Archive for February, 2008

Chapter VII Peacekeeping in Afghanistan

Posted on: February 18th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

One of the more wrongheaded, but still ubiquitous, complaints voiced in the current Canadian debate over Afghanistan is that the Germans and others with forces in the north are not doing any “heavy lifting” and thus are both undermining the fight against the Taliban and – which some seem to find even more disturbing – putting the future of NATO in question. Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier echoed the point when he told CTV News on February 1 that within military circles the question is regularly asked: “Can you move troops from the rest of the country into the south where the need is most definite?”[i]

It is a Kandahar-centric question that fails to recognize that international forces in the north are in fact mounting credible and essential operations that could well turn out to be key to the long-term viability of development and good governance in Afghanistan. To cut back forces in the north (“north” being shorthand for those parts of the country generally onside with the Government and not heavily challenged by insurgent forces) and to redeploy them to the counterinsurgency war in the south (the parts of country plagued by a growing insurgency and where suspicion of the Kabul Government runs highest) would not necessarily or not even likely improve the chances of suppressing the insurgency, but would definitely put the stability of the north in further jeopardy.

In November 2007, for example, the BBC reported that in the north the always present violent crime is now being exacerbated by growing political attacks: “Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar‚Äîa former mujahideen leader who is battling the Kabul government independently from the Taleban ‚Äîare known to be active in Baghlan.”[ii]Another November example, a report from Radio Free Europe, describes northern militia leaders as “exploiting Kabul’s preoccupation with the violence-ridden south and east in order to stake claims to their old fiefdoms.” Some are rearming to prepare for what they fear may be another war with a resurgent Taliban.[iii]A new Oxfam International (2008) report on development and humanitarian priorities for Afghanistan also warns that the focus on the south is leading to neglect of the north and increasing the danger of spreading insecurity.[iv]

To preserve stability and advance human security in the north, stabilization forces must continue to contribute to conditions that are conducive to peacebuilding, that is, to reconstruction, disarmament, security sector reform, and accountable governance. The Manley Panel (p. 32) says that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan,” but in fact there is a peace to keep and build in the north. It is a fragile peace, to be sure, but it is one that must be nurtured and built up or it will be lost.

It is primarily in the north where there is currently a realistic prospect of gradually shifting security responsibility from ISAF to Afghan forces, but only with increased attention to training local police who will be trusted and to building the kind of economic and social conditions on the ground that are conducive to political stability. In the “clear, hold, and develop” framework, the 2001 invasion by US and northern Alliance forces was able to “clear” the north of the Taliban because the latter had few roots there. Since then the north has been “held” by a combination of Afghan (Government and militias) and ISAF troops. However, the “develop” phase (reconstruction and governance, in particular) has been chronically under-resourced. Governance reform has been resisted by both the central government and local officials and politicians (and militia leaders) in attempts to preserve their own advantages in a still corrupt system.

Much of the current debate is about whether or not Canadian forces should be engaged in combat operations. The real choice, however, is between counter-insurgency combat and a genuine post-conflict peace support and security assistance operation designed to stabilize the regions already largely under Government control. Both counterinsurgency clearing operations in Taliban-held regions and security patrols in government-held areas are UN Chapter VII (use of force) operations involving the resort to lethal force. The former, however, takes the fight to the Taliban without, as experience is showing (see the Feb 16 posting here), effectively suppressing the insurgency, while the latter focuses on providing security protection in communities where the insurgents are not present in the same way—even though the presence of spoilers is and will continue to be a challenge.

The explicit rejection of a combat role in Kandahar province should be understood as a rejection of counterinsurgency combat in favour of security patrols consistent with peace support operations in post-conflict areas of the country. In Afghanistan peace support operations are not carried out by Blue Helmets with binoculars and radios, but an armed security force with a mandate to protect people in their homes, communities, schools and places of work.

So, the general priority should now be to focus on the “hold” and “develop” tasks to ensure a stable future for Afghans in locations where the Government is basically in control and the insurgency is not present.

