Recently The New York Times had a number of thought-provoking columns on the war in Afghanistan, triggered by the MacArthuring of McChrystal, as Frank Rich put it in a usually biting piece yesterday. Today, Ross Douthat has a piece on Afghanistan, “One Way Out.” He’s the Times‘s token conservative, often with quite refreshing ideas, who came in after Bill Kristol was booted. At first glance Douthat’s argument does seem fresh. At second glance it is dishonest.
The argument is that the worse things get in Afghanistan, the longer America will have to stay there. “Counterinsurgency” à la Petraeus is the way out; “Counterterrorism plus” à la Biden is the way to get stuck:
in terms of the duration of American involvement, and the amount of violence we deal out, this kind of strategy might actually produce the bloodier and more enduring stalemate.
Now, what’s wrong with this? A few things.
For one thing, nobody said that an alternative to counterinsurgency would “actually eliminate the American presence,” as the column implies. Some sort of presence in the region will be required for the foreseeable future, no matter what strategy will prevail in the end, protecting the population or punishing an enemy. We should be honest about this.
Second, plainly: that America and its allies are protecting and keeping in place a corrupt regime in Afghanistan which “barely deserv[es] the title of mayor of Kabul” is not a far-off future fiction to be avoided: it is actually a quite accurate description of today’s reality.
Third, Douthat argues that counterterrorism will not be “antiwar.” The intended image, we presume, is the feel-good, peace-loving solution of the kind a Rolling Stone-reader would appreciate. But did the hippies understand that their magazine suggested that killing too few people might be the problem? Well, again, that’s a straw-man and a setup for dishonesty. Any strategy “will mean more enemies like Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber.” Yes, it’s a hard-to-face reality, but it is a reality: we just don’t have any policy option that would eliminate terrorist plots for good. Not Petraeus and not Biden. But try a dose of cynicism for a change. If you have to chose between two evils, maybe it would be better for America’s image — and worse for would-be Shahzads — if Afghans cause Afghan casualties, not Americans?
Fourth, protecting the population would be better than “relying instead on drone strikes and special forces raids.” Just to avoid another potential misunderstanding: we are not talking about mutually exclusive tactics here, one happening now and one not. Drone strikes and special forces raids have reportedly increased during the last year. And the administration is praising the tactic.
Fifth, one of the debate’s often implicit assumptions is that after counterinsurgency has succeeded, the Afghan government will be just fine and would not need foreign assistance on the ground to survive. Viewed from the Middle East, I can’t possibly muster such optimism — if not naiveté – and assume such a scenario could become reality in the next decade or two. Time moves so much slower in these dry desert mountains. I hope I’m wrong — but that is no guide for strategy.
And now the real irony: of all the options that the White House may consider, we read, counterinsurgency is “the one that holds out hope of enabling a real withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Here it goes again, Hope. Early on some more realist-minded observers in Europe, I remember, were concerned about a hope-driven security policy under Obama. But nobody expected the president would be under hope-attack from the right.
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You have inadvertently raised an interesting point here.
What will the future be like in Afghanistan?
Will it just be more of the same, year after year or will something give (either way) and if so what will cause it?
I think its obvious that the US cant win but can it loose if it keeps on doing whats it does?
Can drones, occupation forces and a continual investment in supporting the Karzai regime create a stalemate of sorts?
One of the turning points in Afghanistan for the Russians was the introduction of Stingers SAMs which broke the Soviet monopoly in the air and forced planes higher the US hasnt had to face anything with such a potential to unbalance their effort, s if they dont win do they loose or is it an ongoing stalemate?
IMHO, any use of terms like “win” or “lose” in COIN generally and in Afghanistan in particular are not only misplaced but can be misleading as to what the “end state” could and/or should be, assuming of course the COIN force(s) ever achieve such a result. Indeed, even to talk in terms of an “end state” suggests a sort of static condition that again IMHO will never be the reality, especially in a “nation” like Afghanistan.
I wonder whether an n-state solution for Afghanistan has been considered. It seems to me that the Pashtun parts have little in common with the other parts of the “country”. I wonder how much the various other parts of the country really have in common as well.
I was terrified when Biden was chosen for VP that he would try to propose something like this for Afghanistan, since Balkanizing Iraq (whether fully, a la Yugoslavia, or only partially, a la Bosnia) was his big idea for winning the war. I am by no means an expert on the cultures of either Iraq or Afghanistan, but the idea of Balkanizing Iraq was poorly conceived and I think the issue would be worse in Afghanistan.
