Guest Post by Philip Korsnes
The Afghanistan debate often feels like a bizarre Mad Lib composed of scraps of historical analogy and far-flung case-studies. Every discussion of the way forward seems inevitably to turn on some other location or historical event. Some advocate policy prescriptions borrowed from the Iraq War; others warn of the echoing spectre of Vietnam. Dusty allusions to precedents in Malaya or Belfast or the Philippines all make appearances, as do references to the Soviet Union and Alexander the Great. To coin a phrase: “when you have a nail, the past seems filled with hammers.”
The latest of these “Answers from Elsewhere” appears in George Gavrilis‘ compelling Foreign Affairs essay “The Tajik Solution: A Model for Fixing Afghanistan,” which recounts the resolution and aftermath of the 1990s civil war in Afghanistan’s northern neighbor. Gavrilis’ case deserves attention not just for the good sense it makes, but even moreso in light of the bigger picture of the debate, as an example of exactly the kind of unwelcome advice doomed not even to be considered at the decision-making table:
Tajikistan is still corrupt and authoritarian, but it is also tolerably stable –stable enough for the international community to forget about it, which is a striking mark of success. The turnaround was due largely to an intelligently conceived and successfully implemented intervention by a small UN mission and a core of unlikely bedfellows that included Iran and Russia. Rather than forcing free and fair elections, throwing out warlords, and flooding the country with foreign peacekeepers, the intervening parties opted for a more limited and realistic set of goals. They brokered deals across political factions, tolerated warlords where necessary, and kept the number of outside peacekeeping troops to a minimum. The result has been the emergence of a relatively stable balance of power inside the country, the dissuasion of former combatants from renewed hostilities, and the opportunity for state building to develop organically. The Tajik case suggests that in trying to rebuild a failed state, less may be more…
Privately, many U.S. and UN officials in Kabul concede that the best-case scenario for Afghanistan is that in two or three decades it will arrive at the place where Tajikistan and its other Central Asian neighbors are today. Yet in spite of such realistic judgments, the international community has publicly committed itself to a much more ambitious agenda: the transformation of Afghanistan into a prosperous democratic country where rule of law prevails. The problem with this lofty vision is not only that it is unattainable but that in pursuing it, chances to achieve more practical outcomes will be squandered.
Tajikistan boasts a number of advantages over competing analogies. That conflict shares a familial resemblance with the one in Afghanistan now, as factions of Islamists, war-lords and the state clashed in mountainous terrain for control over an underdeveloped Central Asian backwater. Geographic proximity means that many of the same regional players will have to be mobilized now as were then, many of Tajikistan’s problems are recognizable in Afghanistan today (corruption, narco-trafficking, etc), and lessons from Tajik social structure may apply better to Afghanistan than do those learned in Belfast or Malaya.
Temporal proximity likewise works to the Tajik model’s favor. Unlike the Cold War calculus governing Soviet strategy in Afghanistan, or the even more distant logic of empire that informed earlier counter-insurgency campaigns, the 1990s Tajik civil war, and the subsequent peace deal, took place against the geopolitical backdrop of multipolarity, with a coalition of local powers joining together to broker an end to the conflict in order to snuff out the potential spread of instability in the region. The predicament of those unlikely bedfellows taking action in the 1990s (cash-strapped after the end of the Cold War, with bigger fish to fry than some Central Asian basketcase) might also sound familiar to Americans planning the way forward in Afghanistan. It’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison (for one thing, there’s the added Al Qaeda element now), but the Tajik model does seem instructive.
Unfortunately, many of those same aspects which count in favor of Tajikistan as a model for Afghanistan also weigh against that model’s harmonious adoption into US strategy in Afghanistan. One key element to the success of the peace settlement was the investment and involvement of Tajikistan’s neighbors, and the comparatively hands-off approach of more remote powers:
The accord was the result of a three-year effort by the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) and nearby states such as Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan. These outside players hosted eight rounds of peace talks, restored multiple failed cease-fires, mediated on behalf of various factions, drafted vital sections of the peace agreement, and formed a Contact Group to monitor and troubleshoot implementation. The United States and European Union remained outside the group but occasionally offered input and assistance.
Another distinctive characteristic of the effort was its explicitly limited scope, compelled by the outside players’ knowledge of how constrained the resources at their disposal were:
The Contact Group, in short, could afford to give Tajikistan only a basic makeover, and so it set its sights low, not wanting to let the ideal be the enemy of the acceptable. It concentrated on striking a balance across the country’s varied political factions and dissuading them from restarting the war.
Today in Afghanistan, both those components are roads-not-taken. The US has signaled a virtually open-ended commitment, which serves both to preclude talk of exit-strategies in favor of grandiose designs for nation-building and to relieve any pressure on nearby states to contribute to Afghan stability for their own sake (Pakistan’s shaky commitment to its US ally’s preferred outcome is a case in point). The diagnosis of Afghanistan now as Tajikistan then may be apt, but it seems every measure has been taken to prevent following the same course of treatment.
Gavrilis concludes with a kind of quixotic effort, laying out a four-point plan for adapting the “Tajik playbook” to Afghanistan. Comparing just one of those points against what is considered within the realm of political possibility for US policy-makers reveals how remote the Tajik model’s chances are for adoption. Tragically, it also offers a glimpse of just how much the US is sacrificing by adhering to the trajectory of current strategy:
The United States should seriously engage on Afghanistan with Russia and Iran. Given Russia’s stinging history in the country, it cannot offer to send troops. But Russian political advisers can transfer valuable insights on the conduct of border-control missions and lessons learned about the corrupting effects of trafficking on soldiers. Iran’s role is perhaps even more sensitive, yet Washington and Tehran share interests in defeating the insurgency, suppressing trafficking, and fostering political stability in the Afghan west. And Iranian experience in mediating the Tajik conflict might usefully inform similar initiatives in Afghanistan. Applying the Tajik model to Afghanistan will not give the United States and its partners the outcome that they want. But if they try it, they just might find they get what they need.
Read the rest here: George Gavrilis, “The Tajik Solution: A Model for Fixing Afghanistan,” Foreign Affairs
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