The World Today- Lead Article
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THE AFGHAN WAR
What is war for?
Christopher
Bellamy
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The Afghan War – what is it good for? The answer, referring to war in
general, given in Edwin Starr’s 1970s song, is ‘absolutely nothing’. Not true.
War, unfortunately, is sometimes a necessary tool of politics, when a worse
evil must be opposed, when all other options have failed or seem certain to do
so. With the fall of Mazar e Sharif over the weekend of November 10-11 and of
Kabul during the night of November 12 the Taliban regime was in retreat.
American reaction indicated, however, that this rapid collapse was unexpected
and in some quarters unwelcome. If such an outcome was not what Washington
planned, it raises questions about the strategy of the war as a whole.
For five weeks it was unclear how air attacks on Afghanistan were going to contribute directly to closing down the Al Qaeda terrorist network, with cells in scores of countries, and bring Osama Bin Laden – a Saudi, and an Arab, like most of his close associates – to justice. None of the September 11 hijackers, in contrast, was Afghan. Selection and maintenance of the aim is the first principle of war, but the unpreparedness of the US for the effect of their support of the Northern Alliance suggests they did not have much of an aim, or had lost sight of it.
AN ACCEPTABLE GOVERNMENT
Removing the
Taliban and replacing it with a pro-western, broad-based government
representing all the peoples of that benighted country is, at best, an
indirect approach – the phrase coined by the Chinese philosopher-general Sun
Tzu in the fourth century BC and made famous by British defence thinker Sir
Basil Liddell Hart in the last century. It is precisely that approach which
led to the First (1838-42) and Second (1878-81) Afghan wars, when, in both
cases, the British tried to substitute a ruler who favoured them for one
perceived to be pro-Russian. The first was a disastrous failure: in the second
the British eventually found their man.
An acceptable government now is going to be very difficult to produce. The Northern Alliance, which achieved a spectacular string of successes in concert with US air bombardment is a dubious and fickle ally. It is not homogeneous politically or ethnically. It is comprised of three main groups – the Islamic Society, mostly Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkomans, decapitated when Ahmad Shah Massoud was assasinated by Taliban agents just before September 11; the Islamic National Movement, predominantly Uzbek but with the other groups also represented; plus Ismaelis and Hazara Shi’a, headed by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former supporter of the Soviet occupation, and the Islamic Unity Party.
Another nine groups have occasionally supported the Taliban, occasionally the Northern Alliance. Reports of Taliban defections could refer to these groups realigning with the Alliance.
Managing someone else’s war, as the west is clearly trying to do, is always difficult. In early November the Alliance dislodged the Taliban from controlling most of the north, but the US did not want them to capture Kabul until an acceptable government had been designed and assembled. The tricky dilemma was whether to cease air support for Northern Alliance operations, with the risk that they might then lose, or reluctantly support the unwanted move on Kabul.
British and US special forces and advisers accompanying the Alliance no doubt discouraged them from carrying out the usual Afghan atrocities, an area where the Alliance is no better than the Taliban and could be worse.
The conflict is largely unresolvable in terms of conflict resolution theory. The new government will need to represent all ethnic groups, of whom the majority are Pashtuns – the group which dominated the Taliban. In Bosnia, the three main warring factions were forced together by foreign political intervention. Afghans will regard any such foreign ‘ruler’ – or anything that looks like one – as an enemy. A workable government will have to be purely Afghan and external agencies like the UN will need to keep a low profile.
ACHIEVING BIN LADEN’S OBJECTIVES
Solving the problem of how to govern Afghanistan, which has caused
continuous conflict since about 1974, and taking reponsibility for its
reconstruction, might be a laudable aim, but taking on this challenge at the
same time as destroying the Al Qaeda global terrorist network appears slightly
ambitious.
Furthermore, the attacks on Afghanistan have come perilously close to achieving what Osama Bin Laden probably intended: putting pressure on pro-western governments in Islamic countries and possibly unifying the Islamic world against the west. Even if he did not think of it himself, he now knows from the western media that the Talibanisation of Pakistan might give him nuclear weapons and that of Saudi Arabia a large chunk of the world’s oil. That thought leads to the main link between the objective of neutralising Al Qaeda and that of destroying the Taliban. But destroying the Taliban in Afghanistan – termporarily – will not prevent the emergence of something similar elsewhere.
Long-term, one partial solution would be to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. With enough determined investment in renewable energy, we could probably make Middle East oil – output of which is going to decline anyway from about 2010 – superfluous by 2020. But is removing that part of the world’s main business such a good idea?
DIFFERENT TOOLS
The so-called ‘war on
terror’ requires quite different tools. Most of them are not military. The
first requirement is for better airline and other commercial security. A wide
range of other defensive measures might involve forces – likely the US
national guard and possibly, in a change of role, the British
Territorial Army. Tracking down those behind the twin towers outrage is a
police matter. A ‘super-terrorist attack’ by a ‘non-state actor’, leading to
an unprecedented ‘asymmetric conflict’ and the risk of the ‘clash of
civilisations’ predicted by Samuel P Huntington in his 1996 book, had all been
forecast by academics in the previous decade. But none of those predictions
was quite precise enough.
