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| Afghanistan |
| The Trouble with Talking |
| 2010-07-30 |
| John D. Moore [Tolo News] Amidst the controversy stemming from the WikiLeaks fiasco, it is critical that civilian and military decision-makers remain focused on developing sound strategies vice being caught up in a swirl of conspiracy and recrimination. Within the strategy debate a critical look at calls for initiating talks with the Taliban, and the tactical and strategic implications of such talks, is essential. Such engagement should not be seen as a fill to the strategic vacuum currently plaguing international efforts, and would undermine - potentially fatally - the potential to salvage a manageable way forward. Political space, and the requirement to filling it before the enemy does, is a long held tenet of counterinsurgency. In Afghanistan, however, there has been an intellectual failure to connect the political element within a strategic framework. There is confusion among many analysts in that they see insurgent freedom of movement as a symptom of growing ideological support for a Taliban resurgence. It is not an ideologically based support, but one calculated on political outcomes that has seen the Taliban's ability to reconstitute grow. While any sense of success, however defined, will only occur once insurgent centers of gravity in neighboring Pakistan are effectively addressed, the absence of legitimacy and connectivity with the local populace will guarantee failure. Moreover, it would seem that the international community has left humanitarian and develop work as the default means through which to shape the political battleground. While such assistance is appreciated in part, locals see the language of engagement with the Taliban as implying a loss of international will and intent to withdraw. With the international community's legitimacy having fallen in the wake of the openly fraudulent 2009 presidential elections, and the Karzai government having no credible links to the society it claims to govern, absent a substantial rethink the potential for further deterioration is significant. As seen elsewhere, humanitarian and development assistance are not the keys to winning hearts and minds, but rather it is the battle to shape how local communities see the political space - i.e. who will come out on top - that is critical. A key factor in the Taliban resurgence is the failure of the international community and Afghan government to gain ground in the political battle for hearts and minds. When the local elite and broader population see a willingness of both the Karzai administration and the international community to open talks with the Taliban, the message conveyed is that the constituent parts that make up the Taliban have political momentum and that Afghanistan is on the verge of being abandoned yet again by the West. Thus they are less willing to support military and civilian efforts and are increasingly susceptible to insurgent pressure. This does not mean that efforts to divide and fracture the Taliban and associated insurgent and terrorist networks should not continue, as such efforts are also critical. The issue is that treating the Taliban as being a legitimate, monolithic actor - even if only rhetorically - transfers to the insurgency a political power they do not currently hold and never actually held. As the voices of those supporting discussions with the Taliban grow, there is an apparent move to cut deals at an individual and group level as they prepare for the eventual withdrawal of the West. Even the likes of the eminent Pakistani scholar Ahmed Rashid seem to be calling for a default back to a Pakistani-dominated approach given the apparent paucity of alternatives - and political will - remaining. Meanwhile one can only assume that actors in the northern and western parts of Afghanistan are building new links to traditional external powers such as Russia and Iran in preparation for the perceived post-American period. Talking with the Taliban with the intent to grant them political power would only accelerate further the legitimacy gap of the international community and Afghan government and open the door for a regression to 1990s era dynamics, fraught with fragmentation and civil war. As pointed out by the Australian thinker and Afghan specialist William Maley, there is a danger of creating a strategic cascade wherein deterioration occurs quickly - potentially in days or weeks - should the sense of Taliban momentum and combat prowess advance. Another set of points is missing from the discussion. In engaging with the Taliban the international community and Karzai government would essentially give credibility to the claim of radicals within the Muslim world that, yet again, a group of mujahideen has defeated a superpower. Such sentiment following the Soviet withdrawal of 1989 inspired the rise of Al-Qaeda and a network of affiliated terrorist organizations that continue to look for new recruits in a global jihad. Also of key concern is that the legitimating of the Afghan Taliban would see a greater integration of them with their Pakistani kinsmen, thus creating the potential for further radicalization of a nuclear-armed state and introduce new destabilizing pressures throughout the region. Talking absent a strategic framework and an understanding of timing and how such rhetoric shapes local perceptions is a perilous path. Talking with the intent for exit regardless of consequences is a slap not only at history, but also to those civilian and military casualties sacrificed at the altar of expediency. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Ouch, Besoeker. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-07-30 12:57 |
| #3 Things will not improve in Afghanistan and Iraq until the US State Department and NASA are put fully in charge. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-07-30 06:06 |
| #2 AT #1, that is unless you're drowning in your blood because you didn't say what they wanted to hear. Also, I bet Hitler wished the Allies had done more talking instead of demanding unconditional surrender. |
| Posted by: miscellaneous 2010-07-30 03:00 |
| #1 "We may go down, but, at least, we will go down talking" |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-07-30 02:27 |