Operations in Afghanistan

OPA 05

Memorandum from the Henry Jackson Society

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

· The conflict in Afghanistan cannot be viewed in isolation from the much broader, supra-regional phenomenon of which it is an intrinsic part. Likewise, the ramifications of failure on the part of ISAF and the Afghan Government will not confine themselves to Afghanistan’s borders alone.

· To allow the Taliban to resume power in Afghanistan would be to threaten a return to conditions in the years preceding 2001, when Afghanistan was the supreme manifestation of the lethal inter-relationship between a domestically-orientated Islamist movement (the Taliban) and an globalist movement (al-Qaeda) that was afforded both the space and the resources that enabled it to successfully strike the West.

· As, if not more serious, however, would be the very dangerous message that failure in Afghanistan would send out to both terrorist movements and hostile state-actors worldwide. Namely that Osama bin-Laden’s central contention was correct: the West can be both taken on and overcome by violent means if resisted for long enough.

· In every country in which extremist movements operate, however, they constitute just a fraction of the population, and one that draws sustenance from the disillusionment and anger of the people at large. The conditions most likely to generate this disillusionment and anger are corrupt and oppressive government, poverty, and insecurity. Whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere, the surest way of combating the appeal of extremist movements is not for the West to draw into itself but to use its considerable influence to promote security, development, accountability, respect for human rights and adherence to the rule of law. This is precisely what is being attempted in Afghanistan at present, and why this effort must continue to be afforded the support necessary for it to succeed.

· In terms of conveying to the public why the conflict in Afghanistan must be afforded the time and resources to succeed, a prime component of this is to emphasise that it can still succeed. The counterinsurgency strategy currently being pursued is of a fundamentally different nature from the course of operations between 2001-2009 as it is making the security and development of population centres its primary focus. For the first time operations are also being afforded the necessary resources to make success a possibility.

· Moreover, it is vital to explain to the public that the metrics of success in counterinsurgency are quite different from more conventional warfare, and far less tangible. Casualty figures will always make the headlines most profoundly. However if they are the only thing making headlines with regard to the war, then sustaining public support will become an impossibility.

· Finally, a jaded public must be reminded why this conflict still matters. Islamism poses a very real threat to Western interests and failure in Afghanistan would exacerbate that threat immeasurably. Moreover, consistent with the Government’s National Security Strategy, the link between underdevelopment and extremism must be more clearly made. It must be understood that success in Afghanistan is not just a humanitarian, but a strategic imperative. Only when this fact is accepted will the continuation of the manpower intensive, population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that is currently being pursued be accepted as both viable and necessary.

1. The conflict taking place in Afghanistan at present cannot be viewed in isolation from the much broader, supra-regional phenomenon of which it is an intrinsic part. Likewise, the ramifications of failure on the part of ISAF and the Afghan Government will not confine themselves to Afghanistan’s borders alone.

2. In their publicly declared objective of overthrowing the extant government, expelling all Western influence from the country, and imposing their highly doctrinaire and retrograde interpretation of Sharia law upon the population, the Taliban are by no means unique. On the contrary, this is an objective that is shared by numerous like-mined organisations across Central and Southern Asia, Africa and the Middle East. All of these groups have in common a belief in Islam as not just a religion but as a comprehensive political ideology, and one that runs contrary to almost every basic human right that Western societies take for granted. The stoning of women, the execution of homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for even minor offences are all seen as legitimate and just by those who adhere to this philosophy.

3. The majority of these organisations do not view the West as their primary sphere of operations but rather the countries and regions in which they themselves operate. However all of them see the West’s presence there as the most serious impediment to the attainment of their objectives. The rationale behind Osama bin Laden’s decision to attack the United States on 11 th September 2001 was not merely to strike a blow against America as an end in itself. It was to demonstrate its vulnerability, and by extension the vulnerability of its supposedly client regimes across the Middle East and beyond. What led bin-Laden to believe that these attacks would not invite the inevitable destruction of the trans-national movement he aspired to lead, but would in fact yield positive results, was a conviction formed in response to the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, and the American humiliation in Somalia in 1994. A conviction that the great powers, though physically strong, are mentally weak, and that they can be both taken on and overcome by violent means if resisted for long enough.

