Dynamics of Afghan conflict

The United States has finally understood that it is not winning in Afghanistan and that it needs to forge a fresh strategy to attain its objectives. Its long-running objective has been to defeat the Taliban insurgents so that they could neither assume power nor provide sanctuary to al Qaeda and other terror groups again.

In order to do that, Washington had rightly strategised to fill the political vacuum in Afghanistan which previously provided an enabling environment for militias like the Taliban and its affiliated foreign militant groups. The immediate panacea for the US in Afghanistan since the dislodging of the Afghan Taliban regime in 2001 was to occupy the country and run its affairs itself and to give the war-ravaged country its first-ever modern republican constitution and a viable political system.

The US and its Western allies gave Afghanistan a constitution and its present political system in the hope that it would address the longstanding power vacuum in the country. A decade and a half since then, however, Washington has not been able to install a viable option to fill that vacuum.

Last week US Defence Secretary James Mattis acknowledged that his country was far from winning the war in Afghanistan and that Taliban fighters were looking more menacing than ever in more provinces of Afghanistan. And despite all that the Middle East-based global terrorist network the Islamic State is making inroads into Afghanistan. This is a pretty candid assessment of the current situation.

Mattis has also warned that a new strategy would soon be put in place. The most important aspect of the new plan is to increase the level of troops in Afghanistan by 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers. At present, the US has around 8,500 troops in Afghanistan and the force is mainly providing crucial support to over 300,000 Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) to fight the Taliban. The deployment of 5,000 US soldiers is not likely to turn the tide against the Taliban. It will take a lot more than that to achieve the desired results. Nevertheless, one hopes for the sake of Afghanistan that the new strategy is comprehensive, profound and all encompassing.

It is disappointing to note that US President Donald Trump has given a carte blanche to the Mattis-led Defence Department in crafting a new strategy in Afghanistan. Historically, the US Defence Department has a poor record in dealing with conflicts and crisis having one too many failures against its name. The department’s strategies mainly have been focusing on defeating the enemy militarily while it needed a comprehensive approach.

The truth is that the US and its allies along with hundreds of thousands of ANSF personnel have failed to defeat a few thousand Taliban fighters because they either could not come to terms with the dynamics of the conflict or simply did not want to.

The Afghans themselves have been averse to any organised state system. The West really did a great job to give Afghanistan a modern and civilised charter and political system but the point one wants to drive home is that the Afghans have been reluctant to adopt such a structure and system. The ultra-tribal nature of Afghan society and the failure of successive Afghan presidents to deliver have been major impediments to long-term stability. Anti-West feelings still run high in the country. The Taliban have so far deftly exploited those feelings in order to rally local support behind their insurgency.

Unless Washington takes these facts into consideration, its Afghan policy will continue to run aground.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2017.

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