Central Asia moves center stage
The Obama administration is now decisively shifting the focus of US military activities from Iraq to Afghanistan. That war effort has now significantly affected US-Russian relations: In response to sustained US-NATO pleadings, Russia has now given permission for 4,500 overflights of Russia by US military aircraft every year, in an attempt to maintain US supply lines into Afghanistan that have been severely curtailed by anti-US activities along the road route in Pakistan.
The US military effort in Afghanistan has not been going well. Indeed, it is very clear by now that the gross mis-match between the US-NATO's over-militarized tools and methods and the real requirements of the Afghan people for peace and stability, the cultural mis-match between NATO powers and Afghanistan's people, and the sheer length of the US-NATO supply lines into land-locked Afghanistan, between them guarantee that there will be no US military victory there.
And it's very hard to see the US and NATO as being capable of any other kind of victory, either.
Afghanistan lies at the heart of what, in the 19th century, the British called the "Great Game," which was a free-wheeling and often very violent contest between Russian power coming down from the north and British power coming up from India.
The "Great Game" was most likely never viewed as particularly enjoyable or fun by the majority-Muslim populations of Central Asia over whose homelands it was fought...
In the early years of the 20th century China started to join the "Game," as the Han Chinese became able to push their influence deep into the far-west hinterland of their earlier zone of influence.
In the 1980s, when most of the central Asian 'Stans were still firmly part of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan became a big battle-ground between the Soviet Union and the "west." In that battle, the US (as we know) threw a lot of resources into supporting the emergence of militant Muslim organizations who were considered of use in the fight against the Soviets.
Now, once again, Central Asia is emerging as a battle-ground between big global powers. My first cut at defining the big players in this contest-- which still has a great deal of fluidity-- is that they are: the US/"west"; Russia; China; and various forms of indigenous social power, whether Islamic-based or ethnic-based (or some combination.)
We should also note that Iran is a non-trivial actor in Central Asia, as well as in the Persian Gulf.
The past weekend saw the outbreak of some very serious inter-communal clashes in far-west China, in what the Chinese call the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. These mainly pitted indigenous Uighurs against Han Chinese immigrants.
Chinese authorities have already reported that 156 people have died in these clashes, which means the casualty toll may be much higher. No ethnic breakdown for the casualty toll has been provided.
It is very possible that Uighur activists, many of whom cast their people's struggle in religio-nationalist terms, may have taken some inspiration from the numerous images that came out of last month's street demonstrations in Iran, in which opposition activists massed in center-city streets and raised the traditional Muslim rallying cry of "Allahu- Akbar."
In the modern world, clashes between different interests are fought at the level of ideas as much as, or perhaps even more than, at the level of military hardware. (This is another reason why the US-NATO mission in Afghanistan seems so evidently doomed. How can those heavily armed and fearsomely self-protected American forces ever hope to "win Afghan hearts and minds"-- even if they had the language and inter-cultural skills to do so, which so evidently they don't?)
So I've been very interested to see the way the Uighur-Han clashes have been framed and presented in different big public media around the world.
China's official Xinhua news agency (English edition) is describing the disturbances as the country's "deadliest riot since New China was founded in 1949."
That report quotes Li Zhi, the Communist Party of China (CPC) chief of the province's capital, Urumqi, as saying, "The rioters violated laws and harmed the fundamental interests of all Chinese ethnic groups." It notes that, "Police in Xinjiang have arrested 1,434 suspects over Sunday's deadly riot, including 1,379 men and 55 women... "
I have remarked before on the generally excellent presentation of the material on Xinhuanet's "China View" website in English. This page is no exception. It has photographs, a link to a more extensive photo gallery, and links to many related stories Xinhua stories from around the world.
Another indication of the Chinese authorities' awareness of the importance of the global "battle of ideas" is the fact that as soon as news of the Xinjiang riots broke, they invited a number of foreign journalists resident in Beijing to go to Xinjiang and "see for themselves."
Forbes magazine's Gady Epstein gives an interesting appraisal of this PR effort, here.
He wrote:
In public relations speak, they set out to define the story before the story defined them. What is remarkable about this is that Party leaders were able to act so promptly and so decisively on multiple fronts: the comprehensive security lockdown, the timely (if terse) official news reports, the Internet and communications controls, the deft handling of foreign media. The government was ready to handle a PR crisis with a sophisticated authoritarian strategy, and clearly has been crafting this strategy since the disastrous handling of the Tibet unrest last year.Virtually everything substantive about the government's reaction to the Urumqi protests is a replay of Tibet, only now at broadband speed...
Now that Communist Party leaders have embraced the 24-hour news cycle, will they come to regret it? I suspect not. Domestically, the government still tightly controls its message, and has little to worry about from its mostly Han Chinese audience. Internationally, crisis PR works in your favor especially when you have a reasonable storyline to push, and for now the reports coming out of Urumqi indicate that many of the killed and injured Sunday were Han Chinese and, as state media reported, "innocent victims" of rioters.
