One More On Tribal Militias Posted by Michael Cohen

Just when you thought we had pretty much exhausted this topic at DA, there are two recent articles that add some complexity to the question of Afghan tribal engagement. First is this piece from Josh Foust in the National where he makes the argument that engaging Afghan "tribes" is not a effective means of stabilizing Afghanistan.

The current structure of the Taliban, as a de-tribalised Islamist resistance movement, means that normal methods of working within the tribal system are far less effective, if at all. It is why these initiatives to bribe tribes to fight for America fail so reliably – they just don’t apply to how and why people are choosing affiliations and making decisions. Since the Taliban is a movement that is inclusive of traditionally rivalrous tribes, even rivalrous ethnicities, that rivalry cannot be exploited to undo the movement.

You should read the whole piece here. Next we have Gilles Dorronsorro, who makes the argument that trying to pick and choose which tribes to support will have a destabilizing impact on the country:

Washington's gravest error, however, is its manifest lack of interest in shoring up the Afghan central government. Whatever the official word about fighting corruption, the international coalition is bypassing Kabul in favor of local strong-men, on whom it is growing more and more dependent for protection and logistics, especially in the south. Worse, the population rejects the militias, which are often brutal toward civilians, and do little to increase support for Karzai or the coalition. 

Even inside the Afghan legal system, the coalition is choosing its partners at a local level, skirting the political center. NATO's Provincial Reconstruction Teams act with total independence from Kabul, which is often not even informed of their actions. 

Dorronsorro argues that the biggest problem with US policy is that it's undercutting the Karzai regime and risks leaving "nothing behind in Afghanistan but warring factions - a mess not unlike the one that precipitated the Taliban's rise to power in the first place."

I think here Dorrronsorro gets to the nub of the issue. Michael Hanna has argued here that we need these sort of band-aids in Afghanistan so that we can get closer to a withdrawal point from Afghanistan:

We overestimate our ability to craft long-term, sustainable solutions to the many ills that plague Afghanistan. In short, I don’t believe that these types of short-term efforts are irreparably damaging the coherent nation-building strategy that would simply take its place. When coupled with the difficult security situation then I think that band-aids are not such a bad idea − we need all the help we can get.

But the problem here - as Dorronsorro argues - is that we are basically choosing a short-term solution at a serious cost to Afghanistan's long-term viability. In fact, I would actually make the argument that Afghanistan's long-term stability may well be a more important issue to US interests than even defeating al Qaeda (which we've already done in Afghanistan) or the Taliban (who were likely not going to defeat militarily). Band-aids are just that; a temporary fix - and while they might serve US interests in the near term they risk being disastrous to the region (and ourselves) over the long-term.

Ultimately if we leave Afghanistan a fractured mess, riven by empowered tribes, a militarily and politically viable Taliban and a weak, emasculated central government this is a recipe for a return to civil war and regional instability. 

Indeed, one could argue that our goal in Afghanistan should be not necessarily to defeat the Taliban, but weaken it enough and strengthen the government in Kabul so that we achieve some level of stasis - and prevent the possibility of a Taliban takeover of the country. But it does seems like an agenda focused on tribal engagement risks weakening the central government so significantly that when we do leave they will be unable to stand up to the Taliban.  

It's not that this sort of "tribal" outreach is necessarily bad it's that it needs to be coordinated with the government in Kabul so that these arrangements, while localized in nature, are providing indirect support to the central government. So brazenly going around Kabul undercuts the same government that we are nominally supporting.

Of course, this means that we are then reliant on a corrupt Karzai government and it likely precludes us from being able to leave Afghanistan any time soon. Ultimately, we are going to have to live and die with Hamid Karzai and make amends with his corrupt leadership. Granted, that's not much of a solution - and all of our Afghan options are a combination of bad and worse - but it seems a smarter way to go than supporting a number of independent and unconnected factions to the ultimate detriment of Afghanistan's long-term stability. 

Comments

[dsi]

Hi,
I know that American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban....

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