Does the US have an Afghanistan policy?

President Obama from his West Point speech on Afghanistan, December 1, 2009:

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban – a ruthless, repressive and radical movement…

Gradually, the Taliban has begun to control additional swaths of territory in Afghanistan, while engaging in increasingly brazen and devastating attacks of terrorism against the Pakistani people…

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. And that’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a longstanding request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan and the extremist safe havens in Pakistan…

We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government…

…we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum…

This is pretty clear. The Taliban is a threat and Obama made clear the US is going to fight them. I thus found Dexter Filkins’s article in yesterday’s New York Times quite surprising:

For weeks, reports have swirled around the capital of back-channel discussions between the Afghan government and the [Taliban] leadership council known as the Quetta Shura, so called for its supposed base in Quetta, Pakistan…

“We have been passing a lot of messages,” said Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador who now lives in Kabul. He is one of the principal conduits for getting notes to the Taliban leadership…

The only way to peace, the Afghan and American officials believe, is through a political settlement – that is, some arrangement for sharing power – that all sides can live with.

Now, to be clear, I am neither for nor against negotiating with the Taliban. What amazes me is that less than two months after Obama made his West Point speech on Afghanistan following months of careful and extensive deliberation on it, the administration seems to have changed its mind. This makes me wonder whether it has any policy at all.

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.