Why are we trying to secure the ‘large population centers’ in a country that is overwhelmingly rural? Unless we’re now defining population centers as “villages with a few thousand people”, a population centric strategy focused on urban centers, in a rural country is, well, not going to work. Victor Sebestyen, in today’s New York Times, quotes Soviet Commander Sergei Akhromeyev making a very familiar argument:
“‘There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,’ he said. ‘Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize. Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills.'”
The security problem, for the Soviets as well as for us, is controlling the countryside, not the cities. The Soviet-backed government survived for a number of years even after Russian withdrawal, but it was little more than a fiefdom of Kabul. The broader problem is that it doesn’t seem like we have any idea—or at least it’s never mentioned in the press—what to do were we to gain the upper hand against the Afghan Taliban and allied tribes. (Just like we didn’t have any idea what to do in 2002-2003, leading to the Taliban phoenix to rise anew.) Defeating our enemies is a minor part of the equation. Winning the peace is much more important—but, sadly, this is now the second cycle of war in the American occupation of Afghanistan.
We lost the first round of peace.
