The War in Afghanistan

31 min readNov 23, 2017

Why has Afghanistan Always Been at War?

Afghanistan has not *always* been a war torn country. Prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was a relatively peaceful country with a modern governmental system, 60s style fashions, the whole bit.

The problem of Afghanistan at that time was the push and pull between the urban elite and the country traditionalists. Many of the urban elite, especially the military, had begun to develop ties to communist Russia. The military officers in particular, went to Russia for training and came back with very different views for their country. Specifically, they were beginning to see a country that was not as grounded in Islam or the traditions of the country-side. This has always been a point of contention over the years. The central government has generally been unable to exert much control outside the cities and when they have attempted cultural changes (such as minimizing the importance of religious judges), they have met stiff resistance.

Another key aspect of the difficulties in governing Afghanistan (as well as many other regional countries) is the importance of tribal affiliations. This causes considerable amounts of friction as well as encourages a certain level of corruption. Everyone looks out for their tribe first. There is very little national identity in Afghanistan and where it does exist, it is generally limited to the cities. So this keeps the country fragmented and vulnerable to factions being played off against each other.

Afghanistan itself sits along the Silk Road from the Middle East to China and it provides the only route to the deep water ports of Pakistan such as Karachi from the central Asian states. So this has made control of the territory very important even if the country itself has very few natural resources (though this may be changing with regards to rare earth materials).

The civil war was a direct result of Pakistan’s continued interest in controlling the country as a form of strategic depth against India. (If you look at a map of Pakistan, you can see there is very little East to West territory for the Pakistanis to use should India to attack.) Because Pakistan had predominantly supported the Pashtun tribes during the war with the Soviets, they expected their loyalty. This led them to support the Taliban (which is predominantly Pashtun) when it came into existence in 1994. The US had most directly backed the non-Pashtun tribes though much of its money flowed through Pakistan who controlled its distribution (again, mostly to the Pashtuns). The US, however, did not provide any support to Afghanistan after the Soviets retreated which left the country in a state of lawlessness.

The barbarism which ensued was extensive. The Taliban came to prominence because they were able to provide (their version of) law and order. In the North, the civil war continued to rage as the Taliban took control of the South. There were numerous war crimes committed by all sides and Kabul was essentially turned to rubble as all sides fought for the capital.

The Taliban refused to cooperate with the UN and refused to adhere to US demands for human rights so there was little relief when the country suffered massive droughts and famines. This of course made the Taliban amenable to bin Ladin and al Qaeda’s offer for financial support. (bin Ladin and his “Afghan Arabs” looked down on the Afghans during the Soviet war and the two parties had little interest in working with one another during the war.) Now needing money, Mullah Oman and the Taliban welcomed bin Ladin back to Afghanistan after he was kicked out the Sudan for the bombings of the US embassies. Cut off from Saudi Arabia (because of his threats during the Gulf War) and his funds frozen, he didn’t have many better choices for refugee. So it was a marriage of convenience for the two parties.

Bin Ladin and his AQ followers remained separated from the general Afghan population had very limited direct interaction with the Taliban. The Taliban focused on taking over their country while AQ focused on training, using the massive expanses of ungoverned spaces for training camps. This, of course, enabled AQ to launch their most spectacular attack against the US as well as to plan follow-on attacks against Madrid and London.

So Afghanistan was a victim of shifting views on its strategic location. It served as a buffer between the Brits and the Russians in the late 19th century. It served as a strategic reserve for the Pakistanis. And it meant nothing to the US after the Soviets withdrew. But for several years in the 20th Century, Afghanistan was largely at peace, with little intervention from outside nations and limited attempts by the central government to control the outlying regions.

Probably one of the best books on the subject is Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan.

Isn’t Afghanistan the Graveyard of Empires? Will Afghanistan be Americas downfall?

To put it simply, this is flat out wrong.

“Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a ‘highway of conquest’ rather than the ‘graveyard of empires,’” Barfield points out. “For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody’s empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C.”
After the Persians it was Alexander the Great’s turn… Alexander’s successors managed to keep the place under their control for another 200 years. Not too shabby, really. And there were plenty of empires that came after, thanks to Afghanistan’s centrality to world trade in the era before European ocean fleets put an end to the Silk Road’s transportation monopoly.
…
Genghis had “no trouble at all overrunning the place,” and his descendants would build wide-ranging kingdoms using Afghanistan as a base. Timur (know to most of us as Tamerlane) ultimately shifted the capital of his empire from provincial Samarkand to cosmopolitan Herat, evidence of the role command over Afghanistan played in his calculations. Babur, who is buried in Kabul, used Afghanistan to launch his conquest of a sizable chunk of India and establish centuries of Muslim rule.
…the Afghans trounced a British invasion force, destroying all but one of 16,000 troops sent to Kabul to teach the Afghan rulers a lesson.
But context is everything. Everyone tends to forget what happened after the rout of the British: In 1842 they invaded again, defeating every Afghan army sent out against them. True, they didn’t necessarily achieve their aim of preventing Tzarist Russia from encroaching on Central Asia; that had to wait for the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), when they succeeded in occupying much of the country and forcing its rulers to accept a treaty giving the British a veto over future Afghan foreign policy. Then there’s the fact that the First Anglo-Afghan War preceded the end of the British Empire by more than a century. London, it should be noted, never intended to make Afghanistan part of its empire. Britain’s foreign-policy aim, which it ultimately achieved, was to ensure that Afghanistan remained a buffer state outside the influence of imperial competitors, such as the Russians.[1]

So the country is not quite as formidable as some (very bad at history) people suggest. The current government of Afghanistan has already been in power twice as long as the Taliban ever ruled and have already had a successful, democratic transfer of power.

Who are the Taliban?

“Talib” is the Pashtun word for “student.” Specifically, they are the students of the madrassahs established in Pakistan by the Saudis during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The teachings of this school are heavily influenced by the strict interpretation of wahhabism. These schools were populated with the refugees from Afghanistan, young boys who had never lived in Afghanistan themselves, were separated from women, and were given the most extremist view of their religion.

The Taliban are almost exclusively Pashtun.

Following the Soviet departure from Afghanistan, the refugees began to return. The country descended into chaos as warlords fought to control their portions of the country. Taking advantage of the lack of governance, these warlords extorted the population, terrorized their enemies, and raped and pillaged at will.

One rape in particular led to the establishment of what is known as the Taliban today in 1994. The raping of a group of travelers (to include children) by a local warlord in Kandahar appears to have been the final straw. The villagers came to Mullah Omar, a respected teacher in the aforementioned madrassahs. Mullah Omar gathered a number of his former students (Talibs) and they rescued the travelers (and butchered the perpetrators).

Disgusted with the lawlessness of the warlords, the people began to look to Mullah Omar and his students as a way to return peace and order to the country. From there, the Taliban movement began to grow as a counter point to the warlords. As they gained in power, their confrontations with the warlords became more of a civil war than simply meting out justice. The movement continued to grow until the Taliban made their own move on Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The resulting fight nearly leveled the city but in the end, the Taliban were victorious.

The unified warlords, known as the Northern Alliance, continued to fight the Taliban from the West and North. For the remainder of the 90s, the civil war raged with incredible scenes of butchery and human rights disasters on both sides.

The Taliban enforced the most extreme views of their religion. They crippled their economy and they doomed their population to disaster when their demands forced the UN and all other humanitarian organizations from the country. To mitigate the lack of economy, the Taliban accepted the offer of Usama bin Ladin to move his operations back to Afghanistan (following his banishment from Sudan in 1998 and his exile from Saudi Arabia). He established numerous training camps in the country as did several other terrorist groups.

Although they had no direction connection to al Qaeda and its plots, the Taliban refused to turn over UBL after the embassy bombings in Africa, the Cole bombing in Yemen, and the 9/11 attacks. Declaring themselves allies of AQ, the Taliban established themselves as enemies of the United States and were eventually forced from power by the combined efforts of the Northern Alliance and the US-led coalition in 2001.

Today, the Taliban continue to operate in Pashtun dominated regions of the country, most notably in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. They continue to fight for control of the government, refusing any efforts to be brought into the government as a political entity. They also continue to allow their territory to be used as a haven for terrorist groups, though they are actively countering efforts of ISIL to expand into Afghanistan.

Why did Pakistan support the Taliban?

Pakistan views India as an existential threat. They have fought numerous wars and skirmishes since Pakistan gained independence. At very least Pakistan is concerned India will seize large portions of its territory, such as in Kashmir, but also worried that India will simply take over the whole country.

The Afghan Taliban provided Pakistan with strategic depth. Pakistan is a relatively narrow country which makes it particularly vulnerable to a mechanized attack by India. The Taliban gave Pakistan someplace to fallback to.

It was important to Pakistan’s leadership that the Taliban be fervently religious as they believed it would make them more loyal versus the Hindu dominant India. This was demonstrated to not be as clear cut in the mud-1990s when the Taliban controlled most of the country.

