Afghanistan: Opium, War, and Strategy

Antonio Maria Costa, who directs the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (statistician, or organizer of? - at the UN, it's so hard to tell...) recently noted that opium cultivation in Afghanistan was scheduled to hit 6,100 tonnes: about 30% over global demand, and 92% of global supply. He added that the increase in cultivation was significantly fueled by the resurgence of the Taliban rebels in the south, where they are promising protection to growers and urging expansion of operations in exchange for a cut of the proceeds.

Over at The Agonist, Ian Welsh traces a number of these developments to recent anti-opium policies pursued without a lot of thought, and there's a good case for that. The issue is important enough that I'd urge you read his piece.

Now, here's where I think he goes off the rails.

Ian complains bitterly that the current situation is due to the fact that Afghanistan was not flooded with reconstruction aid. Well, let's look at that.

Perhaps he might recall the desertion of many NGOs from the scene, as well as the unhelpful role played by others (leading to the inauguration of the derisive term "Toyota Taliban"). That pretty much breaks the conventional aid pipeline, and led to the Provincial Reconstruction Team/ Fort Apache model that is smaller in scale, but does seem to be effective. It's probably a harbinger of the kinds of approaches required in future (the unlikely model for which is... Cuba).

These truths imply limits to the what could and can be done. Likewise, Ian neglects the fact that there isn't much one can do in terms of reconstruction for farmers until basic things like roads are in place to transport produced goods to some kind of market. This stuff isn't done by waving magic wands, you know, unless the crop comes with the ridiculous markups and low weight of opium that make individual couriers an economic option.

As it happens, road construction et. al. has indeed been a major focus of allied nations and of the Karzai government over the last couple of years.

It's important for intelligent critics who want the war to succeed to acknowledge things like that.

This does not, by the way, make Ian's points re: whether it would have been better to offer to buy the opium crop any less valid. That's still an intelligent criticism, and a policy option. Of course, anyone proposing it must acknowledge that a chunk of any monies handed out that way would have been given to or extorted at gunpoint by the Taliban. It's not a cost free option by any means. It's possible to argue, however, that the changes in the cash flow/margins dynamic, and in the personal dynamics in the countryside (which Ian rightly points out is key to the war), would make that a worthwhile policy.

More on those countryside dynamics later, but first let's look at WHY the Taliban remain in the picture under any scenario: they have a sanctuary in Pakistan.

Pakistan's lawless frontier to the east is a sanctuary for al-Qaeda, which it will not control or divest but will shield. The British commander in Helmland-Uruzgun has openly said that Quetta, Pakistan is the command center for al-Qaeda and the Taliban on the Afghan front. The Pakistani government has tried to improve education by reforming the madrassa system, but this has failed; nor can it control these areas from a security standpoint. So long as Pakistani madrassas continue to make "churning out jihadi freakazoids" their sole subject, train them for war, and supply them before and after their voyages into Afghanistan, with no significant consequences either in Pakistan or from outside sources, the Taliban will be a permanent presence in Afghanistan. Period.

Western special forces are currently active in Pakistan, and the Pakistani Army has taken credit for several strikes that were really carried out by Predator UAVs and other forces. Having said that, take a hard look at the in-depth profile on Pakistan done by Patrick Belton, and this piece by Dan Darling on the "Talibanization" of northern Pakistan. Pakistan is going to remain a very hedged ally and a relative sanctuary, until/unless we decide that we're willing to risk or wage a nuclear conflict to settle the issue in Afghanistan. Personally, I'm not holding my breath.

Of course, the resulting Taliban presence in southern Afghanistan has consequences. These include the need to militarize aid projects, limits to reconstruction (burning down girls schools remains a favorite pastime of theirs for instance), and persistent banditry and extortion that eventually turn to the classic protection rackets and narco-terrorism we've seen elsewhere. Pakistan's posture makes these developments certain - and Iran's help shipping it ensures ready distribution from two directions.

Which leads one to questions of strategy. What is to be our war in Afghanistan?

What Is To Be Our War?

Above all, our war in Afghanistan is aimed at preventing the Taliban and al-Qaeda from successfully re-establishing a base of operations there. All else is deeply secondary. As Winds has noted, Counterinsurgency in Tribal Societies has its own logic - but the broader logic in theater can be clearly and simply stated:

The allies must ensure that the key power brokers in Afghan society are not pushed to coalesce against them.

The Soviets made the mistake of ignoring that, and how much good did their 100,000+ troops do them then?

So, that is our war. It means playing tribal politics, balancing one against the other and sometimes switching sides, leveraging both money and combat power, and pissing no-one off unless absolutely necessary or done as part of the tribal/power-broker balancing act. The goal is too keep options open, promise as little as possible, then deliver on promises.

Warlords? NOT OUR PROBLEM - because if we make it ours, we unite them all against us and destroy the key underpining of our strategy. The only thing that gets a warlord targeted is friendliness with the Taliban or their allies.

Drugs being grown? Unless we can find a way to make the growers allies who see the Taliban as a threat, again, NOT OUR PROBLEM. Otherwise, all you've done is created hostile power bases among large swathes of the farming population, plus the heavily-armed narco-traffickers. That starts to make control of the countryside very difficult, and gives the Taliban/Pakistanis lots of allies and hiding places. Bad move.

I've been saying this stuff for a while. Repeat the mantra:

"Divide and neutralize. Ensure that the key power brokers in Afghan society are not pushed to coalesce against you. Squeeze the Taliban at every juncture."

Which is why the recent moves against the opium growers show the same misunderstanding of Afghanistan's terrain and mission as the morons who think the USA should have "sent more troops" to Afghanistan instead of Iraq, in an imitation of the Soviets' oh-so-successful experience.

Instead, Afghanistan is precisely about keeping a lower profile. Unlike places like Iraq, which have both a lot of infrastructure and a lot of strategic significance, Afghanistan has very little of either. Which means a war that's about patient work in the countryside at times and places of our choosing, supported by rapid reaction strikes from isolated bases, rather than static bases in the middle of the population and heavy patrolling.

That's long work thanks to the Pakistani sanctuary, and so the engagement of European allies in the field via NATO/ISAF is a wise move. Not least of which because it serves as a constant source of encounter and friction with the most reactionary form of Islamofascism on the planet - and a "commando olympics" training ground to boot. It also raises the pressure level on Pakistan, which is good because they're reluctant allies at best.

So, what about the Afghans in all this? Well, life will be much better than it was under the Taliban - but Afghanistan is not a "normal" country and will not become one soon. President Karzai's goal, from people who have spoken with him, is something like Japan's Meiji Restoration in which the emperor crushed the samurai and began forging a modern nation on Japanese terms. It's a civilized and commendable goal. Getting to that point, however, is going to take time. In fact, if it happens in less than a decade, I'll be shocked. So much must be built from nothing, from national transportation infrastructure, to a strong and experienced army, to effective police, before one could even contemplate a serious move by the central government.

Until then, it's a waiting game. And that waiting game needs to remember the goal, and repeat the mantra. Regardless of fulminations from the Right about the evils of drugs. Or the predictable "blame America first" hypocrisy of the Left that seeks to portray Afghanistan as a failure, because people are still growing poppies there like they have for the last several hundred years.

Along the way, smarter policies regarding Afghanistan's drug problems will be desperately needed, in order to prevent the very mistakes our war must avoid. Ian is dead right about that. But his vision of what should - and could - have been done instead is flawed... and intelligent discussion of that war front needs to understand why.