23 September 2009
Befuddling Afghanistan
President Obama is no more befuddled by the disorder in Afghanistan than is Leslie H. Gelb in his op-ed article in the September 22, 2009 Wall Street Journal. They both take it for granted that using military force defines a war. It takes two states, or at least potential states, to fight a war. What is being fought in Afghanistan is not another state, but a condition of disorder in a land where there is no order to defend.
This war is not a counterinsurgency either. To be one, order must be under attack by a rebellious force. However, Afghanistan has never had much order; its most orderly period may have been when it was ruled by the Taliban. It revels in its exceptionalism—in fact, the people who settled the country’s semi-autonomous regions despise order. Their primary motivation has always only been basic survival and simple flourishment, surrounded by a redoubtably unfriendly terrain.
This is what made Afghanistan a perfect host for Al Qaeda. In today’s technologically flattened world, uncontrolled non-state outlaws have become more dangerous to ordered societies like the U.S. than conventional political regimes. That makes it necessary to define the NATO intervention in Afghanistan as a police action and not a “war.”
Two elements of Mr. Gelb’s strategy will nevertheless help accomplish that objective:
(1) Bribing dissatisfied factions within the Taliban to split away from terrorist sympathizers may help develop an appetite for order in the Afghan national character.
(2) Setting up deterrence capabilities, including diligent surveillance of predators, will be more sustainable for NATO than maintaining an armed force there that only invites violent attacks.
No one has ever succeeded in convincing Afghans that they need a “savior.” Nor will “major help” to the Afghan government ever be a substitute for intervention when it is needed to prevent dangerous operations by opportunistic terrorists. The Obama administration and the U.S. won’t avoid defeat in Afghanistan unless they make a clear definition of what the strategy is. Winning a war should not be the goal. Controlling the no-man’s land there is about the best that can be done. From now on, the U.S. might as well face the fact that in Afghanistan, it may always have to do that.
President Obama is no more befuddled by the disorder in Afghanistan than is Leslie H. Gelb in his op-ed article in the September 22, 2009 Wall Street Journal. They both take it for granted that using military force defines a war. It takes two states, or at least potential states, to fight a war. What is being fought in Afghanistan is not another state, but a condition of disorder in a land where there is no order to defend.
This war is not a counterinsurgency either. To be one, order must be under attack by a rebellious force. However, Afghanistan has never had much order; its most orderly period may have been when it was ruled by the Taliban. It revels in its exceptionalism—in fact, the people who settled the country’s semi-autonomous regions despise order. Their primary motivation has always only been basic survival and simple flourishment, surrounded by a redoubtably unfriendly terrain.
This is what made Afghanistan a perfect host for Al Qaeda. In today’s technologically flattened world, uncontrolled non-state outlaws have become more dangerous to ordered societies like the U.S. than conventional political regimes. That makes it necessary to define the NATO intervention in Afghanistan as a police action and not a “war.”
Two elements of Mr. Gelb’s strategy will nevertheless help accomplish that objective:
(1) Bribing dissatisfied factions within the Taliban to split away from terrorist sympathizers may help develop an appetite for order in the Afghan national character.
(2) Setting up deterrence capabilities, including diligent surveillance of predators, will be more sustainable for NATO than maintaining an armed force there that only invites violent attacks.
No one has ever succeeded in convincing Afghans that they need a “savior.” Nor will “major help” to the Afghan government ever be a substitute for intervention when it is needed to prevent dangerous operations by opportunistic terrorists. The Obama administration and the U.S. won’t avoid defeat in Afghanistan unless they make a clear definition of what the strategy is. Winning a war should not be the goal. Controlling the no-man’s land there is about the best that can be done. From now on, the U.S. might as well face the fact that in Afghanistan, it may always have to do that.
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