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.