A British Humanitarian worker and researcher writes the following after recent visits to Afghanistan:[v]

“Almost everyone I spoke to on my recent visit thinks that this strategy, which essentially consists of trying to capture territory held by the insurgents and then to “love-bomb” local residents with aid projects is crazy. It is a terrible way of distributing aid, it is not buying hearts and minds and it is actually creating an incentive for people in peaceful areas to stage “incidents” so that they can get “more, more, more” attention as well.

“Western strategy within Afghanistan should concentrate on securing the areas of the country that are currently under the nominal control of the government, strengthening the institutions of the state and tackling corruption and impunity. That will require a significant reorientation of existing policy – and real political courage – but until the institutions of government begin to command the respect of ordinary Afghans there is no hope achieving a durable political settlement.

“That does not mean the withdrawal of international military forces, but it should mean winding down aggressive military operations in the south and east. There is absolutely no point in asking British soldiers to risk their lives to capture territory during the day that the Taliban will simply reoccupy the next night. No amount of ill-thought-out aid is going to win the hearts and minds of a village whose children then get killed by an air strike.”

International military forces are needed to help “hold” the fragile peace in the north through stabilization or peace support operations that can be appropriately called Chapter VII peacekeeping. Efforts to “develop” that fragile peace into a sustainable peace are obviously what we know as post-conflict peacebuilding. Now is definitely not the time to shift forces from that vital peace support role in the north to join the unsuccessful counterinsurgency war in the south.


[i] “German troops to stay in Afghan north despite pleas,” The Associated Press, February 1, 2008 (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080201/germany_afghanistan_080201).

[ii] “Afghan suicide blast ‘kills 40’,” BBC News, November 6, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7081012.stm).

[iii] Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Armed Northern Militias Complicate Security,” RFE/Rl, November 4, 2007 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/ffca5de1-b96c-4cdf-810b-831bec1b5a6c.html).

[iv] “Afghanistan: Development and Humanitarian Priorities,” Oxfam International, January 2008 (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RMOI-7BE2T6/$File/full_report.pdf).

[v] Conor Foley, “Who is Right on Afghanistan?” February 15, 2008, Guardian Unlimited (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2008/02/who_is_right_on_afghanistan_1.html).

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Still losing the counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan

Posted on: February 16th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

Neither the Manley-Harper formula that focuses on intensified efforts to militarily “clear” more parts of the country of Taliban insurgents, nor the alternative that focuses more on holding and developing (economic, governance, reliable security institutions) those parts of the country that are already cleared of the insurgency, can obviously guarantee success in Afghanistan. Neither can assure gradual and irreversible progress toward the safer future that Afghans want and need. But if our responsibility in the Canadian political debate is to identify the course of action with the better chance of success, we would do well to heed experience, which tells us that the odds do not favour the Manley-Harper formula.

Scholars who study post-WW II armed conflicts and their ultimate resolution draw some telling conclusions.[i]

Insurgencies are for the most part deeply rooted in grievance, conflicting interests, and a sense of exclusion, not in a detached or apolitical fanaticism. In other words, while ideological extremists may exploit disaffected populations, insurgencies are based on deeply held goals from which they are not easily deflected. An insurgency gains genuine staying power when it is able to draw on a large or core ethnic group for support (in this case, the Pashtun communities) and when it can access an independent income source (poppies) and safe havens (Pakistan). The Manley Panel (p. 14) seems to agree, acknowledging that “few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country.”

International military support tends to do little to improve the host government’s chances of prevailing over the insurgents. Instead, such support serves primarily to prolong the war because, with external support, governments take longer to face or own up to the disturbing reality that they are not going to prevail militarily. Put another way, external support tends to delay government recognition of a hurting stalemate, but does not ultimately avoid it.

Thus, wars against insurgents tend to be long wars, especially if foreign forces are involved. And the longer such wars last the more likely it is that they will be stalemated and require a diplomatic solution. Hence, the classic objective of insurgency is durability, not military victory. By dragging out the fight‚Äîoften committing heinous crimes in the process‚Äîinsurgents gradually force the government under attack to recognize that it must finally negotiate with the very people it once described as lawless perpetrators of atrocities and utterly unworthy of civil discourse. Insurgents win if they don’t lose; governments lose if they don’t win.

