A new role for the Taliban could be on the horizon
August 23, 2009
By Etienne Swanepoel
The global economic and geopolitical order will arguably be reshaped in the next two or three decades or so. Much of that shaping is arguably likely to take place in the Eastern Hemisphere. At a granular level, we asked whether US involvement in Afghanistan is likely to be successful. Furthermore, what sort of a role will this play in the reshaping of the global order?
The interests of the US, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban were symmetrical at the inception of US involvement. This is no longer the case as al-Qaeda has dispersed its operational capabilities and it is no longer confined to Afghanistan.
According to the literature, the primary purpose of counterinsurgency warfare is to win the hearts and minds of the local population. Doing so, especially in an impoverished country such as Afghanistan, requires a vast investment of time, political will on the part of the counterinsurgent (the US), and investment proper in, among other things, infrastructure, education, and institutional governance.
For example, one of many challenges in Afghanistan is replacing the economic and financial benefits of opium production in the Helmand province, which is an annual cash crop, with sustainable replacement agriculture. Doing so will require the configuration of an agricultural value chain with at least similar financial benefits to opium production.
The US counterinsurgency role in relation to al-Qaeda has been so successful that, as noted, al-Qaeda has now dispersed its operations.
In other words, from the perspective of al-Qaeda, Afghanistan no longer represents its core interests. The success of the US counterinsurgency has resulted in a failing success for the US but a successful failure for al-Qaeda. Much like the Apollo 13 mission, which was a successful failure (Nasa was able to safely return the Apollo 13 astronauts to Earth after catastrophic failure of the moon mission itself), al-Qaeda has obtained success through the failure of its core interests in Afghanistan, by switching those to three or four other geographical locations. As a result, Afghanistan has now become of peripheral interest to al-Qaeda.
From the perspective of the Taliban, Afghanistan still represents its core interests. It is an Afghan organisation by virtue of its territorial or geographical orientation.
Inasmuch as the US engaged al-Qaeda in Afghanistan premised on al-Qaeda's then geographical orientation, it follows that the core interests of the US in relation to al-Qaeda must shift with any subsequent re-orientation in al-Qaeda's geographical location/s. It also follows that, in relation to Afghanistan, there is now a disconnect between the respective core interests of al-Qaeda, the US and the Taliban.
As such, the viability of the continued role of the US in Afghanistan is open to question. George Friedman of Stratfor, a leading independent geopolitical consultancy, succinctly states: there is now an asymmetry of interests between these three contestants insofar as Afghanistan is concerned.
The conflict in Afghanistan as between the Taliban and the US has now reached the same impasse that existed between the US and the North Vietnamese. It is of core interest to the Taliban inasmuch as it has nowhere else to go. It has become of peripheral interest to the US due to the geographical dispersal of al-Qaeda, its chief antagonist.
As was the case in Vietnam, eventually the domestic political cost of engaging in a conflict of peripheral interest to US vital interests, from which there is no clear exit strategy, becomes unacceptably high.
Though the US can militarily defeat the Taliban, doing so will take too long. Also, the domestic and geopolitical cost of doing so will be disproportional to the reward of doing so. The US can (and should) expend its domestic and geopolitical capital more profitably elsewhere.
Most importantly, it is required to expend increasingly scarce resources in more efficient ways. In short, defeating the Taliban is of questionable interest to the US, geopolitical or otherwise.
It follows that the US, all things being equal, should identify and implement an exit strategy regarding its continued involvement in Afghanistan which best serves its vital interests.
What is the functionality of the US involvement in Afghanistan in the absence of al-Qaeda's centre of power residing there? It cannot be said that the Taliban threatens US interests to the extent that the US has to occupy Afghanistan and/or employ resources similar to resources now being employed by the US to keep the Taliban out of power.
It cannot also be said with any great conviction that Afghanistan is of geostrategic importance to the US. The usual argument about using Afghanistan as a transit for oil and gas pipe lines from the Caucasus via Pakistan to India and the Arabian Sea to bypass Iran just does not hold water if one takes account of the level of geopolitical instability in that region. Every bombing of these pipe lines, which no doubt will become bombing magnets, will destabilise oil and gas markets to an unacceptable extent. It will simply globalise localised risks, and increase the geopolitical risk premium attached to oil and gas markets.
Inasmuch as the Taliban projects its power into the Frontier Tribal Areas, Afghanistan has become of negative geopolitical interest to the US. It is of negative interest not only as the Taliban has succeeded in destabilising an important US ally, in the form of Pakistan, but the spectre now exists of an unstable nuclear power in one of the most volatile regions in the world.
Pakistan, with a population of 176 million, is also a regional player of note. If it becomes any more unstable, it threatens regional stability.
Arguably, US policymakers should consider normalising relations withthe Taliban such that the group becomes a legitimate political Afghan domestic political organisation. Will this not pose a lesser threat to US regional interest than the current instability found in that region?
Better to contain a domestic political organisation to a fixed geographical location, in this case, Afghanistan, than for the Taliban to remain as an insurgency that operates almost without restriction across borders.
Better to make the Taliban accountable to Afghans once it operates as a domestic political organisation. Better to make the Taliban accountable to international bodies such as the UN and the sanction of its members via Security Council and other resolutions.
Etienne Swanepoel is a partner at Webber Wentzel. The views expressed are his own
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