/ 9 December 2016

​Afghanistan’s gains remain vulnerable

Force for peace: Fifteen years after the fall of the Taliban
Force for peace: Fifteen years after the fall of the Taliban

NEWS ANALYSIS

Fifteen years after the collapse of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the country stands at a critical crossroads.

Although fragile gains have been made since December 9 2001, the nation faces security, political and economic risks, despite the more than $127-billion that has been spent in the country by Washington.

The biggest problem, exacerbating all others, is the internal security situation, as insurgency from Taliban militants has spread to more than 30 of 34 provinces.

Since 2009, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has recorded about 23 000 conflict-related deaths and 41 000 injuries. About 70% of people in major cities reside in makeshift camps, according the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Many Afghans are leaving the country. In 2015, more than 250 000 people arrived Europe, the second-highest number of refugees, Syrians being the highest, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

United States military officials, who remain engaged in what has become Washington’s longest military intervention since Vietnam (with strong assistance from the United Kingdom, one of about 60 countries that provided support), recently asserted that the balance between the Taliban and government forces is in effect a “stalemate”.

This is despite the foreign military losses, which, by the end of 2014, amounted to about 3 500 killed and 33 000 wounded, with US personnel accounting for the majority of these.

The continuing foreign military presence includes about 8 500 US personnel and, although most Nato troops left in 2014, Washington will — subject to changes from the incoming Trump administration — keep them in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2017.

The international force remains vital for ensuring training and cohesion for the 350 000-strong Afghan police and military personnel, which have day-to-day responsibility for security in the country and which may otherwise disintegrate.

Fears have repeatedly been raised that the current foreign force (now less than a 15th of the previously 150 000-strong combat presence) is not big enough.

For instance, US Senator John McCain, the chairperson of the Senate armed services committee, has said that the international drawdown has left the country vulnerable to an upsurge in Taliban violence.

Hence, another priority of the Afghan government has been to advance currently stalled reconciliation and peace talks with the remnants of the Taliban regime, which collapsed in 2001, a process in which the influence of neighbouring powers — especially Pakistan — could be key in facilitating any eventual deal.

Although any agreement looks a long way off, the government did secure a similar deal with the armed opposition group Hezb-i-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in September.

On the economic front, the news is not good either, despite the foreign aid committed to the country, including a fresh $15.2-billion pledge in September by the international community for the next four years.

Reconstruction has been slow, unemployment remains above 40%, and well over a million Afghans are internally displaced, with well more than three million refugees believed to be in Pakistan and Iran.

Although it is estimated that Washington has spent nearly $110-billion on Afghan reconstruction since 2001, more than the cost of the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II, this has not been optimally spent. It is reported, for instance, that about 80% of the money have been given to US organisations in military-security and maintenance contracts and consultancy projects.

It is also clear that, after 2001, the economy has not been diversified enough from drug exports such as opium and heroin, despite the country’s abundant natural resources — gas, minerals and oil — with an estimated value of about $3-trillion.

A related problem is corruption. Transparency International ranked Afghanistan as the third-most corrupt state in the world.

In this difficult picture, there remains cause for optimism, not least because many fragile gains remain in place from the unseating of the Taliban regime in 2001.

One qualified success is the country’s fledgling democracy. Despite the problems afflicting the country, the national unity government has also survived more than two years after a landmark power-sharing agreement was reached in 2014 between President Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister.

This followed a disputed presidential ballot between Ghani and Abdullah when about a million votes were discounted because of fraud. The creation of the national unity government, and the election of Ghani, represented the first democratic transfer of power in the country’s history.

Although there have been significant tensions between the two, which could yet explode in the next presidential election, the fact that the national unity government has not collapsed has helped to consolidate the power and legitimacy of the new post-Taliban political system.

Other gains include Afghanistan’s accession to the World Trade Organisation and wider moves to revive economic links with the outside world, including the modern Silk Road, a new rail route connecting the country to China and Central Asia, and an electricity grid project across Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

Other successes are that a greater number of children, especially girls, enrolled at schools — reportedly about 10-million; greater recognition of women’s rights; and a greater spread of technologies such as the internet and cellphones around the country.

Although fragile gains have been secured since 2001, there is a now a prospect of greater political, security and economic instability if the reconciliation process with the remnants of Taliban forces cannot be advanced soon.

Andrew Hammond is an associate at the Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy at the London School of Economics.