The Pashtuns are not homogenous, and there are plenty of internal divisions between them – so there is no guarantee this state would be much better off than Afghanistan. Creating a state would first bring huge difficulties in drawing internal borders, since about a century ago the “Iron Amir” transferred large numbers of Pashtuns from to settlements in the north in a strategy prefiguring Stalin. Balkanization also puts the Durand line question into play – why on earth should a new Pashtun state accept that? There are, after all, more Pashtuns living in Pakistan than in any hypothetical ex-Afghan Pashtunistan. How would Pakistan react to secure its frontiers?
Then there are the questions of what happens to the Baluchs in southern Afghanistan, who might also get caught up in Pakistani or Iranian conflicts involving their counterparts engaged in insurgency there… There would be increasing chaos as India and Iran stepped in to try and leverage these new states for their own interest. My guess that an environment of increasing violence and political disorder, it would be states such as Iran and Pakistan, not the US, UK or its allies, that would game such a situation to their advantage.
You’re quite right. We must avoid anything that might lead to violence or political disorder in Afghanistan.
Facetiousness aside, it seems to me that the only relatively stable states in the areas of Iraq, Yugoslavia as was, Afghanistan are the fully-balkanised former Yugoslav ones. Is this a coincidence? And why was “the idea of Balkanizing Iraq… poorly conceived”? Not saying it wasn’t, but I’d like some sort of evidence.
On a separate but related note, what use is Karzai? His legitimacy after the NATO occupation and election is gone after the clusterlove of the recent “election”. It seems to me that directly electing provincial governors would create accountability to the local population, rather than to the unelected US-propped-up central government.
You’re quite right that Iraqi Kurdistan is more stable than the rest of the country. But it has by far the worst “international relations” of Iraq, considering that Turkey routinely launches bombing raids and sometimes ground incursions into Iraqi Kurdish territory. Also consider that this “Other Iraq” is the result of decades of internecine fighting between tribes and political parties within Iraqi Kurds and between Iraqi Kurds and Iranian and Turkish Kurds, and far from acting as a unified nation, Kurds fought each other and became instruments of Arab, Turkish and Persian realpolitik.
To elaborate on my strong skepticism towards the Biden-Gelb/Balkanize Iraq plan….
Firstly, the federal structure it conceived was unlikely to produce a “fair” arbiter of oil revenue or a “fair” foreign policy. A “Sunnistan” would have virtually no oil save for its contested fields near Kirkuk, so it is unclear what incentive that the federal government would have not to short-shrift the Sunnis, who geographically, do not “deserve” as much oil as the Kurds or Shia and spent most of modern Iraqi history, in the views of most of the country, unfairly exploiting oil wealth. I know of few countries where regional transfer of wealth to autonomous zones does not engender resentment – even in Belgium, this sort of arrangement is fraying. How well would this system fare in Iraq?
Weak central authority will also bring more foreign meddling – the Saudis have repeatedly pledged to help the Sunnis should US withdrawal bring about an Iraqi government hostile to Sunni Arabs. Similarly, the Iraqi Shia groups which support a Kurdish-style autonomous region have the strongest Iranian connections. Sadr’s followers, despite their theology, ardently oppose such a plan precisely because they oppose foreign meddling.
Ultimately, the Biden-Gelb autonomy plan would have failed because of the increased incentive for foreign intervention, infighting within ethnic groups for control of the autonomous region, and fighting between autonomous groups to determine borders. This is assuming the central government remains weak and does not initiate coercive actions against the autonomous regions. Yes, Kurdistan is doing well now, but they are also the only people who supported the Biden-Gelb plan when it went through the Senate. Everyone else in Iraqi politics and especially the wider Arab world rejected it, which provides a good idea as to how durable it would have been without a strong US presence. Thus I suspect Balkanization would have produced a worse outcome than the surge and subsequent Status of Forces agreement, where we at least had government compliance and a broader base of support amongst the populace.
