How wars end is as varied as war itself. Victory, defeat, cease fire, stalemate, exhaustion and stand-down have all been associated with the ending of past wars, and these mechanisms are as current today as they have been throughout history.
In the last century, the two “great wars” ended with a negotiated settlement to the first and a victory in the second. However, the ceasefire and peace treaty associated with the ending of the First World War left large unresolved issues and created new ones that inevitably led to the second great war. In the many less global wars that dominated the second half of the 20th century, the full panoply of endings have been evident and there is no reason not to believe that the ending of the war in Afghanistan will differ greatly than earlier ones.
For several years there has been an understanding that the war in Afghanistan will not end with a victory for the government in Kabul and its western supporters. Rather there has been a growing acceptance, or for many, the hope, that the war can be bought to an end by efforts to erode the military ability of the Taliban through monetary incentives to its fighters and the inclusions of some of its moderate members into a national coalition government. Essentially that was the conclusion of the recent conference on Afghanistan in London. Unstated or understated is the view that in the meantime the forces of the west and those of Kabul will be successful in dominating the battlefields of Afghanistan and in turn create the environment for the Taliban to accept negotiations and compromise.
As is readily apparent from this scenario, optimism, rather than reality, remains the dominant theme. In part this theme has more to do with western governments conditioning their own people to accept the ongoing costs, both in human and financial terms, of the now more than eight year old war. However, as the London conference demonstrated, there is less and less support for the war in all western countries and the optimistic scenario for its ending is an attempt to buy time in the hope that unforeseen events will be decisive in ending the need for western troops.
The detailing of these unforeseen events highlights the thinness of western strategy, or more accurately, American strategy. First and foremost is the hope for the capture or death of Osama bin Ladin and the dismantling of the al Qaeda network in the region. For the Americans this has emerged as their dominant interest and it must be assumed that if that were to happen then the Obama administration would have the political capital to arrange for the winding down of the massive American involvement. In part this would probably track with the mechanisms used by an earlier Administration to get out of Vietnam.
Some commentators have already raised this scenario as one of the side issues associated with the war in Afghanistan. Largely, this scenario has been associated with those who see the futility of the western intervention in Afghanistan and seek legitimacy for that view in the American disaster in Vietnam more than three decades earlier.
As with all such efforts, some comparisons are less odious than others. Irrespective of the validity of this comparison there is one aspect of the war in Vietnam that offers possible illustration for how the war in Afghanistan might stagger to an end. This was how the Americans, using both the tools of diplomacy and war were able to extract themselves from a quagmire of their own creation.
The futility of the war in Vietnam came into sharp focus for the United States with the realization from 1968 onwards that it was not possible to militarily defeat either the forces of North Vietnam or their allies the Vietcong. The decision by Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election and the subsequent victory by Richard Nixon put into place the political will to see the war negotiated to an end. The appointment of Henry Kissinger as Nixon’s National Security Adviser bought into play a person who could trace his ideological antecedents to both von Metternich and von Bismarck, the modern world’s creators of realpolitik.
Nixon and Kissinger, reflecting the wide spread American disillusionment with the war, began a policy of forcing the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table which ultimately resulted in the signing of an “Agreement on Ending War and Restoring Peace to Vietnam” in Paris on January 27, 1973. In doing so the Americans abandoned its South Vietnamese ally. In the negotiating process the Americans used all of the leverages of power available to it including increased aerial bombing in the North, emerging détentes with China and the USSR and direct secret negotiations with North Vietnam.
The agreement gave the Americans what they wanted most, a standstill in the fighting that allowed for the withdrawal of its forces and the return of its prisoners of war from the North. What it gave the North Vietnamese was the opportunity to rebuild its forces in the South and in the absence of American forces the opportunity to militarily take over the South. While Nixon promised American military support for the South in the event of aggressive action by the North, by August 1974 Nixon had resigned and the Congress refused to provide funds for further American military action in support of the South. Less than year later, at the end of April 1975, the world saw the iconic pictures of Americans scrambling out of Saigon.
The manner in which the Vietnam War came to an end may have few direct lessons for what may happen in Afghanistan in the coming months. The direct negotiations between the Americans, the North Vietnamese, their allies in the South and the government of South Vietnam will not be replicated between the contending forces in Afghanistan. Rather, the dynamic will be less direct. As was evident in the recent London conference on Afghanistan, the main axis of negotiation will involve the government in Kabul and the Taliban.
The present Afghan government in Kabul, as with the government of South Vietnam in the early ‘70s, will be irrelevant to the ultimate decisions in Afghanistan. It has demonstrated that it is incapable of dealing with the forces unleashed by the American invasion of 2001. Its early promise of being a credible national force has crumbled on the rocks of regional differences and Pakistani opposition.
The current American and NATO policy involving a large increase in foreign forces with the expectation of reducing Taliban influence and a sharp increase in the size of the national army is a continuation of hope over experience. There is no reason to believe that in its current phase, this will significantly alter the balance of power in Afghanistan and more likely than not will again demonstrate that the government in Kabul is the creation of foreign forces.
As the world has come to realize, Pakistan is the real arbiter of events in Afghanistan. Since independence in 1947 Pakistan has sought to dominate Afghanistan and there is no reason to believe that its policy has changed or will change. A weak Afghanistan based on the continuation of tribal and regional unrest meets Pakistan’s requirements. Equally the re-emergence of a Taliban centered government in Kabul creates little consternation in Islamabad. Rather such an outcome would be beneficial to Pakistan on a number of fronts, not the least of which would be the dependence of such a government on Pakistan and the ending of Indian attempts for influence in Kabul.
Central to Pakistani policy has been its adroit exploitation of the search for Osama bin Ladin. As long as he remains alive or at large American policy in the region remains hostage to Pakistan. It has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars in military assistance while at the same time there is a realization that the capture or death of bin Ladin will remove the largest incentive for American involvement. Equally Pakistan is extremely sensitive to the growing Indo-American entente cordiale, especially the decision two years ago of the Americans to legitimize the Indian nuclear weapons program. American interest in Afghanistan would fade quickly with the removal of bin Ladin from the equation. Pakistan, more than most, has experienced the ups and downs of American interest and accepts that the present “up” is as finite as earlier ones but the longer bin Ladin is allowed to wander its hills and cities the greater its leverage.
There are a number of other secondary actors but the United States and Pakistan looms larger than any others. The main factor in the coming months will be the resolve of the Obama administration to end the war in Afghanistan irrespective of its short term political costs to his administration and to American prestige in the world. Most likely there will be considerable talk in the coming months but nothing definitive will happen before the mid-term congressional elections take place later this year.
One thing is already certain. The rest of the world has already taken the measure of the Afghan war. There is less enthusiasm for its continuation than ever. The grinding casualties, the excessive economic costs and the inability to see any outcome better than a stalemate in the short term has occasioned all allied countries to curtail even further their lackluster support for the war. Equally suspect is the Obama administration’s decision to surge another 30,000 troops into the country, seen by most as a cynical effort worthy of both Nixon and Kissinger to shore up support during the mid-term elections in November.
In Canada there is a bipartisan conspiracy to keep Afghanistan off the national agenda. The decision to end Canada’s combat involvement in 2011 is a definitive as it can be at this time a lot can happen between now and then. In Afghanistan, however, the best that can be hoped for would be a stalemate. And in that case, do not be surprised to hear the memory of Korea being evoked, and that sad but true description which attended the end of that war: “to die for a tie.”
