Afghanistan: From War to Complex Emergency

Events in Afghanistan no longer resemble a war as much as a “complex contingency.”  According to the U.S. Joint Warfighting Center’s Joint Taskforce Commander’s Handbook for Peace Operations, such contingencies typically possess the following characteristics:

	Increased use of asymmetrical means by belligerents
	Dominance of political objectives
	Presence and involvement of non-governmental, private voluntary, and international organizations
	Usually takes place in a failed state
	Numerous parties to a conflict
	Undisciplined factions (fail to respond to their own leaders)
	Ineffective or short-lived cease-fires
	Absence of law and order
	Gross violations of human rights
	Collapse of civil infrastructure
	Presence of many refugees and internally displaced persons
	Poorly defined operations area

“[A] humanitarian disaster that occurs in a conflict zone and is complicated by, or results from, the conflicting interests of warring parties.  Its causes are seldom exclusively natural or military; in many cases, a marginally subsistent population is precipitated toward disaster by the consequences of militia action or a natural occurrence such as an earthquake or drought.  The presence of militias and their interest in controlling and extorting the local population will impede and in some cases seriously threaten relief efforts.  In addition to violence against the civil populations, civilian installations such as hospitals, schools, refugee centers, and cultural sites will become war objectives and may be frequently looted or destroyed. ²” 

Such descriptions closely parallel the situation in Afghanistan.  As the U.S. military campaign continues, the country struggles to overcome the catastrophic effects of over two decades of conflict with famine barely averted and the interim authority in Kabul looking increasingly unstable as it faces challenges from within and without.  Outside the Afghan capital, warlords have started staking claims to their old fiefdoms, with factional fighting breaking out in the north and south, charges of Iranian interference in the west, and, in Kabul itself, peacekeepers fired upon and the transport minister killed in what Hamid Karzai, the interim authority chairman, claimed was an assassination by others within his administration.  By any standards, the country’s reemergence is far from auspicious, and the new Afghanistan may yet relapse into a fully-fledged “failed state”.  Against this backdrop, the country’s recent earthquake is almost a footnote in a long catalogue of misfortune.  Meanwhile, calls for the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) sound ever more persuasive.  However, not everyone is convinced of the wisdom of such a move, with opinion within the U.S. administration particularly divided as to the role of peacekeepers in post-Taliban Afghanistan

 
Continuity of U.S. peacekeeping policy

Such dissent is not without historical precedence. Indeed, President George W. Bush has long been critical of American involvement in peacekeeping missions generally, arguing since the 2000 presidential election campaign that commitment to such operations over-extends the U.S. military and should be reassessed.  This stance has, if anything, become more intractable since the current military campaign against terrorism began, as evidenced by the recent announcement of the intent to scale back the U.S. commitment to the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai.³  Similarly, while meeting with Karzai in Washington on Jan. 28, Bush pledged $50 million in aid and undertook to assist Afghanistan in establishing a national army and police force, but insisted that U.S. troops would not take part in any long-term peacekeeping force in the country. ⁴  This opposition to peacekeeping is further evidenced by the reluctance of some within the U.S. administration to endorse calls for ISAF’s expansion.

 
Misreading Somalia

Partly, America’s aversion to peacekeeping can be traced back to the ill-fated operation in Somalia almost a decade ago.  This ended after the death of 18 U.S. military personnel, and resulted in a marked loss of enthusiasm for peace operations, as witnessed by the Clinton administration’s release of Presidential Decision Directive 25. ⁵  The prospect of another Somalia-type fiasco led to an aversion to nation building, and has been cited by some, such as Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., as a sufficient rationale for America not to get involved in peacekeeping in Afghanistan. ⁶ 

However, as one former American UN official in Mogadishu says of the operation in Somalia: “The mission was not fated to fail.  It failed because of UN and U.S. bungling.” ⁷  Arguably, the Somalia operation did not succeed because it vacillated between the extremes of too much or too little force, finally overstretching itself in the ill-advised and ill-fated manhunt for the Somali warlord Mohammed Aideed.  This amounted to a declaration of war against Aideed, and was a step too far.  The mission ended in failure, a casualty of applying too much force with too little regard for the consequences.

This contrasted with the success enjoyed by the U.S. Marines of the Unified Taskforce (UNITAF) that had been previously deployed in Somalia.  UNITAF enjoyed considerable success in fulfilling its mandate “to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations,” and allowed the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations in Somalia to operate in relative safety and counter the worst effects of the countrywide famine within months. ⁸ Furthermore, “though postured for enforcement, it [UNITAF] behaved in many ways like a peacekeeping contingent, and it did so in an environment where each of the parties was ultrasensitive to any hint of bias against its interests.” ⁹  As such, the UNITAF operation, while not full-blown nation building, was certainly more worthy of the name than the armed posse that went after Aideed.  Moreover, it not only went some way towards proving that the concept of nation building was achievable, but demonstrated that peacekeeping in the post-Cold War “New World Order” was also doable, albeit with great difficulty.  Similarly, the success of operations in Mozambique and Uganda testify that helping devastated countries rebuild need not end as ignobly as did the American adventure in Somalia. ¹⁰

 
"Nation Building Lite"

Such examples provide a strong counter-balance to the argument that nation building is to be avoided at all costs.  To a degree, this position has changed since Sept. 11, with the Bush administration realizing that helping certain states rebuild is indeed in the U.S. strategic interest, lest these same states once again give rise to the sort of regimes that allow the al Qaedas of this world to thrive within their borders.  However, true nation building has been replaced by what has been termed “nation building lite.”  This differs from both the concentrated nation building that took place in former Axis countries following the Second World War, and that which occurred in the Third World in the post-colonial period.  Instead, the focus is on assisting failed states train new armies and police forces and rebuild their governmental and economic institutions.