The US intelligence agencies – Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) all operated to some extent in competition. The creation of a head of Homeland Security is an attempt to overcome this, but turf wars will undoubtedly continue.
Britain was better equipped, partly because of its long war with terrorism going back to at least 1867 when the Fenians blew up Clerkenwell prison. The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) coordinates the action of all the intelligence agencies – Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS); the Security Service, still quaintly referred to in the media as MI5; the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6; Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ); and Special Branch through the Home Offfice. Turf wars contuinue here too, however. Recently Special Branch, set up to deal specifically with Irish paramilitaries, was most upset to lose this role on the UK mainland to MI5.
NEW COMBAT ENVIRONMENT
The most
important and newest element to this integrated, multi-agency operation is the
role of the banks and other financial institutions and commercial
organisations. They are vital in tracking down and freezing terrorist and
criminal funds. Banks are now asked to report ‘suspicious’ transactions.
However, if they comply, operators as clever as Al Qaeda will move their funds
to those that do not. Money laundering is the new combat environment. Other
commercial organisations can help too. Telephone companies have closed down
most Taliban and Al Qaeda Afghan-based mobile phones, forcing them to use
couriers.
Another key component of this multi-faceted effort is the
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) dealing with the refugee crisis.
Britain has plenty of experience in coordinating their work with that of the
armed forces in post-conflict peace support operations, notably in Kosovo.
There is an unresolved debate about who should take the lead in such
situations. The military sometimes complains that NGOs are uncoordinated and
inefficient: the NGOs resent what they see as military attempts to boss them
about. One of the key differences is cultural: many NGOs and some of their
personnel are from pacifist backgrounds. Soldiers, by definition, are not. The
two have to work together, however, and will have to reconcile their
differences.
LOTS TO TALK ABOUT
A final component
is the media. The perpetrators of the ingenious evil of September 11
understood fully the importance of media coverage. The first aircraft flew
into one of the twin towers, setting it alight – that was the objective: the
aircraft was simply a means of delivering fuel. Twenty minutes later, with the
cameras rolling on the first tower, the second aircraft hit. Media coverage is
proportional to the perceived importance of the event, rather than to the
amount there is to report. In the two-and-a-half months since, the media have
sometimes been grasping at straws for something to say.
The military
campaign has, at least, given the media a lot to talk about, and distracted it
from other aspects of the integrated campaign where its attention would be
less welcome. Banks prying into their account-holders’ sources of income.
Mobile phone companies listening into users’ calls. Intelligence services at
work, analysing dossiers, and talking to other services with whom they are
unused to dealing. All this is presumably going on. But it does not make great
television. Pictures of aircraft taking off from carriers and bombs hitting
the right targets are being used both to appease public anger in the US and
divert attention from other aspects of the ‘war’.
In spite of the west’s media experience, there is a risk it may be losing
the propaganda war. The initial shock and horror of September 11 has given way
to real questioning of the appropriateness of a military response. America has
lost its victim status. Instead, that has been gained by Afghanistan and Bin
Laden. In spite of the efforts of western governments, most notably the
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, support for the conventional,
military aspect of the war does appear to be declining, both in the west and
in Islamic countries where it was never very strong.
London and Washington
knew that public appetite for a long war was limited. They also knew that
intense diplomatic activity was required to identify
and assemble a viable
successor government; they might have waited until it was ready before
starting.
TIME TO TALK
While intelligence
services, law enforcement agencies, financial institutions and other parties
in this multi-faceted, asymmetric conflict were quietly getting on with their
business, and troops were being prepared, it might have been wiser to
negotiate with the Taliban. There are indications of attempts to hand Bin
Laden over to the US some years back, but their efforts to save face while
doing so were too subtle for the Americans to appreciate.
After September 11, there was no direct negotiation between the US and the Taliban: it was conducted through Pakistan. More recently, President George Bush flatly ruled out negotiation. That was a cardinal error. Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), the first and probably the greatest modern western military philospher, would never have made it. He is famous for saying that war is an extension of politics and an act of social intercourse. In other words, the soldier has to stay in touch with the enemy, because otherwise it cannot give in.
On November 12, the need for a successor government representing all the
ethnic groups became urgent. The biggest group is the Pashtuns, recently
represented by the Taliban. So, in seeking to form a broad-based government
the UN is probably going to have to negotiate with some Taliban elements
anyway. We have thus been brought back to negotiation via a bloody and
expensive martial route, which did not initially eliminate or arrest Osama Bin
Laden and his lieutenants. All’s well that ends well. But there might have
been another route, and we are not there yet.
WT
Christopher Bellamy is Professor of Military Science and Doctrine at Cranfield University. He has contributed to Voices for Peace, just published by Simon and Schuster.
Copyright The Royal Institute of International Affairs,
2001.
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