How do you say, “What is to be done?” in Pashto?
Your Œcumenical Volgi runs hot and cold on Ralph Peters, who is often brilliant, and often seems a tad off his rocker. Here, however, he’s in fine form on Afghanistan. Your Volgi shares his skepticism that Afghanistan, never much of a state to begin with, can effectively be built into one, especially given its societal pulverization at the hands of the Soviets and Taliban. I’ve always considered Iraq—a reasonably decent place in living memory (if you’re fairly old, true) with a lot of human capital—a much better gamble in nation-building. The payoff is both higher and more likely.
Afghanistan, at best, can probably be knit together with agreements between regional warlords and the center—something we have little influence over. And it may be the case that the Taliban, in some form, can’t be kept out (especially now that they don’t merely have ISI backing but control virtually the entire borderlands on the Pakistan side). We should be able to keep them out of Kabul, if we keep a lasting NATO-U.S. presence there, and that may be the best we can do. Our main interest in Afghanistan—like, say, Somalia and Yemen—is to ensure that it doesn’t again become a haven for al-Qâ’ida and its like.
A troop surge and offensive is less likely to work in Afghanistan because the radical elements are more homegrown, and less likely to be turned on in an Anbar Awakening-style scenario, and there’s less of a coherent social structure to take up the slack. Kabul has almost never been able to control the provinces, and in consequence, even if we cleared out, say Panjshir Province, of Taliban, there’s no way that we could hand over control to a national police force. Because, for all intents and purposes, there is no national police force outside a few large cities.
It’s a tough quandary, but Peters’ suggestion of, essentially, an anti-terrorist garrison force is a good point to start thinking of practical options for the future. Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be a war to be won so much as a problem to be managed…
Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.