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May 21, 2024

Addressing a Human Rights and Looming Terrorism Crisis in Afghanistan

The Need for Principled International Intervention

By: Lisa Curtis and Annie Pforzheimer

Executive Summary

Pursuing the same harsh policies as it did during its previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban has increasingly clamped down on the rights of women and girls since recapturing control of Afghanistan in August 2021. Restrictions on education started with the Taliban mandate in March 2022 banning girls from attending school past the sixth grade. The Taliban furthered its efforts to deny women basic rights when it announced later in the year that women could no longer attend university or work for international nongovernmental organizations. These and dozens of additional restrictions on Afghan women remain in place today.

Meanwhile, terrorist threats that emanate from Afghanistan are intensifying, and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) constitutes the main international concern, especially since it took responsibility for the March 22, 2024, attack on a concert hall in Moscow that killed at least 140 people. The Taliban opposes ISIS-K and had been fighting the group and eliminating its senior leaders, including the mastermind behind the August 26, 2021, suicide bombings that killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. 1 Regional groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan are also active but face few constraints on their activities from the Taliban, with whom they share core ideological beliefs. 2 The Taliban also remains allied with al-Qaeda and has even allowed the terrorist group responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to take on leadership roles within its regime. 3

Monitoring threats from ISIS-K necessitates engagement with the Taliban, but U.S. counterterrorism goals should not prevent the United States from also pressing a human rights agenda. For the benefit of the Afghan people—especially women and girls—and the long-term stability and prosperity of the nation, Washington and like-minded partners must employ both incentives and disincentives to compel the Taliban to improve human rights. Since regional countries largely ignore human rights in their dealings with the Taliban, it is incumbent upon the United States, United Nations (UN), and European Union to follow a principled approach and incorporate human rights into their agenda on Afghanistan. In the long term, relying on regional governments to take the lead in engaging with the Taliban would result in disaster for the Afghan people and international security.

The best hope for shaping future Taliban behavior lies with the UN, which can speak coherently and convincingly on behalf of the international community. In his remarks following a meeting of special envoys in Doha, Qatar, in February 2024, for example, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres articulated a UN agenda for Afghanistan that would be a starting point for a coherent international strategy. He emphasized that meeting participants had achieved a consensus to focus on counterterrorism, inclusive governance where all ethnic groups are represented, human rights—especially for women and girls, with an emphasis on education—counternarcotics, and more effective delivery of aid. 4

To address human rights and terrorism challenges and bolster UN efforts in Afghanistan, the United States should:

Strengthen public diplomacy and messaging, coordinating efforts with like-minded partners;
Support the work of UN human rights experts by reinforcing the role of the UN special rapporteur for Afghan human rights with an expanded budget and staffing;
Encourage change in the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s (UNAMA’s) bureaucratic structure so that UNAMA staff responsible for human rights report directly to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva;
Support the UN Credentials Committee in preventing the Taliban from obtaining a seat at the UN;
Elevate diplomatic discussions with Afghan opposition leaders and support the consolidation of a non-Taliban political force;
Insist on stringent conditions on international assistance to Afghanistan;
Reinforce international counterterrorism norms with additional terrorist designations;
Impose additional human rights sanctions on individual Taliban leaders;
Protect Afghan refugees by leading the international community in urging national authorities in Pakistan and Iran to allow the UN high commissioner for refugees to evaluate and offer protection for the most at-risk Afghan refugees; and
Refrain from opening a U.S. mission inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Introduction

Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, the human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls, has substantially deteriorated. Female citizens are banned from attending school past grade six, working in almost all professions, and traveling outside their neighborhoods without a male companion. The Taliban also imposed a strict dress code on women and girls, prevented them from going to parks, and closed all beauty shops—further denying women sources of income and social recreation. The Taliban enforces its harsh edicts through detention, jailing, whipping, torture, rape, and disappearances. 5

Meanwhile, terrorist threats are growing, especially from the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), which has begun striking targets outside Afghanistan, such as at a concert hall in Moscow in March and at a commemorative ceremony in Kerman, Iran, in January. Regional groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Central Asia–focused Jamaat Ansarullah are active and face few constraints on their activities from the Taliban—with whom they share core ideological beliefs. 6 According to reports by experts affiliated with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1988 sanctions regime monitoring committee, al-Qaeda leaders are now part of the Taliban’s administrative structure and are constructing their own training camps in the country. 7

Another problematic development is the Taliban’s focus on establishing religious schools (madrasas) throughout the country to displace schools with standard curricula. One interlocutor told the authors during a trip to the region that the Taliban’s goal is to establish a madrasa in each of the 400-plus districts in Afghanistan, including madrasas that specialize in teaching extremist ideologies. 8

Despite the worrisome trends, there has been little effective international action to try to shift the direction the Taliban is taking the country. The United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC's) December 2023 call for the establishment of a United Nations (UN) envoy in Afghanistan who will prioritize human rights, the role of women, and intra-Afghan talks, is encouraging—but there must be more urgency to UN efforts. For example, no envoy has been named even though nearly five months have passed since the UNSC called for one. Some countries, especially those in the region, are starting to normalize their diplomatic ties with the Taliban and give up on advocating for a more legitimate and inclusive government. Unless there is a near-term course correction in the international approach to Afghanistan, in addition to seeing a human rights disaster, the country will again serve as one of the most dangerous terrorist havens in the world.

Matt Seyler, “Taliban Kills Suspected ‘Mastermind’ of Bombing That Killed 13 US Troops, Officials Say,” ABC News, April 25, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taliban-kills-suspected-isis-mastermind-kabul-air-port-bombing/story?id=98833007 . ↩
Jeff Seldin, “Afghanistan Reemerging as a Terrorism Incubator,” Voice of America, August 18, 2023, https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-reemerging-as-a-terrorism-incubator-/7230546.html . ↩
Bill Roggio, “Al Qaeda Leaders Are Prominently Serving in Taliban Government,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 11, 2023, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/06/11/al-qaeda-leaders-are-prominently-serving-in-taliban-government . ↩
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, “Secretary-General’s Statement Following Two-Day Meeting of the Special Envoys on Afghanistan,” statement, February 19, 2024, https://unama.unmissions.org/secretary-generals-statement-following-two-day-meeting-special-envoys-afghanistan . ↩
Heather Barr, “The Taliban and the Global Backlash Against Women’s Rights,” Human Rights Watch, February 6, 2024, https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/06/taliban-and-global-backlash-against-womens-rights . ↩
Seldin, “Afghanistan Reemerging as a Terrorism Incubator.” ↩
Ahmad Mukhtar, “The Taliban Vowed to Cut Ties with Al Qaeda, but the Terror Group Appears to Be Growing in Afghanistan,” CBS News, February 1, 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-taliban-al-qaeda-growing ; Ayaz Gul, “UN: Al-Qaida, Afghan Taliban Assist TTP With Attacks in Pakistan,” Voice of America, February 1, 2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/un-al-qaida-afghan-taliban-assist-ttp-with-attacks-in-pakistan-/7466250.html ; and Roggio, “Al Qaeda Leaders Are Prominently Serving in Taliban Government.” ↩
Interview with a group of Afghan expatriate leaders in London, January 2024. ↩

Senior Fellow and Director, Indo-Pacific Security Program

Lisa Curtis is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at CNAS. She is a foreign policy and national security expert with over 20 years of service in...

Annie Pforzheimer

Senior Nonresident Associate, CSIS

Annie Pforzheimer is a former career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. She is currently a senior nonresident associate at the Center for Strategic and International ...

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Countering a Resurgent Terrorist Threat in Afghanistan

Contingency Planning Memorandum Update

With al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Khorasan growing in strength since the U.S. withdrawal, Seth Jones lays out a strategy for the United States to prevent a renewed terrorist threat from emerging in Afghanistan.

April 14, 2022

Introduction

In the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return of Taliban rule, the United States is now contending with a resurgent terrorist threat. Both al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K) are growing in strength and could pose a significant threat beyond Afghanistan, according [PDF] to recent U.S. government estimates. As a recent UN Security Council assessment concluded [PDF], “terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom in Afghanistan than at any time in recent history .”

Harold Brown Chair and Director, Transnational Threats Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A 2020 CFR Contingency Planning Memorandum, A Failed Afghan Peace Deal , warned that a U.S. military withdrawal from the country could result in a collapsed peace process and an overthrow of the Afghan government. It also argued that one of the most significant consequences of a withdrawal would be a resurgence of terrorist groups. These concerns have proved true. This update assesses the evolving terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan and how best to counter it.

Afghanistan

Islamic State

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Two factors account for the growing terrorist threat in Afghanistan. First, the Taliban government has close links with several terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, and has allowed them to rebuild and reestablish training camps in the country.

Second, Afghanistan is a weak and failing state, a prerequisite for a terrorist sanctuary. The Taliban does not control law and order outside of most cities. In addition, the Taliban government has been unable to establish basic services, and the Afghan economy has shrunk by at least 40 percent since the U.S. withdrawal. The poverty rate could hit 97 percent of the population by the middle of this year. Afghanistan has jumped to the top of the International Rescue Committee’s 2022 Emergency Watchlist as it nears the collapse of virtually all basic services. The combination of a weak state and a collapsing economy gives terrorist groups relative freedom within which to operate and provides a pool of potential recruits.

With the terrorism problem worsening, the United States needs to design and implement a more effective counterterrorism strategy to mitigate this threat.

New Concerns

In August 2021, President Joe Biden remarked that the United States’ “only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on [the] American homeland.” Since the U.S. withdrawal, however, the terrorist problem has become steadily worse. According to U.S. intelligence estimates , the number of al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan has increased since U.S. forces withdrew in August 2021. As one senior U.S. Department of Defense official concluded [PDF], “the intelligence community [assessed] that both ISIS-K and al-Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations,” with ISIS-K capable of conducting external attacks in 2022.

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Al-Qaeda’s primary goal remains the same: to establish a pan-Islamic caliphate and overthrow the corrupt “apostate” regimes in the Islamic world. Led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda today comprises disparate networks around the globe with uneven centralized control. Its main affiliates are located in the Middle East, including Hurras al-Din in Syria and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; Africa, including Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin in the Sahel and al-Shabab in Somalia; and South Asia, including al-Qaeda’s global leadership and local affiliate al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). In some countries, such as Yemen, al-Qaeda has been significantly weakened and appears to be on a declining trajectory in terms of popular support and capabilities.

But Afghanistan remains a central strategic node for al-Qaeda, where the group now has a refuge. In addition to al-Zawahiri, several other senior leaders likely reside in Afghanistan, including Saif al-Adel and Amin Muhammad ul-Haq Saam Khan. AQIS is headquartered in Afghanistan and is led by Osama Mehmood and his deputy, Atif Yahya Ghouri. In early 2021, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated [PDF] that al-Qaeda was the weakest it had been in years and included fewer than two hundred members in Afghanistan. But now, al-Qaeda’s total numbers in Afghanistan could have doubled to four hundred fighters [PDF], with most members coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Pakistan.

But Afghanistan remains a central strategic node for al-Qaeda, where the group now has a refuge.

Afghanistan is different from any other country where al-Qaeda operates because the group enjoys a sympathetic regime with the Taliban. Al-Qaeda leaders have a particularly close historical relationship with some Taliban leaders—such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban interior minister and a U.S.-designated terrorist . Haqqani’s government position is roughly equivalent to the combined jobs of the director of the FBI and secretary of Homeland Security, giving him enormous power in Afghanistan and making him a serious threat to the United States.

With a haven in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda’s threat to U.S. interests is likely to grow. While al-Qaeda will probably establish additional terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, it will have difficulty conducting a centrally planned attack against the U.S. homeland because of improved U.S. intelligence cooperation and homeland security measures. But al-Qaeda operatives could conduct—or inspire—attacks against U.S. and Western targets in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.

The self-proclaimed Islamic State’s local affiliate, ISIS-K, also presents a growing threat. While ISIS-K is a sworn enemy of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, its goal is similar to that of al-Qaeda: to establish a pan-Islamic caliphate. ISIS-K was severely weakened through mid-2021 because of aggressive U.S. and Afghan counterterrorism operations, Taliban offensives, and internal divisions within ISIS-K. However, the U.S. withdrawal has allowed the group to recover.

ISIS-K’s size has now doubled in less than a year, increasing from two thousand to roughly four thousand operatives [PDF] following the release of several thousand prisoners from Bagram Air Base and Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside of Kabul. Up to half [PDF] of ISIS-K’s operatives are foreign fighters. The group is led by Sanaullah Ghafari (also known as Shahab al-Muhajir), an Afghan national. Other ISIS-K leaders include Sultan Aziz Azam, Maulawi Rajab Salahudin, and Aslam Farooqi. In addition, some former members of the Afghan military and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security, have joined ISIS-K because it is the most active opposition group to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

ISIS-K’s size has now doubled in less than a year, increasing from two thousand to roughly four thousand operatives.

Much like al-Qaeda, ISIS-K is unlikely to successfully orchestrate a centrally planned attack in the United States because of improved U.S. homeland security measures, though ISIS-K has been more successful than al-Qaeda in inspiring attacks in the United States. In addition, ISIS-K could conduct attacks against U.S. targets in other countries. In Afghanistan, ISIS-K has already demonstrated an ability to conduct high-profile and complex attacks—including an attack at the Kabul airport on August 27, 2021, which killed more than 180 people. According to one estimate , ISIS-K carried out seventy-six attacks on Taliban forces between September 18 and November 30, 2021, a significant jump from 2020, when it conducted only eight attacks during the entire year.

Other Terrorist Groups

In addition to al-Qaeda and ISIS-K, other regional and international terrorist groups now operate in Afghanistan. These include the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Jihad Group, Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari, and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Several groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, pose a significant threat to India—a major U.S. partner—and have conducted high-profile attacks in Mumbai, New Delhi, and other Indian cities. More broadly, the Taliban’s victory has inspired jihadis around the world. Groups in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere gleefully celebrated the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul on chat rooms and other online platforms, pledging the revitalization of a global jihad. Al-Qaeda released a statement after the U.S. withdrawal congratulating the Taliban for its victory and calling it a “ prelude ” to other jihadi victories.

Policy Implications

Two main U.S. policy options could help prevent the reemergence of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations against the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests overseas.

The first is to work with the Taliban against some terrorist groups, most notably ISIS-K. This option could involve providing economic and humanitarian assistance—and potentially even intelligence—to the Taliban government in return for a sustained campaign against ISIS-K. When asked in 2021 whether the United States could work with the Taliban to combat ISIS-K, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley responded that “it’s possible.” A variant of this option could be for the United States to de facto leave counterterrorism operations to the Taliban—but provide little or no U.S. assistance.

However, this option falls short in at least two ways. First, the Taliban has close ties with numerous terrorist groups in Afghanistan, including al-Qaeda, that are enemies of the United States. While the Taliban has conducted some operations against ISIS-K, Taliban leaders have shown little interest in countering other terrorist groups. Consequently, this approach could worsen the broader terrorism problem by aiding a government that supports terrorist groups. Second, the Taliban is unlikely to significantly weaken ISIS-K with or without U.S. help, because it lacks the capabilities and control of territory. The Taliban’s Ministry of Interior and General Directorate of Intelligence have tried to better synchronize [PDF] their efforts to combat ISIS-K’s operations in urban areas, but ISIS-K has continued to increase the number of its attacks in Afghanistan.

Doing nothing, and hoping that the Taliban becomes more effective, is also problematic. As the commander of U.S. Central Command noted [PDF], “ISIS-K may gain strength and be emboldened to expand its operations and target neighboring countries” absent sustained U.S. pressure.

A second policy option is to conduct a robust “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism campaign, which uses aerial platforms and satellites to collect signals intelligence and imagery intelligence on terrorist activity. The United States can also conduct strikes from fixed-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), such as the MQ-9A Reaper. These platforms and systems could be used to monitor terrorist groups and periodically strike targets to degrade terrorist capabilities and disrupt operations.

In contrast to virtually every other U.S. counterterrorism campaign since 9/11, the United States has no partner force on the ground in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials have contended that implementing an over-the-horizon strategy is a viable option, as it would require the deployment of fewer military forces, minimize casualties, decrease the financial costs of a large military deployment, and reduce political risks. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued that the United States has demonstrated the feasibility of an over-the-horizon strategy in other countries:

We have to deal with the threat of terrorism in Yemen and Somalia and Syria. We have to deal with the threat of terrorism across the Islamic Maghreb. . . . And what we have shown is, in many of the countries I just mentioned, among others, we have been successful to date in suppressing the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland in those countries without sustaining a permanent military presence or fighting in a war. And that is what we intend to do with respect to Afghanistan as well.

However, the counterterrorism campaigns Sullivan mentions differ from the situation in Afghanistan today in three critical ways. First, in contrast to virtually every other U.S. counterterrorism campaign since 9/11, the United States has no partner force on the ground in Afghanistan. The United States worked with the Iraqi government, including the U.S.-trained and equipped Counter Terrorism Service, in Iraq; local security forces, such as the Libyan National Army, in Libya; the Somali government, African Union Mission in Somalia forces, and clan militias in Somalia; the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria; and militias aided by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen. In Afghanistan today, however, the Taliban is an enemy, and anti-Taliban leaders and groups have fled the country, been killed by the Taliban, laid down their weapons, or even joined ISIS-K.

Second, the United States has virtually no intelligence architecture in Afghanistan. The United States shut down its embassy and CIA station when it withdrew military forces in August 2021. U.S. military intelligence organizations—such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency—also withdrew most of their intelligence collection capabilities. As the head of U.S. Central Command acknowledged in December 2021, “we’re probably at about 1 or 2 percent of the capabilities we once had to look into Afghanistan,” making it “very hard” to understand what is happening there.

Third, the United States has no bases in the region to fly aircraft for intelligence collection or strike missions. The United States withdrew from all bases in Afghanistan, such as Bagram Air Base and Kandahar International Airport, and does not have bases in Central Asia or South Asia. Instead, the United States has been forced to utilize locations such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which is approximately 2,500 miles from Kabul (assuming Pakistan allows U.S. aircraft overflight rights). It takes an MQ-9A approximately fourteen hours to fly round-trip, leaving it limited time in Afghanistan before returning to Qatar. The United States could also launch UAVs or cruise missiles from vessels in the Indian Ocean, though those ships and platforms could be needed to counter Chinese activity in the Indo-Pacific region.

The lack of partner forces, scant intelligence, and no nearby bases leaves the United States severely hamstrung in conducting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. The failed U.S. drone strike in Kabul against a supposed ISIS-K target on August 29, 2021, was a good example of the United States’ current counterterrorism challenges. While President Biden and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley initially lauded the attack as a textbook example of over-the-horizon capabilities, it was in fact a failure: the U.S. Department of Defense eventually acknowledged that the strike was a horrific mistake that killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children, rather than ISIS-K members.

