Thursday, March 16, 2006

Afghanistan's current situation

The President makes expansive claims about Afghanistan.  His 2006 National Security Strategy (NSS) declares, "The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have replaced tyrannies with democracies."

It says further of Afghanistan:

In Afghanistan, the tyranny of the Taliban has been replaced by a freely-elected government; Afghans have written and ratified a constitution guaranteeing rights and freedoms unprecedented in their history; and an elected legislature gives the people a regular voice in their government.

In his speech of 03/13/06 to the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, he said:

Before September the 11th, 2001, Afghanistan was ruled by a cruel regime that oppressed its people, brutalized women, and gave safe haven to the terrorists who attacked America.

Today, the terror camps have been shut down, women are working, boys and girls are going to school, Afghans have voted in free elections - 25 million people have had the taste of freedom. Taliban and al Qaeda remnants continue to fight Afghanistan's democratic progress. In recent weeks, they have launched new attacks that have killed Afghan civilians and coalition forces. The United States and our allies will stay in the fight against the terrorists, and we'll train Afghan soldiers and police so they can defend their country. The Afghan people are building a vibrant young democracy that is an ally in the war on terror - and America is proud to have such a determined partner in the cause of freedom.

On his recent visit to Afghanistan, Bush said in a press conference of 03/01/06:

One of the messages I want to say to the people of Afghanistan is it's our country's pleasure and honor to be involved with the future of this country. We like stories of young girls going to school for the first time so they can realize their potential. We appreciate a free press. We are enthralled when we see an entrepreneurial class grow up where people are able to work and realize their dreams. We understand the importance of having a well-trained military dedicated to the sovereignty of the country and to the peace of the people. We're impressed by the progress that your country is making, Mr. President. A lot of it has to do with your leadership. ...

One of the things I told the President [Hamid Karzai], and told the members of your team and your cabinet and the government, is that people all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan. I hope the people of Afghanistan understand that as democracy takes hold, you're inspiring others. And that inspiration will cause others to demand their freedom. And as the world becomes more free, the world will become more peaceful.

Reality-based views

The US Army War College journal Parameters has recently published two articles evaluating the situation in Afghanistan:  Afghanistan Four Years On: An Assessment by Sean Maloney (Autumn 2005) and The Future of Afghanistan by Ali Jalali (Spring 2006).  What do they have to say relative to the claims the Bush administration makes for the state of affairs in Afghanistan?

Jalali opens his analysis with a litany of accomplishments that would presumably be pleasing to Bush supporters.  At least his first paragraph:

The parliamentary elections in Afghanistan were the final event of the internationally-sponsored Bonn Accords of December 2001. During the past four years, Afghanistan has made significant progress toward democracy while reconstructing the country’s political, social, and security institutions. These include adopting an enlightened constitution (January 2004), holding a successful presidential election (October 2004) and parliamentary elections (September 2005), while creating a national army and a national police force, dismantling major factional militia units, building a national economy from ground zero, expanding and improving a formal education system, and improving the status and future of Afghan women.

On the October 2004 presidential election, Maloney is also effusive:

The importance of Karzai’s election in this milieu cannot be underestimated. It is a truism that government legitimacy and the support of the population are absolutely critical in the fight against guerilla and terrorist organizations. By most indications, this has been achieved for the time being in Afghanistan. The elections were fair and carefully monitored: the voter turnout, more than 80 percent, should put the citizens of the United States and Canada to shame with regard to their respective voter turnouts during elections in 2004. Attempts by enemy forces to use terrorism to interfere with the Afghan election process were crushed before they could bear fruit, particularly in Kabul, where ISAF [NATO] and OEF [mostly American] forces operated together with Afghan police and military forces in a coordinated fashion.

But when the focus shifts to the specifics of how well Afghanistan is governed, the picture gets much less encouraging.  It is true as Bush says, that Afghanistan has an elected president and legislature and "a constitution guaranteeing rights and freedoms unprecedented in their history".  But only an effective government can guarantee those rights.  And elections which don't actually decide who rules in the government are limited in their benefits.