That doesn't change the fact that Uighurs have legitimate grievances against Chinese government policies, and as in Tibet, it doesn't appear that Chinese officials feel moved to address the root causes of ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. The foreign media will continue to report that angle of the story, regardless of how the government spins it...
Epstein adds a useful link to this late-June blog post from the Hong-Kong-based China Media Project, which talks about Beijing's well-prepared project of "Control 2.0"-- evidently, its response to the western concept of the use of "Web 2.0" for social-media-based mass organizing.
He also notes in passing that western PR firms like Ogilvy and Hill& Knowlton have conducted numerous seminars for Chinese officials "in more serene times." (Though personally, I'm note sure how much value-added those antediluvian firms could actually add to the CCP's wn very evident media smarts.)
Anyway, the Chinese charm/PR offensive with foreign journalists has already resulted in the publication of many compelling stories. Including this amazing account by the Guardian's Tania Branigan about a confrontation between Uighur protesters and a phalanx of paramilitary police, armed apparently only with long night-sticks but backed up by armored cars.
She wrote:
Women in the market place burst into wailing and chanting as foreign reporters arrived, complaining that police had taken away Uighur men. Authorities have arrested 1,434 people in connection with Sunday's unrest."The policemen took away my husband last night. I don't know why and I don't know where he is," said one woman called Abdurajit. "Mine was taken too. They still have him," broke in another woman.
As they streamed out on to the main street, the crowd swelled to around 200, with Uighur men and more women joining them, shouting and waving their fists.
And then the old woman emerged from the crowd and moved slowly down the street. An Uighur police officer came forward to escort her away. She could not be persuaded.
As older residents stepped forward and attempted to calm the crowd, she advanced steadily towards the line of armoured vehicles. She halted inches in front of one. The driver started its engine. For a long moment they faced each other. Then the carrier slowly began to roll backwards and the line of officers inched away, back down the road.
She walked forward. They stepped back. She continued - while the officer pleaded with her to turn away.
Suddenly he turned to me and grabbed my notebook, ripped out a page and scribbled a note for her; apparently his name and identity number - proof of his willingness to help her. He thrust it at her. Reluctantly, she agreed to leave.
For a moment, it seemed, tensions had ebbed in this riven city...
Al Jazeera didn't appear to have anyone in Urumqi. But they've done a decent job reporting the political background to the Xinjiang conflict, here.
I've been interested to look at the coverage of the Xinjiang events in the Turkish press, especially given that the Uighurs are an ethnically Turkic people-- and also because of the wide support enjoyed in Turkey and several of the Turkic-speaking republics of Central Asia of the Turkey-based Islamist movement headed by Fethullah Gulen.
Gulen's Zaman media chain seems to be reporting the Xinjiang events in a very sober and non-inciteful way. Here is a report Today's Zaman has today about an appeal by Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoğlu for the "restoration of tranquility" in Xinjiang.
The report continues,
"Turkey pursues the developments with concern and sorrow and assesses what it could do on the matter," Davutoğlu said at a news conference with UAE's Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdallah bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan in Ciragan Palace in Istanbul.Asked about initiatives of Turkey to stop the incidents in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Davutoğlu said, "Turkey has rooted ties with China and Uighur Turks. More than 150 people lost their lives and more than 800 people were injured. Turkey's Foreign Ministry made a statement on Monday and wanted perpetrators to be found as soon as possible."
Turkey's moderately Islamist president, Abdullah Gul, was actually in Beijing and Urumqi on a state visit as recently as the last days of June.
Today's issue of Today's Zaman also has short articles about an appeal by a Turkish business association for a boycott of China and a protest by "several hundred Uighur and Turkish demonstrators" outside the Chinese embassy in Ankara, where they "hurled eggs at the embassy building and held up banners calling for an end to what they called Chinese aggression against Uighurs."
Well, there we are: Turkey to China; Russia to Pakistan: Central Asia is a large and fascinating-- and currently very important-- part of the world.
How US-NATO forces can ever hope to operate effectively within this rich regional mix is still a mystery to me...
By the way, one last pair of important links for anyone following Afghanistan: Afghanistan Conflict Monitor is an excellent news aggregator; and Joshua Foust's Registan is simply the best English-language blog there is on Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia.
My first thought, when I heard that Russians were giving the U.S. permission to transport lethal forces through their bases, was that they were giving the U.S. the same rope their Communist predecessors had strangled on.
Then again, maybe they want western China to flare up as much as possible, too- and with a misguided U.S. "surge," who knows what could happen. It seems, already, that the Taliban are striking back, not in Helmand, but in the east. Look on the map and see what could happen there.
