Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-jr75m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-09T10:22:42.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Coming Catastrophe: the American War in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Richard Tanter
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

By virtually every measure, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population. The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent, the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling. Strategic confusion, institutional inertia and self-interest provide most of the answer as to why the US remains in Afghanistan. Australia's commitment shares the same strategic confusion, mixed with a diffuse paternalistic enthusiasm not too far distant from a nineteenth century imperialist ideal of civilising the natives. The US, and its allies, will leave, without any definable or honourable victory. The Afghans will stay. If the current logic of expansion of the war engulfs Pakistan, withdrawal and defeat will take place eventually, but later, and after an infinitely more catastrophic and dangerous war. Could a new US administration transform these outcomes?

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 11 , November 2008 , e12
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

United Nations, Security Council, Resolution 1833 (2008), The situation in Afghanistan, S/RES/1833 (2008).Google Scholar
This article draws on the substantial documentation of the war in Afghanistan and Australia's involvement in the Nautilus Institute's online briefing book on Australian Forces Abroad – Afghanistan: Australia in Afghanistan. See Site map - Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute. Other key sources of documents include the excellent Uruzgan Weblog in Dutch and English and the well-organised Afghanistan Conflict Monitor. All three point to important English-language Afghan and Pakistani sources.Google Scholar
See, for example, Khosa, Raspal, Making it count: Australia's involvement with Afghanistan, Strategic Insights 40, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, May 2008.Google Scholar
Anthony, H. Cordesman at CSIS produces frequent updated analyses and reports of the war, collating a wide-range of sources of data, including official sources otherwise not widely available. In particular see his Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War? The Rising Threat, September 13, 2008. In his The Afghanistan-Pakistan War: Measuring Success (or Failure), CSIS, July 2008, Cordesman presents and reviews several different Pentagon models of success and metrics for assessing progress in such directions. See also his Follow The Money: Why The US Is Losing The War In Afghanistan, Draft: September 19, 2008, on budget issues.Google Scholar
Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War?Google Scholar
United Nations, Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, Executive Summary, August 2008.Google Scholar
Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War?Google Scholar
International Council on Security and Development (formerly Senlis Council), Afghanistan: Decision Point, February 2008.Google Scholar
iCasualties.org: Operation Enduring Freedom and Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War? p. 35. On Australian casualties see Casualties – ADF, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
See Casualties – Civilian, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute, and Civilian Casualty Data, Afghanistan Conflict Monitor.Google Scholar
Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War?Google Scholar
“In the meantime, orders for airstrikes in Afghanistan have increased in recent months, as American and allied warplanes attack Taliban hide-outs and swoop in to assist allied and Afghan forces under fire. According to statistics compiled by the air operations center, during the first six months of this year, 1,853 munitions were dropped by air over Afghanistan — more than twice the 754 dropped in Iraq during the same period. In June alone, 646 bombs and missiles were used in Afghanistan, the second highest monthly total since the end of major combat operations in 2002.” Civilian Risks Curbing Strikes in Afghan War, Shanker, Thom, New York Times, July 23, 2008.Google Scholar
Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War?Google Scholar
United Nations, Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, Executive Summary, August 2008; and Opium and narco-politics, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
United Nations, Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, Executive Summary, August 2008;Google Scholar
United Nations, Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, Executive Summary, August 2008; and Opium and narco-politics, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War?Google Scholar
Real and Imagınary Risks, Lieven, Anatol, The World Today, Volume 64, Number 2, February 2008.Google Scholar
Karzai's Brother Under Drug Suspicion, Spiegel International Online, 31 August 2006.Google Scholar
United Nations, Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, Executive Summary, August 2008;Google Scholar
