By Michael Radu
October 12, 2001
Michael Radu, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research\Institute, specializing in the study of terrorism and political, violence.
Much of the current analysis of the U.S.-British military actions against
the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan seem to accept unquestioningly
conventional wisdom on the prospects for military success in that
country. But the major premises of this conventional wisdom are simply
myths that have developed over the years, either from ignorance or
malevolence. The facts, it will be seen, simply do not support them.
MYTH #1: THE U.S. IS BOUND TO BE DEFEATED IN AFGHANISTAN, JUST AS THE
BRITISH AND THE SOVIETS WERE. The myth that the U.S. is destined to
follow in the footsteps of the two prior great powers who suffered
disastrous defeats there, Great Britain (in the First Afghan War, 1838-42)
and the Soviet Union (1979-89), has gained wide currency.
In the First Afghan War the British tried and failed to impose an
unpopular puppet king, Shah Shuja, in Kabul, thus uniting all the fractious
Afghans who, then as now, united only when threatened by the possibility
of an effective central government. The British garrison in Kabul
was completely wiped out, with enormous losses of life and blows to British
prestige.
Britain would again fight in Afghanistan in 1878-80 and
1919, but these were mostly limited operations, since London had realized
its error and turned to a policy of manipulating (often
financially) the various Afghan groups. The success of this policy is
demonstrated by the transformation of Afghanistan into an effective buffer
state between the competing ambitions of the British and Russian empires.
(Perhaps a better term would be "buffer territory" since "Afghanistan"
always was and still is a geographic expression more than a real state,
let alone a "nation.")
The Soviet experience in Afghanistan was equally ill-fated, and caused
enough bitterness at home to help contribute to the fall of the Soviet
Union. But the reasons for this have as much to do with factors on the
Soviet side -- including the large number of soldiers lost to preventable
disease, inappropriate military tactics and poor national morale -- as
Afghanistan-specific factors. Furthermore, the very ideology of
Marxism-Leninism coming on the back of Soviet tanks was rejected by
virtually all population groups.
Importantly, unlike nineteenth-century Britain or the
twentieth-century Soviet Union, the United States has neither
interest in nor geopolitical reasons for wanting to control, let alone
occupy, Afghanistan. And unless there has been a miserable failure to
communicate, all Afghans know this. Moreover, developments in recent
decades, exacerbated by the incompetence of the mujahideen regime
(now represented by the United Front, also known in the West as the
Northern Alliance) of 1992-96 in Kabul, have achieved what all of
prior history had not: sharpening ethnic divisions within the country.
While all the ethnic groups united against outsiders in the earlier
conflicts, now the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Hazaras, Nuristanis, and
Turkmen -- ethnic minorities that collectively make up over half the
country -- are only loosely and sporadically "united" against the
Pashtun-dominated Taliban regime. (The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic
group but only 40 percent of the population.) It is no coincidence
that the Taliban's political and ideological center is not multiethnic
Kabul but all-Pashtun Kandahar.
MYTH #2: THE TERRAIN IN AFGHANISTAN RENDERS MODERN MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
LARGELY IRRELEVANT. The implications of this myth are (a) that an almost
Stone Age military would defeat a twenty-first century power, and (b) that
the country's terrain is the same and equally important everywhere.
While a great deal of Afghanistan is indeed mountainous and exceedingly
difficult for infantry operations, key areas -- the Uzbek border, the
Shamali Plain north of Kabul and the entire southeast around and
including Kandahar -- are perfect operational areas for heliborne
forces. These are also in fact the areas of major Taliban
force concentrations.
As for the truly difficult mountainous regions, the worst of those, the
Badakshan Wakhan Corridor, is under Northern Alliance "control," but
certainly not under the Taliban's. The strategic Panjhir Valley remains,
as ever, under Tajik control, as does the entire area around Herat,
although not the city itself -- yet. It is only in the mountainous east,
around Jalalabad and the Pakistani border, that Pashtun ethnics may --
if the price is right -- continue to support the Taliban-cum-al-Qaeda. But
would the latter have the money to continue its control, or the
aura of success following the U.S.-British air attacks? That is doubtful.
Actually, the very fact that the Taliban was able to conquer so much of
Afghanistan from 1994 on points to other factors more relevant to the
potential for success here. First, there was the desire of many -- in
fact, most -- people for some order and discipline to be imposed in their
regions, so long as it was not imposed by a foreign (i.e., Soviet)
force. Many wanted an end put to the banditry and warlordism, in
order to stanch the emigration flow to Pakistan that this caused.