By nearly all accounts, the write of Hamid Karzai's government doesn't extend much beyond the capital city.  Local warlords and tribal and clan leaders hold most of the effective power in the other provinces of the country.  And the Rumsfeld strategy for fighting the Afghan War in 2001-2 with a minimal number of American troops contributed significantly to this situation.  Jalali writes:

While the central government has extensive constitutional authority over the provinces, Kabul’s limited ability to intervene and its accommodation of local power brokers have left factional chiefs in control of local government. The situation is a reflection of the country’s immediate past, where the breakdown of central government power led to the emergence of local leaders or warlords who wielded power and set up patronage networks through access to foreign aid, weapons, tax revenue, natural resources, and the illicit narcotics trade. The significant reliance of US-led Coalition forces on the factional militia to defeat the Taliban in 2001 and to conduct stability operations led to the empowerment of factional commanders while contributing to the fragmentation of power and frustrating the reform process. (my emphasis)

There have been some encouraging developments in that regard, though their effects appear to be so far limited:

Over the past two years, Kabul has successfully reduced the power of warlord-governors by reassigning them away from their geographic power base, but their networks continue to influence provincial administration. Meanwhile, former factional commanders who are appointed to government positions in police and civil administration have loaded their offices with their unqualified supporters and corrupt cronies.  (my emphasis)

Describing conditions in 2003, Maloney writes:

In 2003, the primary problem was the embryonic nature of the interim and transitional Afghan governments and the possibility that fragile structure could be destabilized and toppled before it could get to work. Connected to this was the questionable legitimacy of the government’s leader, President Hamid Karzai. On the ground, Karzai was variously portrayed as a pawn of the United States or in the pocket of southern anti-Taliban fighters of Pashtun ethnicity, or implicitly controlled by the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance exerted explicit control over Kabul and the associated political processes by dint of its 27,000-man military contingent based in the city and its environs. There was no countervailing federal governmental coercive power in Kabul, let alone throughout the rest of the country. This power was in the hands of local leaders, anti-Taliban chieftains which the media pejoratively labeled “warlords.” Remnants of the Taliban, supported by the remnants of al Qaeda’s military forces, were by this time in the process of transitioning from a conventional guerilla war to a low-level terrorist campaign, and the possibility of a return to the destructive post-Soviet era infighting between the chieftains existed in numerous locations, including Kabul. The Afghan population outside of the Pashtun areas was, in the main, not openly hostile toward the international forces, but it generally was not overtly supportive either except in certain cases.

Maloney describes the 2004-5 period as showing greater promise, due especially to the continuing presence of American forces (around 18,000 in the most recent count I've seen), the development of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the ISAF presence in Kabul (which is now under NATO command).

Maloney appears to be trying hard to put the best face on things.  But even in the following, where he's being positive, what he is describing is that the military is still used for policing on behalf of the government and that extending the functional authority of the national government to the whole country is probably a long way off.  He uses the term "chess game" to describe the various efforts of the regime and the international forces to manuver their way among the local warlords and other powerful factions:

The main supporting effort of the “chess game” mechanism will be police and judicial reform. In time, the incremental deployments of central government people to the outer reaches of Afghanistan will have to be backed up with a functioning legal system. Italy is in charge of assisting the Afghan government in this area. Though Italy brings to bear substantial experience in combating organized crime, the reform process has been slow and cultural differences are significant. The same can be said of police training. Germany is the lead nation in this regard, and for reasons most likely related to the Afghan budget, progress is slower than anticipated. At some point, it will no longer be desirable for the Afghan government and Coalition entities to continue to use military force to police the country. [In other words, that's what they are doing now.] ...

Two other extremely important aspects of extending government influence to the provinces are sometimes overlooked in military assessments. These are the lack of roads and other infrastructure, coupled with the extremely high illiteracy rate. (my emphasis)

Jalali is much more blunt about the implications of the current situation for the national government:

The long-term solution is building a functioning state able to monopolize the use of legitimate means of coercion [i.e., there's not one now] and which has the capacity to respond to the people’s political, social, and economic needs. Unless donors direct their military, political, and financial assistance toward this goal, the situation will not change fast.Working through different actors without a unified strategy, as was the case during the past four years, will not work. Democracy cannot develop in a weak state.  (my emphasis)

On the security and military fronts, it's clear from both articles that all is not smooth sailing, to put it mildly.  The more optimistic Maloney writes:

