States, Societies, Resistance, and Coin

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN'S LITTLE AMERICA: THE WAR WITHIN THE WAR FOR AFGHANISTAN, is about NATO's counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan since 2009. Published in 2012, it is one of the few works that links high-level policy to on-the-ground realities of a far away war. As the United States determines a role for its military after 2014, it is worth looking back. Many have focused on the book's portrayal of personal infighting, bureaucratic sclerosis, and parochialism. (1) Perhaps interesting is that he shows how Western ideas about state-society relations led NATO to conduct a campaign that has cost trillions of dollars, has had at best limited successes, and may have simply armed an array of factions for civil war when NATO leaves. (2) We're bringing the of Afghanistan back here, Lt. Col. Cal Worth explained to a resident of Marja in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. (3) He was explaining not just his immediate objective, but also the underlying logic of NATO's counterinsurgency campaign. This logic is found in U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, which was written as the U.S. military fought insurgencies in Iraq. The logic holds that insurgencies require support from the population, and if the state reaches the people, popular support for the insurgency withers away. While insurgencies require support from populations because insurgents cannot draw on state resources, the idea that more government will attenuate this support is not necessarily true. This idea is based on a Western-centric definition of the state as a sovereign, autonomous entity that determines social relations throughout its territory. Yet, this Western-ideal type of state has never existed in Afghanistan. Those who have tried to build such a state have incited violent resistance and either chose an alternative model of governance or were deposed. When the U.S. military and civilian agencies endorsed the Western-ideal type of state, they too encountered violence. This was not because the insurgency felt threatened by the state, but because Afghan society rejected the Western-ideal-type model of state-society relations. As a result, the U.S. national security apparatus--from the White House to civilian and military organizations in the field--could not develop an effective stabilization strategy. This is not to say that Afghanistan has never been stable; rather, that stability has been closely associated with a minimalist state that is distinct from the Western model. Going forward, this means that NATO should be prepared to accept, if not encourage, the of Afghanistan to seek a political solution that decentralizes political authority. This would center around reducing responsibilities of the central Afghan state and enforcing particular redlines for its subnational components, such as prohibiting threats to the state or launching attacks on other countries. Peripheral governing authorities would determine other issues for themselves. This could leave room for a Taliban-affiliated political party to assume some authority, the promise of which could be part of a negotiated settlement to the conflict. This analysis is also relevant for Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. In these unstable places, the time and resources required to build a Western-type state are simply not available and the appropriateness of the Western model varies widely. The U.S. national security apparatus will need to deal directly with nonstate actors, tribal leaders, religious figures, warlords, militias, etc.--not only as conduits of information and temporary leaders, but as primary actors in a complex but stable political tapestry. This approach is not without risks, but after than ten years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives, the United States cannot afford to approach the rest of the world like it has Afghanistan. Understanding the Western-ideal-type State The Western-ideal-type state is a product of a specific political and intellectual history, and for many people around the world, its benevolence is not self-evident. …