Tag: Russia
Stevenson’s army, September 7
– WaPo has good explainer on Guinea coup.
– WSJ says China’s industrial policy is getting more effective.
– Germany blames Russia for election interference.
– Politico says steel tariffs pose dilemma for Biden.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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The Americans are out, but conflict will persist
Wisely, the Americans left Afghanistan at the beginning of the August 31 deadline, not its end. The 3:29 pm departure of the last flight from Kabul took off at 11:59 pm Afghanistan time, which is 7.5 hours ahead of Washington. Hanging on until the last moment would have invited another suicide bomb, a heat-seeking missile attack on a departing plane, or other spectacular move by ISIS Khorasan.
More than 120,000 people were evacuated, but hundreds of eligible people are known to have been left behind. The Biden Administration has pledged to continue to try to get people out. That should prove possible from regional airports or by land, but it will likely be done as covert action rather than in public. The Taliban have pledged to allow anyone out who wants to leave, but I wouldn’t believe that until we see it.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution today, with China and Russia abstaining. The resolution asks that the airport be kept open for both evacuations and incoming humanitarian assistance. The French wanted a “safe zone” around the airport, but they didn’t get it. Turkey and Qatar, both more inclined towards Islamist rule than many other countries, have been volunteering to keep it open with private companies, but the Taliban have not accepted that proposition yet. The UNSC resolution also formalizes international community demands that the Taliban not support international terrorism, respect human rights (in particular those of women and girls), and reach an “inclusive” political settlement.
None of that is likely without enormous international pressure. The main leverage derives from money, not legitimacy. The Taliban regard themselves as legitimate and most of the people of Afghanistan have no choice. What the Taliban need more than anything else to solidify their legistimacy is hard cash. Afghanistan’s assets abroad are frozen and the International Monetary Fund distribution of “Special Drawing Rights” (to obtain hard currency) have not been transferred. The Taliban are saying they will block poppy and opium production, which has been a main source of their income. Moscow is already calling on the IMF and World Bank to send reconstruction aid. The West will want to see conditions at least partly met first.
There is a real prospect fighting will continue in Afghanistan, not only between the Taliban and ISIS-K but also between the Taliban and their most vigorous opponents, especially in the Panjshir Valley. In addition, Taliban forces may not be as completely unified as they appeared when fighting the Afghan government. Falling out among revolutionaries is more the rule than the exception. Odds are we’ll see more than one violent conflict emerge in the aftermath of the American withdrawal.
That will not be good news for the people of Afghanistan. They have suffered mightily not just for twenty years since the American invasion but for more than 40. While it is commonly said that the Americans accomplished nothing, I think that simply isn’t true. While the American military assistance can be labelled a complete failure, civilian assistance enabled girls and women to get education, a mostly free press to flourish, health standards to rise, and civil society to emerge. Only time will tell, but my guess is the Taliban are in for a roughter ride than when they took over power in the 1990s. They will have difficult choices to make between brutal repression, their usual habit, and the kind of inclusion that could win popular support.
The Americans are well out of the picture, even if their chosen mode of departure was unnecessarily chaotic and destabilizing. President Biden deserves credit for abandoning a war that no longer made sense but also criticism for the failure to do it in an orderly way. The likelihood of stability in the aftermath is not high. The Americans are out, but conflict will persist.
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Stevenson’s army, August 27
– US still expects a truck bomb near the Kabul airport.
– WSJ has good background reports on ISIS-K and on Haqqani network.
– Treasury allows humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
FAOs take note: naval war college prof says US can’t succeed in building foreign armies.
-Defense One notes omission from Russian strategy document.
– Poll shows US support for defending Taiwan.
– WaPo has interactive site to follow redistricting.
– WOTR says we need to change combatant command arrangements.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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It isn’t going to be easy to choose what to do
Tony Cordesman offers a set of “negative” policy options for the US in dealing with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan:
- Threaten to attack any terrorist groups that launch attacks outside Afghanistan.
- Withhold recognition of the new government.
- Pressure other states, including Afghanistan’s neighbors.
- Cut off the aid that funded some 80% of the former government’s operations and security efforts.
- Introduce yet another mix of sanctions to exert maximum pressure.
But he thinks incorporating in addition a more “positive,” conditional approach would be more effective. These boil down to “carefully planned and executed” diplomatic recognition and economic aid. Peter Galbraith likewise argued on BBC today that diplomatic recognition should be considered, not because the US approves of the Taliban takeover but because it could enable more rescue of people who want to leave. Without consular officers in Kabul, getting people out is going to be difficult, mainly because of US bureaucratic requirements. An embassy might also be able to exert some influence on Taliban behavior, provided of course that Washington gets iron-clad security guarantees for the Americans returning to Kabul.
