Peace Through Strength?: The Problem with Fighting Your Way to the Negotiating Table

by Eric Martin

In March of 2009, when the Obama administration was conducting a strategic review to determine the way forward in Afghanistan, the primary tension was between engaging in a long term, multi-decade COIN campaign, or beginning the disengagement and reconciliation process - which would, itself, take several years to play out.

Ultimately, Obama opted for an amalgamation of the two: increasing troop levels again (on top of an earlier increase), giving General Stanley McChrystal free reign to implement COIN tactics, but also setting an aspirational timeline for the commencement of withdrawal, and emphasizing the fact that the mission was not open-ended.

One read of the Obama administration's approach was that the surge of troops, and uptick in operations, was meant to shift momentum, and pressure the Taliban to seek reconciliation on terms more favorable to the coalition and Afghan government - to tilt the battlefield in our favor so that the Taliban were not negotiating from a position of strength (or refusing to negotiate altogether).

Although preferable to engaging in an extended COIN campaign, there have been numerous problems with this hybrid approach (more on those below), and the early results are not encouraging.  Anand Gopal reports:

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The US� initial strategy was to talk and shoot�step up raids and targeted killings against insurgent commanders, while pressuring (or enticing) them to quit the fight. While officials spoke often about reconciliation, their terms�abandon the armed opposition and recognize the Afghan government and constitution�were those of surrender, the type a victor imposes on the vanquished. Talks with senior leaders (except when discussing a possible surrender) were strictly ruled out, and as recently as this summer the US was placing insurgent leaders known to have communicated with the Kabul government on terror black lists. Under the US plan, a more broad-based reconciliation process, involving the Taleban as a whole, as well as other sectors of society, would have to wait until the US military could recapture momentum on the battlefield.

But ten months into the new US approach to Afghanistan, shifting momentum has not come. Instead, 2010 is the bloodiest year on record for this war, with insurgent-initiated attacks through the first half of this year up by 60 per cent compared to last year, according to one tally; the Taleban have been able to replace commanders as quickly as they are killed; the reach of the insurgency and the area under their control is at its height; and showcase offensives meant to mark progress, like Marja, have failed.

One of the problems with this strategy is the fact that an increase in military activity (kinetic operations) can create more enemies in the long run through the inevitable killing of innocent civilians and non-combatants.  As Matt Waldman explains in a thoughtful report based on interviews with Taliban/insurgent leaders:

Interviews suggest that the longer the conflict has gone on, the greater the significance and prevalence of this motivation [retaliation against coalition forces for military aggression]. One southern commander explained how an attack by foreign forces incited him to fight:

I am a landowner and was working on the land. I was not a Talib. But some years ago American special forces came and entered my home without my permission at night and killed my two sons, my father, and two uncles without any reason. Another time they did the same thing in another village in my district. When I saw their acts and knew they came only to kill us, not to help, I started fighting against them. They forced me to fight them and now I will continue to fight them so long as they are in Afghanistan.14

Another commander argued that �if international forces keep bombing and killing civilians not only the Taliban but also all the rest of the nation will fight them.�

In addition to swelling the ranks of insurgents through imprecise military action, intensifying the conflict serves to breed mistrust between the various factions that will, eventually, be expected to cease fighting, disarm and broach a peace agreement.  Waldman again:

Meanwhile, the short-term effect of the coalition�s approach is to intensify the conflict and reinforce mistrust. As a southern commander asked: �Why is the West pouring millions of dollars into reconciliation and then trying to kill us with big operations like Marja?�

The climate has grown so toxic that Waldman sets forth a series of trust building measures that he views as necessary pre-requisites to even commencing earnest negotiations.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Scahill highlights a related phenomenon in a recent piece in The Nation, focusing instead on the impact of special forces raids conducted against insurgent elements that themselves were pursuing reconciliation through official Afghan government channels:

On March 26, 2009, Mullah Sahib Jan, a militant Taliban imam from the Mohammed Agha district in Afghanistan's Logar province, walked into the office of the Independent National Reconciliation Commission, the main body encouraging the Taliban to lay down their weapons and work with the government. He was escorting fifty Taliban fighters who, he said, had committed to ending their fight against the Afghan government and entering the process of integration. To the government, Sahib Jan was a shining example of how reconciliation with the Taliban is supposed to work. But less than a year later, the former militant's story would stand as a devastating symbol of how the actions of US Special Operations Forces are sabotaging the very strategy for reaching a political settlement that US officials claim to support. [...]

