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.

Dan Brumberg on Afghanistan

Dan Brumberg, Co-Director of the Democracy and Governance Program at Georgetown University and Acting Director of the Muslim World Initiative at the United States Institute of Peace, argues that the US faces a no-win situation in Afghanistan as more US troops alone is not sufficient to defeat the Taliban:

the battle against the Taliban cannot be won by American (or other Western) soldiers and pilots…there must be a political solution that unites all factions behind a government widely seen as both effective and legitimate.

Brumberg contends that Afghani leaders, especially President Karzai, have not been serious about addressing these issues.  He concludes:

This may be a no-win situation…we cannot stay but we cannot go. This is the great conundrum that President Obama faces as its pulls U.S. troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan.

Not all agree with Brumberg’s conclusion that we cannot leave.  As I wrote in a recent post, knowledgeable people on Afghanistan are beginning to suggest that US interests do not require that we defeat the Taliban.  See, for example, discussions at Abu Muqawama and Democracy Arsenal.

A Closer Look at US D&G Funding

In a recent post, I discussed how pleased I was to see that the Obama administration is asking for a sizable increase for Democracy and Governance (D&G) programs in its 2010 budget request.  Since then I have taken a closer look at the numbers to get a sense of what they tell us about the priorities of the administration in this area.  There is some good news and some less than good news.

First the less than good news.  D&G funding is overwhelmingly and increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries in conflict.  Just over 50% of all D&G funding goes to four countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sudan, and one-fourth of the requested increase is for these countries. The governance challenges these countries face suggest that D&G programs in them face a high likelihood of failure.  As one might infer from my recent post on Afghanistan, D&G programs are unlikely to be successful in a country where soldiers openly and publicly demand bribes from foreign election observers on election day while neglecting their duty to provide security.

At the same time, there is some good news.  The administration is increasing funding for a number of countries where democratic institutions are functioning, but where democratic consolidation is not yet certain (and in some cases where serious backsliding is occurring), specifically Bangladesh, Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Lebanon, Liberia, Serbia, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Serbia, and Ukraine.  I am very pleased to see funding increases in these countries as D&G programs are likely to be most successful in countries where governments are trying to govern democratically and/or where pressure forces them to do so.  Greater funding for these countries amounts to almost one-third of the total requested increase.  Nevertheless, total D&G funding for these countries is only about 10% of global D&G funding and only 20% of the amount for Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sudan.

In sum, we are far from using D&G funds in their most productive way.  While D&G programs can help stabilize a country in a post-conflict environment, they are no substitute for security.  In my opinion, concentrating funds in countries where security is the main challenge is a questionable policy.

Thoughts on Afghanistan

I have recently returned from Afghanistan where I was an election observer with Democracy International (DI).  I am not an expert on Afghanistan, so I will refrain from commenting extensively on it.  For good analyses, see DI’s Afghanistan blog, Democracy Arsenal, fellow election observer Brian Katulis, and Michael Allen.

From what I have read and seen in Afghanistan, the problem boils down to three basic points:

1. Afghanistan is suffering from a security gap and a services gap.  International forces are essential for filling the former while the latter is largely the responsibility of the Afghan government (through supported by foreign aid).
2. US public opinion is firmly against sending more troops to Afghanistan and it is not clear that US foreign policy interests dictate a lengthy and expensive commitment to Afghanistan (see numerous posts from Democracy Arsenal).
3. The services gap is in large measure a result of the rampant corruption in the Afghan government.

By examining these three points together, I think we can get a sense of where US policy towards Afghanistan is heading.  Given the skepticism among the public and an increasing number of foreign policy experts towards the war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is unlikely to be able to convince Congress to allocate greater resources to defeating the Taliban.  Rather, the Government of Afghanistan will first need to demonstrate its commitment to this objective.  This is as it should be, since we cannot beat the Taliban without strong cooperation from the government and people of Afghanistan.  At a minimum this would seem to require that the Government of Afghanistan get serious about curbing corruption and improving services at the local level.  Unfortunately, President Karzai’s tolerance for massive corruption suggests that if he wins the election, this commitment is unlikely to materialize.  Whether Abdullah Abdullah can implement these reforms should he prevail is not clear.

Security and Governance

Until recently, the link between security and good governance existed more in theory for me than in practice.  My experience in Afghanistan made the link quite vivid.

I was in Afghanistan as an election observer with Democracy International.  On election day, soldiers at a security checkpoint demanded that we get out of our vehicle so they could check it for explosives and weapons.  Clearly, we were not the Taliban.  Rather, they pulled us over so they could extract a bribe.  Since Afghan soldiers are not paid well (about $120 per month) and since they see high-ranking government officials making enormous sums of money, I don’t necessarily have a problem with paying bribes to low-ranking government officials, especially soldiers who are risking their lives.  However, what occurred at the checkpoint went far beyond the typical bribe request.  There were about 20 soldiers at the checkpoint and once word spread that westerners had been pulled over, every soldier stopped manning the checkpoint and gathered around us.  At this point, each soldier had abandoned his post and no one was paying any attention to the scores of cars driving through the checkpoint into the city.  Luckily, nothing happened.  (As far as I know.  There were bombings in Kabul on election day and it is possible that one of the bombers slipped through the checkpoint while the soldiers were engaged in their extortion.) I could deal with soldiers taking the weapons and the bribe.  The scary part was how quickly the soldiers dispensed with their duty to secure the city in order to take part in the bribery.  That corruption can be a serious cause of insecurity is now seared into my mind.