4. It is precisely this conviction that is driving the Taliban leadership’s resistance to the Afghan Government and its international partners at present. It is also one of the most important reasons why politicians in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries contributing to the international mission in Afghanistan, must resist the clamour for a premature withdrawal and stay the course in Afghanistan. As this author has argued at length in a report released at the start of September 2010, entitled Succeeding in Afghanistan , the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy currently being pursued by ISAF and Afghan forces can work, if afforded sufficient time and resources to do so.

5. To announce a withdrawal from Afghanistan that is dictated not by conditions on the ground, but by a sense that the public will not tolerate the continuation of a conflict they have been conditioned to believe is ‘unwinnable’, would have serious ramifications extending well beyond Afghanistan. Not only would extremist movements with a desire to challenge Western interests be much more readily persuaded that violence was an effective means of doing so, they would be immeasurably more confident that serious retaliation would be far less likely this time around, since it had already been tried and failed.

6. Moreover, the argument that Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for extremists is no less true for being said so often. Prior to the ejection of the Taliban from Kabul in October 2001, Afghanistan was the supreme manifestation of the lethal inter-relationship between an oppressive Islamist government whose principal focus was the subjugation of its people, and the fermenting of a broader terrorist threat with both the intent, and, crucially, the capability, to strike the West itself. If the Taliban are allowed to return to power in Afghanistan, there is no reason to doubt that such attacks on the West will not be attempted again. This is not speculation; al-Qaeda has stated explicitly and repeatedly that these are precisely its intentions.

7. Though Afghanistan is far from secure at present, the fact that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been successfully denied the use of that space and its resources to directly threaten the West in the way they did before 9/11 is not to be underestimated. As a geo-political force, al-Qaeda has been largely shattered to the point where its greatest strength now is as an idea with the potential to inspire others than as a force with any operational capacities of its own. Withdrawal from Afghanistan should therefore only take place at such time as the Afghan authorities are in a position to continue denying al-Qaeda and others the unobstructed use of that space and its resources.

8. Without a secure base from which to conduct their operations, the ability of non-state terrorist organisations to plan and execute attacks is greatly reduced. Though unquestionable tragedies, the bombings in Madrid and London have been conspicuous as the only successful strikes on Western targets since 9/11, in spite of dozens of attempts. Should the Taliban be allowed to return to power in Afghanistan, the ability of the West to monitor and disrupt terrorist operations of this kind would be greatly reduced, and an increase in the success rate and deadliness of similar operations in the future would be almost inevitable.

9. The example of Pakistan demonstrates well the very serious limitations imposed upon efforts to disrupt terrorist activity when denied the ability to operate effectively in the country where such activity is being carried out. The reluctance of the Pakistani authorities to collaborate in disrupting the activities of Afghan Taliban operating from within their country has been enormously damaging to the counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan. Paramount to the success of any counter-terrorism operation is good intelligence. Particularly in an environment such as Afghanistan, distinguishing a terrorist from an ordinary citizen, and thus putting a stop to his activities, is almost impossible without it. Whilst Pakistan denied NATO good intelligence on the Taliban operating in their country, NATO’s ability to disrupt the consequent terrorism operations in Afghanistan was greatly impaired. Insurgents could not be captured in Pakistan, save for in high-risk covert operations, nor could intelligence be garnered from a population with which NATO was denied any interaction. The reluctance of the ISI to share its own intelligence on the Taliban has been the final impediment to what might otherwise have been a much more successful operation in Afghanistan to date.

10. Those who argue that Afghanistan is no longer the central hub for trans-national terrorist activity, or that locations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia now pose at least as substantial a threat, miss the point. The message cannot and must not be conveyed, either to Islamist extremists, or to others with a desire to challenge the West and its values, that violence is not only a desirable, but an effectual way to attain this objective.