"He was preaching to the Taliban, encouraging them to come to the government, telling the fighters there were a lot of benefits to laying down their arms," says Mohammed Anwar, director of Logar's reconciliation commission and an adviser to a local tribal council. Council officials credit Sahib Jan with putting Taliban fighters on the road to reconciliation.

But on the morning of January 14, Sahib Jan's bullet-riddled body lay on the ground outside his family's mud-brick compound in Logar's Safed Sang village. According to local officials and his family, he was killed in a night raid by US Special Operations Forces...

Officials at the reconciliation office point to several night raids over the past year, which they say targeted former Taliban who entered the process of reconciliation, as devastating to their work.

While there is some doubt as to how senior a Taliban leader Sahib Jan was, there is increasing concern that the campaign of picking off Taliban leaders is having a serious detrimental effect in terms of the eventual negotiation process.  While much of the Taliban movement has operated under a fairly cohesive hierarchical structure - with regional commanders/governors taking orders from the Quetta-based Shura (headed by Mullah Omar) - the recent assassinations have weakened the Quetta Shura's control, which will make it more difficult for the Taliban side to successfully implement the terms of any peace deal.

On top of that, the younger Talibs that rise up to replace the slain commanders tend to be more radical, less interested in negotiation and more concerned with establishing their credentials on the battle field.  Scahill observes:

[Abdul Salam] Zaeef, the former senior Taliban official, who spent four years in Guant�mo prison, confirmed that the American targeted-killing campaign of Taliban leaders has been successful, but he believes that the strategy will backfire for both the US and Afghan governments. "If these people, important, known people, disappear from the [Taliban] movement, what will happen? Who should [the Afghan government] make a dialogue with?" he asks. "The fighting will not stop. I know the new generation is more extremist than the last generation. The new generation will not listen to anyone. This is a dangerous thing. It will be bad for the Americans, but it will be worse for the people of Afghanistan."

Waldman echoes this point: 

Special forces operations against insurgent commanders might also be reducing the prospects for negotiations. As an insurgent political figure observed, �Foreign forces kill commanders but they are just replaced, and the one that replaces the commander often has more confidence and more enmity. The people coming up are more aggressive, vengeful, and also become angrier.�48

And, finally, Gopal recounts a troubling episode:

While leaders in Quetta have been probing the government side for some time, there does not appear to be any consensus yet on the approach. And as ISAF�s assassination campaign succeeds in killing or capturing field commanders, they are replaced by a new generation of younger recruits, who lack ties to the senior leadership. Recently in Paktia province Quetta sent an alim to reprimand a group of young commanders who were breaking the organization�s rules. But the defiant young commanders killed the cleric. While such incidents are still isolated, the danger is that as the Taleban undergo a massive demographic change in the coming years, this trend accelerates, and the ability of Quetta to enforce decisions on its rank-and-file will be diminished.

There are strong indications that the Obama administration's half-and-half approach is resulting in the worst of both worlds: empowering the insurgency, poisonining the environment between Afghan government and insurgent forces while peeling off the more responsible and reliable leadership, but preparing for a withdrawal which, ultimately, will require negotiations under the aforementioned sub-optimal conditions.

It's time to re-align a policy that currently works at cross-purposes, and put all our weight between attempting to establish conditions that are truly conducive to some sort of eventual negotiated settlement.  That entails, at the very least, pulling back on the throttle of increased military activities.

(cross-posted at Obsidian Wings)