July 7, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The whole Idea of the Obama administration towards Afganistan seems as a pure fulfillment of sphoradic-mythic-paranoid Ideas about the Taliban, and no more.
In the Cairo speech Obama talked about Afganistan as if Bin Laden is just sitting there in a cave, waiting for Obama to catch him after a brave fight.
Or in other words-
what on earth are all you Progs' thinking???
this all Afganistan fix is ludicrous, and the Afgan people already at this point are in horendous circumstances, not thanks to US forces and PR-different sorts of schools for feminism etc.
US must not send more troops, but start the same process as in Iraq. Mr. Bin Laden can be in a Vegas suite just the same, without the hell Mr. Obama is going to Keep (as it seems) the Afgans in.
Stop this lie! the Afgan people are not pions for childish Hollywood fantasies.
July 7, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and thank you very much ms. Cobban for the wide review and references. It is still hard , though, to see through it the rational of the US Policy.
July 7, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
dichronic, my view exactly. The Russians are helping the US to expand the war against the Pashtuns (which we call the Taliban) realizing that it is unwinnable and will only weaken the US.
What is sad is that this is one war we could easily walk away from without suffering international loss of face that was the main reason we turned minor setbacks into calamities in Vietnam and Iraq. It would mean negotiating with the "Taliban", Hekmatayr and other Pashtun tribal leaders. The Karzai government would have to be jettisoned but that would be no loss. Our major concession would be to accept a government that consists of people we insisted were terrorists and we would never deal with them. But we said the same about Hamas and eventually we will have to recognize their legitimacy.
July 7, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's too early to predict the outcome of the Pakistan-Afghanistan (PA) campaign, but I expect the U.S. will largely succeed in its aim, despite the dire predictions of failure. The same predictions - a costly, protracted, and indecisive outcome were issued when we embarked on an Afghanistan campaign immediately after 9/11. In contrast to the warnings, the U.S. and allies, including Afghan tribes won a victory that was short and decisive, at little cost - wresting control of the nation from the Taliban and delivering the people from the oppression inflicted by that brutal regime. Mainly because we diverted resources and attention to Iraq, we then failed to consolidate the gains with appropriate economic aid and a sufficient continued presence, which is a major reason for the Taliban resurgence.
Having proved the doomsayers wrong once, I expect we can do it again as part of an overall PA effort, again with appropriate attention to political and economic necessities, and an eye toward shifting the burden as expeditiously as possible to the national govenments; this will include a need to pressure the Afghan government to root out extensive corruption that has pervaded it for some time.
The goal of these efforts is not to "win" in a conventional military sense, but to keep Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgents on the run - as they are now - preventing them from mounting the extensive recruiting, training, and organizational efforts they once did prior to our focus on disrupting them. There is no illusion that the insurgencies can be eliminated, but a failure to keep them on the defensive in the PA region with its nuclear weapons and a lucrative drug trade capable of funding terrorist activities would portend a potentially catastrophic destabilization of that volatile region under insurgent control, permitting the threat they pose to grow to intolerable levels.
Although success is not a certainty, I expect we will be reasonably successful in our efforts as we conduct them over the next 30-50 years, realizing that a short term horizon is unrealistic. The alternative - not trying - might very possibly prove disastrous.
July 7, 2009 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I expect we will be reasonably successful in our efforts as we conduct them over the next 30-50 years,
Though success is not a certainty maybe after 30 to 50 years we might win. This sounds down right nuts. How do you plan on selling this winning stategy to American taxpayers that will have to pay for it?
July 7, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"downright nuts" is not a strong argument. The taxpayers will accept our need to stay involved. Without stretching the analogies too thin, they endured our patience and expenditures during the Cold War, and did not rebel against our long term presence in South Korea, Germany, and elsewhere. If we had conducted American combat operations during the major part of those long intervals, they would have objected, but that wasn't necessary then, and shouldn't be now.
They will support what's necessary, and a successful Pakistan-Afghanistan effort appears to be necessary.
July 7, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we had conducted American combat operations during the major part of those long intervals, they would have objected, but that wasn't necessary then, and shouldn't be now.
But we are now in the middle of American combat operations against the Pashtun resistance. Fighting stopped in Germany in 1945 and in S. Korea in 1954. Those wars were over. What is happening now against the Pashtuns is ongoing. First we have to defeat them. What does that even mean? Sorry to sound impolite, but it sounds nuts to me.
July 7, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
We've already defeated them once, quite easily. In the larger sense, what it means is the combined military-economic-political strategy that requires our military presence temporarily in Afghanistan and not at all in Pakistan. To date, one can tout both failures and successes, but I'm reasonably encouraged. The Pakistan military have dislodged the Taliban from large areas, and their choice to flee to Afghanistan is being constrained by the campaign there, which has already routed the Taliban from important opium-producing areas.
The alternative of not doing this is likely to lead to something far more dismal. It's the world we live in, and we have to choose among the available options rather than any we might wish in fantasy.
