The Lesson From Afghanistan

Western military presence in Afghanistan was dominated by an ideological paradigm with the mission to establish democracy and spread freedom. The insurgency was labelled as terrorism and to be militarily defeated, until the very end of the military mission little effort was made to understand the nature and context of the war in Afghanistan. The development industry, media, the Afghan state and western political and military institutions broadly subscribed to some version of such mission, not necessarily following the same narrative but the same general framework. The failure of the west in stabilising Afghanistan is not an Afghan specific issue but points to a general shortcoming of Western conduct in international relations.

The shortcoming of the Western governments that has contributed to global instability and violence is the fragility of its international discourse, while Western institutions are robust for national governance the foreign policy is not conducted in accordance with the same scrutiny, accountability, oversight and rule based approach. Instead the media and elites have created a myth about the role of the Western democracy in the world that they have now fallen for it themselves. Western diplomacy is spearheaded strongly by a subjective moral approach at the cost of consistency in international law, which has contributed to problems from tension with Russia, spread of violent religious extremism and instability in the Middle East, Africa, south and east Europe. 

Many Westerners, particularly the elites, are convinced that Western democracy is moral and superior and should actively be spread around the world; all who oppose it are evil. A narrative reinforced by retrospective view after collapse of Soviet Block as well as massive economic developments of the last few decades. Western diplomacy is conducted from the position that the future belonged to them as a result those who resist are not (and were not) just rivals, but reactionary forces resisting progress and freedom, even evil. Working from this position of righteousness Western governments shape international relationship in whatever way they deem fit because by virtue of their nature it is only going to be moral and just. As a result we have seen a spate of military interventions in the last few decades that in most cases overruled national sovereignty and/or international law.  

There is a good reason for the international democracy mission that could be explained by understanding the current state of modern Western nations. Nation states are cultural and political entities that have successfully unified the population for progress, unconstrained by their class, race or religion. When governments are unable to exploit all human resources it will result in social fragmentation and reduced social solidarity the symptoms of which are the strengthening of regional identity and anti-political far right or far left movements. This is obvious in the debate around immigration where natives and the government respond to them are anxious about the allegiance of new comers. The crisis of the Nation State in the post-industrial information age is the diversification of culture, the total liberation of individual from traditional bonds, globalisation and market powers resulting in the erosion of the role of the nation state and its legitimacy. The leaders of nation states have been reduced to mere Managers of public life jiggling regulations and clauses that are laid out in the big rulebook, which is scientifically proven to work.

The only area of real decision-making is the international arena where western leaders are effectively members of a club. The short term and direct outcome of aggressive international military intervention is to demonstrate leadership toughness to the voters which incidental is very important. Secondly and more importantly it gives the nation a sense of purpose and solidarity by emphasising a cultural framework that is distinct and superior.

Lets take France for an example where polls show it’s becoming ever more socially fragmented, pessimistic, xenophobic and economically under pressure and experiencing a rise in far-right politics where Marine Le Pen has emerged as a key figure for the 2017 presidential election race. In 2013 France launched Operation Serval in Northern Mali to uproot Islamists threatening the region. President Hollande’s approval ratings doubled, which had plummeted for several reasons since he was elected to office in May 2012. A poll in January 2013 showed that 75 percent of people questioned in France supported the intervention in Mali, there is not a single other issue that can command that kind of public support hence legitimacy.

Western leadership is nurturing a religiously belief in the gods of liberty and democracy, worshipped in flag rituals, national days and a godly mission to save the less fortunate by bombing them to civilisation. The soldiers of the nation are for the sacred duty, but unlike the religious duty of dying for God they are to kill for the nation, what Benedict Anderson called the “imagined community”, inadvertently nevertheless very well depicted in the Hollywood movie American Sniper. The problem with such an ideological approach to international problem in the modern day is that it exacerbates the situation for which it purports to be the cure.  A qualified argument can be made that western military action in Afghanistan intensified extremism, the same is true for Iraq, Libya and Syria.

The ideology of international democracy mission produces a perverse solidary that gives the nation its purpose at the cost of capacity to reason and apply rational solutions to international relations. The NATO military mission had little respect for Afghan life or decision-making, most key decisions were made by Westerners; some of this can be attributed to lack of sound Afghan leadership. The argument still holds by studying the dysfunctional relation of NATO members who were preoccupied by pity squabbles and showed little appetite for collaboration and coordination.

In the course of Afghan war we came to witness Westerners committing torture, illegal detentions, killing civilians and in some cases targeting civilians, large scale corruption, propping up warlords and drug lords and general abuse of power. This does not reconcile with the high moral stance the West take and only comes to show not only that the assessment and solution applied to Afghanistan was ill-suited but also the moral principles that the west pride to is conditional and only applies to some people. This is while the conflict was of low intensity in comparison to other wars fought in the last three decades that means the destruction and distress caused by the war should have been manageable especially given the tremendous military and economic capacity of the west. Afghanistan and any other country have its own context and challenges that are unique to it.  The structural injustice of agrarian state and the impediments to intellectual and political liberty created by poverty will not allow the creation of an environment in Afghanistan that is free and democratic but as experience showed it can neither be created by the military and economic power of the west unless structural issues are addressed. This includes promoting international law, funding for education, promoting regional collaboration and facilitation of free trade.