By this account, the Afghan Government and its ISAF partners are losing. When combat operations manage to clear the Taliban out of certain areas of Kandahar Province, for example, neither ISAF nor the Afghan security forces have the capacity to hold those areas in ways that ensure sufficient security to undertake significant development. The Manley Panel (p. 12) puts it more delicately, but there is no escaping the point: “security generally has deteriorated in the South and East of Afghanistan, including Kandahar province where Canadian Forces are based, through 2006 and 2007.” This conclusion is reinforced in much more categorical terms by a host of other studies, including a recent US study byCo-Chairs General James L. Jones (Ret.) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering[ii]and the reports of the Secretary-General.[iii]

The Manley Panel (p. 28) recognizes that “no insurgency‚Äîand certainly not the Afghan insurgency‚Äîcan be defeated by military force alone. The Panel holds strongly that it is urgent to complete practical, significant development projects of immediate value to Afghans, while at the same time contributing to the capacity and legitimacy of Afghan government institutions.” It correctly emphasizes more immediate-impact reconstruction and better coordination of the counterinsurgency effort, but refuses to acknowledge the need for political attention to the conflicts and grievances that fuel the insurgency. In the end, it turns to an intensified military effort (p. 35): “a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.” And the odds do not favor such a strategy.


[i] See, for example, the Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 3 (2004). The focus of the entire issue is the duration and termination of civil war.

[ii] “Afghan Study Group Report: Revitalizing our Efforts, Rethinking our Strategy,” Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 30, 2008 (http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf)] and the UN Secretary-General’s 2007 report on Afghanistan.

[iii] UN Security Council. 2007. The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. Report of the Secretary-General. September 21. A/62/345-S/2007/555.http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep07.htm.

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Still losing the counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan

Posted on: February 16th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

Neither the Manley-Harper formula that focuses on intensified efforts to militarily “clear” more parts of the country of Taliban insurgents, nor the alternative that focuses more on holding and developing (economic, governance, reliable security institutions) those parts of the country that are already cleared of the insurgency, can obviously guarantee success in Afghanistan. Neither can assure gradual and irreversible progress toward the safer future that Afghans want and need. But if our responsibility in the Canadian political debate is to identify the course of action with the better chance of success, we would do well to heed experience, which tells us that the odds do not favour the Manley-Harper formula.

Scholars who study post-WW II armed conflicts and their ultimate resolution draw some telling conclusions.[i]

Insurgencies are for the most part deeply rooted in grievance, conflicting interests, and a sense of exclusion, not in a detached or apolitical fanaticism. In other words, while ideological extremists may exploit disaffected populations, insurgencies are based on deeply held goals from which they are not easily deflected. An insurgency gains genuine staying power when it is able to draw on a large or core ethnic group for support (in this case, the Pashtun communities) and when it can access an independent income source (poppies) and safe havens (Pakistan). The Manley Panel (p. 14) seems to agree, acknowledging that “few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country.”

International military support tends to do little to improve the host government’s chances of prevailing over the insurgents. Instead, such support serves primarily to prolong the war because, with external support, governments take longer to face or own up to the disturbing reality that they are not going to prevail militarily. Put another way, external support tends to delay government recognition of a hurting stalemate, but does not ultimately avoid it.

Thus, wars against insurgents tend to be long wars, especially if foreign forces are involved. And the longer such wars last the more likely it is that they will be stalemated and require a diplomatic solution. Hence, the classic objective of insurgency is durability, not military victory. By dragging out the fight‚Äîoften committing heinous crimes in the process‚Äîinsurgents gradually force the government under attack to recognize that it must finally negotiate with the very people it once described as lawless perpetrators of atrocities and utterly unworthy of civil discourse. Insurgents win if they don’t lose; governments lose if they don’t win.