In Afghanistan, there is no major support that I am aware of for a Balkanization plan along ethnic lines, either for Biden-Gelb style federalism or outright partition. Today’s Afghanistan is a pretty miserable place, as you point out, but given that Afghan identities are often more caught up in particular clans or localities rather than the broad ethnic categories which dominated Balkan violence, I would say your solution of direct election of mayors would be far better than anything involving the creation of autonomous Baluch, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara regions, etc. Creating a more accountable Afghan government needs to focus, as you say, on the local government, but not on homogenizing them into ethnic blocs. There was a recent paper by Antonio Giustozzi that noted the Taliban in the north are gaining recruits among Turkmen, Uzbeks and other non-Pashtun groups because the elites of their communities are worried about exclusion from central government – so it seems that far from desiring autonomy, the Taliban would likely respond to foreign plans to a Biden-Gelb style federalization or Balkanization as an attack on the Afghan nation, and use nationalist rhetoric to rally non-Pashtun supporters.
Anyway, I hope I have not let my pet peeve with Biden-Gelb drag this too off topic. Sorry for the length of the response, and again, I certainly agree that improving local accountability is the best way to counteract the Taliban’s credibility as a viable government.
First of all, thanks for the very full, clear and enlightening response to my question.
Also, thanks for the kind words on my idea of more localised elections in Afghanistan. I think that the major goal in that troubled country must be to improve governance, since that seems to be people’s biggest concern (that was apparently why the Taliban was initially successful in the mid-90s), and local elections are the best way to achieve that. In time, the public might want to federalise parts of Afghanistan into ethnic-based blocs or not, but I think that you’re quite right about the order in which to do things.
With regard to Iraq, I submit that it is no surprise that the wider Arab world was against the three-state solution, since the wider Arab world is largely Sunni, and the Sunnis would have lost their historical control over Iraq’s oil. Foreign meddling is already a reality in Iraq, and to claim that it is not seems bizarre (for instance, what are the US forces?). If the putative Shia bloc ended up influenced by Iran, how is that different from now? Is it ultimately a bad thing that a nation has influence on its neighbour’s affairs, however undesirable aspects of its policies are (and I’m no fan of Iran’s policies)?
Quite right. In a country as fractious, politically and geographically, as Afghanistan, I would imagine people’s most important concerns have to do with the village or province.
I agree that Iraq’s neighbors will of course influence its politics. However, providing autonomous or independent states makes it easier for neighboring states to consolidate their interests, and much harder for counterinsurgents, peacekeepers, or the central government. For example, in a federal system where the ethnic “superprovinces” are the primary seats of power, it is much easier for a state such as Iran to buy off and build influence in a Shiastan than in the present Iraqi system, where some Shia provinces will be held by nationalist parties and the Baghdad government has some power to prevent Iranian influence from undermining Iraqi sovereignty.
Of course, that’s rather vague… What would this increased influence mean in practice? As with Kurdistan, we would see a proliferation of large militias, with out a legitimate central government that they can hold them accountable. A Sunnistan responsible for its own law enforcement with authority over its own territory is going to develop a large paramilitary force, ripe for exploitation by Saudi Arabia, unless, of course, the central government or the US comes in to rein it in. Same goes for Shiastan and its defense forces. This seems to me a worse situation than today because it exacerbates the question of who are legitimate local partners? We could deal separately with the Awakening tribes because we had the goal of integrating them into law enforcement and military bodies that were not primarily accountable to or managed by explicit ethnic groups. In Biden-Gelb Iraq, there would be no way to stand above the ethnic fray and forge a nationalist consensus, because all legitimacy would be concentrated in sectarian blocs, rather than the local government. Iraq is bad, but I think today’s Iraq has much more potential for a unifying Wataniyya or Iraqiyya than it would have in the Biden-Gelb scenario.
You’re right, when I say foreign meddling, I am speaking from the perspective of today’s foreign counterinsurgents, and that is rather hypocritical of me. Its presence was certainly destabilizing in 2003, but I think most countries in the world would rather have the US in Iraq than one of Iraq’s neighbors, and most of Iraq’s neighbors likely feel the same way. A scenario where an offshore power without direct interests in the balance of ethnic power forges a nationalist government is less likely to produce a destabilizing proxy war than a scenario where the central government is explicitly structured so that it has little authority or capability to intervene in its sectarian subregions…
I think that at this point we disagree about desirable outcomes in Iraq. You make references to a central government as a good thing, whereas I am comfortable with the idea of three independent states, free to go their own way (although in SunniIraqStan, i.e. the Ottoman Baghdad province, without much oil. Too bad).
Baghdadstan’s Sunni militia could be exploited by the Saudi government? For what?
