Project Afghanistan and the thinking enemy

Himal

November 2006

Analysis

Project Afghanistan and the thinking enemy

Five years of backward progress on securing the country now has NATO forces taking over security in Afghanistan. With few of the lessons of the past having sunk in, it appears unlikely that the country will breathe easier in the coming year.

by | AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR


Security in Afghanistan has hit the lowest point since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. This year has seen pitched battles between the anti-government insurgents and the newly deployed NATO forces. As the country approaches the first anniversary of its first democratically elected Parliament based on full adult franchise, it seems as if the hopes of the international community and the Afghan citizens could be belied.

Suicide bombings are now a regular feature in the country, with nearly 80 thus far this year alone. Kabul increasingly resembles a city under siege, with more bunkers, roadblocks and barbed-wire fences than at any time since 2001. Both the development arm of the international community and the military forces are now agreed that Afghanistan has entered a ‘critical’ year.

This is a far cry from the end of 2001, when the US-led Coalition Forces claimed they were mopping up the remnants of the Taliban, and the US Defence Secretary said there were not enough good targets for the US to bomb. The turnaround in the security situation seems to have taken most of the international community by surprise, and the determination and desperation of the Taliban are often being cited equally as ‘new’ factors in the equation. During her visit to Afghanistan this year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly exclaimed that the international forces were facing a ‘thinking enemy’, and needed to change strategy – as if that had been an unexpected factor, and the entire military strategy of the last five years had simply been based on the assumption that the enemy could not or would not ‘think’.

Yet even with the changes in strategy now being employed to combat the Taliban, there is little evidence that the international community and its military strategists have really learned from the experience of the last five years. The slow but steady deterioration of the security situation has not been in spite of the military strategies implemented, but largely because of them – strategies that have been short-sighted, and focused on piecemeal solutions. This is an approach that continues to inform military operations even now, with compartmentalised policies, exhibiting little understanding of the interlinkages of reasons causing the instability.

Hunting down, moving on
In September, newspapers, radios and TV stations could not get enough of Afghanistan. The fifth anniversary of the attacks of 11 September 2001 was an occasion on which to review ‘Project Afghanistan’, chalking up the pluses and minuses. While the significance of that date cannot and should not be forgotten, it is unfortunate that Afghanistan and its future continue to be viewed through that lens. The rationale for revisiting Afghanistan on the occasion of 9/11 is not just some quirk of chronology or news cycle. It continues to be the most important date for viewing Afghanistan because Afghanistan itself has never really been central to what has taken place in the country since then. Rather, it has been a staging ground for the agendas of other countries, ranging from the benign to the self-absorbed interests of major powers.

When the US-led coalition led the attack on Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, there was little attempt to gloss over the fact that it was to be a war of retribution. In pursuit of that end, more than one compromise has been made over the past five years – shortcuts and half measures that have led to the inevitable consequences of an unstable and unsustainable path of post-conflict reconstruction.

In the immediate aftermath of the US-led bombing there was no attempt to either reach a peace agreement or accommodate different political interests in the new democratic framework. The more patient process of arriving at a wider political consensus, which could have helped stabilise the country, was considered to be unadvisable as it might have led to a broader political leadership that would be more ‘messy’ to manage. Far better, the logic seemed to go, to install a government with a compliant leadership, one that would predictably follow the agenda of the power players of the international community.

Though the late 2001 Bonn Agreement was presented as the roadmap for the process of reconstruction and stabilisation, the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ultimately stayed confined to Kabul. It was only in September of this year that NATO expansion was completed to cover the rest of the country. Whatever the reasons for the apparent inability of NATO to expand its operations during the long hiatus, it certainly left the US-led Coalition Forces free to carry out their missions in the ‘war against terror’. The approach to dealing with the issue of security and stabilisation of Afghanistan was ultimately compartmentalised, with the US forces targeting only the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Rather than a holistic approach that would include removing the warlords and commanders, and installing legitimate state security forces, these same potentates and illegitimate armed groups were used to carry out operations against the targets. The US forces took the help of anyone they felt had some muscle power in an area – often warlords with track records in human-rights abuses that left little to distinguish them from the demonised Taliban. The idea seemed to be to get the targets in the US radarscope first, and deal with other issues later. Never mind that these same warlords terrorised the population, and had been responsible for much of the violence, murders and rapes in their areas over the last two decades.

