State-Building in Afghanistan to What End?
Marc Lynch is asking good questions about what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan:
Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa — into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments. Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world? On whose budget? To his credit, McChrystal adviser Steve Biddle raises all of these questions in his excellent American Interest article from last month — but in my view goes wrong by limiting the policy options to either full withdrawal or full commitment to COIN.
I think this is right on. You sometimes hear things said about Afghanistan that appear to imply that the safety of the United States of America requires us to secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth. After all, anyplace that’s not perpetually under the control of the U.S. military or an allied military “could” become a “safe haven” for terrorists. This is when you need to reach for your modus tollens and conclude that the strategic objectives are being framed poorly. The United States cannot secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth and no country on earth has ever done this. Any reasonable definition of national security just can’t lead to this conclusion.
A crucial issue related to this is that people always seem to forget that the 9/11 plot was substantially hatched in Germany. The train station bombings in London and Madrid didn’t have anything to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan. There’s no reason to think that constructing an effective terror plot requires control over an expansive geographic region. And by definition, to carry out an act of anti-western terrorism you need to be in the West. You can’t hijack a civilian jetliner in the Hindu Kush and you can’t blow up a European train station from Mogadishu.
50 Responses to “State-Building in Afghanistan to What End?”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 10th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
That’s all fair enough. Yet, for what it’s worth, the leaders of modern terrorist organizations do seem to have a felt need to hide out in ungoverned or friendly territories. If there was some way to have a leaderless terrorist organization (or one sufficiently anonymized that it became possible for the leaders to reside anywhere), then this post would be fully persuasive. As it is, terrorists seem to need a patch of friendly land to stash the command structure/spiritual leaders in. Others will argue they need a state sponsor, but that seems more debatable to me.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Matt:
“A crucial issue related to this is that people always seem to forget that the 9/11 plot was substantially hatched in Germany.”
No it was hatched in Afghanistan which was a failed state without a government who would catch and hand over bin Laden. There’s a reason bin Laden chose Afghanistan.
“The train station bombings in London and Madrid didn’t have anything to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan. ”
Yeah but 9/11 did. Too bad there wasn’t another attack so the antiwar left could argue Bush’s policies caused it. Alas.
May be there will be an attack soon and then the Democrats can point to Afghanistan and say “look we’re trying to fight there” and the antiwar left can blame Obama for the attack.
Marc Lynch, heartless “realist”, apologist for the Syrian dictatorship:
“Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world? On whose budget? ”
Well the UN can try to help “failed states” no longer be failed states. It doesn’t need to occupy every one.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Okay, southpaw, but what about Somalia? Do we also engage in state-building there? And if not, why not?
Matt’s “modus tollens” is pretty persuasive to me. It may be true that terrorists need safe havens. That doesn’t necessarily imply that our best strategy is to go around the world taking over any country that could become a safe haven.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
If, however, Afghanistan Talibanization leads to the fall of Pakistan to the extremists, you can put one of their nuclear weapons in a cargo container.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
“effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth”
Actually, we could: all we need is a 250,000 megaton cobalt-jacketed H bomb. No delivery system required.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
The point of the war in Afganistan/Pakistan is to kill Osama bin Laden. I don’t see how any other result could possibly be satisfactory.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Cynically, it’s easy to see how this is less about reducing the odds of a terrorist strike and more about reducing the odds of being blamed for a terrorist strike.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
All the lefty carping over Afghanistan has so far failed to examine the question of what likely happens after we pull out of Afghanistan and what effect that likely has on regional and U.S. security.
Mike
August 10th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
If you’re a “Great Game” fetishist such as Biddle, AQ doesn’t matter. What matters is creating in Afghanistan a client state serving as a bulwark against Iran-China-Russia “multipolarity.”
Wouldn’t want that to happen.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
May be there will be an attack soon and then the Democrats
Actually, now more than ever, Republicans need a big terrorist attack on the “homeland.”
August 10th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
It will be a significant psychological breakthrough when Americans recognize that the invasion of Afghanistan was about a pipeline—ENRON being a key player in the whole fiasco.
A FUCKING PIPELINE! It has absolutely ZERO to do with security for anyone but the oil barons and other masters of the universe who are facing their own maladjusted worth, att.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
“Okay, southpaw, but what about Somalia? Do we also engage in state-building there? And if not, why not?”
