Afghanistan: the reconstruction process

In this article the author focuses initially on the degree of support provided by the international community to the interim administration of Afghanistan and notes that the pledges made at the Tokyo Conference do not equate to the per capita levels of funding made available for other recent emergencies. He draws attention to the inter–relationship between security and funding for reconstruction and comments that the recent decision of the US government to join with others in agreeing to finance work to upgrade the major highway system is very timely in shoring up the regime in the wake of the recent assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai. He stresses that the international community needs to provide sustained support to the new government if it is to survive. He also analyses the complex relationship between the administration and the aid community and reports on the calls by the government to be given the major part of the resources allocated by international donors and to be supported to take the lead in determining policy and strategy.
The author notes the nature of the Afghan economy and the potential for reconstruction, taking account of the economic impact of the conflict, the progress made by the aid community since 1992, the humanitarian crisis arising from the drought of 1999–2001 and the large scale, mainly involuntary, return of refugees from Pakistan and Iran since March 2002. He comments on the fact that the agricultural economy cannot support its population, on the need for economic safety valves in the form of migration to Pakistan and Iran, on the availability of camps for internally displaced people, and on urbanization. In concluding the author is both optimistic and cautious, noting the fragility of the situation, but also acknowledging that the international community is taking timely action to address it through reconstruction assistance although it remains reluctant to give sufficient priority to security provision.     

Afghanistan–Pakistan relations: border controversies as counter-terrorist impediments

When the Taliban regime was overthrown in Afghanistan in late 2001, there was much optimism that, with the anticipated and unprecedented economic, political and military engagement of the international community with Afghanistan, the country would become stable. However, resurgent violence indicates that this is not happening. An important reason for the continuing instability lies in the fact that the international effort has failed to address longstanding disagreements between Afghanistan and Pakistan—the Durand Line border dispute and the Pushtunistan issue—which in turn impairs the two countries’ cooperative capacity in the anti-Taliban campaign. Resolution of these disputes would go a long way to help the situation. This article analyses the dynamics of the border dispute, the Pushtunistan issue and the Taliban insurgency as an outgrowth of longstanding historical disputes between Afghanistan and Pakistan.     

The Shiʿa Afghan Community: Between Transnational Links and Internal Hurdles

This article aims to present a political analysis of the relationship between the Shi?a community in Afghanistan and the new political system that emerged after the US military intervention of 2001. In light of the sectarian conflicts in the greater Middle East and the connection between South West Asia and the Syrian war since 2011, this article illustrates the limits of the social empowerment of the Shi?a communities in Afghanistan. The article outlines the internal religious scene and the connections between āyatollāhs (marāje?), mainly from Iran or Iraq, and Afghan Shi?ite believers. It also examines how the Afghan Shi?ite community differs from those of Iran and Iraq.     

Afghanistan: ‘spoilers’ in the regional security context

The ongoing international military withdrawal from Afghanistan has set the stage for energising the activities of Afghanistan's external stakeholders to re-evaluate their activities. The possible return of the Taliban in some form could compel Afghanistan's current external partners—Iran, India and Russia—to turn into limited spoilers. The absence of an international guarantor in Afghanistan from December 2014 is likely to encourage Pakistan—a greedy spoiler—to intensify its meddling as a means to reposition the Taliban—a total spoiler—at the helm of Afghan affairs. The combination of limited, greedy and total spoilers threatens to undermine security and state-building processes.     

The Afghanistan Task Force and Prime Ministerial Leadership: Tactical Retreat or a New Direction in Managing Canadian Foreign Policy?

It has been assumed that since inheriting Martin’s decision to send 2000 soldiers to Kandahar, Stephen Harper has maintained control over all aspects of the Afghanistan mission. Donald Savoie and others have made the argument that the Prime Minister and his advisors have dominated and centralized the policymaking process while relegating other institutional players to a secondary role. This article challenges this image and suggests a more nuanced picture of the relationship between Harper and the bureaucracy. With the foundering of the Afghan mission, the government created the Afghanistan Task Force (ATF) and bent the rules of engagement to break down the barriers of “departmentalism.” For Harper it was a matter of political survival; for the Privy Council Office (PCO) it was an opportunity to maximize its influence. By 2008 a new generation of mandarins in the ATF were sharing the foreign policymaking platform with key players in the executive branch of government. In the process Harper’s command over foreign policy has been challenged as new approaches to rapid civilian–military responses are sought.     