Recommendations

The best U.S. option is to conduct a robust over-the-horizon counterterrorism campaign, as long as the United States first addresses the challenges it faces in collecting intelligence and orchestrating effective operations. This campaign should have three components.

First, the United States should work with local forces inside and outside Afghanistan to rebuild the United States’ intelligence architecture in Afghanistan against terrorist groups . The U.S. military and CIA have a long history of working with local Afghan forces—including Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek, and some Pashtun militias—to collect intelligence and conduct counterterrorism operations. Some U.S. activities were orchestrated as covert action programs under Title 50 of U.S. Code, which allows the United States to conduct political, economic, and military activities abroad that are not acknowledged publicly. During the 1990s, for example, the CIA provided covert funding and equipment to anti-Taliban groups, such as the Northern Alliance.

The main goal should not be to overthrow the Taliban, but to collect intelligence on terrorist groups and individuals operating in Afghanistan.

The Biden administration’s withdrawal of U.S. military forces does not preclude the United States from using CIA paramilitary units from the Special Activities Center or U.S. special operations forces operating under Title 50 authority to work with forces in Afghanistan and nearby countries. The main goal should not be to overthrow the Taliban regime, but rather to collect intelligence on terrorist groups and individuals operating in Afghanistan. The United States does not need to deploy CIA or special forces to Afghanistan, at least on a routine basis. Instead, U.S. agencies can work with Afghan partners outside of the country.

Those U.S. partners—which could range from supporters of the National Resistance Front to anti-Taliban Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and other networks—can provide valuable information on terrorist leaders, training camps, and other activities, which the United States should supplement with intelligence collected from other sources. The United States can leverage such individuals as Ahmad Massoud, Amrullah Saleh, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi, and Ali Nazary, as well as their networks. In addition, there is deep opposition to the Taliban among some Pashtun tribes and subtribes, such as Barakzais and Popalzais, that U.S. intelligence and military units could leverage.

Intelligence from U.S. partners on the ground in Afghanistan is critical for “tipping and cueing,” the process of monitoring an area or specific target of interest by a sensor. If there is evidence of terrorist activity, U.S. intelligence operatives can request “tipping” from another complementary sensor platform—such as an MQ-9—to acquire “cueing,” an image over the same area. Effective human intelligence on the ground is critical for this process to ensure accurate information on the location and actions of a terrorist target. The tip-and-cue process allows the United States to build an intelligence picture, which it then uses to conduct an action—such as a strike—against the target. Without partners on the ground, however, U.S. intelligence is largely blind.

Second, the United States should negotiate basing access in the region, especially for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities . The United States should jumpstart negotiations with countries in the region—such as Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and possibly even India—to house manned and unmanned aircraft to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance over Afghan territory.

The Biden Administration has started those discussions, but they will be difficult. Allowing the U.S. military or intelligence community to fly strike aircraft—and strike missions—could be too politically risky for many of these governments. In addition, Russia has already voiced strong opposition to U.S. bases in Central Asia. Washington’s escalating tensions with Moscow over the war in Ukraine and broader geostrategic competition will make negotiations difficult. Surveillance aircraft could be more politically palatable for some countries.

Third, the United States should expand its over-the-horizon capabilities . Given the mission requirements for Afghanistan, one of the best aircraft for the job is the unmanned MQ-9 because of its range, sensor package, and strike capability. However, the United States has primarily purchased the MQ-9A Reaper variant. It takes a Reaper roughly fourteen hours to fly round-trip from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to Afghanistan, giving it only twelve to fifteen hours to collect intelligence and strike targets if necessary.

The MQ-9B SkyGuardian would allow the United States to fly at least fifteen additional hours over Afghanistan with a larger payload. The United States could complement its UAVs with manned aircraft—including F-15E strike fighters, F-16 fighter bombers, A-10 ground attack jets, and B-52 strategic bombers—to conduct strikes. Since the Taliban do not possess significant surface-to-air missile capabilities or an air force, the United States would continue to enjoy air superiority.

A U.S. failure to significantly improve its counterterrorism capabilities and posture—particularly by establishing relations with local partners, rebuilding an intelligence architecture, and negotiating additional bases—will put the United States and its partners at growing risk of a terrorist attack. U.S. intelligence agencies now assess that al-Qaeda and ISIS-K could develop external operations capabilities as early as 2022. This reality makes it important for the United States to move expeditiously and adopt a more effective counterterrorism campaign before the next attack.

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How the ‘Global War on Terror’ Failed Afghanistan

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The Global War on Terror has failed; but failure, they say, is a better teacher than success, and if the United States can learn from this failure and how it was generated, it may be able to avoid more disasters in future.

We can’t say that we were not warned. In January 2002, at the start of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan , British historian and former soldier Sir Michael Howard published an essay in Foreign Affairs titled, “What’s In A Name? How to Fight Terrorism.” In it, he warned that defining the U.S. response to 9/11 as a “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) would shape U.S. policies in profoundly negative ways. As he wrote,

[T]o use, or rather to misuse, the term “war” is not simply a matter of legality or pedantic semantics. It has deeper and more dangerous consequences. To declare that one is at war is immediately to create a war psychosis that may be totally counterproductive for the objective being sought.

Like others, Howard pinpointed the risk that declaring war on such a nebulous enemy as “terror” would make that war unending; that war would only drive populations into support for the terrorists and create a “with us or against us” attitude that would make it impossible to win over people from the other side; and that the longer wars continued the greater these tendencies would become.

He argued instead for the use of intelligence actions, diplomatic pressure, and limited force (of the kind that eventually killed Osama bin Laden and persuaded Pakistani intelligence to help in the capture of other Al Qaeda leaders). The wisdom of Howard’s words has been amply demonstrated by the disastrous outcomes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today, Howard’s allocutions about the GWOT should also be placed in a wider context of U.S. foreign and security policy in the past and future: the creation of “meta-narratives,” all-encompassing frameworks of thought and analysis into which a wide range of quite different issues are fitted. These narratives are focused on one supposedly monolithic, universal, and overwhelmingly powerful enemy, which it is necessary to confront everywhere. They are fed by American exceptionalist nationalism, with its conviction of America’s duty to lead the world to the inevitable triumph of democracy.

This enemy is cast not only as a military and ideological adversary but a force of evil, with the United States of America representing not only freedom and democracy, but good itself. This is how most Americans understood the Cold War; and amid the rain of condemnation that is falling on President Joe Biden over Afghanistan, it is vital to remember that not just the disaster of Iraq, but that of Afghanistan too, had their origins in how the George W. Bush administration turned the pursuit of the small terrorist group actually responsible for 9/11 into a global struggle for freedom and against “evil.”

In the case of Afghanistan, this led to the refusal to negotiate with the “terrorist” Taliban either before or after their initial defeat, and the U.S. commitment to democratic nation-building in one of the most inhospitable countries on Earth for such an effort. The GWOT was, however, a bipartisan delusion . A Democratic senator told me in 2002 that the United States should “turn Afghanistan into a beachhead of democracy and progress in the Muslim world.” It goes without saying that her knowledge of the terrain of this beachhead was precisely nil.

Key passages of Bush’s speech to Congress on September 20, 2001, read as follows:

…they [the Islamist extremists] follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism … How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command — every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war — to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network. … Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. …[I]n our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom — the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time — now depends on us. ... We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.

The GWOT has failed; but failure, they say, is a better teacher than success, and if the United States can learn from this failure and how it was generated, it may be able to avoid more disasters in the future. For U.S. strategy towards China is also beginning to be portrayed in Washington, by both parties, as an apocalyptic global struggle between good and evil, with consequences that may dwarf those of the GWOT.

EVERY SIGNIFICANT country in the world has its own variant of a foreign and security establishment (or “Blob” in Ben Rhodes’ colloquial phrase); and these establishments operate in accordance with certain informal but strict doctrines. These are deeply rooted in geographical location, in specific nationalisms, and in the histories and cultures of the nations concerned. They are to a considerable extent impervious to evidence and argument, and barring defeat in war or revolutionary upheaval at home, they change only very slowly.

The Chinese, Indians, Russians, British, and Germans all have their own variants. These doctrines are sometimes defined by the identification of a particular enemy. Thus, the Polish establishment believes that Russia is the eternal and implacable enemy of Poland, and this belief is the most important element shaping Polish policy.

The doctrine of the current U.S. establishment stands out in certain key respects. The first is the scale of its ambition: the belief that the United States must seek primacy across the entire face of the globe. The second is its ideological content: the belief that the United States has a mission to spread democracy and “freedom” in the world. American religious traditions in turn help to cast this mission as a crusade for good against evil.

There is, however, one additional and paradoxical feature of U.S. foreign policy doctrine: that is, the profound and justified doubts of the U.S. establishment about how far it is really shared by the U.S. population at large. Living in what is in effect a giant island, protected by the oceans and with friendly or weak states to north and south, U.S. citizens are subject to periodic doubts about whether outside forces are really so dangerous to them, and, therefore, whether the expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure on defeating them is really justified. U.S. meta-narratives are, therefore, also heavily shaped with an eye to terrifying ordinary Americans.

THE U.S. meta-narrative of the Cold War, like the GWOT, began in response to a genuine threat: that Stalinist Communism, backed by the Red Army, would take over Western Europe and leave the United States isolated as the only large democratic and capitalist state on Earth. By the 1960s, however, Soviet communism in Europe (the critical area of contest) was on the ideological defensive. In the United States, of course, there never had been any chance of communist success.

The disastrous aspect of the U.S. Cold War meta-narrative lay largely in the fact that it was based all too closely on Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s famous advice to Dean Acheson that to get Congress and the U.S. public to accept the commitments and sacrifices necessary to resist Soviet Communism, the Truman administration needed to “scare the hell out of the American people.” Acheson commented later that to do this he helped create a portrayal “clearer than truth” of the Soviet menace to the United States.

The growth of the Cold War meta-narrative can be clearly seen in the change between George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and “Mr. X” essay of 1946–47, and the National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68) of 1950, drafted chiefly by Paul Nitze. Kennan’s documents, which laid the foundation for the U.S. strategy of “containment” of the USSR, stress the hostility of Soviet Communism to all capitalist and democratic systems as well as to U.S. national interests, and say that the United States must contain Soviet ambitions through military readiness as well as economic and political means. However, at no point does Kennan say that the USSR poses a direct threat to the United States itself, or call for greatly increased U.S. military spending.

Kennan warns against U.S. “threats, blustering and superfluous gestures of outward toughness,” and to avoid threatening Soviet prestige in ways that might trap the Soviet leadership into a dangerous response. He emphasizes Soviet fears as well as ambitions, and remarks with great prescience on the underlying fragility and weakness of Soviet society; meaning that in the long run, the Communist system would likely collapse of its own accord.

NSC-68 is very different. It speaks of a “mortal threat” of the Soviet system to the United States itself, and calls for a massive military build-up in response. NSC-68 may well, therefore, be regarded as the birth certificate of the military-industrial complex. The document speaks repeatedly of America’s global ideological mission, how global leadership has been “imposed” on the United States, and how the USSR is a menace across the whole face of the world which America must meet everywhere. Kennan himself strongly criticized NSC-68, and saw it in retrospect as helping to lay the groundwork for the paranoid and militarized tendencies that helped lead the United States into the Vietnam War.

Khorasan: why many Afghanistan citizens are pushing back against the term’s association with terrorism

Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Sussex

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Gunmen attacked Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue in March, killing 137 people. The four suspects were purportedly aligned to the militant terrorist organisation Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K).

IS-K is an affiliate of the Islamic State militant group and seeks to create a territorially unbound caliphate. Its militants have launched violent attacks in Afghanistan, especially on ethnically Hazara Shia Muslims , as well as on high-profile targets in Iran and Pakistan . The group’s deadly attacks have ensured that the term Khorasan is now globally associated with Islamist militancy.

Khorasan is often translated from Persian as “there where the sun rises”. It refers to a geographical region spanning parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and the five post-Soviet states of Central Asia. Historically, cities across the region played a pivotal in Khorasan’s dynamics – culturally and politically.

Read more: Why would Islamic State attack Russia and what does this mean for the terrorism threat globally?

For IS-K militants, Khorasan’s symbolic power is derived from the region’s importance to the emergence of one of the great Muslim dynasties, the Abbasid caliphate , in the 8th century. Yet Islamists are not the only group active in Afghanistan and the wider region to have gained inspiration from Khorasan’s history in recent years.

A map showing the geographical limits of Khorasan.

For much of the past two decades I have conducted research in Afghanistan and among the country’s diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America. I have met men and women from the country who are deeply attached to the idea of Khorasan and think it is relevant to Afghanistan’s future.

These intellectual-activists, who are mostly Persian-speakers from north and central Afghanistan, imagine Khorasan in ways that are strikingly different from those of IS-K militants. They think of Khorasan as a historic locus of cultural and intellectual sophistication, creativity and innovation, and religious and cultural tolerance.

They define Khorasan’s culture in relation to several key aspects. The most prominent among them is the Persian language. Persian, they argue, is the region’s lingua franca and has enabled cross-cultural communication between diverse peoples over centuries.

In stark contrast to IS-K, they also focus on Khorasan’s history of religious pluralism. This is something that manifested in the historic presence of Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Zoroastrian populations across the region. For many of the activists, indigenous forms of Islam have nurtured religious pluralism rather than treating it as a threat.

Imagining Khorasan is, above all, an intellectual pursuit. Living in cities across Europe and North America, many of the activists organise public events where they present their ideas in speeches. And they disseminate their thoughts, mostly in Persian, in essays posted on social media and in books often published in Iran.

Poetry is also used to express the yearning for a shared Khorasani identity for people living across the region. As one line of a popular poem goes: “Kabul, Kulab and Tehran, I am a Khorasani”.

But their activities are also having an effect on the identities of people from Afghanistan. For example, a song performed by celebrated Afghan singer Sediq Shabab alongside a woman from Tajikistan concludes: “without doubt, we are Khorasanis”.

In Afghanistan and beyond, men and women increasingly adopt Khorasan as a pen name, and some use it to market their businesses. The sense of being Khorasani is also materialised in particular styles of women’s clothing, said by those who wear them to be distinct from dresses traditionally marketed in the diaspora as “Afghan”.

Relevance to Afghanistan today

Those who see Khorasan as relevant for the future of Afghanistan are often criticised in Afghanistan and among the diaspora. They are depicted either as ethno-nationalists or as people living comfortable lives in the west more interested in romanticising the past than addressing the crises facing Afghanistan’s people, including calamitous flooding connected to climate change.

For the activists, however, engaging with the history, culture and geography of Khorasan is of vital importance. Doing so challenges the perception of Afghanistan as a site of fundamentalist Islam and unchanging tribal customs.

It acts as a counterpoint to the symbolic deployment of Khorasan by IS-K, too. As a result, it carries the potential of reversing the country’s cultural and political isolation.

An armed guard standing next to a road as people watch on.

Debates about history, geography and culture are also playing a particularly prominent role in the politics of Afghanistan today. Despite the emphasis placed on “nation-building” during the early years of the 2001–2021 international intervention in Afghanistan, ethnic tensions in the country intensified .

Then, in 2021, the Taliban returned to power. Since then, states and international organisations have been unwilling to hold the Taliban administration to account for human rights abuses , especially against women.

Read more: The Taliban’s war on women in Afghanistan must be formally recognized as gender apartheid

Against this backdrop, people in Afghanistan and the diaspora calling for the establishment of an inclusive government or for greater political recognition for specific ethno-linguistic communities, have increasingly sought to frame and legitimise their ideas by referencing an imagined past.

Attempts to imagine Afghanistan as part of an interconnected, plural and culturally vibrant region can easily be dismissed as wishful thinking. They can also be treated as an expression of divisive ethnic politics.

But the state of thinking about Afghanistan and the wider region is narrow and lacks ambition. Within this context, recognising the underlying desire for human dignity, cultural recognition and political visibility encapsulated by these expressions of historical imagination is more important now than ever before.

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Strategic Initiatives

The causes and the consequences of strategic failure in afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s stability requires a regional response.

Graeme Herd

Executive Summary

In a strategic shock, the Taliban in Afghanistan entered Kabul on August 15, following a cascading crisis triggered by Western military withdrawal, the government and Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) unwillingness to fight and the Taliban’s will to power. Structural explanations for the collapse include mission creep resulting in unattainable strategic goals and the inability of regional actors to effectively and positively support the stabilization of Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s takeover appears to constitute a clear-cut strategic failure for the U.S. and NATO, when calculated in terms of “blood and treasure” costs as set against benefits and potential future threats. It marks the failure of Western state building efforts, and appears to signify a watershed moment for Pax Americana . Embedded in these narratives are assumptions which this paper makes explicit and subjects to critical stress-testing.
Afghanistan will only stabilize if front-line regional powers - Iran, China, Russia, the five Central Asian states, India and Pakistan - engage positively and constructively with an Afghan government that has greatest internal legitimacy. As yet, it is unclear whether the “Taliban 2.0” is a more moderate iteration of its first incarnation or if regional actors will more effectively help stabilize Afghanistan, though they are incentivized to do so given their core national interests are at stake. A “strategically ruthless” U.S. can now reset its foreign policy to advance strategic competition with China and Russia in more important geographies and contexts, alongside friends and allies. Such a reset would be clearly reflected in the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS), expected 2021-2022.

A figure showing the framework for assessing strategic failure

Introduction

In early August 2021, Afghanistan’s former Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar summarised the international community’s efforts to stabilize Afghanistan over twenty years: “What was the outcome? To be fair, they restored the entire state system that was completely destroyed by the Taliban: There were no police, no army, no public administration or social services. The entire Taliban government’s health budget was about $1 million a year -- less than that of any small non-profit organization working in this area in Afghanistan. There was no state.” 1 Afghanistan, the minister argued, was immeasurably improved from September 10, 2001, when the Taliban controlled 90% of the territory and were on the verge of seizing the Panjshir valley, having just assassinated Ahmad Massoud.

