Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 43

T H E A F G H A N S TAT E
four years in a German prison for attempting to
kill his stepson. When Ambassador Eikenberry
visited Marja in the aftermath of the clearing
operation, Eikenberry avoided Zahir, the man the
operation had just installed as the area’s leader,
and instead greeted a former police chief known
locally as a corrupt pedophile. At the same time,
the Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) in Kabul
investigated corruption allegations with vigor.
The task force, established by Karzai after his
2009 reelection, was trained and mentored by
DEA and FBI agents. As the military began working with unsavory actors as they confronted the
consequences of trying to avoid them, the Major
Crimes Task Force advisors pushed the unit forward, eventually arresting a top aide to Karzai.
Karzai secured the release of his aide, who was
held for less than a day.

state-society relations. While this analysis does
not offer a specific model to apply to Afghanistan, it does suggest that the Western-ideal type
is not as natural as Western intellectual history
and military doctrine imply. As such, answers
to questions about both the scope of the state
and military operations to sap support from an
insurgency are not self-evidently the answers that
worked in the West.

…that the Western-ideal type
is not as natural as Western
intellectual history and military doctrine imply.

Conclusion
The problem in Afghanistan, many Western
military and civilian officials believe, is that the
Afghan government is not strong enough. Usually
what these people mean is that the Afghan state
has not established a monopoly over violence
throughout Afghanistan, has not sufficiently
penetrated society, and has insufficient control
over social relations and resources. This analysis
comes principally from two places. First, Western intellectual history contends that sovereign,
autonomous states that deeply penetrate society
to control social relations and resources are
normal and good—and that deviations should be
redressed on both moral and security grounds.
Second, military doctrine derived from this intellectual tradition proposes state building in the
model of the Western-ideal type to reduce popular
support for insurgencies.
Peaceful and stable Afghan states have not
adopted the Western-ideal type. Ahmed Shah
Durrani, Abdur Rahman, and the Musahiban
Dynasty all fell woefully short of its standards.
Even Rahman, who ruled Afghanistan more
directly and grew the Afghan state to a greater
degree than the others, did so at tremendous cost
and with unprecedented amounts of violence.
Amanullah and Communist attempts to emulate
Western models backfired as neither was prepared
for the difficulty of fundamentally transforming
MILITARY REVIEW

January-February 2014

For Afghanistan, this means reimagining the
role of the Afghan state. Rather than expecting
and trying to help the Afghan state to deliver
services and make its citizens happy, the international coalition should look to the Afghan state to
manage foreign relations and enforce broad limits
on its periphery, such as prohibiting threats to
the state or launching attacks on other countries.
This framework could facilitate a negotiated
settlement with the Taliban since it allows for
variation in subnational governance and would be
a potential prize for a Taliban affiliated political
party. Such an arrangement would likely require
persistent efforts, supported by the United States
and others, to enforce boundaries. This approach
entails its share of uncertainty as the subnational
political arrangements cannot be preordained and
will consistently change. It also jettisons a great
deal of the human rights objectives for which
many have worked. Nevertheless, a state-centric,
resource-intensive approach does not offer a path
to an acceptable conclusion.
More broadly, the United States faces important
questions of social order and state building in the
Middle East and elsewhere, but is not prepared to
conduct another costly, troop-intensive military
campaign. MR
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