Brian M Downing
Withdrawal usually means defeat, failure, and shame. However, the US will gain quite a bit from leaving Afghanistan. The US should withdraw in short order and leave the deteriorating region in the hands of the four powers presently working so diligently against our efforts. Withdrawal would be an adroit move that puts rivals and enemies on their back foot. One day they too may have to rethink their efforts on Afghanistan’s plains.
The US military
The military will be able to regain proper readiness levels. Sixteen years of deployments in Afghanistan and elsewhere have taken a toll on the families and health of soldiers.
The 2500 or more US troops can be deployed to a region more vital to national security or, better, returned home for rest and retraining. Military equipment can be returned to full readiness. Fighter aircraft, for example, are worn down by repeated sorties. Special forces and their families also need respite from two decades of continuous deployments. The military will be more fit to defend the nation.
Placing burdens on adversaries
Leaving Afghanistan will place burdens on China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. They will have to assume responsibility for the war, development, and stability. It’s possible they can bring about a settlement. After all, each has considerable influence with various Afghan groups. That would be a benefit to all, including the US.
However, Afghanistan is irremediably corrupt and fragmented, its hundreds of tribes venal and grasping, its disparate regions antagonistic toward each other and hostile to central power. The four powers will be tied down for decades, perhaps maybe even longer than the US has already. The sinkhole will distract them from areas they presently deem more important.
China will have to allocate resources and possibly even troops to hold up Afghanistan militarily, politically, and economically. Russia too will have to be much more watchful of its southern periphery, perhaps allocating tens of thousands of troops to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan where Islamist militancy is simmering and young men stream south to serve in the Taliban, ISIL, and al Qaeda. Many have already come home.
Iran will be distracted from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. It has troops in Syria, a network of militias in Iraq, and a promising relationship with the Shia north. After years of sanctions and amid a devastating plague, Tehran’s resources are highly limited just now.
Pakistan will have less to work with in supporting insurgency in Kashmir and stifling one at home in Balochistan. The prospect of losing Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North-West Frontier Province) to cross-border Pashtun separatism is not farfetched. Afghan Pashtuns see Pakhtunkhwa as territory stolen from them by Pakistan in 1948. The concern will become an obsession in security bureaus where the loss of East Pakistan (1971) is still a trauma.
Conflict within adversaries
The four powers, like many wartime alignments, will have far less unity once the US leaves. The Soviet Union and US in 1945 are an obvious example. With the Third Reich defeated, the two powers became enemies for half century. Another case is the mujahideen bands after the Soviets quit Afghanistan in 1989. Disagreements will arise over sharing military and political responsibilities and divvying up the country’s wealth.
All four powers will be tied up with endless negotiations with and remonstrances by corrupt politicians, tribal elders, district officials, and warlords. The dialogues will almost certainly lead to divisions and arguments within the four-powers. Who will train and advise the Afghan army and related security forces? No one will be eager to deploy troops into the country, least of all the Russians whose previous foray did not fare well and left lingering enmity. Iranian-Shia troops will be welcome in Hazara and Tajik districts but other regions will be no-go zones. Pakistan may welcome the opportunity to consolidate control over Pashtun lands but it’ll face opposition in the north where it’s loathed for meddling.
Russia, Iran, and Pakistan will note, correctly, that China has the most investments and its troops should protect them. Beijing will resist this of course, but the argument is compelling. The other three will insist on some form of compensation – a bigger slice of the enticing Afghan pie. No one should be surprised if their presence brings about deeper resentment and a newly-focused insurgency.
Russia, China, and Iran will come into conflict with Pakistan for its support of the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and others. Those groups were useful against the US but Afghanistan’s new management will be greatly irritated by them. Pakistan will resist pressure to abandon them let alone root them out.
Iran and Pakistan will quarrel over whose export routes should get more traffic. Both routes, incidentally, pass through restive Baloch regions. Greater commerce will bring more turmoil as wealth will undoubtedly accrue to Persian and Punjabi elites, not the Balochs.
Longer term, even if somehow all proceeds even moderately well, Russia may find that the effort’s most significant consequence was opening Central Asia and its southern periphery to Chinese economic domination – a process well under way in the Russian Far East. This will undermine Putin’s claim of being defender of Mother Russia and latter day Peter the Great.
A new focus for jihadism
One of the portentous consequences will be a significant development in militancy and terrorism. Central Asia is a vast region where Islamist ferment is well underway. Armies and states are inept. An immense youth cohort sees no opportunity and looks to the call of honor and glory in jihad. Attempts to stop the ferment have failed. Young men head for war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. In 2015 Tajikistan’s security chief quit his post and joined ISIL. It’s as though J Edgar Hoover went over to Bonnie and Clyde.
The drift toward Islamist militancy will continue whether the US or the four-powers are presiding in Afghanistan. More foreign officials, engineers, consultants, and troops will accelerate the drift. The entente will face the forbidding and almost endless challenge of battling the emergence of a new caliphate, one whose leaders and fighters are already hostile toward Russia for intervening in Syria.
Their troops will enter district after district, village after village. Their artillery will lead to civilian casualties. Their airstrikes will bring new Aleppos. And their own cities will face the Kalashnikovs, bombs, and gun trucks of Islamist vengeance, even more so than they do already.
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The American intervention in Afghanistan was based on post-9/11 outrage, resurgent but unrealistic faith in national might, and dismal intelligence about Afghanistan’s society and Pakistan’s generals. Twenty years of waste ensued, as did several years of Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Pakistani maneuvering. The conflict can no longer be addressed by standard approaches. It’s time to use realist or even Machiavellian ones.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.