Basrastan being influenced by the Iranian government? You refer to the nationalist parties in that region, and I believe that the Arabs of Basrastan wouldn’t want an excessively close relationship with the Persians (see how content the Arabs of Khuzestan are to be part of Iran). In any case, if the democratic will of the people of Basrastan is to have close ties with Iran, how long can the US successfully stop them? Above all, why does the US want to stop them? Does democracy only apply when it produces results acceptable to the US?
Ultimately, apart from being highly internally divided and therefore relatively easily manipulated by benevolent(!) outsiders, what advantages does a “united” Iraq offer to its people?
I think putting a central outcome in place is a better option simply because preserving some semblance of one seems to be what most Sunnis and Shias want, what works for the Kurds may well not work for them.
I disagree that America is holding back democracy in Iraq by rejecting Biden-Gelb – quite the opposite, Biden-Gelb would have imposed a solution that Iraqis have not democratically approved. The provisions for making a Shiastan or a Sunnistan are present in the constitution, but despite the best efforts of SIIC and other groups, the Iraqi parliament and voters have not implemented this system. The democratic will of Iraq was and remains against Biden-Gelb.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly threatened to intervene on the side of the Sunnis if they are treated “unfairly” or simply if pro-Iranian factions get too powerful. A large Sunni force unaccountable to the central government is a breeding ground for potential terrorists and militants, if not a proxy force for fighting Iranian influence – and it would be one that the central government would have little ability or authority to curtail, whereas the present arrangement maintains strong forces at the national level which can counteract sectarian tendencies in provincial forces. A Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Iraq is bad for the region, bad for the US and most of all, bad for Iraqis.
Most Iraqis would be better off with a central government powerful enough to restrain any particular faction, and accountable to all of them, and most Iraqis seem to prefer this to Balkanization – if they do not, they continue to vote otherwise. A relatively united Iraq can navigate the shifting balance of power between Iran and Saudi Arabia, an Iraq that is designed to be a weak state is likely to remain the battlefield for its neighbors.
Well, DPT, I think that we’ve parted ways here. The idea that the US govt knows what’s best for the Iraqi people is one held mostly by the US govt.
By the way, you refer to a Baghdadstan force being potentially a breeding-ground for terrorists (and militants): would you agree that terrorism is simply a tactic, or some kind of state of being?
“The idea that the US govt knows what’s best for the Iraqi people is one held mostly by the US govt.” I quite agree – and that is precisely why I do not support Biden-Gelb style Balkanization, because it would be the US issuing a decree to reorganize the Iraqi state in a way that the majority of Iraqi voters and political parties oppose. Biden-Gelb is just another example of US policymakers letting their assumptions about Iraqi behavior, rather than the opinions and views of Iraqis themselves, guide state-building.
Terrorism is indeed a tactic – but one that I believe Biden-Gelb does little to discourage or disrupt, particularly should we give an explicitly sectarian force a lot of authority and resources but little accountability except to their own ethnic group. An autonomous region with the ability to sanction a local armed force will be better able to harbor and support terrorist groups – yes, Iraq has terrorist groups now, but there are central government and US forces with wide-ranging authority to go after them. In a Balkanized Iraq, groups adopting terrorist tactics might better find safe harbors. If Sunnistan-based terrorists only attack Kurds and Shias, then local law enforcement might decide not to do anything about them. If the central government is too weak or is going to trigger a constitutional or political crisis by intervening, it is going to be reluctant or ineffectual as well…
And by terrorism I include state terrorism, such as the use of paramilitary death squads, which would also likely be tolerated provided they primarily targeted other ethnic groups. Indeed, a Balkanization of Iraq would trigger renewed ethnic cleansing, as local governments sought to remove minority populations or expand their population’s influence in resource-rich regions (eg Kirkuk). Death squads would be particularly useful for this sort of conflict, as they were in the height of the violence in 2006-2007. Terrorism is just a tactic – but like any other choice of behavior, it is one that the political situation can encourage or discourage. I happen to think Biden-Gelb is more prone to do the former than the latter.
I do not really support any of these two strategies, and as a result, I ask the question: which of these two COIN strategies will be more likely to succeed in the end?
In answering that, first an observation – successful insurgencies are almost exclusively a property of failing or failed political systems.
Drawing on Easton, (A Framework for Political Analysis pp 96-7), we see that these would be political systems that cannot maintain parity between two critical variables, being:
a. The making and execution of decisions for a society.
b. Their relative frequency of acceptance as authoritative or binding by the bulk of the society.