However, now that the Taliban are out of power, Pakistan is beginning to see its worst fears come true as India has increasingly funded the infrastructure of Afghanistan, most importantly, the Ring Road. This gives them both physical presence in Afghanistan and influence.

So the Taliban promise a return to that strategic depth and the expulsion of the Indians from Afghanistan (and therefore behind Pakistan). The US cannot make the same promise because it does not control who Afghanistan makes deals with. China also generally does not dictate such things to countries it operates in.

No, the United States never supported the Taliban

First of all, the US never backed the Taliban. And the Taliban never fought the Soviets. The Taliban did not come into existence until 1994. They had nothing to do with the anti-Soviet campaign and the US had long since abandoned the Afghan people to their own fate by then.

The Taliban did not care about the West. They did not launch attacks against the West. All they cared about was their own country. They were involved in a bitter, almost decade long civil war with then Northern Alliance (which was made up of the mujaheddin the US did back during the anti-Soviet campaign). The Taliban were far too busy trying to take over the country to worry about the West. They only enforced their rules within their country.

AFTER the 1998 embassy bombings, Usama bin Ladin was forced to flee Sudan where he had been living since he left Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets. The Taliban gave him refuge and refused to turn him over to the US when they accused him of having masterminded and funded the embassy bombings. The Taliban again refused to turn over bin Ladin following the 9/11 attacks. That is how the US and the Taliban came to be at war. Until then, the Taliban and the US were not adversaries.

Afghanistan has no oil. It does, however, have geography between oil producing countries and ports where that oil can be shipped out. The US attempted to convince the Taliban to build a pipeline for the oil. However, the Taliban refused the deal because the US offer hinged upon several humans rights issues that had to be corrected. The Taliban was not interested in compromising on those issues and instead chose to do business with an Argentinian company which did not tie business issues to human rights issues.

At the same time, Afghanistan was under going one of the worst human disasters of the time. Their country was still embroiled in a civil war and a massive famine was sweeping the country. The Taliban had forced the UN out of the country by leveling completely unreasonable requirements on them (particularly with regards to their female members) and so the UN was not there to help counter the human disaster occurring. The US, as it often does, got involved in an attempt to prevent things from getting worse. It was unsuccessful because again, the Taliban were unwilling to correct their human rights abuses in return for assistance.

The US had learned that engagement was a better means of dealing with some nations. As the Taliban and Afghan people had never threatened the US, it was decided to treat them more like China than Iran, Cuba, or North Korea and to attempt to correct their behaviors through constant engagement. It was believed that by keeping the Taliban in the international community, international norms and pressures could resolve their civil war and human rights abuses.

This strategy was unable to be fulfilled before 9/11.

So yes, the US engaged with the Taliban who controlled the capital of Afghanistan in an attempt to resolve the civil war (bringing the Northern Alliance into the government), to resolve the human rights abuses, to mitigate the impacts of the famine, to potentially open the country to an oil pipeline, and to get the Taliban’s assistance in arresting Usama bin Ladin.

Do most Americans know this? Probably not. Afghanistan was old news in 2001 before September. Who cared about yet another backwards government which posed no threat to the US? They had no oil. They treated their women poorly. And we had already done our part to help them defeat the Soviets. So in early 2001, a visit by the Taliban to the US was not news.

Since then did Americans learn of this? Sure. Some did. But it was irrelevant. The Taliban didn’t attack the US on September 11th, al Qaeda did. And they are not (as many, many, many people seem to think) the same thing. Al Qaeda is a predominantly Arab terrorist organization. The Taliban are predominantly Pashtun organization. The Arabs were considered foreigners during the anti-Soviet campaign. The Taliban did not fight in the anti-Soviet campaign. Different groups all together.

The Relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda

The relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda is one of convenience. And to some extent, inconvenience.

After 9/11 and in the lead up to Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the Taliban ruling government of Afghanistan was split in how to handle the US request for AQ leader Usama bin Ladin. Following the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa, the US had requested bin Ladin be turned over. At that time, the Taliban refused, however, they warned bin Ladin not to take any further actions without notifying them first.

Bin Ladin did not warn the Taliban of his plans to attack the US again.

For this reason, many in the Taliban government, most notably the Taliban Foreign Minister, argued that bin Ladin should be turned over to the United States and AQ should be evicted from their training camps throughout Afghanistan. Many of these training camps, and bin Ladin’s personal compounds in particular, were off-limits to the Taliban. In their own country, the Taliban were refused entry to the AQ sites they were harboring. This was a point of consternation (though, historically not unusual given bin Ladin and his Arab army’s view of Afghans during the anti-Soviet campaign).

