Digging Deeper into the Afghan Abyss

Jerrod A. Laber
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

This post was co-authored by Christopher J. Coyne and Jerrod A. Laber

President Donald Trump announced Monday night that he is shifting the focus of the war in Afghanistan. It was reported earlier in the day that an additional 4,000 troops would be deployed to the embattled country, raising the total number of troops present to just north of 12,000. But Trump did not go into specific details in his address, offering instead broad and vague commitments to maintain U.S. presence there based on “conditions on the ground.” In the end, Trump offered more of the same — broad generalities coupled with confident claims that this time it will be different. But there is no reason to believe that will actually be the case.

By Gideon Tsang (originally posted to Flickr as .) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Afghan conflict represents America’s longest war, and has become an inter-generational conflict, where young men who were infants and toddlers when the war began are now among the lives lost. The monetary estimates are also staggering with estimates ranging from $840 billion to over $2 trillion depending on the costs included. Trump’s campaign position as the supposed non-interventionist in the race is now laughable, as he is proving to be more militaristic than his predecessor — dropping bombs at historic rates and racking up a disturbing amount of civilian casualties. This is to say nothing of his threatening nuclear war with North Korea or “humanitarian” military intervention in Venezuela. In November 2013, Trump tweeted that only “very stupid leaders” would act to maintain our presence in Afghanistan. Et tu, Mr. President?

During the primetime address, Trump did admit that continuing this conflict goes against his instincts, but he became convinced a hasty exit would allow for a recreation of the safe haven conditions that existed before 9/11, which allowed al-Qaeda to operate and plan the attacks. This rationale, which has been the driving force behind most American foreign policy decisions of the last 16 years, is an oft repeated, but greatly exaggerated one. Yes, Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators took refuge in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where they operated freely. But that doesn’t mean that 9/11 was inevitable.

Scholars Mikah Zenko and Amelia Mae Wolf of the Council on Foreign Relations have stressed the numerous times that intelligence agencies were given opportunities to disrupt al-Qaeda activities, and failed. Misunderstandings and counterproductive policies prevented communication between the CIA and FBI which allowed the would-be hijackers to pass through border security dozens of times. Amy Zegart of the Hoover Institution found that the intelligence community missed 23 different opportunities to intervene. The point is that it wasn’t a safe haven that allowed terrorists to carry out the 9/11 attacks, but rather government failure to act on existing intelligence to prevent the attacks..

But even if we put these issues aside, the safe haven rationale doesn’t hold up as a present-day justification because the nature of the threat to U.S. citizens has evolved dramatically over the past two decades. In his comments, Trump explained that the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq was a major influence in his decision to remain in Afghanistan, which now has its own small chapter of ISIS as well. But ISIS has shown itself to be a different organization operationally from al-Qaeda. As Tom Nichols, professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College, explains in The Hill, ISIS has “shifted away from lavish Al Qaeda style operations like 9/11 or the synchronized bombing of multiple passenger aircraft precisely because they are so difficult,” as the recent attack in Barcelona demonstrates. This doesn’t mean that terrorists will never attempt anything on a grand scale, but their ability to successfully pull off these types of attacks is limited. In an increasingly globalized world, where many ISIS conspirators hail from the very places they are attacking, any amount of presence in places like Afghanistan or Iraq will not deter them.

Yet another theme of President Trump’s comments was that the heaviest burden of the operation going forward will be placed on the Afghan government and their security services. US support will not be unlimited, he made clear, and “we are not nation building again.” At the same time, he said that the US is “going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war…The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future.” But isn’t this exactly what the U.S. government has been trying to do for the last 16 years with little to no progress?

The infrastructure is crumbling, medical services are lacking, the Taliban is gaining territory, corruption is rampant, and a third of children are malnourished. What could the U.S. government do differently on these fronts that hasn’t been tried already in the decade and a half we have been there? Economic development does not just appear out of thin air or materialize with enough political will. To see any of this through to something even remotely resembling success will require the near unlimited and never-ending support that the president said is now off the table. In addition, the President’s rejection of nation building and simultaneous commitment to economic development may be at odds. Absent effective institutions, sustainable economic development is unlikely. But getting the “right” institutions requires some form of nation building and the U.S. government’s record in such efforts is dismal in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Given the significant costs incurred, both in monetary terms and in human lives, why does the U.S. government continue to dig deeper into the Afghan abyss? There are several potential explanations. First, no U.S. president wants to be the one to admit failure which incentivizes the continuation of the war even in the face of clear failure. Second, and related, those who constitute the military machinery — both private and public sector, military and civilians — have an incentive to perpetuate the war since this is a surefire means of securing resources and power. These first two factors reinforce one another as the president wants to appear to be “doing something” with those in the military apparatus gladly to implement that something. Third, President Trump may be strategically attempting to insulate himself from future criticism when U.S. government efforts continue to fail. In shifting authority over military operations back to the Pentagon, President Trump has created a clear scapegoat for future failures.

While disheartening, these implications suggest that the U.S. government’s foreign policy in Afghanistan has little to do with the interests of American citizens, and much to do with advancing the interests of those in positions of political and military power. Until U.S. citizens realize this reality and demand change, those in the U.S. government will continue the fool’s errand that is the Afghan war.

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Christopher J. Coyne (@ccoyne1) is the Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax VA.

Jerrod A. Laber (@JerrodLaber) is a writer and non-profit program director living in Northern Virginia. He is a Young Voices Advocate.

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Fellow, Defense Priorities. Work in Defense One, The Hill, The National Interest, the Columbus Dispatch, The Independent, Orange Country Register, etc.

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