However, with the fall of all regional provincial capitals to Taliban forces from August 6 through to August 16 when the Taliban entered Kabul, the spectre of Afghanistan as a failed state looms large. Under such a scenario, Afghanistan will once again generate and export poverty, refugees, radicalism, and opium. Approximately 30,000 Afghan citizens have been leaving Afghanistan through August, the majority travelling to Iran or Pakistan by land, with half-a-million IDPs and Europe fearing: “a repeat of 2015 and early 2016, when more than 1 million migrants, mostly from Syria but also Afghanistan and Iraq, arrived in Europe, sparking political turbulence within member states and across the bloc.” 2 As Western foreign aid is reduced and the IMF blocks the Taliban’s access to $460 million in currency reserves, the Taliban will look to alternative sources of finance, incentivizing opium production and export. 3 At the same time, supportive jihadi extremist narratives from Kano to Khartoum and Kabul to Kashgar are boosted by the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan could, under a “Taliban 2.0” regime, amplify “ the spirit of defiance and steadfastness among China’s oppressed Uighur Muslims, and reviving the spirit of jihad among Chechnya’s Muslims who still dream of independence from communist Russia.” 4

The strategic shock of the sudden collapse of western supported order in Afghanistan promotes snap and stark judgements in the international media and commentariat. One theme is a stain on the Biden administration: “Joe Biden has defined his presidency with the most disastrous American foreign policy decision since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The only thing worse than a ‘forever war,’ as Biden has called the Afghan conflict, is a ‘forever defeat.’ He has delivered that.” 5 Another theme is a more general negative judgement on U.S. post-9/11 foreign policy: “America’s 20-year-old “War on Terror” is the greatest strategic disaster in the country’s modern history. It should never have been fought.” 6 A third theme widens the aperture further and argues that the fall of Kabul, in fact, marks a paradigm shift in global order: “This is a watershed moment that will be remembered for formalizing the end of the long-fraying Pax Americana and bringing down the curtain on the West’s long ascendancy.” 7 Such a sentiment is especially, but not exclusively, promoted by adversaries of the United States: Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov frames the fall of Kabul as the “revenge of history, religion and ideology over modernity and globalism” and “the decline of a whole school of thought, a whole system of myths and ideas” about the ‘end of history’ and the triumph of the Western model. 8

This short paper attempts to survey key assessments of the causes and consequences of strategic failure. Any assessment made within a week of the collapse must, by definition, be speculative. Nevertheless, even an initial assessment can recognize that to identify and draw the right lessons we must first ask the right questions. To that end, the paper examines the proximate and long-term explanations for the cascading collapse, focusing on how (the proximate causes) a cascading collapse withdrawal took place and why (the longer-term structural causes). It then identifies three different understandings of what constitutes “strategic failure” and the necessary conditions present in each: a costs/benefits analysis approach; a threat assessment-based approach; and, a peripheral vs core national interest approach.

What were the Causes of the Cascading Collapse of the Afghan Military and State?

In addressing this question, we can look at proximate and longer-term causes. In terms of proximate causes, we can identify the U.S. agreement with the Taliban in 2020, the nature of its actual implementation in 2021, and the Taliban’s ability to coordinate a lightening takeover. When we examine longer-term causes, we can identify post-9/11 mission creep that resulted in unattainable strategic goals, the failure of the Afghanistan government over twenty-years and the inability of regional actors to effectively and positively support the stabilization of Afghanistan.

The Doha peace process and agreements made with the Taliban negotiators was enabled by the Taliban first opening a Qatar representation office in Doha in 2013. In February 2020, a United States-Taliban bilateral accord released 5,000 Taliban prisoners and set May 2021 as a deadline for the withdrawal of remaining U.S. combat troops, and in return the Taliban did not target U.S. troops in Afghanistan (who reported no combat fatalities since the accord), and agreed to cut off links with al-Qaeda and any other transnational jihadist groups . As the Afghan government was excluded from the accord its standing was undercut, providing the Taliban with momentum and the appearance of having secured a diplomatic victory. The Biden administration inherited and chose to adopt this accord, though in April 2021 extended the troop withdrawal deadline to July 4, 2021. President Biden justifies the rationale for withdrawal as follows: “Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in U.S. history. One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.... We gave them every tool they could need. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. [What] we could not provide them, was the will to fight for that future.” 9 The cascading collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the Afghan government reaffirms this assessment.

To expedite the withdrawal, Bagram Air Base, the military hub of major military operations in Afghanistan, was “handed over” to Afghan authorities on July 4. On July 8, President Biden suggested that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War. However, the withdrawal of all U.S. forces had three immediate and apparently unanticipated consequences. First, the last remaining 3,000 U.S. troops anchored the 8,500 troops of allies, and as the U.S. withdrew, so did allies and with them the thousands of contractors who kept the Afghan air force flying. Second, the psychological impact on the ANSF was profound: “The ANSF were built to operate within the framework of coalition support that was available for most of the past decade—high levels of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information coupled with rapid close air support and contractor support for logistics and maintenance. Once that framework was removed, the ANSF no longer had a method of fighting the Taliban that worked, and were without the assured backing of U.S. and NATO power.” 10 As a result, and third, U.S. “Operation Allies Refuge” was overtaken by events. The special immigrant visa system broke down. America’s Afghan allies (interpreters, translators, analysts) and their families and former Afghan government, military and secular civil society (especially female judges, police officers 11 and human rights activists) were perceived by a victorious Taliban as “traitors.” 12 Accusations of i ntelligence failure, the lack of contingency planning, “fiasco” and “professional malpractice” characterized commentary.

The actions of the Taliban itself is clearly relevant. Their lightening advances, especially from August 6 to 15, can be explained through deals made at local level between the Taliban and ANSF commanders, brokered by community leaders to avoid civilian casualties. This led to accusations of i nter-ethnic collusion between President Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan National Security Council under his leadership and the Taliban. 13 A contrast became apparent. On the one hand, the Afghan government was characterised by s elf-interest, corruption, electoral fraud, limited local legitimacy, and led by an isolationist and polarizing president. On the other, the “Taliban 2.0” had mastered psychological- and information operations, “ able to successfully exploit the foreign presence by making their fight not only an Islamic but also a nationalist cause... Patriotism often trumps ideological differences and even the quest for individual liberty.” 14 In addition, the Taliban’s concerted efforts over the last decade to gain non-Pashtun participation (Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kazakh minorities) through a strategy of co-optation had some effect.

While short-term factors focus on the agency of the United States, the ANSF and government and Taliban agency, longer-term explanations are rooted in the determining influence of structural factors on the nature of governance in Afghanistan. Here it is argued that the objective of creating a c entralized, unitary, and modern state was an unattainable goal: “The country’s difficult topography, ethnic complexity, and tribal and local loyalties produce enduring political fragmentation. Its troubled neighborhood and hostility to outside interference make foreign intervention perilous.” 15 The Afghan state’s historic weakness was reflected in the inability of all governments over the last twenty-years to root itself in the alienated “tribal Pashtuns (who formed the state’s essential base), as well as rural Afghans of other ethnicities.” This political failure “helped to cripple the Western attempt to create a democratic Afghan state, and opened the way for the Taliban to re-establish their own alternative model of state-building.” 16

The inherent weaknesses of the Afghan state met over-stretch was compounded by “mission creep” and strategic impatience in the West. Counter-terrorism morphed into counter-insurgency, whose success was dependent on having the Afghan government as a reliable political partner. A condition that was never met. Counter-insurgency then became a “democracy-building,” “state-building,” and “nation-building” efforts, which failed to realize that embedded culture and social institutions trump western ones. T op-down state-building strategies fail in the context of “a deeply heterogeneous society organized around local customs and norms, where state institutions have long been absent or impaired.” 17 In addition, much of the U.S. and other aid was misdirected. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reports that the U.S. “invested roughly $946 billion between 2001 and 2021. Yet almost $1 trillion in outlays won the U.S. few hearts and minds. Of that $946 billion, fully $816 billion, or 86%, went to military outlays for U.S. troops. And the Afghan people saw little of the remaining $130 billion, with $83 billion going to the Afghan Security Forces. Another $10 billion or so was spent on drug interdiction operations, while $15 billion was for U.S. agencies operating in Afghanistan. That left a meager $21 billion in “economic support” funding. Yet even much of this spending left little if any development on the ground, because the programs actually “support counterterrorism; bolster national economies; and assist in the development of effective, accessible, and independent legal systems.” Jeffrey Sachs concludes: “In short, the U.S. could have invested in clean water and sanitation, school buildings, clinics, digital connectivity, agricultural equipment and extension, nutrition programs, and many other programs to lift the country from economic deprivation.” 18

Defining Strategic Failure

There is no consensus as to what characterizes strategic failure. As noted above, this paper addresses three alternative understandings of what constitutes “strategic failure” and the necessary conditions present in each. First, a broad “blood and treasure” costs/benefits approach is our focus, which includes reputation and credibility diminution in the “treasure” spent column. Second, a more narrowly prescribed threat assessment-based approach is examined. Does withdrawal necessarily allow for and enable the emergence of the threats that drove intervention in the first place? Third, and more paradoxically, are we witnessing a “win the battle, lose the war; win the war, lose the peace” moment? In other words, does the U.S. have to lose a peripheral interest in order to reset foreign policy and “win” on issues and concerns of core national interest, not least strategic competition with Russia and China? Again, though it is only ten days after the fall of Kabul and judgment must necessarily be speculative, it is not too early to offer initial thoughts and to begin to frame the discussion.

Costs and Benefits Assessment: “What price blood and treasure?”

From the perspectives of “blood and treasure” expenditure and costs when calculated against stability benefits and returns, Western intervention in Afghanistan can be judged to be a collective strategic failure. The costs or “inputs” can be easily identified: twenty-years and “ $2 trillion and close to 2,500 American lives, over 1,100 lives of its coalition partners, as well as up to 70,000 Afghan military casualties and nearly 50,000 civilian deaths .” 19 The U.S. and allies funded approximately 80% of Afghanistan’s budget and in 2020 foreign aid constituted 43% of its GDP. The withdrawal also appears as a reputation-sapping April 1975 “Saigon moment,” damaging the image of U.S. strategic competence: “Untrustworthy, unreliable, disloyal. It must surely carry a message, a predilection to not follow through that which was promised, a defeat not only militarily but of professed values.” 20 More generally, commentators question the cohesion of the NATO alliance, defeated as it has been by jihadi forces: “ America’s strategic and moral failure in Afghanistan will reinforce questions about U.S. reliability among friends and foes alike.” 21 Lastly, it reinforces Russian and Chinese great power competition narratives around changing global order: “Kabul’s fall seems to become a tombstone on the grave of American messianism, the idea that America brings the rays of freedom, democracy and progress to the rest of the world.” 22

First and foremost, for the U.S. the debate of the fallout is internal to the U.S. military. For some commentators, the precipitous withdrawal reality undercuts the “we plan for everything” mantra and highlights a U.S. military culture flaw - the inability of the U.S. military leadership to speak truth to power. The withdrawal will make many currently in the military and perhaps especially veterans, whose professional experience has been defined or shaped by Afghan deployments, demoralized and questioning of their civilian leadership and even core national values and ideals. What are core values, how are they upheld and are there consequences for failing to uphold them? 23

From key U.S. NATO allies, the assessments are stark. In Germany, Armin Laschet, German Christian Democratic Union party leader and Chancellor-candidate to succeed Angela Merkel, concluded that the entire Afghanistan operation was a failure and that the withdrawal “the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.” 24 Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee: “This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.” 25 Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, argues that: “The Biden administration came to office promising an open exchange, a transparent exchange with its allies. They said the transatlantic relationship would be pivotal. As it is, they’re playing lip service to the transatlantic relationship and still believe European allies should fall into line with U.S. priorities.” 26

In the UK, Lord Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former national security adviser, commented: “It looks like NATO has been completely overtaken by American unilateral decisions. First of all, Trump’s decision to start talking to the Taliban about leaving and then the Biden decision to set a timetable. The Afghanistan operation was always going to end some time, it was never going to go on forever, but the manner in which it’s been done has been humiliating and damaging to Nato.” Lord George Robertson, NATO secretary-general at 9/11: “It weakens Nato because the principle of ‘in together, out together’ seems to have been abandoned both by Donald Trump and by Joe Biden.” 27 Rory Stewart, a former British cabinet minister with lengthy experience in Afghanistan: “He hasn’t just humiliated America’s Afghan allies. He’s humiliated his Western allies by demonstrating their impotence.” 28

According to Russian and Chinese controlled media and officials, the U.S. withdrawal demonstrates failure and unreliability, with the understanding that the U.S.’s support for Afghanistan is fickle, as will its support for Ukraine and Taiwan. This sentiment is actively promoted by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council. 29 China argues that U.S. promises to Hong Kong democracy activists are “unreliable as the U.S. “abandons allies.” Peter Jennings suggests that “political disarray” in Washington might be “ the right time for China to press its confected claims over Taiwan.” 30 On August 16, China’s Global Times called the:

Afghan abandonment a lesson for Taiwan’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government. From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defence will collapse in hours and the U.S. military won’t come to help. As a result, the DPP authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane. 31

The Beijing-friendly Taiwan newspaper United Daily News argued public opinion in Taiwan had felt the shock of Biden’s Saigon-like “abandonment” of Afghanistan. It called on Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s DPP government to be wary of “tying the lifeline of Taiwan’s national security and survival to the U.S.” as an “anti-China pawn.” On August 17, its editorial noted: “It could be Afghanistan today, Taiwan tomorrow.” 32

However, these sentiments, though heartfelt, were immediate reactions to unfolding events. Another understanding picks up on the withdrawal as a sign of U.S. strategic ruthlessness: “Afghanistan is a reminder that the U.S. is a ruthless power and ally with a stark calculation of its interests. This is a lesson for allies and adversaries equally.” The “ lessons” drawn from this identified trait and characteristic have different implications for NATO: “ A key message from the U.S. is that it is much more likely to support allies who are capable. It will help those who help themselves—and who can make useful contributions to U.S. interests.” 33 European NATO is forced to r ecognize that U.S. security guarantees are time limited. As a result, European NATO needs to look again at NATO’s deterrence capabilities and Europe’s strategic autonomy: “A key lesson from Afghanistan for America’s allies is that we all need to strengthen our own defence capabilities. We cannot assume that the U.S. will just be over the horizon ready to defend our strategic interests.” 34

If we cast our net wider to include other friends and allies, we can note that in Ukraine, the withdrawal is understood as a sign that Ukraine must rely on its own army and root out corruption in order to withstand Russian influence: “The Afghanistan tragedy shows that if an ally is not ready to fight for itself, Americans will not bother.” 35 Similarly, the Kabul catastrophe is understood as a reminder to South Korea and other U.S. allies that its decades-old security commitments should not be taken for granted as U.S.’ may engage only where vital interests are at stake. “It sends the message that Washington, with its finite power, cannot help but make a decision prioritising U.S. interests, and that it can withdraw needless intervention or investment anytime if allies do not have the capabilities or will to fend for themselves.” 36 In Israel, while hawks argue that the U.S. cannot be relied on to guarantee the security of the state, 37 others suggest that U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will prompt Israel and Arab countries to form a regional alliance to protect the interests of both sides. 38

Threat-Based Assessment: “Back to the Future?”

A threat-based assessment approach could argue that costs aside, the core benefit must be that the threats which the post-9/11 intervention were designed to eliminate were successful. According to this “back to the future” reading, Western strategic failure is not rooted in an inability to create a stable modern functioning democratic state. Strategic failure only occurs if the strategic threats that justified the strategic intervention after 9/11 are more likely to occur as a result of the withdrawal than before the intervention. Thus, return of “Taliban 2.0” can be considered a necessary but not sufficient condition to meet this definition. If Afghanistan becomes an ungovernable failed state and a breeding ground for terrorism, with “Taliban 2.0” unable or unwilling to prevent al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda type entity, such as the Isl amic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network (HQN ) or ISIS-Khorasan (IS-K) from planning and executing strategic strikes against continental United States, strategic failure will undoubtedly have occurred.

This outcome is based on three core assumptions. The first assumption is that the Taliban can not only take power and control most of the territory, but can hold power and exercise it: “Taliban 1.0” was never able to govern, just through coercive force to impose their will on the population. To hold and exercise power suggests that the Taliban is unified and governs as an institutionalized entity, which in turn supposes that it is able to more broadly reflect Afghan society than its first iteration 1997-2001. There is some evidence of apparent change in behavior. Siraj Ul Haq, head of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), notes that the Taliban’s announcement for general amnesty, non-retaliation against opponents and protection of diplomats and foreigners is “unprecedented in modern history of the world. 39 “Taliban 2.0 is undoubtedly better than “Taliban 1.0” at strategic communication, better able to project itself as a mature political entity. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has said that the group wants friendly relations with countries around the world and international recognition: “The world should not be afraid of us. We must be recognised. We want friendly relations with all countries of the world, including the United States.” He also called on the people to work with the Taliban and help create an “inclusive system. 40 “Taliban 2.0” is certainly better armed, inheriting Black Hawk helicopters, A-29 planes and other equipment that the U.S. has provided to the Afghan military. Can it maintain the equipment or given the need for revenue, will the arms be sold? In short, the assertion would be that “ The Taliban of today is not the Taliban of yesterday. It has a local and international network of relations (the United States, Russia, China, Iran, and Qatar) and is more realistic than before. … It will thrive if it evolves, and perhaps it will establish a regime that treats women like the Iranian and Saudi regimes, which are both internationally recognised.” 41

The core indicator of positive change within “Taliban 2.0” will be found not just in what it says, but what it does, in reality and not rhetoric, as words are not a good predictor of future Taliban action. Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the head of the Taliban’s military commission, released an audio message ordering the group’s fighters to not enter homes and seize properties in Kabul: “We want to message and instruct the esteemed mujahideen that nobody is allowed to enter anybody’s homes, particularly in Kabul where we have recently entered. They are also not allowed to seize anybody’s vehicles... We will then follow up this process [collecting government vehicles] properly in the future with the help of relevant bodies. If it is money or vehicle and guns, anything, all are public properties. If they take these things or hide it, this would be considered as robbery and treason to the blood of martyrs.” 42 However, reports also emerge of: “ Mass killings of people, arrests, and executions of government employees in front of people, open trials of women and civil society activists, mass displacements and forced marriages of women and girls are notable examples of crimes committed by the Taliban in areas under their control. The shooting of more than 100 civilians in the town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar province and more than 20 civilians in Ghazni’s Malistan district are obvious crimes committed by the Taliban in the past month. The Taliban’s brutal killing of Nazar Mohammad Khasha, the Kandahari comedian in the Dand district of the province, drew global reaction and recreated the true face of the Taliban for the world.” 43

Current moderation may just be examples of Taliban soft power and a charm offensive for necessary legitimation purposes. As Stefano Stafanni, former Italian Ambassador to the U.S. notes: “Thousands of citizens in Jalalabad and in Khowst, the latter having been under the heel of the Taliban for a few days now, dared to stage street protests, which were immediately bloodily put down. None of all this was apparent in the sophisticated official voice of the regime. The charmer Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the new lords and masters in Kabul, spoke -- in good English -- to the international audience, not to the Afghans. The press conference, a masterpiece of communications, subtleties, and ambiguities, had just one purpose: to reassure the world, especially the West that is so perversely obstinate in defending human rights, basic freedoms, and the status of women, so permanently concerned over terrorist infiltration by Al-Qaeda or ISIS, that the Taliban will give the country a civilian government that is responsible and civilized.” 44

The cu rrent Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, is considered to be more able than his predecessors to maintain intra-Taliban factional unity. However, the Taliban is a factionalised entity, split between, for example, T aliban ideologues/hardliners and pragmatists, with a “long history of dissention among the Quetta, Peshawar and Miran Shah shuras that direct Taliban activities.” 45 There is certainly a p otential struggle for re-division of spheres of influence inside the Taliban itself, compounded if r egional and other powers will play on these differences. A number of other armed groups in Afghanistan may not obey the Taliban. The Hazarajat (the land of the Shia Hazara) in central Afghanistan, is not yet under effective Taliban control. Is there a new “ Northern Alliance 2.0” based on non-Pashtun ethnic groups in Afghanistan, such as the Uzbeks around Mazar-e Sharif and Tajiks in the Panjshir? 46 It is unclear, how much political will such proto-entities may have, or the extent to which the threat of formation is means to gain concessions from the Taliban or if splits centered on ethnicity (Pashtun majority vs minorities) is overlaid by a geographical (northern vs southern Afghanistan) division which triggers a civil war. In such circumstances, the Northern Alliance would likely receive tacit external support from, for example, Russia, India, China and Iran, while the backbone of the Taliban, the 46 Pashtun clans, would be backed by Pakistan and transnational Islamic jihad.

