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Why a failed Afghanistan is in US’s long term national interest

Hashmat Moslih - 8/30/2011

When the US became directly involved in Afghanistan, many believed the country was finally in good hands.

The US promised it would not abandon Afghanistan and would work with its allies to bring Afghanistan into the 21st century.

Comparisons were made with the US’s role in the development of post-war Europe. “Following World War II, America fed and rebuilt Japan and Germany, and their people became some of our closest friends in the world” said President Bush in a radio address to the nation on October 6, 2001, a day before US begun a ferocious bombing campaign against the Taliban, laying the ground work for the invasion of Afghanistan.

But ten years on, Afghanistan is the third poorest nation on Earth. With the exception of major highways, which were needed for military purposes, Afghanistan remains entirely underdeveloped. War continues to ravage the country. It could hardly be said that the people of Afghanistan have become America’s best friends. And a great majority think America was deceitful; its promises false.

But for those who still pin their hope on the Western powers, I say keep on dreaming, or else wake up to the reality that, under occupation, this is as good as it gets.

Cultural incompatibility, lack of a competing world power with an alternative developmental theory, and dishonesty amongst allies are three main reasons why US success in Afghanistan is ultimately doomed.

Cultural difference

Even though American policy makers on Afghanistan sounded as though they really cared about “nation building” and continuously reminded people of America’s role in the reconstruction of post-war Europe, one should be cautious.

Afghanistan is not Germany and those who thought that they could rebuild Afghanistan like they built Europe, as arguably they did under Marshal Plan, were mistaken.

The cultural difference between the people of Afghanistan and their occupiers has been the most important obstacle in the way of western governments' success in the country.

The effect of this cultural divide is not to be explored from a policy perspective, that is too obvious and addressable at some level. What is of fundamental importance is the interpersonal interaction of foreign forces with the local people.

As Germany was liberated, thousands of Germans welcomed the liberation forces as their own; they shared the same social and moral values, which, with negligible differences, stemmed from the Christian value systems.

The liberating armies, both American and European, interacted with the local population as liberators, lovers, husbands, drinking partners, business partners and friends. They shared Christmas, birthdays, Easter holidays, music, New Year, Church and cemeteries. This level of interpersonal interaction created a sense of oneness and belonging amongst the locals and foreign forces.

Today, in Afghanistan, Western forces live behind barbwire in barracks, there is disconnect between the society and the “liberators”, any attempt to bridge this gap would require enormous cultural and value shift on the part of both sides, something that neither side is willing to do.

Whatever cultural compromises that could be reached between foreign forces and the people of Afghanistan cannot match the free mixing of the liberating ally armies with the population of post-war Europe.

No competing social theory

Apart from the industrial infrastructures and knowhow that had survived the war, post war Europe was threatened by the rise of Communism in the form of Soviet Union.

In post-war Europe, the Soviet Union was projecting itself as an alternative to the US world view. It was willing and able to compete with the US on redevelopment, technological innovation and social theories.

It was precisely the fear of communism that led Europe to adopt social democracy as opposed to full blown capitalist liberal democracy, as was found in USA. At the time, the logic was that the economic fate of millions of soldiers returning from war could not be expected to be left to free market capitalists.

However, in the case of Afghanistan, all of these points are absent. The fate of more than 100,000 fighters and the entire nation, in the post-invasion period, was left to the forces of free market capitalism. All public owned factories and properties were privatized.

Currently in Afghanistan no competing social theory challenges the occupation’s doctrine of development. The theory of ‘Modernity’ as development, that is development denoting a capitalist mode of production through liberal democracy, but in a global context. Afghanistan, according to this theory, would become a consumer-based nation while the engine of production would be globally based.
The only challenger to this Eurocentric definition of development is an Islamic social theory of development. But an Islamic social theory of development in Afghanistan does not have the territorial or technological capabilities that the Soviet Union had at its disposal, and therefore cannot be seen as an existentialist threat to the greater ‘world view’ of Western powers. This imbalance has led the occupiers to do as they wish with impunity.

Dishonesty amongst allies

Now it is clear that the US never had any plan to develop the country, or if there were, a plan based on miscalculation and lack of genuine intention.
US policy makers on Afghanistan paid too close attention to the advice of secular liberal expat Afghans and the Pakistani government.

After the fall of Taliban in 2001 the Afghan expats painted an imaginary picture of Afghanistan. They belittled the popular base of the Northern Alliance giving the Americans a false sense of the reality on the ground. In the meantime the Pakistani government misled the Americans by pretending to have abandoned the Taliban.

For its part, America also misled its Afghan and Pakistani friends by claiming it wanted nothing but the development of the region. The result was an ‘axis of falsity’ devoid of genuine truth or trust.

America never went to Afghanistan to build it in the first place. In this age of the doctrine of ‘national interest’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ no one should expect that a foreign nation would full-heartedly engage in the development of another country, especially when both are so culturally different.

It flies in the face of ‘national interest’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine to expect western countries to full-heartedly help Afghanistan, or any other nation for that matter, to stand on their feet. It could easily become a future challenge, especially if the country in question did not share the same values.

Did anyone really expect the West to begin a robust programme of establishing a base of industrial and technological knowledge in Afghanistan? Did they think that instead of dropping six ton bombs on mud houses that the US would literally air lift a cement factory for Qandahar or Helmand province? Or that the US might help Afghanistan build a clothing factory in order to sow its own military uniforms instead of buying them from abroad?

My contention is not that the west is incapable of such a transfer of knowledge and technology, nor do I doubt the good intention of the ordinary American or European citizen. I am sure that they want to help their fellow human beings. But for politicians and policy makers, help has its limits.

In fact, the airport road in Kabul, leading to the US embassy, was built by the US government. It is a well-constructed road - perhaps the best in Kabul.
What I am saying is that roads lead to interests, interests do not follow roads.
The US knows that it is detrimental to its long-term strategic interests to equip and build a Muslim nation in the same manner that they facilitated the rebuilding of Germany or Japan.

Why would US want to full-heartedly engage in the transfer of technological and developmental knowledge to a nation that at its roots and values is Muslim and contrary to the values of the west?

It is for this reason that for those who still pin their hope on a change of heart by the Western powers, I say keep on dreaming, or else wake up to the reality that, under occupation, this is as good as it gets.

The occupation of Afghanistan began with US promising to help the development of Afghanistan in the same manner that they helped the development of post war Germany and Japan.

But misinformation lack of genuine intention, cultural incompatibility and conflict of national interests has proven that promise worthless.

Ten years on, Afghanistan is dependent, even addicted, to occupation. Was this the Afghanistan that we envisaged a decade ago?

Perhaps, with all our differences, we can agree to say this much: Afghanistan is neither Germany nor Japan and the people of Afghanistan are not quite the friends that America thought they would be.