our lives, on this anniversary of Operation Moshtarak and the “official” escalation of the Afghan War, we must continue to argue for a new course forward for the United States in Afghanistan.
Derrick Crowe and the team at Rethink Afghanistan superbly document the hyperbole of promised victory prior to the launch of Operation Moshtarak. Additionally, they refute, based upon evidence and fact, the endless and baseless assertions of progress and success in Afghanistan made by the Obama Administration and the Pentagon that have marked the past twelve months. Derrick’s article is well worth bookmarking, as it will be an important source this spring as we near President Obama’s promised date for “accelerated transition” in Afghanistan. At that point we can have a national debate we should have had this past December, but did not, during a much promised strategy review, on the future of our nation’s war in Afghanistan. A debate we should not say we did not receive, but rather one we failed to force.
We have a responsibility to force such a debate for many, many reasons. Thousands of American service members have fought and many have died or been forever wounded these last twelve months to clear, hold and build Marjah and countless other nameless valleys and villages in Afghanistan. An argument can be made, that after twelve months of very tough fighting, during certain times of the day, Marjah can be considered “cleared.” The hold and build aspects of the operation however, like most of the Pashtun dominated eastern and southern parts of Afghanistan, to include most especially Kandahar, remain glaringly out of reach.
In a year’s time, Marjah may come to look like Nawa, which took nearly two years to become the seemingly one and only model of success in Afghanistan since President Obama’s initial authorization of 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan in March 2009. Sangin, this year’s Marjah, after another year or two of heavy fighting, may come to look like Marjah. The question is, however, if we ever leave Nawa, and not just our Marines, but also our money, how quickly will it again return to Sangin-like or Marjah-like conditions? And what about the majority of the Helmand districts and sub-districts we are not currently occupying? The nature of this war, the enemy and the population will assuredly cause us to see future Nawas, Marjahs and Sangins in villages and valleys whose names are not yet known, but whose vital strategic importance to the peace and prosperity of the United States will surely be proclaimed by those who trumpet war and argue fear in order to achieve such goals. When I resigned from my position with the State Department in Afghanistan nearly eighteen months ago, I used the term Sisyphean to describe the mission given our military in Afghanistan. Now, I still imagine Sisyphus, but with a larger stone.
The name of the next Marjah, Sangin or Nawa, a place to which we will be told we must dispatch more of our young men and women to fight boogiemen hiding in the fields of illiterate and subsistence farmers, is as unknown as are the gains we have received for our sacrifices throughout Afghanistan over this past year. What are known, however, is what the costs have been, what the costs are and what the costs will be. Casualties seen, those physically killed and wounded, I believe are better known and understood than those unseen casualties, particularly post traumatic stress disorders and traumatic brain injuries, that will rip apart lives and families until the last of this war’s generation passes in the second half of this century. That is a very long time to ask our service members, their families and their communities to continue to pay the price of fighting Afghan farmers in fields that are devoid of al-Qaeda.
The insanity of our expenditure extends past the physical and into the fiscal. The US currently garrisons Marjah with two battalions of Marines and Sailors. Two battalions form more than 2,000 men and women. Utilizing the White House’s standard of $1 million per service member in Afghanistan per year, the US has now spent and continues to spend at least $2 billion dollars a year to garrison, i.e. police, Marjah, a rural Afghan hamlet of 50-60,000 Afghan farmers. Not only is this maddeningly absurd, but try and explain this to the residents of Camden, NJ, Reno, NV, or Tulsa, OK. Using logic similar to our policy makers and appropriators in Washington, I presume if we were to change those cities’ names to Camdahar, Renostan and Tulsabad, then those cities and their residents could afford the same level of police protection we provide Marjah and countless other nameless valleys and villages in Afghanistan.
As citizens of a democratic republic we have an obligation and a responsibility not to entrust the lives of our service members and their families, our finances and our communities to those who approach war based on a 2012 political calculus or to those who desire the adrenaline rush of a clash of civilizations or of chasing monsters abroad. We, likewise, have an obligation and responsibility to future generations to pass them a more prosperous and prouder nation; not an empire, a destroyer or a bully, but a leader, an inspiration and a trusted global partner.
