9 August 2017

Finding a Realistic Middle Way for the U.S. in Afghanistan

Steven Metz

While not as dangerous as Iran and North Korea, Afghanistan remains one of America’s thorniest and most frustrating security challenges. Since the George W. Bush administration intervened in that country after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has tried to create an Afghan government and train security forces that could stabilize the country and eradicate extremist organizations like al-Qaida that had been given sanctuary there under Taliban rule. The idea was that after some period of international help, the government and security forces of Afghanistan would be able to stand on their own. 

Unfortunately this has not worked. While many Afghans have fought extremism with extraordinary bravery and some of the country’s leaders have pursued visionary policies, the political class—riven by factionalism, corruption and ineffectiveness—has failed to create a politically and economically viable nation or defeat the Pakistan-based Taliban.

The American public began losing patience with Afghanistan several years ago. Despite this, when former President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he opted for a temporary surge in U.S. military forces—to a peak of roughly 100,000—and continued support for the Afghan government in the hopes this would convince the Taliban to negotiate an end to the conflict. This was probably worth a try, but given the Afghan government’s corruption and ineffectiveness, the Taliban’s deep roots and persistence, and Pakistan’s continued support for the extremists, the policy failed. Obama subsequently drew down U.S. forces in Afghanistan to their current levels of roughly 8,400, but success is no closer today than it was when he first set out to shape the conflict’s outcome.

Like Obama, President Donald Trump ordered a full a review of America’s policy in Afghanistan early in his administration. This one, though, may be headed in a different direction. Obama was convinced by his advisers, particularly in the military, to sustain and even bolster the Bush approach. Trump may not be. Reports suggest that when administration officials recommended a modest troop increase in Afghanistan and expanded U.S. involvement, the president balked and asked for other options. The review’s outcome still hangs in the balance.

While the United States may not yet be ready to write off Afghanistan, it is closer to doing so than at any point since the first American troops arrived. This should not be surprising. The strategy has always been imbued with deeply flawed assumptions. It was, for instance, based on the idea that the United States could sustain high-level involvement until the Taliban was willing to surrender or at least negotiate an arrangement that left the American-backed government in control. It also assumed that the Afghan elite were willing to control corruption and factionalism, and to address the political, economic and social issues that the Taliban exploited. These assumptions have not been borne out, nor is there any sign that they will be in the future.

While the United States may not yet be ready to write off Afghanistan, it is closer to doing so than at any point since the first American troops arrived.

What the United States needs now is not more of the same but a comprehensive rethinking of its strategy, beginning with what America actually wants to achieve as an outcome. Over the past 16 years, Washington lost sight of the fact that there is only one paramount, nonnegotiable U.S. objective: that Afghanistan not be a base for international terrorism. An Afghan national government that respects human rights, rule of law and democracy is desirable, but the only vital U.S. interest is that terrorist organizations do not have sanctuary in Afghanistan. The key, then, is to formulate an affordable and sustainable approach that attains this. It just may be possible.

During the Obama administration’s review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Vice President Joe Biden was an outlier. Deeply skeptical about creating an Afghan government that would undertake far-reaching political and economic reform and defeat the Taliban, he advocated a more limited effort focused on what he considered America’s real enemy: al-Qaida, rather than the Taliban. Put simply, Biden felt the United States should focus on counterterrorism in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, not counterinsurgency and nation-building in Afghanistan.

Obama rejected this idea and opted for counterinsurgency. But this has not worked in Afghanistan and probably never will. Counterinsurgency relies on a partner elite that shares both America’s perspective on what a state is supposed to do and the basic political values, priorities and objectives that entails. Much of the elite and public in Afghanistan does not meet this requirement.

Given this, the Trump administration should neither continue doing more of the same and expecting different results, nor simply wash its hands of Afghanistan. The best way to promote the paramount U.S. interest—that Afghanistan not serve as a base for international terrorism—in an affordable and sustainable way is to adopt something like what Biden recommended. 

Of course, this will require giving the strategy a new name, given Trump’s anathema to anything associated with the Obama administration. But whatever it is eventually called, the approach will entail: hardening Kabul and other key parts of Afghanistan, but giving up on the idea that the Taliban will be eradicated throughout the country; focusing on transnational terrorism projected from Afghanistan itself or Pakistan; continuing assistance that benefits the Afghan people, but in ways that limit the amount of aid that gets stolen along the way; dramatically shrinking the U.S. military footprint even further than it already has been.

Most of all, the Trump administration must temper the American public’s expectations. Afghanistan is not going to be a stable democracy where the government controls all of the nation’s territory anytime soon. It can, though, be a place where al-Qaida and the self-styled Islamic State do not plot and train for transnational terrorism. That is less than Americans have hoped and bled for over the past 16 years, but it is a realistic objective.

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