Negotiating with the Taliban?

David Kilcullen:

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Q - Should U.S.-led forces negotiate with the Taliban?

A - The answer to that question depends on who you think the Taliban are. I've had tribal leaders and Afghan government officials at the province and district level tell me that 90 percent of the people we call Taliban are actually tribal fighters or Pashtun nationalists or people pursuing their own agendas. Less than 10 percent are ideologically aligned with the Quetta shura (a Taliban leadership council) or al Qaeda.

I would divide the enemy in Afghanistan into two very broad categories, people who are directly aligned with the Quetta shura or al Qaeda. Those people are probably beyond negotiating and I don't think we'd gain anything significant from trying to negotiate with them."

The others are almost certainly reconcilable under some circumstances. What I'd say with regard to that would be that its very important to negotiate from a position of strength, not a position of weakness. We want to make the population feel safe. We want to secure the environment and then negotiate to bring the people in. That's very much what we did in Iraq. We negotiated with 90 percent of the people we were fighting and and then brought them into the inclusive security structure.

I see the Taliban as a loose confederation of shifting tactical alliances of convenience, and there's a lot of opportunity for negotiation and for splitting that Taliban alliance. But we've got to do that from a position of strength so that we are not negotiating for stay of execution (for Western forces), but we're negotiating for genuine national reconciliation.



Q - Won't building up forces in Afghanistan inflame Afghan nationalism and play into the Taliban's hands?

A - I doubt that. I think the devil is in the detail. It depends on what the troops do. But provided that those troops focus primarily on protecting the population and making people feel safe in the towns, major villages and key population centres I think there's a good chance that the influx of troops will actually reduce violence. If the troops are thrown into sort of an offensive role against the Taliban main force then I would think we would see violence go up.

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This is from a Reuters interview with the counterinsurgency expert. I think hi answers capture the essence of how counterinsurgency warfare works.

Later in the interview he is asked about the Predator Hellfire attacks in Pakistan, which he suggest may be counter productive. I disagree. I think they need to be expanded to attack Pakistan Taliban leaders who are attacking the government and our supply lines. We are going to have to destroy the nihilistic Taliban forces in order to finish this war.