Mullah Omar, however, overruled his advisors and told the US that Afghanistan would not turn over bin Ladin. To some extent, this was honoring the Pashtunwali code which indicated a guest in a Pashtun home must be afforded every accommodation including protection. But it was also Mullah Omar’s thumb in the eye to the US over their sanctions and charges of human rights abuses. When Mullah Omar had sought to build a pipeline with a US company, the US government intervened and prevented the business arrangement unless it received assurances from the Taliban government that their human rights issues would be addressed (these included allowing the UN to operate within their country to deal with the worsening famine). When the Taliban refused, the US government prevented US oil companies from doing business with the Taliban and so the pipeline project when to an Argentinian corporation.

Once the war started, AQ and Taliban fates were largely tied together. They fought together at several key points but it was always more as allies versus a combined structure. There was no C2 structure in which AQ directed the Taliban or vice versa.

When AQ largely fled to Pakistan, they relied on Taliban protection and movement. This included elements of both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban movements. However, this arrangement also included other tribes and groups as necessary with no strict ties between AQ and the Taliban. Distrust of the Afghans continued within the AQ organization and this why most of the AQ leadership was captured well outside Taliban territory, typically in cities. They felt safer living among other Arab populations (within Pakistan, Pakistanis are not Arabs) than to trust their security to the tribes of the North West Frontier (despite the popular theory that this would be where bin Ladin would be hiding).

Since then, AQ has continued this relationship of convenience. They will use them when necessary but they don’t trust them. They don’t, however, wage an active campaign against them as both AQ and the Taliban (separately) do against ISIL.

The Taliban has never cared about international politics. Their focus has always been on protecting their homeland and taking care of their own people. AQ’s international ambitions have always been a cause of problems for the Taliban and a continuous sticking point. AQ laments the loss of the Taliban government in Afghanistan because they had permitted them freedom of movement and since the collapse of the Taliban government, they have been on the run with no more opportunities to plan or train for large scale attacks.

Why didn’t the US just ask the Taliban to hand over Al Qaeda?

Because they had already done so with regards to 1998 Embassy Bombings three years earlier to absolutely no good:

“On Feb. 3, 1999, U.S. assistant secretary of state Karl E. Inderfurth, the Clinton administration’s point man for talks with the Taliban, and Michael Sheehan, State Department counterterrorism chief, went to Islamabad to deliver a stern message to Taliban deputy foreign minister Abdul Jalil: The United States henceforth would hold the Taliban responsible for any terrorist act by bin Laden.
“By that time, bin Laden had been indicted for his alleged role in the embassy bombings. The officials reviewed the indictment in detail with the Taliban and offered to provide more evidence if the Taliban sent a delegation to New York. The Taliban did not do so.
“Immediately following the U.S. warning, Taliban security forces took bin Laden from his Kandahar compound and spirited him away to a remote site, according to press reports at the time. They also seized his satellite communications and barred him from media contacts.
“Publicly, the Taliban said they no longer knew where he was.” (Taliban Met With U.S. Often)

Furthermore, Mullah Omar flatly refused to work with the United States under any circumstances. This was to the horror of many in his cabinet including his Foreign Minister who *did* want to turn over bin Ladin. But Omar would not allow it and so it never happened.

After the bombing started, the Taliban no longer had control over bin Ladin, he was already holed up in Tora Bora with his own supporters (Arabs not Afghans).

The enigmatic Mullah Omar and his legacy — CNN.com
How One Decision By Mullah Omar Sealed The Fate Of Afghanistan
Conflict in Afghanistan
The Osama bin Laden I KnowEdit

From Taliban Met With U.S. Often:

“Taliban representatives repeatedly suggested they would hand over bin Laden if their conditions were met” yet “It also remained murky whether the Taliban envoys, representing at least one division of the fractious Islamic regime, could actually deliver on their promises.”

“Taliban officials argued they could not expel a guest”

“On Feb. 3, 1999, U.S. assistant secretary of state Karl E. Inderfurth, the Clinton administration’s point man for talks with the Taliban, and Michael Sheehan, State Department counterterrorism chief, went to Islamabad to deliver a stern message to Taliban deputy foreign minister Abdul Jalil: The United States henceforth would hold the Taliban responsible for any terrorist act by bin Laden.
By that time, bin Laden had been indicted for his alleged role in the embassy bombings. The officials reviewed the indictment in detail with the Taliban and offered to provide more evidence if the Taliban sent a delegation to New York. The Taliban did not do so.
Immediately following the U.S. warning, Taliban security forces took bin Laden from his Kandahar compound and spirited him away to a remote site, according to press reports at the time. They also seized his satellite communications and barred him from media contacts.
Publicly, the Taliban said they no longer knew where he was.”

