By Brian M Downing

Surprisingly undiplomatic language came out of last week’s London conference on Afghanistan. [1] Statements from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) chiefs and Kabul politicians are usually less direct. But all recognized that conflict is at a stalemate and peace talks with the Taliban the only alternative to a longer, perhaps inconclusive, war that has ravaged Afghanistan for most of the past 32 years.

Insurgent limitations
Since their expulsion from power in 2001, the Taliban have been able to reconstitute. In the past three years they have been built an impressive insurgency based on opposition to foreign

occupation, corrupt and incompetent government, and perceived non-Pashtun danger. Missteps by the West and the governmentof President Hamid Karzai have been as important in the rise of the insurgency as the adeptness of the Taliban.

Since a British force that crossed the Khyber Pass in 1838 did not return, it has been well understood that tribal customs prepare the Pashtun to be warriors. Knowledge of local terrain, kinship ties, and a tradition of fierce resistance to outsiders make for formidable guerrilla bands, as Russian forces learned decades ago, and NATO forces are now learning too. But the same tribal customs limit the military efficacy of Pashtun insurgents. Fire discipline is not good; infiltration routes and ambush sites are often predictable; kinship and zealotry are key attributes of command; and tactical advantages during engagements are not seized upon.

The insurgent leadership has suffered many casualties over the years, sometimes in engagements but more often from Predator and Reaper drone attacks. In recent years, Dadullah Akhund and Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, two valued regional commanders, were killed in security sweeps or by drones. Some reports indicate that members of the Quetta shura, which directs the war, have fled the Af-Pak line for fear of similar strikes.

Taliban forces cannot engage Western forces without suffering fearsome and likely problematic casualties. Occasionally, insurgent bands mass and attack in force (as in Kunar) and though the engagements make headlines, they are of little militarysignificance. Attacking disciplined troops in fortified positions almost certainly results in egregious casualties for the attackers.

They are unable to deliver a decisive military blow that will elevate the insurgency to a force that can oust the government in Kabul or completely undermine support for the war among the American public. Insurgents have come to rely increasingly on improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings of Western targets in Kabul and other cities.

Western limitations
Neither can Western forces deliver decisive victory. So far, their efforts to get insurgent commanders to switch sides have not been effective. The Afghan army remains largely on the sidelines, preferring positions in relatively secure areas and negotiating local truces with insurgents – hardly a stalwart ally that will buoy support in Western capitals. Western forces have insufficientintelligence on insurgent forces, an American general has recently admitted, making most operations pointless displays of organizational and logistical skill that result in little enemy attrition.

In the past year, the US has placed a great deal of hope in counter-insurgency warfare – this from its apparent success in squelching the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. But two critical differences between Iraq and Afghanistan stand out. First, Sunniinsurgents in Iraq faced a dismal strategic position in fighting the quantitatively superior Shi’ite militias supplied by Iran and the qualitatively superior American troops backed by almost limitless resources. Second, al-Qaeda forces, by their haughtiness and disrespect for locals, alienated local Sunni tribes, encouraging them to turn on the foreign fighters. Sunni insurgents won US protection and money.

It is difficult to discern relevant parallels in Afghanistan. Pashtuninsurgents do not as yet face large numbers of domestic enemies, as did the Iraqi Sunnis. They have long-standing enemies in northern provinces, but their militias are now held in reserve by local warlords. Haughtiness and disrespect for locals has been in evidence of al-Qaeda fighters and their mujahideen forerunners in the 1980s. But their numbers inside Afghanistan are negligible, as is their impact on the war and Pashtun sensibilities.

The US military has long eschewed developing counter-insurgency doctrines and training programs. That type of warfare was seen as a diversion of resources from conventional orientation, which was seen as the likely form of conflict from World War II through the Cold War and the first Gulf War in 1991.

The recent discovery of counter-insurgency’s usefulness has led some in the US military to embrace it with zeal. But reorientation from reliance on conventional means and massive firepower will not come quickly. Further, many US troops are on their fifth or more deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. Exhaustion is setting in, and many find it hard to conceal their disdain for locals, whom they see, regardless of any evidence, as insurgents or sympathizers.

Though the almost limitless resources of Western powers could make for an effective counter-insurgency, as previous wars in Malaysia and Algeria suggest, there are distinctive aspects of the Afghan insurgency (as there are in any such conflict) that must be taken into account.

Afghans are historically suspicious of outsiders. Much of their history concerns repelling invading force, from antiquity to the present day. After so much fighting against the Soviet Union and in the aftermath of its withdrawal in 1989, many Afghans looked to the outside world for help in political stabilization and reconstruction. But eight years into a foreign presence, with little to show for it, many locals view Westerners with disdain, as just another occupying force. Winning hearts and minds now will be far more difficult than several years ago.

Whatever hope is placed on counter-insurgency programs, it would be best to remember that successful ones take well over a decade to achieve results, and of course many others have been unsuccessful.