By this account, the Afghan Government and its ISAF partners are losing. When combat operations manage to clear the Taliban out of certain areas of Kandahar Province, for example, neither ISAF nor the Afghan security forces have the capacity to hold those areas in ways that ensure sufficient security to undertake significant development. The Manley Panel (p. 12) puts it more delicately, but there is no escaping the point: “security generally has deteriorated in the South and East of Afghanistan, including Kandahar province where Canadian Forces are based, through 2006 and 2007.” This conclusion is reinforced in much more categorical terms by a host of other studies, including a recent US study byCo-Chairs General James L. Jones (Ret.) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering[ii]and the reports of the Secretary-General.[iii]

The Manley Panel (p. 28) recognizes that “no insurgency‚Äîand certainly not the Afghan insurgency‚Äîcan be defeated by military force alone. The Panel holds strongly that it is urgent to complete practical, significant development projects of immediate value to Afghans, while at the same time contributing to the capacity and legitimacy of Afghan government institutions.” It correctly emphasizes more immediate-impact reconstruction and better coordination of the counterinsurgency effort, but refuses to acknowledge the need for political attention to the conflicts and grievances that fuel the insurgency. In the end, it turns to an intensified military effort (p. 35): “a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.” And the odds do not favor such a strategy.


[i] See, for example, the Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 3 (2004). The focus of the entire issue is the duration and termination of civil war.

[ii] “Afghan Study Group Report: Revitalizing our Efforts, Rethinking our Strategy,” Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 30, 2008 (http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf)] and the UN Secretary-General’s 2007 report on Afghanistan.

[iii] UN Security Council. 2007. The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. Report of the Secretary-General. September 21. A/62/345-S/2007/555.http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep07.htm.

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The search for winning conditions in Afghanistan

Posted on: February 15th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

The Manley Panel clarified and actually generated consensus on at least one important element of a coherent Afghanistan policy, namely, that Canada should not be putting its soldiers at major risk in support of a military strategy that stands little chance of succeeding. That may seem obvious enough, but given that Canada took on the Kandahar assignment largely out of a misguided desire to curry favour in Washington and without a thorough understanding of the situation in Afghanistan’s south,[i] overt recognition of this key principle, that for the use of force to be appropriate or justified there must be a reasonable prospect for success, is significant.

In his Foreword to the report of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan (2008), chairman John Manley puts it this way: “Our Panel concluded that the sacrifice of Canadian lives could only be justified if we and our allies and the Afghans share a coherent, comprehensive plan that can lead to success.”

The Manley Panel also accepts the troubling, but well-documented, truth that under present conditions the counterinsurgency effort is not succeeding and will continue to falter. Prime Minister Stephen Harper also acknowledged this reality when he accepted the Panel’s report. The Manley-Harper acknowledgment is more than the oft-repeated statement that the Afghan insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone. Rather, it is a recognition that even in the context of a 3D strategy (defence, development, and diplomacy), or whole-of-government effort, the military component of the Kandahar mission should not be continued as is.

Where Manley and the Harper Government part company with many critics of the mission is in their definition of winning conditions – that is, in their assessment of what is required to make the military component of the mission successful.

The Manley-Harper formula is set out in the Panel’s most discussed recommendation, and repeated in the mission extension resolution tabled in Parliament on February 8,[ii] that making the military mission in Kandahar effective and worth continuing will require 1,000 more soldiers from a partner country, as well as additional equipment, principally helicopters and drones. The Panel did not claim that these adjustments would produce an early defeat of the insurgency, but it argued that they would set the insurgency back enough so that, with further training of the Afghan National Army, by 2011 the Afghans would be in a position to take over the lead responsibility for military security operations from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kandahar province.

Critics of the military counterinsurgency effort argue that increases in foreign forces and equipment will not break the back of the insurgency, pointing out that several years of counterinsurgency warfare have actually seen the insurgency steadily gain strength. Some conclude that it is therefore time to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan, but others say Canadian and ISAF troops need to refocus on a mission to protect and stabilize those parts of the country (largely in the north and west) that are not heavily challenged by the insurgency.