‘’It became clear that the call for more evidence was more a delaying tactic than a sincere effort to solve the bin Laden issue.’’
Last February [2001], the Taliban had indicated it might be willing to hand over bin Laden, but by June, according to Brisard and Dasquié, the US began considering military action. “The US thought they could `decouple’ Osama bin Laden from the Taliban,” Brisard says. “What they did not understand was that without bin Laden, the Taliban regime wouldn’t have existed.” (US efforts to make peace summed up by ‘oil’, 11/19/01)

Who is currently supporting the Taliban?

The Taliban are Pashtun. One of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan is Pashtun and so the Taliban exist among their own tribal members. They are therefore just normal everyday people with jobs like farming and mechanic, etc. They have extensive family ties in the region and are funded by the local economy which also includes the production of opium.

Elements of Pakistan do support the Taliban. In large part, this is because the Afghan government has increasingly done work with the Indian government. It was the Indians who rebuilt the ring road and are heavily invested in other construction projects. Because Pakistan has always viewed Afghanistan as their “strategic depth” in a conflict with India, Pakistan needs to ensure the Afghan government remains friendly. Because this relationship continues to deteriorate, some in Pakistan have turned to the Taliban as a viable alternative to the government in Kabul.

The Taliban does have one foreign mission in the UAE and they continue to gain some support from elements of Saudi Arabia and others who retain a strict interpretation of Islamic tradition.

There is also some suggestion that Russia may be supporting the Taliban as well.[6]Though this seems to be a pretty dangerous game given that the bulk of opium from Afghanistan ends up in Russia and its client states.

Iran may also be supporting the Taliban[7] . But again, this seems unusual given that they supported the minority Shi’a Hazaras during the civil war against the Taliban. However, Iran also doesn’t like the notion of being surrounded by the US and may view a temporary alliance with the Taliban as a means to ridding itself of the US.

China has been working to bring peace to Afghanistan which includes conducting talks with the Taliban.China has many business endeavors in Afghanistan and would like to do even more. But they don’t like to deal with unstable security situations so they would prefer to buy out the Taliban than have to deal with an insurgency. So while they may be “supporting” the Taliban, this is less about the insurgency and more about looking for a means to peace. They don’t necessarily care who is in power so long as they will allow Chinese businesses to operate but the Taliban are a bigger hindrance than help.

The Brutality of the Taliban

Though they are generally considered insurgents, and many of them just want to fight foreign occupiers, they still use terrorism and deliberately target civilians.

Intentionally targeting non-combatants, especially children, absolutely is a war crime/human rights violation:

Taliban school attack: 145 killed in Pakistan siege — CNN.com
Malala Yousafzai
Pakistani Taliban target female students with acid attack — CNN.com
Taliban paid gang to attack schoolgirls with acid
Taliban Assassins Target Pakistan’s Polio VaccinatorsIntentionally targeting non-combatants, especially children, absolutely is a war crime/human rights violation:

Why didn’t the Taliban Outlaw the Production of Opium?

The UN should get the credit for the drop in opium production (for 15 months). NOT the Taliban who have consistently used it as a source of funding both in and out of power.

The Taliban are hardly the poster children for anti-opium production:

The Taliban took control of southern Afghanistan beginning in 1994…

“By 1994 when the first comprehensive United Nations survey of opium poppy in Afghanistan was conducted, 71,500 ha of Afghanistan was under opium poppy cultivation. By this time, Afghanistan was established as the world’s major source of illicit opium, accounting for an estimated 60% of potential global illicit production.”

…

“In 1994, the Taliban began to solidify the chaotic southern regions of Afghanistan. Victories came quick, and within 2 years Taliban forces had advanced northward and captured the capital city of Kabul. In May of 1997, the Taliban took control of the last major city held by the mujahidin, and assumed governing control of Afghanistan”

…

“By 2000, Afghanistan was estimated to produce 70% of the world’s potential illicit opium.”

[So for six years, the Taliban controlled all of the major opium growing areas of Afghanistan. For three years, they controlled all but 5% of the country (a portion of the country where opium was not being grown).]

