The Endgame in Afghanistan
Part Three
Some Americans nevertheless believe we can succeed in Afghanistan where all other conquerors have failed in the past because U.S. military forces are the most capable in history. While it is true that the U.S. military has unique advantages no other conqueror of Afghanistan has ever enjoyed – advantages like total air supremacy, satellites, laser-guided smart bombs, the best-trained, smartest special forces and marines in history, and stealthy Predator and Reaper drones capable of firing deadly Hellfire missiles with amazing accuracy – none of these advantages is enough to tilt the balance in our favor.
That is because the problems in Afghanistan are not primarily military, but social and economic. In most of the Afghan countryside tribal law is the only law. The last major wave of social change in the rural areas of Afghanistan was the Islamic Conquest more than 1,000 years ago. Afghan tribal traditions are more powerful than American technology.
Afghanistan’s literacy rate is estimated at about 28%, among the very lowest in the world, comparable to only a handful of other impoverished nations. Only one in eight Afghan women can read in any language.
Across an area just slightly smaller than the state of Texas, Afghanistan is home to more than 28 million people – about 4 million more than Texas – with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $22.27 billion according to the CIA. This is about 1/56th as much as Texas.
Afghanistan's Biggest Industry
Interestingly, the cost of maintaining the NATO garrisons in Afghanistan is estimated to be several times greater than Afghanistan’s entire GDP. No one knows exactly how much of this money is spent in Afghanistan -- much of it goes to Western military contractors and the families of Western military personnel in their home countries -- but it can be safely assumed that the spending that results from the NATO military presence in Afghanistan is as large or larger than Afghanistan's entire non-military economy. This means that the NATO occupation of Afghanistan is the nation's largest industry.
While Afghanistan has some productive agricultural regions, most Afghan men don’t produce anything, nor do they render beneficial services to anyone on a consistent basis. This leaves them with plenty of time to render services to tribal warlords.
Afghanistan’s Second Most Important Industry
Tribal warfare is the third most important industry in Afghanistan, after drug trafficking and foreign military occupation. In reality tribal warfare and trafficking in opium and hashish are actually the same industry, since most of the warlords have a hand in the drug trade. It is widely rumored that President Hamid Karzai’s brother has reaped millions for himself and his Pashtun clan by extorting money from the drug lords. By Afghan standards Karzai’s extortion racket is not particularly noteworthy. Tribal leaders are expected to grab whatever money they can from whomever they can, and since the Karzai brothers have such powerful friends – the U.S. Administration! – his extortion scheme ought to produce lucrative results.
Afghanistan’s Future: Same as the Past
In order to understand the powerful incentives that oppose modern social development in Afghanistan, it is useful to consider the career options of a young Afghan male. If he is lucky, he can practice the trade of his father. If he is luckier still, he can farm in one of the productive agricultural areas, but this is only possible if he can inherit enough land to support a wife and family, and overcome both the wild market swings and the depredations of the local warlord. Since few Afghans are fortunate enough to own productive agricultural land, most young Afghan males must consider other options.
Why not take a job rendering computer tech support, like hundreds of thousands have done in India? This would be an attractive option, except that most Afghan males cannot read or write in any language, most Afghans speak no English at all except for the few words they might have learned from American soldiers, and most Afghans have no computers and no electricity. Most Afghans have no school in which they might learn about computers and electricity, or even just learn to read and write or do simple arithmetic.
The young Afghan male might make a living building roads or houses or hospitals or schools – all of which Afghanistan needs desperately – but most of these noble projects never get off the ground, since funds designated for them are siphoned off by corrupt government officials and greedy warlords, leaving little or nothing to pay the people actually doing the work.
All things considered, serving his local warlord is the most attractive option for the young Afghan male. Looking at the situation rationally, many young Afghan males will continue to decide they are better off with guns in their hands rather than books or tools. This decision, multiplied by millions, means the tribal system will go on just as it has for millennia.
We Americans are clever people. We relentlessly create new technology. Some of it changes the world. But we cannot yet provide that illiterate young man in Afghanistan a better option than becoming a tribal warrior. And unless we can, all our aircraft, satellites, smart bombs, Special Forces, and killer drones aren’t going to make much difference to him.
Afghanistan, therefore, is likely to go on living with the same form of social organization it has had for eons – a social organization that revolves around tribal warfare, drug trafficking, and sucking money out of foreign military occupiers. No matter who seizes power in Kabul or how many elections they manage to steal, these aspects of Afghan life are not likely to change any time soon.
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