The Liberal Party’s amendment to the Government Motion essentially adopts the latter approach, except that they say that Canadian Forces should be “providing security for reconstruction and development efforts in Kandahar.”[iii]To distinguish that military role from a counterinsurgency war would require the focus of operations to be largely confined to Kandahar city and its immediate environs – the only part of Kandahar Province, according to current reporting, in which the Taliban do not have a permanent presence. Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, who heads the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, was portrayed in theGlobe and Mail as being critical of the approach proposed by the Liberals, but from his description, current operations actually seem to following the model proposed by the Liberals:

“Gen. Gauthier said the military’s role as it is right now is to create secure conditions in regions around Kandahar city so reconstruction efforts can occur. He noted that the panel on the future of Canada’s role headed by former Liberal minister John Manley also concluded that reconstruction work cannot be separated from military efforts to make areas secure.

“‘It’s less a question of offensive actions than it is of taking the necessary measures to secure a zone of action,’ Gen. Gauthier said. ‚ÄòAnd I think the Manley panel recognized the fact that we cannot separate the needs of security and the security efforts from those related to reconstruction and governance.’

“He also said: ‚ÄòI think that security, reconstruction, the development of the capacity of the Afghan security forces, the development of governance, all these efforts go together. It’s as simple as that. They can’t be separated.'”[iv]

Keeping Kandahar city, like the rest of the country that is not now engulfed by the Taliban insurgency, from becoming a Taliban stronghold is an obviously significant objective and requires a combination of security support and development and governance reform.

In the language of the “clear, hold, and develop” strategy, it is logical to argue that priority should now be given to holding and maintaining security (which can also involve the resort to lethal force) and developing those parts of the country that are largely clear of insurgency. Those areas are in danger of slipping out of control, like much of the south, if residents don’t soon see major improvements in their security and wellbeing and the performance of their government. Thus there should be, as the Manley Panel also says, redoubled emphasis on security sector reform and training, especially of a national police force that respects basic rights and that serves the welfare of, and gains the confidence of, the people of Afghanistan. Accelerated development and reconstruction would not only enhance the welfare of Afghans, but would discourage support for insurgent forces.


[i] The point is made clearly by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang in The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (Viking Canada, 2007): “A new consensus, led by DND, was rapidly emerging in Ottawa: Canada, and in particular the Canadian Forces, needed to do something significant for Washington‚Äîsomething that the Pentagon really valued‚Äîto compensate for the refusal to participate in Ballistic Missile Defence” (p. 181; see also pp. 181-188).

[ii] On February 8/08 The Government’s “Motion on Afghanistan” calling on the House of Commons to support “the continuation of Canada’s current responsibility for security in Kandahar beyond February 2009, to the end of 2011.”] [iii] Liberal Amendment to Government Motion on Afghanistan, February 12, 2008 (http://www.liberal.ca/story_13576_e.aspx).

[iv] Campbell Clark, ” Top general wary of Liberal positionCombat, reconstruction ‘can’t be separated’,” The Globe and Mail,February 15, 2008 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080215.AFGHANBRIEFING15//TPStory/Front).

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The Military Choice in Afghanistan is not between Combat and No Combat

Posted on: February 14th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

This and the next five postings, on successive days, will review and elaborate the themes addressed in the Feb. 8 posting.[i] As noted then, the Manley Panel reinforced a prominent misperception in the current debate over the role of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, namely that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan.” In fact, in large areas of the country, essentially the northern half, there is indeed a peace to keep. To be sure, it is a fragile peace, but if it is not protected, built upon, and genuinely nurtured it will yet be lost.

Security assistance forces in the north are critical to maintaining conditions that are conducive to moving from a fragile to a durable peace. International forces deployed in the north, unlike those in the south, follow the model of peace support operations intended to protect people in their homes, communities, schools, and places of work so that the regions of the country that are relatively free of the insurgency that increasingly plagues the south can develop and advance the human security of Afghans. The peace support forces operate under a Chapter VII mandate and can certainly involve the resort to lethal force, whatever national caveats may be in place, but it is a reliance on force that is clearly distinguishable from counterinsurgency combat that seeks to defeat the Taliban on their home ground in the south.

