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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2011
Afghanistan's current difficulties are in large measure the product of a troubled history and a troubled geographical location. These have combined to produce a debilitated state, open to meddling from a range of external powers, that has now experienced decades of trauma. The current insurgency that afflicts the country is sustained by the sanctuaries in Pakistan from which the Taliban operate. Unless and until there is progress on this front, the situation in Afghanistan will remain stalemated.
1 René Dollot, L'Afghanistan: histoire, description, moeurs et coutumes, folklore, fouilles, Payot, Paris, 1937, p. 15.
2 Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State–Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1988, p. 4.
3 On this process, see Seymour Becker, Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865–1924, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1968. For further discussion on Anglo-Russian rivalry, see Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia, Basic Books, New York, 1999.
4 See Christine Noelle, State and Tribe in Nineteenth-century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863), Curzon Press, Richmond, 1998.
5 See Hasan Kawun Kakar, Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1979, pp. 73–91.
6 Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan: King Amanullah's Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1973, pp. 160–213.
7 Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. 296.
8 For more detailed discussion, see Thomas J. Barfield, ‘Weak links on a rusty chain: structural weaknesses in Afghanistan's provincial government administration’, in M. Nazif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield (eds), Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1984, pp. 170–184.
9 This came to be known as the ‘Pushtunistan dispute’. See Rajat Ganguly, Kin State Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts: Lessons from South Asia, SAGE Publications, New Delhi, 1998, pp. 162–192.
10 See Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan's Two-party Communism: Parcham and Khalq, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 1983, pp. 52–56; Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1999, pp. 20–23.
11 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books, New York, 2005, p. 386.
12 See, for example, Gilles Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 85.
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15 James G. Hershberg (ed.), ‘New evidence on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan’, in Cold War International History Bulletin, Nos. 8–9, 1996–1997, p. 147.
16 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Penguin, New York, 2007, pp. 365–367.
17 Gabriella Grasselli, British and American Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Dartmouth Publishing Co., Aldershot, 1996, p. 121.
18 For more background on the mujahideen, see Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 98–148; Abdulkader Sinno, Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2008, pp. 119–172.
19 For more information on these parties and commanders, see William Maley, The Afghanistan Wars, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, pp. 52–55.
20 See Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan–Pakistan Connection, Hurst & Co., London, 2004, pp. 53–57; Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2005, pp. 93–133.
21 Materialy XXVII s'ezda Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza [Materials of the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union], Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, Moscow, 1986, p. 69.
22 Tsagolov, Kim M. and Harrison, Selig S., ‘Afganskaia voina: vzgliad iz segodniashnego dnia [The Afghan war: a view from the present day]’, in Vostok, No. 3, 1991, p. 53Google Scholar.
23 See Phillip Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan: A UN Officer's Memoir of the Fall of Kabul and Najibullah's Failed Escape, 1992, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003.
24 Noor Khalidi, Ahmad, ‘Afghanistan: demographic consequences of war, 1978–1987’, in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 10, 1991, pp. 101–126CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
25 See Jeri Laber and Barnett R. Rubin, ‘A Nation is Dying’: Afghanistan under the Soviets 1979–87, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1988; The Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity 1978–2001, Afghanistan Justice Project, Kabul, 2005; William Maley, ‘Human rights in Afghanistan’, in Shahram Akbarzadeh and Benjamin MacQueen (eds), Islam and Human Rights in Practice: Perspectives Across the Ummah, Routledge, New York, 2008, pp. 89–107.
26 See Susanne Schmeidl and William Maley, ‘The case of the Afghan refugee population: finding durable solutions in contested transitions’, in Howard Adelman (ed.), Protracted Displacement in Asia: No Place to Call Home, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2008, pp. 131–179.
27 Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2002, pp. 55–82; Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Dangerous Sanctuaries? Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2005, pp. 44–72.
28 In International Herald Tribune, 22 April 1992, p. 2.
29 See Maley, William, ‘The future of Islamic Afghanistan’, in Security Dialogue, Vol. 24, December 1993, pp. 388–390CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 Kristian Berg Harpviken, Political Mobilization among the Hazara of Afghanistan: 1978–1992, Report No. 9, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo, Oslo, p. 113.
31 BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1461/B/1, 17 August 1992.
32 See Human Rights Watch, Blood-stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity, Human Rights Watch, New York, 2005.
33 For more detail on the Taliban's rise, see Anthony Davis, ‘How the Taliban became a military force’, in William Maley (ed.), Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, Hurst & Co., London, 1998, pp. 43–71; Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region, Palgrave, New York, 2002, pp. 117–124; Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: Afghanistan, Al Qa'ida and the Holy War, Pluto Press, London, 2004, pp. 30–47; Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin, London, 2005, pp. 280–300; Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, DC, 2008, pp. 61–79; Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi (eds), The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2010, pp. 17–30.
34 See S. Iftikhar Murshed, Afghanistan: The Taliban Years, Bennett & Bloom, London, 2006, p. 45.
35 Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan – Crisis of Impunity: The Role of Pakistan, Russia and Iran in Fuelling the Civil War, Human Rights Watch, New York, 2001, p. 23.
36 Abdul Sattar, Pakistan's Foreign Policy 1947–2005, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2007, p. 227.
37 See, famously, Physicians for Human Rights, The Taliban's War on Women: A Health and Human Rights Crisis in Afghanistan, Physicians for Human Rights, Boston, 1998.
