Introduction: Warfare and the state in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is one of the most troublesome spots in present day Eurasia. It remains a sore point for the Obama Administration. Some scholars argue that, from the very dawn of civilization, Afghans have troubled neighbouring powers (Schofield, 2010; Tanner, 2002). Others chart the beginning of the Afghan problem to the early nineteenth century, when the British–Indian Empire competed with the Czarist Empire to gain hegemony in Central Asia (Loyn, 2009; O’Ballance, 2003). The third approach notes that only with the Soviet intervention in the late 1970s did state and society in Afghanistan disintegrate (Goodson, 2001; Maley, 2009; Sinno, 2008). The fragmentation of the country located at the crossroads of Asia continues to have devastating consequences for Central Eurasia in particular and the world in general.

Among the contributors to this special issue on Afghanistan, three (Pavel Baev, Ivan Arreguin-Toft and Lisa Hultman) are political scientists, two (Rob Johnson and Kaushik Roy) are historians and one (Kristian Berg Harpviken) is a sociologist. Of the six essays in this special issue, four (those by Baev, Arreguin-Toft, Hultman and Harpviken) fall under the rubric of the third approach. These four contributors analyse the nature of unconventional (irregular/small/counter-insurgency, i.e. COIN) warfare and the disintegration of the state in Afghanistan over the last 40 years. While Baev charts the trajectory of Soviet COIN, Hultman analyses US–NATO COIN operations. Arreguin-Toft turns the spotlight on the problematics of state building in a war-torn region. Kristian Berg Harpviken analyses the main antagonist of the US–NATO forces in Afghanistan: the shadowy Taliban. Johnson attempts to locate Afghanistan’s problems by taking an historical perspective. And finally, Roy uses the Afghan War as a foil in order to speculate and predict the forms, grammar and logic of future wars in Eurasia.

Afghanistan is a state artificially carved out by the big powers in late nineteenth century. In 1885, Czarist Russia occupied Afghan territory north of Oxus River and established the new northern boundary for Afghanistan. A decade later, the British–Indian Empire constructed the Durand Line, which divided Pashtun areas between British–India (now parts of Pakistan) and Afghanistan (Hammes, 2006: 157). In 1979, Afghanistan’s population numbered 17 million, including 800,000 nomads (Maley, 2009: 8). Up to 90% of the population was illiterate and 85% were rural (Maley, 2009: 8; Tanner, 2002: 238). Only 12% of the land in the country is arable (Maley, 2009: 10). Schofield (2010: 328) concludes that, between 1990 and 1995, barely12% of the population had access to clean water.

Afghanistan is populated by 55 ethnic groups (Maley, 2009: 9). The Pushtuns (Pashtuns/Pathans of the nineteenth century British scholar-administrators) comprise the largest ethnic group followed by the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Most of the Afghan Muslims are Sunnis while some (including the Hazaras) are Shias (Maley, 2009: 9). The Pathans are those who speak Pashtu. It is a language of eastern Iranian origin, and is distinct from Persian and Urdu. The Pathans call themselves Pakhtuns or Pashtuns. They inhabit the area from north of Peshawar to Baluchistan and also eastern Afghanistan. Of the 16 million Pashtuns, about half live in Pakistan (Schofield, 2010: 114).

The cost of Afghanistan’s continuous war from 1979 has been horrendous. According to one calculation, by the end of 1979, 600,000 Afghans had fled Afghanistan as refugees. About two-thirds of the refugees went to Pakistan and the rest to Iran. At the beginning of 1990, the figure had jumped to 6.2 million and of them about 3.2 million were in Pakistan (Maley, 2009: 59–60). Between December 1979 and July 1988, one million people were killed in Afghanistan (O’ Ballance, 2003).