July 7, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Obama signs us up for another Bushlike endless war, he and Bush will be known as the most hated Presidents who ever attempted to govern this nation, which was bankrupted because of them.
The Pakistanis want some Predator drones of their own, and are pretending to fight 'their own' War on Terror to make the naive Americans believe they should get them.
And Petraeus is reviving old Bush Admin lies about the Iranians smuggling weapons to the Taliban. We have been here before.
July 7, 2009 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't going to last that long. A bunch of Taliban yahoos are not the Soviet Union, which operated one of the most potent war machines in the history of the world. Even Republicans will quickly start to smell a vulnerability in the extravagant and poorly motivated Afghanistan escalation. Obama is really cooking his own goose here.
July 7, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’m troubled by what seems to be an ideological reflex on the part of the Pat Buchanan wing of the liberal establishment to oppose any U.S. military engagement in the absence of an invasion of our home territory. Like any view fashioned by ideology, that strikes me has naïve. The world has changed. Invading armies are no longer what threaten us, but rather amorphous global movements that must be contained in foreign countries so as not to inflict harm on us. The strategies have changed accordingly, and now require our efforts to focus on helping to stabilize those nations against the threats, using military action only for that purpose, and only until the locals can take over. It also means abandoning 20th century notions of winning and losing. These are conflicts we can’t win, but can manage on our terms to the disadvantage of those who threaten us.
Under these circumstances, wise judgments are imperative, because not every claimed threat deserves a response from us, but some do. Pakistan-Afghanistan is a salient example because it’s nuclear armed, and vulnerable to destabilization that might lead to de facto control in large regions by terrorist organizations that hate the West and in extreme cases might be willing to immolate their own citizens in order to destroy us.
These realities are inconvenient, but blinding ourselves to them would probably turn out be something that deserves a stronger term than inconvenient.
July 7, 2009 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
There hasn't been a major terrorist operation against the United States since 9/11, Fred. And you know why? Because among all those various jihadist freedom fighters, militants and soldiers of fortune, only a very, very small percentage are actually capable of accomplishing anything that big.
The US and its allies have done a rather good job since 9/11 in preempting potential terrorism and disrupting terrorist cells, both abroad and at home, through a combination of intelligence, covert operations, unpublicized special forces military activity and cooperative law enforcement. The US has been even more successful than the Europeans, if only because the logistics of terrorist attacks on US soil are much more challenging. We will probably have to keep up this effort for quite some time in the same way we have to deal with other persistent, chronic problems like money laundering, narcotics trafficking, piracy, smuggling and arms-running.
What is naive is the idea that the way you preempt terror is by sending conventional armies to inflict military defeat some other "army" of presumed bad guys, 99% of whom have neither the means, organization nor inclination to plan and execute a major terrorist attack against the United States. This is a triumph of wishful thinking: of wanting the problem to be other than it is so that we can more easily conceptualize it. It's even more naive to attempt some militarily-assisted social and political makeover of a place like Afghanistan, and expect that overhaul either to succeed on its own terms or to really have an important effect on the anti-terrorism effort.
The cash we are pouring into this Middle East money pit would be better spent on beefing up intelligence capabilities and recruiting more assets. Let Afghanistan be Afghanistan. If we have enough snoops on the ground we can keep track of who the few really serious players are, and then either round them up, shut down their resources, blow up their encampments and equipment or kill them.
The toxic high-profile presence and spectacle of US military forces dicking around in the Middle East and Central Asia is itself one of the main incitements to anti-US militancy in the first place, and is a serious detriment to US security. We need to get almost all of our soldiers out of the region along with the big, loud weapons. We need to decrease our provocative footprint, stop building obnoxious imperial headquarters (so-called "embassies") in the backyards of our unhappily subjugated clients, and then turn the long-term management of the terrorism issue over to the quiet guys who can do their work more discretely, and in ways less likely to attract highly negative publicity and dangerous blowback, and less likely to provide recruiting incentives for our enemies.
I'm afraid Obama is going to learn this lesson the hard way, because right now he is more concerned with looking like a tough leader to his DC court than being a tough leader.
Enough with the noisy, misguided and counterproductive "war on terror" fireworks.
July 7, 2009 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
Plenty of people are capable of mounting a major terrorist attack in the US. Anyone with a chemistry degree, or access to a good University library, could within a reasonable time concoct something far worse than 9/11. Yes, you'd have to be crazy to do that. And only a small subset of those crazy enough are also able to think coherently enough to carry such a thing out. But that's still many, many people in the scope of this world's population.
Generally it takes an organized religion to provide the social nexus to both be that crazy, and be smart enough. But keep in mind "smart enough" isn't anything beyond a normal IQ, and some decent study habits. Book-centered religions tend to have people with passable study habits. And that's why killing Taliban is a damn good idea.
