Peace on the Border
Posted By Marc on December 29, 2008
After the riding we dispersed,
we drifted home in twos and threes.
through cold and rain we spat and cursed,
this ancient war of families.Armies past and then returned,
they killed and raped, they stole and burnt.
so from the cradle we have learnt,
to be as hard as stone.
and learned to stand alone.Steeleye Span, Peace on the Border
Several days ago, Fred Kaplan wrote an article at Slate called We finally have a strategy for Afghanistan. Quite correctly, in my opinion, Mike Innes at CTLab notes that Kaplan’s “strategy” has a fatal flaw. Kaplan proposes that an immediate surge of 30-60,000 troops which would, hopefully, have a few quick successes that would initiate a cascade effect similar to the Anbar arising, creating a self-sustaining nationalist movement (I’m paraphrasing here). As Mike points out, however, such a movement is susceptible to and dependent upon the development of a conscience collectif (to use Durkheim’s phrase) and, at the moment, the Taliban have it all over the Karzai government in the PR department).
The biggest problem is that the country’s fate ultimately lies outside its borders. As long as Pakistan’s northwest territories remain a lawless free-for-all, with Taliban and al-Qaida fighters crossing the border at will, Afghanistan will never be stable. And as long as Pakistan faces a threat from India to the east, its leaders will never deploy enough troops to quash the insurgents in the northwest territories.
While Kaplan correctly identifies the North-West Territories as a major danger point, I have to wonder how he thinks the government of Pakistan would “control” it when no one has been able to do so over the past 4,000 years? Does he truly perceive the inhabitants of the North-West Territories as “insurgents”? Against what?!?
Kaplan needs to study a few more historical cases if he wants to understand what the inhabitants of the North-West Territories are. I would suggest that he start with a case study from the English / Scottish history – the Border wars in the Lowlands of Scotland – and ask if he is proposing that Pakistan use the same tactics to “quash the insurgents”.
Leaving aside the question of control for the moment, Kaplan is quite correct in his assertion that they are a major problem. But the problem lies not so much in the lack of control by Pakistan but, rather, with the fact that the Territories are under the (technical) sovereignty of Pakistan when they are primarily Pashtun.
(Source: National Geographic. Click here for larger image)
There is a rather insidious, and unspoken, assumption that underlies much of the modern discourse on nation states, and that is the concept of a People = a Nation. This is certainly one possibility, but it is, by no means, the dominant one throughout human history. Indeed, given the current dominance of multi-cultural societies, even historically ethnically “unified” countries, such as France, now have nations within nations.
Kaplan’s off-hand call to “quash the insurgents in the nortwest territorries” reveals his assumptions on the nature of nation states; assumptions that belie the reality of how such ethnic unity was achieved in the historical cases when it happened (think Albigensian Crusade and the St. Bartholemew’s Day Massacre for examples).
Cloak and dagger, crime on crime,
anarchy in the borderlands.
the king’s men came with a valentine,
to break to power of the border clans.Steeleye Span, Peace on the Border
Is this what he is proposing? I doubt it, merely because I suspect that Kaplan has not thought through the assumptions of his off-hand comments. Such assumptions, however, do need to be thought through, especially in light of how well the Taliban are doing in both their PR and military efforts.
One would have hoped that people would have learned all about the nature of ramshackle “states” from the dissolution of Yugoslavia but, obviously, that lesson has not been learned – at least for the case of Pakistan by Kaplan. Pakistan is not, and has not been for at least 3500 years, a unified “People”. Rather, it is composed of at least three historically grounded “states” – the Punjab, Baluchistan and Sindh – and the Pashtun “Territories”. It is more analogous to the dynastic “states” of Early Modern Europe than to the more modern conception of a nation state.
While it may be possible for the Pakistani government to “quash the insurgents”, I suspect that the tactics they would have to use would, at the minimum, be anathema to most of the world. “Peace on the Border” may be a worthwhile goal but, if history is any lesson at all, the cost of achieving it may be extreme.
Some were hung, some sent away,
to Ireland and the low countries.
great was the price they had to pay,
god bless their memory,
and god bless you and me.The broken towers that stand today,
stand for peace and order.
reminding us until the day,
that we need no more borders.They are gone now, the killing and disorder,
they’re just ghosts now, the brigand and marauder.
and we give thanks for peace on the border,
we give thanks for peace on the border.Steeleye Span, Peace on the Border
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Marc,
I wonder when the nebulous “we” will stop trying to force external nation-state centric solutions on an area that apparently cannot ever be a nation-state.
It was frustrating in Former Yugoslavia, and it is frustrating (and dangerous) in Afghanistan.
Are there any serious proposals for a non-centralized solution?
Hi Drew,
I haven’t heard of any such solutions . What frustrates me most about Afghanistan is that there certainly was a nascent nation state in the modern, multi-cultural sense emerging in the 1960′s and 1970′s. I had a couple of friends who grew up in Kabul then and have talked about it, and how the country fell apart.
From what I can tell, and I am by no means an expert in the area, it appears that the emergent “nationalism” relied on three strands:
a) beating the snot out of anyone who invaded;
b) a (more or less) generally accepted monarchy; and
c) an emerging parliamentary form of government drawing on both local (Loya Jirga) and British traditions.
When we first went in to Afghanistan, I was really, REALLY, hoping that the monarchy would be restored. It seemed to me that that was about the most likely way to stabilize the country. Those hopes were, unfortunately, dashed by pressure from DC – and, if the stories I’ve heard from behind the scenes are accurate, and I suspect they are given the source, the only reason why it wasn’t restored was a belief by one faction in DC that monarchy was “unacceptable”.
If monarchy is “unacceptable” I wonder what chaos and a perpetual state of war is?
I’ve seen nothing but externally applied inappropriate solutions, from the cultural imperialist “women’s rights”, secularists and western-styled democracy.
I’m starting to reexamine why we are still there, in the first place. Perhaps cutting a deal with the Taliban to exclude AQ and a graceful departure might be best.
Sigh….
I suspect that the same people who found the monarchy “unacceptable” are now wishing that it was there
.
I think that Karzai will have to cut some kind of a deal with the Taliban. If he is really smart, and really sneaky, he may be able to do it in such a way that they end up dissolving themselves over the next decade or so. Then again, “smart” and “politician” is almost an oxymoron….
So… why couldn’t the Taliban rebrand themselves? Yet remain substantially the same?
Hi Drew,
They could, and it is, IMO, the most likely option. The danger that they face, is that they, or rather some portions of them, have been systematically annihilating the traditional Pashtun kinship based leadership. As a result, they are in a similar position to Karzai – a fair bit of power, but not much deep-held legitimacy.
Probably their best rebranding option would involve a massive purge of AQ. I know, that sounds odd in a lot of ways, but they need to do something to reinforce their claims that they are acting for the spirit of the Pashtun and in support of “tradition”.