Although lacking ability on the former would cause a crisis in government, (e.g. the Weimar Republic, and German citizens subsequently dressing up in quasi-military uniforms and jackboots), it is the latter that is more likely to cause the emergence of an insurgency. This forms the basis of the insurgency’s internal legitimacy and as such, the reason for its existence. As long as this second critical variable provides a basis for contest, no amount of COIN will stay or reverse the successes of the insurgency.
Therefore, it could be argued that to prevent an insurgency from being successful, the (often foreign national) counter-insurgent strategist should seek to increase the frequency of acceptance of these decisions as binding by the bulk of the society. So, Hearts and Minds – or population-centric COIN operations.
Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple. As the strategist indulges in his implementation of the Hearts and Minds model, he has to do so on the basis of the following considerations:
a. To what extent is he encouraging the political system upon which it remains incumbent to repair the dialogue between itself and the society by making and executing decisions that are more acceptable for the bulk of the society, to ignore this pressing need and persist with the dis-repaired dialogue from behind the protection of the COIN shield? COIN should provide the protection that will allow the political system the time and space to repair the dialogue… COIN is not offered in lieu of a working dialogue.
b. To what extent is he neutering the political system regarding its first critical variable, being the making and execution of decisions – thereby shifting the dynamics within the political system to the opposite end, in a sense solving one problem by creating another? COIN cannot replace the political system. Governments must govern (they have no reason to exist if they don’t). COIN should only allow them to do so.
c. By swinging opinion in the society, he would not have addressed the existence the insurgent. As I have asked before (in a previous thread), exactly how absurd is the construct of: I will create an untenable situation for my opponent by pursuing a programme of public works and the construction of infrastructure? How will that impact the insurgent’s cost-benefit balance? How will that lead him to conclude that all is lost and that he should accept defeat?
d. How will the political resolve on the home front weigh up against the protracted effort and rising cost that such a swinging of opinion in the society would require?
Now, back to the original question: which of these two strategies will be more likely to succeed? The answer is: the one that places the most pressure on the political system to repair the dialogue, the most pressure on the political system to govern, the most pressure on the insurgent to allow this political healing process to occur, and that can do so within a time frame that is acceptable to the constituents and decision-makers back home.
“The answer is: the one that places the most pressure on the political system to repair the dialogue, the most pressure on the political system to govern, the most pressure on the insurgent to allow this political healing process to occur, and that can do so within a time frame that is acceptable to the constituents and decision-makers back home.”
I like your analysis of whats required for COIN to work, I would have highlighted more the catch 22 nature of the predicament faced as that seems to be the paradoxical twist often found in insurgencies (hinting that the tipping point for success may be found in the time before an insurgency is out in the open).
What I dont agree with is your anwer. Do you think such a prescription is likely to work given the dynamics you mentioned above? Or more to the point given the track record of the US in Afghanistan could they operate the model you have described?
That said I like the sentiment of it.
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for your response.
In answering your very practical question, it is down to a choice – it depends on whether we recognise Insurgency as the ailment or the symptom. If we choose to recognise it as the ailment, then there is only one possible end to this story – and it is not a happy one. If we choose to recognise it as a symptom and treat it as such while seeking out a treatment for the real cause, then we may just have a chance of success. It is therefore not as much a question if the present political system could be persuaded to govern well, but rather if we are willing to accept that the “natural balance” will eventually find a political system that will – regardless of our attempts to prevent it – and whether we are prepared to work with that understanding as a point of departure.
In practical terms, not only do these people not subscribe to our values in the least, but it is also not our job to subscribe values to them. That is the job of their political system. If we choose to subscribe values to the population, we’re hit by a double negative – we’re relegating the political system to the role of Mayor of Kabul (or soon to be the major domo of the presidential compound), and we’re waging war (however indirectly) against the population… exactly the opposite of our intentions (war being the continuation of politics – or the assignment of values to a society – by other means). This has the effect of us being viewed as an occupation force, the current political system being unable to repair the dialogue and a vacuum being created – one the insurgent finds very easy to fill.
You see it much as I do methinks.
Your right about people treating insurgency as an symptom and as such seek to remove it without removing the conditions which create it, which is why COIN is somewhat of a useless tool when used as such.
I would also agree with you on what our “job” is but add that the means to fight insurgency may in fact lie in a chage of values, not theirs but ours.