But consider the recent history of the city of Herat: under Ishmael Khan,
a former Royal Afghan Army officer, it successfully fought the Soviets and
in 1989 established an enlightened system in which girls and boys had equal
access to education. Escaping after being captured by the Taliban in
1998, Khan is now close to retaking the city -- Afghanistan's most
multicultural and historic. Helping Ishmael Khan means helping everyone
in Afghanistan.
The second reason for the Taliban's success was its ability to buy local
military-cum-religious leaders -- particularly in Pashtun and Nuristani
areas. With al-Qaeda and Pakistani help, that was doable. With the money
flow from Islamabad cut off and al-Qaeda now centered on its own
physical survival, the ability to buy local warlords is limited at
best -- and the U.S.-led allies could buy them instead, at least
temporarily.
MYTH #3: THIS IS AN IRREGULAR CAMPAIGN FOR WHICH THE U.S. IS ILL-PREPARED.
Many of the large number of former military officers, civilian
analysts, and journalists now offering "expert opinion" have made the
claim that U.S. forces will face an endless guerrilla campaign in the
mountains (see above) and plains of Afghanistan. They generally base this
claim on the Soviet experience. But the claim is wrong.
Unlike the Soviets, whose support was limited to a very thin group of urban
intelligentsia and (Soviet-educated and - indoctrinated) military
officers vulnerable to communist atheistic and secular propaganda, the
U.S. does not proclaim or harbor any cultural or religious (including
anti- religious) goals. Hence the Northern Alliance -- all Sunni Muslims
but moderately so -- and the Shi'a Hazaras see nothing wrong with the
U.S. Air Force being their air force against the Taliban. The implication
should be obvious. While U.S.-British Special Operations forces may and
should play a key role, most of the hunting for bin Laden and his crowd --
most of whom are Arab or other foreigners -- will be done by Afghans
themselves once the Taliban loses control over the major cities and regions.
And where would a Taliban guerrilla fight, if they are seen as losers and
no longer benefit from Pakistani intelligence and military support? With
the major air bases of Shindand in the West, Bagram in the Kabul area, and
Mazar e Sharif in the north already out of commission, and some minor
ones already under anti-Taliban control, U.S. forces will have free
access to operations throughout the country.
MYTH #4: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND OSAMA BIN LADEN IN AFGHANISTAN.
This theory is based on all the above fallacies. It assumes that al-Qaeda's
Arab (or foreign) militants could find refuge inside Afghanistan,
without the locals knowing their whereabouts or acting upon the usual
Afghan dislike and suspicion of all foreigners, especially the more
recent dislike of "Islamic" foreigners.
In truth, any Afghan worth his history and tribal traditions would readily
join the winners (i.e., the anti-Taliban forces) and capture or kill
bin Laden, especially if doing so made the Afghan or his group wealthy.
So it might be asked where, and for how long, a foreigner and his large
group of "Arabs" could hide in a country where the population
wants and needs international aid, money, and food, and is historically
xenophobic?
MYTH #5: SINCE THE UNITED FRONT IS MADE UP LARGELY OF ETHNIC MINORITIES, IT
CANNOT FORM A STABLE GOVERNMENT IN KABUL AND HENCE THERE IS NO REALISTIC
LONG-TERM ALTERNATIVE TO THE TALIBAN. This is the Islamabad thesis --
but then, Islamabad is not exactly an objective observer. The theory's
flaws are many. To begin with, as noted above, the non-Pashtun ethnic
minorities who make up the United Front, which is recognized by the UN as
the government of Afghanistan, collectively make up a large majority of
the Afghanistan population. The Islamabad thesis may hold for Pakistan
itself, which incidentally has more Pashtuns than does Afghanistan, but
for Afghanistan? That does not mean leaving the Pashtuns entirely out of
a future new power distribution.
Second, the Pashtuns are not, as Secretary Rumsfeld has begun calling
them, "southern tribes." They are, to use George Bernard Shaw's phrase,
"a people separated by a common language." The Durrani confederation in
the east and south is the Taliban's power base. But -- and this is a very
large but -- the Ghilzai confederation in the east (with Jalalabad its
center) is unhappy with the Durrani/Taliban power-sharing arrangements.
They are equally represented in Pakistan, hence Musharaff's admittedly
daring challenge to the Taliban. The former King Zahir Shah is a Pashtun,
he is recognized (probably temporarily, as all things are and always
will be in Afghanistan), and he could probably rally enough of his people
to get rid of the bin Laden gang of foreigners, with some financial
backing.
We must all consider these facts in thinking about Afghanistan and
the success probabilities for the U.S.- British led military
action -- especially when we are barraged with ill-informed arguments
to the contrary. |