Well, no. We don’t engage in state building in Somalia because we have limited resources, we can’t make the world perfect, and we don’t have any consituency for it. I wasn’t trying to write a prescription for endless war, just saying there’s some justification for the safe-haven analysis.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
As I said in 2006, the Bush Administration’s Grand Strategy was:
Invade the World
Invite the World
In Hock to the World
How’s that working out lately?
August 10th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
As is so common with Matt’s posts, there’s a crypto-immigration restrictionist subtext to his argument. Rather than killing all the terrorists over there, the simpler and more effective policy would be to prevent terrorists from coming over here.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Isn’t the war in Afghanistan increasingly turning into Obama checking off “Must be seen as tough” on Axelrod’s re-election image management strategy?
Isn’t there something cheaper Obama could do instead, like rescuing a baby from a burning building or winning a fistfight with Hugo Chavez?
August 10th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Matt now refuses to give any personal opinion about Afghanistan (unlike, say, monetary macroeconomics), after months of cheerleading. Should we stay or not?
the Democrats can point to Afghanistan and say “look we’re trying to fight there”
Well 75% of Democrats are now opposed to the Afghanistan War II according to the latest polls. Only Obama was so eager to kill Afghans during the campaign, I guess his supporters missed that.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Any evidence that Biddle’s views on Afghanistan are motivated by this “Great Game fetishism” or a desire to create a bulwark against Iran-China-Russia? That doesn’t sound like anything I can remember hearing or reading from him.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Or Latin America could flare up to a point that we can no longer ignore and we’d have to dump our current crop of Muslim world oriented Cultural Awareness instructors, sociologists, etc in favor of bozos who can explain the “Latin mind” to us. Unfortunately, they’ll have to come up with something more than “don’t show the bottoms of your feet or shake with your left hand” this time around.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Nation-building in Afghanistan is more about showing that the USA isn’t a bunch of assholes and that we can finish what we set out to do.
Oh, and sorry for the bombed civilians.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Matt’s right, no matter where the safe havens are, the bad guys need to bring their game on the road to the west to score. Although good intel and police work can stop them most of the time, there’s still the chance that the offense will get net.
In that case, rather than try to occupy and/or straighten out every potential safe haven, the reasonable plan is to reach out and nail someone’s safe haven *if* they score, sovereignty be (more or less) damned, as long as it ain’t Russia or China they’re hiding in.
This would have been the case in Afghanistan, with the option for a quick exit, *if* the previous Administration had gotten with the program in Tora Bora. Frankly, I don’t think the American electorate would have batted an eyelash if it had cost 500 or so American lives to strap OBL to the hood of a HMMMV.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Frankly, I think the pipeline angle has been ‘way over worked. We’re always on the watch for another way to ship crude, and I seriously doubt that the southern Afghan route was/is considered THAT important.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
A question I haven’t seen Matt address is whether or not the Afghanistan invasion was justified in the first place. This post implies it wasn’t.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Yes, satellite Internet.
It has a delay of a few seconds, but it would work wonders for the developing world and only cost us a few billion. Great idea, I like it.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Chuckles McLaden decided to live in backwoods Afghanistan, but there are plenty of other terrorist organizations that lived in western European countries. The IRA (and it’s offshoots and opposite numbers), November 17th in Greece, Japanese Red Army, the ETA, probably others too.
And remember, when 9/11 happened, Afghanistan was not a failed state. It just happened to be a state that was run by people who didn’t very much like us. We asked them to hand over bin Laden, and we actually had an expectation that they could do that.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
daveNYC said: We asked them to hand over bin Laden, and we actually had an expectation that they could do that.
“Could”, yes. “Would”, *highly* unlikely, given Pashtun cultural norms, and the close, long term relationship between the senior Talibs and OBL.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
The quickest, cheapest, and geologically easiest route from the Caspian Sea to a major shipping lane is through Iran.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Having enough control over the country so that they had the ability to capture an individual that had his own private army kind of puts pre-9/11 Afghanistan out of the category of failed states.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
From the articles and posts I’ve read recently there seems to be two competing theories developing on the subject of Afghanistan. One, get the hell out as quickly as possible after accomplishing some unstated, limited goals. Two, get the hell out as quickly as possible after accomplishing some stated, limited goals.