International context
There are many useful comparisons between the insurgency today and the one that fought the Soviet Union, but the international context isn’t one of them. When the mujahideen fought the Soviet Union they had considerable support from the outside world. The US and Saudi Arabia sent billions of dollars, most of the Islamic world supported the mujahideen with funds and jihadis, and the Pakistani military directed men across the frontier.

Today, many of those forces oppose the Taliban. US and NATO concerns are clear. Russia does not want to see an Islamist movement on its periphery, and neither do former Soviet republics in the region, some of whom had to fight Taliban-supported insurgencies in the 1990s. India wants to counter any group tied even to Kashmir guerrillas and other terrorist groups. Iran loathes the Taliban for their massacre of Iranian envoys and mistreatment of the (Shi’ite) Hazara people of central Afghanistan.

Though there is some international Islamist concern with Westernforces, much of it is directed toward the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Southeast Asia and the Maghreb. Only the Pakistanimilitary and intelligence services support the Taliban. It is difficult to find any successful insurgency with so few supporters and so many powerful opponents.

Taliban control of most of Afghanistan would not be acceptable to regional powers. The Taliban keep watch on the international scene and know that they can never rule Afghanistan as they once did. They well remember that even at their zenith, they never truly controlled the country, but faced tenacious, foreign-supported insurgencies and redoubts in the west and north.

Even in the unlikely event of a US/NATO withdrawal, regional powers would support Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara peoples with money and equipment, transforming the conflict from an insurgency into a civil war. Again, foreign support would greatly favor any enemy of the Taliban. The war would be protracted and pitiless, as outside powers are willing to fight to the last Afghan.

Furthermore, should the Taliban control the Pashtun south and east, they would have to defend territory and fight in a more or less conventional manner – a form of warfare in which it proved utterly incompetent in 2001. The Northern Alliance, with only a modicum of US firepower, rolled up Taliban positions and drove them out of the country in short order. Paradoxically, defeating the West would bring about a conventional war with a fiercer, more tenacious coalition.

Contours of a negotiated settlement
The principal points of a settlement are not hard to find. Dialogue among the West, the Karzai government and the Taliban could give each side much of what it seeks, without one side overtly winning, without a decade or more of fighting.

The West gets the Taliban to:

Restrict their ambitions to provinces in the south and east and to a handful of cabinet posts.

Break with, if not help kill, the al-Qaeda leadership, and never allow it in its areas of control.

Agree never to support, directly or indirectly, the Kashmir conflict in India.

The Taliban gets the West to:

Withdraw all military forces from the country.

Guarantee that drone aircraft and other weapon systems will not target its leaders as long as they abide by the agreement.

Fund reconstruction programs in Afghanistan, including Taliban-controlled areas, channeled through the government in Kabul. This will help restore a balance between Kabul and various regions of the country – a balance on which periods of tranquility and prosperity have rested.

It is unlikely that an agreement can be reached soon. The Taliban have been winning over tribe after tribe and attaching their young men to their bands. The heady experience of success is not always conducive to sound judgment. Another season of fighting may be in the offing. Negotiations today, however, can impress on the Taliban the foreboding international context it faces.

No agreement can be imposed on the country regardless of the amicability and magnanimity of the West, Karzai, regional powers and the Taliban. Any settlement will have to be arrived at in conjunction with and ratified by a loya jirga – the venerable general assembly of Afghan tribes and peoples. It will be the loya jirga, not the government in Kabul or the Quetta shura or foreign powers that will solidify any agreement and impose the likely sanctions that will hold it together.

Note
1. The more than 70 countries and international organizations present at the London conference agreed, among other things, with the Government of Afghanistan (GoA):

To develop a plan for phased transition to Afghan security forces taking the lead province by province to begin, provided conditions are met, by late 2010/early 2011.

Targets for significant increases in the Afghan army and police force supported by the international community: 171,000 Afghan army and 134,000 Afghan police by the end of 2011, taking total security force numbers to over 300,000.

Confirmation of a significant increase in international forces to support the training of Afghan forces. In total, the US has increased levels by 30,000 and the rest of the international community by 9,000, including the German contribution taking total force levels to around 135,000.

Measures to tackle corruption, including the establishment of an independent Office of High Oversight and an independent Monitoring and Evaluation Mission.

Better coordinated development assistance to be increasingly channelled through the GoA, supported by reforms to structures and budgets.

A civilian surge to match the military surge, including new civilian leadership of the international community’s programs, with the appointment of Mark Sedwill, previously British ambassador to Afghanistan, as NATO’s senior civilian representative, a new UN representative plus more civilians on the ground to support governance and economic development.

Enhanced sub-national government to improve delivery of basic services to all Afghans.

Support for the GoA’s national Peace and Reintegration Program, including financial support for a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, to offer economic alternatives to those who renounce violence, cut links to terrorism and agree to work within the democratic process.

Support for increased regional cooperation to combat terrorism, violent extremism and the drugs trade, to increase trade and cultural exchange and to create conducive conditions for the return of Afghan refugees.

Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and the author ofThe Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com