The harsh reality is that the counterinsurgency combat operations in the south are repeating history in their failure to stem, never mind defeat, the insurgency. The growing danger is that while ISAF and NATO focus on the south, the security, reconstruction, and governance challenges in the north will be neglected to the point that declining northern confidence in local and national government will lead to collapse there as well.

Accordingly, the military choice facing Canada in Afghanistan is not between combat and no combat, it is between counterinsurgency warfare and Chapter VII peace support, or peacekeeping, operations.

Tomorrow: The search for winning conditions.


[i] This same material is also presented in Project Ploughshares Briefing 08-1, available athttp://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf081.pdf.

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Training the Afghans for permanent war?

Posted on: February 12th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

The Manley Panel seems to support, as does the Government resolution, the idea that, rather than concentrating only on counterinsurgency operations, Canadian forces should increasingly focus on training Afghan security forces. However, the Panel tends to define training as mentoring Afghan soldiers in counterinsurgency combat situations.

Its report (p. 24) notes that the ISAF Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams link to Afghan National Army units to assist in planning and carrying out field operations; “in reality, training and mentoring Afghan forces means sometimes conducting combat operations with them” (p. 30). But in another context the Panel emphasizes the distinction between combat and training. It (p. 34) says, for example, that the report’s recommendations, if adopted, “would reorient Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan more systematically from combat to the intensified training of the Afghan army and police.”

The latter understanding of training seems to come a bit closer to what is needed. Serious training takes place in training academies and through field exercises and should prepare both the Afghan National Army and, more importantly, the Afghan National Police to maintain order in the context of a country no longer at war that has the benefit of a political accord that embraces all elements of Afghan society. The Manley Panel’s view of training as on-the-job training in counterinsurgency warfare assumes ongoing war, however, and seems to reduce the objective to leaving minimally trained or mentored Afghan government forces to their fate once foreign forces deem them ready to take over the fight.

Richard Nixon called a similar strategy “vietnamization.” This formula for long-term war is a formula for Afghanistan’s long-term loss of the state’s monopoly on the resort to force – the name for which is “failed state.”

The Panel (p. 32) says that “the Canadian combat mission should conclude when the Afghan National Army is ready to provide security in Kandahar province.” But the general strategy of transferring security responsibility to Afghan forces will be possible only if there is a new political accord that ends the insurgency and therefore drastically reduces the government’s security requirements. For Afghan forces to be trained and expanded to the point that they could take over the entire country’s security needs would mean that the war would first have to end. Afghan forces on their own will not defeat an insurgency that NATO/ISAF forces have not been able to even contain, never mind defeat. Furthermore, the Government of Afghanistan can obviously not afford to maintain the level of armed forces needed to keep up long-term combat operations against insurgents.

The alternative to permanent war must be to replace the military counterinsurgency strategy with a political counterinsurgency strategy. In the south the “clear” element of the “clear, hold, and develop” strategy must become a political operation that addresses the conditions that fuel the insurgency through processes that are inclusive and participatory in carrying out the negotiations, along with social reconciliation that will need to become part of a comprehensive peace process.

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A peace to keep in Afghanistan

Posted on: February 8th, 2008 by Ernie Regehr

The Government’s decision to ask Parliament to extend Canada’s current mission to 2011 (2) is linked to one of the more wrong-headed but still prominent complaints voiced in the current Canadian debate over Afghanistan. It is the charge that the Germans and others with forces in the more stable north are not doing any “heavy lifting” and thus are undermining the fight against the Taliban and, what some seem to find even more disturbing, putting the future of NATO in question.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier echoed that line of argument when he told CTV News that “there is no job outside of the south where you actually need extra troops right now. In fact, there is contemplation all the time in military circles of “Can you move troops from the rest of the country into the south where the need is most definite?” (3)

It is a deeply counter-productive approach because the international forces in the north are in fact mounting credible and essential operations that could well turn out to be the most important for the long-term viability of development and good governance in Afghanistan. Cutting back forces in the north (we can take “north” as shorthand for those parts of the country generally onside with the Government and not heavily challenged by insurgent forces) and redeploying them to the counter-insurgency war in the south (with “south” being shorthand for the parts of country plagued by a growing insurgency and where suspicions of the Kabul Government run highest) would not reliably improve chances of suppressing the insurgency but would definitely put the stability of the north in further jeopardy.