Baev’s essay compares and contrasts Soviet COIN with US–NATO COIN in Afghanistan. He asserts that Soviet COIN was successful at the tactical level, but flawed at the strategic level. The mujahideen were more numerous and united during the 1980s compared with the first decade of the twentieth century. Moreover, unlike the US and NATO troops in Afghanistan at present, the personnel of the Soviet 40th Army did not possess such comparatively sophisticated technology. Still, the Soviets did not lose a single guard post during successive attacks by the ‘holy warriors’. The Soviets did not care much for a ‘winning the hearts and minds’ policy or minimizing collateral damage. Forty per cent of the Afghan populace fled to Pakistan and Iran as refugees as a consequence of Soviet COIN (Hammes, 2006: 159). The ‘hearts and minds’ policy of the Western Coalition troops has not proven to be a great success. Unlike the present day Coalition troops, the Soviet soldiers, writes Baev, were not distracted by ‘nation building’ tasks.

The state-building enterprise of the West at present is also not paying much dividend to the occupying powers. Ultimately, the Soviets failed because Moscow did not pour in adequate troops for ‘clear and hold operations’ in Afghanistan. Whether a purely military solution to the mujahideen problem existed or not remains an open question, but one thing is sure. The CIA’s military assistance program to the mujahideen resulted in Afghanistan becoming awash with sophisticated small arms and mobilization on the basis of rabid Islamism. These two factors, along with the flourishing of narco-economy (partly the product of the destruction of Afghanistan’s agriculture by brutal Soviet COIN) resulted in the present Afghan problem.

History often seems to repeat itself. David Loyn claims that the situation after 2001 parallels the scenario after 1841 in many ways. In both 1841 and in 2001, Afghanistan was occupied by foreign forces: British and Indian soldiers during the former time period and in the latter case US–NATO troops. The behaviour of the foreign troops offended local sensibilities. A growing Islamist insurgency permeated Afghanistan during both time periods. In both cases, the ruler of Afghanistan could not rule without relying on foreign troops. The scenario was further embittered by growing tension between the Afghan ruler, foreign troops and tribal elders who were angry because of being denied financial subsidies that they believed had been promised to them (Loyn, 2009: 45).

Similarities can also be found between the Second Afghan War and the scenario that unfolded in the unfortunate country in the late 1990s. During the Second Afghan War (1878–1881), a mullah with the name of Mushk-i-Alam (fragrance of the world) led the opposition against the British–Indian troops. He signed his fatwas as Imam-ul-Mujahideen-i-wal Muslimin (leader of the mujahideen). Loyn implies that this mullah was the forerunner of Mullah Omar of the Taliban a century later (Loyn, 2009: 86). In April 1996, Mullah Omar was elected as Amir-ul Momineen (leader of the faithful; Schofield, 2010: 339). The spread of radical Islamism in Afghanistan could be traced back to Mohammad Ibn Abd al-Wahab, who was born in Arabia at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He spread a particular narrow and fundamentalist strain of Islam that encouraged a return to the basics to usher in a ‘Golden Age’. The Wahabi leaders rejected the view of jihad as an inner spiritual struggle to improve the self and be a good Muslim. Rather, Wahabism imposed on its followers the obligation of fighting a holy war against the kafirs (infidels). From the early nineteenth century, Wahabism spread across India, resulting in the foundation of the Deobandi School of Islamic thought (Loyn, 2009: 74). The point to be noted is that the Al-Qaeda followers in the 1990s were inspired by the Wahabi brand of Islam (Loyn, 2009: 75).