Hmm…Do I prefer my boiled cabbage with or without a side of lettuce. Tough choice.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
And remember, when 9/11 happened, Afghanistan was not a failed state. It just happened to be a state that was run by people who didn’t very much like us.
Yes it was very much a failed state at the time–it’s impossible to overstate the backwardness of Afghanistan under the Taliban. The only good thing anyone can possibly say about the Taliban is that somebody finally managed to win that godawful civil war. Even now, Afghanistan has not had a functional national government since the Marxist revolution of 1978.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Having enough control over the country so that they had the ability to capture an individual that had his own private army kind of puts pre-9/11 Afghanistan out of the category of failed states.
You assume the Taliban had a choice in the matter. Bin Laden’s fate wasn’t up to them. That whole business about “guests” was a mere formality.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
How much of the country do we need to control to get a pipeline to ex-Soviet central Asia? I don’t think the case for a pipeline has to rest on conspiracy theories; the whole state apparatus is concerned with energy hegemony with respect to Russia, Iran can probably shut down the Strait of Hormuz, &c.
The history of the country since then has been of a long-term foreign-financed civil war between Kabul and the rest of the country. It’s amazing in some respects how constant the situation has been, regardless of how many sides change colors.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Any evidence that Biddle’s views on Afghanistan are motivated by this “Great Game fetishism”
I think it’s foolish to trust the words of any establishment “military analyst,” especially anyone from CFR.
Biddle’s public obsession with AQ is pretentious. Who here really believes the goal of the US Central Asian “strategery” is the annihilation of AQ and some Pashtun fanatics? Ridiculous. You are naive if you believe this.
The US cannot leave Afghanistan. Doing so would remove America as a player in the Great Game.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Biddle raises awareness of the issues, but seems to be overstating the influence of Afghanistan on Pakistan, at least by the available evidence. Maybe I’m wrong, but with the Taliban in charge back before 9-11, was Pakistan in danger because of Afghanistan? I don’t remember that. In fact, I don’t recall Pakistan being much influenced by them at all, other than many of the more educated and urban Pakistanis recoiling in horror at the thought of the Taliban in charge of their country.
So, Biddle asserts that we must stay in Afghanistan because if we don’t Pakistan may fall. Logically, I can see how it all comes together, but I’m unconvinced it has any actual import on reality or is supported by history, let alone deep understanding of the two countries and cultures that make them up, and it may be our very presence in Afghanistan and bombing over the border in Pakistan that is actually giving momentum to the extremists in Pakistan.
Indeed, what if the momentum we’ve seen in Pakistan as far as extremism undermining the central authority there more to do with our military engagement in the neighborhood, rather than insurance that Pakistan will “get better” and turn things around?
Further, what if Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are “playing us” for massive aid which they spend only a token on the tribal areas and counterterrorism we want them to spend it on, but instead are lining their pockets and strategically spending mostly in their efforts to counter-balance against India?
August 11th, 2009 at 1:46 am
On that last point, what if key elements of Afghanistan’s military and intelligence communities are hyping the threat there, so they get more of our attention and money, while in actuality exaggerating it mostly and probably even still secretly aiding that resistance somewhat, especially since that movement would seem to have little chance in metropolitan areas of Pakistan?
Hell, what if our own military is hyping the threat of the fall of Pakistan in order to justify our continuing occupation/war in Afghanistan with no clear progress or success in years, or to buy more time to desperately try and knock out Al Qaeda in Pakistan, not because they are a mortal threat to us or Pakistan, but because of 9-11?
August 11th, 2009 at 1:50 am
In other words, how do we know that this isn’t all actually playing out by Bin Laden’s handbook, in terms of us overextending ourselves militarily, financially, etc., and how do we know who’s playing by our playbook, who’s playing by Al Qaeda’s, and who’s playing their own with full knowledge of our and AQ’s playbook and having no love for either combatant (so free to develop their own strategy while manipulating the others)?
