“The merit of all things lies in their difficulty”
By
Stefano
Stefanini and Julian Lindley-French
‘You had
the watches, we had the time’?
Ominously and tragically, May 8th’s ghastly massacre of schoolgirls at the Sayed Ul-Shuhada High School has nothing to do with ‘foreign troops’ and everything to do with the Taliban signalling their determination to roll back the social gains made by the Afghan population, especially women, in the last twenty years of foreign presence. Given the implications, whether or not the Taliban carried out the attack is scarcely relevant because it fits into a sadly all too familiar pattern of targeting civilians to terrorize them and undermine support for the Kabul government. The attack also begs two critical questions. First, is Afghanistan’s future doomed to be a repeat of its violent and tragic past? Second, will the future of Afghanistan also be the yardstick the future Alliance will be measured against?
The Taliban like to say that whilst the West had all the watches, i.e. the technology, they had the time. All they had to do was wait and the US and its allies would lose strategic patience and leave Afghanistan. The dust has still to settle on President Biden’s recent decision to withdraw from Afghanistan twenty years on 911 and the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Not surprisingly, the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was unsurprisingly upheld at NATO’s April 14th “jumbo” Ministerial. The Kommentariat have been predictable in their predictions of a now doomed Afghanistan and if such commentaries are to be believed the Taliban will soon have both the time and the watches to re-conquer Afghanistan. However, drawing up a balance sheet now on the Atlantic Alliance’s twenty-year long commitment to the Hindu Kush is premature. Therefore, assuming that the withdrawal of the Coalition takes place in reasonable good order and the Taliban resists the temptation to try and give it the appearance of a rout, the overarching question of what post-NATO Afghanistan will be like will remain unanswered for some time. That is a big ‘if’. Over the past week the Taliban launched several attacks on Afghan forces.
More than 3,500 military and other personnel from thirty one countries paid the ultimate price and yet the Allied commitment to Afghanistan held, usually with parliamentary support and without any significant backlash from public opinion. Indeed, the decision to withdraw has more to do with US policy than mission fatigue. Indeed, the European Allies were prepared to stay on in Afghanistan in support of the non-combat Resolute Support Mission (RSM). However, the Trump and Biden administrations both concluded it was time to terminate the counter-terrorism and stabilisation and reconstruction campaigns, in the face of contrarian advice from several military and intelligence agencies. President Biden made it clear that whilst he is aware of the military arguments against the withdrawal, he believes that there is an overwhelming political and geopolitical rationale in favour of doing so. With the US the reason for NATO being in Afghanistan in the first place, as well as the country that has borne a disproportionate burden in terms of blood and treasure, once Washington decided to quit it was natural the other Allies would follow.
Four AFG questions
The decision to withdraw also raises four specific
questions that also need to be tackled while remembering, and paying tribute
to, the men and women who served in Afghanistan and recognising the remarkable solidarity
shown by Allies and partners alike. [1]
What did NATO achieve and what did it not achieve
in Afghanistan? Did the Taliban defeat
NATO? Why withdraw now and is there a
wider strategic/geopolitical rationale behind Biden’s decision to leave
Afghanistan? If so, where does the
implied new strategic ‘vision’ leave counterinsurgency (COIN) and
counterterrorism (CT)?
What did NATO achieve and not achieve in Afghanistan?
Any such
assessment immediately faces a profound difficulty because NATO never
defined an end goal. At the ministerial the Allies were informed by Antony
Blinken, the US Secretary of State, that the basic campaign
goal of degrading and uprooting Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations had
been achieved. However, that important but relatively narrow goal, one which was
originally set by President Obama in 2009, had
always been part of a broader campaign design that included counterinsurgency
operations, support for the democratically-elected Government of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan (GIROA), nation and capacity-building, and promoting
wider regional stability. Given the Alliance’s complex aims NATO’s scorecard should thus be broken down into
three categories each of which has a very different level of achievement.
Counter-terrorism: by helping to defeat and uproot terrorism in Afghanistan,
both Al Qaeda and Daesh, and in partnership with
the US Operation Enduring Freedom, NATO can claim ‘mission accomplished’, not
least because the Taliban seem to have learned an important lesson and are for
the moment committed to ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a terrorist safe
haven.
Counterinsurgency:
NATO failed to defeat the Taliban insurgency or pacify Afghanistan, even at the
peak of the so-called ‘surge’ between 2010 and 2011. In military terms, the
best that can be said for the outcome is that it is a draw, although that
assessment could change if Afghanistan descends quickly into renewed chaos.
