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RAND Review
Afghanistan on the Edge
A World at Risk of Winning the Urban Battle, Losing the Rural War, Abandoning the Regional Solution
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Knowing the Terrain
Many countries in the region have complicated U.S. and NATO efforts in Afghanistan, he said. “Pakistan has the most significant role. Iran has a small amount of arms flowing in. Indian involvement in reconstruction in Afghanistan has caused Pakistan to feel very insecure. The Russians are providing support to tribal leaders and warlords in the north of Afghanistan. Engaging a variety of actors in the region is an important step to take.”
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The good news is that the world need not look far for a solution. In late November and early December 2001, just days after the Taliban’s ouster, world leaders demonstrated how shared problems in the region could be resolved. The United Nations convened the regional powers in Bonn, Germany, to negotiate the architecture of the current Afghan government. Among those representing the U.S. delegation were its leader, Ambassador James Dobbins, who is now a RAND analyst, and Zalmay Khalilzad, a former RAND analyst who is now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The negotiations included the other key regional players: Iran, China, Pakistan, Russia, and India. By all accounts, the group succeeded in establishing a mutually acceptable government in Afghanistan.
“But that dissipated quickly,” said Jones. “We need to return to that framework. Working on a regional strategy to deal with the insurgency is critical.”
One source of regional conflict is a long-festering border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The dispute dates back to 1893 when Pakistan was still part of British India. At the time, Sir Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of the colonial government of India, and the ruler of Afghanistan, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, agreed on a border between Afghanistan and the British Indian empire and called this border the Durand Line. Today, Afghanistan considers the Durand Line, which divides the Pashtun population, to have lapsed. Pakistan, however, still recognizes the Durand Line (see Figure 4).
“This is a major source of tension,” said Jones. “The Afghans claim the border should be drawn much deeper into what is now Pakistan. Pakistan wants to leave the border where it is. There have been no efforts to resolve the situation.”
Meanwhile, Pakistani concerns have mounted about the growing role of India, which has established close diplomatic ties with the Afghan government, constructed its parliament building, and rebuilt many Afghan roads. To the chagrin of Pakistan, India has become Afghanistan’s “closest regional ally by far,” said Jones.
“This is driving some elements of the Pakistani government to support Afghan insurgent groups. In strategy journals in Pakistan, there is a constant driving theme that India has encircled them. So there are some Pakistanis who are willing to work with groups like the Taliban that can push the Pakistani sphere of influence into the south and east of Afghanistan. In a sense, Afghanistan is the site of a proxy war between Pakistan and India.”
No wonder the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan has become a no man’s land inviting to terrorists, while India and Pakistan wrestle for Kabul. Jones believes that India should become a central player in a new round of regional negotiations that would have two goals: to deny the Taliban and al Qaeda their sanctuary in the ungoverned border area and to remove Kabul as a point of contention between India and Pakistan.
If regional negotiations could once again set the ground rules for rebuilding Afghanistan, Jones proposes that an international civilian leader be appointed to coordinate foreign aid efforts in the country. After the fall of the Taliban, in contrast, Western countries established a “lead nation” approach to rebuilding Afghanistan’s security sector. Under the lead-nation approach, Germany would train the Afghan police, Italy would reform the judiciary, Britain would counter narcotics, Japan and the United Nations would disarm illegal armed groups, and the United States would build the Afghan Army.
“This arrangement was not successful,” said Jones. “Rather than revisit the lead-nation approach, one option would be to move in the direction of what has been done in the Balkans.” There, for example, the international community’s high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a rotating position held by world diplomats since 1995, beginning with former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and followed by successors from Spain, Austria, Britain, Germany, and Slovakia.
AP IMAGES/MUSADEQ SADEQAfghan girls in the northern Parwan province walk toward the Mollia Girls School on its inaugural day of August 31, 2006. The school serves five villages with a total of about 350 school-age girls. |
“A high representative would obviously not actually run Afghanistan, but he or she would increase efficiency,” said Jones. “The main job would be to coordinate civilian reconstruction efforts” among local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international agencies such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
“What gives me hope is in the areas of Afghanistan where international assistance has touched the population, mostly in the urban areas,” said Jones. “Seeing the changes in education — in the number of schools, the number of people going to school, the number of girls going to school — does give me hope that, over the last several years, the international community has had a positive impact on some places in Afghanistan.”
