Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 1, February–March 2009, pp. 29–60
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Adam Roberts and Survival Editor Dana Allin discuss the causes of growing pessimism about the Afghanistan mission. (Streaming video; 11:02)
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The limitations of military doctrines and practice are often exposed, not by arguments, but by events. Thus it was mainly events in Iraq and Afghanistan that exposed the inadequacies of the so-called ‘revolution in military affairs’ – an idea that was popular in the United States from the mid 1990s until at least 2003. Now, Afghanistan – and the situation in Pakistan with which it is inextricably linked – is proving to be a harsh test of the revived ideas of counter-insurgency.
Afghanistan was always likely to be a difficult theatre of operations for outside military forces. Seeing this (and perhaps also because he did not want an ongoing distraction from the future invasion of Iraq, for which he was already lobbying), then-US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said in November 2001:
In fact, one of the lessons of Afghanistan’s history, which we’ve tried to apply in this campaign, is if you’re a foreigner, try not to go in. If you go in, don’t stay too long, because they don’t tend to like any foreigners who stay too long.
The wars in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century have been the foundation for a view of the country and its peoples – especially the latter – as unusually resistant to any kind of foreign influence or control, actual or perceived. David Loyn, the veteran BBC reporter on Afghanistan who has charted these previous conflicts, argues that mistakes are being repeated today because of a neglect of the study of history. He charges that the United States and Britain have failed to understand the extent of resistance in Afghanistan to anything that looks like foreign control.
The war in 1979–89 between the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan and its mujahadeen adversaries contributed to the collapse of the Soviet empire – not only proof of the fateful consequences that may flow from war in Afghanistan, but also one driver of the present war. The channelling of much international aid to mujahadeen groups through Pakistan reinforced the fateful link between events in Pakistan and those in Afghanistan. The power of non-state groups and regional military chiefs, and their tendency to rely on threats and uses of force not controlled by any state, became more deeply ingrained than before in both Afghanistan and the frontier areas of Pakistan. The religious element in Afghan politics did not disappear with the departure of Soviet forces in 1989. Indeed, within a few years religious warriors trained in the hard school of combat against Soviet forces in Afghanistan were to turn up in a wide range of other locations, including in the former Yugoslavia. These legacies of the war against Soviet control remain most important in Afghanistan itself. The problems of non-state violence, regional rivalries and the religious element in politics are not new to Afghanistan, but they were reinforced. Above all, the old instinctive suspicion of foreign projects is still there.
Following the withdrawal of the last Soviet forces from Afghanistan in January 1989, there was an internal crisis and civil war that...
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Adam Roberts is President-elect of the British Academy and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies in Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He was the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University from 1986 to the end of 2007.
Related Articles
Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan by Adam Roberts (February–March 2009)
What is Happening in Pakistan? by Hilary Synnott (February–March 2009)
The Way Forward in Afghanistan: Three Views by Barnet Rubin, Amin Saikal and Julian Lindley-French (February–March 2009)
Afghan Diary by Rodric Braithwaite (February–March 2009)
Pakistan’s Dangerous Game by Seth G. Jones (Spring 2007)
Averting Failure in Afghanistan by Seth G. Jones (Spring 2006)
Securing Afghanistan’s Border by Amin Saikal (Spring 2006)
Walking Softly in Afghanistan: The Future of UN State-Building by Simon Chesterman (Autumn 2002)
Afghanistan after the Loya Jirga by Amin Saikal (Autumn 2002)
The Taliban Papers by Tim Judah (Spring 2002)