Not suitable for children: the politicisation of conflict-affected children in post-2001 Afghanistan

The 2001 conflict in Afghanistan has attracted a great deal of international controversy. The impact of the conflict on Afghanistan's children has been no exception. The research conducted by the United Nations and child protection organisations on the experiences of Afghan children throughout the conflict paints a bleak picture. Accounts of children being directly targeted, accidently killed, abducted, actively fighting in armed groups, denied humanitarian assistance or simply struggling to be healthy, happy, educated and secure amid this conflict are a reminder that conflict devastates children's lives. However, while this research demonstrates that children are often war's innocent victims, the ways in which this research is narrated, particularly by belligerent parties to the conflict, are far from innocent. This article examines the political manipulation of research on Afghan children affected by armed conflict. It argues that Afghan children and their experiences have become a powerful moral symbol that is used by belligerents to advance political, military and strategic agendas.     

The Resilience of a Frontier: Ottoman and Iraqi Claims to Kuwait, 1871–1990

With the advent of independence, Pakistan almost immediately became embroiled in the hegemonic struggle of the cold war. Courted by the United States for its strategic North-West Frontier, Pakistan quickly became a Western ally. Fears of tribal unrest in the region and conflicting Pakistani and Afghan claims to the frontier, however, soon complicated the United States’ broader strategic vision. As Afghanistan continued to call for the establishment of an autonomous ‘Pakhtunistan’ comprising the North-West Frontier settled districts and tribal zone - and threatened to turn to the Soviet Union if US policy-makers did not support the Afghan position - US officials were torn between their official alliance with Pakistan and their desire to prevent a Soviet–Afghan understanding. Mirroring circumstances elsewhere in the Third World, local conflicts on the North-West Frontier mired US strategists’ wider plans for spreading Western influence. Officials ultimately opted for a flawed neutral position, angering the Pakistan government and alienating the Afghans. The US position towards the North-West Frontier - or lack thereof - eventually resulted in failure and a continued impasse in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.     

Campaign disconnect: operational progress and strategic obstacles in Afghanistan, 2009–2011

Success in war depends on alignment between operations and strategy. Commonly, such alignment takes time as civilian and military leaders assess the effectiveness of operations and adjust them to ensure that strategic objectives are achieved. This article assesses prospects for the US‐led campaign in Afghanistan. Drawing on extensive field research, the authors find that significant progress has been made at the operational level in four key areas: the approach to counterinsurgency operations, development of Afghan security forces, growth of Afghan sub‐national governance and military momentum on the ground. However, the situation is bleak at the strategic level. The article identifies three strategic obstacles to campaign success: corruption in Afghan national government, war‐weariness in NATO countries and insurgent safe havens in Pakistan. These strategic problems require political developments that are beyond the capabilities of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In other words, further progress at the operational level will not bring ‘victory’. It concludes, therefore, that there is an operational‐strategic disconnect at the heart of the ISAF campaign.     

Drug Control in Afghanistan: Culture,Politics, and Power during the 1958 Prohibition of Opium in Badakhshan

This article explores the process leading to the Afghan government's decision to implement a prohibition and eradication of opium in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. It explores why Daud chose Badakhshan, the impact of the opium ban on the people of Badakhshan and the future of opium production and trade, as well as the evolution of drug control in Afghanistan under the Musahiban dynasty. Ultimately, the ban was launched because it allowed Daud to garner international praise and financial support, while enforcing eradication in an area inhabited by ethnic minorities ensured that the Afghan government's coercive strategy would not generate resistance from rural Pashtun tribes historically opposed to these types of state intervention.     

Righting the course? Humanitarian intervention,the war on terror and the future of Afghanistan

The US‐led post 9/11 ‘intervention’ in Afghanistan was, by definition, not a humanitarian intervention. The intervention in Afghanistan was defined as an act of self‐defence by the US and it was one of the first steps in the ‘war on terror’ by the US and its allies: it had no intention or clear strategies for long‐term stabilization, state‐building or development. The US‐led international coalition failed to ‘find’ Al‐Qaeda in the short term and new arguments had to be made to justify continued international presence. The initial agenda was quickly blurred by a mismatch of intentions including those of long‐term stabilization and state‐building. The ideas developed through the Bonn Agreement (2001–5) and continued through the Afghanistan Compact (2006–10) have focused on building a centrally governed state (sometimes defined as democratic) that has a monopoly on the use of force. Their shortcomings are already well‐documented: the urgency of the Bonn Conference and of the adoption of the Bonn Agreement ostensibly meant trading expediency and stability for accountability and a clean slate, which is not to say that there were no good intentions at Bonn from stakeholders, but that Afghans and the international community put power‐sharing before progress. The choices made at Bonn may have contributed to the culture of impunity and the entrenched poverty that is gripping Afghanistan today. This article responds to the claims that state‐building and all that goes with it are not the responsibility of the ‘international community’ by addressing the accountability and humanitarian paradoxes. The question remains, however, about who should be responsible for reform and politically accountable in the aftermath of non‐humanitarian (and indeed even humanitarian) interventions?     