Ground Zero
The dangers of delaying assistance to the rest of Afghanistan are graver than ever, Jones warned. “The Taliban, al Qaeda, and other insurgent groups are more competent today than they were on 9/11 in several ways.”
Technologically, they have improved their use of media for spreading propaganda and for recruiting, and they have expanded their use of improvised explosive devices. “They’ve developed more-sophisticated types of weapons because they’ve been involved in fighting on multiple fronts against U.S. forces, especially in Iraq. This is an important area of increased competence.”
Structurally, al Qaeda has struck an adroit balance by emboldening new autonomous franchises while retaining its top-down leadership. Jones described al Qaeda today as four rings of concentric circles: al Qaeda central, affiliated groups, loose networks of affiliated individuals, and other individuals inspired to take independent action.
“My biggest fear about Afghanistan is that the population could give up on the government.” |
Numerically and geographically, “al Qaeda has spread its tentacles.” Between 1995 and 2001, the group averaged fewer than two attacks per year. Between 2002 and 2006, it averaged ten attacks per year, excluding Iraq and Afghanistan. The attacks have spread to London, Madrid, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Tunisia, and Algeria.
The trend is especially alarming inside Afghanistan. “The number of insurgent-initiated attacks in the country increased by 400 percent from 2002 to 2006. The number of deaths from these attacks increased over 800 percent during the same period,” said Jones. “Many of these attacks were against Afghan civilians, international aid workers, and coalition forces. The increase in violence was particularly acute between 2005 and 2006.”
Jones worries mostly about the Afghan people. “My biggest fear about Afghanistan is that the population could give up on the government. In 2001, there was hope and expectation that the Afghan government, with international assistance, could make life better for Afghans, bring electricity where there was none, increase the flow of water to villages, provide essential services that the Taliban government did not do, increase the basic economic and health and other conditions in the country. My biggest fear is that the Afghan population will eventually give up on the government’s ability to provide these services. It’s already happened in some places.”
AP IMAGES/DAVID GUTTENFELDERAn Afghan woman walks along a snowy path in her neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan, on February 19, 2007. |
Younossi mentioned that the Afghan government manages only 20 percent of the foreign aid now being sent to the country, with the rest being managed by nongovernmental and international organizations. “If the local government were allowed to manage a larger portion of the aid,” he suggested, “the government might stand a better chance of winning over the people.”
Jones concurs. “Ultimately, counterinsurgency is about governance, about the local government being able to provide security and basic services to its population. Some areas of the country haven’t seen those. That’s what I stay up late at night thinking about: when the population gives up or becomes too fearful because the Taliban has gained control again. That’s the center of gravity. If you lose the population, you lose the war.” 
Related Reading
“Afghanistan Needs Help,” United Press International, December 19, 2006, Obaid Younossi.
America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, James Dobbins, John G. McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G. Jones, Rollie Lal, Andrew Rathmell, Rachel M. Swanger, Anga Timilsina, RAND/MR-1753-RC, 2003, 280 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3460-X.
“Averting Failure in Afghanistan,” Survival, Vol. 48, No. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 111-128, Seth G. Jones.
The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building, James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, Beth Cole DeGrasse, RAND/MG-557-SRF, 2007, 328 pp., ISBN 978-0-8330-3988-0.
Establishing Law and Order After Conflict, Seth G. Jones, Jeremy M. Wilson, Andrew Rathmell, K. Jack Riley, RAND/MG-374-RC, 2005, 292 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3814-1.
“Force Requirements in Stability Operations,” Parameters, Winter 1995, pp. 59-69, James T. Quinlivan.
As of press time:
Full Document
“Pakistan’s Dangerous Game,” Survival, Vol. 49, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 15-32, Seth G. Jones.
Securing Health: Lessons from Nation-Building Missions, Seth G. Jones, Lee H. Hilborne, C. Ross Anthony, Lois M. Davis, Federico Girosi, Cheryl Benard, Rachel M. Swanger, Anita Datar Garten, Anga Timilsina, RAND/MG-321-RC, 2006, 388 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3729-3.
Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes, Seth G. Jones, Olga Oliker, Peter Chalk, C. Christine Fair, Rollie Lal, James Dobbins, RAND/MG-550-OSI, 2006, 232 pp., ISBN 978-0-8330-4018-3.
“The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” National Intelligence Estimate, Washington, D.C.: National Intelligence Council, July 2007, 6 pp.
As of press time:
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