11. There are those, however, who argue that though withdrawal from Afghanistan may embolden the West’s enemies, it would nonetheless reduce the grievances of Islamist extremists who view the West’s military presence in the Muslim world as sufficient justification for violence. This argument is a fallacy. Not a single Western soldier was in Afghanistan on 11 th September 2001. Nor would a complete Western withdrawal from Afghanistan reduce the likelihood of such an attack being planned and executed again. Not even a complete Western withdrawal from every Muslim-majority country on earth – socially, politically, economically and militarily – would placate such individuals; in fact the reverse is true. Those who believe that a simple reduction of Western involvement - and particularly military involvement – in the Muslim world will correspondingly reduce the threat of violent extremism fail to understand the normative framework within which Islamist extremists operate. They approach the issue with the belief – consciously or not – that with a little more understanding on both sides, and a few more concessions, a rapprochement acceptable to both parties can be achieved.

12. This, however, is to misunderstand the ideological and political philosophy to which Islamist extremists adhere. One of the central contentions of radical Islamists is that their objectives will only be attained through a complete rejection of engagement with non-Muslims and their innovations. In order to appreciate this point it is first necessary to understand the extremely orthopraxic interpretation of the Quran as adhered to by most Islamist movements. They believe the earthly gains and losses of a believer can be directly attributed to their favour or otherwise in the eyes of God. A principle they also extend to the Muslim community, the Ummah , at large. For the Islamist, the Muslim world’s geo-political weakness relative to the West is a direct consequence of its having erred so far from God’s decrees. Islamists claim that these digressions have largely taken the form of Muslims adopting non-Muslim – and particularly Western – innovations and practices over the past few centuries in a futile effort to ‘modernise’ and keep pace with Western social and political expansion.

13. This doctrine, sometimes known as ‘Manifest Success’, holds to the belief that the extent to which Muslims can know divine favour can be directly measured against the extent of their earthly success. The supreme manifestation of the veracity of this doctrine, Islamists claim, was Mohammad himself who, on account of his faultless spiritual faithfulness, enjoyed abundant earthly success. The dramatic expansion of the Muslim empire in the years following his death in 632, out of the Arab world and into the Byzantine Empire, the Persian Empire, North Africa, India, South East Asia, parts of China and even Europe, confirmed, to Muslim eyes, that God was on their side . The important factor here is that all this had been done by Muslims without compromising their religion. That is to say that there had been no question of Muslims compromising their ideology in return for earthly gain, rather on the contrary, it was precisely because they had remained true to their religion that earthly gain had been granted to them by God. Islamists hold to the belief, therefore, that only a complete socio-political return to Islam as they perceive it to have been practiced during the time of Mohammed can hope to bring about a revival of the Muslim world’s faltering fortunes.

14. Still further engagement with the West is therefore precisely the last thing these Islamists believe is needed if they are to succeed in their objectives. Indeed, those who argue for greater dialogue and understanding with those who adhere to this philosophy must themselves understand that the West can offer nothing to these individuals, other than its capitulation, that they actually want. Set in this context it should be clear that a simple withdrawal from Afghanistan would do nothing to placate radical Islamists. However it would do a great deal to convince them that their objective of excising all non-Muslim influence from the areas that they control, and forcing their retrograde values upon those Muslims living within that space, was and is a viable one.

15. This seems to place the United Kingdom and its allies in an intractable dilemma with regards to their engagement in Afghanistan. On the one hand it would seem that withdrawal at this stage would be strategically counterproductive. On the other hand, neither a continuation of the Coalition’s deployment, nor the continued existence of the institutions which it is seeking to put in place, will ever be acceptable to these opponents.