What sort of organism is the Taliban? Kristian Berg Harpviken turns the spotlight on this organization. Taking into account the organizational fabric, resource mobilization infrastructure, tactics and ideology, Harpviken asserts that the Taliban is not a classic example of a transnational terrorist organization. There had been tension between Mullah Omar’s Taliban, which was following an Afghan-centric strategy, and Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda with its transnational objectives and ambitions. In fact, Bin Laden’s refusal to abide by the Afghan Taliban’s policy undermined Mullah Omar’s authority in Afghanistan’s domestic space. The Taliban is not a centralized bureaucratic transnational machine. Despite obeying the de jure authority of Omar, the Pakistani Taliban operated separately from the Afghan Taliban. The Tehrek-i-Taliban of Pakistan is a conglomeration of several anti-Western religious fundamentalist organizations with terrorist leanings. However, the decentralized nature of Taliban does not mean that it is a messy organization. It has the capacity to prevent emergence of local private fiefdoms. Until 2001, it had been able to channel the profits from poppy production, but in the second decade of the new millennium, the Taliban seems to be suffering from a financial crunch. The much vaunted Al Qaeda is in no position now to channel overseas funds to Taliban’s coffers. Owing to the deteriorating relationship between the Pakistan state and Pakistani Taliban, the latter is also not in a position to transfer funds in large quantities to the Afghan Taliban. To sum up, the Afghan Taliban is based mostly on local support. However, it has to interact with various non-Afghan non-state actors with differing objectives. For this very reason, the Afghan Taliban has limited its integration with transnational nodal tentacles. At best, the Taliban is an Afghan phenomenon with limited international capillaries.

While Lisa Hultman studies COIN by US–NATO forces between 2004 and 2009, Rob Johnson focuses on insurgency and COIN in a particular province: Helmand. Generally, COIN theories could roughly be divided into two categories: population-centric and military-centric. The population-centric COIN theories, emphasizing population control, follow the dicta that COIN is 80% non-military tasks and only 20% military tasks. The military-centric proponents of COIN assert the role of tactics and technology in gaining an upper hand over the insurgents by eliminating the latter in greatest possible numbers within a short time frame.

Hultman writes that, between 2004 and 2009, the ISAF and military personnel conducting Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) practiced military-centric COIN. In other words, the US–NATO troops’ principal task was to hunt and eliminate the largest number of insurgents. Such an approach pays off in the short run but appears faulty in the long run. Military offensives against the insurgents force the latter to initiate a shift in their strategy. Instead of attacking government forces and security establishment, the militants then tend to go for ‘softer’ targets. The insurgents in such a scenario, notes Hultman, target civilians. Indiscriminate violence against civilians might make the insurgents unpopular. In a Maoist sense, the guerrillas (the ‘fish’) are poisoning the ‘sea’, especially since the latter sustains the former. However, militant violence also spreads fear and terror among the ordinary people. Although they are aware of the righteousness of the government’s cause, they still side with the insurgents because the government fails to function effectively as a security provider. The government’s failure to protect the civilians projects the image of it as a loser. In Afghanistan, as history proves, nobody wants to side with the loser, owing to the heavy attendant price tag attached to such a move. Hultman’s essay, unlike the other pieces in this issue, is based on statistical analysis. Hultman provides data showing that, owing to military-centric COIN policies of the Coalition troops, militants’ violence against civilians in Afghanistan is increasing.

Arreguin-Toft claims that state-building attempts by US–NATO in Afghanistan are bound to fail. This is because of a lack of demand among the public in Afghanistan for a centralized state with its capital at Kabul and also inadequate human capital. At present, the state-building agents with the US troops conducting OEF and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are foreigners. Construction of a state requires indigenous human capital, especially public servants imbued with specialized skills and a sense of ‘national’ public values. Unavailability of skilled national minded Afghan public servants is hampering the Western state-building project. In the early twentieth century, Afghanistan was a ‘weak’ state built on a shaky social contract. The Soviet invasion (1979–1989) resulted in massive outflow of skilled human capital from Afghanistan. During this period, Afghanistan imported terrorists, jihadists and military mercenaries from abroad. This process at present, although slowing down, is still continuing. The small number of indigenous public servants available in the country are bound by ties of clan, tribe and region rather than pan-Afghan values. Both the Soviets and the Americans imported large numbers of foreign public servants. Yet, they were not adept with the local culture and traditions and considered as alien by indigenous people. Hence, foreign-induced state-building enterprises have failed and will fail. Since present day Afghanistan lacks an adequate number of civil bureaucrats to run the state, most of the funds end up in the pockets of the warlords, who exert destabilizing influences. The Afghan National Army (ANA) is also unstable as Afghan military bureaucrats are also in short supply. Once the West leaves Afghanistan to its own devices, an outflow of Afghan bureaucrats will follow owing to threats of physical insecurity. Arreguin-Toft in a pessimistic tone asserts that the West must give up its ‘imagination’ of building up a Westphalian modeled centralized bureaucratic national state ruled from Kabul. Rather, the Western policy-makers must square up to reality, cut its losses and pull out. Western policy-makers would be better off strengthening a conglomeration of micro-states (based on tribal affiliations and ethnic groupings) rather than trying to create one single macro state in Afghanistan.