Walk with a child on the Mall in Washington DC and it is easy to explain America’s wars as enshrined by the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial. Walk to the Korean War Memorial and it becomes a little more difficult to explain that part of American history, but it is still possible. Walk now to the Vietnam War Memorial and try and explain that Wall and her names to a child. Purposeless is the honest answer.
We will have a memorial one day to these wars of the early 21st century. If built today nearly 6,000 names would appear. Many thousands more will be remembered if we justly and honorably include those whose lives ended at home by their own hand because they returned from war desolately changed and traumatically ill.
It was generations older than mine from which we inherited the Vietnam War Memorial. My generation will be responsible for the memorial for America’s current wars. 6,000 names on a monument are already far too many. How will we explain those names to our children and them to theirs? How will we explain any more names?
Let’s not have this conversation again, next year, on the two-year anniversary of Operation Moshtarak and President Obama’s escalation of a purposeless war. Let’s not have another monument to another purposeless war.
*President Obama authorized over 20,000 additional US forces into Afghanistan in March 2009, however, the authorization for 30,000 more US forces in December 2009 by President Obama is publically acknowledged as his “Surge” and so the “official” escalation of the conflict.
**I can say such, as I was one of the first of that civilian surge into Afghanistan in 2009.
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Adequate Funding…For Corruption
Published: February 16th, 2011
Will Keola Thomas – Afghanistan Study Group
Professor Paul D. Miller, former director for Afghanistan on the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, has a post up at Foreign Policy taking Congress to task for failing to adequately fund and monitor reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan during the first five years of the war.
Point well-taken. Professor Miller shows that the U.S. and other international donors consistently provided Afghanistan with much less funding than was considered necessary for its reconstruction by institutions like the U.N. and World Bank in the early years of the war. He also notes that Congress paid far too little attention to the war from 2001 to 2006, as evidenced by the small number of hearings on Afghanistan held by the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees in both the Senate and House during that time.
However, the years following 2006 shed at least as much light on the difficulties facing the United States’ engagement in Afghanistan as the years preceding it and they are equally illuminating of the intent behind Professor Miller’s critique. Since 2006, US funding for reconstruction activities has risen from almost $3.5 billion to $18.7 billion in the 2011 budget. Professor Miller doesn’t mention this five-fold increase in reconstruction assistance over the past five years nor does he mention that it hasn’t produced long-term, sustainable economic growth for the people of Afghanistan.
Rather, Professor Miller claims that Congress has “…decided the reconstruction strategy has failed without ever giving it the money and oversight it needed to succeed.” Actually, it’s more likely that the $119 billion budgeted to be spent this year on a country with a GNP of less than $17 billion is far too much money. As Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has pointed out, the corruption that undermines the legitimacy of the Afghan government in the eyes of its people has its roots in the billions of dollars the US pours into a struggling economy which lacks the capacity to absorb it.
The relatively recent increase in congressional attention to the flaws in the United States’ approach to reconstruction in Afghanistan is not, as Professor Miller states, “…too little, too late.” It is not too late for Congress to provide the oversight and appropriate level of funding for a new strategy. The Afghanistan Study Group has never argued that the foundation for this strategy should rest solely on preventing “…Afghanistan from re-emerging as a terrorist safe haven though a campaign of targeted airstrikes,” as Professor Miller erroneously claims. The ASG’s five-point approach for a new strategy in Afghanistan is clearly laid out in our report which would have quickly disavowed Professor Miller of that notion had he consulted it.
Now is the time for policymakers to devise and implement a strategy that recognizes the counter-productive impact that an over-reliance on military force has on the United State’s core interests in Afghanistan and that emphasizes the necessity of a political settlement. It is far too late, on the other hand, for Professor Miller to re-wind the clock on our current failed strategy.
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Seven Reasons to be Pessimistic about the Prospects of Reconciliation with the Taliban
Published: February 14th, 2011
Edward Kenney
Afghanistan Study Group BloggerIn the past this blog has advocated of a process of reconciliation with the Taliban tied to government reform involving a decentralization of power. This process of reconciliation is the best way to ensure that at the end of the war a power vacuum resulting from a U.S. withdrawal does not lead to civil war. However, there are several potential obstacles to this approach.