38 Colville, Rupert C., ‘One massacre that didn't grab the world's attention’, in International Herald Tribune, 7 August 1999Google Scholar.
39 Ruth Rennie, Sudhindra Sharma, and Pawan Sen, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People, The Asia Foundation, Kabul, 2009, pp. 43, 100.
40 William Maley, Rescuing Afghanistan, Hurst & Co., London, 2006, p. 128; Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban, Penguin Press, New York, 2006; Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, Hurst & Co., London, 2007, p. 16.
41 For detailed discussion, see Whit Mason (ed.), The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010.
42 Watson, Paul, ‘In Afghanistan, money tips the scales of justice’, in Los Angeles Times, 18 December 2006Google Scholar; Richburg, Keith B., ‘In Afghanistan, U.S. seeks to fix a tattered system of justice’, in Washington Post, 28 February 2011Google Scholar.
43 Integrity Watch Afghanistan, Afghan Perceptions and Experiences of Corruption: A National Survey 2010, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, Kabul, July 2010, p. 10. See also United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as Reported by the Victims, UNODC, Vienna, January 2010; Manija Gardizi, Karen Hussmann, and Yama Torabi, Corrupting the State or State-crafted Corruption? Exploring the Nexus between Corruption and Subnational Governance, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, June 2010.
44 Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2009.
45 Chandrasekaran, Rajiv, ‘Karzai seeks to limit role of U.S. corruption investigators’, in Washington Post, 9 September 2010Google Scholar.
46 Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, ‘COIN strategy: civilian concerns’, US Department of State Cable No. Kabul 03572, Kabul, November 2009.
47 Rubin, Elizabeth, ‘Karzai in his labyrinth’, in New York Times, 9 August 2009Google Scholar.
48 On the electoral fraud of 2009, see Martine van Biljert, Polling Day Fraud in the Afghan Elections, AAN Briefing Paper 03/2009, The Afghanistan Analysts Network, Kabul, 2009, available at: http://aan-afghanistan.com/uploads/20090903pollingfraud.pdf (last visited 15 March 2011); and Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistans Wahlkrise: Die gefälschte Präsidentschaftswahl und Strategien für ‘danach’, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin, 2009.
49 Burns, Robert, ‘Mullen: Afghanistan isn't top priority’, in Washington Post, 11 December 2007Google Scholar.
50 See Human Rights Watch, ‘Troops in Contact’: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, New York, 2008.
51 See Maley, William, ‘The “war against terrorism” in South Asia’, in Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 12, June 2003, p. 214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 See William Maley, ‘Pakistan–Afghanistan relations’, in Michael Clarke and Ashutosh Misra (eds), Pakistan's Stability Paradox, Routledge, New York, 2011.
53 Shah, Taimoor and Gall, Carlotta, ‘Afghan Rebels Find Aid in Pakistan, Musharraf Admits’, in The New York Times, 13 August 2007Google Scholar.
54 See, for example, Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 195; Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Viking Press, New York, 2008, pp. 249–250; Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan, W.W. Norton, New York, 2009, pp. 256–273; Matt Waldman, The Sun in the Sky: The Relationship between Pakistan's ISI and Afghan Insurgents, Discussion Paper No. 18, Crisis States Research Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, June 2010.
55 Bob Woodward, Obama's War, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2010, p. 367.
56 Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2010, p. 328.
57 Doris Lessing, The Wind Blows Away Our Words, Pan, London, 1987.
58 The Taliban have sought in their propaganda to emphasize the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan as a problem: see Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?, International Crisis Group, Kabul and Brussels, 2008. There is, however, very little evidence that a majority of Afghans at present would like to see NATO/ISAF troops withdraw from the country.
59 Ashley J. Tellis, Reconciling with the Taliban? Toward an Alternative Grand Strategy in Afghanistan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 2009.
60 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, The ‘Ten Dollar’ Talib and Women's Rights, Human Rights Watch, New York, 2010.
61 The ideological dimension of the Taliban is often underrated. Yet it is very important to note, since it helps to explain why it is extremely simplistic to treat the Taliban as somehow the ‘representative’ of the Pushtuns of Afghanistan. See Thomas Ruttig, How Tribal are the Taleban? Afghanistan's Largest Insurgent Movement Between its Tribal Roots and Islamist Ideology, AAN Thematic Report 04/2010, The Afghanistan Analysts Network, Kabul, June 2010, available at http://aan-afghanistan.com/uploads/20100624TR-HowTribalAretheTaleban-FINAL.pdf (last visited 15 March 2011).
62 See, for example, Spanta, Rangin Dadfar, ‘Pakistan is the Afghan war's real aggressor’, in Washington Post, 23 August 2010, p. A13Google Scholar.
63 See Nincic, Miroslav, ‘Getting what you want: positive inducements in international relations’, in International Security, Vol. 35, Summer 2010, pp. 138–183CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
64 See Cohen, Craig and Chollet, Derek, ‘When $10 billion is not enough: rethinking U.S. strategy toward Pakistan’, in Washington Quarterly, Vol. 30, April 2007, pp. 7–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 See Riedel, Bruce, ‘Armageddon in Islamabad’, in The National Interest, No. 102, July–August 2009, pp. 9–18Google Scholar; Michael E. O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan, Toughing It Out in Afghanistan, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2010, pp. 4–8; see also Seth G. Jones and C. Christine Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, RAND National Security Research Division, Santa Monica, 2010.
