NATO’s mission in Afghanistan has less to do with the fight against ‘terrorism’ than member governments maintain.
Western forces entered into Afghanistan back in October 2001 for security purposes, and security purposes alone. The issue is: the security imperative now fails to impress.
Recent developments, namely the Fort Hood shooting in Texas and the attempted Christmas day bombing on board a Detroit-bound airliner, illustrate the futility of NATO’s anti-terror operations in Afghanistan.
There is nothing special about Afghan real estate. Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, the US, the UK, the Internet, etc…all make for promising substitutes. The developments have also brought into stark relief the matter of fact that the global jihad ideology championed by al-Qaida is highly fungible, transnational and probably impossible to stop without a genuine waning of anti-American and anti-Western sentiments in the Muslim world.
It follows then that ending the West’s military presence in the Muslim world in particular, or at minimum limiting it as best as possible, is a crucial step in mitigating this threat. NATO in Afghanistan, above all else, is kindler for the fire it is ostensibly in-country to suppress.
A more reasonable and less abrasive approach would entail heightening homeland defense measures domestically, working by way of multilateral channels where possible internationally, and carrying out any remaining international security objectives (particularly in the field of terrorism) in a more clandestine fashion.
Adopting such a posture would significantly reduce public expenditures, create jobs back home by expanding the payrolls of national security organs and generally work toward bankrupting the arguments used to recruit young jihadis.
Some commentators, moreover, point out that NATO’s protracted stay in Afghanistan is as much about safeguarding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as it is about taking the fight to al-Qaida. Maybe, but…
The US already slips Islamabad a billion plus dollars per year, in part, expressly for that purpose. Concerns over Taliban and al-Qaida fighters overrunning the Pakistani military are equally misplaced. Pashtun militants, the ethnic group from which the Taliban hail, can already launch strikes against the Pakistani government and military from inside Pakistan. So far, they have managed to shake, but hardly dislodge the ruling establishment. What is more, since its formation following independence in 1947, the Pakistani military has been a Punjab-dominated institution, one unlikely to afford marginalized Pashtuns a greater say anytime soon.
The West’s security rationale for staying in Afghanistan is weak. That said, inertial forces are likely to secure NATO’s sojourn for a good while longer. They include:
(1) the financial incentives provided by a bloated US military-industrial complex;
(2) the impulse to maintain a Western foothold in this geographically isolated yet geostrategically significant corner of the world;
(3) the reality that US troops are scheduled to pull out of Iraq by late 2011 and as such are surrendering an important western flank against Iran, undermining US containment policy and, without Afghan territory, largely limiting US access to Iran in the event of a US-Israeli strike against the country’s nuclear facilities to the Persian Gulf.
Fifty-odd years on, Colonel Mathieu’s admonition persists. “Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer “yes,” then you must accept all the necessary consequences.”
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