The Afghan endgame: retrospect and prospect

By Shashank Joshi for RUSI.org

The American republic has weathered worse crises of civil-military relations than that prompted by the intemperate comments of General Stanley McChrystal and his aides to a Rolling Stone journalist. They resulted in McChrystal's replacement with his boss and hero of the Iraq campaign, General David Petraeus. What has lent the incident the appearance of being a critical moment is the backdrop: the longest war in the history of the United States. Despite the Taliban's blanket rejection of negotiations on 1 July, the Afghanistan war is being no more lost now than it was last month. But the sacking of America's top commander there comes in the tenth year of a conflict that looked as if it might have been finished within its opening months, and whose course is looking more ragged with every passing week.

The campaign's progression

The war has been a torrid drama played out by a handful of dramatis personae, going on for one act too long. The Taliban, whose despised government capitulated in 2001 under the weight of US-backed and often-brutal opposition forces, regrouped in the five years after the invasion with minimal pressure on their bases of support.

By 2006, the key protagonists - US-led international forces - faced an insurgency that had quadrupled in area in the previous year alone, and was mounting suicide and IED attacks at an accelerating pace.

The third key actor was Hamid Karzai who fronted the newly constituted Afghan government, perilously rooted in Kabul and dependent for its survival on a mixture of American support and deals with autonomous regional powerbrokers.

Fourth, there was what one Taliban commander called 'the sun in the sky' - the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, which furnished to the insurgency funds, sanctuary, logistics, and direction.

Lastly, there was the kaleidoscopic insurgency itself. This comprised more than just the Afghan Taliban - the core group that, partly through the adept mobilisation of Pashtuns across different tribes, had conquered most of Afghanistan before 2001. It also came to include or spawn splinter groups directed at Pakistan, autonomous and powerful allies of Pakistan like the Haqqani network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other fluid coalitions of violent entrepreneurs and opportunistic fighters.

Each group played its part in bringing the decade-long story to what many see as the prelude to the endgame for Western troops: swathes of territory still out of government hands, a sceptical Afghan president willing to compromise with adversaries he had spent decades vilifying, deeply war-weary and divided publics in America and Europe, a collective security organisation (NATO) with its credibility in shreds after desultory commitment from weaker partners, and a government in Islamabad confident that its staying power is greater than that of its putative American ally.

Hamid Karzai

Last summer, after independent monitors deemed Hamid Karzai's election win to have been tainted by widespread fraud, the Afghan president quickly lost faith in Washington. The always tenuous alliance between counterinsurgent superpower and 'host nation' snapped, with Karzai bizarrely accusing NATO of transporting Taliban fighters in its helicopters and even threatening to join the Taliban himself. His anti-American outbursts were in large part rhetorical expedients targeted at domestic audiences, but they reflected exasperation with the war's trajectory. This year's intense American efforts to patch up the rift could only paper over the cracks of a highly dysfunctional relationship, with Obama's envoy, Richard Holbrooke (amongst those mocked by McChrystal's aides), virtually persona non grata in the country.

Karzai himself was already (and still is) derided as the 'Mayor of Kabul', presiding over a predatory state and toothless security apparatus. Reform was further derailed after the Iraq War diverted resources and attention away from a still-salvageable situation. For instance, reconnaissance assets that could have monitored the porous Durand Line were committed to the new war, and ground troops that could have protected vulnerable areas in the south and east from Taliban influence were left to fester.

It was therefore simple for the Taliban to consolidate their bases in Pakistan with Islamabad's connivance, infiltrate into Afghan villages and decimate the unprotected government presence (sometimes through threats alone), establish a rudimentary judicial system that Kabul had failed to supply, exploit opium production for funds, and, from 2006 onwards, wear down ISAF troops through brutally effective roadside bombs and skirmishes. Such attacks in turn reduced the ability of those troops to patrol and protect the population.

Counterinsurgency: the right tactic?

A diagnosis of insurgency, and a prescription of classical counterinsurgency - centred on protecting the population - was reinforced by the successful troop 'surge' in Iraq. The highly publicised February 2010 offensive in Marjah - a largely irrelevant but Taliban-dominated rural area - was designed, in the words of General Petraeus' celebrated counterinsurgency manual, to 'clear, hold, and build', in contrast to the earlier ineffective sweeps which mopped up Taliban forces in an area, only to see their return amidst enduring popular discontent. But each phase of this sensible formula has floundered.

The use of air power was tightly (though rightly) circumscribed and the complex terrain, especially US-built irrigation canals, facilitated the Taliban's defence. A 'government in a box' was intended to roll out public services. But the incomplete nature of the clearing and holding meant that this occurred under conditions of perpetual insecurity, with schools serving as fortresses four months on from the initial offensive and gun battles a daily occurrence. And as General McChrystal himself admitted recently that 'The government ... does not have the level of credibility that it needs to build the confidence of the Afghan people'.

Despite the highly belated injection of extra troops, the upshot is that NATO cannot secure even what amounts to 'a collection of village farms' rather than a major population centre. British Major General Nick Carter suggested in February that 'in three months' time or thereabouts, we should have a pretty fair idea about whether we have been successful'. It may be convenient to pretend that he misspoke or misjudged, but this would be to exempt military operations from the critical scrutiny they deserve and require. If Marjah was a litmus test, it has certainly not turned the right colour.

Nor can the coalition replicate the approach that succeeded in Anbar province in Iraq. Anbar was quickly pacified in 2007 after an alliance of tribes turned on Al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Afghanistan is 70 per cent rural, whereas Iraq is roughly 66 per cent urban. Equally important, Afghanistan's tribal structures have been dissolved after decades of war. The Taliban's appeal crosses tribal divisions, and feeds on government-fuelled corruption. Even if the McChrystal strategy is the only viable one, that is no guarantee against failure.