A key determining factor will be the strength and intent of the “Taliban 2.0” leadership and government. This in turn rests on how the Taliban approach a key dilemma that they face. The declaration of a reclusive Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (on September 11, 2021) achieves their primary strategic goal and support of Salafi-jihadi groups world-wide: “ It is part of the Taliban’s ideology to reject modernism and the international community — and the reputation won by forcing the U.S. to leave is worth far more than aid budgets.” 47 However, this unfolding would trigger a new protracted civil war, with the reconstitution of a Northern Alliance. Alternatively, the creation of an inclusive coalition government represented by all major political, ethnic and tribal forces in the country, would certainly gain credibility in the wider Muslim world and garner international recognition and development aid, but would it also be considered a compromise too far, causing a civil war within the Taliban itself, and between the Taliban and erstwhile external allies?

We can identify three key indicators which may suggest which way the Taliban leans. First, will the government be i nclusive, to i nclude some non-Taliban elements? The three member “ Coordination Council” negotiates a “peaceful transfer” of power to the Taliban in Kabul. It includes former President Hamid Karzai, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader the Hezb-e Islami party, and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR). 48 Will former ANSF personnel be integrated into the new armed forces of Afghanistan, as reservists or regulars? Given tens of thousands of former security forces are without an income and likely have access to arms, this would certainly be pragmatic and inclusive. Second, can influential clerics and Taliban leaders institute Sharia laws gradually and only partially, steering some of the most controversial aspects of Salafi-Jihadi hardline Islamic doctrine and Sharia law away from the most extreme interpretations? 49 Third, one very visible indicator of intent is the treatment of women, not least their access to the labor market and education and whether the B urqa (the blue garments that cover a woman’s body from head to toe), a symbol of the Taliban’s previous rule, will it be so again? Al-Arabiya TV, a Saudi-owned pan-Arabic channel (perceived to be an arm of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy), adopts an editorial line favouring women’s rights in Afghanistan to avoid the situation where: “extremism will take over power, moderation will disappear, and darkness will replace light.” 50

A second core assumption is that the there is no “Taliban 1.0” or “Taliban 2.0” – just “Taliban” and that this seemingly static and enduring entity is not a learning organization. In other words, we must assume that “Taliban 2.0” does not understand that t he export of global terror crosses a threshold for response, as the aftermath of 9/11 in fact demonstrated. As a result, the “Taliban 2.0” refuses to implement a watered down version of Sharia law to appease the international community. It does welcome and shelter radical groups and the territory of Afghanistan does become a sanctuary allowing for the resurgence of transnational terrorism. Here the logic is clear: the Taliban have retaken power; so too will jihadis focused on terrorist acts against the West. 51

When questioning this assumption, we can note that the Taliban does oppose and campaign against IS Khorasan Province (ISKP), each calling the other “an apostate militia,” and ISKP undertaking a coordinated media campaign online against the Taliban . With regards to Taliban-al-Qaeda relations, the picture is more ambiguous. In the Doha accord of February 2020 the Taliban publicly declared that they cut links with al-Qaeda. Although the Taliban and al-Qaeda share a religious Salafist creed, ideology and worldview, they have different objectives: “The Taliban aims to establish a theocracy, or Islamic Emirate, in Afghanistan, but has indicated no ambition to expand beyond that country’s borders. By contrast, al-Qaeda has no national identity, nor does it recognize borders. It is a borderless movement, with branches in scores of countries worldwide, that seeks to spread its ideology near and far by any means, including violence.” 52

Nonetheless, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) became the first al-Qaeda group to congratulate the Taliban following its seizure of Afghanistan, praying for the success of the Taliban in establishing true Sharia rule and upholding “ wala and bara ” (loyalty to everything considered Islamic and disavowal of everything considered un-Islamic). 53 T he leader of al-Qaeda’s Sahel affiliate Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Iyad Ag Ghaly, rallies supporters to follow the Taliban example in Afghanistan. 54 The Pakistan-based Haqqani Network is considered “completely integrated with the Taliban. HQN militants often serve as the shock troops for the Taliban, while remaining close to Directorate S, the unit of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that runs Pakistan’s clandestine relationship with the Taliban. This connection with Pakistan explains why HQN is also helping China, a close Islamabad ally, to run operations against Uyghur co-religionists in Afghanistan.” 55 We can surmise that the presence and role of HQN in Afghanistan will provide a barometer of Pakistan-Taliban relations.

Our third core assumption is that if the Taliban does allow radical extremists to congregate and organize terrorists attack from within the “Islamic emirate of Afghanistan,” threatened external actors are powerless to react. CIA director William Burns notes that intelligence-gathering efforts will be more difficult without a U.S. military presence in the country. However, while this is undoubtedly true, the U.S., friends and allies have electronic surveillance/drones that can inform if al-Qaeda or equivalent entities are reconstituted. As U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken argues: “Our capacity to do that is far different and far better than it was before 9/11.” 56 The U.S. does have over-the-horizon capability (the 21 st century of the British 19 th century “butcher and bolt” approach) from the Arab Gulf states or U.S. off-shore carriers.

However, in the post-9/11 strategic context, it is also true to note that transnational jihadism has metastasized to Sahel, Middle East and South Asia: Afghanistan’s territory is not, per se , needed for this function - 9/21 is not 9/11. 57 Afghanistan does not need to become an actual physical sanctuary or haven for terrorism. It can serve as spiritual or ideological inspiration and motivation for other radical groups to follow suit. 58 Jihadist groups in Muslim conflict zones such as Somalia, Mali, and Yemen hope to replicate the political and territorial gains made by the Taliban, by stepping up attacks and forcing local and international players to sit down, talk and give them concessions. As foreign troops withdraw, corrupt, poorly trained and resourced local troops can then be defeated. The “power of example” is the key to understanding the “Taliban 2.0’s” destabilization effects: emulation and replication are orders of the day.

In Pakistan, one fear is that “ Taliban victory might be a morale boost for Pakistan’s version of the Taliban, Tehrik e Taliban’ [TTP].” 59 In a message addressed to Afghan Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada and the people of Afghanistan, TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud, stated that the TTP would renew its allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. 60 In Israel, the Islamic Resistance Front amplifies the message that ousting a major power is possible with stamina and tenacity. Hassan Nasrallah, t he leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, has cast doubt on the reliability of the U.S. as a protective power in the Middle East by asking rhetorically: “In order not to have Americans fighting for other [nations], [President Joe] Biden was able to accept a historic failure. When it comes to Lebanon and those around it, what will be the case there?” 61 Similarly, Hamas highlights the importance of the Taliban’s victory after a continuous twenty-year struggle and resistance: “The Taliban are victorious today after being accused of backwardness and terrorism. They emerge today as a smarter and more realistic movement. They confronted America and its agents and refused to compromise with them. They were not deceived by bright headlines about ‘democracy’ and ‘elections.’ ” 62 Syria-based jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has congratulated the Taliban over its takeover of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. HTS is the dominant force in rebel-held territory in north-western Syria. 63

In the Sahel, lessons derived from the fall of Kabul are also being identified, not least the implications for conflict resolution. Foreign forces, not subject to local control, can withdraw. Will poor governance in the Sahel encourage the region’s al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates to intensify violence once foreign forces depart? Will the Mali Armed Forces (FAMa) be able to stop the threat of jihadist occupation if the forces are withdrawn? Can Islamist fundamentalists succeed in imposing their hegemonic agenda in West Africa through the creation of a full-fledged caliphate or through any other form of organised governance? The d eteriorating security situation in the Sahel generates calls for the departure of foreign forces whose presence appears ineffective. Mali’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tiebile Drame, notes that: “the outcome of the war in Afghanistan should make Mali and the Sahel reflect. Especially to those who, for years, have been making the same demands as the terrorist warlords.” 64 Does departure of foreign forces from Sahel create a vacuum which leads to state collapse and take over by radical forces? Sahel governments need to undertake contingency planning: “in order to avoid any unpleasant surprises from their partners, and in particular from France, whose presence is increasingly being disapproved by a large number of civil society organisations and by certain politicians.” 65 Jean-Herve Jezequel, the project director for the Sahel at the International Crisis Group in Dakar, Senegal, notes that: “The events in Afghanistan give these groups [Sahel militants] hope in taking over political power in these countries. The Taliban today succeeded in imposing their authority not only through arms, but also through dialogue. The question to ask ourselves is whether the Taliban example will incite the jihadist groups in the Sahel to also engage in their form of dialogue, not only with the states in the region but also with other international partners which are militarily present in the region.” 66

Strategic Withdrawal, Regional Stabilization and U.S. Foreign Policy Reset?

A third and last core assumption is time-related, suggesting that Afghanistan will only be stabilized if front-line regional powers - Iran, China, Russia, the five Central Asian states, India and especially Pakistan - engage positively and constructively with an Afghan government that has greatest internal legitimacy. 67 The necessary trigger for regional engagement is a fear of destabilization and civil war and the spillover of dysfunctionality (not least, jihadism, refuges, and drug trafficking) following the sudden return of the Taliban to power after Western withdrawal. That the withdrawal was chaotic only adds to a sense of urgency in the region. With the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO allies, Russia, China and Pakistan’s influence in the region which emerges as “as a post-Western or post-U.S. space ... It’s a region transforming itself without the United States.” 68 In the heart of this proposition is a paradox: the West has to fail for the regional powers to have the opportunity and incentive to succeed. A post-American regional future is one in which the West loses leverage in Afghanistan. This forces geographically proximate stakeholders to step in to vacuum and stabilize Afghanistan, while the threat of a destabilized Afghanistan may even help stabilize neighbors. 69

How have and do these regional actors engage the Taliban and why? Most actors have established c ontacts with the Taliban, but this does not mean official recognition of their legitimacy. Neighbours engagement with the Taliban is driven by two factors. First, national interest based on a pragmatic need to negotiate with the militant group to ensure stability in the region, while hedging by holding back from according it legitimacy or recognition to shape Taliban’s strategic and even domestic behavior. Second, antagonistic or friendly attitudes towards the Taliban reified through the prism of relations with the United States. Third, the realization that if external actors do not reach agreement then the resolution of this crisis will be made impossible, and the perceived benefits of instability will outweigh the necessary costs of stability – regional “blood and treasure.”

For Russia, Taliban support for both Chechen independence and the IMU before 9/11 was a cause for concern, as it highlighted the Taliban’s ability to enable the destabilization of Central Asia, a region perceived in terms of vulnerability and “soft underbelly” in Russian strategic psychology. Securing the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan is a key priority for Russia and all Central Asian states, as ongoing CSTO military exercises underscore. Russia’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, argues that, in effect, the “Taliban 2.0” movement is more capable of holding negotiations with Russia than the outgoing Kabul’s “puppet” government: “If we compare the credibility of colleagues and partners, the Taliban have long seemed to me a much more credible partner for negotiations than the puppet Kabul government.” Russia’s Afghan envoy highlighted Russia’s “long established ties, contacts with the Taliban movement” and argued that “The fact that we prepared the ground in advance for dialogue with the new government in Afghanistan is an asset of the Russian foreign policy, which we use fully in the long-term interests of the Russian Federation. 70 Indeed, Russia has actively ne gotiated with the Taliban in Moscow, most recently on July 8–9, 2021, when the Taliban representatives asked Russian authorities to remove the militant group from the UN Security Council’s sanctions list. On August 20 President Putin called on the international community to end to what he called further attempts to impose “alien values” on other states and given the Taliban had taken de facto control of Afghanistan, this “needs to be accepted as such, avoiding the destruction of the Afghan state.” 71 As in China, in Russia there is a suggestion in its strategic community that the U.S. only withdrew once its strategic goal – “manageable chaos” – could be implemented without their presence, to the determinant of Russian interests.

China ’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly met with Mullah Barader, the head of the Taliban political committee, in July 2021. As a result, the Taliban promises not to allow infiltration of extremism into Xinjiang, and in response China offers economic support and investment. China currently respects the “will and choice” of the Afghan people, has pled ge to support Afghanistan’s reconstruction under a Taliban-led regime, but has yet to officially recognised the Taliban as the country’s legitimate government. Chinese state media and analysts express uncertainty over the Taliban’s pledges to cut ties with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM used Afghanistan’s territory between 1996-2001 to conduct training, establish camps and instigate terrorist attacks and violence in Xinjiang and Chinese analysts note that the Taliban is obliged by its fundamentalist ideology to provide a safe haven for Islamist groups. At best Taliban may prevent ETIM from engaging in anti-Chinese operation from Afghan territory, but unlikely to hand over ETIM fighters to China. China also wants to safeguard its trade arteries in the region from disruptive and destabilizing threats and secure its strategic economic assets in Afghanistan, namely, the Belt and Road Initiative, the C hina-Pakistan Economic Corridor and its copper, oil and lithium concessions in Afghanistan itself . If Afghanistan stable, the world’s rare earth lithium market will be more than ever the monopoly of China. 72 China is c oncerned that the U.S. could indirectly sabotage China’s interests in the country by destabilising China’s investment projects in Afghanistan through “controllable unrest” to contain China. 73

Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmad Khan confirms that Islamabad was in contact with the Afghan Taliban: “Our special envoy was in contact with them in Qatar, and Mullah Baradar and other leaders of the Taliban held talks with us there. We had also spoken to the Afghan delegation, which Abdullah Abdullah was leading.” Khan said he was “in contact with both sides,” noting that Pakistan wished to see an inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan so ensuring sustainable peace in the region. 74 Although Pakistan states that it will only recognize the Taliban “according to international consensus,” remarks by Prime Minister Imran Khan to the effect that Afghan nationals have “broken the shackles of slavery” and that the Taliban are “not a military outfit” but rather “normal civilians” suggest Pakistan wants to legitimize a Taliban-led government in Afghanistan. Of all the neighbors, Pakistan is the closest ethnically (Pashtun), militarily and ideologically, and has the greatest influence. 75

The Taliban’s anti-Shiism is a concern for the Islamic Republic of Iran, which fears being drawn into a long war with the extremist Sunni “Islamic Emirate” and its extremist affiliates, which can directly attack the Shia Hazara minority in Afghanistan. I ran and the Taliban came close to war in 1998, after eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist were killed following the Taliban takeover of Mazar-e Sharif. More than 1.5 million Afghan immigrants live in Iran and Iran creates refugee camps along its Afghan border in anticipation of an influx of refugees. Iran is also concerned about the possibility of an increase in the narcotics trade across its 572 mile border. However, Iran does embrace the narrative of “anti-American Victory” and Afghanistan’s “Islamic Emirate” appellation is welcomed. Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi, in talks with Iran’s outgoing foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has said “the U.S. military defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan” should offer an opportunity for lasting peace in the country. Iran supports Ex-President Hamid Karzai’s proposed plan on forming a power transition council. 76 The hope in Tehran will be that Iranian-“Taliban 2.0” co-existence may be possible.

The prospects for Turkey are more promising as multiple opportunities exist to develop relations with Taliban regime and to position Turkey as mediator between Taliban and the West. However, Turkey’s relations are dependent on actions and policies of other regional actors, such as China, Russia, and Iran. Two domestic groups in Turkey have praised the Taliban’s take over, the Nationalist pro-China-Russia bloc, which hopes that the Taliban will work closely with China and Russia and Turkey joins this group; political Islamists and core AKP supporters, willing to use radical groups in Syrian conflicts and elsewhere. 77 Islamist Kurdish Free Cause Party (Huda-Par) has welcomed the departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Patriotic Party’s chairman Dogu Perincek likened the Taliban to the Turkish Republic’s secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who launched the Turkish War of Independence. The party’s secretary-general Ozgur Bursa claimed that the Taliban’s victory “against U.S. imperialism... would unite Afghanistan.” This party often voices pro-Beijing and pro-Russian views and describes itself as anti-imperialist. 78 President Erdogan’s narrative has stated “there is not much difference between him and Taliban understanding of Islam” 79 and he confirms that Turkey is “open to cooperation.” 80 Taliban’s spokeperson Suheyl Sahin stated that the Taliban will work with Turkey on several projects to reconstruct Afghanistan. 81 Turkey’s attitude to Afghan military and security forces who have defected, its use of proxies in Afghanistan as well as the extent to which it counters Afghan’s opium production will all be indicators of the nature of Turkey-Taliban 2.0 relations.

