State of play

2008

The reconstitution of al-Qaeda:Losing Afghanistan and western Pakistan, Ahmed Rashid, Himal South Asian, September 2008

Seven years on, the US-led war on terrorism has left in its wake a far more unstable world than existed on that momentous day: 11 September 2001. Rather than diminishing, the threat from al-Qaeda and its affiliates has grown, engulfing new regions of Africa, Asia and Europe and creating fear among peoples and governments from Australia to Zanzibar. In the region that spawned al-Qaeda and which the US has promised to transform after 9/11, the crisis is even more dangerous. Afghanistan is once again staring down the abyss of state collapse, despite billions of dollars in aid, 45,000 Western troops, and the deaths of thousands of people. The Taliban have made a dramatic comeback, enlisting the help of al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists in Pakistan, and getting a boost from the explosion in heroin production that has helped fund their movement.

Diggers locked into bitter conflict with no boundaries, Daniel Flitton, Age, 3 September 2008

A poll released in June suggested most Australians — some 60% — support a troop deployment until the situation is stabilised. But that presumes a key element, that at some future point it will be possible to recognise what a stable Afghanistan looks like.

The final objective is unclear. The invasion was widely supported as an effort to hunt down the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks and topple the Taliban. The mission has crept towards an entirely different goal. The West is now propping up a country for the long term.

Afghanistan: On the Cliff-Edge, Paul Rogers, Open Democracy, 31 August 2008

The Taliban's new tactics are taking them nearer to Kabul. Washington's response: redouble failure. The bottom-line is that there is only one answer to the Taliban revival, the revitalisation of al-Qaida, and even the jihadist presence in western Pakistan: the application of intense military force. There is simply no other way.

Analyzing the Afghanistan-Pakistan War, Anthony Cordesman, CSIS, 29 July 2008.

It has now been more than six years since the start of the Afghan-Pakistan War, and serious questions still exist about the way in which the US, the UN, NATO/ISAF, and individual allied countries plan and analyze the war. The problems involved are partly disguised by the lack of transparency in official reporting.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan War: Measuring Success (or Failure), Anthony Cordesman, CSIS, 29 July 2008 [PPT]

Summary of the areas that need to be covered as part of an effective joint campaign plan, and a comparison of the critical weaknesses in far too much official, military, and intelligence reporting (shown in black) and the kind of reporting that is actually needed (in red).

Seesaw Afghan war strains ties among allies, Carlotta Gall, IHT, 19 May 2008

Increasingly, the question before the allies is how much longer it will take in crucial provinces, like Kandahar, to lock in tentative gains and bring real security and strong government to Afghans. An equally important question is whether that can be done before the war wears down relations within the U.S.-led alliance, and between it and the Afghan people. "No one claims this is going to be a year of full stabilization or even declining violence, let alone an end to the conflict," said Christopher Alexander, deputy special representative for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. But he added, "there is a different picture in different places," which makes it extremely difficult to gauge progress in the war and which has helped generate diverging views of the conflict among Afghan officials and their American and NATO allies.

Afghanistan is not lost but the signs are not good. Its growing insurgency reflects a collective failure to tackle the root causes of violence. Six years after the Taliban’s ouster, the international community lacks a common diagnosis of what is needed to stabilise the country as well as a common set of objectives. The international community has aimed too low in Afghanistan, pandering to patronage networks rather than respecting the wishes of ordinary Afghan men and women for accountability and more inclusive peacebuilding. While addressing their own shortcomings, the internationals must also hold the Kabul government accountable for its failings. The situation is not hopeless, but it is bad, and an urgent collective effort is needed to tackle it.

 

Military force will not win the Afghan war, Scott Burchill, Age, 18 January 2008

The problem for Rudd and his Western allies in Afghanistan is that the war is virtually unwinnable by any criteria that make rational sense. Defeating the Taliban seems no closer six years after the country was first attacked. Vague war aims, such as bringing "long-term stability to the country" (Rudd), seem as remote as ever, and will continue to be thwarted as long as support for the Taliban — once regarded as a serious political movement in the country but now dismissed by Western governments as "terrorists" — continues from military sources in neighbouring Pakistan. Regardless of how odious their rule was until October 2001, the Taliban remain a potent and influential domestic political force in the country. Rudd claims "our advice and our conviction is that this is a job worth doing," but what exactly is the job? The West is unable to define, let alone achieve, victory in Afghanistan. Interventions inevitably produce many unexpected consequences and insoluble problems, including terrorism, insurgency and resistance. As has been seen in Iraq, wars usually go awry and often become uncontrollable. Afghanistan is no different. There are no military solutions to its complex social, economic and political challenges. Only diplomacy and compromise will spare its benighted population from further misery.

2007

Memo to Kevin Rudd: Why are we in Afghanistan? Richard Tanter, Arena Magazine, 92, December 2007 - January 2008

Why are we still in Afghanistan, six years after the al-Qaeda training camps used for the September 11 attacks were destroyed? Rudd holds the widespread view that Iraq is the bad war, a war that is lost, but that Afghanistan is the good war, a war that is both winnable and desirable. Neither is true. US and Australian political and military elites have learned a lesson in Iraq, but have yet to learn the lesson in Afghanistan. There will be no military solution in Afghanistan. Whatever solution is going to come will have to be, in some form or another, political. Following the death of yet another Australian, and the deaths of some 70 Canadians and many Dutch, American and British soldiers, to say nothing of tens of thousands of Afghanis, the question of how the Afghanistan war is going to end has to be addressed by the incoming Australian government.

U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War: Strategic Goals Unmet, White House Concludes, Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, 25 November 2007

A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials. The latest assessment concluded that only "the kinetic piece" -- individual battles against Taliban fighters -- has shown substantial progress, while improvements in the other areas continue to lag, a senior administration official said.

Stumbling into chaos: Afghanistan on the brink, Senlis Council, November 2007

The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions. The Taliban's ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; exclusive research undertaken by Senlis Afghanistan indicates that 54 per cent of Afghanistan’s landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan, and is subject to frequent hostile activity by the insurgency.

8 September 2008