Nation-building:
with regard to building up resilient and enduring national Afghan institutions
and a legitimate and effective GIROA the results are at best mixed. The aim was to develop self-sustaining Afghan
National Security Forces (ANSF) (both Afghan National Army (ANA) and police),
improve human rights, support civil society, promote women’s rights and education,
as well as establish more effective governance and rule of law across the
Pashtun, Hazara and Tadjik homelands beyond Kabul. It is hardly surprising the results are mixed
given the sheer complexity of the campaign, and the need to coordinate efforts
with the UN, EU and a broad coalition of nations. Whilst the Alliance did much
of the heavy-lifting and can be proud of its overall engagement, it failed to curb
corruption and drugs trafficking. That will have consequences for the future
stability of Afghanistan. Critically, the withdrawal will undoubtedly jeopardise
much of the progress that has been made on human rights, the status of women in
society, as well as basic freedoms.
In other
words, whilst NATO achieved a great deal in Afghanistan the Alliance fell short
of “winning”, even though history would suggest the very idea of ‘winning’ is
not one foreign powers are advised to take with them into the Hindu Kush. Moreover,
much of the good work that has been done could be quickly if the Taliban succeed
in unconditionally returning to power and/or if the country falls back into
warlord infused chaos and regional proxy wars at the behest of China, India,
Iran, Pakistan and Russia. There must also be renewed uncertainty about the
future role of Afghanistan as a possible haven for terrorist groups. Al
Qaeda and Daesh have been dislodged, but they could still come back and again
only time will tell. Lastly, even if terrorist groups fail to re-establish
bases in a Taliban ruled or chaos prone Afghanistan people could well vote with
their feet and flee across borders into neighbouring countries, aided by human
traffickers. In such circumstances, existing refugee flows into Europe could
easily again turn into a new migration surge. This would not only be destabilising
for Afghanistan’s neighbours, most notably Pakistan, it would also reinforce immigration
fatigue and fears in both America and Europe.
Did the Taliban defeat NATO?
That will
certainly be the Taliban narrative in the coming months, and one which the US
and NATO should be keen to dispel. Much will depend on the Alliance’s
demonstrable ability to withdraw in full order, rather than what appears to be
a hasty rout. Indeed,
the conditions under which NATO troops leave the country may help partially counter
any perception that the Alliance “lost” in Afghanistan. Equally, nothing will
change NATO’s bottom line which the Taliban and others will be only too keen to
capitalise on: NATO was forced to withdraw, just as the Soviets were in 1989
and the British did so before them between 1947 and 1950. Consequently,
NATO’s pending withdrawal will doubtless feed the long-held mantra that
Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires”.
For NATO the
beginning of the end began with the approach Trump
administration adopted to negotiations with the Taliban. From the beginning of
the talks Washington refused to the make the withdrawal “conditions based”,
which at times made the negotiations look like a form of complex unconditional
surrender, something the Taliban were only too keen to exploit. The Biden administration has already made some adjustments
to both the timeline and the narrative, even briefly postponing the deadline
for talks, but it has not changed the prevailing assumption in Washington that
it is time for the Americans to get out. The Taliban has thus been able to maintain a cavalier attitude towards any proposed political
process, both national and regional, because as far as they are concerned they
have won.
Only time will
tell if they have and that the interests of the Taliban and the Pashtun are
sufficiently aligned to enable the former to ride a withdrawal wave and take
Kabul? Or, that Afghanistan is on the verge of another ghastly civil war similar
to that which created the conditions for Al Qaeda and Daesh to exploit
prior to 2001. In the near term, the
Alliance’s (and Washington’s) nightmare is a Kabul that turns into another
Saigon 1975 as the last remaining Allied personnel are forced to make a
panicked departure as the Taliban takes over. If, as seems quite likely, protracted
territorial fracturing and infighting ensues in which no one ‘power’ emerges who
can claim to control the country three dynamic factors will be at play: Kabul’s
stronger conventional military capabilities versus the Taliban’s superior
asymmetric tactics; continuing assistance from both the US and some Allies to
the Kabul government in an effort to beef up its
capabilities (after all, there is still the NATO-Afghanistan partnership); continued
two track negotiating processes underway between the Taliban and Kabul, as well
as with the other regional powers under the auspices of the Istanbul Conference. Unfortunately, the signs are not good as the Taliban
repeatedly threaten to desert the Istanbul meeting and show little interest in
a national power sharing agreement that will be critical to any future peace.
Posturing or hubris?
Why withdraw now and is there a wider
strategic/geopolitical rationale behind Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan?
The short
answer to the second part of a complex composite question is “yes but…”
President Biden when announcing the withdrawal said that there will be never a good
moment for withdrawing so the US might as well do it now. Moreover, if Washington postpones the withdrawal, Biden argued, no matter for how
short or long a time, the US will sooner or later face exactly against the same
“this is not a good moment” accusation. In other words, Biden believes that beyond
what has already been achieved, especially by the counterterrorism effort, the
Afghanistan stalemate simply cannot be broken.
Interestingly, the US position differs markedly from that of the
nineteenth century British who deliberately exploited such a stalemate to keep
the Russians out at the time of the Great Game. China?