Nation building lite also appears to eschew peacekeeping as shown by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s remarks when asked about expanding ISAF: “Another school of thought, which is where my brain is, is that why put all the time and money and effort in that?  Why not put it into helping them develop a national army, so that they can look out for themselves over time?” ¹¹  Such an outcome would be desirable.

However, a monopoly on the legitimate use of force remains a prerequisite of modern statehood.  The government of Afghanistan does not, as yet, possess such a monopoly and may require outside assistance if it is to survive long enough to acquire it.  The expansion of ISAF would provide just such assistance, buying enough time for the Afghan government to build up the national army rightly referred to by Rumsfeld as being so necessary.

The paradoxical nature of America’s policy towards peacekeeping in Afghanistan is further evidenced by the comments of Douglas J. Feith, the U.S.  undersecretary of defense for policy.  Feith contends: “We do have an interest in the kind of stability in Afghanistan that will make it less likely that Afghanistan will become a base for terrorist operations against us in the future.  We want the current Afghan political experiment to succeed.”  However, this conflicts with his added qualifier: “We are not involving ourselves in internecine politics, including the politics backed by guns, as the definition of our military mission.” ¹²  Such proclamations are dangerously dismissive of the crucial link between politics and war.

For, distasteful and inconvenient though it may be, keeping the peace in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to fighting a war there.  Not only will this help prevent the reemergence of the conditions which gave rise to al Qaeda’s biggest ally, it will also guard against America’s acquiring a reputation as a global bully who cares little for picking up the pieces after its devastating military campaigns.  Leaving aside any moral imperative attached to assisting Afghanistan through its present difficulties, the propaganda coup handed to America’s enemies by any failure to do so is surely sufficient argument for such assistance.  Given this, any contentions that ISAF’s expansion presents an unnecessary diversion of resources from the larger war effort against terrorism are debatable. ¹³  In the current strategic climate, warfighting and peacekeeping are two sides of one coin.  Indeed, given the previously mentioned continuity in the negative U.S. attitude towards peacekeeping generally, such protestations of over-commitment almost seem like mere justification of existing policy - especially in light of the sheer scale of the recently announced defense budget.

 
Mission creep

Fear of “mission creep” may also play a part in such opposition. ¹⁴  Such prudence is wise.  As Robert B. Oakley says of the unfolding situation in Afghanistan: “It's difficult, it's tricky and you've got to be very, very careful not to get in too deep and say, ‘We're king makers.’”  However, as Oakley adds, the United States still needs to accept that it is already involved in Afghanistan's affairs, and has sided with the interim authority.  As such, it needs to support this authority to the fullest extent while also remaining sensitive to regional opinion. ¹⁵  Oakley’s comments are noteworthy, not least because, as a former U.S. ambassador to Somalia, he speaks with some authority on the issue.

These remarks also allude to how fine the line between prudence and vacillation can be when a clearly defined exit strategy becomes a non-negotiable prerequisite to initiating urgently needed military action.  The U.S. tendency toward such practices, as evident in the run-up to operations in the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and the present campaign in Afghanistan, caused one commentator to note recently: “The modesty of our [America’s] aims in entering wars is surpassed only by the timidity with which we conclude them.” ¹⁶  This is not to say that such tendencies are uniquely American, as events in the United Kingdom show, with opposition members of parliament charging that the British government has committed troops to ISAF without considering how they will be withdrawn. ¹⁷  Nor should military operations be undertaken without proper regard to how they will end – as the Vietnam War graphically demonstrated.  However, the desire for neat exit strategies must guide the parameters of such operations, not dictate them.  Indeed, friction in war, as identified by Clausewitz, ensures such strategies are not always achievable even when they exist.

As such, fears over mission creep must be kept in perspective.  Otherwise, America will not find itself creeping into missions as much as being dragged in, something that may yet prove the case in Afghanistan should ISAF not be expanded.  Indeed, to a degree this is already happening, with U.S. troops engaged in humanitarian operations even as their comrades engage in the heaviest ground combat of the war to date.  There have also been charges that the U.S. may have already intervened (perhaps even inadvertently) with air strikes in factional fighting in Afghanistan. ¹⁸  As such factors further illustrate, if America is to adequately operate in the gray zone of complex emergencies, the fear of mission creep must be overcome, along with the larger U.S. aversion to peacekeeping and nation building of which it is part.  Looming large in sustaining this aversion is the specter of Somalia.  Like the ghosts of Vietnam before it, this must be exorcised if the United States is to effectively meet the challenge of twenty-first century warfare.

Endnotes

 

By Mark Burgess CDI Research Assistant mburgess@cdi.org

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