The Taliban’s success can largely be attributed to its use of a wide array of asymmetric measures aimed at negating NATO’s technical military superiority. Drawing on a sophisticated array of terror tactics and a complex intelligence network, the Taliban has managed to spread instability across large parts of Afghanistan through a sustained campaign of violence. With kidnappings and bombings increasingly commonplace even in Kabul itself, the war is now being fought not just in the country’s fringes, but at its heart. A series of recent attacks, such as the audacious Kandahar jailbreak in June 2008, have also boosted the organisation’s prestige and indicated their ability to evade detection by Afghan and Western intelligence networks.
Crucially, the Taliban appears to be also winning on another front – the battle for hearts and minds. By tapping into a variety of local grievances against NATO-ISAF and the Kabul government, from poppy eradication and bombing leading to civilian casualties, to high levels of unemployment and chronic underdevelopment despite billions of dollars of aid, the insurgency has succeeded in attracting sympathy beyond its traditional support base and gained a measure of political legitimacy among many Afghans.
This was already apparent in 2007, when ICOS conducted an opinion survey to assess local perceptions of the Taliban and its propaganda campaign. Highlighting a growing lack of faith in NATO and the Afghan government, almost half of all respondents doubted their ability to achieve a decisive victory, and more than a quarter of those interviewed expressed their support for the Taliban.
International failures
Underlying this expansion of Taliban presence is the international community’s failure to deliver on the many promises of a better life made to the Afghan people in the wake of the invasion. Seven years on, much of the country still lacks basic amenities and the majority of the population struggle to secure necessities such as food and shelter, let alone a sustainable livelihood. Field research by ICOS has presented a picture of acute hardship and deep uncertainty, with the majority of respondents worried about feeding their families.
Economic outreach to Afghans at a grassroots level, through livelihood creation and microfinance schemes, remain central elements of a successful strategy. Yet developmental expenditure continues to be dwarfed by military spending, resulting in an ‘expectations gap’ that the insurgency has been able to exploit. The Taliban has managed to make a manifesto out of the shortcomings of the international community and the Afghan government. Even the failure to prevent the rise of terrorist violence in the country has paradoxically helped the Taliban present themselves in some areas as providers of law and order, despite their responsibility for the ongoing instability.
The international community’s failure to give sufficient focus to the needs and desires of the Afghan population and channel them into effective policy responses is a key aspect of the insurgency’s rising popularity.
This is particularly true of the current approach to tackling Afghanistan’s endemic opium production. A key element of present policy is eradication, which invariably drives farming communities away from the West and into the arms of the Taliban. ICOS suggests an alternative proposal called Poppy for Medicine, which would license some of Afghanistan’s cultivation of opium for conversion into morphine.
If implemented, this proposal would provide poppy growers with the chance to channel their harvest legally into the global morphine market. The current policy of forced poppy crop eradication, on the other hand, destroys their source of income without providing them with an alternative livelihood. In this context, the Taliban has managed to present itself as a protector of local livelihoods by allowing opium production to continue in the areas under its control.
The depressing conclusion is that, despite the vast injections of international capital flowing into the country, and a universal desire to ‘succeed’ in Afghanistan, the state is once again in serious danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban. Where implemented, international development and reconstruction efforts have been underfunded, failed to have a significant impact on local communities’ living conditions, or improve attitudes towards the Afghan Government and the international community. The current insurgency, divided into a large poverty-driven ‘grassroots’ component and a concentrated group of hardcore militant Islamists, is gaining momentum, further complicating the reconstruction and development process and effectively sabotaging NATO-ISAF’s stabilisation mission in the country.
Until the international community expands its focus beyond the traditional military dimensions, targeting needs at a grassroots level and thus restoring its previous levels of support, there is a danger that the Taliban will simply overrun Afghanistan under the noses of NATO.
Doubling the troops; bolstering development efforts
Security must improve in parallel to development efforts. The Taliban will succeed for as long as they are fighting an under-resouced power. To demonstrate to the Afghan people that NATO is offering nothing short of an unwavering commitment to the fight, ISAF must have access to formidable military force. With some NATO members restricted by caveats, this is not the case.
The total number of international troops integrated to ISAF urgently needs to be doubled to a minimum of 80,000 troops. Currently, NATO is in command of the International Force and most ISAF troops are provided by NATO member states. Nevertheless, contributions from individual countries are, even within NATO, largely uneven when considered in proportion to their population or GDP. For instance, France and Spain are contributing less than one soldier per billion USD of GDP while the United Kingdom and Turkey each supply above three soldiers per USD billion.
Increasing troop levels alone is not sufficient to succeed. Security and development are two inseparable sides of the same reconstruction effort. Development without security and the rule of law would certainly lead to Afghanistan’s disintegration. On the other hand, security at the expense of development is not sustainable; social and economic development is essential to long-term political stability. A lack of real governance and stability is creating a breeding ground for conflict, further instability and violence.
The international community’s strategy in Afghanistan must be a serious commitment to improve the lives of Afghans in an immediate and substantial manner. This is essential in counteracting the Taliban’s propaganda against the West and the Afghan Government. A coherent hearts and minds strategy to address the poverty in Afghanistan’s southern provinces will help international troops achieve their mission.
For the reconstruction effort to be an unambiguous success story, it is essential that the international community creates clearly defined goals in terms of development. Currently, Afghanistan is littered with challenges such as high maternal mortality rates, a failure to adequately promote secondary education, high unemployment and mass displacement due to drought, crop failure, forced opium eradication and destruction of villages during combat between international and insurgent forces.
These are areas that the West must focus on improving, setting priorities, sequencing and creating positive impact on the lives of the Afghan people. Multidimensional poverty represents a direct threat to the achievements of the Bonn process. Rising levels of violence and support of the Taliban show the need for the new democratic institutions to deliver meaningful, pro-poor, policies to the population. Poverty is the primary enemy of Afghanistan’s reconstruction, and must be defeated. As a beneficiary of international aid, Afghanistan receives the lowest amount of reconstruction financing compared to all other post-conflict nations, signifying a failure to recognize that Afghanistan is among the poorest of the poor nations. The response to emergency crises like starvation is not only a humanitarian necessity – it represents an essential part of any stabilization effort.
The international community’s policy in Afghanistan must be to bring about the conditions in which social and economic development can ultimately be created and sustained by the Afghans themselves. It is key that the international community does not allow the conflict to impact on the futures of the youth of Afghanistan. Improving literacy and education; providing healthcare; creating the necessary infrastructure; and providing economic choice through licit sources of revenue and job opportunities are all essential to Afghanistan becoming an economically robust state which is capable of democratic self-governance. An Afghan Community Fund, similar to Brazil’s Bolsa Familia project, should be set up, whereby positive actions from the Afghan public would be rewarded with mutual investment on the part of the government with the support of the international community.
Securing Afghanistan’s stable and prosperous future requires a young generation of competent, peace-driven Afghans to take the leadership. Leadership training for the young unemployed and conflict-ravaged Afghans should be organised seeking to provide them with the necessary skills to assume leadership from current stakeholders, who are the victims of decades of conflict, civil strife and tribal tensions.
The international community has a crucial role to play in building local capacities and strengthening Afghan ownership by forging connections between Afghans by investing in infrastructure, healthcare and education, as well as investing in locally supported delivery systems. Afghan ownership of the development situation is a politic way forward as it helps build public confidence and trust in the Afghan Government and the international community.
