Have we come full circle in Afghanistan?

I'm not sure what you mean by "full circle," but it's obvious that the war in Afghanistan is still on-going, and the promised aid for reconstruction has been decreased to a trickle. That this administration got us involved in Iraq when the problem in Afghanistan has not been finished shows the short-sightedness of this administration. They've chewed off more than they can chew - at the expense of the American People. Sad.

Good article, Au. Says it all, really, and in relatively few words, too.

Oh, one small addendum is that "relying on Tajik and Uzbek warlords and their followers to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan's cities" had one more disadvantageous effect. The Tajiks and Uzbeks are ethnic minorities from the North of the country, and the majority of Pashtuns do not look kindly on them, overall. I mean, it was good to involve them, and Massood was one promising leader before he was assassinated, but the limited appeal these groups by definition had in the South would have been one more reason to impose a stronger central co-ordination. And Karzai, who was helped into power with such hoo-ha has practically been begging for money to at least set up an army or police force that would actually be able to get some kind of state control.

c.i., "full circle" in the sense that slowly Afghanistan is regressing into the very situation the US went in to change. No Taliban dictatorship yet, of course, but it looks a lot like back when the Taliban first came up ..

As someone much wiser than me once said, "failed states are incubators for terrorism." Its almost like the US has tried to make the problem of international terrorism worse than it could have been, in order to ensure an "enemy" to oppose..

does sorta seem that way

... tho i dont think its true.

agree with the "failed states are incubators for terrorism" bit, tho.

mostly just lack of thought about consequences (no historical perspective)

dys, It seems to me they had the historical perspective, but just ignored it.

I just wonder if the Iraq adventure will turn out the same way. The best laid plans of mice and man often go astray. That being the case ours will or have imploded.It would appear that nation building in that part of the world is as difficult as putting lightening in a bottle.

we didnt even try in afghanistan ... so you could as well conclude that it wont work if you dont do a little nation-building, too.

nimh
What more could we have done? You can't shove it down their throats if they are not receptive.

"We" could have:
-Followed through with funding and resources for rebuilding schools, roads, clinics, etc...
-Not supported the Warlords, who are now back in power everywhere but Kabul.
-Provided security for NGOs.
-Allowed NATO/UN troops to operate throughout the country, not just in and around Kabul.
There are just a few examples.

yep.

what he said.

thats the problem with afghanistan-like inreventions. starved of funding and political will, they fail to durably change the situation on the ground ... and then afterwards, the isolationists say: see, such things are doomed to fail, we shouldnt even try. vicious cycle.

Hobitbob
We could have what not supported the warlords. The warlords or their minions are the ones who did the fighting and basically won the day. Do you suppose they would have rolled over and played dead. Look what they did to the Russians.
As for the UN troops they will only go where it is safe. In fact If memory served when one of their number got killed they left or threatened to leave.

October 17, 2001

The Folly of Nation-Building in Afghanistan
by Gary Dempsey

Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, is a co-author of Fool's Errands: America's Recent Encounters with Nation Building.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), recently claimed that an American-led nation-building effort in Central and South Asia is the long-term solution to the terrorism problem. For Biden, this nation-building effort should focus on changing the economic and social climate of Afghanistan and its neighbors, and include something akin to the Marshall Plan's reconstruction of Europe after World War II. Besides setting an awkward precedent -- that harboring terrorists will eventually bring new roads and heaps of foreign aid -- Biden's nation-building recommendation overlooks the obvious: Postwar Afghanistan will look nothing like postwar Germany, or for that matter, postwar Japan.

For starters, the high level of education and industrial know-how in postwar Germany and Japan helped launch an economic recovery in both countries that is inconceivable almost anywhere else. Germany also had a strong tradition of the rule of law, property rights, and free trade before the Nazi era. Japan's elite embraced an honorific culture that respected and obeyed the wishes of the victor in battle. Afghanistan and its neighbors, in contrast, have little in the way of either liberal traditions or cultural attitudes that are agreeable to massive foreign interference.

What's more, the leaders of Germany and Japan were not just utterly defeated in war. Their ideology was totally discredited in the eyes of their own people by war's end. This made both countries prime candidates for nation building. It's premature to assume the same pattern will hold for the leaders of the Taliban. Radical Islam could remain dominant, and its defenders could be seen as national heroes or martyrs.