16. However, it must be recognised that those who hold to this interpretation of Islam do not constitute the majority in Afghanistan. On the contrary, in every country in which they operate, extremist movements constitute just a fraction of the population, drawing sustenance from the disillusionment and anger of the population at large. For very few people is extremism ever the default setting. Although it is undeniably the case that in an environment where poverty is high, corruption is widespread, and opportunities are few, the appeal of extremist solutions is correspondingly increased. To redress these grievances is to deny extremist movements the oxygen they need to survive. It is for this reason that the Taliban and its allies actively target aid workers and reconstruction teams in Afghanistan. Aid workers may believe themselves to be neutral actors in this conflict. However by actively working to improve conditions on the ground under the aegis of the Afghan government and its Coalition partners, they are threatening the Taliban’s popular narrative - that neither the government nor its foreign backers are able or willing to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans.

17. Consequently, it is not just a humanitarian, but a strategic imperative that the international effort to improve both the security and economic environment in Afghanistan is afforded the time and resources necessary to enable it to succeed. The United Kingdom’s National Security Strategy has explicitly acknowledged the link between development and security, and the fact that neither is sustainable in the long term without the presence of the other.

18. It is for precisely this reason that the United Kingdom must resist popular pressure to withdraw its commitment to Afghanistan at the present time. Withdrawal from Afghanistan now would not only convince extremists that violent confrontation with the West is an effective way to achieve results; it would ensure that the environment of poverty and insecurity that sustains such organisations at the popular level would be left unaddressed.

19. What is required for success in Afghanistan is not so much the elimination of extremists, but the elimination of the conditions that give rise to, and sustain them in the first place. It is precisely because the strategic focus of operations in the years immediately following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was almost exclusively on the elimination of al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, with very little attention paid to nation building, that they failed to achieve success. The failure of the Afghan government and its international partners to capitalise on the goodwill of the Afghan people during this period and to make genuine progress on the redevelopment front was unquestionably a major factor behind the revival of the Taliban insurgency. When the strategic focus did shift away from merely eliminating insurgents, and towards securing population centres to ensure that vital development work could take place, it still suffered on account of its being afforded insufficient resources to do this effectively.

20. The surge in forces that began at the start of 2010 is part of a new counterinsurgency approach and of a fundamentally different nature to the course of operations between 2001-2009. It has not only made the protection of the population its principal focus, but it has also been afforded the necessary resources to make success a possibility. This is why it must continue to be afforded the necessary resources to enable it to succeed. Indeed, though still in its early phases, there is nonetheless evidence that this new strategy is starting to bear fruit. For instance in Sangin – a region that has previously proven notoriously difficult to pacify – a combination of sufficient numbers of troops to protect the population; a genuine commitment to addressing the grievances of local people; and better governance, appear to have persuaded a critical mass of Afghans living there to withdraw their support from the insurgents and start providing it to the government side.

21. Winning the support of the Afghan people is not the only imperative for success in Afghanistan, however. Unless the publics of those countries that are committing so much to the conflict can be persuaded that it is both necessary and legitimate, then it will be impossible for democratic governments to maintain the requisite commitment to make success a possibility. There is no question that amongst the British public there is an inadequate comprehension of why succeeding in Afghanistan is so vital to Britain’s national interests. The following are recommendations to redress this:

22. First, there must be a far greater effort to explain to the public the fundamentally different nature of the strategy that ISAF and Afghan forces are presently seeking to implement from the course of operations between 2001-2009. Unless this distinction is clearly understood, the recent surge in forces, and the increase in casualties that has accompanied it, will continue to be viewed as the latest futile extension of an already overlong war. Explaining this to the media, the primary and in many cases sole interlocutor between the government and the people, is central. There is a clear and significant difference between counterinsurgency and more conventional enemy-centric methods of warfare. However this distinction is unlikely to be apparent to either the public or the media unless it is clearly explained to them. If the public can comprehend the clear operational logic behind the new strategy, they are more likely to understand, and thus to accept, the need for the additional military and financial resources that have been afforded to the conflict. Likewise, a comprehension of the fact that the metrics of success in counterinsurgency are not as immediately apparent as they are in regular warfare, and that this approach takes time, is more likely to yield acceptance of this strategy than if it is simply viewed as a traditional conflict.

