Afghanistan indicators

[Sargent]

Dayuhan wrote:

Russia, China, or Iran would have little incentive to coddle AQ, which is not exactly friendly to them. The Russians and Chinese have their own issues with Islamist activity, and the Iranians would have noticed AQ's oft-stated feelings toward the Shi'a. I don't think any of them would be stupid enough to think they could control who the Taliban sheltered.

There are of course problems with break-and-leave, mainly potential reversion to the status quo ante. I wouldn't be terribly concerned with Russian, Chinese, or Iranian influnce.

I honestly doubt that any of those three would want to deal with it. The Russians have been there and done that, and it wasn't good. The Chinese and Iranians have observed the complications. And, as stated before, there's nothing there of any real use to anyone. The Iranians have no trouble training their terrorist proxies in Lebanon, and Afghanistan is an expensive and messy prospect. The Russians and Chinese have little use for terrorist groups who could easily end up terrorizing them.

I doubt that any of those three have much use for AQ either. The only purpose in that bit was to describe a situation wherein the "mentor" country imposed as little as possible upon the domestic policies of the of the "client," thus ensuring the least friction in the relationship and ensuring the greatest success. The only quid pro required would be that the Taliban would guide AQ to keep the mentor state out of their sights.

And quite frankly, while none of the three have a particular use for an AQ directed at them, they might look at it as a "the enemy of my enemy/competitor is my friend" type of opportunity.

Whether the specifics of the scenario work, the point is that broken or failed societies are not often things that can easily be ignored. Even if no other state steps in, the anarchy often has international repercussions -- look at the costs being imposed on international shipping by Somali piracy -- these are former fishermen, and the fact that their activities continue is in the fact that they have a land-based safe haven given that there is no effective authority within the state to deal with it.

Bottom line, just breaking a thing -- the proposed military strategy to which my comment was originally directed -- is a bad idea. Powell was wise to promulgate the Humpty Dumpty Doctrine, and it's only hubris that fuels the notion that the Incredible Hulk Doctrine can succeed.

Jill

[Dayuhan]

Bottom line, just breaking a thing -- the proposed military strategy to which my comment was originally directed -- is a bad idea. Powell was wise to promulgate the Humpty Dumpty Doctrine, and it's only hubris that fuels the notion that the Incredible Hulk Doctrine can succeed.

The Humpty Dumpty Doctrine assumes what has yet to be demonstrated: the capacity to fix. Very simply, we don't have it. We're good at the Incredible Hulk stuff: we have armed forces and they know how to break things. We have no organized entity trained and equipped to repair nations. What we've done is to deploy forces that are trained and equipped to break things and asked them to do what they are not trained and equipped to do. Not surprisingly, we haven't fixed much and we've exposed ourselves to a war of attrition, our single greatest vulnerability. This is not smart.

Iraq and Afghanistan were arguably broken before we ever went there. A reasonable goal might have been to neither break further nor to attempt to fix, but simply to demonstrate to the inmates that while we've no concern with their domestic issues, attacking us or our allies, or sheltering those who do, will provoke highly undesirable consequences. That we could have done. Letting the mission creep from there to the appalling construct of "nation-building" was a spectacularly costly mistake.