August 11th, 2009 at 2:02 am
In many ways, much of the mainstream discussion I hear of COIN is fanciful, in the sense of assuming we have actors, both established and grassroots, that we can trust there. But what if we don’t? What if we don’t have a state we can trust, let alone trust to last, or to actually be effective at anything, or earn the trust of the people? What if the people of the nation don’t trust us or the government we’re propping up as our “support”? How the hell are we going to succeed there, over the long term? How are we going to win hearts and minds? How is having one counterinsurgent per 50 people going to change that?
It’s not, unless you bring the people tangible results, more wealth and extended security, over the longer-term at least to the point they believe it’s going to be long-term, so that they trust you, and let down their guards about those who definitely plan to be there a lot longer than us, the Taliban, other extremists, who will definitely be watching and take vengeance on those who support the occupier, should the occupier eventually leave without a stable system in place both militarily, economically and politically.
And that’s a high bar of achievement in a place totally unlike our own country, with an entirely different culture, with people who don’t trust us if not despise us (in most cases at least “not care less”), and with a hardcore, violent, well-trained, fervently ideological, internal extremist culture that can blend in and observe who steps up to help the occupiers, because they have no intention of going anywhere, this is their homeland, their only failure giving up, with death itself not a failure but viewed as a grand success, if with honor.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:07 am
So, the question is: in a political, military and economic void, do we have a strategy that gets us to COIN, that gets us to a place where we’ve earned enough trust, and where a trustworthy government or state is in place the people can believe in to protect them (in person, in commerce, in property, and from external threats/control)?
What would this strategy be called, has it ever been done, and does anyone have any idea what it might cost, in lives, dollars and lost opportunity? And even more important, does anyone really have any idea whatsoever at the chances of success?
August 11th, 2009 at 2:44 am
One last thing…we don’t need false dilemmas that we must depart or massively escalate. It may be the case that the best strategy is to massively escalate or to depart, but those are only two of many choices/strategies, and neither seem to me front-runners.
Indeed, I haven’t heard a single convincing argument that we should completely withdraw and not keep massive resources focused on special intelligence development and activities to root out Al Qaeda. In many ways, as I hear it, we’ve already driven them from Afghanistan, so we have them penned in, why relax now, even if the ultimate objective may take a lot more time than anyone wants it to, mainly because Pakistan is an actor we can’t trust (in word, deed and motive)?
What’s necessary is brutal honesty in assessing the strategic field, and no presumption of success, or that we “must” succeed, and frank acknowledgement that to “clear and hold” in Afghanistan would take likely 3x more troops than we currently have now, considering the Taliban strongholds, not ten or twenty thousand more, as well as sobering realization that this isn’t a short-term thing, it’s a multi-decade effort if you really want a chance to succeed, and even then it could all be for naught, we really can’t say one way or the other, because it’s a novel situation, there is no parallel in history, we are up against ourselves to make the best risk assessment and commit, but failure is always the better bet in risky ventures like this with little leverage or trustworthy partners, and failure is also the best bet in foreign interventions like this that require massive life and resource expenditure over a very long-term, likely 3-4 presidential political cycles in America, with changing leadership and dozens of congressional elections, at minimum, not to mention the economic problems we’re dealing with, and the political uncertainty that causes amongst the people right here in America.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:57 am
We’re nation-building in Afghanistan not because it is necessary to fight terrorism (though it may help at least somewhat), but because we have a morla obligation to do so as long as Afghans wan us to, because we overthrew their government in 2001 and never successfully reestablished a functioning state with a functioning government that was at peace internally and with its neighbors. That’s why we’re doing it.
Separately, we will continue to try to head off terrorism of all kinds emanating from anywhere on the planet using all diplomatic, intelligence, police, and sometimes military means at our disposal — but always short of regime changes (unless I am very seriously mistaken). None of those activities will entail destruction of state power or infrastructure necessary to require state-building on our part. Though in some cases we may find it in our interest to expend significant resources in efforts to burnish state capabilities in places where we think such efforts could help to stem potential terrorist threats before they materialize (Somalia, Pakistan, etc.).
Does that clear things up at all?
August 11th, 2009 at 3:04 am
The United States cannot secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth and no country on earth has ever done this.