Johnson’s piece conducts a case study of the origin of insurgency in Helmand Province. Johnson takes a longue durée historical perspective. In his monograph on warfare in Afghanistan, Johnson traces the contradictions inherent in the construction of the ‘national’ state in Afghanistan by Ahmad Shah Abdali (a Durrani general of the Persian conqueror Nadir Shah) in the second half of the eighteenth century, as responsible for the troubles in the country (Johnson, 2011). However in this article, Johnson traces back the factors behind the origins of insurgency to the era of the Caliphate (Eighth Century). Johnson notes that insurgency in Helmand has been the product of both internal and external dynamics. The local clan leaders, owing to their provincial tendencies, strongly resisted any outside control, be it any foreign power or the overarching tentacles of the Kabul government. The Helmandis resisted strongly the imposition of control by the Abbasid Caliphate (Arab-Persian) in the eighth century, their successors the Samanids, then the Ghaznavids (a Turkish dynasty in the tenth century) and later the Ghurids (twelfth century). Ahmad Shah Abdali (the first ‘national’ ruler of Afghanistan) played clans against clans in order to maintain a modicum of control over Helmand. Abdali used the Barakzai clan in order to balance the Alizai clans of Helmand. Abdali granted jagirs to the loyal clan members in return for providing cavalry contingents. Further, many recalcitrant clan chiefs were transplanted away from their ‘localities’ to distant regions of Afghanistan. However, Amir Amanullah (ruler 1919–1929) was not very successful in playing the complicated balancing game. When in 1978 the People’s Democratic Party of the Afghanistan Government declared landowners as class enemies and institutionalized the rural credit system, the traditional elites of Helmand rebelled. The situation worsened when the Soviets intervened militarily in 1979. All the local factions united temporarily against the foreigners. The mullahs issued fatwas claiming that, for conducting jihad, taxing poppy cultivation was righteous. Narco-profit entered into the equation in a big way. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, various factions fought each other to safeguard their share of the narco-profit. Initially, the Taliban was able to co-opt the Helmandis, but it did not have an easy time when it conscripted youngsters in order to fight the Northern Alliance. Disaffection coagulated against the Taliban ‘outsiders’. In the post-2001 period, various factions in Helmand, in an attempt to bolster their position, jockeyed to enter into an alliance with the Hamid Karzai Government. Karzai (a Durrani Pashtun) also, in an attempt to extend the sway of the Kabul government, was eager to enter into an alliance with selected clans. In fact, Stephen Tanner describes Karzai as the Anglo-American-backed ‘Mayor of Kabul’ (Tanner, 2002: 320). However, the process of stabilization, notes Johnson, has not been easy. Those groups that have been left outside the charmed circle are angry. Further, instigation by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, collateral damage to civilians caused by US–NATO troops’ COIN policies and the burgeoning profit from narco-terrorism have given a renewed spurt to terrorism in the guise of new-Taliban.