The Indian government evacuated its diplomatic staff and has yet to publicly discuss its plans for engaging a Taliban governed Afghanistan. India appears to be the only neighbor that has not engaged the Taliban, whose potential support for Kashmir-based Islamist and reported closeness with rival Pakistan and anti-India militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) is a cause for concern. 82 India has been an active stakeholder in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, having invested U.S. $3 billion in developmental assistance on over 400 projects in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan since 9/11. For the moment, “It remains unclear how India will reconcile its relationship with the Taliban and salvage existing projects, including the already delayed Chabahar port construction. With the collapse of the civilian government in Afghanistan, will India again offer support to opponents of the Taliban, as it did with the Northern Alliance?” 83

In addition, and critically for the United States, Western strategic failure on a peripheral interest allows regional strategic success and enables a U.S. (and Western) strategic reset of its foreign policy. While regional neighbors are incentivized to engage Afghanistan’s new regime following the sudden withdrawal of the West, two consequences follow. First, regional actors are compelled to expend their “blood and treasure” on Afghanistan to a common good, rather than elsewhere. Second, while immediate reputational damage is high, “ Joe Biden’s decision on Afghanistan -- which is similar to the decisions of Barack Obama and Donald Trump -- is predictable. In fact, for better or for worse, the United States made a decision based on its own interests.” 84 The withdrawal frees up the resources and attention of the political West to focus on long-term strategic challenges both domestic and foreign. On the domestic front, this includes: “ poor public health, decaying infrastructure, rising inequality and economic insecurity, and a climate disaster that demands the full-scale transformation of the energy, transportation, and construction sectors.” 85 In foreign affairs, the U.S. needs to rebalance diplomatic priorities and resources: “U.S. power thinly spread and limits Washington’s bandwidth for managing policy tradeoffs among regions.” 86 The U.S. can “make the long overdue pivot from focusing on the Middle East to shoring up deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and Europe by improving its ability to prevail in large-scale combat against a great power.” 87 Alongside advancing strategic competition with Russia and China in more favorable geographies and contexts, the DoD can also focus on counter-terrorism globally, and more attention can be given to COVID-19 and climate change. If such a reset is envisaged, it will be clearly reflected in the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and then the National Defense Strategy (NDS), expected 2021-2022.

Conclusions

In considering the Taliban takeover, a key lesson is not to be found in premature assertions of weakening of U.S. global role and overall decline, but rather in the limits of an external actor’s ability to change a country from the outside without the support of the local population. Kabul fell to a perfect storm of inter-enabling proximate and structural causes, with a heavy dose of psychological factors and unanticipated second and third order effects to the fore.

By any measure, an initial costs/benefits calculus suggests strategic failure. It is however as yet “unproven,” to use a term in Scottish law, whether the “Taliban 2.0” is a more moderate iteration of its first incarnation. The degree to which the Taliban is more moderate or extreme will heavily shape if not determinate likely Taliban strategic behavior. It is unclear whether a more ideologically extreme Taliban government determined to create an “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” is more able to impose its will on the Afghan people but less inclined to address and interact with the outside world. Alternatively, a more moderate Taliban may have less ability to impose its will in Afghanistan, and certain factions may seek to advance global jihad. Conditions for the Afghan people are less severe, but threats to the neighbors and the West are greater. What is certain is that Taliban strategic behavior going forward will influence debates over the nature of “strategic failure,” the costs/benefits calculus, the threat-based approach, and strategic withdrawal, regional stabilization and U.S. reset approach.

As noted below, IS-K is more extreme than the Taliban. Founded in 2015, it consists of marginalized former Taliban commanders and extremist militants from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. IS-K claims responsibility for the August 26 Kabul Airport suicide attacks which killed at least 90 people, including 13 U.S. military personnel. IS-K labels this attack as a “martyrdom operation” against U.S. “occupiers,” disloyal “collaborators” (Afghans who helped the West) and lackey “apostates” (Taliban), making the killing of Taliban lawful under their interpretation of Islamic law. The murder is designed to tarnish the Taliban’s reputation, and undercut their recent political and territorial gains by highlighting the fragility of Taliban control and authority. IS, which lost its Caliphate, is determined through its IS-K affiliate to ensure that the Taliban does not gain an Islamic Emirate.

As with the threats-based assessment, it is too early to tell if regional partners will more effectively help stabilize Afghanistan. What can be asserted with certainty is that China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian states are aware of the dangers of instability posed by the “contagion” that radical jihad ideology poses, as well as refugee spillovers and opium production and export. Each of the neighbors have direct stakes in an Afghanistan and shared spillover threats create an incentive and cooperative imperative for all. Russia fears the spread of unrest to the North Caucasus, as well as the demonstration power of a small but ideologically committed group seizing power in states with corrupt, ineffective and unpopular regimes. This has clear implications for Tajikistan and Russia’s 201 st division. Iran understands that the Sunni Taliban is anti-Shia, but that IS-K more so, and so the Taliban the lesser evil. As China claims that terrorism has a material (under-development and inequality) not ideological base, there is every reason to invest in Afghanistan and maintain “effective communication and consultations” with the Taliban, especially given its repression of Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang acts as a magnet for radicalization. For Pakistan, to what extent does the fundamentalist, sharia law–focused Taliban in Afghanistan embolden the Taliban in Pakistan to overthrow the civilian elite?

After Russia and China’s de facto recognition of the Taliban on August 20, de jure recognition is likely to follow, in the hope that this external legitimacy will consolidate Taliban efforts to establish law, order and stability. The creation on August 25 of a 12-member council to lead Afghanistan includes the Taliban’s deputy political chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Mohammad Yaqub, and senior member of the Haqqani Network, Khalil Rahman Haqqani. Russia’s ambassador to Kabul Dmitry Zhirnov stated that there is no alternative to the Taliban. The real text for regional actor cooperative efforts will be found after the final pull out from Kabul on August 31.

Will the U.S. reset its foreign policy around core national interest, and bring its friends and allies with it? Ultimately, how the potential U.S reset is structured will depend on how the U.S. strategic community, currently in flux with crisscrossing currents churning beneath the surface, view the Russia-China relationship, specifically: the “simultaneity” problem, that is potential actions by both that threaten U.S. vital interests; and the “distraction effect,” with its second mover advantage imperative incentivizing a second-front contingency. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan increases the Biden administrations bandwidth for managing policy tradeoffs, and in time, lessons identified may improve the functionality of its existing transatlantic and Asia-Pacific alliances. Will Washington look to “flip” Russia, the weaker member of the Russia-China axis, or undercut the weaker and accept delaying rivalry with the stronger (China) or attempt to coopt both? Afghanistan presents an interesting fourth option: to provide the incentive for both to cooperate for a common public good – the stabilization of Afghanistan. At the same time, engagement with a turbulent Afghanistan has the potential to exacerbate Russia’s latent fear of subordination, and expose the frictions and tensions inherent in the strategic behavior of transactional authoritarian actors, whatever the rhetoric from Russia lauding “strategic partnership” and China promising “ win–win” outcomes as part of a common human destiny.

For Academic Citation Graeme Herd, “The Causes and the Consequences of Strategic Failure in Afghanistan?” Marshall Center Security Insight , no. 68, August 2021, https://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/security-insights/causes-and-consequences-strategic-failure-afghanistan-0 .

1 Interview with Mohammad Haneef Atmar, Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs, by Nataliya Portyakova; date and place not given, “This is not a civil war.” Izvestiya , in Russian, August 3, 2021.

2 Angela Giuffrida, “ Expected Afghan Influx Reopens Divisions Over Refugees in Europe.” The Guardian , August 16, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/expected-afghan-influx-reopens-divisions-over-refugees-europe

3 Jonathan Landay, “Profits and poppies: Afghanistan’s illegal drug trade a boon for Taliban.” Reuters , August 16, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/profits-poppy-afghanistans-illegal-drug-trade-boon-taliban-2021-08-16/ ; “ Opium: Afghanistan’s drug trade that helped fuel the Taliban.” Al Jazeera , August 16, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/16/opium-afghanistans-illicit-drug-trade-that-helped-fuel-taliban ; Christopher Woody, “The U.S. totally failed to stop the drug trade in Afghanistan, but the Taliban found a better way to cash in.” Insider , August 17, 2021 . https://www.businessinsider.com/afghanistan-us-couldnt-stop-drugs-but-taliban-profits-more-elsewhere-2021-8

4 Ali Anozla, “From “Khomeni’s Revolution” to Taliban Victory.” Al-Araby al-Jadeed , in Arabic, August 18, 2021. https://www.alaraby.co.uk/opinion

5 Peter Jennings, “Lessons from Afghanistan.” August 17, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/lessons-from-afghanistan/ ; Fawaz A. Gerges, “Terror and the Taliban.” August 17, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/will-the-taliban-give-al-qaeda-sanctuary-in-afghanistan-by-fawaz-a-gerges-2021-08

6 Gerges, “Terror and the Taliban.”

7 Brahama Chellaney, “Pax Americana Died in Kabul.” August 17, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pax-americana-died-in-afghanistan-by-brahma-chellaney-2021-08

8 Mark Galeotti, “Moscow Watches Kabul’s Fall With Some Satisfaction, Much Concern.” Moscow Times , August 16, 2021. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/16/moscow-watches-kabuls-fall-with-some-satisfaction-much-concern-a74805

9 “ Statement by President Joe Biden on Afghanistan.” August 14, 2021. h ttps://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/14/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-afghanistan/

10 Michael Shoebridge, “Was the Afghanistan withdrawal reckless or ruthless?” August 17, 2021. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/was-the-afghanistan-withdrawal-reckless-or-ruthless/

11 Melissa Jardine, “The world must evacuate women police in Afghanistan.” August 21, 2021. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/afghanistan-after-america

12 France Hoang, “Don’t Fail America’s Allies.” WOTR , August 16, 2021 : https://warontherocks.com/2021/08/dont-fail-americas-allies/

13 “It is time to try Ghani.” Hasht-e Sobh , Kabul, in Dari, August 15, 2021.

14 Mohammed Ayoob, “Afghanistan comes full circle.” August 17, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/afghanistan-comes-full-circle/ With Images Without Images

15 Charles A. Kupchan, “Biden Was Right.” August 16, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/biden-was-right-by-charles-a-kupchan-2021-08

16 Anatol Lieven, “An Afghan tragedy: the Pashtuns, the Taliban and the state.”

17 Daron Acemoglu, “Why Nation-Building Failed in Afghanistan.” August 20, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/afghanistan-top-down-state-building-failed-again-by-daron-acemoglu-2021-08

18 Jeffrey D. Sachs, “Blood in the Sand.” August 17, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/afghanistan-latest-debacle-of-us-foreign-policy-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2021-08

19 Richard Haass, “America’s Withdrawal of Choice.” August 15, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/americas-withdrawal-of-choice-by-richard-haass-2021-08

20 Rodger Shanahan, “ Afghanistan: the right time to leave.” August 16, 2021: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/afghanistan-right-time-leave See also: “The Taliban’s takeover of Kabul does not only mean the movement’s military victory over the Afghan army and security forces, on which the US and its allies spent billions in training, but it also means that the US political project in Afghanistan has been defeated.” “Al Jazeera notes ‘failure of US political project’ in Afghanistan.” BBC Monitoring. Al Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic, August 16, 2021.

21 Richard Haass, “America’s Withdrawal of Choice.” August 15, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/americas-withdrawal-of-choice-by-richard-haass-2021-08 ; Elio Gaspari, “ Kabul , Saigon, Shaaban, Budapest.” Folha de Sao Paulo website ( www.folha.com.br ), Sao Paulo, in Portuguese, August 17, 2021.

22 Andrei Yashlavsky , “ Everything collapsed at lightning speed in Afghanistan: a lesson for Russia.” MK, August 16, 2021. https://www.mk.ru/politics/2021/08/16/v-afganistane-vse-rukhnulo-molnienosno-urok-dlya-rossii.html

23 I am grateful to Dr. Karen Finkenbinder for these observations.

24 “Afghanistan Takeover Sparks Concern From NATO Allies.” Deutsche Welle , August 16, 2021; Michael Rubin, “NATO Is Dead Man Walking After Afghanistan Debacle.” August 19, 2021. https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/08/nato-is-dead-man-walking-after-afghanistan-debacle/

25 Matthew Karnitsching, “ Disbelief and Betrayal: Europe Reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘Miscalculation.’” Politico , August 17, 2021.

26 Liz Sly, “Afghanistan’s collapse Leaves Allies Questioning U.S. Resolve on Other Fronts.” Washington Post . August 15, 2021.

27 Helen Warrell, Guy Chazan and Richard Milne, “ Nato allies urge rethink on alliance after Biden’s ‘unilateral’ Afghanistan exit.” Financial Times , August 17, 2021.

28 Mark Landler, “Biden Rattles U.K with his Afghan Policy,” New York Times , August 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/europe/britain-afghanistan-johnson-biden.html

29 Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev in an interview with Alexei Zabrodin, “Supporters of US choice in Ukraine to face similar situation.” Izvestiya, in Russian, August 19, 2021. https://iz.ru/1209165/aleksei-zabrodin/pokhozhaia-situatciia-ozhidaet-i-storonnikov-amerikanskogo-vybora-na-ukraine

30 Peter Jennings, “Lessons from Afghanistan.” August 17, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/lessons-from-afghanistan/

31 “Chinese media celebrate fall of US ‘hegemony’ in Afghanistan.” BBC Monitoring. Multi-source write-up from Chinese sources, in Chinese (written), August 17,2021.

32 Ibid.

33 Michael Shoebridge, “Was the Afghanistan withdrawal reckless or ruthless?” August 17, 2021. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/was-the-afghanistan-withdrawal-reckless-or-ruthless/

34 Peter Jennings, “Lessons from Afghanistan.” August 17, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/lessons-from-afghanistan/

35 Yuriy Romanenko, “A sombre lesson for Ukraine.” Glavred, August 15, 2021. https://opinions.glavred.info/mrachnyy-urok-dlya-ukrainy-pochemu-ssha-ne-paryatsya-iz-za-afganistana-10295511.html ; Nikolas K. Gvosdev, “Afghanistan Is a Wake-Up Call for ‘Major Non-NATO Allies,’ ” The National Interest , August 14, 2021: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/afghanistan-wake-call-%E2%80%98major-non-nato-allies%E2%80%99-191864

36 “US ‘chaotic exit’ from Afghanistan ‘sobering reminder to S Korea,” Yonhap news agency, in English, August 18, 2021 .

37 Lahav Harkov, “Netanyahu rejected Kerry’s Afghanistan-style solution for Palestinians.” The Jerusalem Post , August 18, 2021. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/netanyahu-rejected-kerrys-afghanistan-style-solution-for-palestinians-677046

38 Jamal Zakhalka, “Redoing calculations after the American escape,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, August 19, 2021.

39 “ Highlights from Pakistan’s Urdu-language press,” websites, August 16, 2021. BBC Monitoring, Roundup, August 16, 2021.

40 “Afghan Taliban urge ‘friendly relations’ with all countries,” BBC Monitoring - Ariana News website, Kabul, in English, August 19, 2021.

41 Yasser Abu Hilala, “The Attraction of the Taliban May be Useful,” Al-Arabi al-Jadid, in Arabic, August 19, 2021.

42 “Afghan Taliban military chief orders members to respect private property,” BBC Monitoring, Tolo News, Kabul, in Dari, August 17, 2021.

43 “ Fears of life under the Taliban,” Eslah , Kabul, in Dari, 10 August 2021.

44 Stefano Stefanini, “Trust Is Obligatory, Let’s Not Sell It Off Cheap.” La Stampa website, in Italian, August 18, 2021.

45 Anastasia Kapetas, “After the fall of Kabul, what’s next for Afghanistan?” August 15, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/after-the-fall-of-kabul-whats-next-for-afghanistan/

46 “Afghan TV reports Massouds call for anti-Taliban resistance.” BBC Monitoring. Afghan TV channels, in Dari and Pashto, August 19, 2021.

47 “ Europe Urges Unity on Taliban, is Quiet on Failed Mission.” VOA, August 16, 2021. https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/europe-urges-unity-taliban-quiet-failed-mission

48 “Afghan politicians form three-member ‘coordination council,” BBC Monitoring. Afghan Islamic Press news agency, Peshawar, in Pashto, August 15, 2021 .

49 I am grateful for Dr. Tova Norlen, GCMC Faculty, for this observation.

50 “Al-Arabiya TV highlights Afghan women’s fate as Taliban take power.” BBC Monitoring. Al Arabiya TV, Dubai, in Arabic, August 16, 2021.

51 Daniel Byman, “Will Afghanistan Become a Terrorist Safe Haven Again?” August 18, 2021. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-08-18/afghanistan-become-terrorist-safe-haven-again-taliban

52 Fawaz A. Gerges, “Terror and the Taliban.” August 17, 2021: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/will-the-taliban-give-al-qaeda-sanctuary-in-afghanistan-by-fawaz-a-gerges-2021-08

53 “Al-Qaeda in Yemen congratulates Taliban on ‘victory.’ ” BBC Monitoring - RocketChat messaging service, in Arabic, August 18, 2021.

54 “Afghanistan: West African media see cautionary tale for Sahel forces.” BBC Monitoring - African sources in French and English, August 18, 2021.

55 Anastasia Kapetas, “After the fall of Kabul, what’s next for Afghanistan?” August 15, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/after-the-fall-of-kabul-whats-next-for-afghanistan/

56 “Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Chuck Todd of Meet the Press on NBC.” Interview. Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State , Washington, D.C. August 15, 2021: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-chuck-todd-of-meet-the-press-on-nbc/

57 Kabir Taneja and Mohammed Sinan Siyech , “Terrorism in South Asia After the Fall of Afghanistan,” August 23, 2021: https://warontherocks.com/2021/08/terrorism-in-south-asia-after-the-fall-of-afghanistan/

58 For speculation regarding its impact on the Balkans, see: Mirjana Cekerevac, “Afghanistan Crisis To Affect Serbia and the Region,” Politika website, in Serbian, August 17, 2021; Danijjal Hadzovic, “Afghan Lesson for Bosnia and Hercegovina,” Dnevni avaz website, in Bosnian, August 18, 2021.

59 Anastasia Kapetas, “After the fall of Kabul, what’s next for Afghanistan?” August 15, 2021: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/after-the-fall-of-kabul-whats-next-for-afghanistan/

60 “This is the victory of the entire Islamic Ummah [Muslim community]. The future of the Islamic Ummah depends on it. The TTP renews its allegiance to the Islamic Emirate, and pledges not to hesitate in making any sacrifice for the stability and development of the Islamic Emirate in the future, and we consider it our Islamic and Sharia responsibility.” “Pakistani Taliban chief ‘renews’ allegiance to Afghan Taliban,” BBC Monitoring - Afghan Islamic Press news agency, Peshawar, in Pashto, August 17, 2021.

61 Aaron Boxerman and AFP, “Hezbollah chief: Israel should learn from Afghanistan that US is unreliable.” The Times of Israel , August 18, 2021. https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-head-israel-should-learn-from-afghanistan-that-us-is-unreliable/?fbclid=IwAR1V31LXei6Fy3SdAsE2vLH24MBP1rxIWdzqXYu8rLuOJEXiVnEd2u1gYa0 I am grateful to Tamir Sinai for drawing my attention to this point.

