Why Target and Talk Might Not Work: Insights from the Theory of Collective Action in Nationalist Politics

My colleagues Pat Frost and Rob Grace ( over at the Law and Security Strategy blog) and I have written extensively on why the situation in Afghanistan looks grim.  The war there is a long haul; the Karzai government is corrupt, a two-timing, untrustworthy thing; viable solutions to the conflict in Afghanistan require negotiated international cooperation from Pakistan (and therefore India, a next to impossible proposition); negotiation between Kabul and the Taliban implies power sharing and power sharing implies de facto partition of Afghanistan into two separable countries.  Of course, the bad news runs the gamut of other miserable scenarios.  However, the most troubling aspect of these ill-faring narratives is that all of them might be self-enforcing.

That is, the news on the ground might only get worse, whether or not there’s any good news to report just past the horizon beyond our view.  There exists the possibility that each one of the problems sketched out above, is actually mutually reinforcing the status quo ( Nash Equilibrium in econ-speak)–in which case we might as well wash our hands of the whole affair, barring a radical and irrational change in strategy by one of the stakeholders in the conflict.

But that won’t do as explanation or explication or narrative of ways to think through the conflict and thereby try to make a difference in ISAF’s favor.  It makes more sense to try to unpack each claim bundled in each current and negative scenario and explicate the politics and strategy that together make up the scenes that we observe, that we fear.  For now, I’ll examine the prospect of group cohesion within the Taliban ranks as the military and bombing campaign intensifies in Kandahar.  I want to draw up a scenario where ‘target and talk’–the policy to compel negotiation amongst the cadre of mid-level leaders through targeted killing and battle field defeat– might actually yield for the Taliban  a more powerful incentive for more radicalized and strategic moves against the ISAF and Afghan forces.  I’ll then try to sketch out a prescription that might help undercut the sense that the Taliban might well be growing into a tighter knit group.

Recent news reports suggest that a more tactical approach to ISAF’s charge in Kandahar–the Afghan headquarters of the Taliban insurgency–has resulted in large numbers of militants fleeing Afghanistan for safe grounds in Pakistan. Targeted killings and routed groups of fellow-fighters have led to some many mid-level leaders to flee or to approach the government in Kabul for negotiation talks.  The move toward negotiation and reconciliation is for now a resounding success; nevertheless those who have fled to Pakistan do not strike me as chastised, defeated soldiers gone off to lay down their arms and lick their wounds.

Hence even though in the short-term target and talk seems to have worked, it might have dire long-term consequences that do not bode well for a turn in Afghanistan in ISAF’s favor.  This is because, as the Taliban regroup to fight another day in Pakistan, the crowded context of their huddled moves, conversations and arguments held in secrecy and common vision of their bliss, will increasingly fuse together in well-turned bonds a closed off community of warriors beset by stronger powers, against tremendous odds.  That romantic notion can be, and has been, enlivening for rebel groups– the smaller the group, the greater the fire in the unbreached hearts of the self-identified martyrs of some ill-understood cause.

This theory of collectivities emerged as part of game theory, and became more specific to political theoretic writing on collective action problems. Its best application has borne on theories of nationalism, as it offers a working mechanism of the ways in which small groups of rebels are able to maintain their guerilla warfare against stronger national military bodies.

And this is how it works: defeat a rebel in a battle and force him to flee.  Do this to many others, in multiple theaters of war, in multiple ways.  In defeat, having already chosen a safe quarter to which they will retreat, rebels will rush out and pour into the chosen location-here the border areas of Pakistan.  In such a place, a large number of likeminded soldiers will become reacquainted, each with the other.  More importantly, each will relate the story of his war and his recent and seemingly temporary defeat in battle.  They will debate amongst themselves strategies and token tactics for this favored outcome or the other.

However the debate will be structured along the lines of “us-versus them”.  The real world, as such, will fall away.  A hounded band, the insurgents will take a turn on the politics of the war in a way that can only reflect their best incentives.  They will think less and less of the marginal, swing citizen who the rebels can bring along for the fight. Why? Because the fence-sitters, swing voters who vote with their cash and food and bodies, were hardly an inspiring source of support when the last battle was pitched against them and led to defeat.  Moreover, hunted and haunted by the full force of the enemy military, coupled with the little time they have to put together a workable plan to regain the momentum in war, rebels will have little opportunity to discuss other salients facts.  Fact that on the ground might argue for negotiation, or collectively abandoning the enterprise for a more home-bound life.  With fewer and fewer pieces of input from outside news outlets, their beliefs about their just cause and their probability of victory will harden into a solid and incorruptibly focused vision of their world, their chances of victory against what might be overwhelming odds directly stacked against them.

Hence win or lose, rebel groups will become more radicalized, more inclined to fight the battle for a war that rings resoundingly as right and just.  This would be true whether or not the coming fight were likely to see them through as victors or losers.  Indeed, time and tide might show that radicalized bonds, strengthened in group solidarity might well force victory when every assessment previous to their return to group think  suggested otherwise.

Thus, it is conceivable that the target and talk approach that now prevails in Afghanistan might actually gin up the Taliban’s courage and tactical maneuvers against the ISAF moves against.  This does not imply that this will in fact; rather the preceding thoughts only bear on a possible mechanism that delivers Taliban victories from a position of weakness.  This also implies that if such a mechanism proves plausible in the Taliban’s favor, there exists a mechanism that will deliver NATO victory in battle after battle.

Such a prescription might look like the following: cut into Taliban supply lines and create cordoned off borders between groups of Taliban insurgents.  Create conditions to disperse as many fighters as possible into as many groups as possible so that though each group is small, and therefore though becomes committed to the cause, their numbers dial to 5-10 fighters. Then their radicalized and incautious moves can be minimized and neutralized with the slightest uptick of strategic manpower.

This is only a prescribed mechanism.  The content of such a prescription would make this a magic pill.