Doing more harm than good?

Military operations also inflict civilian casualties that can alienate war-weary populations currently on the fence. Indeed McChrystal was liked by the Karzai regime partly because he had managed to reduce casualties by 44 per cent through tightened rules of engagement. Worryingly, General David Petraeus has already indicated that he intends to revisit the application of McChrystal's controversial restrictions in order to offer better protection to his troops. More importantly, the prospect of a withdrawal by Western forces further lowers the incentives for the population to turn on the Taliban, who may one day enter into government and wield formalised and expansive power over today's would-be collaborators.

Pakistan, too, sees the prospect of an American withdrawal as paving the way for a return of its influence. Pakistan has sought to 'deliver' Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Al-Qa'ida ally and especially brutal insurgent, into a political settlement that would represent Pakistani interests and, crucially, diminish India's ability to consolidate its foothold in the country. Washington, dependent on Islamabad for supplying its operations and reliant on the whims of the Pakistan army to mount attacks on particular militant bases in the tribal regions, has been unwilling to put the necessary pressure on successive Pakistani governments to cease their double game.

Karzai's sacking of the director of Afghanistan's intelligence service and his interior minister in June (both staunch opponents of cutting a deal with Pakistan), along with intense manoeuvring between Karzai and a Pakistani government he once bitterly denounced, suggest that Pakistan has grounds for its confidence.

A losing streak

In short, there is a surfeit of reasons for Western failure in this war. A combination of the cumulative errors of 2001-2006 and a perceived waning of American commitment are likely to doom the 'Afghan surge', which was already at the mercy of factors only tenuously amenable to Western influence. These include Pakistan's strategic aim of countering Indian influence, Karzai's own deteriorating assessment of the prospect of American victory, the Afghan government's incompetence, and eroding public stomach for escalating casualties. In June 2010 alone, over 100 international troops died (including 60 Americans), making it the bloodiest month of the war so far. The British death toll reached the morbid milestone of 300 in the same month, and 72 per cent of Britons see the war as a lost cause.

Nor is it clear to Western publics that the war any longer has a purpose. The primary networks of terrorist groups are rooted in Pakistan rather than Afghanistan. The campaign also lost its aura of righteousness, with the Afghan government making increasingly anti-Western sounds, still wracked with corruption, and passing increasingly regressive laws.

Unanswered questions

There is absolutely no reason why General Petraeus will enjoy greater success. His influence with the Afghan government must be rebuilt from scratch (though he knows Pakistan well). His experience in Iraq is only loosely applicable to the vastly different conditions of Afghanistan. The programme of strengthening state capacity - and above all, the national army - remains desultory, with little European appetite for supplying more trainers. The process of reintegration and reconciliation may succeed in drawing low-level fighters away, but there remain intractable disagreements between Kabul and Washington over the degree to which Taliban leaders ought to be accommodated. The scale of implacable, hard-core fighters remains impossible to judge with precision.

Moreover, what of groups such as the Haqqani network, which remain closely allied to Al-Qa'ida? Pakistan's unwillingness to attack their Waziristan bases speaks to Islamabad's high hopes that they too will be amongst the prodigal coalition partners in a post-American Afghanistan, but this would be to concede even the original rationale of the war; the denial of sanctuaries of any kind to Al-Qa'ida and its probable affiliates.

That the Taliban cannot 'win' is little consolation, for one lesson of insurgencies is that, for insurgents, victory can take a back seat to survival and attrition. To be sure, the Taliban have their own internal fractures and vulnerabilities, but even the sharpest of apparent blows - the arrest of the Taliban's top military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Pakistan at the beginning of this year - has little dented what we must now recognise as a decentralised and highly adaptable adversary.

Constraining the Taliban

There are of course internal limits to Taliban influence. First, an American military presence is certain to endure long after 2011, meaning that a civil war would certainly involve, at the very least, the localised use of American force to blunt serious anti-government movements.

Second, the ethnic geography of Afghanistan is such that the Taliban possess less traction in, for instance, Hazara or Tajik or Uzbek dominated areas. These ethnic groups will also retain influence in the central government, and external powers - such as Russia, Iran, and India - would reactivate old ties to favoured strongmen in case authority in Kabul were to fragment once more.

Third, the prospect of failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. The Afghan National Army (ANA) will make strides before July 2011, and this will prove important to the medium-term success of forthcoming operations in the southern province of Kandahar. Nonetheless, it is utterly delusional to suppose that the undermanned and unprepared ANA will be up to standing on its own feet by the deadline, or that that Kabul's writ will cover the entire country.

Withdrawal

After sacking McChrystal, President Obama had the opportunity to loosen his commitment to the withdrawal date. That he did not do so speaks to the likelihood that he will re-evaluate his own chances of success in a year's time. If, as seems likely, the war remains stalled, then the beginning of American disengagement is more likely than further escalation; though the history of the Vietnam War counsels against rigid prognostications. In truth, as important a deadline is probably November 2010, the date of the US mid-term elections and a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Lisbon.

The process of what will be inevitably premature disengagement would have profound consequences for the future of Afghanistan, whose government would gradually transform, and particularly those populations who would live under a part-Taliban government including elements that inflicted such horrifying damage to the country in its short tenure during the last decade. The seeds of today's failures were sown in the final months of 2001 and the subsequent years of mismanagement and inattention. Under twin shadows - that of the last decade's war, and the unpleasant future - the contours of the Afghan endgame are emerging.