However, there
is a more pressing strategic imperative. First, for the Americans their
Afghanistan effort has become disproportionate to the purpose it was meant to achieve,
just when Washington must also confront the military rise of China and the resurgence
of Russia. Second, if the challenge of
Great Powers and other state actors, such as Iran, is now the priority for the Americans the US can no longer afford to be ‘distracted’
by a resource and policy-draining seemingly interminable campaign in Afghanistan.
Some in the Administration believe that whilst there is an undoubted risk of a Taliban
take over the failure of GIROA, and eventually a new terrorist safe haven,
Afghanistan would not be unique. There are already potential
terrorist safe havens in Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and Yemen and they can
be better dealt with by more tailored responses given progress in understanding
such insurgencies and how to deal with them without
the need for large-scale and extended expeditionary campaigning.
In other
words, twenty years after 911 its influence on US policy whilst still evident has
definitely waned. In effect,
Washington’s policy has gone full circle with the US having returned to a
posture of leaving the fight against terrorism to a mix of targeted counterterrorism
rather than extended expeditions allied to a
willingness to live with failed States. Incidentally, such a shift in posture
casts into history President Trump’s assertion that “NATO is obsolete because
it doesn’t fight terrorism”.
Where does this new strategic “vision” leave
counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism (CT)?
It is this
question that is perhaps the most pressing for the Alliance. NATO’s withdrawal
from Afghanistan fits somewhat neatly into an emerging Western world-view that international terrorism and its Salafist-fundamentalist
roots whilst still there must now play second fiddle to a more traditional
concept of geopolitics. Or, to put it
another way, the worry now is China, Daesh can be dealt with on an as and when basis.
Consequently, the once dominant focus on COIN will now be side-lined (along
with its myriad experts) whilst counterterrorism will only be carried out as a
form of strategic background noise to a renewed emphasis on high-end warfare and its deterrence. Mistake?
In adopting
such a posture the US is undoubtedly taking a two-fold risk, and it is only to
be hoped there is some calculation behind it. The first risk is Afghanistan
itself. Washington believes that either Afghanistan will not return to Taliban
absolutism and barbarism or that, once back in power, the Taliban will not
again allow terrorist organisations to settle in or plan attacks against
America. The second calculation is that the terrorist threat can be countered
at a distance through proxies and allies. For NATO this implies an
American vision for ‘burden sharing’ that will be more than simply an issue of
financial cost, but also tasks, risks and responsibilities. Moreover, with the
British following the Americans back onto to the
military ‘uplands’ of high-end deterrence and defence that begs other questions.
For example, will the Europeans really ‘take
care’ of their North African backyard, as France is doing (to a point) in Mali
and Italy should do in Libya?
Twenty
years after: Afghanistan and NATO
Twenty years
after 911 and NATO’s entry into Afghanistan the change in US threat assessment
and priorities has one further and possibly enormous implication for NATO. If
Afghanistan is no longer relevant, or significantly less so, would the Balkans also
be less relevant in American thinking if conflict should again break out there
in? What about other local and regional theatres that over the past three
decades have been deemed sufficiently threatening to justify extended non-Article
5 operations? Plainly, there cannot be a one-size fits all approach to crises,
as each crisis has its own very specific characteristics, constraints and thus rationale
for intervention or non-intervention. However, the emerging US worldview that led
to the decision to withdraw abruptly from Afghanistan will doubtless also lead
NATO towards a renewed focus on its core business of high-end deterrence and
defence at the expense of what Washington now deems as peripheral commitments.
In the medium-long term will the withdrawal from Afghanistan constrain the
Allied footprint in Kosovo and Iraq?
President
Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is genuinely strategic because
implicit therein is a fundamental American reassessment of the international
security environment. For NATO, the
consequences cannot be over-stated for when Washington sneezes it is usually the
Alliance that catches a cold and America’s change in thinking will doubtless be
reflected in NATO’s upcoming strategic concept a year hence. Great powers and
state actors are indeed again the main actors in the theatre of geopolitics,
which perhaps begs the biggest questions of all: as Europe emerges from the
COVID-19 pandemic will it be economically able and politically willing to follow the American shift back to the high end? If not, what about the sea of instability to
Europe’s south and the insurgencies and terrorism that continue to boil and
fester therein?
Afghanistan? To simply abandon Afghanistan
because it is all too complicated and/or because the West simply did not have
sufficient strategic patience will certainly return Afghanistan’s future to the
pit of a violent past. The Taliban need
to be in no doubt that their dream of a status quo ante is simply not an
option. The question then becomes how?
After all, the thing about watches is that they tell the time and only time
will tell…
Stefano Stefanini and Julian Lindley-French
Ambassador
(Ret.) Stefano Stefanini is a former Permanent Representative of Italy to the
North Atlantic Council and Brussels Director of Project Associates. Professor
Julian Lindley-French has just published Future War and the Defence of
Europe for Oxford University Press. They are both members of The Alphen
Group.
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