Reports of deteriorating security in the north are now frequent, with the always present violence of crime exacerbated by growing political attacks. (4) Northern Militia leaders are said to be “exploiting Kabul’s preoccupation with the violence-ridden south and east in order to stake claims to their old fiefdoms.” Some are rearming in order to prepare what they fear may be another war with a resurgent Taliban.(5) A new Oxfam International report on development and humanitarian priorities for Afghanistan also warns that the focus on the south is leading to neglect of the north and the danger of spreading insecurity.(6)

Successful peacebuilding and stability in the north are critical to Afghan avoiding the descent into a civil war that engulfs the whole country. And for the north to remain stable and for human security to be advanced there, international stabilization forces must continue to contribute to conditions that are conducive to peacebuilding, that is, to reconstruction, disarmament, security sector reform, and accountable governance. The Manley Panel’s claim that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan” ignores the fact that it is in the North where there is in fact a realistic prospect of gradually shifting security responsibility from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to Afghan forces.

But that will take increased attention to training police that are trusted and to building the kind of economic and social conditions on the ground that are conducive to political stability. In the “clear, hold, and develop” framework, the north was essentially “cleared” of the Taliban in the 2001 invasion by US and Northern Alliance forces, and has since been “held” by a combination of Afghan (Government and militias) and ISAF forces. The “develop” phase (reconstruction and governance in particular) has however been chronically under-resourced, with governance reform often resisted by both central government and local officials and politicians (and militia leaders) in efforts to preserve their own advantages under a still prominently corrupt system.

The priority in the North, broadly speaking, is therefore now to focus on the hold and develop tasks in order to assure a stable future for Afghans there. And, of course, the name that is usually given such a process is post-conflict peacebuilding. International forces in the north are thus following the proven model of peace support operations, what contemporary peacekeeping has become, that are designed protect people in their homes, communities, and places of work so that reconstruction can proceed. They operate under a UN Chapter VII mandate and can certainly involve the resort to lethal force, whatever national caveats may be in place. Such operations include instances of combat, but of a kind that is clearly distinguishable from the counter-insurgency fighting that tries to defeat the Taliban on their home ground.

The latter operations in the south are in the process of repeating history√Ç — namely, that insurgencies rooted in a strong ethnic community, with independent means of support (the poppy trade), and with access to havens of retreat, are not generally amenable to military defeat.

The impending danger is not that NATO will fail to find another 1000 soldiers to operate with Canadians in the south, but that the focus on the south will result in the further neglect of security, reconstruction, and governance challenges in the north.

If Parliament passes the new Afghanistan resolution, we might well renege on the military imperative to keep the peace in the north and on the diplomatic imperative to seek the peace in the south.


1) Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan, Chaired by John Manley, reported at the end of January 08 (http://www.canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/cip-pic/afghanistan/pdf/Afghan_Report_web_e.pdf).

2) On Feb. 8 the Government tabled a motion calling for “the continuation of Canada’s current responsibility for security in Kandahar to the end of 2011.” (Available at http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/207019.)

3) “German troops to stay in Afghan north despite pleas,” CTV.Ca, February 1, 2008.

4) “Afghan suicide blast kills 40,” “Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujahideen leader who is battling the Kabul government independently from the Taliban are known to be active in Baghlan,” BBC News, November 6, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7081012.stm).

5) Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Armed Northern Militias Complicate Security,” Radio Free Europe, November 4, 2007 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/ffca5de1-b96c-4cdf-810b-831bec1b5a6c.html).

6)”Afghanistan: Development and Humanitarian Priorities, Oxfam International, January 2008 (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RMOI-7BE2T6/$File/full_report.pdf).

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