The Taliban spring strategy

The Belmont Club:

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The incident at Ghazni indicates what radical Islamism thinks is the "winning combination" against Western armies in the field. Both Iraq and Afghanistan have taught them the West is willing to allow them a cross-border sanctuary. From Syria, Iran and Pakistan they can strike at leisure and from there can deny the West a strategic victory for as long as they please. They understand that a strategic victory for the West consists in being able to establish a stable, equitable and prosperous successor regime that will serve as a counterexample to radical Islamism. Iraq taught them it is unnecessary to defeat an opposing Western army so long as they can totally wreck the progress towards a successor regime. For so long as they can make life in the neighboring country a hell on earth their purposes are served. Promoting criminal activity, dealing in drugs, sowing chaos, unrestricted terrorism, sparking civil war -- all of these are acceptable and even lucrative tactics which prevent the emergence of a stable regime.

Unable to create a stable successor regime, the Western opponent is caught between the alternatives of struggling against chaos or leaving the field to Islamists ready to turn their conquered Caliphate into a gigantic terrorist training camp. This choice is stark in Aghanistan because everyone remembers how the Taliban and al-Qaeda once controlled it and know they seek to control it again. Once it was a base for al-Qaeda; and al-Qaeda is determined to get it back. But it is no different anywhere else. In Iraq, with its strategic location and oil wealth, lies a glittering prize ready to be seized; and if the US is unwilling to fight for such a valuable position why should they stand elsewhere?

The US understood from the beginning that tactical victories could never destroy the core of Islamic terrorism. It knew from the beginning that the only chance of beating radical Islamism would be to win a political and ideological victory against it. It gambled that establishing a relatively democratic and prosperous regime in the Middle East would provide a counter-model to the despotic regimes in the area and a viable alternative to radical Islamism. Unfortunately, it seems that Osama Bin Laden was correct in his belief that the West had no stomach for the long struggle. He concluded, after the "Black Hawk Down" incident, that relatively light losses would galvanize antiwar opinion in the West and force a withdrawal. Inflict a long war and losses would be inevitable. Then the tables could be turned and Iraq, rather than being a political and ideological victory for the West could be transformed into its complete opposite: a demonstration of the moral and ideological superiority of of radical Islam.

Now, with a seemingly successful tactical combination in hand to compel a long war in any given place, radical Islamism's prospects of a strategic victory have never been brighter. Everything that has happened in Iraq can be replicated in Afghanistan -- the sanctuaries, the campaign of terror, the cunning public relations offensive in the Western press -- and in any other battlefield which radical Islam wishes to contest.

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One of the principles of warfare is that you never allow your enemy to have a sanctuary. This principles bumps up against limited warfare theory which avoids "escalation." Actually it is a one sided avoidance in the belief that restraint can control the tempo of operations. Pakistan is not as secure a sanctuary as the communist had in Laos and Cambodia, but it may be secure enough to allow the enemy to continue his battle for a long time. He is not as successful as he was against they Soviets. He has actually already lost the political battle and is relying on intimidation at this point. The US needs to do a better job of fighting him in the media battle space. There is one party that is bent on retreat but not surrender. When retreat does not work, that party will be replaced and we will go back on the offensive. It is the people in Iraq and Afghanistan that will suffer the most from the policy of retreat.