No More War!

No more war!

Barak Obama wants to send more troops to the Hindu Kush. But the West must abandon the idea that a stronger military presence would promote the country.

It’s not going well in Afghanistan. The security situation is constantly worsening, the number of bomb attacks and suicide attacks is growing, while the arm of the Karzai government extends not far beyond the city boundaries of Kabul. Regional warlords and drug barons sit on the cabinet next to ministers who carry out orderly and honest work. Corruption and nepotism rage across the country. Mismanagement and a frightening lack of accountability go hand-in-hand. The country’s economy is even lower, unemployment has become for many a permanent condition, and the cultivation of poppies is for many villagers their sole source of income. The traditional societal structure stands in the way of state building.

Could more troops change something in all of this? It’s doubtful. Around 50,000 soldiers are already there. If we wanted to have the same troop density as in Kosovo, for example, we would have to send between 300,000 and 400,000 men. That is simply unthinkable. It is likely that such a massively enhanced foreign military presence would only further incite radical Islamists.

Furthermore, an expansion of civilian development aid would probably be no panacea. Certainly, the international community may not have done enough so far: subsidies amounting to 15 billion dollars are less than even half of what has been promised to Afghanistan since 2001. Besides, about a third of this sum was given to foreign advisors, relief organizations, and foreign multinational corporations. Few deny the fact that a large amount of the money is lost to the pockets of greedy Afghan officials and politicians. The west has assured more billions in aid payments, but without better coordination of projects and sharper supervision of the use of the money, the effects will once again be limited.

In a recently published study, the American think-tank, Rand Corporation, represents the standpoint that the U.S. government must rethink their approach to their “War Against Terror.” Military campaigns, argues the California-based think-tank, have rarely been successful against guerillas; the work of police and intelligence services is more effective. Ultimately, one must never shy-away from negotiating with insurgents in order to reach a political solution.

The argument is reasonable. We confess that there exists a broad gap between the necessary resources and those available. And let us not try to convince ourselves that we could have military success where Alexander the Great failed 2,300 years ago, where the British suffered a defeat in the 19th century, and from which the soviets executed a general retreat in the 20th century. So we should give up the belief that we can recreate an Afghan society after a western model. Any attempt to do so will inevitably fail in the face of deeply rooted traditional and religious values.

In the end, a sort of “Taliban-light” regime would be the best that we could attain: pious, but without connection to al-Qaida; Islamic, but not terrorist, not western, but also not anti-western.