Victory In Afghanistan?

The list of ‘old saws’ about Afghanistan is long and storied (my favorite being ‘Graveyard of Empires.’)  They are of course, like many clichés, a little bit of truth but also a good deal of nonsense.  As with most clichés and pithy comments about war, they sound good, but after some simple investigation they are often found wanting.

Afghanistan has a long history of having been conquered, but, as the pundits will quickly point out, it ‘is never really conquered,’ and sooner or later ‘throws’ off its conquerors to emerge once again, unconquered, wild and free (fill in your own modifiers).  The problem with this kind of thing is that it can be said for virtually any country on earth that has been conquered, unless one thing happens – which I’ll get to shortly.  The great Prussian theorist on war (Clausewitz) had it right: in war, nothing is permanent.

Thus, we beat the snot out of Japan – but they re-emerged.  Germany was pummeled and pounded until the rubble bounced; it is now the powerhouse of Europe.  Over the last 3000 years Italy has been conquered so many times we have all lost track – still there.  How about Belgium and the Netherlands?  Virtually ground into dust twice just in the last century, but back with a vengeance.

When it comes to unlimited wars – wars in which the leadership of one country eliminates the leadership of another country – there are only a few possible ‘successful’ results:

1)                     Remove the leadership, establish a new government, and then leave.  The period following the establishment of the new government can be short or long, but once you leave, you give the country back to its original inhabitants.  We just did this in Iraq.

2)                     Remove the leadership, destroy the country, turn it into a wasteland, and depart.  If someone wants to move in, fine.  Tried by the Mongols quite successfully in several places in central Asia, and by others throughout history.  Again, once the conquering army departs the surviving locals will move back in.

3)                     Remove the leadership and then colonize the country.  This will be successful only if you bring in LOTS of colonists – the one exception I mentioned above. Of course, if you don’t bring lots of colonists you will be buried by population inequalities.  No matter when you look in history, the issue of level of effort in colonization is the key to long-term success.  For example, Persia conquered much of modern Turkey in the 5 century BC, but there was no large-scale colonization.  When the Greeks under Alexander swept out the Persians, they were gone.  And the Medes and the descendants of the Hittites returned to local power.  The British ruled India for more than 100 years, and established a British style government and culture on top of the Hindu and Mogul influences.  But the British eventually left and the Hindu culture and the Indian people have returned.  Conversely, the European conquest of both North and South America was so dominant not because of any determination to ‘wipe out’ the American Indians or Aztecs or Incas, but because millions of Europeans colonized the two continents.  The French tried to colonize Vietnam, but the numbers were against them.

4)                     Remove the leadership, but don’t eliminate them; later share power with them.  Not really unlimited warfare, it ends the war before the leadership has really been destroyed.  Once the old leadership returns to power they will re-establish themselves and their old country – as soon as the would-be conquerors are gone.  This is what the US appears to be ready to do in Afghanistan.

The point here is that every country can be ‘conquered’ if the would-be conquerors are both able and willing to commit the necessary resources.  But in the long term, which in the eyes of reporters without some historical context, is supposed to mean ‘for ever,’ ‘conquering’ (in that context) only really occurs when a nation is destroyed and its people displaced.  In this regard Afghanistan is no different then any other nation.  Its one distinction is that fewer people have really cared about the area for any extended period of time.  Genghis Khan and his sons controlled the area until their dynasty unraveled; the Moguls controlled the area for several centuries; the British paid dearly for the area, but eventually controlled it as much as they needed and wanted to.  Only to the extent that the Mogul emperors moved people in to occupy, live in, colonize and rule Afghanistan did the Moguls extend their rule in time further then the others.

But Afghanistan is no different then Fiji in this one thing: if no one colonizes it, it will revert to its origins.  So, if you want to look at it that way, you could label Fiji with all the same adjectives and adverbs that get stacked up in any wonk’s discourse on Afghanistan.  And it would be as meaningful.  (This should also be noted when the conversation of “American Empire” comes up; the term invariably is associated with the British, French, German (and a few others) efforts to grab land and establish colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.  The US has never attempted to establish colonies and the difference is critical.)

All this is important as we look at what our government is now trying to do in Afghanistan and whether it can succeed.  In 2001 we removed Mullah Omar and the Taliban, and their symbiotic/parasitic allies al Qaeda, from rule.  But the Taliban, and Mullah Omar, remains alive and viable.  We have now made it clear that we will negotiate with them, and though we have hedged our bets a bit on the negotiations, the Taliban have recognized that we are not trying to eliminate them.  The opportunity for their return is therefore very much alive, and if we were to place a bet on it, probably better then even odds.

As far as the US being there for another 10 or 15 years – it will be trying for the soldiers sent to Afghanistan during that decade, and their families.  But, from the perspective of a nation making an investment in its own security, which is ostensibly what the US is doing, that is more or less a minor investment.

But whether we stay for 15 years or 50 (as we did in Germany), the following will still be true: the same people live there, and the same political movement – the Taliban – will still exist, unless the people of Afghanistan eliminate it.  They – the Taliban - will certainly be willing to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with Karzai and the government in Kabul, recognizing that once they are back in power, even if only partially, they will then have a free hand in regaining control.  And, it is worth noting that Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, is 53 years old.  In 2024 he will be 65, certainly young enough to rule.

As for how, or whether, the US intends to continue to influence the power struggle in the region, between India on one hand and Pakistan and China on the other, it remains to be seen.  Is the US departing Afghanistan with an implicit understanding that Pakistan will do a better job of keeping Afghanistan under control in the next several decades then it did in the 1990s?  Is the US confident that political culture in Pakistan has advanced to the point that the country is stable enough to move forward, nuclear weapons and all, without the continued implied pressure from the close presences of US forces?  Is the US confident that the Chinese presence in Pakistan, which has been growing steadily over the past 10 – 15 years, will not be used to upset the political equilibrium and leave India convinced of a need to act in its own interests?  Are we comfortable with the developing strategic conundrum of three nations – India, Pakistan and Iran – that are (or will soon be in the case of Iran) nuclear powers, with each sharing an uneasy to sometimes-hostile relationship with the other two?  These and a host of other questions may or may not have been considered as the current administration hastened to sign a deal and enunciate a way forward in Afghanistan and South Asia.  But all of these issues will remain for years to come, long after the agreement penned in Kabul a few days ago is long forgotten.