July 9, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
We succeeded very well in defeating the Taliban immediately after 9/11, and that military operation was a vital ingredient of our war on terror. Clearly, it can be done, and done well. No-one claims that any U.S. military engagement can either eliminate these insurgencies completely or that it can substitute for adequate suppression of insurgencies by local governments that enjoy the trust of their people. To argue, therefore, that we shouldn't mount a conventional military operation as our only tool or even our main one is to attack a straw man.
Obama knows all this, and is conducting a well conceived campaign guided by individuals who have seen what works and what doesn't. I therefore have reasonable expectations he will achieve the objectives he has defined for us - to weaken the Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgencies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to consolidate gains by replacing American and other outside involvement with local forces, while being prepared to sustain these efforts for the long haul after direct military involvement by the U.S. has ceased.
I won't pretend to read the future except in terms of probabilities, but what he's doing offers a far better chance to avoid a dangerous upsurge in violence and instability in Pakistan-Afghanistan than a failure to use all resources available, including, temporarily, a military one. I have not yet seen any rational argument, here or elsewhere, for denying ourselves recourse to all parts of a combined strategy that could reduce the danger that this part of the world will turn into a destabilized region with substantial areas of terrorist control, and with access to nuclear weapons in the balance.
I hope no one will be so churlish as to suggest that Obama is doing this just to look tough. Afghanistan was a consistent message of his presidential campaign, and he is following through. I'm grateful for that. I know that Rush Limbaugh wants him to fail, but I hope the rest of us wish him well.
July 8, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
No-one claims that any U.S. military engagement can either eliminate these insurgencies completely or that it can substitute for adequate suppression of insurgencies by local governments that enjoy the trust of their people. To argue, therefore, that we shouldn't mount a conventional military operation as our only tool or even our main one is to attack a straw man.
The point is not just that the campaign in Afghanistan can't be the only tool used, Fred. The point, rather, is that it is doubtful that the use of this tool will make any positive contribution whatsoever to the anti-terrorism effort, at least not a contribution commensurate with its cost. Military engagements are expensive, both economically and diplomatically. Eliminating or suppressing the insurgency in Afghanistan sounds like a fine thing to do, but it seems neither necessary nor sufficient for the chief task of making sure that no one in Afghanistan attacks us. And it's doubtful that we can be successful in a vast, ungovernable place like Afghanistan, at least short of another trillion dollar effort.
The post-9/11 assault was successful in destroying the Al Qaeda training facilities in the Tora Bora mountains, and dispersing its members. That was the chief goal as I recall: attacking terrorist organizations whose "global reach" was based on the fact that they operated from a safe haven. The assault was clearly was not that successful in routing the Taliban or establishing any kind of government in Kabul capable of exercising real governing authority over the whole sprawling and forbidding country.
If Al Qaeda or some offshoot builds a similar safe haven in the future, from which it might be able to plan or execute a logistically challenging terrorist operation in the US, then we can blow that facility up again and kill or disperse the people living there. We can keep doing this, as needed. But it's not clear that the possible need to do that from time to time depends in any significant way on what is happening in Kabul, or on what warlords, militias or nominal government forces happen to be fighting each other that month in war-happy Afghanistan, where seasonal fighting seams to be a way of life.
Obama has allowed his pride, reputation and campaign commitments to become bound up with an extremely dubious military campaign in a remote and inhospitable land. The goals of the campaign are vague and imprecisely defined, but tend toward the madly ambitious. This is a political recipe for continued escalation, as Obama finds success in his goals continually eluding his grasp. That's something that a declining superpower that has just broken its bank on another extravagant and unnecessary war, and that stands on the cusp of a global depression that could displace it permanently from global preeminence and undermine the long-term economic prospects of its citizens, can ill-afford.
July 8, 2009 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
We succeeded very well in defeating the Taliban immediately after 9/11
If that was such a success than why did 6 US soldiers get killed two days ago. I guess you would argue that the French defeated the Viet Minh because they drove them out of Hanoi in 1947.
July 8, 2009 1:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don’t look to China for a recue from this deepening recession. It’s not up to the challenge. China has created a massive middle class in a single generation, but it has yet to empower it.
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/07/dont-believe-pundits-on-chinas-century.html
The world still waits on the American consumer.
July 8, 2009 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot something, Ms. Cobban:
The pipelines. If clearing the routes is bloody business, imagine trying to defend them.
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/
July 8, 2009 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many comments have validly asserted that our military campaign can’t hope to defeat the Taliban in a conventional sense, but they miss the larger point. To appreciate the necessity for the current operation requires us to recognize that while Pakistan and Afghanistan are two separate nations in the eyes of their governments, they are a single entity from the perspective of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. If either part remains an unsecured safety valve that allows insurgents to escape suppressive efforts, both parts remain in peril.