62 Aaron Boxermann, “Hamas praises Taliban for causing American ‘downfall’ in Afghanistan.” The Times of Israel , August 16, 2021. https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-praises-taliban-for-causing-american-downfall-in-afghanistan/

63 “Syria jihadist group HTS congratulates Taliban for ‘great victory,’ ” BBC Monitoring - Telegram messaging service, in Arabic, August 18, 2021.

64 “Afghanistan: West African media see cautionary tale for Sahel forces.” BBC Monitoring - African sources in French and English, August 18, 2021.

65 “Burkina Faso paper says Afghan crisis warning to Sahel,” Le Pays , Ouagadougou, in French, August 17, 2021.

66 Sahel: “Les groupes jihadistes n’ont pas les mêmes capacités ni trajectoires ici qu’en Afghanistan.” Radio France Internationale website, Paris, in French, August 19, 2021. https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/invit%C3%A9-afrique/20210819-sahel-les-groupes-jihadistes-n-ont-pas-les-m%C3%AAmes-capacit%C3%A9s-ni-trajectoires-ici-qu-en-afghanistan

67 Bill Emmott, “The Real Failure Is Pakistan.” August 18, 2021. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pakistan-is-real-cause-of-failure-in-afghanistan-by-bill-emmott-2021-08

68 Andrew E. Kramer and Anton Troianovski, “With Afghan Collapse, Moscow Takes Charge in Central Asia.” New York Times , August 19, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/world/asia/afghanistan-russia.html

69 “Difficulties linked with the pandemic, economic hardships, unemployment and other social problems could now be viewed through the prism of ‘instability’ in Afghanistan, a genocidal war. As a result, discomfort and stress in society may reach certain stability. This situation will also affect the upcoming presidential election as a strong psychological factor. That is, when there is a big trouble in a neighboring country, the degree of consolidation of Uzbek society around the government will increase.” BBC Monitoring - “Highlights from Central Asian press,” websites, August 16, 2021.

70 “ Russian envoy says Taliban easier to negotiate with than ‘puppet’ government,” BBC Monitoring, Russian sources in Russian, August 16, 2021.

71 “Putin urges West top stop imposing ‘alien values’ after Afghan exit,” BBC Monitoring, Rossiya 24 news channel, Moscow, in Russian, August 2021.

72 I am grateful to Dr. Pál Dunay, GCMC faculty, for this observation through e-mail exchange.

73 “Chinese media, experts assess risks to Beijing’s investments in Afghanistan,” BBC Monitoring - Multi-source write-up from Chinese sources in Chinese (written), August 19, 2021.

74 “ Pakistan says in contact with Afghan Taliban.” The News website, Islamabad, August 20, 2021. BBC Monitoring, August 20, 2021.

75 Yasser Abu Hilala, “The Attraction of the Taliban May be Useful,” Al-Arabi al-Jadid, in Arabic, August 19, 2021.

76 “ Iran president says US ‘defeat’ in Afghanistan opportunity for lasting peace.” BBC Monitoring. president.ir website, Tehran, in Persian, 16 August 2021.

77 E-mail exchange with Dr. Cüneyt Gürer, GCMC Faculty, August 18 and 20, 2021. My thanks to Dr. Gürer.

78 “Pro-Taliban voices in Turkey praise group’s ‘victory’ in Afghanistan,” BBC Monitoring - Turkish sources, August 19, 2021.

79 “Erdoğan says Taliban can comfortably negotiate with Turkey as ‘We have nothing against their beliefs.’ ” BIA News Desk , July 21, 2021. https://m.bianet.org/english/world/247494-erdogan-says-taliban-can-comfortably-negotiate-with-turkey-as-we-have-nothing-against-their-beliefs

80 “Turkey’s autocratic leader praises the Taliban’s ‘moderate statements’ and says he’s ‘open to cooperation.’ ” Insider , August 18, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-erdogan-says-hes-open-to-cooperation-with-taliban-2021-8

81 “Taliban Spokesperson Suheyl Şahin: We need Turkey more than anyone else.” (Original article in Turkish “Taliban Sözcüsü Suheyl Şahin: Herkesten çok Türkiye'ye ihtiyacımız var.” Sputnik Turkey. August 20, 2021. https://tr.sputniknews.com/20210820/taliban-sozcusu-suheyl-sahin-herkesten-cok-turkiyeye-ihtiyacimiz-var-1048181320.html

82 Sumaiya Ali and Sachin Gogoi, “ Analysis: Isolated India calibrates approach to deal with Afghan Taliban,” BBC Monitoring, Insight, August 20, 2021.

83 Stuti Bhatnagar, “Afghanistan’s collapse shifts strategic dynamics in South Asia.” August 18, 2021. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/afghanistan-s-collapse-shift-strategic-dynamics-south-asia

84 Gianpiero Massolo, “Italy, Europe, and Realpolitik.” La Stampa website, in Italian, August 18, 2021.

85 James K. Galbraith, “Afghanistan Was Always About American Politics.” August 20, 2021. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/afghan-war-was-about-us-politics-by-james-k-galbraith-2021-08

86 Wess Mitchell, “A Strategy for Avoiding Two-Front War.” WOTR , August 23, 2021. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/strategy-avoiding-two-front-war-192137?page=0%2C3 ; Korwin-Mikke, “A Two Foes Policy,” Rzeczpospolita , Warsaw, in Polish, August 19, 2021.

87 Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Becca Wasser, “From Forever Wars to Great-Power Wars: Lessons Learned From Operation Inherent Resolve.” WOTR , August 20, 2021. https://warontherocks.com/2021/08/from-forever-wars-to-great-power-wars-lessons-learned-from-operation-inherent-resolve/

About the Author

Dr. Graeme P. Herd is a Professor of Transnational Security Studies and chair of the Research and Policy Analysis Department at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (GCMC). From January 2021, Dr. Herd directs a new GCMC Russia Hybrid monthly Seminar Series which focuses on Russian risk calculus, red lines and crisis behavior and the implications of this for policy responses for the United States, Germany, friends and allies.

Before joining the GCMC, Graeme was appointed Professor of International Relations and founding Director of the School of Government, and Associate Dean, Faculty of Business, University of Plymouth, UK (2013-14). He established the ‘Centre for Seapower and Strategy’ at the Britannia Royal Naval Academy, Dartmouth. He has an MA in History-Classical Studies from the University of Aberdeen (1989), and a PhD in Russian history, University of Aberdeen (1995).

Graeme has published ten books, written over 70 academic papers and delivered over 100 academic and policy-related presentations in 46 countries. He is currently writing a manuscript that examines the relationship between Russia’s strategic culture and President Putin’s operational code on decision-making in Russia today.

The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, a German-American partnership, is committed to creating and enhancing worldwide networks to address global and regional security challenges. The Marshall Center offers fifteen resident programs designed to promote peaceful, whole of government approaches to address today’s most pressing security challenges. Since its creation in 1992, the Marshall Center’s alumni network has grown to include over 14,400 professionals from 157 countries. More information on the Marshall Center can be found online at www.marshallcenter.org .

The articles in the Security Insights series reflect the views of the authors and are not necessarily the official policy of the United States, Germany, or any other governments.

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War in Afghanistan

Living reference work entry
First Online: 27 September 2023
Cite this living reference work entry

Mariam Shah 3 &
Scott N. Romaniuk 4

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Introduction

The conflict in Afghanistan stands out as one of the USA’s lengthiest and most complex wars, sparking a substantial discourse surrounding counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and the principles of just war. Furthermore, a diverse range of scholarly literature was generated, alongside extensive journalistic investigations into the causes and failures of the war. The initial conjectures regarding the exclusive reliance on military means and the absence of a clear understanding of the adversary and primary objectives engendered a state of perplexity and exerted a detrimental impact on the overarching strategy of the war. The study of the post-September 11 (9/11) scenario and the US invasion of Afghanistan holds great importance to comprehend the failures and prerequisites for drawing valuable insights for future deliberations on international interventions. Furthermore, the transformation of a purportedly just war into an unjust war within a short span of months, the manner...

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Mariam Shah

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Shah, M., Romaniuk, S.N. (2023). War in Afghanistan. In: Romaniuk, S., Marton, P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_674-1

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Terrorism as a global wave phenomenon: an overview.

David C. Rapoport David C. Rapoport Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.299
Published online: 26 September 2017

Global terror began in the 1880s, but it took a century before a few scholars began to understand its peculiar dynamic. One reason for the difficulty was that many scholars and government officials had “historical amnesia.” When they saw it disappear, they assumed it had become part of history and no longer had contemporary relevance. But global terror disappears and then reappears. Another reason they failed to understand the pattern is that the concept of generation was rarely used to describe politics, a concept that requires one to recognize the importance of life cycles. Modern global terror comes in the form of waves precipitated by major political events that have important global significance. A wave consists of a variety of groups with similar tactics and purposes that alter the domestic and international scenes. Four very different waves have materialized: the Anarchist, the Anti-Colonial, the New Left, and the Religious. The first three have been completed and lasted around 40 years; the fourth is now in its third decade, and if it follows the rhythm of its predecessors, it should be over in the mid-2020s, but a fifth wave may emerge thereafter.

historical amnesia
empirical international relations theory
Paris commune
global organizations
over-reactions
First Wave Anarchist
Second Wave Anticolonial
Third Wave New Left
Fourth Wave Religious

Introduction

Terrorism is violence for political purposes that goes beyond the legal rules established to regulate violence. Consequently, governments have difficulty treating captured terrorists as prisoners of war or criminals, a problem that affects different governments in various ways. 1 Terrorism confined to particular states has been an intermittent feature of history for a very long time. At times, terror took an international dimension that included only two states. Irish immigrants in the United States, for example, created the Fenians who, after the American Civil War, struck Canadian targets hoping to create a war between the United States and the United Kingdom, which would enable efforts in Ireland to create an independent state. When that failed, the American Fenians bombed targets in England with the same purpose and futile end (Steward & McGowan, 2013 ). Only Irish groups participated. The global international form of terrorism developed later. It involves efforts to change the entire world or transform regions involving more than two states. These activities generate cooperation between foreign terrorists and populations in a variety of states.

Although global terror began in the 1880s, a century elapsed before a few scholars began to understand its peculiar dynamic. One reason for the difficulty was that many scholars and government officials had “historical amnesia.” When they saw terrorism begin to disappear, they assumed it had become part of history and no longer had contemporary relevance. But global terror disappears and then reappears. Another reason they failed to understand the pattern is that the concept of generation was rarely used to describe politics, a concept that requires one to recognize the importance of life cycles. Global terror comes in the form of waves that are precipitated by major political events that have important global significance. A wave consists of a variety of groups with similar tactics and purposes that alter the domestic and international scenes. Four very different waves have materialized: the Anarchist, Anti colonial, New Left, and Religious. The first three have been completed and lasted around 40 years; the fourth is now in its third decade. If it follows the rhythm of its predecessors it should be over in the mid-2020s, and a fifth wave may emerge thereafter.

Historical Amnesia

It took considerable time to understand that global terrorism appeared first in the 1880s and has remained since (Rapoport & Alexander, 1989 ). One reason for the problem was that global terrorism has a special rhythm that makes it seem to disappear often. Note how the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences treated the subject. In the first edition ( 1930 ), J.B.S. Hardman’s interesting terrorism article argued that “revolutionary terrorism” began in the 1880s and reached its high point two decades later. No group ever attained success, and terrorism would soon disappear completely because modern technology made the world so complex that only classes and masses mattered! The second edition ( 1966 ) had no terrorism article. Did the Hardman article persuade the new editors one was not needed even though some successful campaigns materialized after World War II in overseas European empires, or did the editors believe that because those empires had disappeared, terrorism did, too?

Other differences between the two editions suggest that another matter may have shaped the decision. The first edition contained interesting pieces on violence, assassination, and praetorianism that were eliminated in the second edition. 2 The election and succession articles in the first edition emphasized that the processes often produced violence. But the second edition’s election article ignores the fact elections sometimes breed violence (Rapoport & Weinberg, 2001 ). There was no article on succession, perhaps because one could not be written without emphasizing that in some systems violence frequently determines who the successor will be. Why did the “best social scientists” in successive generations understand violence so differently?

For the long span from about 1938 to the mid-1960s . . . the internal life of the country was unusually free of violent episodes. The 1930s generation found it easy to forget how violent “their forebears had been and so it is not simply that historians have found a way of shrugging off the unhappy memories of our past; our amnesia is also a response to the experience of a whole generation.” (Hofstadter, 1970 , pp. 3–4)

The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence established after the 1968 assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy also emphasized the idea that the United States suffered from “historical amnesia.”

Ironically, while the first edition of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences stated that terrorism had disappeared, when the second edition was published, terrorist activity had become an important element in the Cold War, dominating the international scene, an upsurge that ended in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s dramatic, unexpected collapse. Historical amnesia then reappeared; this time it was reflected in the U.S. government’s belief that global terrorism no longer existed. The government never seemed to understand that it had been very significant decades before the Soviet Union was even established. Just as Hardman ignored the fact that a new kind of terrorism emerged after World War I, the U.S. government seemed oblivious to the conspicuous fact that various religions in the 1980s produced terrorist groups without Soviet aid that were still functioning. Believing that “terrorism was over, the State Department abolished my office,” wrote Scott Stewart, a Security Service Special Agent (Stewart, 2012 , p. 2). Government subsidies for the Rand Corporation’s useful terrorism research program evaporated and the program disappeared. In 1999 , the Crowe Commission Report Confronting Terrorist Threats examined attacks on U.S. embassies and blamed the government for greatly reducing its intelligence resources. Then the disastrous attacks of September 11, 2011 , occurred. Ironically, the 9/11 Commission Report found that the same indifference made 9/11 easier to perpetrate.

Terrorism studies generally ignore history, an odd fact when we remember how much history obsessed Clausewitz, who founded the “science” of war:

Examples from history make everything clear, and furnish the best description of proof in the empirical sciences. This applies with more force to the Art of War than to any other. If we wish to learn from history we must realize that what happened once can happen again.” (Clausewitz, 1991 , p. 231) 3

Clausewitz’s view of the pertinence of military history still resonates because states retain their armies even though there may be long periods between wars. But many still regard terrorism differently.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush’s “Address to the Joint Session of Congress and the American People” declared that terrorism would be eliminated. “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government which supports them. Our war . . . will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated” (Bush, 2001 , p. 68).

Although 9/11 was unique, President Bush’s declaration had a largely forgotten predecessor a century before. On September 6, 1901 , after an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, called for all states to participate in a “crusade” to exterminate anarchist terrorism everywhere, and Congress passed the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1903 to reduce immigrant numbers who came from countries where many Anarchists lived (Jensen, 2001 ). But four years later, the United States withdrew from the first and only other global counterterrorist campaign.

Generations

Our historical amnesia is partly due to the inadequacy of our analytical tools. Using the concept of generation as a key analytic concept compels one to recognize that as a generation gets older, its energy dissipates. Generation is very different from the more commonly used concepts like class, interest, ethnic identity, etc. Energies inspiring those entities may dissipate in time, too, but that process is not associated with specified short periods. Because very few analysts use the idea of generation to explain important social scenes, it is not surprising that when the activity they are describing dissipates, they believe it has disappeared. 4

The striking differences between generations in the 1960s finally stimulated some academics to use generation to explain change (Rapoport, 1970 ). 5 In 1986 , Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published the first systematic detailed study of generations in his illuminating The Cycles of American History . He used Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument that in democracies “each generation is a new people” to analyze American politics from the 18th century to the present day as a process of successive 40-year cycles. The initial generation was consumed with “political activism and social egalitarianism,” which was then followed by a 40-year period of “quiet conservatism and personal acquisition.” 6

Each new phase flows out of the conditions and contradictions of the phase before and then itself prepares the way for the next recurrence. A true cycle . . . is self-generating. It cannot be determined short of catastrophe by external events. Wars, depressions, inflations may heighten or complicate moods, but the cycle itself rolls on, self-contained, self-sufficient and autonomous. (Schlesinger, 1986 , p. 27) 7

Wave Concept

While linking generations to cycles is useful for studying democratic politics, global terrorism must be viewed differently. Profound, dramatic, unexpected international political events stimulated global terror, inspiring new generations with hope that the world could be transformed. But one cannot assume precipitating events of the same magnitude will always recur and at the same time. While a period lasted roughly 40 years, the rhythm or development process of each period, was different. Wave, rather than cycle, clearly is the appropriate term to describe those periods.

A wave consists of organizations with similar tactics and objectives. Organizations normally do not survive as long as the wave that gave them birth does, though a few organizations are likely to be active when their wave disappears. In those special cases, the organization sometimes incorporates features of the new wave. Surprise attacks are essential because small groups must find ways to publicize their actions to get attention and generate recruits. Surprise attacks sometimes produce overreaction, which terrorists know they can profit from. Each wave has experienced some dramatic overreactions with enormous international consequences. In the First Wave, World War I was precipitated when the Austrian-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated and their government claimed without evidence that Serbia was involved. The anxiety produced by 9/11 made the U.S. government think that Al-Qaeda would use weapons of mass destruction if they could get them, and the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to prevent that from happening. But no evidence was available that Iraq had those weapons, and the invasion intensified Islamic hostility to the United States and also alienated many U.S. allies. Several other important overreactions in global terror history are discussed below.

The need to secure information to prevent surprise leads governments to employ unusual interrogation techniques that are not used to deal with criminals. Thus, in the First Wave, torture, which had disappeared in Europe, became common everywhere and it has remained a feature of every subsequent wave. Government agents frequently infiltrate groups, a process that induces those agents sometimes to provoke terrorist actions that may not occur otherwise. Another problem in dealing with terrorists comes from the fact that there are no accepted rules for dealing with them. On the one hand, governments generally claim they should be treated as criminals, but rules that designate appropriate responses to criminal deeds are never found to be fully appropriate. Terrorists, on the other hand, usually claim they should be treated as enemy soldiers, but they do not follow the accepted rules of war.

Each wave is driven by a distinctive purpose. The First or Anarchist Wave was committed to equality. Nationalism or the self-determination principle inspired the Second or Anticolonial Wave after World War I; then in the 1960s, more radical aspirations become conspicuous again in the Third or New Left Wave. In 1979 , religion replaced secular principles of legitimacy, and the Fourth or Religious Wave began, which should dissipate in the 21st-century ’s third decade. If history repeats itself, a Fifth Wave will appear with a new purpose, one unlikely to be known ahead of time. In each wave, groups often emerge dedicated to single issue like the Earth Liberation Front, or to support the government, like the Ulster Volunteer Force. Because those groups do not aim to transform the domestic and/or international systems, they are not examined here as part of the wave.

