Afghans Don’t Need U.S.
Troops. They Need Islands of Stability.
Here’s how the Biden administration can prevent chaos
in Afghanistan, even after it withdraws.
BY MICHAEL F.
HARSCH, TAYLOR WHITSELL
| APRIL 20, 2021,
8:00 AM
An Afghan
man belonging to the Uzbek ethnic group feeds pigeons in front of the shrine of
Hazrat-i-Ali, in Mazar-i-Sharif the capital of the northern Afghan Balkh
province on June 2, 2007. SHAH MARAI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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Last week,
U.S. President Joe Biden announced the remaining 3,500 U.S. forces in Afghanistan will be
withdrawn by Sept. 11—a decision that sets a clear date for the United States’
military exit. What remains unclear is the administration’s plan for ensuring
sufficient stability in Afghanistan without a U.S. troop presence. As September
approaches, Biden may face new questions about how the last U.S. forces can
leave Afghanistan without leaving chaos behind. Fortunately, there are
new answers he can offer.
The U.S.
policy in fragile, conflict-affected states is often perceived as a binary
choice between either total retrenchment or the largely discredited top-down state-building of recent
decades. A multiyear research project on islands of stability suggests a middle
ground: a region-driven approach to stabilizing fragile states that could allow
the United States to help expand local peace and prosperity in Afghanistan,
even amid ongoing conflict, without requiring it to have boots on the ground.
Islands of
stability are regions with relatively high levels of security and public
service provisions in otherwise fragile, conflict-affected states. Existing
islands in states like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia have demonstrated
remarkable resilience in the face of adversity and can provide an important
source of stability for the central state. They also accomplish what outside
interventions typically fail to promote at the central-state level: a monopoly
on violence through long-term cooperation between the government and its
citizens.
A
region-driven strategy to stabilization would promote the creation and
consolidation of such islands of stability. A core element of this strategy
would be supporting decentralization efforts and advocating for the direct
election of governors in Afghanistan. Islands of stability are more likely to
flourish when local citizens have a say and can hold leaders accountable and
when provincial governments possess the necessary authority, resources, and
popular support to maintain security and deliver basic services. In addition,
targeted investments in infrastructure and education in these regions could
create positive spillover effects on neighboring regions.
When and why
do islands of stability emerge? During interviews in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Somalia, we found local political elites matter greatly. Bounded rulers—who
belong to a local majority group that is a national minority and, therefore,
possess limited political upward mobility—govern with longer time horizons and
have an interest in striking a social compact with their population: long-term
protection and public services in return for cooperation with the regional
government. Hence, bounded rulers tend to improve security and basic services
while in other similar regions, the absence of such leaders is associated with
worse outcomes. These leaders also tend to rely on more inclusive social
compacts, which extend greater protection and opportunities to women and ethnic minorities than in other regions.
In
Afghanistan, which has been ruled by Pashtuns since the 18th century, an
example of a bounded leader is Habiba Sarabi, an ethnic Hazara who served as
governor of Bamyan from 2005 to 2013 and was the first Afghan woman to head any
province.
Another
prominent example is ethnic Tajik Atta Mohammad Noor, who served as governor of
Afghanistan’s Balkh Province from 2004 to 2018. Realizing his low odds of
winning the Afghan presidency, Noor prioritized investing in security,
infrastructure, and education to maintain the local population’s long-term
support. Offering protection and services enabled Noor to build popular trust
and hold the Taliban at bay. Balkh Province’s relative success contrasts with
neighboring Kunduz Province, which has been dominated by non-bounded Pashtun
appointees and was overrun twice by the Taliban.
Our findings
suggest that creating security at the regional level is a feasible and
sustainable approach. Unlike peaceful villages that remain highly
vulnerable to outside attacks, provinces like Balkh are large enough to defend
themselves against most domestic threats; at the same time, they are small
enough to enable local accountability and political representation. In the
presence of long-standing, bounded leaders, the local population will be ready
to share information with the provincial government. As a senior member of the
provincial council, whose name we decided to keep confidential given the
current political uncertainty in Afghanistan, told us, “except for a fringe
minority, the majority of the people … cooperate with Balkh’s government. …
When they see anything suspicious, they report it to the relevant authorities
immediately.” This allows the authorities to counter threats effectively. An
influential local academic, whose identity we are also keeping confidential,
pointed out that as a result of this steady information flow, security forces
are “able to identify the location … of insurgent groups who are active in
Balkh. Therefore, whenever even a small destructive activity takes place, it is
clear where the source of the activity lies.”
How can the
United States apply the lessons learned from islands of stability in the
context of withdrawal from Afghanistan? Going forward, the United States could
focus on three areas: decentralization, long-term aid, and disincentivizing
foreign subversion.
First, in
the context of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the
Taliban, the United States should push for meaningful decentralization. In the
current system, governors are appointed by the Afghan president. These
governors do not tend to be locally bounded, operating with short time horizons
and little local accountability. Turning Afghan governors into elected
officials would help ameliorate this problem. Devolution would also reduce the
power of the presidency and thereby likely decrease competition over what is
currently the paramount political price to capture. This could facilitate a
peace agreement.
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