The new Golden Triangle of Afghan opium, Bhattacharji, Romesh, The Hindu, 9 July 2008; and International Council on Security and Development (formerly Senlis Council), Afghanistan: Decision Point, February 2008.Google Scholar
The new Golden Triangle of Afghan opium, Bhattacharji, Romesh, The Hindu, 9 July 2008.Google Scholar
Opium Licensing: Poppy for Medicine in Afghanistan - A village-based counter-narcotics model, International Council on Security and Development (formerly Senlis Council).Google Scholar
Walker, Frank, A growing concern, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 2008; and Alternative narcotics policies, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
Karzai's Popularity Slips in Afghanistan, Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent, 26 September 2008.Google Scholar
See Cordesman, Losing The Afghan-Pakistan War? and International Council on Security and Development (formerly Senlis Council), Afghanistan: Decision Point, February 2008.Google Scholar
For example, Karzai criticizes airstrikes and calls for planes to attack Pakistan bases, International Herald Tribune, 10 August 2008.Google Scholar
More Troops Won't Help Says Afghan President Karzai, DW-World.de, 30 January 2008.Google Scholar
Afghan women burn in the inferno of fundamentalists and invaders, RAWA communiqué on the International Women's Day, March 8, 2008.Google Scholar
The US and Her Fundamentalist Stooges are the Main Human Rights Violators in Afghanistan, RAWA communiqué on Universal Human Rights Day, December 10, 2007.Google Scholar
On western coverage of the situation of women in Afghanistan in relation to western war goals, see Hunt, Krista in Hunt, Krista and Rygiel, Kim (eds.), (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics, (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006). However note: “Seven in ten (73%) believe that women in Afghanistan today are better off then five years ago (under the Taliban), a view that is equally widespread in Kandahar and among women across the country.” 2007 Survey of Afghans: Summary Report, Environics, October 2007.Google Scholar
Detainee policy - Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
Bush Administration Reviews Its Afghanistan Policy, Exposing Points of Contention, New York Times, 23 September 2008.Google Scholar
“Afghanistan is a millstone around the Rudd Government's neck, one that will not soon drop. The problem is finding an exit strategy. The international coalition has a strategy for staying. There is no obvious plan for victory.” Daniel Flitton, Diggers Locked into Bitter Conflict with No Boundaries, The Age, 4 September 2008. There is as yet no detailed history of US decision-making on the ongoing war in Afghanistan to parallel Bob Woodward's accounts of the last years of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy in The War Within (Simon and Schuster, 2008) of the Bush administration.Google Scholar
Related rationales see Australian involvement as part of a global struggle“. As a former senior ADF commander put it recently: ”Our involvement in Afghanistan is in our own interest. The struggle in Afghanistan is part of a global struggle. Australia is an interdependent part of this world and, as a rich and privileged country, has obligations. Failure would have implications for our region, particularly for Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world and a fragile new democracy.“ We must be in Afghanistan and, no, it's not mission impossible, Jim Molan, The Age, 27 October 2008.Google Scholar
See, for example, Khosa, Raspal, Making it count: Australia's involvement with Afghanistan, Strategic Insights 40, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, May 2008: “The current ADF deployment to Afghanistan as apart of ISAF demonstrates our commitment to the Alliance”.Google Scholar
Karzai offers government role to Taliban, USA Today, 29 September 2007.Google Scholar
2007 Survey of Afghans: Summary Report, Environics, p. 12: “In spite of the widespread negative feelings about the Taliban, a strong desire for peace and stability, a strong majority (74%) of Afghans nationwide (and 85% in Kandahar) to support negotiations between the Karzai government and the Taliban. Beyond negotiations, there is also modest majority support for the idea of a coalition agreement in which the Karzai government shares power with the Taliban. Just over half strongly (25%) or somewhat (29%) support such a coalition, compared with one-third (33%) who oppose it.”Google Scholar
Peace negotiations and truces in Afghanistan, Australia in Afghanistan, Nautilus Institute.Google Scholar
China Hand, The Coming Change of Course in Afghanistan, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 1241.Google Scholar
“This is one useful lesson that is applicable from Iraq. The Sunni awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occurred unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders, Sunni nationalists, from a more radical, messianic brand of insurgency. Whether there are those same opportunities exist in Afghanistan I think should be explored.” Excerpts from Klein's Interview with Obama, Time, 22 October 2008.Google Scholar
Shuffle, The Afghan, China Matters, 23 October 2008.Google Scholar