Another probable difference: Even before World War II ended, the Germans and Japanese had become amenable to Washington's policy prescriptions. In fact, according to University of Illinois political scientist Richard Merritt, by the time the war ended, substantial numbers of Germans "were disgusted by what the Nazis had done and increasingly realized that Nazi actions were not accidental but were consistent with and even prefigured by Nazi ideology. . . . To some measure, then, the American Military Government enjoyed a ready market for its product." By the end of the war the Japanese, too, had become receptive to profound political change in ways not replicated since.

There's little evidence the United States will enjoy a "ready market" for its product in Afghanistan. History, in fact, points in the opposite direction. The Afghans did not attack Moscow's puppet regime in Kabul and fight a war with Soviet invaders in the 1980s because they wanted democracy, liberalism, and free markets. They did it because they opposed forces trying to secularize and modernize their country; i.e., nation build. This presents a major problem for those who would equate nation building in Afghanistan with nation building in postwar Germany or Japan.

Or take Biden's idea of a Marshall Plan. It is telling that one has to go back more than 50 years to find an example of such a scheme that worked. Similar plans since then have routinely failed. Indeed, since World War II the United States alone has provided $1 trillion in foreign aid to countries around the world. The result? According to the United Nations, 70 of the countries that received aid are poorer today than they were in 1980, and an incredible 43 are worse off than in 1970. Good intentions must be matched by an effective, non-corrupt administration on the receiving end.

The failures are not so surprising if one studies the Marshall Plan experience in detail. If massive government spending could work anywhere, it was in 1948 Europe: Skilled labor was largely available, the rule of law and property rights had a long history, and the customs of a commercial society were recoverable. All it needed was physical capital. But even under those circumstances, there is no real evidence that the Marshall Plan alone was responsible for Europe's regeneration. U.S. assistance never exceeded 5 percent of the GDP of any recipient nation, and there seemed to be an inverse relationship between economic aid and economic recovery. In fact, France, Germany, and Italy all began to grow before the onset of the Marshall Plan, and Great Britain, the largest recipient of aid, performed the most poorly.

The real lesson of the Marshall Plan is that the rule of law, property rights, free markets, and an entrepreneurial culture are what are necessary for economic success. Afghanistan has none of these things. And well-meaning senators in Washington can't make it otherwise.

And they will likely next turn on the Americans.


No, the US actually forbade their participation outside of the Kabul area.

Peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan

As for your comment about the Afghans not wanting "western democracy" and fighting the Soviets over the introduction of "western values," I rather suppose the real reason the Afghans resisted the Soviets is teh same reason they resist the US, and the Iraqis reist the US invasion of their country... dislike of foreign domination. The Afghans were never truly assimilated into any empire, and they are unlikly to begin now.

WORLD

UN demands more security in Afghanistan

Posted: Sunday, November 23, 11:13am EST

Terrorists will kill more of the humanitarian workers trying to rebuild Afghanistan if international forces don't improve security soon, a UN official warned Sunday at the funeral of a slain French aid worker.
Kamel Morjane, the assistant high commissioner of the UN refugee agency, noted at a memorial for Bettina Goislard, who was shot on Nov. 16 in the southern city of Ghazni by suspected Taliban insurgents, that antigovernment militants pose an increasing threat throughout the country. She was the first international aid worker killed in Afghanistan since a US-led coalition ousted the hardline Islamic regime in late 2001.

Filippo Grandi, a senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, says more is required than the government's determination.

Violence by Taliban and Al Qaeda militants has escalated in the country despite the presence of 11,600 US-led forces and 5,000 members of a NATO-led peacekeeping contingent. NATO has agreed to allow the peacekeepers to patrol outside the capital, Kabul, but has not yet followed through on those plans.

The mission of German troops in Kundus will not take place under the banner of operation "Enduring Freedom" conducted by US troops, but will become part of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). This required the UN Security Council to first extend the ISAF mandate beyond Kabul to all Afghanistan, which Germany's ambassador to the UN, Guenter Pleuger, achieved on October 13. Two days later, the government tabled the motion to expand the Bundeswehr mission.

Nearly 100 of the 250+ planned troops are already there, amongst them 27 from the Transport Batallion of my hometown.

Oops! We didn't get the "bad guy, but at least we killed a bunch'o'would be terrorists!
Missed Terrorist, but successfully killed nine children!

Whose bright idea was it to take suggestions from the Israelis?