What Johnson is saying about Helmand with some modifications could be applied for all the provinces of Afghanistan. The 30 million mines planted by the Soviets in Afghanistan to a great extent have destabilized agriculture and horticulture (Goodson, 2001: 5). Afghanistan remains the world’s largest opium-producing country. Opium is refined to produce heroin. In 1991, opium production exceeded 4600 tons (O’Ballance, 2003: 247). In May 1990, a kilo of raw opium bought the farmer US$10–20. In 1991, it was worth about US$100 (Schofield, 2010: 328). The narco-economy, along with two other factors (ethnic cleavages and rigid Islam), are responsible for state fragmentation in Afghanistan (Goodson, 2001: ix). Economic underdevelopment fused with poor political institutionalization has fractured the Afghan society between traditional (Islamic) and modernizing elites (Goodson, 2001: 9). Further, in the post-Cold War era, a combination of globalist and localist pressure from top and bottom is rupturing weak states like Afghanistan (Goodson, 2001: 11). Indeed, what would be the nature of warfare in the globalized landscape spattered with ‘weak’ states?

Roy’s piece attempts to portray the future of war, especially in relation to the ‘Afghan model’. Here the term ‘Afghan model’ is used differently from the paradigm conceptualized by Stephen Biddle (Biddle, 2004). Roy puts forward several interrelated pertinent questions. Is the present US–NATO COIN in Afghanistan part and parcel of the Long War (also known as the Global War on Terror)? Are we witnessing a Revolution in Military Affairs or Military Technical Revolution or a Military Revolution in Afghanistan during the new millennium? It seems that COIN in Afghanistan has failed, from the Soviets to OEF and the ISAF. So, does the continuing insurgency in Afghanistan prove correct the theorists of ‘doom and gloom’ (practitioners of the New War thesis) that the new era belongs to ‘shadow warriors’ from the periphery, and that conventional warfare is dead? Roy concludes that the Afghan model with its focus on insurgency and COIN is not the only paradigm of warfare for the foreseeable future. Geographical and cultural factors ensure that insurgents and counter-insurgents will dominate the geopolitical landscape of Afghanistan. However, limited conventional warfare remains a possibility in some parts of Eurasia (like the India–Pakistan border, the India–China border along the Himalayas and South China Sea). To understand the force structures and deployment patterns plus the military doctrines of these states, heuristic devices like Military Technical Revolution and Revolution in Military Affairs are of some value.

Warfare is the product of both change and continuity. The mujahideen’s conduct of war against the Soviets and the Taliban’s unconventional war against the US–NATO troops are based on two age-old principles of guerrilla warfare that the Afghans had used both against the Mughals in the seventeenth century and later against the British and Indian troops of the British Empire of India. These two principles are raid and ambush (Tanner, 2002: 247). In addition to traditional techniques, some innovations are also exhibited by the Afghans. Besides relying on tribal assassinations and sabotage, the Afghans took their message to the world and sought assistance from other Islamic nations (Hammes, 2006: 159).

In general, scholars and analysts are still divided over the cultural elements that go into making the Afghans’ way of warfare. Edgar O’Ballance comments that the inherent tendency of the Afghans is to change allegiances suddenly and without remorse in accordance with the changing circumstances (O’Ballance, 2003: 260). What appears as a cultural construct for O’Ballance is interpreted to be an aspect of realpolitik behaviour for Johnson. Some scholars underrate the importance of religion (Islam) behind the Afghan insurgency. Johnson writes: ‘Islam is used selectively by Afghans to justify and legitimize a variety of actions in war. Islam can motivate, but does not determine how or why Afghans fight’ (Johnson, 2011: 301). Johnson continues that the Afghans are not culturally determined in their actions but are reactive and adaptive. Their operations are shaped and influenced by a cultural ‘lens’ and pragmatic factors. In accordance with the context, the Afghans adapted Pushtunwali (their cultural code) and at times rejected it altogether. The mantra that shapes the actions of the Afghans comprises three elements: pragmatism, adaptability and finally opportunism (Johnson, 2011: 305). The Afghan insurgency in the last 300 years has been characterized by local truces, bargaining and negotiations between bouts of violence. Rather than culture, the fractious nature of Afghan society made such behaviour pragmatic and essential (Johnson, 2011: 291).

