One Victory, Many Questions

The Taliban attacks hotels in Kabul; NATO overwhelms the Taliban stronghold Marjah and the Afghan army raises the national flag over the city; the German Parliament decides to extend the German army’s presence in Afghanistan and increase the number of troops there. That was three news stories in one day. They all had the identical message: the war in Afghanistan is intensifying.

That was no surprise, but which way is the pendulum swinging?

Is Marjah really a victory? And if so, will be it be a lasting one? Will more German troops help decide the outcome of the war, or will Germany just sink deeper into the Afghan swamp? Are the Taliban attacks on Kabul hotels acts of desperation or do they show the Taliban’s strength?

We can give no definitive answers. Only one thing is certain: time is on the Taliban’s side. They don’t have to win; they only have to continue fighting for another year, perhaps even two or three years. And they’ll continue fighting because, unlike the NATO troops, they have no homeland to which they can return. Whether NATO will be successful in bringing some Taliban to the negotiating table is more than doubtful. But even then, the time factor is decisive. Why negotiate for something now when they’ll get the same thing down the road at a cheaper price in a couple of years? Why should they negotiate a compromise with the government in Kabul today if they can topple it tomorrow?

The Taliban has plenty of time, and NATO has none. NATO is running out of breath. The Netherlands’ decision to withdraw its troops this year is a dramatic example of that, and it’s not a bad thing. NATO’s weakness should be interpreted as the beginning of NATO’s end as a global interventionist power.

The trans-Atlantic defense alliance, originally meant to be an anti-Soviet bulwark, was redefined as an active global military arm of the West soon after the end of the Cold War. The 1999 war in Kosovo was its first test, and Afghanistan is the biggest and most important test. If NATO breaks in Afghanistan, it’s NATO as a global intervention force that will have failed, not NATO as a defense alliance.

P.S. The photo above the headline is supposed to be of victory in Marjah. When one looks at it, one is tempted to ask, “What? That’s Marjah? A field, a mud wall and a couple of huts? Where’s the city center? Does the city even have a center? Where are the government buildings? Where will the government NATO Commander Stanley McChrystal is bringing with him — the government he has ‘in the box, ready to roll?’ — live and work? Does Marjah really have 80,000 inhabitants? Did NATO commit 15,000 troops just to raise a flag over this empty field?”