How to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan / Pakistan (and win the war on terror)

[AmericanPride]

Afghanistan already has a structural problem with too many internal factions vying for power; that's what prompted the success of the Taliban, the first unified government for the country in 20 years, in the early 1990s. The Afghan government's credibility already suffers from overt political support from the West among the rural population (which accounts for ~75% of the population); how would formalizing a NATO-controlled Afghan paramilitary organization address of any of those problems?

[Peter Dow]

Afghanistan already has a structural problem with too many internal factions vying for power;

Firstly, thank you for joining this thread.

The warlords, yes; they are a problem. Perhaps though those warlords should not be described as entirely "internal" in that they have external sponsors, such as the international governments which fund the nominally "Afghan" state?

From the beginning of our involvement in Afghanistan, in 2001, the warlords were brought together as the Northern Alliance because in agreeing to cooperate under US oversight they received funding and air power support from the US forces which helped them take power from the Taliban.

So from day one of the West's intervention in Afghanistan, the warlords have not been a purely internal Afghan power, not solely deriving their power from the people of Afghanistan.

With the establishment of what we described as the "Afghan president" Karzai, he has maintained a similar sharing of power among the warlords by carving up the "Afghan" state power with the warlords, giving the warlords positions of power within the structures of state institutions such as the "Afghan National" Army and the "Afghan" police.

As the "Afghan" state has been, as its Northern Alliance predecessor was, sponsored with billions of dollars by the US and other allied governments then the "Afghan" state is not a purely internal-to-Afghanistan state; it has an external dimension to it too and the nature of this state is shaped by the wealth and power it derives from its external sponsors.

Thus the warlord factions of that externally funded "Afghan" state today are not purely "internal" to Afghanistan.

that's what prompted the success of the Taliban, the first unified government for the country in 20 years, in the early 1990s.

Back then of course the warlords we know today were probably more genuinely "internal" because they didn't have the external funding and support they have now.

The warlords then were at a disadvantage compared to the Taliban which was sponsored by the Pakistani military and that's why Pakistan's Taliban were able to conquer most of the country, but "unify" no because the warlords would have been forced to flee the country because the Taliban would not tolerate them under their rule.

The fact that the Taliban didn't unify the warlords meant that they were living lurking outside Afghanistan presumably just waiting for their opportunity to be empowered with a more powerful external sponsor, the US, in comparison to the Taliban's external sponsor, Pakistan.

The Afghan government's credibility already suffers from overt political support from the West among the rural population (which accounts for ~75% of the population);

The reason is obvious. The so-called "Afghan" state derives most of its power and wealth from its external sponsors so answers to them (or to "us" as the UK government is also funding the "Afghan" state I understand) or rather the "Afghan" state fiddles from us the maximum amount of funding it can since the strings of our control are weak or non-existent and will be no doubt be financing rules such as - "well if the Afghan state recruits X number of troops into the ANA we will give you X times Y dollars to spend on the ANA."

Therefore this is how we have created and guaranteed a corrupt "Afghan" state which looks primarily to maximise its revenue by fiddling our financing rules and with that money rigs elections and can rule irrespective of whether or not the "Afghan" state has the genuine support of the Afghan people and frankly many commentators doubt that and believe that the nominally unified "Afghan" state under Karzai would not hold together long without our support because its power is derived from our wealth, not from the political authority of Afghans.

how would formalizing a NATO-controlled Afghan paramilitary organization address of any of those problems?

Quite simply. In terms of funding forces with Afghans, we would fund only our auxiliary force and the accountability and political control would be to us in an open and honest way.

We would cease any direct funding of the Afghan state and any Afghan state which was able to stand alone would have to rely much more on the genuine political support and the taxes raised from the Afghan people because we wouldn't be propping it up with our money, that's for sure.

If and when the Afghan state truly speaks for Afghans because it can stand alone then we know when that truly representative Afghan state asks for practical help, not money, either from our auxiliary force which we fund or from our regular forces in country we'd be sure and the Afghan people would have more confidence that the help we were asked for was the help that the Afghan people genuinely wanted not what corrupted politicians and warlords wanted.

Now, the danger with that plan for an accountable and honest Afghan state is that other foreign powers - the either hostile or backstabbing states of Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, or perhaps even our very good friends India - might be tempted to do as we had been doing - directly fund the Afghan state and corrupt it in accordance with their financing rules or even with their direct orders.

We'd have to be suspicious of requests from a stand-alone Afghan state which did not seem to accord with the wishes and interests of Afghans but seemed more to be in the interests of foreign governments. Not that in the case of our very good friends India, any Indian-sponsored Afghan government would be expected to be hostile to our interests but nevertheless it would not serve the Afghans to have their state bought by India any more than it serves their interests to have their state bought by us.

That danger noted, it is a better scheme because for every penny or cent we spend on Afghanistan we are institutionally able to make our own judgements and decisions about whether the power we were asked by the Afghan state to use was being used according to the wishes and in the interests of the people of Afghanistan.

Additional

In addition, the needs of our forces in Afghanistan, even if we have an agreement with the Afghan state to remain, and I'd be content with reverting to an occupation, with no formal permission signed by an Afghan president, no "Bilateral Security Agreement" (BSA) nor "Status Of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) signed, even with a formal agreement to remain in Afghanistan, our forces' needs are different and our priorities different from those of any Afghan state.

For example, our forces in Afghanistan have an interest in confronting Pakistan over its sponsoring of the Taliban. The Afghan state may wish to be less confrontational in its approach to the Taliban and Pakistan, leaving us to fight them both ourselves.

For example, we may need to use our auxiliary Afghan force to help to defend our bases and supply lines to and between our bases. That's never going to be a priority for the Afghan state.

Misunderstanding

It is possible to misunderstand that in the absence of a BSA or SOFA signed that might be taken to imply that this would allow somehow the officers of the Afghan state to arrest our forces and subject them to Afghan national justice.

No, that's a misunderstanding which shows only how subservient the international political class has become firstly to Maliki in Iraq and now Karzai in Afghanistan.

If the Afghan national forces come to arrest our troops, we don't submit. We arrest them; if needs be we point our guns at them; if needs be we shoot them; if needs be we declare war on the Afghan state. It's an occupation so we don't need a damn BSA or SOFA. Understand yet?

Well even if you understand you can be sure that US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have simply no comprehension of what it means not to have their BSA signed. They are out of their depth and should be replaced by the president.