Important unanticipated political events were crucial in generating each wave. The Paris Commune catastrophe ( 1871 ) inspired the belief that a new method of insurrection was necessary and helped ignite the First Wave. The Anticolonial Wave was linked to the Versailles Treaty after World War I, which demonstrated how much the international world had become committed to the principle of self-determination. In Europe, the empires of the defeated powers like Austro-Hungary were divided into sovereign nation states. The overseas empires of defeated states largely became League of Nations mandates administered by one of the victorious states until the mandate’s population was deemed able to govern itself. But terrorist uprisings occurred in those territories against the mandate governments and uprisings also occurred in the victors’ overseas empires. The New Left Wave was fueled by Castro’s revolution in Cuba and the U.S. disaster in Vietnam. The Religious Wave was the outcome of four events in 1979 . The Iranian Revolution was the first and most important; it transformed a secular state into a religious one, a state that promoted religious terror. Other events demonstrated the weakness of secular elements in pushing popular international political agendas within the Middle East, such as the Soviet Union's military efforts in Afghanistan to protect a Marxist government.

While waves survive for similar periods, the rhythms of each may be very different. It took some time for the Paris Commune to have its effect. While the end of World War I produced several uprisings quickly, only one was successful. A second major political event, the Atlantic Charter in 1941 , defined the intentions of the Allies toward all imperial territories, making it much easier to generate successful terrorist campaigns after World War II. Indeed, the end of the Second Wave occurred when the energy of governments to resist, not the energy of terrorists to keep fighting, dissipated. The principal event producing Third Wave was the Vietnam War but it lasted 9 years, and not until its fourth year, in 1968 , did the wave get going. The Fourth Wave emerged immediately in 1979 .

Some tactics are used in every wave, but each wave introduces and emphasizes different ones. The First Wave was committed to assassination; the Second Wave aimed to eliminate the police; the Third Wave was consumed with hostage taking; and the Fourth Wave introduced self-martyrdom or suicide bombing. Although the geographic center of each wave is different, Western states have always been a principal target, and they were a major source for terror in the First and Third waves.

A wave contains many individual groups, but the number varies in each wave. Each wave has groups with different purposes. In the First Wave, the populists claimed to represent the masses alienated from a government controlled by an out-of-touch closed elite; the populists had socialist aspirations. Anarchists were the second group aiming to eliminate the state and all forms of inequality. The Anarchist Wave is so named because anarchists seemed to be active everywhere and to produce the most provocative acts, which led the public influenced by the media to make the terms terrorist and Anarchist interchangeable (Jaszi, 1930 ). The third type were the Nationalists, who aimed to create separate states. Nationalists remained present in every wave, though their tactics and rationale varied depending on the wave they were associated with. All Second Wave groups were nationalist, but they had either right-wing or left-wing programs for the states they intended to establish.

The Third or New Left Wave produced two major forms: revolutionaries and separatists. There were two kinds of revolutionaries, the transnational and the national. The transnationals were very small groups that emerged in the developed world of Western Europe and North America and saw themselves as Third World agents. Their internationalism was reflected in their targets and in their commitment to cooperate with foreign groups. But they were the wave’s least durable groups. The priorities of both the national revolutionaries and the separatists were to remake their own states immediately. National revolutionaries sought a state based on radical equality, while the separatists wanted to create a new state from an ethnic base that often transcended state boundaries and thus could create serious tensions with neighboring states. Separatists were present everywhere except Latin America, where all groups were national revolutionaries, a unique quality that is discussed in the analysis of the Third Wave.

Secular causes inspired the first three waves, but religious ingredients were sometimes important because they were connected with ethnic and national identities, as the Irish, Armenian, Macedonian, Cypriot, Quebec, Israeli, and Palestinian examples illustrate (Tololyan, 1992 ). But these earlier groups did not seek to eliminate secular influences by recreating religious regimes within their original boundaries, a process that would uproot the existing international system, an aim that would be a crucial feature for the Fourth Wave.

Fourth or Religious Wave groups are classified by the respective religions that inspired them. Islam initiated the wave. Iran was a secular state that became a religious one; it committed the first terrorist act and was deeply involved throughout the wave in supporting global terrorist activity, a pattern not seen before. Iran originally aimed to bring the Shia and Sunni, the two principal Islamic sects, together, but instead it produced a variety of serious deadly conflicts between those sects that had not been experienced for centuries. One of the conflicts was the Iran–Iraq War ( 1980–1988 ), the 20th century ’s longest conventional war. 8 The wave’s most important durable groups were Islamic, and they devised the wave’s distinctive tactic, self-martyrdom (i.e., “suicide bombing”), which made the wave the most indiscriminate and destructive one. The 9/11 attacks were the deadliest and most spectacular suicide bombing events in history, killing 2,996 people and injuring more than 6,000 others, thus producing more casualties than the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II.

A few Islamic groups like Hamas aim to create a national religious state. But many want to transform the international world by eliminating the system of independent states where each has sovereignty over its territory and equal standing in international law, an arrangement the Treaty of Westphalia created in 1648 . Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) aim to establish a caliphate that all Muslims, no matter where they live in the world, are obliged to obey. The Islamic diaspora intensified the wave’s global character; immigrants occasionally made attacks in their new homes and some went back to join groups in Islamic territories. The First Wave also produced a similar pattern, though the two waves seem very different otherwise.

Other Fourth Wave religions have produced groups with more limited territorial aspirations and therefore pose no threat to the international system as a whole. Sikhs aimed to secede from India and re-establish the religious state of Khalistan (Land of the Pure), which the British made part of India in 1849 . The Tamils of Sri Lanka also aimed to secede. Although it was not a religious group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used the tactic of suicide bombing to fight against Buddhist efforts to make Sri Lanka a religious state. Sikh and Tamil diasporas in the West were significant supporters and provided much of the finances needed. Religious Jews in Israel want to transform the country into a religious state that would regain all its ancient Biblical territories. Some Christian groups in the United States fought to make it a religious state. Jews and Christians produced far fewer casualties than other groups in the wave, but the apocalypse is a theme in Jewish and Christian groups and could under certain circumstances produce catastrophic experiences.

The number of groups varies in each wave, and that number dissipates when no new ones emerge to replace those destroyed. Waves overlap each other in time and space. A few Second Wave groups in Africa were still alive in the 1970s, and some Third Wave groups aided them in their struggles for independence. The Fourth Wave emerged in the middle of the Third Wave. That induced some Third and Fourth Wave groups to fight each other bitterly, especially in the Middle East, something that never happened before.

Creation of the Global Political and Technological Contexts

The wave phenomenon cannot be understood fully without seeing it as a byproduct of the French Revolution. The first three waves embraced some key aspirations of the Revolution, while the Fourth explicitly rejected the Revolution’s ideals altogether, especially its hostility to religion.

After Napoleon was crushed, the relationship between domestic and international politics in Europe became transformed. Many insurrections occurred, inspired by desires to achieve the French Revolution’s unfulfilled promises, particularly with respect to new state boundaries, republicanism, secularism, and egalitarianism. In 1820 , 1830 , 1848 , and 1871 , uprisings in one European state generated comparable ones elsewhere. Europeans crossed borders easily (as no passports were needed) and became deeply involved in revolts elsewhere. The French Revolution abolished the practice of extraditing individuals for political reasons, and most European states continued this practice afterwards, intensifying the uprisings’ international character (Bassiouni, 1974 ). A new type of person emerged, described by de Tocqueville as the “professional revolutionary” (Richter, 1967 ), an intellectual devoting all his time to revolutions, moving from one country to another to foster them (e.g., Filippo Buonarroti, Mikhail Bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Peter Kropotkin). 9

Uprisings created Belgium, and helped produce Italy and Germany, but there were so many failures that many after 1848 sought a more radical revolutionary model. In 1864 , the First Internationale, claiming 8 million members, emerged to unite socialist, communist, and anarchist groups with trade unions for the impending class struggle. When France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War ( 1871 ), radicals established the Paris Commune, abolishing private property. The French response was devastating. Some 20,000 communards and sympathizers were killed, more than the Franco-Prussian War casualty numbers, and more than 7,500 were either jailed or deported to distant places overseas. Thousands fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Radicals became convinced that the support of standing armies for their governments made mass uprisings unrealistic. A new method was necessary—small groups employing terror.

Important technological changes contributed to terrorism’s global character. In the First Wave, the telegraph enabled one to transmit information immediately across the world, enabling daily mass newspapers to describe incidents and plans quickly to very large numbers of people. The railroad and the steamship made international travel easy, quick, and inexpensive. Each successive wave was associated with communication and transportation innovations that intensified its global dimension, making it possible to bring global elements even closer together. The telephone and the radio were important in the Second Wave, television and airplanes were crucial in the Third, and the Internet shapes the Fourth.

In 1867 , Alfred Nobel patented dynamite for mining purposes. But soon it was used to make a new type of bomb, much easier to construct, conceal, and move than previous bombs; it could be detonated by a timer, enabling attackers to escape before the explosion. The bomb became the major weapon for terrorists, a major reason Nobel gave his fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes, especially the one devoted to peace! 10 The bomb is still the terrorist’s principal weapon, and it is likely to remain so, though many analysts have argued that terrorists will soon use weapons of mass destruction.

Before the 1880s, terrorism was confined to group activities in a particular territory, activity that had no specific impact elsewhere, lasted for different time periods, and therefore had no relationship to the concept of generations. The Zealots and Siccari who led the Jewish uprising against Rome in the 1st century were active for 25 years (Rapoport, 1984 ), the Assassins of the late 11th century survived for three centuries in the Muslim world, the Sons of Liberty who helped stimulate the American Revolution were active for a decade, and the Ku Klux Klan fought a successful 5-year campaign uprooting Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (Rapoport, 2008 ). But global terror groups interact with each other, states, foreign social entities, and international organizations, and in a generation, the wave appears in most or all inhabited continents and then dissipates.

The First Wave began in Russia and quickly spread throughout Europe. Within a decade, it appeared in North and South America, and in the 20th century , in Asia, Australia, and Africa. Foreign personalities sometimes founded domestic groups (e.g., the Russian Mikhail Bakunin in Spain). Immigrants and diaspora communities became critical elements. Some states gave terrorists aid and sanctuaries. Events in one state often had significant impact elsewhere. Prominent nationalist struggles created serious potential threats to international peace. Armenians and Macedonian militants aimed to provoke major European states to invade the Ottoman Empire. Those European states knew intervention could produce a great war, putting major European powers on different sides, and avoided the situation several times. But somehow that lesson was forgotten in 1914 when the Ottoman Empire was not involved.

A century passed before a scholar recognized that one could not understand global terrorism without putting it in the context of international waves. In 1986 , Zeev Ivianski wrote

The terrorist wave is the work of a generation . . . as a result of some profound historical shock. . . . The generation of the terror destroys itself, has no direct continuation, yet the tradition renews itself in later waves of violence, (Ivianski, 1986 ) 11

The four global waves are discussed in detail in additional articles: the Anarchist, Anti-Colonial, New Left and Religious.

Anderson, B. (2005). Under three flags: Anarchism and the anti-colonial imagination . New York: Verso.
Bassiouni, M. (1974). International extradition law and world public order . Amsterdam: Luitingh-Sijthoff.
Bush, George W. (2001). Available at https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord
Clausewitz, C. (1991) On war . In A. Rapoport (Ed.), Clausewitz on war . Dorchester, U.K.:Dorset Press.
Eppright, C. (1997). Counterterrorism and conventional military force: The relationship between political effect and utility. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , 20 (4), 333–344.
Hofstadter, R. (1970). Reflections on violence in the United States. In R. Hofstadter & M. Wallace (Eds.), American violence: A documentary history . New York: Alfred E. Knopf.
Ivianski, I. (1986). Lechi’s share in the struggle for Israel’s liberation. In E. Tavin & Y. Alexander (Eds.), Terrorists or freedom fighters . Fairfax, VA: Hero Books.
Jaszi, O. (1930). Anarchism. Encyclopaedia of the social sciences . New York: Macmillan.
Jensen, R. (1981). The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the origins of Interpol. Journal of Contemporary History , 6 (2), 323–347.
Jensen, R. B. (2001). The United States, international policing, and the war against anarchist terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence , 13 (1), 15–46.
Passell, P. (1996, September 5). Economic scene. New York Times .
Pennock, R. (1967). Revolution . New York: Atherton.
Rapoport, D. C. (1970). Generations in America. In B. Crick & W. Robinson (Eds.), Protest and discontent . London: Penguin.
Rapoport, D. C. (1982). The moral issue: Some aspects of individual terror. In D. C. Rapoport & Y. Alexander (Eds.), The morality of terrorism: Religious and secular justifications . Oxford: Pergamon.
Rapoport, D. C. (1984). Fear and trembling: Terrorism in three religious traditions. American Political Science Review , 78 (3), 658–677.
Rapoport, D. C. (2008). Before the bombs there were the mobs: American experiences with terror. Terrorism and Political Violence , 20 (2), 167–194.
Rapoport, D. C. , & Alexander, Y. (1989). The orality of terrorism (2d ed., revised). New York: Columbia University Press.
Rapoport, D. C. , & Weinberg, L. (2001). Elections and violence. In D. C. Rapoport & L. Weinberg (Eds.), The democratic experience and violence . Portland, OR: Frank Cass.
Richter, M. (1967). Tocqueville’s contribution to the theory of revolution. In C. J. Friedrich & R. Pennock (Eds.), Revolution . New York: Atherton Press.
Schlesinger, R., Jr. (1986). The cycles of American history . New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Steward, P. , & McGowan, B. (2013). The Fenians: Irish rebellion in the North Atlantic World, 1858–1876 . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Stewart, S. (2012). The myth of the end of terrorism. Stratford Security Weekly , February 23.
Tololyan, K. (1992). Terrorism in modern Armenian culture. Terrorism and Political Violence , 4 (2).
Strauss, W. , & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069 . New York: Morrow.
Strauss, W. , & Howe, N. (1997). The fourth turning . New York: Three Rivers Press.

1. In the French Revolution, the government created the Reign of Terror, in which the rules governing criminal acts were ignored; individuals were punished not for their acts but because their character was deemed inappropriate for the new world being created. Our subject in this essay is rebel terror. State terror is discussed briefly in the essay on the First or Anarchist Wave.

2. The absence of assassination is odd. Three years before the 2nd edition was published, President Kennedy became the fourth American president assassinated. Six other presidents were attacked before Kennedy’s tragedy. No major state had as many heads of states and/or prime ministers killed in that 100 year period. Many more efforts were made after the 2nd edition was published; eight presidents were targeted, and Ronald Reagan was wounded.

3. For an interesting discussion of the relevance of Clausewitz for terrorist studies, see Eppright ( 1997 ).

4. The importance of generation has an unusual and often forgotten history. Plato discussed the transformation of governments from one political form to another as a generational process. But his successors thought social status, class, and ethnicity were much more useful to explain change. The concept of generation as essential for understanding political change was revived in the 19th century when democracy became a significant feature of political life. Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic study of American politics stated major changes occurred only when a new generation emerg1ed. “Among democratic nations each generation is a new people” that provokes a “struggle between public and private concerns.” Two other prominent figures in Tocqueville’s generation made similar points. Auguste Comte emphasized that generations had an important role in determining “the velocity of human evolution,” and John Stuart Mill refined Comte’s concept, arguing that in each successive age the “principal phenomena” of society are different only when a “new set” of individuals reaches maturity and takes possession of society. Important early 20th-century scholars also became committed to the notion. Karl Mannheim published his “The Problem of Generations” in 1927 and his contemporary Ortega y Gasset contended that generation is “the pivot responsible for the movements of historical evolution”.

5. In popular U.S. discourse, references to generations appeared before the 1960s and were linked to political events. “Baby Boomers” were born after World War II and became wealthy and “optimistic and produced a striking increase in birth rates. The “Lost Generation” fought in World War I and the “Greatest Generation” fought in World War II!

6. Schlesinger developed the concept of generation in Chapter 2. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that generation usually means 30 years, but sometimes it can mean 40 years.

7. Generation as a tool for analyzing American political history was also employed in two books by Strauss and Howe ( 1991 and 1997 ). They use the term cycle , too.

8. Iran did not start the war, but Iraq was fearful that it would make great inroads in Iraq’s Shia population and decided to attack when Iran had hardly completed its own revolution.

9. Bakunin and Kropotkin were Russian anarchists, Buonarroti was an Italian utopian socialist, and Proudhon a French anarchist.

10. In 1888, Alfred’s Nobel’s brother Ludvig died while visiting France and a French newspaper erroneously thought Alfred had died and published Alfred’s obituary! “The merchant of death is dead . . . who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” Furious with this description, Alfred became very concerned with how he would be remembered. He had no wife or children, and gave his fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes. See Lallanilla, M. , The Dark Side of the Nobel Prizes (2013). Four persons described as terrorists received the Nobel Peace Prize when they made significant efforts to create peaceful solutions: Menachem Begin (1978), Anwar Sadat (1978), Nelson Mandela (1993), and Yasser Arafat (1994). Ironically, four American presidents also got the prize: Theodore Roosevelt (1905), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002), and Barak Obama (2009).

11. In this article, Ivianski discussed only the First Wave, but in a later piece, he discussed the Second Wave, in which he participated.

Waves of Political Terrorism
Military Defection and the Arab Spring
Women and Terrorism
Civil War and Terrorism: A Call for Further Theory Building
Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Anarchist Wave
Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Anticolonial Wave
Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: New Left Wave
Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: Religious Wave
Suicide Terrorism Theories

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The humanitarian and human security crises in Afghanistan

Nilofar Sakhi

Photo by MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/via Getty Images

The concept of human security encompasses people-centric policies to protect individuals from insecurity that could pose threats to their survival and dignity. Traditional security systems support that protection and state institutions are responsible for enabling conditions for growth and development in a society. Building human agency and capital requires institutions to develop and implement people-centric policies, which are supported by governments that promote diversity, inclusion, and freedom. These characteristics are not just ideals, they are what inspire people to contribute to building socio-economic conditions that protect human security.

The nature of human insecurities in Afghanistan requires this contextual definition of human security to be clearly articulated. Generalizing the concept may prevent us from providing approaches to implementing human security based on the realities of that particular context. According to the data I have collected from across Afghanistan in 2018, human security in the country is defined as protection of life and property, absence of fear and threat, economic opportunities, and freedom and dignity. [1]

This article discusses the emerging characteristics of Taliban governance, the current state of human security in Afghanistan, and how these new conditions affect the protection of human security. It argues that, under the authoritarian Taliban system in Afghanistan — which lacks ethnic, ideological, and gender representation — people lose their sense of participation because they do not see themselves represented in the ruling structure. It will also discuss why authoritarian systems that lack accountability and transparency cannot build institutions responsible for the core task of protecting human security in Afghanistan. Such systems will impede people from achieving two fundamental pillars of human security: freedom from fear and freedom from want. These cumulative losses cause people to either resist the system — potentially becoming part of a suppressed, organized movement — or isolate themselves from the public and political spheres.