“In March 1999, UNODC convened a meeting in Pakistan with Taliban officials and Islamabad drug liaison officers. UNODC officials interpreted the meeting as successful inso-far as the Taliban appeared to enjoy the positive international exposure that resulted”
“At subsequent meetings addressing drug control, UN-ODC pledged aid in locating the largest poppy fields and, in September 1999, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered a one-third reduction in poppy cultivation. ”

…

“Taliban pride which was wounded when the one-third reduction in poppy target announced by Mullah Omar in 1999 was not achieved.”

…

“In return for the elimination of opium poppy, the UN would provide $25 million per year for 10 years in development assistance to Taliban areas.”[9]

This was at a time when Afghanistan was suffering from a massive humanitarian crisis but because of its human rights violations was not being supported by the rest of the international community.

For six of their seven years in power, the Taliban tolerated opium growing in their controlled areas. Only when pressured by the UN, in return for $25M, did the Taliban decide it was against opium growing.

Since the Taliban were forced from power, opium production has skyrocketed…in areas controlled/contested by the Taliban. Around 40% of Taliban funding comes from the growing of opium in its regions.

How Opium Fuels the Taliban’s War Machine in Afghanistan

https://www.usip.org/sites/defau...

The Taliban profited from opium production for six years during their rule of Afghanistan. They banned it for 15 months. As soon as they were out of power, they turned back to producing opium as revenue generator. If the UN had not offered them $25M to stop cultivating opium, there is no reason to suspect they would have banned it in 2000.

It is the UN that should get the credit for the drop in opium production in 2000, not the Taliban.

How Popular is the Taliban?

They aren’t.

A series of surveys conducted over the years to capture Afghans’ perception of the ongoing developments in the country indicate very low public support for the Taliban. Their staunch sympathizers comprise less than 10 percent of the Afghan population, whereas encountering the Taliban is the worst nightmare for 93 percent of Afghans, who see the insurgents as the biggest threat to their safety and lives. Furthermore, in recent years, ordinary Afghans tired of the Taliban’s tyranny picked up arms and drove them out of their localities in different parts of the country.

You can read the full survey here: Afghanistan Survey — The Asia Foundation

Even within the Taliban itself, there is extensive fracturing with at least three distinct groups fighting against one another and claiming to be the rightful heirs of Omar’s legacy.

And on top of that, the Taliban are losing ground to ISIS

They aren’t.

A series of surveys conducted over the years to capture Afghans’ perception of the ongoing developments in the country indicate very low public support for the Taliban. Their staunch sympathizers comprise less than 10 percent of the Afghan population, whereas encountering the Taliban is the worst nightmare for 93 percent of Afghans, who see the insurgents as the biggest threat to their safety and lives. Furthermore, in recent years, ordinary Afghans tired of the Taliban’s tyranny picked up arms and drove them out of their localities in different parts of the country. [10]

You can read the full survey here: Afghanistan Survey — The Asia Foundation

Even within the Taliban itself, there is extensive fracturing with at least three distinct groups fighting against one another and claiming to be the rightful heirs of Omar’s legacy.[11]

And on top of that, the Taliban are losing ground to ISIS

Why hasn’t the United States been able to stop the Taliban?

Victory seemed assured after 2001. At that point, the US only committed a minimum force on the ground but:

a) they teamed up with the Northern Alliance which had been fighting a civil war with the Taliban since 1994. The Taliban never controlled all of Afghanistan, the Norther Alliance controlled (surprise) the north and western portions of the country. The Taliban largely only controlled the Pashtun regions to the south and east. So, there was already a sizable ground force in Afghanistan that was itching for a fight.

b) what the US did bring to the war was air power. And the guys we did put into the country on the ground were there largely to coordinate those air missions with the Northern Alliance attacks on the ground. Air power bombed the Taliban into submission and the Northern Alliance occupied the territory.

So why are the Taliban still an active belligerent in Afghanistan?

The United States (as part of United Nations forces) helped the South Korean defeat the invasion by north Korean in 1950–1953. After the war, however, the South Korean forces were in no better position to defend themselves. To that end, the US remained on the peninsula to allow ROK forces to build up their own military, to professionalize their officer corps, and to be prepared to take responsibility for their own defenses.

Over the course of 70 years, the ROK has faced one of the largest ground forces on the planet with the largest array of artillery aimed at their capital city. Now, they are facing a threat armed with capable theater ballistic missiles and an evolving nuclear threat. All of which means, the US is not likely to depart the peninsula any time soon.

On top of that, the ROK began its independence as an incredibly poor, agriculturally oriented country with little industry. It was, for decades, one of the top recipients of UNICEF funding. Today, the ROK is a top 15 economy with one of the highest productions of electronics, automobiles, and entertainment. It wasn’t until 1994 that the ROK transitioned from being a UNICEF recipient to a donor country. And this is a country that since 1970, has not been fighting an active insurgency.

