Talibanistan and the Line of Death

I formed my opinions of Afghanistan well before I went there, but I didn't see anything which changed my mind about how to deal with the place. Michael Yon has spent far more time and ranged much more broadly there than I have/ever will and in the linked article he brings up the same point that I was advocating five years ago.

I called it "Talibanistan", but it was really about maximising return on our efforts. The more bad guys there are in the population, and the more support they have, the more it will be a lethal rats' nest for our troops and development workers. There is in Afghanistan a rather obvious dividing line (several in fact) between people who support the "Taliban" and people who will not.

Sectarianism is usually a bad thing, but there are a lot of examples from history which show how it can be used to achieve an aim. The aim admittedly is usually "divide and conquer", but the principles work just as well for "unite and secure".

Birds of feather do indeed flock together, and if the "feather" is not wanting to live under repressive religious thugs, there are a lot of those people in most parts of A-stan. There are a lot of those same people however who have ties of blood and/or culture to the Taliban et al, and in this case that would be the Pashtun. Not all Pashtun are Taliban, but most Taliban are Pashtun, so you have a ready-made dividing line. This line tallies pretty well with the southern provinces that ISAF hs been fighting and dying in for the last 10 years, so a "Line of Death" would be pretty simple to come up with.

The key element to make this work is to ensure that the rump Afghanistan encompasses contiguous populations who are inimical to the Taliban. This means the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras as a start. The map here provides a rough idea, and this one of the Northern Alliance (vs. the Taliban in 1996) correlates very well, although the Hazara regions were overrun.

This of course would lead to a large area of the Pakistani NW Frontier and Southern Afghanistan being written off, but ask yourself what difference that would make in the big picture. The place is already not controlled in any way, we're just playing high-(and low)tech whack-a-mole with a bunch of Pakistan-supported badasses all through the south and east. Shift the borders of what we'll concern ourselves with (if we even continue to do so) and we shift the goalposts toward a win for somebody as opposed to a loss for everyone.

This is the point of Michael's article; there are people there who want our help (I've met them too) who won't try to kill us as we deliver it. These are the people over there (if anybody) that we should try to help, because they'll fight with us to defend their communities and projects.

As for my "Line of Death", the proposed border? I wouldn't want to consign civilized Pashtuns to the brutish rule of the Taliban (and the Haqqani Network, etc.) so it would be a mutable border. From a stable base the Pashtun territory could be absorbed in discrete "bites" working outward until too much resistance was reached, then the border Hesco fortresses go up. Those would be manned by Afghans with drones flying patrol and some bombers and SF teams on call. The"Line of Death" name isn't meant to be figurative: cross it with a weapon or try to sneak across, you die.

This blog is called "Arithmetic on the Frontier" for a reason; there are diminishing returns with everything, and nation building is no exception. After the 10 years we've been mucking about in the place there are still lots of "no-go" areas (Helmand, Zari, Panjwai, etc.); if we're not going to completely cut and run we'll need to cut our losses. I'm sure quiet parts of Afghanistan would appreciate some help,and our money wouldn't be going down the drain like when the Taliban blows up our schools and irrigation projects in the less-friendly parts.

My bottom line? Screw the villages that we get blown up patrolling; there's nothing there that we (or the Americans) need, and if you really want to dent the opium trade, spray the damned poppy fields. My prediction? China will move in and do (something like) this if we don't. If they don't, the place will carry on much like it is.