The methods used to carry out operations in populated areas were also rough and ready. By entering homes and carrying out searches in the very conservative areas of the south, the international forces alienated most of the populace. Having seen through operations in an area, troops would move on, making no effort to secure the areas where they had combed. This approach of hunting down and moving on left the local population angry, alienated and with no means to defend itself against the return of anti-government insurgents. It also left the local commanders in a strengthened position, their use of force having been legitimised by their close cohabitation with the international forces.

With reports of alienation, the military forces then hit upon the idea of mixing up civilian and military duties. Though the intention may have been a good one – to win the hearts and minds of the people – the approach was as thoughtless and short-term as any other. The PRTs (provincial reconstruction teams) were supposed to be the civilian face of the military carrying out development projects. Rather than securing an area and making it possible for development agencies to carry out their tasks, the military itself spent vast amounts of money on construction of infrastructure. This led to a blurring of lines between the soldier and the civilian, making it easier for the anti-government forces to turn all internationals or those working for international agencies into legitimate targets.

Dysfunctional cooperation
Any process of working with the moderate Taliban was haphazard and sporadic. There were victorious announcements of Taliban leaders joining the government from time to time, but no clarity on the criterion for engagement, let alone defining parameters of a cohesive peace process.

The efforts on regional cooperation were equally dismal. The US initiated a process of border cooperation, a trilateral initiative involving the US and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Despite claims of working closely with the Islamabad government, an ally in the ‘war on terror’, there was little to indicate that the US government was seriously analysing the causes of terrorism from across the border. Rather than look at the reasons behind the rise of armed groups, including the denial of democracy, most of the international community chose to support, either vocally or silently, the military autocrat in Pervez Musharraf in the hope that one man would deliver the goods.

The result of five years of diplomatic efforts was evident during the visit of President Musharraf to Afghanistan in September. The Pakistani government signed an agreement with the tribal elders of North Waziristan on the issue of crossborder terrorism a day before President Musharraf’s visit. But the Afghan government was not consulted on an agreement that would have a direct bearing on its security, and the Pakistani president did not even exhibit the courtesy of informing Hamid Karzai prior to his arrival in Kabul.

Despite the rhetorical support for democracy, the international preference for authoritarian methods as far as Afghanistan is concerned has been evident again and again. If a military dictator was the preferred mode in Pakistan, in Afghanistan no effort was spared to ensure that the presidency of Hamid Karzai would be strengthened at the cost of other state institutions. Political parties were not allowed to contest in the parliamentary elections, hardly surprising since President Karzai himself has no domestic political base or party (See Himal Sept-Oct 2006, “Afghans go for Parliament”). The result, of course, has been a Parliament that has great problems of authority.

Democratic processes have not been allowed to take root, and powers have been concentrated in the hands of one man. In recent weeks President Karzai himself has been criticised for failing to deliver on a number of fronts, as if the fault lay with him personally rather than the lack of strong institutions.

Even as the security situation deteriorates, enough is not being done to reassign responsibility acceding to experience. The US-led Coalition Forces are still carrying out their combat operations as part of the ‘war on terror’, and are charged with carrying out anti-terrorist operations. The NATO-led ISAF forces, meanwhile, declare that they are mandated to support the Afghan government, which is facing insurgency. While ‘terrorism’ is linked to an international dynamic aimed at destabilising large parts of the world, ‘insurgency’ includes those whose aim is to specifically destabilise the Kabul government. As for the issue of the narcotics trade, this is left to the responsibility of the Afghan national army and the police.

The compartmentalised approach continues despite the apparent understanding of the interlinkages between the three crucial arenas – terrorism, the ongoing insurgency, and the drug trade. Though there is recognition that the anti-government insurgency is also fuelled by terrorism, and vice-versa, there is a feeling that the ‘global’ war can be fought by the Coalition Forces, and the national war by NATO. Though drug money fuels both terrorism and the insurgency, and drug barons have a direct stake in destabilising the state, neither NATO nor the Coalition Forces are willing to undertake direct operations on this front.

Unfortunately for Afghanistan, there seems to be little to suggest that there will be any real change in the current approaches of the international actors. If the situation does unravel completely there will always be a scapegoat person or issue found to take the blame for the international failure – be it Hamid Karzai, Pakistan, the lack of good governance or inadequate aid. If all else fails, the anti-government forces can always be blamed for behaving in ways in which they were not supposed to have done – for thinking and evolving their strategies in ways with which the international forces are apparently unable to deal. The ultimate excuse, as already hinted at by Condoleezza Rice, is that the insurgents ‘think’.