The Taliban at war: inside the Helmand insurgency, 2004–2012

In seeking to explain why and how the war in Afghanistan has dragged on, most analysis has focused on the western and Afghan government effort. In this article, we examine how the war looks from the perspective of the insurgency. Using Helmand province as a case‐study, we draw on a large number of original interviews with Taliban field commanders and fighters to produce a uniquely detailed picture of the Taliban at war. In the first section, we explore how the Taliban returned to Helmand from 2004 to 2006, and show how the British made the situation far worse when they deployed forces to Helmand in 2006. In the second part of the article we examine the evolution of the Taliban insurgency in Helmand since 2006. We show how the Taliban has developed an increasingly centralized organizational structure, a more militarized shadow government and greater professionalism of field units. The overall picture that emerges is of a resilient insurgency that has adapted under immense military pressure. The Taliban have suffered very heavy attrition in Helmand, but they are far from defeated.     

Informal (In)security in Urban Afghanistan

Poverty and insecurity in Afghan cities are intricately intertwined with conditions of “informality.” The term and the realities it describes refer to living situations in which basic needs and activities such as work, housing, and social security are unprotected by laws and standards. Immersion into such a convolution of informality determines the life of a majority among urban populations in Afghanistan and conveys a deep sense of insecurity for the urban poor. The paper looks at how rapid and unprecedented urban growth in Afghanistan goes along with rising levels of livelihood insecurity and explores how the urban poor cope with livelihood risks through a range of informal arrangements. Conceptually, the notion of “informal security regimes” helps capture informality as a coping strategy and how it relates to urban poverty in Afghanistan. Informed by extensive empirical fieldwork, the paper identifies different elements of the “informal security regime” in urban Afghanistan and explores their specific operations. The paper is mainly focused on the Afghan capital, Kabul, supplemented with evidence from other urban sites in Afghanistan.     

Peering into the Fog of War: The Geography of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan War Logs, 2004-2009

A team of U.S. political geographers analyzes the secret Afghanistan war logs released by WikiLeaks.org. They offer the chance to examine in detail the dynamics of the conflict in that country. Doing so in a spatial framework is possible because each of the 77,000 events has geographic coordinates and dates. Using cartographic and geostatistical tools, the authors map the changing distribution of the events and compare them to the well-known violent-events ACLED database (see O'Loughlin et al., 2010 in this issue). They conclude that ACLED comprises a representative set of the more comprehensive data in the released files. The released war logs show that the Afghan insurgency spread rapidly in 2008-2009, that the insurgency is moving out of its traditional Pashtun heartlands, and remains mostly rural in location. Hotspot and cluster analysis identifies the key locations of the current war, which indicate that it is relocating to new provinces in Afghanistan while intensifying in the eastern border regions and in the south.     

The Need for Vengeance or the Need to Mourn? Atiq Rahimi's Exploration of “Afghan” Self-Identity in Earth and Ashes

It has been said of Atiq Rahimi's novel Earth and Ashes that the author intends it to convey a loss of any vision for a better future in Afghanistan. This essay neither disputes nor affirms this, but instead argues that this tone of disillusionment is sustained for a specific purpose—namely, to show how a belief in the Afghan requirement of vengeance helps sustain cycles of violence in Afghanistan. No critical work has explored this key motivation for the writing of the novel; this article does so using a method of close reading that enables an evaluation of the role the reader is afforded as part of this endeavor, be they natives or outsiders to this culture.     

Brokering a Buffer State: Afghan Neutrality and American Diplomacy, 1973–1979

This article argues that during the 1970s, the United States Department of State and other US officials sought to promote and maintain Afghan political neutrality as a means of Soviet containment in Central Asia. This piece follows the evolution of this diplomatic model through the 1970s, how it interacted with various Afghan regimes and ultimately became an impediment on the imagination of US officials in predicting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.     