Why does any of this matter?

Because it takes time to build security. And it take time to build a country’s industry.

Fortunately, Afghanistan is not facing a large, conventional force. So the requirements on its security forces are not likely to be as demanding as those of South Korea. However, building up those forces still requires time and it still requires resourcing. Given the size of Afghanistan, helicopter quick reaction forces are going to be critical to their security forces. As will reconnaissance aircraft and close air support platforms. In these areas, the Afghans are getting better but they are still under resourced for the size of their country. Until those forces are available, their front line National Police and National Army forces are going to be unreliable. Without reinforcements, without medical support, and without confidence in their fellow soldiers, NP and NA troops will continue to defect and to desert at the first sign of trouble. Fix the above noted issues and you will see a drastic change in the fighting ability of the NP and NA troops.We have seen this reversal of fortunes in the performance of the Iraqi Army once they had sufficient force enablers.

As to what the Coalition and Afghan Security Forces are facing, there are a number of factors involved but generally speaking, the two biggest are:

They have access to the population
They have a sanctuary in a “neutral” country

The first point is COIN 101. You have to separate the population from the insurgents. In the Malay Emergency, this was done by walling off the villages and providing armed guards to keep the insurgents away. In Vietnam, it was the strategic hamlet program and in turn the development of the RUFF/PUFF program.In Iraq, it was the development of “gated communities.”

Without access to the populace, they lose recruits, resources, and intelligence. Because the insurgent is always at a force disadvantage to the counter-insurgent, they have to maximize their information dominance. The counter-insurgent is usually easy to find (they wear uniforms to distinguish themselves from the population, they drive around in easily identifiable military vehicles, and they typically operate from large easy to monitor military bases). Insurgents are hard to find because they usually live among the people (and contrary to the Laws of Warfare, they do not distinguish themselves from non-combatants), they travel in locally procured vehicles, and they tend to go home at night to their families and live like normal people.

But if you can separate them from the populace, then they stand out. They can’t get to their resources and they are forced to live in areas outside of the non-combat population.

In Malay, this worked better because the bulk of the insurgents were Chinese and therefore less likely to be supported by the local Malay population. In Vietnam, the strategic hamlet program ended up alienating the population and so was ended in the early 1960s. The use of locally recruited security (which was also used in Malay) worked much better.In Iraq, the walls did divide up the population but this was more an effort to stem the ethnic cleansing than to really separate the insurgents since the Sunni insurgents simply remained in Sunni neighborhoods and the Shi’a insurgents returned to their own neighborhoods. What really turned the tide in Iraq was the Sons of Iraq program.

In Afghanistan, similar programs have been attempted.Many problems prevented this from working but most of it was simply physical in nature. Afghanistan is a larger country than Iraq. Not significant measures but larger. And the population of Afghanistan is actually about 5 million people fewer. Shouldn’t that second point mitigate the first?

No. The problem is that where Iraq was a more modern society with the bulk of its population living in large cities, towns or villages, the Afghan population has only a few large cities and the rest is scattered over a much larger area in very small villages. This makes it incredibly difficult to secure large swaths of the population all at once as in the oil spot concept.

Whereas security in Iraq could spread from one town to the next through physical linkage of ground lines of communications (LOCs) and rapid reaction forces between population centers, Afghanistan’s many divided towns were physically blocked off by way of mountains and valleys. This meant that each security element was on its own and relied on more limited quick reaction forces which had to be transported to the fight via helicopters. In poor weather or even just in hot weather at high altitudes, this was not always possible. Moving by landing was incredibly slow and dangerous and so provided few back up options.

This problem is then compounded in southern Afghanistan (where arguably the terrain is better suited for rapid reaction forces) in that the Taliban is a Pashtun majority movement and so they have the backing of the Pashtun tribes. Since the Pashtun live mainly in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces, this is where their strong holds exist. These were the first provinces to fall to the Taliban in 1994 and they were the last to fall to Coalition forces in 2001. This is why counter-insurgency efforts have been much more successful in the West and North of the country. There have been successes in the East but these are threatened by the ease of access Taliban forces have for crossing over the Pakistan border. The length of the border and the fact that many of the access points are nothing more than goat trails make it impossible to close off.

The Coalition in Afghanistan continues to draw down. US forces have stabilized but are still not at the levels needed to provide the robust security needed to cut the Taliban off from the population. The Afghan security forces are not yet up to the task for a number of reasons but that doesn’t mean they won’t ever be up to the task. They have become much better and have done well in the North, particularly in the re-taking of Kunduz in what is becoming an almost annual event.