The financial cut-off has already begun. Taliban access to Afghanistan government accounts in the United States has been blocked and scheduled dollar cash transfers suspended. The next big move may be suspension of IMF and World Bank activities. The kind of targeted sanctions in fashion these days–focused on the personal finances and travel of miscreants–is mostly ineffective with the Taliban, since they presumably are too smart to keep their savings in dollars and uninterested in international travel.
The threat to attack international terrorist groups hardly needs reiteration. The problem will be identifying and locating them. Past cruise missile attacks on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan had little real impact. Even the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan did not destroy Al Qaeda, which has burrowed in to many different countries even if it hasn’t been able to mount attacks on the US for most of the last two decades.
Afghanistan’s neighbors are likely beyond pressuring: Pakistan because it is delighted with the Taliban victory and Iran because it is already profoundly unhappy with it. Russia will suck up to the Taliban until they either support terrorists inside Russia or in the stans that are its northern neighbors. China will likely be a bit more cautious, fearing the Taliban might just care about the treatment of the Uygurs, or even support tererorist attacks, from across the short border with Xinjiang. The commercial temptation for the Chinese will be great, as Afghanistan has appetizing mineral deposits, but the risks will loom large.
So the diplomatic option starts to look good when you realize how limited the other options are. But its feasibility depends on how the Taliban treat the Afghan population, especially women, minorities, journalists, and people who supported the effort to build a democratic states for the past twenty years, either directly or indirectly. There is a reason the Taliban are making friendly noises about women’s rights and amnesty for those who fought against them. They are savvy enough to know that surviving this time around depends on not offending international sensibilities too dramatically.
But the Taliban are not pluralists. They will not tolerate competition for power, even in the limited forms it existed under Presidents Karzai and Ghani. The Taliban are totalitarians who intend to govern by their own, fundamentalist, interpretation of Sharia. We know well what that meant 25 years ago: little or no education for women, abuse of minorities, no elections, no press (much less freedom of), catastrophically poor health care, and heavy reliance on drug trafficking for income. It is difficult to picture any organized opposition to Taliban authority, which they claim comes not from the people but from God.
There is a hint of insurgency in the Panjshir valley, the majority-Tajik center of resistance to the Soviets and the Taliban in the 1990s. You can expect the Taliban to be merciless in cracking down there, when the time comes. Taliban forces have already fired on demonstrators in Herat and Jalalabad. We’ve seen in Hong Kong and Belarus how autocracies can succeed against popular, nonviolent rebellion. The Taliban are likely to make the Chinese and Belarusians look like softies.
The Taliban are still allowing the evacuation of thousands of people from the Kabul airport. No one should be fooled: this is ridding them of many of their most capable, internationally well-connected, opponents. At some point, they will decide enough is enough and either start blocking access–there are reports that is already happening, especially to women trying to get to the airport–or demand the US and other Western powers start paying for the privilege.
Our options are limited. Diplomatic recognition could bring an onslaught of domestic US criticism. It isn’t going to be easy to choose what to do.
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Biden was right and wrong
Afghanistan is falling to the Taliban much faster than most anticipated. So was President Biden right to get American troops out of harm’s way, or was he wrong to abandon friends and allies?
Right
The great virtue of his decision is apparent: the remaining 2500 or so American troops in Afghanistan, along with the diplomats and other officials, were in danger. Twenty years of American support, equipment, and training had not turned the tide. The Americans were doing little fighting, but the Afghan security forces were declining in effectiveness. There was little or no reason to believe that they would improve and considerable reason to doubt that they could continue to hold the Taliban at bay. Enlarging the US presence in Afghanistan would have been foolhardy. It is hard to give credit for a tragedy averted, especially when a different tragedy (for Afghans rather than Americans) ensues, but that is what Biden deserves.
Wrong
Abandoning the Afghans to the Taliban puts a lot more than 2500 human beings at risk. Even if every single one of the translators and others who helped the Americans is evacuated, thousands of Afghans will die, hundreds of thousands will be displaced, property, careers, and lives will be ruined. A relatively open society will close once again: women will be cloistered, media shuttered, health facilities closed, and education devalued. People who believed in democracy and the rule of law will be lucky to escape the country. Many will be killed, imprisoned, or at the least disempowered.
If you are truly a humanitarian, then it doesn’t matter to you whether the people who suffer are Americans or Afghans. Nor does it matter whether they believe in democracy and the rule of law. They are entitled to a life with dignity. They won’t get it with the Taliban back in power.
Odds are that the Taliban will welcome back (clandestinely if not openly) Al Qaeda or even the Islamic State, which otherwise will present a risk to their rule. While Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are in no position today to represent a big international threat, a few years of rebuilding on Afghan soil could make them a threat once again. You can discount that threat because it is years off, but what is your discount rate? Will you be unhappy if international terrorists return to attack the US in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years?
It was no easy decision
President Biden has said the decision was easy. It should not have been. While he may have imagined that the Afghan security forces would hold, he should have known that there was a possibility of collapse. He also knew that there would be a real possibility the Taliban would not fulfill their commitment to disallow international terrorism.
Biden may have imagined that other countries closer to Afghanistan would step in to save the day. Iran has a great deal to lose from a Sunni extremist regime on its border that will depend on drug trafficking. China and Russia do too. While Pakistan has supported the Taliban, despite Islamabad’s denials, the Pakistani Taliban may gain renewed momentum from the change of regime in Kabul. All of these nearer neighbors have more at stake than the US, but none of them has been ready to shoulder the burden so long as the Americans were doing it for them. Nor is it likely they will do so now.
Bottom line
I don’t think the US presence in Afghanistan was sustainable, for two reasons: domestic US opposition was growing and the Taliban were gaining ground. Biden should have found a more fruitful exit with a better chance of preserving at least some of the gains of the past two decades. President Trump set the process of withdrawal in motion, but Biden had an opportunity to improve on the deal his predecessor unwisely cut. He’ll pay the political price for that at home, though it may not be a high one. Afghans will pay a much steeper price.
You can be right in one dimension and wrong in another.
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It’s all over but the shouting, in Kabul or not
It is hard to keep up with the Taliban advance in Afghanistan, which has now engulfed at least 12 provincial capitals and perhaps two-thirds of the country. The Afghan National Army (ANA) is collapsing in many places. Civilians who can are fleeing to the capital. Civilians who can’t are suffering dreadful Taliban depredations. There will soon be little left of the hard-won progress on women’s rights, relatively free media, improved health care, and property rights. The Taliban will take what they want, destroy the hospitals and clinics, dictate to radio and TV, and drive women into hiding. Their is no sign that their years out of power have moderated their extremist views.
The American withdrawal unquestionably precipitated this debacle. It was poorly executed and far too fast for the limited ANA capabilities. President Biden, who says he doesn’t regret it, will take the rap, but it was President Trump who agreed to it. Taliban promises have proven empty. They have not negotiated seriously with the government delegation in Doha and they have not broken with Al Qaeda. They may still do both, but only if the government forces are able to block their advance. That is unlikely.
It would be wrong however to conclude that everything would have been okay had the Americans stayed. The Taliban were already gaining territory before the American withdrawal. The ANA might well have collapsed, even if more slowly, had American support continued. A longer “decent interval” might have allowed for more negotiation in Doha, but the ultimate outcome would likely not have been a lot better than we are likely to see now.
What are we likely to see now? The Taliban will want to secure as much of the country as they can. The only big question is whether they will try to take Kabul by force. They could conceivably conclude it would be better not to do that, in hope of capturing some international aid, or avoiding international opprobrium, in the aftermath. But if they spare Kabul, they will still want President Ghani out and some sort of transitional regime friendly to their cause installed. There is no hope that the negotiations in Doha can produce better results than the military situation on the ground, which is catastrophic from Ghani’s perspective.
Western countries are busy threatening the Taliban with isolation if they continue the offensive. That is pointless. The Taliban don’t care about isolation from the West, which they assume will not provide assistance in the aftermath. The countries whose attitudes will count for the Taliban are the neighboring powers, especially Pakistan, Iran, China, and Russia. Pakistan in particular has a lot of clout, because it provides the Taliban with safe haven, but Chinese or Russian aid might carry some weight as well. It will be interesting to see if the Taliban avoid atrocities against the (Shia) Hazaras, in order not to provoke Iran. It will also be interesting to see if the Taliban continue to maintain friendly relations with Al Qaeda and even allow it to use Afghanistan again as a platform for international terror.
President Ghani is calling on civilians to arm and resist the Taliban, including the warlords whom he has rightly tried to marginalize in recent years. Even if he did not try to summon support, the prospect of insurgency against Taliban rule is real. That will make their behavior in victory more abusive, not less. They will want to squelch any armed resistance as quickly and decisively as possible. No one should doubt their level of brutality.
It’s all over but the shouting, in Kabul or not.
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