The Missing Piece in Afghanistan: Negotiations
I am surprised that I seem to be the only one raising this issue, but it seems pretty clear to me that the only way you make a 18-24 month timeframe workable in Afghanistan is if you have a robust negotiation strategy. I don’t mean weak sauce like offering offering to treat defectors fairly. I understand that this is a concession of sorts — at least we’re not threatening anymore to send all Taliban fighters past and present to Gitmo for the rest of their lives — but realistically, all we’ve ever offered to Afghan insurgents is amnesty if they unconditionally surrender. That is simply insufficient.
18-24 months, however, is probably sufficient to beat the insurgents about the head and neck sufficiently to make them willing to sit down and engage in a process leading to a negotiated cessation of hostilities. I’ve given the outlines before: they get regional autonomy, we get a commitment to stop violence elsewhere and to deny AQ safe haven.
Operationally, this approach would require an unabashedly enemy-centric military campaign, with the goal of systematically dislodging Taliban forces from strongholds and pursuing insurgent fighters vigorously. The goal isn’t to build institution or win the hearts and minds of the people. The goal is to alter the cost-benefit calculation of insurgent leaders to make them willing to enter into a serious negotiation process. This approach also has the advantages of (a) not holding American hostages to the ability of the Karzai government to get its act together and (b) takes better advantage of our military dominance of the battlefield.
This goes wholly against much of the dominant thinking in Washington, and as I’ve said before it may be politically impossible domestically. But if you want results in 18-24 months, this is the only plausible way to make that happen. And once you eliminate the impossible and intolerable, what you’re left with is the range of the possible. We probably should start working inside that range rather than fantasizing about possibilities outside it.
Would going enemy-centric really alter the insurgent’s calculation enough to get them to the negotiate? Didn’t the Soviets essentially wage an enemy-centric campaign to no avail?
And what would an enemy centric military campaign look like when most of the leadership is in Pakistan? Even more drone strikes?
I think the idea is to use negotiation as a means to persuade reconcilable Taliban to stop fighting. And through this method reduce the fighting power of the enemy. If this is the case, then carrots will likely prove as valuable as sticks.
Even if an enemy centric campaign was successful in persuading reconcilable Taliban to stop fighting, it seems likely that it would simultaneously create more “hard-core” leaning fighters due to heavy collateral damage, high civilian casualties, etc. Furthermore, even if the strategy could dissuade accidental guerrillas from siding with the insurgents, the coalition still must also have a viable alternative to offer — jobs, protection from the Taliban, etc.
So, I am still unsure of how an enemy centric model would really play out and increase our chance of success in 18 months.
Dr. Finel, would you mind elaborating?
Yes, I’ll post a full explanation by Monday.
[...] made this point as well several times. As long as we consider “negotiation” synonymous with reintegrating [...]