In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

central government in Afghanistan has historically been weak, especially in rural areas, it needs to be viewed as legitimate by Afghans. At a bare minimum, Afghans should respect the central government enough that they don’t want to overthrow it.

Ironically, corruption was a major undermining factor for Zahir Shah’s regime. In a private conversation with Zahir Shah in 1971, U.S. Ambassador Robert Neumann pleaded with the king to fix the “widespread corruption” that was angering the local population. “In my four and one-half years here,” Neumann acknowledged, asking forgiveness for his blunt tone, “I had never heard so many expressions at all levels of society about a feeling of hopelessness that [the] new government could accomplish anything.”⁶

While there are no universally applicable anticorruption strategies, there are a number of insightful lessons from successful cases in Singapore, Liberia, Botswana, and Estonia. Effective efforts have generally included the immediate firing of corrupt officials, bolstering of the justice system, professionalization of new staff, and incentive and performance assessment programs. Even then, broader reforms have frequently played an important role. In Uganda, for example, Yoweri Museveni’s government, which came to power in 1986, implemented a strategy that involved passing economic reforms and deregulation, reforming the civil service, strengthening the auditor general’s office, empowering a reputable inspector general to investigate and prosecute corruption, and implementing an anticorruption public-information campaign.

Corrupt Afghan government officials, including those involved in the drug trade, need to be prosecuted and removed from office. Ambassador Thomas Schweich, who served as U.S. coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan, revealed that “a lot of intelligence…indicated that senior Afghan officials were deeply involved in the narcotics trade. Narco-traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government.”⁷ The United States and other NATO countries also have intelligence on who many of these officials are, though a substantial amount of information is kept at the classified level. Senior officials within the Afghan government have thus far been unwilling to target government officials involved in corruption, partly because they do not want to alienate powerful political figures in the midst of an insurgency. President Karzai’s efforts to establish a High Office of Oversight and Anti- Corruption and create special anticorruption units in the Office of the Attorney General and in the Judiciary were largely window dressing.

The United States and others in the international community should encourage Afghan leaders to draft sweeping anticorruption legislation, arrest and prosecute corrupt officials at the national and local levels, create inspector general offices in key ministries, provide support to the justice system (including protecting judges, prosecutors, and witnesses involved in corruption trials), and conduct a robust public-information campaign. Undermining high-level corruption in Afghanistan is just as much about finding the political will to implement effective anticorruption programs as it is about developing them. And the strategic goal should be a sense of legitimacy among local Afghans.

Bottom-Up Efforts

A second step is for the United States and other countries to find a better balance between top-down efforts to build a viable central government and bottom-up efforts to support local actors. Both are critical for establishing security and providing public services. Governance in Afghanistan has never been just about the central government. During the reign of Zahir Shah, security was established using a combination of Afghan national forces—police, intelligence, and military—and local entities. Much has changed since then. But the historical weakness of the Afghan state, the local nature of politics, and a population deeply intolerant of outside forces require that strong local governance complement national-level efforts. The United States and its allies have thus far focused almost exclusively on top-down nation-building efforts to establish a viable central government. There must be a balance between the central and the local to build a government that can deliver services to its population and protect them with national security forces. Such a task is too much to expect of a weak central government in a tribal society.

One of the most serious problems has been the inability of international and Afghan forces to “hold” territory once it was cleared of insurgent groups. British forces operating in the southern province of Helmand complained that they were simply “mowing the lawn.” With insufficient numbers of troops to clear and hold territory, the insurgency seemed to grow back, forcing British soldiers to clear the same territory repeatedly. And they weren’t alone. All across Afghanistan, U.S. and other NATO forces repeatedly had to “mow” areas that had been reinfiltrated by insurgents. Part of the answer is to increase the number of international forces, Afghan soldiers, and Afghan police to help clear and hold territory—and to get closer to the ratio of twenty soldiers per thousand inhabitants that has often been considered a minimum troop density for effective counterinsurgency.⁸

Yet tribes, subtribes, and clans have historically played an important role in establishing order in Afghanistan, especially in rural areas where the government’s reach is minimal or nonexistent. Unfortunately, there has never been a well-coordinated tribal engagement strategy. Pashtun tribes have historically resolved most disputes through shuras and jirgas. The rules of dispute resolution, called narkh, are unwritten and based on precedent.⁹ Bottom-up strategies require supporting and empowering legitimate tribal leaders and providing them with security and aid, since they are bound to be targets of insurgents and criminal networks. International and Afghan national forces can help locals by providing a rapid-reaction force in case tribes come under attack by insurgents. Tribes have also needed assistance in providing services in their areas. In practical terms, this means gaining the support of tribes that have not always supported the government, such as the Alikozai in the south or the Achakzai in the west.

The U.S. reliance on militias to hunt down al Qa’ida terrorists after the overthrow of the Taliban, as well as the effort to build the Afghan National Auxiliary Police, suggest several problems to avoid. The focus of bottom-up efforts should be on tribal leaders and their shuras and jirgas, not individuals. The rise of warlords and their private militias has alienated Afghans, since many of these warlords have subsequently terrorized the local population and become involved in criminal activity. A 2008 opinion poll by the Asia Foundation indicated that most Afghans did not trust warlords, and only 4 percent said they would turn to a local warlord to deal with a crime.¹⁰ In addition, assistance should avoid strengthening some tribes over others and thus unnecessarily reigniting tribal rivalries. In general, security in rural areas must come from local Afghan institutions, especially tribal ones, since foreign armies have never succeeded in establishing law and order in Afghanistan. There is little reason to believe the United States will be able to reverse this trend.

Eliminating the Safe Haven

A third step is addressing the sanctuary in Pakistan, which has been fundamental to the success of every successful insurgency and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan’s recent history. Mohammad Yousaf, the head of ISI’s Afghan Bureau during much of the Soviet war, noted that “a safe haven—a secret base area to which the guerrilla could withdraw to refit and rest without fear of attack” was necessary for winning the insurgency in Afghanistan, and “Pakistan provided the Mujahideen with such a sanctuary.”¹¹ Afghanistan, by reason of its poverty and geography, has always been a weak state at the mercy of its more powerful neighbors, including Pakistan. Unlike during previous periods, however, Pakistan has suffered considerable blowback from its support of proxy organizations like the Taliban after the 2001 U.S. invasion, as the country became infected by an insurgency that spread into its border regions and urban areas. By spring 2009, Deobandi militants successfully pushed into the Swat District of Pakistan, forcing the Pakistan government to negotiate.

Stabilizing Pakistan requires tackling the structural gap that exists in the country’s border regions, including the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Government institutions in the tribal areas are weak, and social and economic conditions are among the bleakest in the world. Security options will be limited unless the Pakistan government provides tangible benefits to disaffected local communities. Political steps may also be important, including rethinking the Political Parties Act, which regulates the activities of Pakistan’s political parties and their members. Under its strictures, the major parties are not authorized to campaign or hold rallies or meetings in the tribal areas. Religious parties thus are at a distinct advantage, since they don’t need to conduct “party” gatherings—they have ready access to religious institutions from which they can run their political campaigns and associated political outreach. Though it would require an enormous lobbying effort, it may also be worth integrating the Federally Administered Tribal Areas—which are only nominally controlled by Islamabad—more fully into Pakistan.

While confronting these social, political, and economic challenges is important, any impact will be limited unless there is a focus on Pakistan’s strategic interests, which support the use of proxy organizations to help