About the nature of insurgency in the first decade of the new millennium in Afghanistan, Daniel Marston writes:

Marston notes that most of the insurgents in Afghanistan are categorized as Taliban (or in recent times as neo-Taliban), but they are actually disgruntled Pashtuns who are fighting for reasons that have always motivated the insurgents: political power, revenge, tribal and ethnic issues (Marston, 2008: 227). Again, certain COIN measures undertaken by the US–NATO backed Hamid Karzai Government further strengthen the sense of deliberate marginalization of the Pashtuns by the Western powers. This factor is important because the Pushtuns are not only the dominant ethnic community in Afghanistan (the largest remaining tribal society in the world), but have also dominated the country from mid-eighteenth century (Goodson, 2001: 14). The ANA is perceived by the Pashtuns as a Tajik–Afghan militia. About 40% of the rank and file and 70% of the officer corps of the ANA are Tajiks (Johnson, 2011: 276). At another level, the Afghan insurgency is also a collection of local ethno-linguistic tribal feuds with contradictory objectives. Different tribes use the foreigners (be it the British in the nineteenth century or the US–NATO troops at present) in order to gain an advantage in their local fights (Hammes, 2006: 154).

The practitioners of COIN in Afghanistan in particular and in other parts of Eurasia in general need to separate religion from terrorism. Abdulkader H. Sinno warns: ‘The Bush administration has already lost the more important battle, the one for the hearts and minds of the world’s Muslims, by thinking that it was fighting a threat from within a world religion (Islamo-fascism) instead of one emanating from a miniscule organization’ (Sinno, 2008: 303). The behaviour of the US military within Afghanistan is not blameless. Not only do US COIN operations produce many collateral casualties, but the US military personnel can also be accused of abusive behaviour towards the ordinary Afghans (Sinno, 2008: 272). Further, he notes that just copying the insurgent’s tactics would not carry much kudos for the COIN forces. What suits a non-state actor might not suit a polity. For instance, just because the transnational insurgents have adopted a ‘networked’ structure in the information age, does not mean that the United States should adopt a similar networked structure (Sinno, 2008: 301). Sinno, using the organizational theory, concludes that a decentralized organization with a safe haven could increase its combat effectiveness by centralizing. Similarly, centralized organization without a safe haven could multiply their effectiveness by decentralizing (Sinno, 2008: 291).

Neither the Soviet COIN in the 1980s nor the US–NATO COIN in the first decade of the 21st century, were bound to fail. Tanner asserts that the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ of body bags returning home from the battlefield forced the United States to conduct the war with machines and proxy Afghan forces (loyal Northern Alliance troops). Rather, the United States should have used crack divisions much more aggressively (Tanner, 2002: 307, 311, 324). O’Ballance notes that overemphasis on high technology apparatus rather than human intelligence remains a critical shortcoming of US COIN operation in Afghanistan (O’Ballance, 2003: 259–260).

To conclude, all the contributors agree that Afghanistan throughout history has been a weak state owing to its terrain and social structure. One common factor to emerge from the essays is that any radical top-down modernization drive in Afghanistan threatens the power structure of the traditional elites like the mullahs, the clan chiefs and the land owners. In such cases of government-initiated reforms, they mobilized their retainers. The net result has been insurgency. The Afghan paradigm of insurgency with regard to objectives and techniques is nothing new, so there is no need to categorize the Afghan War as ‘New War’. Further, the Afghan war is spreading to the neighbouring regions, especially in northwest Pakistan. This is partly because more Pashtuns live in Pakistan than in Afghanistan (Hammes, 2006: 155).

Most of the world’s population (some 80%) inhabits the developing countries (Goodson, 2001: 7). So it is fruitful to speculate that the paradigm of Afghan warfare (insurgency covered with a veneer of Islam and COIN) will be the dominant paradigm of warfare in large parts of Eurasia. ¹ Herein lies the importance of studying Afghanistan.