The new Afghanistan operations are designed to lay the foundations for a secure Afghanistan, a goal that requires far more than the current large-scale military offensive, but cannot be reached without it. As a first step, the military objective is to hold territory so that local citizens can participate in upcoming national elections. Ultimately, the security tasks will need to be transferred to the Afghan military, but the latter are not yet capable. It can’t be accomplished, however, simply by covert operations or special forces without substantial troop numbers. So far, the efforts seems to be proceeding in the desired direction, although it is likely to be a protracted struggle and involve casualties. For one perspective, see http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1908724,00.html.
If this effort fails, and Afghanistan reverts to pre-9/11 status as a haven for terrorist training and organization, the threat from that alone will be significant. The larger threat, however, will stem from the availability of Afghanistan as a refuge for insurgents intent on destabilizing and eventually toppling the Pakistan government, or creating such internal unrest that the ability of Pakistan to secure its nuclear weapons is compromised. The danger to us and to other nations would then become enormous. Currently, the Pakistan military is successfully dislodging insurgents from areas they held previously, and a successful campaign in Afghanistan will prevent those insurgents from simply escaping unscathed, with undiminished strength, subverting the accomplishments of the Pakistan military to weaken them.
Fortunately in all of this, the Obama administration has learned lessons from both past successes and failures. We know we can succeed militarily against the Taliban, because we’ve already done it. We’ve always known we can’t eliminate them, and so little effort is underway to kill the militants, and none to take prisoners; rather, it is to deliver civilian populations from their control. We’ve learned that civilian casualties (“collateral damage”) are counterproductive, and the new campaign is taking rigorous steps to minimize these, with some success so far - particularly in avoiding air strikes when insurgents are mixed together with civilians.
Will our strategy succeed in the long run? Nothing this difficult is likely to succeed to perfection, but nothing yet suggests it will fail to accomplish major objectives. We must hope so, because a failure to achieve these objectives, or even make the attempt, could be disastrous.
July 8, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, I believe you are confusing separate issues: the threat to the United States posed by jihadist terrorist cells and organizations, and the threats inside Afghanistan and Pakistan caused by insurgents or non-government militias. The issues are somewhat interrelated, but not nearly so closely as you make them out to be. It is an illusion to think that we could ever render Afghanistan so secure, as a single well-governed country, as to make any significant dent in the largely independent, yet largely manageable, problem of jihadist terrorist threats against the United States and its people. And yet the cost of attempting to do so could be enormous.
You talk about "unsecured safety valves" where terrorists can operate. Ask yourself what that means exactly. What is a "safe haven"? Recall that there have been capable terrorist cells at work even in Europe, the US and Canada as well, operating in countries that are much more "secured" than we can ever expect Afghanistan and Pakistan to be. Our response to those organizations has been generally rational. We learn as much as we can about who they are, where they are located, how they operate and where there friends are, and then we roll up such cells and networks as appear to pose a genuine threat.
There are a lot more America-hating bad guys in the Af-pak region than there are in Canada. But those bad guys will still be there whether Afghanistan and Pakistan are "secured" or not. All we are really concerned about are the ones that pose a real threat to us - and there aren't that many of them. I don't think the degree of that threat is really altered in any significant amount by what kind of government is in Kabul. Afghanistan will never be Canada, the UK or even Spain, where a friendly government will command vast security powers to interdict terrorism. Nor are we going to eliminate or significantly check virulently anti-American Islamism by beating back a few armed fighters in the field. Our main enemy isn't an Afghan soldier for hire with a gun out in the Afghan wilds. It's a guy with an internet connection, access to funds and a talent for organizing a small group of people to carry out an operation abroad. A few such guys are going to be around for a long time, no matter what happens in Kabul.
What you seem to be talking about is a militarily-assisted nation building effort in Afghanistan. That's expensive, both economically and in cost in lives and limb among US forces, and generates blowback. But even if it works, it wouldn't matter much. All you need for terrorist operations is a place to meet to draw up plans, to use the internet, to collect and distribute funds, and to do some training - which depending on the operation is usually a low-profile, clandestine affair. No conceivable Afghan government of the kind we could help bring into existence will have the kinds of capabilities needed to thoroughly police their country, and detect and interdict these kinds of operations in any significant degree. We're going to have to do that ourselves, no matter who is in charge in Kabul.
"Insurgents" in themselves are not our problem unless they become terrorists who mount operations beyond their borders. Afghanistan is and has long been a warlord-riven country, and will probably remain so, with continually shifting alliances, weapons running and all the rest. Obama would be a fool to try to permanently alter that situation.
Even though the insurgents in question may be the same folks, the Pakistan problem is different in several important ways from the Afghanistan. In Pakistan, the issue is making sure that nuclear weapons possessed by the government don't fall into the hands of our enemies.
July 8, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We probably don't disagree entirely. However, I'm not concerned with absolutes but with degrees. My point, which I believe motivates much of current policy, is that a highly destabilized Afghanistan threatens the stability of Pakistan, and with that, the security of nuclear weapons. In contrast, a smoldering Afghanistan insurgency, even if never completely suppressible, would be too engaged in its own preservation to lend much aupport to Pakistan militants.
In essence, the goal here is realistic containment at acceptable costs, and that goal entails the use of the American military for a temporary purpose only - to hold territory while helping the Afghans to take over. It also involves constant monitoring of events, to permit us to adapt as circumstances demand. In terms of exerting military force, the adaptation could take a downward course as well as an upward one.
I believe it would be prudent for all of us to avoid conclusive judgments until this has played out a while longer. In fact, what I object to is not reservations about the Obama policy, but dogmatic proclamations that it can't possibly work. None of us is that prescient to earn the right to such dogmatism. I remain cautiously optimistic, to coin a cliche.
July 8, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
'a highly destabilized Afghanistan threatens the stability of Pakistan, and with that, the security of nuclear weapons. In contrast, a smoldering Afghanistan insurgency, even if never completely suppressible, would be too engaged in its own preservation to lend much aupport to Pakistan militants.'
It isn't that simple, Fred. It is in Pakistan's strategic interest to have Afghanistan's instability as an excuse for funnelling American money to itself, in exchange for "stabilizing" its side of the border.
And Pakistan well knows, like North Korea, that having nukes gives foreign policymakers nightmares, and that 'unstable' governments possessing them- cause psychosis. Pakistan's nukes are worth more to its leaders the more 'unstable' the nation is perceived as being. (Of course, if the instability passes a certain degree, they knw that the resultant panic will cause them to be bombed back to the Stone Age.)
It is true that America is a fickle friend, and the Pakistanis have to work at the relationship, which includes playing a double game in Afghanistan and in the tribal regions.
As Dan K so accurately notes, our policy is not cost-effective, yet this same policy is ideal for Pakistani brass and spymasters to enrich themselves.
And if we are going to be gulled by this, it's our own damn fault.
July 8, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The assertion that Pakistan's leaders welcome instability on either side of the border strikes me as rather far-fetched, but I'd be willing to reconsider if you can provide concrete evidence.
The Pakistan military effort, strongly encouraged by the U.S., seems aimed in the opposite direction.
An article in the latest (July-August) issue of Foreign Affairs by Fotini Christia and Michael Semple, entitled "Flipping the Taliban", acknowledges the importance of the current large-scale U.S./Nato military offensive, while arguing that it will fail without a more comprehensive political/economic strategy to incentivize Taliban defections. The article claims that histortically, Afghan tribalism has been characterized by survivalist principles that causes loyalties to shift toward those who can offer protection, and similarly toward those who are perceived to be on the winning side. When the U.S. and allied forces played that role earlier, many shifts of allegiance followed, but then reversed themselves with Taliban resurgence. The authors offer cogent arguments for specific measures than can motivate a further realignment of interests, leading some Taliban to reconcile with the government and others to be marginalized.
I have seen various discussions on the relationship between Afghan instability and Pakistan instability. Some insist the connection is very strong and alarming, while others assert it to be tenuous. None that I'm aware of claim it to be inverse or non-existent. Our current policy is based on the belief that mutual instability is something to worry about, and until proven otherwise, that seems a wise conclusion.
July 8, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
From a Heritage Foundation report yesterday:
"The challenges in Afghanistan are linked to Pakistan but the complexity of the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship, the constantly evolving tactics of the insurgency, and the insurgents' ability to slip with ease between borders make policy solutions difficult. Most interlocutors conveyed that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan were growing stronger and had improved from a year ago, although some high-level Afghan officials said the cooperation was occurring only at a surface level and that Pakistan still supported the Afghan Taliban. Some interlocutors claimed that Pakistan's intelligence service provides the strategic organization and operational support for the Afghan Taliban, while Middle Eastern financiers provide the bulk of financial resources.
NATO leaders reported that coordination with Pakistan along the eastern border had improved over the last year, which was beginning to impact positively on the eastern sector of Afghanistan. Tripartite intelligence sharing among Pakistani, Afghan, and NATO ISAF officials has been improving. A Border Coordination Center (BCC) staffed by Afghan, Pakistani, and NATO ISAF personnel has been established at Torkham Gate in the Khyber Pass and a second BCC is currently under construction at Spin Boldak.
Still, NATO commanders said Pakistan was a "significant enabler" for the insurgency in Afghanistan. The command and control of the Afghan Taliban resides in and around Quetta, Baluchistan, and provides leadership and access to money flows for the insurgent operations in Afghanistan. Interlocutors staffing Regional Command-South told our delegation that if the Taliban leadership in Quetta was neutralized, this would constitute a significant blow to the insurgency in southern Afghanistan, depriving it of guidance, focus, and legitimacy.