There are, essentially, three enemy forces operating against the Afghan government and its Coalition partners. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) organization, still seeking to influence the brokerage of power in Kabul, operates from areas east of the city and still mounts usually ineffective attacks on ISAF, OEF, and Afghan National Army forces in the capital. Taliban military formations have been completely reduced by OEF operating methods and appear to have shifted from guerilla warfare to pinprick terrorist attacks, usually in ethnically Pashtun areas in the southeast. Al Qaeda provides training and equipment to both HIG and the Taliban. Additionally, al Qaeda mounts its own limited raids on Coalition forces located on the border with Pakistan. These raids appear to employ the well-equipped remnants of al Qaeda’s “conventional” formations which worked with the Taliban prior to 2001. Unlike HIG and al Qaeda, the Taliban are still trying to create a parallel government to garner popular support in Pashtun areas with the aim of retaking the country. At this point, the synergy of HIG, the Taliban, and al Qaeda has been unable to significantly influence the direction that the Afghan people are taking under the Karzai government.

Jalali gives a closer scrutiny to the significant problems in the security/military:

An international focus on fighting terrorism should not overshadow the threats emanating from militia commanders, drug traffickers, corrupt provincial and district administrators, and government incompetence. Such threats are often more damaging to the population than terrorist violence.

He emphasizes the continuing presence of the Taliban:

The Taliban-led extremist violence in Afghanistan is more grounded in political roots than ideological. Using the “jehadi” current as a cover, foreign circles and domestic spoilers pay or manipulate operatives to commit acts of violence in support of their political agenda. The Taliban have training camps, staging areas, recruiting centers (madrassas), and safe havens in Pakistan. The operations of a 70,000-strong Pakistani military force, deployed in the border region, mostly in the Waziristan tribal area, have been effective against al Qaeda and non-Pakistani militants, but they have not done much toward containing the Taliban. This means that more effort is needed to stop cross-border terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s idea of constructing a fence along the border is neither practical nor politically desirable, however.4 As long as the Taliban continue to use Pakistani territory for attacks on Afghanistan, the suspicion that Pakistan is playing a double game in Afghanistan will persist. Invigorating the Tri-Partite US-Afghan-Pakistani Commission on fighting terrorism and close operational cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan are essential to ending the insurgency.

The escalated level of militant violence in 2005 is more indicative of a change in tactics than capability. Instead of attacks by larger groups, the militants now mostly use smaller teams to attack soft targets and convoys. The suicide attacks, which are traditionally alien to Afghans, and the more-sophisticated IED (improvised explosive device) technology are al Qaeda efforts. The initiation of the national reconciliation drive, attempts by al Qaeda to undermine the image of Afghanistan as a success story, increased support of al Qaeda and regional extremist groups by insurgents, closer cooperation between the militants and drug-traffickers (particularly in Helmand Province), and more active military actions taken by the Coalition and Afghan forces against the insurgents have contributed to the escalation. An estimated 1,500 people were killed in militant-related violence in 2005, but the rebels constituted 60 to 70 percent of the dead.

While the insurgency and illegal armed groups do not yet have the capacity to pose strategic threats to the government, they create a sense of insecurity, hinder economic reconstruction, and weaken government influence in remote areas. This may eventually lead to a much stronger insurgency capable of challenging the government. In many districts, the resurgence of Taliban violence is caused more by the lack of government presence than the ability of the insurgents.  (my emphasis)

And Jalali's description of the state of the ANA, the police forces and the courts at this point are not especially encouraging:

Progress in building the US-supported Afghan National Army (ANA) has been remarkable. ANA’s strength has reached nearly 27,000, and it is expected to attain its goal of 70,000 in two years. However, the ANA suffers from insufficient combat power, the lack of indigenous air support, and the absence of a self-sustaining operational budget. [This is what he calls "remarkable" progress, four years after the Afghan War began.] Therefore, it continues to depend on military support from the Coalition forces and US underwriting for its costs. ...

Although building the police in post-conflict societies is a more urgent need than the army, little international attention has been paid to the development of the Afghan National Police (ANP). And yet the police have been at the forefront of fighting terrorism, illegal border incursions, the illicit drug trade, warlords, and organized crime. ...

... Over 55,000 police officers have received basic training so far. But because of the late start in comprehensive police development, the ANP continues to be ill-trained, poorly paid, underequipped, and inadequately armed. ...

