Caspian Report - Issue: 07 - Spring 2014

Afghanistan’s National
Challenges
The stalemate over the signing of
BSA only exacerbates the existing national
and global challenges. It introduces
more uncertainty to an already
fragile situation. As they say, Americans
have the watch but Afghans
have the time, especially the Taliban.
Afghan politics is based on betting
on who will win, and siding with that
party. If people calculate that power
will be redistributed, they make new
alliances based on those predictions.
All of the actors - ethnic groups, tribal
leaders, warlords, local police, and
power brokers - are interested in
maximizing their gains and can (re)
make any alliance. In this complex
power matrix, there are three interrelated
questions: security, politics,
and the economy. The security question
requires an evaluation of the
ability of the Afghan Security Forces’
(ASF) to counter the Taliban insurgents.
Even if the ASF is stronger,
the legitimacy of a new government
in Kabul depends on the success of
the presidential elections this year
for which people should feel secure
enough to go to polls. Moreover, if the
US troops leave and foreign aid weakens
the economy to support ASF or
state services fail. If Afghanistan falls
into a civil conflict, the war economy
will take hold of peoples’ lives. In this
economic structure, war means employment,
and peace means unemployment.
Thus, evaluating the security,
politics, and economy prospects
for Afghanistan is a matter of life and
death for the betters.
Security
Afghan politics is based on betting
on who will win, and siding
with that party.
Over the last twelve years, the war in
Afghanistan has cost 2,310 American
lives 15 and $700 billion. 16 In his memoir,
former US Defense Secretary
Robert Gates described how the US’s
Afghanistan policy changed from
perceiving a fight that had to be won,
to a situation that America just had
to exit. The exit strategy has been to
build the capacity of the ANF and to
train them to defend their own country
- but is ANF ready to take over
There are some very optimistic views
on the capacity of the ANF and on the
country’s stability, but also deep pessimism,
that once the US leaves, everything
will fall apart. 17 According
to the unclassified assessment by the
US military, violence in Afghanistan
has diminished, and “Afghan security
forces are now successfully providing
security for their own people.” 18
11
CASPIAN REPORT, sprIng 2014
15.
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. http://icasualties.org/oef/. Retrieved on Feb. 23, 2014.
16.
National Priorities Project. http://nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/. Retrieved on Feb. 22, 2014.
17.
Ernesto Londoño, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller (2013) Afghanistan gains will be lost quickly
after drawdown, U.S. intelligence estimate warns” Dec. 28. http://www.washingtonpost.
com/world/national-security/afghanistan-gains-will-be-lost-quickly-after-drawdown-usintelligence-estimate-warns/2013/12/28/ac609f90-6f32-11e3-aecc-85cb037b7236_story.
html. Retrived on Feb. 20, 2014.
18.
US Department of Defense (2013) Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in
Afghanistan. http://www.defense.gov/pubs/October_1230_Report_Master_Nov7.pdf. P. 1.
Retrieved on Feb. 19, 2014.