But of course you don’t need to secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area; all you need is to secure effective control over 180 or so governments, and then maintain and replace these governments as needed. Read your “empire 101″ notes, fella.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:06 am
[...] more and the guff we get from Rudd and company about it being the frontline of the war on terror is mindless gibberish that ignores the blatantly bleedin’ obvious fact that loose groups like al Qaeda – to the [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 6:56 am
We’re nation-building in Afghanistan not because it is necessary to fight terrorism (though it may help at least somewhat), but because we have a morla obligation to do so as long as Afghans wan us to, because we overthrew their government in 2001 and never successfully reestablished a functioning state with a functioning government that was at peace internally and with its neighbors.
Afghanistan under the Taliban was nothing like Iraq under Saddam, so this kind of argument doesn’t work. The invasion re-destabilized the country, that is true. But the Taliban had no legitimacy, and there was no real functioning state or government that we need to feel guilty about removing. If we want to feel guilty about something, we should feel guilty about killing all those civilians. But the Taliban was never a long-term regime.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am
But the Taliban was never a long-term regime.
Maybe the Taliban wasn’t a long-term regime, I don’t know; but it was a stage Afghanistan had to go thru after their war for independence (against the Soviets). Now Afghanistan is back under colonial domination and that means it’ll probably have to go thru the same (Taliban or a-la Taliban) stage again.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Maybe the Taliban wasn’t a long-term regime, I don’t know; but it was a stage Afghanistan had to go thru after their war for independence (against the Soviets).
The Soviet war was *not* a war for independence. The Soviets invaded because the sovereign Afghan government asked them to. And the Afghans asked them to because Jimmy Carter destabilized the country by funding anti-communist insurgents. Even after the Soviets left in the late 1980s, the Afghan Communist government managed to limp on for several more years.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Fair enough, but it was a long war nevertheless. This one is a long war too. If they are to become independent after this one, and if Afghanistan is to survive as a country, they will probably have a period with something like Taliban anyway.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:03 am
So much baloney in Matt’s post, in his Lynch quote and in the thread.
The Soviet war was *not* a war for independence. The Soviets invaded because the sovereign Afghan government asked them to. And the Afghans asked them to because Jimmy Carter destabilized the country by funding anti-communist insurgents. Even after the Soviets left in the late 1980s, the Afghan Communist government managed to limp on for several more years.
So you believe the Communist government was indigenous and home grown?
Afghanistan was a proxy battleground during the Cold war, as you say. The US helped make it a failed state by collaborating with the Saudis and Pakistanis to fund the Taliban. And then we abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left, something Matt and Lynch want us to do again.
However, unlike Iraq the Taliban never invaded anybody nor committed genocide nor had the potential to hand of WMDs to terrorists nor ran a country as strategically importan as Iraq.
After we left the Saudis and Pakistanis stayed and inculcated their Islamofascism via the Taliban.
After 9/11 the US asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and they said “no, he is our quest.” That was a mistake. Somalia never did this.
Unfortunately Obama is doubling down on the drug war against Afghanistan which won’t help if we don’t want it to be a failed state.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:08 am
So you believe the Communist government was indigenous and home grown?
I think indeed it was, to a degree. Supported by city folks and educated elite, opposed by farmers and rural population. Same as always and everywhere.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I think indeed it was, to a degree. Supported by city folks and educated elite, opposed by farmers and rural population. Same as always and everywhere.
To a small degree. The Saudis, US and Pakistanis just armed and bankrolled the Taliban, they didn’t whip up opposition to the Afghan Communists who were bankrolled and “supported” by the Soviets.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Slothrop writes:
I think it’s foolish to trust the words of any establishment “military analyst,” especially anyone from CFR.
Biddle’s public obsession with AQ is pretentious. Who here really believes the goal of the US Central Asian “strategery” is the annihilation of AQ and some Pashtun fanatics? Ridiculous. You are naive if you believe this.
The US cannot leave Afghanistan. Doing so would remove America as a player in the Great Game.
Ah – so you don’t know anything about Biddle or his views, but you mistakenly think that pompous references to the Great Game plus conspiracy theory rhetoric make you sound like a sophisticated critic. Got it.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Well, as Christopher 44 said, the communist government did survive for a couple of years after the demise of the Soviet Union. So, I think it’s hard to deny that there was a considerable pro-modernization anti-Islamist movement there. Certainly, it seems, stronger than what Reza Pahlavi had in Iran