International law and the 'war against terrorism'

This article analyses some of the international legal issues arising out of the events of 11 September 2001. Those who perpetrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were guilty of serious offences under United States law and possibly also under international law. The fact that their conduct was a crime does not, however, preclude it also being a threat to international peace and an armed attack. The author argues that the United States and its allies were entitled to respond to that attack and the threat of future attacks by using force against Al-Qa'ida and that, in the circumstances, it was also legitimate to take military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which had sheltered Al-Qa'ida and permitted it to conduct operations from Afghan territory. The article also examines the application of the laws of armed conflict to the ensuing fighting and the status and treatment of those captured and held at Guantanamo Bay.     

Afghanistan and the Opium World Market: Poppy Production and Trade

The Afghan poppy cultivation is presented here as a case in point to exemplify the linkages between external influences and local effects. World market and power relations have influenced cultivation patterns, processing, and trafficking. At the same time, poppy cultivation pinpoints an internal development which is strongly linked to deteriorating state control, warlordism, and regional power politics. Opium production has served as a major source of revenue for the upholding of disparate political structures which reflect the present political map of Afghanistan. Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan gained a substantial push during the last quarter century, from an annual production of 200 tons in 1979 to 4,200 tons in 2004, making use of former development efforts in creating irrigated oases in Helmand and Nangarhar. Prices rose after the Taliban's 2001 ban on production, raising farmers' incomes substantially and turning opium into an unrivalled cash crop. Fairly new production zones have been added in recent times; for example, Badakhshan—the stronghold of the Northern Alliance—has gained the third position with major increases in the last few years. Afghanistan's poppy cultivation and opium production has to be interpreted in terms of globalization and fragmentation. Drug trafficking affects the neighboring states, namely, Iran, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, as they function as consumer markets as well as trade routes for contraband drugs heading towards the West. Consequently, the Afghan poppy cultivation is interpreted in a holistic manner.     

The Soviet experience in Afghanistan: lessons to be learned?

This article examines the experience of the Soviet army's occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It draws heavily on the report of the Russian General Staff, which gives a unique insight into the Soviet–Afghan war by senior Russian officers, many of whom served in Afghanistan. The author then places this analysis in the broader geopolitical context of Soviet expansionism from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s. And the author proceeds to ask: Did Afghanistan account for the demise of the USSR? Finally, the issue of whether there are parallels with the failure of the Soviet Union's invasion and the current problems facing the USA in Afghanistan is examined.     

‘Politicals’, Tribes and Musahibans: The Indian Political Service and Anglo-Afghan Relations 1929–39

This article examines the way in which the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier came to constitute a recurrent point of contention and dispute in Anglo-Afghan relations during the period under examination. It argues that while much attention has been paid to the way in which the activities of autonomous tribes of the frontier impacted upon British interests, much of the existing historiography has tended to focus upon the physical confrontation between tribe and state and has hitherto ignored perhaps the most complex aspect of the ‘tribal problem’ during this period; its impact upon the Government of India's diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. The article proposes that the period 1929–39 constituted a particularly challenging context for British policy-makers wrestling with the requirement to formulate a cost-effective tribal policy that would suit the interests of British India without undermining the newly emerged, pro-British but inherently weak Musahiban regime. It argues that while the Government of India avoided any fatal breach in relations with the Afghan leadership, the process of frontier policy-making illustrated some fundamental weaknesses in perspective on the part of that government department most closely associated with the formulation of such policy: the Indian Political Service.     

An airline at the crossroads of the world: Ariana Afghan Airlines,modernization, and the global Cold War

In 1957, the United States government provided funding for Pan American World Airways to purchase a 49% share in Afghanistan’s national airline, Ariana Afghan Airlines. While unusual in its scope, the arrangement was part of a broader program of US technical assistance, administered jointly by government agencies and private corporations, to newly formed airlines in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Between 1955 and 1965, technical assistance for commercial aviation was critical to the USA’s Cold War strategy to win ‘hearts and minds,’ and to contain Soviet influence, in the developing world. Using Ariana as a case study, this article examines what was at stake for the USA – politically, economically, and culturally – in aviation technical assistance projects. However, the article also argues that such projects should be seen as instances of ‘co‐production,’ in which recipients of technical assistance exploited superpower rivalries and actively shaped the airplane’s uses and meanings.