Can the Taliban govern?

I refrain from commenting too much on Afghanistan because lots of other people who are more knowledgeable than I am write about it frequently.  However, I have been reading a fair bit about whether or not the Taliban can govern and I think I add value to this question, so I will put in my two cents.  Whether the Taliban can govern is the wrong way to ask a good question.  The better question is whether the Taliban can get compliance from people who do not support them.  As anyone who has watched The Godfather will know, the answer is yes.

The logic is simple.  When the Taliban shows up in your village they basically offer two choices.  Cooperate and we will allow you to live or don’t cooperate and we won’t.  Whether or not people will cooperate is based on the credibility of the threat.  The Taliban has shown over and over that the threat is credible.  Thus, people have an incentive to cooperate even if they do not particularly like the Taliban’s style of justice.

When International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers show up in a village, they ask for cooperation and promise security from the Taliban in return.  Sounds like a good deal if you don’t like the Taliban.  The question is whether people who do not like the Taliban will cooperate with ISAF soldiers.  The answer to the question depends on whether the promise to provide security from the Taliban is credible.  In the past it has not been.  Instead, ISAF soldiers have tended to clear the Taliban out of a village and leave.  Once they leave however, the Taliban return and make good on their promise to retaliate on those who cooperated with ISAF troops.  Thus, it is rational for Afghans not to cooperate with ISAF and cooperate with the Taliban even if they like ISAF more than the Taliban.

The essence behind the counter-insurgency strategy ISAF is designing is clear, hold, and build.  But we can state it more clearly: a credible threat to provide security from the Taliban.  If they can provide it, they can gain cooperation from the Afghans as long as they like ISAF forces more than the Taliban.  ISAF doesn’t need to be popular to gain cooperation if its promise to provide security is credible, just more popular than the Taliban.