Afghanistan and International Security

AuthorAdam Roberts
PositionSenior Research Fellow of the Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and President-elect of the British Academy
Pages3-42
I
Afghanistan and International Security
Adam Roberts*
Today there are remarkably few international wars. This does not mean the
end of war, which still continues, but it does mean that the type of war em-
blematic of the contemporary era is not classic international war, but rather akind
of civil war familiar to students of colonial history: aconflict that may begin largely
within asociety, but becomes internationalized, involving foreign forces on one or
both sides. Very often such wars begin, and continue, because the structure of the
State is weak: this fact enables insurgents to operate, and it also results in outside
governments getting involved in various ways, not least in the attempt to bolster
the State's credibility and performance. Where there is more than one weak State in
aregion and aporous border area between, the opportunities for insurgents are
magnified. In all these respects the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is typical of
wars of the twenty-first century. Yet it is also unique, not only because it has dis-
tinctive attributes, but also because, as will be indicated below, it has had extraordi-
nary effects on international relations.
The central question that is explored here is: what are the implications ofwars in
Afghanistan for international security, not only in the region, but also more gener-
ally? In exploring this question there is much to draw upon, not just from Western
involvement in Afghanistan since 2001, but also from the past two centuries of
*Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics and
International Relations, University of Oxford, and President-elect of the British Academy. A
shortened version of this paper is Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan, 51 SURVIVAL 29 (2009).
Afghanistan and International Security
Afghan history. However, we cannot foresee exactly how the present war will con-
clude. Events that may determine how it ends are by nature unknowable: for exam-
ple, the accuracy or otherwise of an assassin's bullet, another major scandal in the
treatment of prisoners, bombings from the air resulting in massive civilian deaths,
an al-Qaeda attack that alienates more than it mobilizes or the emergence else-
where of anew conflict which distracts attention from Afghanistan.
Despite these uncertainties, the central question can be approached by looking
first into four related questions about wars in Afghanistan and their influence on
international security.
What have been the effects of previous wars in Afghanistan, particularly in
the nineteenth century and in the Soviet period 1979-89, on regional and
international security?
How should the almost continuous wars in Afghanistan since 1989 be
characterized, and what have been the effects of their Pakistani dimension?
What have been the roles of the United Nations in the long-running Afghan
crisis, including its post-2001 post-conflict peace-building role and in assisting
the return of refugees?
In the war since 2001, what problems have there been in fitting Western
military doctrines, practices and institutions to Afghan realities? What has been
the role of airpower? How has NATO performed in this unanticipated
commitment? Are counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrines fit for the purpose for
which they are being used in Afghanistan? And how can progress be judged?
The exploration of the fourth question, which forms the main part of this sur-
vey, leads to the concluding discussion of the actual and possible future effects of
the war on international security, including on two major institutions, the United
Nations and NATO. Some policy choices are briefly summarized.
I. Lessons from Afghan Wars up to 1989
Much is often made of how warfare in general has, or has not, been transformed.
Perhaps because several of us have had training in history, in Oxford University's
research program "The Changing Character of War" we attempt to draw asharp
distinction between what is new and what merely appears to be new. That attempt
is certainly necessary when considering the war in Afghanistan. It is often said that
modern wars constitute a"new paradigm." This proposition depends, to agreater
or lesser degree, on the implicit assumption that past international wars were a
straightforward matter of so-called "conventional" forces fighting each other.
They were not. In considering what is unique about the ongoing war in
Adam Roberts
Afghanistan, it may be useful to bear in mind two parts of the country's historical
legacy: nineteenth-century wars and the experience of the Soviet war.
The Nineteenth Century and After
Many modern wars, including that in Afghanistan, fit quite well the general de-
scription of colonial conflicts offered by Major C.E. Callwell of the Royal Artillery
in 1899 in his justly famous manual Small Wars. Callwell himselfhad served during
the closing stages of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, when he marched through the
Khyber Pass to join the Kabul field force. 1It was on the basis of experience that he
wrote two decades later:
Small wars are aheritage of extended empire, acertain epilogue to encroachments into
lands beyond the confines of existing civilization, and this has been so from early ages
to the present time. Conquerors of old penetrating into the unknown encountered
races with strange and unconventional military methods and trod them down, seizing
their territory; revolts and insurrections followed, disputes and quarrels with tribes on
the borders of the districts overcome supervened, out of the original campaign of
conquest sprang further wars, and all were vexatious, desultory, and harassing. And the
history of those small wars repeats itself in the small wars of to-day.2
In the nineteenth century the British Army was involved in two major cam-
paigns in Afghanistan, in 1839-42 and 1878-80. The first, fought ostensibly to as-
sist aweak ruler and to provide afriendly buffer State on India's northwest border,
was ahubristic enterprise that was marked by disasterthe wiping out of are-
duced garrison as it struggled back to the Khyber Pass.3The second war, which was
fought to counterbalance Russian influence in Afghanistan, provided evidence
that apparent success in Afghanistan can be quickly followed by uprisings and set-
backs. The British, having defeated the Afghan State, had no political solution ex-
cept to appoint asuitable "warlord" as head of State. What did Callwell have to say
specifically about the type of war that had been encountered in Afghanistan and
elsewhere in the late nineteenth century? His words are as pertinent today as when
they were penned over acentury ago:
With the capture of the capital any approach to organized resistance, under the direct
control of the head of the State, will almost always cease; but it does not by any means
follow that the conflict is at an end. ...[T]he French experiences in Algeria, and the
British experiences in Afghanistan, show that these irregular, protracted, indefinite
operations offer often far greater difficulties to the regular armies than the attainment
of their original military objective.4

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