Securing a plan for ending the war in Afghanistan

The challenge is formidable. Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries.

Speaking in Kabul on the 32nd anniversary of the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, the country’s President, Ashraf Ghani, made an important distinction. The civil war that devastated Afghanistan after the withdrawal was caused not by the departure of Soviet troops, but by the failure to formulate a viable plan for Afghanistan’s future. As the United States considers its own exit from the country, it should heed this lesson.

After withdrawing its troops in 1989, the Soviet Union continued to provide financial support to the communist-nationalist regime, led by President Mohammad Najibullah. But, lacking domestic legitimacy, Najibullah’s regime quickly collapsed when Russia withdrew its financial support in 1992, triggering the civil war. Then, in 1996, the Taleban gained control of Kabul and, ultimately, the country.

The Taleban remained in power until 2001, when a US-led invasion — spurred by the September 11 terrorist attacks — ended its rule. But last February, then-US president Donald Trump’s administration reached a deal with the Taleban intended to end the nearly 20-year-long war: the US and its Nato allies would withdraw all troops by May 2021 if the Taleban fulfilled certain commitments, including cutting ties with terrorist groups and reducing violence.

The Taleban would also have to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government, which was not involved in the deal. The Trump administration apparently hoped that an intra-Afghan peace agreement would materialise by the designated withdrawal date, ending the fighting and minimising the risk that Afghanistan would become a haven for terrorists.

That has not happened. While US force levels are down to near 2,000 troops, fighting in Afghanistan has not decreased. On the contrary, a US watchdog agency reports that the Taleban carried out more attacks in the last quarter of 2020 than during the same period of 2019. Moreover, the latest intra-Afghan talks, which began in Doha in September, have produced virtually no results.

It seems that the Taleban’s plan was to keep fighting until US troops left, at which point they might be able to secure a victory in the long war. Now, however, they face the possibility that US troops will not leave nearly as soon as expected. President Joe Biden’s administration has announced that it is reviewing the deal to determine whether the Taliban is “living up to its commitments”.

The Biden administration must also decide what to do about America’s Nato allies, which together have substantially more forces in Afghanistan than the US does. And — as the post-Soviet experience indicates — it must devise a plan for influencing the situation in the country and region after the withdrawal.

The challenge is formidable. Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries. Today, the Afghan state’s income amounts to little more than a third of what the US pays only to sustain its various security forces, to say nothing of US aid to the civilian sector (which, to be sure, amounts to less than half Europe’s contributions). In fact, Afghanistan has depended on outside support to sustain its statehood since Russia and Britain played their “Great Game” in the nineteenth century.