Borrowing heavily from Waldman and Ruttig’s recent paper, below is a list of seven reasons why a reconciliation process may fail.
1. The challenge of motive
To the extent that U.S. withdrawal is an objective of the Taliban, they can simply hold out until 2014, when combat operations are supposed to end. Sooner or later, public pressure from the U.S. and other international countries will force the U.S. to withdraw. As Waldman and Ruttig argue that “overlapping interests”—both the U.S. and Taliban want the occupation of Afghanistan to end—are dwarfed by the Taliban’s and the U.S.’s belief that the war can be won without negotiating.
2. The challenge of enforcing an agreement across disparate groups
Any peace arrangement has to be enforceable. This requires both coordination among various insurgent groups such as the Haqqani, the Quetta Shura and HIA HIG. It also requires the ability to enforce an agreement within insurgent groups. Will radicalized midlevel commanders heed the Taliban leadership in Pakistan? This remains an open question. Worse, the U.S. policy of killing older and more moderate commanders exacerbates this problem. Since “combatants’ security concerns dominate every decision during the peace process”, according to Waldman and Ruttig, this problem of accountability is potentially a deal breaker.
3. The challenge of identifying key players
The U.S. and International community need to be able to identify key players in the Taliban leadership. This is not an easy task as the Mansour imposter debacle illustrates. Most Afghan experts argue that a broad-based inclusive arrangement is necessary for reconciliation to be successful. This policy, therefore, also requires identifying critical members of civil society. It is fairly easy to envisage a clumsy process of inclusion exacerbating intertribal tensions, as those who are left out of the negotiating table reject any deals resulting from reconciliation.
4. The challenge of neutralizing potential spoilers
One such spoiler, of course, is Pakistan. Elements with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistani Security Forces continue to back Islamic groups in the hopes of ensuring that Afghanistan remains a buffer against India. When Taliban leadership signaled an interest in making a deal with Afghan leadership, Pakistani security promptly arrested Mullah Baradar, the Quetta Shura’s second in command. According to Andrew Exum, this move was viewed by the Taliban leadership not to engage in diplomacy with the Karzai government.
Pakistan is far from the only potential spoiler the U.S. should be concerned about. Thanks to our policy of providing material support to various warlords, there are several powerbrokers on our side that have a large incentive to continue the conflict. For this reason, turning off the money spigot is perhaps the first step in the reconciliation process.
5. The challenge of managing the international element
Reconciliation and power-sharing is likely to drastically affect regional politics. According to Ivan Savchuk, a professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, Afghanistan’s regional neighbors are at a cross roads between cooperation and competition. A power-sharing agreement which gives greater regional control to various ethnic groups will also create the ideal environment for renewed competition between India, Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics. This “international” aspect of the political reforms needs to be taken into account by proponents of the reconciliation approach.
6. The challenge of a lack of trust
Matt Hoh, the Director of the Afghanistan Study Group likes to point out that until last Fall, Taliban leadership were not given safe passage to talk to the Karzai administration. “Nothing diminishes the prospects of diplomacy like a cruise hellfire missile coming through your windshield”. Trust remains a crucial stumbling block. Even if the Taliban were to promise not to invite al Qaeda back to Afghanistan, which will almost certainly be a U.S. demand, what mechanism will be put into place to ensure that the Taliban follow through with their promises? The presence of neutral third parties could help enforce an agreement, but is any potential third party acceptable to both sides?
7. The challenge of a lack of experience
No one should underestimate the potential for incompetence being arguably the greatest hurdle in achieving a sustainable settlement. The Taliban have an excellent track record fighting battles, but almost no history of compromising and deal-making. David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was captured by the Haqqanis described the absurd demands made by his captors which were far removed from reality. Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, who has written books on negotiating with insurgent groups, says that a great deal of patience is required by all parties, especially while the insurgent group learns how to negotiate effectively.