Right now, one of the key considerations wit regards to the Taliban is their splintering following the death of their founder Mullah Omar (and the realization that they had been lied to for years about his still being alive).For the counter-insurgent, the mission is not to kill the last insurgent. Rather, the solution is to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table and eventually into the government.So this fracturing, and possibly more important the encroachment of ISIS into Taliban territory, presents opportunities to begin bringing parts of the Taliban to the table and into the government. Under Omar’s singular rule, this was not possible. Now, there is opportunity.

Keep in mind, the elected Afghan government currently in power has ruled from 2004 (the date of their first Presidential election and Constitution) to now, which is (at the time of this writing) 13 years or nearly 3 times longer than the Taliban were in power. And this included three Presidential elections and the peaceful transition of power between political opponents.

Yes, the Taliban remain a formidable foe. The problems of the past endure both in terms of physical limitations and insufficient Coalition forces, but things are improving with regards to the increased capabilities of the Afghan forces and the opportunities presented by the splintering of the Taliban. The fight’s not over but the current trend is toward success for the current government and not the Taliban.

Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s ability to develop as a country is going to be hampered by the on-going insurgency. While Afghanistan does have a likely large reserve of rare earth metals, the intent should not be to turn Afghanistan into a rentier state. Rather, the focus should be on using access to those minerals to fund development of other industries within Afghanistan. What those industries will be remains to be seen but given the competition from Japan and no previous experience with manufacturing, expecting South Korea to produce cars was not an expected outcome.

At present, Afghanistan has an advantage in that it is currently run by a democratic government. One that has had 3 presidential elections to include a peaceful, transfer of power to an opposition leader and 2 parliamentary elections. By this point in South Korea’s history, the ROK had already fallen to a military coup (though the leadership prior to that was not the model of democracy, either).

The Taliban has, however, taken some fairly significant blows lately. In particular, the announcement that Mullah Omar was dead and likely had been for years splintered the group. This has caused a lot of in-fighting among the groups and weakened the Taliban’s overall ability to commit large forces to any particular objective. (The need for Omar’s successors to prove their bona fides has led to some of the more spectacular attacks such as in Kunduz but these attacks were eventually crushed.)

Now, with ISIL moving into Afghanistan, the Taliban is fighting on three fronts:

1. The Coalition forces

2. Other Taliban factions

3. ISIL

ISIL has drawn away many of their more extremist members which actually works good towards working out a peace agreement bringing in the remaining Taliban into government. ISIL is still much smaller at this point and relatively geographically isolated, so if the Taliban join the government, it may in fact be much easier to defeat ISIL than what we are seeing in Syria and Iraq. (ISIL also does not enjoy the same level of cross-border support from certain elements in Pakistan which also makes them weaker.)

The current democratic government of Afghanistan has already been in power twice as long as the Taliban ever ran the country. Security waxes and wanes but generally trends toward improvement throughout most of the country with the Taliban have its strongest foothold in the south and south-east provinces. However, the Taliban were badly splintered by the death of Mullah Omar (and the revelation that he had actually been dead for years prior) and now find themselves fighting internally while also dealing with ISIS and continuing to fight the Coalition-backed Afghan government forces.

Contrary to popular mythology, insurgencies do not usually win.Again, based on formal studies of insurgencies, the common wisdom about time being on the side of the insurgent is largely wrong. “[T]he longer an insurgency lasts, the more likely the government is to win.” This same study suggests that the mean length of an insurgency is about 10 years but that most will tail off around the 16 year point. Yes, this insurgency has been going on that long and is unlikely to end before the end of the year but the trends remain the same.

Most insurgencies do not end with a clear cut victory. Rather, violence simply reduces over time. The insurgency splinters and negotiations with the disparate groups begins to bring them into the political fold. Just as we saw Jaysh al-Mahdi transition from a formidable insurgency in Iraq into a powerful political party in the Iraqi government, we are likely to see the Taliban abandon its guns for a seat at the table. This is how insurgencies end, time and time again.

What is a “Win” in Afghanistan? When can we finally leave?

A slow draw down in violence. An increase in the number of average National Army soldiers who show up to work each day. A Taliban party running for office. And eventually a SOFA that significantly reduces US military presence in the country with a focus on continued training of Afghanistan’s security forces.

How long will this take? The pessimist in me says another ten years. But those will be ten years of reduced violence and of strengthening Afghanistan. History is on the side of the Afghan government at this point.

Re-printed with permission by original author BK Price