Although the Japan-supported Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program succeeded in demobilizing more than 62,000 factional militiamen, collecting some 36,000 small arms, and storing nearly all militia heavy weapons, reintegrating former combatants continues to be a formidable task. Further, the second phase of the DDR, which targets nearly 2,000 illegal armed groups, has just begun under the Disbanding Illegal Armed Group (DIAG) program. This program seeks voluntary, negotiated, and forced disbanding of more than 100,000 members of the illegal armed groups. DIAG is going to be a difficult goal to achieve ...

... The Afghan court structure is outdated, many judicial personnel are unqualified, and corruption is deep-rooted. The period of violence in the country has destroyed the institutional integrity of the justice system and left a patchwork of contradictory and overlapping laws. ...

 Given that foreign aid pays most of the cost of the security forces, the long-term sustainability of the army and police is a major challenge. Even if the country’s non-drug taxable economy grows by ten percent a year above the current rate, the cost of maintaining the security forces is not going to be sustainable from the country’s own resources for many years.5 Indeed, a decline in foreign funding could lead to extraordinary political, security, and social crises.

It almost goes without saying that in Afghanistan, one of the poorest and most war-torn countries in the world, economic development of all kinds is a crucial need.  Both Maloney and Jalali emphasize the drug problem.  Jalali writes:

With limited current national security capacity, Afghanistan continues to need an international military presence for fighting insurgency and protecting the reconstruction effort until Afghan security institutions can become effective and sustainable. In addition to their operational power, the presence of 20,000 US-led Coalition forces and 9,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel deters security threats posed by internal and external spoiler forces. The plans to boost NATO-led ISAF forces in 2006 signify wider international support and legitimacy of state-building in Afghanistan. But a commensurate reduction of the US forces as a result is unfortunate. The announced reduction of 2,500 US troops in 2006 is seen in Afghanistan as more of a psychological concern than an operational drawdown. For many Afghans, it causes them to harken back to the end of the Cold War, when the United States walked away from a devastated Afghanistan, leaving the country to descend into a brutal civil war. There is a concern that the reduction could embolden the insurgents and prompt some regional countries to interfere.

Maloney seems to think their is some kind of political conspiracy involving the "Western media" to over-emphasize Afghanistan' issues around dependence of opium production and all that means in terms of underground economy and organized crime, he also sees "the narcotics problem" as a central issue:

The assumption among some international entities operating in support of the Afghan government in 2004 suggests that the removal of chieftains engaged in narcotics cultivation and trafficking via the “chess game” may have two effects. It may result, in the worst case,in better networking under the guise of legitimate government activity. Second, the removal of the prominent leadership will devolve power to second-, third-, and even fourth-tier local personnel engaged in narcotics production, trafficking, and protection. By no means are all of these personnel former militia force personnel, which complicates attempts to identify and deal with them. Though this works to the advantage of the Afghan government in that the traffickers’ ability to organize a “narco-insurgency” is severely reduced, the lack of police and judicial capacity means that Kabul cannot yet target these dispersed, low-level groups. Similarly, an anti-corruption force will have to be formed to police the chieftains and others in the government to ensure that they remain uninvolved in narcotics production and distribution. In effect, Afghanistan will become like every other nation trying to take on organized crime (and not a Colombia-like narco-insurgency), but only if the right tools are forged and brought to bear.

And Maloney's is an optimistic view!

A success story?

Although the President's glowing descriptions of the progress in Afghanistan go largely unchallenged by the group we generously call our "press corps", that country seems to be not so far away from the "failed state" status it was in when the Taliban took power in the 1990s.

Although I very much supported the Afghan War as a legitimate and necessary response to the 9/11 attacks, the question of what the US and Europe should do in Afghanistan right now is a much more difficult question for me than for the Iraq War.  After sinking a couple of hundred billion into the Iraq War, there's unlikely to be a great deal of enthusiasm among Congress or the American public for any expensive reconstruction programs, much less a much larger counterinsurgency war than we currently have there.

The particular conditions in Afghanistan a decade ago led to a destructive alliance between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  The dangers of a failed state in Afghanistan shouldn't be taken lightly.

But what are the Western powers genuinely accomplishing in Afghanistan right now?  And what realistic prospect is there to accomplish more?

No comments: