Turning a Corner ... In a Circular Maze?

As another fighting season draws to a close in Afghanistan, there are several interesting developments that suggest this winter might see some significant changes that could be precursors to a negotiated end to U.S. involvement. Among the straws in the wind:

Despite the presence of some 15,000 U.S. troops and last year's announcement of (yet another) bold, new strategy, the Taliban by all accounts controls more Afghan territory than at any time since 2002;

The 18th American commander* in this longest war was inaugurated;

*that is, commander of NATO forces ... we tend to forget that Article 5 of the NATO treaty (pledging mutual support in case of attack) was invoked for the only time in history after the September 11 attacks and 17 NATO members have had troops on the ground and suffered casualties since 2001.

President Trump, when he has paid attention to Afghanistan, (he has tweeted six times more often about NFL players and the anthem) has said he just wants to bring the troops home;

The U.S. State Department has not denied Taliban claims that there have been direct talks between the two sides (despite official policy that we'll talk to the Taliban only when the Afghan government is part of the meetings;

Reliable journalists have reported that the Taliban has moderated its behavior in territory that it controls, no longer enforcing a harshly repressive version of Shari law, but emphasizing effective governance, efficient provision of basic services, and stringent anti-bribery and corruption measures;

The newly appointed special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an NPR interview that the items the United States has demanded as preconditions for talks for the past 17 years were now "end points" in negotiations.

All this hardly means the end of the war but it may be the beginning of a long, tedious process that leads to a less violent future.

The Key Players

The United States

The U.S. is central to the future of Afghanistan. The Defense Department is deliberately vague about how many U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan but the typical estimate is around 16,000. Since 2017, American troops have been deployed almost exclusively in cities providing training and assistance to the Afghan security forces. There is far less emphasis than in the past on U.S. troops playing an active role in combat, but it seems clear that in a crisis or major battle American soldiers play an active role. The United States is also the major source of foreign aid to the Afghan government.

The Government of Afghanistan

Both the executive and legislative branches of the government of Afghanistan were elected in 2014. The process was marred by claims of massive fraud and threats of violence by backers of major candidates and official figures were not immediately released. The resulting constitutional crisis was only resolved when then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brokered a power sharing arrangement between the two leading presidential candidates. Elections for a new parliament are being held this Fall and Presidential elections are scheduled for the spring. There is little reason to think they will be any less controversial.

The Afghan economy was close to total collapse when the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 and has recovered significantly since then. Nonetheless the government relies on foreign aid, much of it from the U.S., for about two-thirds of its revenue, which often means policies and projects reflect the priorities and preferences of foreign governmental and non-governmental aid donors. The most serious problem undermining the authority and legitimacy of the government is corruption. Transparency International, the most widely accepted organization measuring corruption around the world, ranks Afghanistan 177th (out of 180) and that includes everything from paying off the cop who stops you at random to siphoning off millions from foreign aid projects. Afghans also feel physically insecure as the government appears less able to defend rural villages and the Taliban continues suicide bombing attacks in Kabul and other cities.

The Taliban

The Taliban was one of several ethnically or regionally based groups who forced the USSR to withdraw from Afghanistan in the 1980's. The Taliban received significant help from Pakistan and the United States (via the CIA) because they were seen as effective anti-communist, anti-Soviet fighters. This put them in position to emerge as the dominant force in Afghanistan in the confusion and anarchy that followed the Soviet withdrawal. It quickly became clear that the Taliban was driven by an extremely regressive and repressive version of Islam rooted in rural tribal culture and spread by Saudi Arabia. Women were the most obvious victims of the regime, denied an education, prohibited from working, required to wear a burka any time they were outside the house, and legally reduced to being property of their husbands and male relatives. Men fared only slightly better. Committees for the Suppression of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, armed with whips and clubs, patrolled the streets of cities and towns to enforce the ban on music and dancing, punish anyone listening to foreign broadcast on the radio, assure that all men grew beards, and punish any other behavior they defined as "un-Islamic." The Taliban regime waged war on Afghan history and culture and earned international condemnation for violations of human rights. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled the country, usually ending up in refugee camps in Pakistan. The regime tolerated and enabled terrorist groups, notably Al Qaeda, to set up training camps and outposts in the country. The 9/11 terrorists were trained and the attacks were planned and organized by Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. Few tears were shed when the United States led the way to ousting the regime at the end of 2001.

Since then the Taliban has waged an insurgent war against the government. The Taliban leadership and ordinary fighters can draw on almost 40 years of experience fighting modern armies and pushing them out of rural villages. But they lack the heavy weapons and air power to capture urban areas. More importantly, they lack a broad base of support in the country for two key reasons. First, the brutality and repression of the Taliban regime is still a vivid memory for those who lived through it and a frightening prospect for their children and grandchildren. Second, Afghan society remains deeply divided along ethnic lines. The old saying "I against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, my cousins and I against the world" is still operative. The Taliban is almost an exclusively Pashtun organization; the other groups in Afghanistan tend to resent or resist the Pashtuns.

Pakistan

Pakistan's relationship to the various forces in Afghanistan is complex and multi-layered. During the war against the Soviet Union, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence unit, which is the CIA on steroids) was the major conduit for foreign assistance to the anti-Soviet forces. That let the ISI pick and choose among a variety of groups opposing the Soviets and ensure that they remained indebted to Pakistan after they evicted the USSR. The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan on maps of the region is an illusion: Pakistan is one color, Afghanistan another and there's a crisp black line dividing them. The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the ground is marked by checkpoints and official border crossings along the few roads in the region; for practical purposes it does not exist in the steep mountains and deep valleys. The international boundary runs through the middle of a large area dominated by the various tribes, clans and sub-groups of the Pashtun ethnicity. Independent Pakistan inherited all the headaches this area had caused the British while they ruled India. The Northwest Frontier Province is a region of fiercely independent traditional communities, resistant to change and outsiders. For the past 200 years Islam has provided the vocabulary and general principles that defines this world view.

The government of Pakistan is seen as a hostile alien force that would destroy the region's way of life, to be resisted just as much as the Soviet Union in the 1980's and the American led NATO forces today. Taliban forces continue to carry out bombings and assaults on government facilities inside Pakistan. While some elements of the Pakistan military try to pacify the tribal areas and disarm and disband the Taliban forces, other elements, especially the ISI, actively support and encourage the Taliban to concentrate on the battle against the foreigners in Afghanistan and avoid domestic targets.

Negotiations?

One reason to think that the recent events in Afghanistan do represent the first halting steps toward negotiations between these key players, is that there seems to be a general recognition that no one can win a military victory. After 17 plus years, it is pretty clear that the United States cannot defeat the Taliban on the battlefield. It also seems clear that the Afghan government has enough military strength and the Taliban is sufficiently unpopular in much of the country that the Taliban cannot win. This seems to be a classic "hurting stalemate," an unpleasant conflict situation in which neither side can realistically expect to prevail and get what it wants. The hope becomes that negotiations can lead to a result that is better than the unpleasant status quo.

If negotiations actually happen in the near future, they will be protracted and difficult. Much will depend on the American bottom line. Until recently the United States demanded that the Taliban renounce violence, break all ties with outside groups including Pakistan, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and accept the Afghan constitution as preconditions to be met before any negotiations. Now the U.S. position is that those three conditions are to be the results of negotiations. Unstated but obvious is the American primary goal: an end to military involvement in Afghanistan.

Vietnam DejaVu?

There are some interesting parallels between Vietnam in the 1970's and Afghanistan today: an indigenous fighting force which sees itself as defending the homeland from foreign invaders, a local government dependent on American aid and riddled with corruption, and an external actor supporting the insurgent forces. There are some major differences as well. The biggest difference is that Afghanistan is not a crucial issue for Americans, dividing thew country and contributing to major social changes, which might make it easier for the United States to negotiate a low key exit. . Perhaps looking at how the Vietnam, war ended can give us some clues abut how Afghanistan might end.

The 1973 agreement between the United States and North Vietnam called for withdrawal of U.S. forces, an end to support for the Viet Cong from Hanoi, and negotiations between the Government of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The withdrawal began smoothly enough but ended in confusion and chaos as thousands of South Vietnamese who had worked with the U.S. realized they were going to be left behind. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces continued to gain territory and entered Saigon on April 30, 1975 as the last American military and civilian personnel hurriedly evacuated.

One possible outcome in Afghanistan is that the United States and the Taliban agree to a U.S. military withdrawal (meaning the Taliban will not attack or hinder U.S. and NATO troops as they leave the country) and the Taliban agree that they will not permit terrorist groups to set up camps and training centers in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Afghan government agree to a cease fire allowing each side to maintain control of the territory it currently occupies and promise to hold elections for a new national government as soon as conditions allow.

This result would certainly appeal to any U.S. administration because it would allow the President to claim that he (some day she) had achieved the original 2001 goal of preventing Afghanistan being used as a haven and staging ground by terrorists and left the Afghan government with a well trained and equipped national army. This result would appeal to the Taliban because it gets the Americans out of the way and the Afghan army has not shown any significant ability to fight without a great deal of help from American or NATO forces. The Afghan government would not be happy with this settlement, but it, like the South Vietnamese government, would be unable to influence the bargain.

After the American withdrawal the most likely scenario is that the Taliban would quickly gain control of most of the country, as the Afghan army would crumble and melt away. Pakistan would experience a wave of refugees as westernized Afghans fled in fear of a harshly repressive Taliban regime and government officials and employees fled in fear of reprisals. The United States of the late 1970's allowed several hundred thousand Vietnamese refugees to make a new life here. The United States of the second decade of the 21st Century would not welcome several hundred thousand Afghan refugees.