One of the major problems in garnering full Pakistani cooperation against the Afghan Taliban is the continued paranoia about India's role in Afghanistan that pervades the Pakistani security establishment. New York Times correspondent David Sanger's recently released book, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, provides insight into the depth of suspicion in Pakistani military circles about Indian activities in Afghanistan. Sanger says that Indian development activities the U.S. views as helpful such as road and dam construction and provision of humanitarian aid, are seen by the Pakistanis as Indian attempts to encircle Pakistan with the ultimate goal of invading and dominating Pakistan.[2] In Sanger's account, a Pakistani General describes to a U.S. official why Pakistan must maintain relations with the Afghan Taliban. He explains that eventually the coalition forces will pull out of Afghanistan and thus it will be necessary for Pakistan to have good relations with the opposition in Afghanistan (i.e., the Afghan Taliban). Sanger asserts that the Pakistan Army regularly gave the Taliban and other militant groups "weapons and support to go into Afghanistan to attack Afghan and coalition forces.""
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/tst070809a.cfm
I chose this excerpt almost at random. I actually agree with almost none of its author's conclusions, but she did bother to collect some relevant facts.
My statements regarding the double game i believe Pakistan is playing are not meant as criticism of Pakistan, which is behaving rationally, but of the U.S., which does not fully grasp that Predator drone attacks conducted in other nations' territory are viewed as outrages; or that its own strength invites other nations to take advantage of that for its own, often diametrically opposed, ends. Curtis' final lines are revealing:
"Pakistan is at a critical juncture. The Obama Administration is demonstrating a willingness to invest significant resources (even amid a serious global economic downturn) into helping the country develop into a prosperous, peaceful, and thriving state. But achieving this goal requires Pakistani leaders to adjust their own regional security perceptions and to view the internal terrorist threat as urgently as their counterparts in Washington do."
if only the Pakistani power structure were remote controlled like the drones they covet and resent; if only they saw things through our eyes...
July 8, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Pakistan government has been bedevilled by elements within it, particularly in the security services, who sympathize with the insurgents more than with the government. My earlier point is that the government finds destabilization threatening, and accordingly welcomes measures to protect against it in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. I was interested to read in the piece you quoted that there may have been recent progress in countering the forces within Pakistan bent on undermining the stability of the government. I also suggest that this progress might be reversed if the Taliban gained dominance throughout large regions of Afghanistan. I believe this concept underlies part of our current Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
July 8, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it is a fact that the support within Pakistan for the Taliban has been an incredible disaster for the two million Swat residents who are in IDP (internally displaced person) camps, and that the government has to at least appear to be finding ways to cope with this catastrophe. As of a few days ago, their solution was to offer to arm any IDPs who wanted to return, because the Army, despite repeated announcements of victories against the Taliban, seems to be in need of a 'citizen police' because Swat's safety can't be guaranteed. Not being there, I can only interpret this to mean that nothing has been secured in the region.
Re the point that Afghanistan is destabilizing Pakistan: The Taliban's power base is in Pakistan. The only thing that could be destabilizing Pakistan from Afghanistan is, well, us.
Also, opposition to Obama's plan for Afghanistan is almost universal among Pakistanis, who believe that the American project in Afghanistan is a baldly imperialist one.
Actually, the more I try to rationalize it (Obama's project), the more absurd and wasteful it seems. A few months ago, Gates was quoted as saying we shouldn't be trying to create "Valhalla in Central Asia." But if not, what are we trying to create?
July 8, 2009 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll add that I've noticed that as these comments proceeded, they became more detail-oriented and less dogmatic. I hope any open-minded observer will come away from this with the realization that we deal with complex issues that defy easy solutions, and depend on a future we can foresee only vaguely. That might temper any inclination to engage in sweeping, dogmatic pronouncements about the wisdom or folly of our current policies. I have tried to make a case - one I subscribe to - that the policies are rational and realistic, and will be reasonably successful with effort and good luck. I acknowledge there are ample reasons to be more pessimistic. We can probably all agree that the Administration must be prepared to adapt to future events rather than remaining mired in an entrenched and inflexible mindset.
July 8, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wrote this before diachronic's last comment, which I find regressive. Things are going fairly well in Pakistan, but I won't repeat these arguments, because one can read the news to find out what is happening.
Despite areas of disagreement, often expressed publicly, there is much private agreement between the U.S. and the Pakistani governments about the wisdom of our Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in general, if not on all specific issues.
It's probably a good idea at this point to let readers review this post and comments to draw their own conclusions. I've made my perspective clear, hopefully without implying that its correctness is a certainty. I hope those who agree that our course is correct and those who disagree will join in hoping that whatever course we take leads to a successful outcome.
July 8, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is one thing we surely agree on.
July 8, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink