Lessons from Afghanistan

In an earlier article on these pages (‘How America lost in Afghanistan’, August 22, 2024), I had pointed out that after the longest American war lasting two decades, there was little to show in terms of American achievements in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban, who had been driven out of power after the US invasion in the aftermath of 9/11, re-established their rule in the country following their dramatic entry into Kabul on August 15, 2021. The Afghan regime, which had been established after the Bonn Conference in December 2001 through the force of American arms, collapsed like a house of cards proving that it was an artificial political construct imposed on the people of Afghanistan.

In an article, titled ‘What was the Biden Doctrine?’, in the Foreign Affairs issue of September-October 2024, Jessica Mathews points out: “The stark truth was that the United States had lost the war (in Afghanistan) long before August 2021. But defeats are easier to forget than to absorb.” At their peak, the US had about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in addition to about 30,000 troops from its Nato allies. During the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan, 2,461 Americans were killed and 20,744 were injured. By the time, the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan took place, it had spent over $2 trillion on the fighting in Afghanistan – equivalent to $300 million a day.

When the Trump administration signed the agreement with the Afghan Taliban on February 29, 2020 for the withdrawal of US troops, the Taliban-led resistance had broken the back of the American resolve to maintain a puppet government in Kabul, which had already lost control over most of the country barring a few major cities.

The US did succeed in decimating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan but besides that, it had little to show for its two-decade-long military misadventure in Afghanistan. The fact that the withdrawal agreement was signed under the Trump administration and implemented by the Biden administration showed bipartisan support for it and the evaporation of the American public support for continued fighting in Afghanistan. The undeniable reality, therefore, was that the US withdrew from the country only when the resistance led by the Afghan Taliban forced it to do so because of mounting casualties and costs.

The American strategic debacle in Afghanistan carries important lessons that our policymakers can ignore only at their peril. Perhaps the most important lesson is that, while it may appear easy to invade and conquer Afghanistan, it is much more difficult and almost hopeless to maintain for long the foreign occupation of Afghanistan or impose a puppet government on the fiercely independent Afghan people indefinitely. It was for this reason that Harold Macmillan, a former British prime minister, had advised that the first rule of politics is: “Don’t invade Afghanistan”. (‘Cables from Kabul’, by Sherard Cowper-Coles). The validity of this advice was borne out earlier also by the failed Soviet attempt to invade and control Afghanistan during the cold-war era.

The US military occupation of Afghanistan was also a violation of the advice given by Professor Huntington in his widely acclaimed but controversial book, ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order’ published in 1996. There is considerable validity in his thesis that cultural self-identity which leads to identifying ‘others’ as enemies is a powerful force in explaining many conflicts and important developments in contemporary global politics. Huntington, therefore, advised states against military interventions in the heartland of an alien civilization. The US invasion of Afghanistan and its attempt to impose a puppet government and Western cultural values on its people, which predictably led to opposition by local and regional Islamist forces, were therefore doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, Pakistan had made its own share of mistakes in dealing with Afghanistan during the 1990s. The success of the Afghan jihad in the 1980s, which led to the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989 and the overthrow of the Soviet-installed Najibullah government in April 1992, presented Pakistan with a golden opportunity to strengthen stability in Afghanistan and develop mutually beneficial cooperation. Unfortunately, both Pakistan and Iran ignored Afghan history which cautioned against attempts to dominate Afghanistan.

Initially, it was Iran that, through support to the Northern Alliance against the Taliban who were enjoying Pakistan’s support, tried to have its sway in Afghanistan. After the capture of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, it was Pakistan that failed to coordinate its Afghanistan policy with Iran and sought dominant influence in it through support to the Afghan Taliban. In the process, it alienated the Northern Alliance and its supporters besides damaging its relations with Iran. After 9/11, Pakistan under US pressure reversed its position by turning against the Afghan Taliban.

Consequently, by August 2021, when the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan, Pakistan had been left with few friends in the country besides having the problem of the TTP to deal with. It is not surprising that India – in pursuance of its hegemonic designs in South Asia – has been busy filling the vacuum created by the loss of political support for Pakistan in Afghanistan and is actively supporting the TTP’s terrorist activities in Pakistan.

Pakistan needs to chart its Afghanistan policy keeping in view the history of this important neighbour, and our own vital strategic, economic and cultural interests. We should develop political, economic and cultural cooperation with the current government in Afghanistan, build bridges of understanding with other political forces in the country, and strengthen cultural links with various Afghan ethnic communities. We should do so consistently without any interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, despite the Afghan Taliban’s obscurantism and retrogressive policies. It is the business of the Afghan people, not ours, to determine Afghanistan’s internal policies and governing system. We should also coordinate our Afghan policy with Afghanistan’s other neighbours especially Iran, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan as well as Russia to avoid the mistakes of the 1990s.

As for the issue of TTP bases in Afghanistan, it would be preferable to engage the present Afghan government in a high-level dialogue to prevent the use of Afghan territory for any terrorist activities in Pakistan. While we should firmly defend Pakistan’s territorial integrity, we should banish the idea of any cross-border military adventurism in Afghanistan which will further complicate our position vis-a-vis the Afghan Taliban and the region.

As the experience of the American military intervention in Afghanistan shows, it would be better to deal with such issues politically rather than by military means. The resolution of the terror problem within Pakistan would require firmness in stopping terrorist activities combined with an offer of talks within the framework of Pakistan’s constitution to meet any legitimate demands.

The writer is a retired

ambassador and author of ‘Pakistan and a World in

Disorder – A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century’. He can be reached at: javid.husain@gmail.com