23. Second, in lieu of the fact that the metrics of success are far less easily discernable in counterinsurgency, far more must be done to highlight progress as and when it is made. Traditional markers of success or failure, such as the amount of territory taken, or the number of enemy killed, are generally inapplicable in a counterinsurgency environment. The markers that really do matter, such as an improvement in the water supply, an increase in jobs and improvements in day-to-day security, are never so sudden and generally less tangible. Nonetheless, an increased commitment to ensuring these improvements are reported as and where they do take place is greatly needed. War correspondents, perhaps understandably, want to report from the front line, but there is far too little coverage of areas such as Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s provincial capital, and even Sangin, where enormous progress has been made in recent months, though very little is heard about it.

24. Third, when it comes to statistical analysis of the conflict, it is quite understandable that it is casualty figures that make the headlines most powerfully. By definition, these can only ever be bad news. If real progress is being made, but not being picked up by the media, the government should think seriously what to do about this. One possibility could be the publication of a quarterly, concise and readily understandable progress report which, on the basis that it compiles all the progress and setbacks into an easily digestible format, might just make some headlines. If the only news that ever comes out of Afghanistan is negative, then persuading domestic publics that maintaining the commitment there is worthwhile becomes almost impossible.

25. A less practical, but no less important set of recommendations about how the British government must improve its messaging to the British public on the conflict now follows.

26. First, the British public need to be reminded why we are in Afghanistan, and to understand the reasoning far better than they presently do. Nine years since the attacks of 11th September 2001, there can be little doubt that the link between trans-national terrorism, its continued threat to British national security, and the conflict in Afghanistan, has become blurred in the public consciousness. The question of why British forces are deployed in Afghanistan is asked frequently, but rarely is the right answer clearly made. It may be true that the United Kingdom is in Afghanistan to prevent the country becoming a safe haven for terrorists, and to safeguard national security, but to many people it is not clear how this conclusion has been arrived at. Indeed, many are persuaded by the counter-argument, that Britain’s continued deployment in a Muslim country is increasing the level of anger and radicalisation on British streets. The case must therefore be clearly made that Islamist extremism is not so much a reaction to where Britain is deployed in the world, but to what it stands for. The Islamist’s basic philosophy, that the adoption of any value or innovation not directly in keeping with their strict interpretation of Sharia law must be rejected in its entirety, is not one that will alter depending on where the United Kingdom is deployed in the world. This is a point that is not understood by the public clearly enough, and greater efforts must be made to explain it.

27. Though many if not the majority of Islamist movements are locally focused at present, this does not mean they do not pose a very real threat to Western interests. Not only does the West have considerable strategic interests in the Muslim world; the possibility of a regionally orientated movement such as the Taliban once again providing resources and space to an internationalist movement such as al-Qaeda is not to be underestimated. The threat would be perhaps still greater this time round since such movements could be confident that a retaliation of the kind that is presently taking place failed the first time, and so would be very unlikely to be repeated.

28. Finally, understanding and addressing the direct link between underdevelopment and support for terrorism, which forms a key platform of the Government’s National Security Strategy, must be central to the public messaging strategy on the conflict in Afghanistan. Only when the British public accept that the significant effort to bring development and the rule of law to Afghanistan is not just a humanitarian imperative, but a sound strategic one also, are they likely to accept such an outlay of resources during the present financial climate. The message must be clearly conveyed that the vast majority of Afghans are not natural sympathisers of the radical ideology of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and that they do not naturally hate Britain and the West. Rather, because NATO’s long involvement in Afghanistan has not brought with it the tangible improvements in security and development that so many Afghans initially hoped for; extremists have been afforded far more support than would otherwise have been the case. The population-centric, counterinsurgency strategy currently being pursued by the Afghan Government and its international partners is bringing with it the real possibility of lasting progress in Afghanistan for the first time since 2001. The British Government must greatly improve in explaining how this is so, and why this effort must be allowed to succeed.

September 2010