As this far from complete list illustrates, the reconciliation process is not without its obstacles. The Afghanistan Study Group supports reconciliation because it remains the least costly way to wind down the war. Some may be left with the impression that reconciliation is impossible. This is an incorrect conclusion. Some sort of peace settlement is still by far the most likely scenario to end the war. How else will the war end? To the rest of us, the pertinent question is, “how much money and blood will be spent before both sides realize that a settlement is in their interest and decide to work past these obstacles?
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The Afghanistan Weekly Reader
Published: February 11th, 2011
Here are the top stories about Afghanistan that we were reading this week.
Afghanistan Study Group by Will Thomas
A USA Today / Gallup poll from January found that 72% of Americans favor Congressional action this year to speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The party breakdown of the poll showed that 86% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 61% of Republicans would support a move by Congress to speed the withdrawal.These results echo the findings of the Afghanistan Study Group’s poll, which found that 66% of conservatives overall and 64% of self-identified Tea Party supporters believed that the US could dramatically lower the number of troops and funds spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk.
John Kerry Seeks a “Tweak” In Current Afghan War Strategy
Huffington Post by Amanda Terkel
WASHINGTON — One of the Obama administration’s key allies in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), is calling for a “tweak” in the current Afghanistan war strategy, including a reduction in the number of U.S. troops. The development, coming from someone who was once a strong backer of Obama’s decision to increase troops in Afghanistan, could shift the administration’s strategy in the war.Afghanistan War: What is it Good For?
The Nation by Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The War in Afghanistan is the longest in US history and the most expensive, at $1 million per soldier and over $100 billion annually. There have been over 2,300 US and coalition casualties, and tens of thousands of Afghan civilian deaths. Nearly 600 US troops are wounded every month. So it comes as little surprise that opposition to the war is growing: 51 percent of Americans now think the US should not be involved in Afghanistan; a stunning 72 percent—including 61 percent of Republicans—favor Congressional action this year to speed up the withdrawal of troops.N.Y.U. Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties With Al Qaeda
The New York Times by Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban have been wrongly perceived as close ideological allies of Al Qaeda, and they could be persuaded to renounce the global terrorist group, according to a report to be published Monday by New York University. The report goes on to say that there was substantial friction between the groups’ leaders before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that hostility has only intensified.Petraeus Warns of Bloody Spring in Afghanistan
CBS News by Mandy Clark
General David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, says he is excepting a brutal fight in the spring when Taliban insurgents try to return from their winter safe havens to areas already cleared by the international forces. “When you have 110,000 more of us than we had a year ago, we’re obviously in many, many more places,” he said in an interview with NATO TV. “We have taken away areas that matter to the Taliban and they have to fight back.” -
A Tale of Two GDPs
Published: February 11th, 2011
Afghanistan Study Group Blogger
Will Keola ThomasThe latest report from the outgoing Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) summarizes the progress made in laying the foundation for long-term and sustainable economic growth in Afghanistan, a key requirement of the U.S. stabilization strategy for the region.
How are things progressing on this front? Gangbusters — if one is considering the World Bank’s prediction of 8.5-9% growth in Afghan GDP for 2010/2011. That puts Afghanistan just behind China (at 10.3%) in global rankings, which is pretty fine company.
How was this accomplished? It helps to start from zero. War-devastated economies similar to Afghanistan’s circa 2001 often experience extremely high rates of growth as even modest economic activity makes the indicators spike upward from the flat-line levels of wartime.
But what really gets the GDP jumping is a massive infusion of cash…like a stimulus program.
Since 2002 the United States has “stimulated” the Afghan economy to the tune of roughly $56 billion in foreign aid. In the coming year alone, the U.S. will spend over $18.7 billion on reconstruction in a country whose government is projected to collect only $1.7 billion in revenues and whose entire (legitimate) economy was valued at under $17 billion in 2010.
To put this in perspective, President Obama’s ever controversial domestic stimulus package amounted to just 5.5% of U.S. GDP and President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” equalled 5.9% of the economy in 1933. In Afghanistan we are flooding the economy with aid equivalent to 110% of the country’s entire GDP every year.
So the present achievement of 9% growth is neither long-term nor sustainable, because, as the SIGAR report states:
“The chief factor behind this strong level of economic activity…(is) the high demand for goods and services resulting from the security economy and the influx of U.S. and other donor spending.”
In other words, the United States and coalition partners are trying to develop a stable Afghan economy as an essential requirement for ending the war and facilitating the withdrawal of troops, but the presence of those troops and the war they prosecute is the Afghan economy.
However, deflating the war economy by negotiating an end to the conflict won’t harm the economic aspirations of ordinary Afghans. Why? Because the vast majority of Afghans don’t benefit from the war economy anyway. While a small circle of elites and “conflict entrepreneurs” siphon up foreign funding so they can stimulate Dubai’s economy, most Afghans are left no better off. In fact, many fare much worse as they struggle to feed themselves while surrounded by increasing violence and a government more beholden to foreign donors than to its citizenry.
While billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money is spent to create the illusion of sustainable 9% growth in Afghanistan, the American economy struggles to maintain a 3% growth rate that has failed to solve the problem of long-term unemployment for millions of Americans and is disproportionately impacting veterans returning from the war. Increasingly, voters from across the political spectrum are connecting the dots between the $120 billion spent yearly on the war in Afghanistan and severe budget cuts at home. Perhaps the raised voices of these voters will help elected officials in Washington make the same connection and realize that some of the biggest budget savings are to be found at the negotiating table in Afghanistan.
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Governing Challenges in Afghanistan
Published: February 10th, 2011
The Century Foundation produces some of the most progressive research on Afghanistan. Recently, the Center for American Progress held a round table to discuss a Century Report with the authors Marika Theros and Mary Kaldor. Their paper entitled Building Afghan Peace from the Ground Up describes three obstacles, which the international community must surmount in Afghanistan: chronic insecurity, lack of rule of law, and a failure to engage civil society.
The Good: Theros and Kaldor have an excellent explanation of governing challenges. Their depiction of how average Afghans view the conflict is a helpful addition to other research on the topic:
“Many Afghans perceive the current insecurity less as a conflict between the government and international allies on the one side and Taliban and al Qaeda on the other, and more as a mutual enterprise in which various actors collude in predatory and criminal behavior.”
They point out that this problem is exacerbated by the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) reliance of local strong men and networks of “power-holders” who lack legitimacy in communities and are part of an ingrained kleptocracy in many cases. A similar conclusion was reached by Michael Hastings, in his latest profile of General Petreaus in Rolling Stone magazine and by a recent article for by Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker. The New Yorker article, in particular, depicted a government system best described as a pyramid scheme. Karzai’s closest associates are at the top of the pyramid, collecting cash from individuals below them on the totem-pole such as the midlevel bureaucrats and bribes from the country’s major financial institutions. At the bottom of the pyramid are the majority of the Afghan people, who are victimized by their government. It is no wonder the national police force, a symbol of the state’s corruption, is almost as unpopular in Pashtun belt as the Taliban.
The problems the Century Foundations identifies are real, and their willingness to make bold recommendations, including calling for the arrest of fifty of the most predatory political leaders in Afghanistan should be commended.
The Bad
Some of their recommendations have repercussions that are not explored in this document. At the risk of an oversimplification, the Century Foundation recommends removing the bad leaders and predatory government networks (possibly by having leaders arrested) and replacing them with good leaders and positive civil-society networks. This sounds good, but the governance problem is complex and there are at least half a dozen potential pit-falls.
1. Removing the bad leaders might impact the U.S.’s military objectives. We rely on these networks for various services including intelligence and security. Furthermore, they’re armed and may not take kindly to having their leaders arrested. This policy could lead to more local “leaders” turning to or into the insurgents.
2. How do you remove the bad leaders? The U.S. does not have the authority to arrest the most corrupt Afghans. Meanwhile, Karzai has every incentive to keep these predatory networks around as they help him remain in power.
3. Arresting a leader may not impact how these networks operate. A leader can, after all, be replaced. Why would the current government put in place institutions which would undermine their ability to profit from the local population?
4. How do you identify the “good leaders” and civil society networks and empower them? Village politics is as complex and divisive as national politics. This policy may end up empowering one group at the expense of others, despite our good intentions.
5. Keeping forces in sensitive southern regions, but ending “offensive operations” may simply allow the insurgents to regain the offensive. It also presumes that troop behavior and not foreign occupation is the cause of the violence.
6. Creating space for civil society is difficult in a conflict when civil society is often unarmed and at the mercy of armed groups on both sides. This dynamic needs to be reversed, and probably the only solution is a broad reconciliation with both local Talibs and the leaders of the Quetta Shura and Haqqani networks.
The Century Foundation recommendations are not necessarily bad, but more work needs to be done to address these and other issues.
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One of These Things Is Not Like The Other
Published: February 9th, 2011
Two Kandahar-based field researchers, Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, have produced a paper on the history of the Taliban’s relationship with al Qaeda and where that relationship stands today. The paper, which was produced for the Center for International Cooperation, argues that these two pariah organizations have long standing historic tensions. The two authors conclude that a power-sharing deal with the Taliban could include a commitment on the Taliban’s part not to invite al Qaeda back to Afghanistan.
Similar to Anand Gopal’s research on the origins of the insurgency, Kuhn and Van Linschoten argue that fateful decisions were made soon after the Taliban were overthrown, which would come back to haunt the U.S. and Afghan governments, particularly the decision not to engage the Taliban early in the war. As an “interlocutor” put it:
“If [the Taliban] had been given some assurance that they would not be arrested upon returning to Afghanistan, he said, they would have come, but neither the Afghan government nor their international sponsors saw any reason to engage with the Taliban at that time – they considered them a spent force.”
Again we see two potential hurdles of reconciliation: a lack of trust and an asymmetry of power. Early in the war the Taliban did not feel confident that the Afghan government was willing to negotiate in good faith, and given the strength of the U.S./Karzai position, the Taliban were probably right to be wary. This story belies the notion that the insurgency must be marginalized before they will negotiate. We’ve seen the Taliban “marginalized” and guess what? There has been no political settlement.
Despite the difficulties of achieving a settlement there is compelling evidence to suggest that the Taliban would be amenable to taking a harder line against al Qaeda. Again citing a Talib leader, Kuehn and Van Linschoten write:
One such vision – recently suggested by a senior Taliban political strategist – is that Taliban forces could conduct counterterrorism operations, including joint operation together with U.S. Special Forces, against al-Qaeda and possibly its affiliates along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The two authors are quick to point out that this type of strategic cooperation is unfeasible as long as the U.S. and Taliban are engaged in conflict. This fact, however, merely underscores the damage that a political settlement could potentially bring to al Qaeda. If Bin Laden loses allies among insurgent groups operating in the FATA region, his position becomes dramatically less secure. Policymakers take note: Ending the conflict in Afghanistan, with a power sharing agreement, would likely be disastrous for al Qaeda.
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New Gallup Poll Echoes our Tea Party survey: 72% of Americans want Congress to reduce Afghan troop presence faster
Published: February 8th, 2011
Will Thomas
Afghanistan Study GroupA USA Today / Gallup poll from January found that 72% of Americans favor Congressional action this year to speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The party breakdown of the poll showed that 86% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 61% of Republicans would support a move by Congress to speed the withdrawal.
These results echo the findings of the Afghanistan Study Group’s poll, which found that 66% of conservatives overall and 64% of self-identified Tea Party supporters believed that the US could dramatically lower the number of troops and funds spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk.
The Gallup poll’s evidence of 72% support for a speedier withdrawal among American voters comes as President Obama prepares to deliver his budget request for 2011 on February 14. Republican leaders made a “Pledge to America” as part of their mid-term campaign to win back the House that they would cut $100 billion from the budget if elected. Will they turn their attention to the $120 billion that the US is spending every year to continue the war in Afghanistan during the coming budget battle?
They should if they listen to the 71% of conservatives and 67% of Tea Party members who voted them into office and are worried about the impact of war spending on the budget and a $1.5 trillion national deficit.