Human insecurity after the Taliban takeover

With the collapse of the republic system installed in Afghanistan following the 2001 Bonn Agreement and subsequent Taliban takeover this past August, the country now faces a humanitarian, identity, and human rights crisis. Protracted conflict and continued instability, combined with the recent political upheaval and humanitarian and economic crises, have caused fear and frustration among a large segment of the population. A perceived — or in this case real — loss of power and freedom impedes people from utilizing humanitarian and development programs to effectively build their human capital and agency, resulting in a loss of security. The harsh restrictions imposed by the Taliban since the group took over Kabul have already caused fear, grievance, and a loss of motivation among the educated class, youth, and women.

Additionally, the break of connectivity with domestic and international markets, along with the cessation of foreign aid and investment into the country, have damaged productive activity. More than 120,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan, including qualified professionals in the social, economic, and political sectors. This brain drain will affect organizational development and the Taliban’s ability to rule. People are in dire need of basic humanitarian services. According to the World Food Programme, 14 million Afghans are suffering from severe hunger. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports that 500,000 people have been displaced in Afghanistan, and health and food security are the foremost concern. According to UNICEF, 10 million children across the country require humanitarian assistance to survive. Even before the Taliban takeover in May 2021, 11 million people were experiencing acute food insecurity , and food shortages have only gotten worse in the months since.

The inefficiency of centralized institutions to utilize humanitarian and development funding to develop and enrich human capital, and extend resources and knowledge beyond the provincial capitals, has — along with other factors — resulted in a full-blown human security crisis in Afghanistan.

Governance under the Taliban

The highly centralized government institutions and widespread corruption of the last 20 years have impeded the proportionate distribution of services throughout Afghanistan. In a country where 75% of the population live in rural areas, state-centric development funding has failed to reach those populations in dire need of services. Rural communities have often been neglected in socio-political development programs, further undermining the legitimacy of the central government. This has resulted in minimal improvements or change in areas where poverty and radicalization have negatively impacted the socio-economic status of people’s lives and maintained ripe conditions for an insurgency.

In the Taliban’s caretaker government, which is highly totalitarian and includes their hardcore and old guard filling top posts , the vast majority of them Pashtun, there are no available positions for other ethnic groups, women, and minorities. This has highlighted the Taliban’s neglect of the civil and political rights of the population and demonstrated their refusal to compromise. In addition, Taliban restrictions on women — which include political restrictions regarding women in government and leadership positions, NGOs, and the education sector, and social restrictions on women’s mobility — will severely impact citizens’ motivation to work and contribute effectively to country-building. Harsh rules placed on youth, public executions, discriminatory behavior against minorities, and the lack of representation in government have discouraged people from participating and reengaging in societal affairs.

When an individual does not see him or herself represented in the political system, it can cause an identity crisis. In principle, the identity of women, who make up 50% of the population , and minorities are at stake. The lack of effective participation of such a large percentage of the population in building the economy and developing the political arena poses an enormous threat to communal and economic security, including individual economic, political, and civil participation. The harsh rules and social restrictions limiting individuals’ freedom and rights can also restrict their growth and development.

The question is, does the Taliban’s governance — the basis of their actions and policies — promote or impede human security? Under the current circumstances — with the strict and authoritarian government in place, and people’s basic social and political rights at stake — Taliban governance appears to be enabling conditions of fear and threat. Freedom and dignity are the basis of people’s motivation to stay in their country and work toward economic growth and development. When the state is unable to protect citizens from fear of threats related to their lives, identity, dignity, and freedom, the consequence will be either mass resistance or mass migration. Widespread unorganized resistance caused by the people’s grievances could morph into violent actions or inspire them to fight for power, leading to intra-state conflict or large-scale refugee movements, posing serious threats to human, and societal security.

The Taliban’s highly authoritarian government institutions are based on traditional and tribal political culture. This preponderance of religious control and authority can generate an understanding and set of beliefs among individuals in society that prohibit them from acting and producing creatively, and can cause the disempowerment of people. The government institutions in Afghanistan are neither helping individuals in society develop and protect their human security, nor providing them with a framework to build their capacities to generate the power to control their environment.

What the international community should do

Recognizing the Taliban would be a grave mistake at this time. So far, the group has not demonstrated any changes in its mode of governance. Women continue to be marginalized and there is a lack of tolerance for other ethnic groups and minorities. The Taliban’s harsh rules, such as social restrictions and public executions, and its rapid moves to ban women from pursuing education, work, and roles in politics are especially concerning. Furthermore, links to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda show no sign of being cut.

To address human insecurity in Afghanistan, the international community should develop a policy of engagement with human security-led goals, acknowledging the context and culture in Afghanistan. Policies and approaches related to assistance should be people-focused, not state-focused. Humanitarian assistance needs to address food and health insecurity, and utilize humanitarian NGOs with outreach to rural areas. These programs should provide basic services related to health, food, and shelter for internally displaced populations and those in dire need of assistance.

Development projects should be channeled and implemented through civil society organizations, and provide realistic and achievable benchmarks. The development model should be designed based on the social and economic realities of each province. Programs could require the local communities that receive aid to contribute in time or in kind to the development projects that they need in their communities. Programs could also include a discourse component to provide a safe opportunity for individuals from different sectors to engage in critical reflection and dialogue on socio-economic issues. Potentially involving community centers or educational institutions, this process could help to create a new discourse about social norms and values. Programs should also include regular and close monitoring of the process and implementation. Such programs could motivate individuals to be creative and establish an environment that can sustain these initiatives. More broadly, these policies could help build communities and develop human capital through which people will regain their confidence and sense of dignity. Undergirding it all, development assistance programs should provide safety and security to people, build civil society organizations and networks, support these initiatives and organizations, and prevent them from closing.

For a well-coordinated humanitarian and development assistance approach to be successful, the international community should convene a donors’ platform to galvanize the world to help Afghanistan’s civil society and humanitarian organizations develop a consistent plan with pragmatic benchmarks and long-term continued support to address this human security crisis.

Nilofar Sakhi is the director of policy and diplomacy at McColm & Company, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. She is also a professorial lecturer at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. The views expressed in this piece are her own.

Photo by MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/via Getty Images

[1] Sakhi, N. (2020). Human Security and Agency: Reframing Productive Power in Afghanistan . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

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war on terrorism

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University of Hawaiʻi Pressbooks - The War on Terror
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war on terrorism , term used to describe the American-led global counterterrorism campaign launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . In its scope, expenditure, and impact on international relations , the war on terrorism was comparable to the Cold War ; it was intended to represent a new phase in global political relations and has had important consequences for security, human rights , international law , cooperation, and governance .

The war on terrorism was a multidimensional campaign of almost limitless scope. Its military dimension involved major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , covert operations in Yemen and elsewhere, large-scale military-assistance programs for cooperative regimes, and major increases in military spending. Its intelligence dimension comprised institutional reorganization and considerable increases in the funding of America’s intelligence -gathering capabilities, a global program of capturing terrorist suspects and interning them at Guantánamo Bay , expanded cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies, and the tracking and interception of terrorist financing. Its diplomatic dimension included continuing efforts to construct and maintain a global coalition of partner states and organizations and an extensive public diplomacy campaign to counter anti-Americanism in the Middle East . The domestic dimension of the U.S. war on terrorism entailed new antiterrorism legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act ; new security institutions, such as the Department of Homeland Security ; the preventive detainment of thousands of suspects; surveillance and intelligence-gathering programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and local authorities; the strengthening of emergency-response procedures; and increased security measures for airports, borders, and public events.

The successes of the first years of the war on terrorism included the arrest of hundreds of terrorist suspects around the world, the prevention of further large-scale terrorist attacks on the American mainland, the toppling of the Taliban regime and subsequent closure of terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan , the capture or elimination of many of al-Qaeda ’s senior members, and increased levels of international cooperation in global counterterrorism efforts.

However, critics argued that the failures of America’s counterterrorism campaign outweighed its successes. They contended that the war in Afghanistan had effectively scattered the al-Qaeda network, thereby making it even harder to counteract, and that the attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq had increased anti-Americanism among the world’s Muslims, thereby amplifying the message of militant Islam and uniting disparate groups in a common cause. Other critics alleged that the war on terrorism was a contrived smokescreen for the pursuit of a larger U.S. geopolitical agenda that included controlling global oil reserves, increasing defense spending, expanding the country’s international military presence, and countering the strategic challenge posed by various regional powers.

By the time of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush ’s reelection in 2004, the drawbacks of the war on terrorism were becoming apparent. In Iraq , U.S. forces had overthrown the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and U.S. war planners had underestimated the difficulties of building a functioning government from scratch and neglected to consider how this effort could be complicated by Iraq’s sectarian tensions, which had been held in check by Saddam’s repressive regime but were unleashed by his removal. By late 2004 it was clear that Iraq was sinking into chaos and civil war; estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the period of maximum violence—roughly 2004 to 2007—vary widely but generally exceed 200,000. U.S. casualties during this period far outnumbered those suffered during the initial 2003 invasion. Afghanistan, which for several years had seemed to be under control, soon followed a similar trajectory, and by 2006 the U.S. was facing a full-blown insurgency there led by a reconstituted Taliban.

The Bush administration faced domestic and international criticism for actions that it deemed necessary to fight terrorism but which critics considered to be immoral, illegal, or both. These included the detention of accused enemy combatants without trial at Guantánamo Bay and at several secret prisons outside the United States, the use of torture against these detainees in an effort to extract intelligence, and the use of unmanned combat drones to kill suspected enemies in countries far beyond the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

By the last years of Bush’s presidency, public opinion had turned strongly negative concerning his handling of the Iraq War and other national security matters. This discontent helped Barack Obama , an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy , win the presidency in 2008. Under the new administration, the expression war on terrorism —still closely associated with Bush policies—quickly disappeared from official communications. Obama made the rejection explicit in a 2013 speech in which he stated that the United States would eschew a boundless, vaguely defined “global war on terrorism” in favour of more focused actions against specific hostile groups. Under Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were gradually wound down, although at the end of Obama’s presidency in 2016 there were still U.S. troops in both countries.

It is worth noting that beneath Obama’s rejection of the war on terrorism as a rhetorical device and as a conceptual framework for national security there were important continuities with the policies of his predecessor. The Obama administration, for example, greatly expanded the campaign of targeted killings carried out with drones, even eliminating several U.S. citizens abroad whom it deemed threatening. Special operations forces were greatly expanded and increasingly deployed to conduct low-profile military interventions in countries outside of acknowledged war zones. And U.S. security agencies continued to exercise the wide-ranging surveillance powers that they had accumulated during the Bush administration despite protests from civil liberties groups.

Narco-Jihad: Drug Trafficking and Security in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Subscribe to this week in foreign policy, vanda felbab-brown vanda felbab-brown director - initiative on nonstate armed actors , co-director - africa security initiative , senior fellow - foreign policy , strobe talbott center for security, strategy, and technology @vfelbabbrown.

January 7, 2010

This essay explores the interface of Islamic militancy with opium poppy cultivation and the drug trade in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and draws implications for U.S. national security. It analyzes the evolution of the narcotics economy in the region since the late 1960s and the progressive involvement of various state and nonstate actors in the economy since then, with particular attention to current Islamist jihadi networks in the region. The essay also assesses the effectiveness of various counternarcotics policies, especially since 2001, and evaluates the effectiveness of these policies not only with respect to the narrow goal of narcotics suppression but also with respect to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, state-building, and the stabilization of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although counternarcotics suppression policies progressively intensified in Afghanistan from 2001-09, they have not resulted in a substantial and sustainable reduction in the cultivation of opium poppies nor have they succeeded in curtailing the Taliban’s drug income. Instead, these policies have strengthened the bond between poppy farmers and the Taliban by alienating farmers from both the Afghan national government and location representatives, with negative repercussions for counterinsurgency efforts, including the diminishment of human intelligence flows on the Taliban and other jihadists. At the same time, efforts to promote alternative livelihoods have been underresourced and cast too narrowly, focusing almost exclusively on relative price ratios of opium to legal crops while largely ignoring the complex and multifaceted drivers of opium poppy cultivation.

After decades of cultivation and the collapse of legal economic opportunities, opium is deeply entrenched in the socio-economic fabric of Afghan society and underlies much of the country’s economic and power relations. Many more actors than simply the Taliban participate in the opium economy, and these actors exist at all social levels.

The longer alternative livelihoods efforts fail to generate sufficient and sustainable income for poppy farmers, the more problematic and destabilizing it will be for location elites to agree to poppy bans and the greater the political capital that the Taliban will obtain from protecting the poppy fields. And intense eradication campaign under current circumstances will likely make it impossible for the counterinsurgency effort to prevail. Yet, as many other cases of the nexus between drugs and insurgency and terrorism show, through greater resources and improved strategy, counterinsurgent forces can defeat insurgent groups deriving substantial income from drugs. Although the new U.S. counternarcotics strategy appropriately deemphasizes eradication, instead focusing both on interdiction of Taliban-linked traffickers and on alternative livelihoods, this strategy is not free of pitfalls. Its effectiveness with respect to counternarcotics and stabilization will be determined by the actual operationalization of interdiction and alternative livelihood programs.

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Vanda Felbab-Brown

April 11, 2024

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May 27, 2022

Countering terrorism

Last updated: 05 Dec. 2023 14:31

Terrorism is the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of the citizens of NATO countries, and to international stability and prosperity. A persistent global issue that knows no border, nationality or religion, terrorism is a challenge that the international community must tackle together. NATO will continue to fight this threat with determination and in full solidarity. NATO’s work on counter-terrorism focuses on improving awareness of the threat, developing capabilities to prepare and respond, and enhancing engagement with partner countries and other international actors.

A Polish Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) specialist walks towards a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) during Northern Challenge, a multinational exercise that takes place at the Icelandic Coast Guard facility in Keflavík, Iceland.

NATO invoked its collective defence clause (Article 5) for the first and only time in response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the United States.
NATO’s Counter-Terrorism Policy Guidelines focus Alliance efforts on three main areas: awareness, capabilities and engagement.
NATO’s counter-terrorism work spans across the Alliance’s three core tasks: deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security.
A comprehensive action plan defines and determines NATO’s role in the international community’s fight against terrorism.
A Terrorism Intelligence Cell has been established at NATO Headquarters.
The NATO Secretary General’s Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism serves as the high-level focal point for all of NATO’s work on counter-terrorism and ensures that NATO’s response to terrorism remains strong, effective and coherent.
NATO advises and assists Iraqi security forces and institutions through NATO Mission Iraq and is a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
NATO supports the development of new capabilities and technologies to tackle the terrorist threat and to manage the consequences of a terrorist attack.
NATO cooperates with partners and international organisations to leverage the full potential of each stakeholder engaged in the global counter-terrorism effort.
The Alliance’s Strategic Concept recognises terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, as the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of NATO citizens and to international peace and prosperity.

Capabilities

Milestones in nato’s work on counter-terrorism.

In support of national authorities, NATO ensures shared awareness of the terrorist threat through consultations, enhanced intelligence-sharing and continuous strategic analysis and assessment.

Intelligence reporting at NATO is based on contributions from Allies’ intelligence services, both internal and external, civilian and military. The way NATO handles sensitive information has gradually evolved based on successive summit decisions and continuing reform of intelligence structures since 2010. Since 2017, the Joint Intelligence and Security Division at NATO benefits from increased sharing of intelligence between member services and the Alliance, and produces strategic analytical reports relating to terrorism and its links with other transnational threats.

Intelligence-sharing between NATO and partner countries’ agencies continues through the Intelligence Liaison Unit at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, and an intelligence liaison cell at Allied Command Operations (ACO) in Mons, Belgium. An intelligence cell at NATO Headquarters improves how NATO shares intelligence, including on foreign fighters.

NATO faces a range of threats arising from instability in the region to the south of the Alliance. NATO increases its understanding of these challenges and improves its ability to respond to them through the ‘Hub for the South’ based at NATO’s Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy. The Hub collects and analyses information, assesses potential threats and engages with partner countries and organisations.

Recognising the many different roles that men and women may play in terrorist groups, NATO is also seeking to integrate a gender perspective in all its counter-terrorism efforts, including training and education for Allies and partners, as well as policy and programme development. Likewise, the Alliance seeks to address all pillars of the human security agenda (including protection of civilians, preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence, countering trafficking in human beings, protection of children in armed conflict, cultural property protection) in its counter-terrorism work.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the position of Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism in October 2023. The Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism serves as the high-level focal point for all of NATO’s work on counter-terrorism and ensures that NATO’s response to terrorism remains strong, effective and coherent. The current Special Coordinator is Assistant Secretary General for Operations Tom Goffus.

The Alliance strives to ensure that it has adequate capabilities to prevent, protect against and respond to terrorist threats. Capability development and work on innovative technologies are part of NATO’s core business, and methods that address asymmetric threats, including terrorism and the use of non-conventional weapons, are of particular relevance. Much of this work is conducted through the Defence Against Terrorism Programme of Work, which facilitates the development of capabilities to protect NATO forces, civilians and territory against attacks by terrorists, including those using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) substances. NATO’s Centres of Excellence (COEs) are important contributors to many projects, providing expertise across a range of topics including technical exploitation, battlefield evidence, explosive ordnance disposal, military engineering, counter-IED, and network analysis and modelling.

NATO policies and practical frameworks in areas such as C-UAS, biometrics, battlefield evidence and technical exploitation also drive capability development in areas relevant to counter-terrorism.

Defence Against Terrorism Programme of Work

The Defence Against Terrorism Programme of Work (DAT POW) was developed by the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) and approved by NATO Leaders at the Istanbul Summit in 2004. With an initial focus on technological solutions to mitigate the effects of terrorist attacks, the programme has since widened its scope to support comprehensive capability development. It now includes exercises, trials, development of prototypes and concepts, doctrine, policy, equipment, training and lessons learned, and interoperability demonstrations. The key aim of the DAT POW is to prevent non-conventional attacks, such as attacks with IEDs and UAS, and mitigate other challenges, such as attacks on critical infrastructure and the use of emerging and disruptive technologies by terrorists.

The DAT POW is based on the principle of common funding, whereby member countries pool resources within a NATO framework. Under the DAT POW, individual NATO countries, with support and contributions from other member countries and NATO bodies, lead projects to develop advanced technologies or counter-measures that meet the most urgent security needs in the face of terrorism and other asymmetric threats.

Most projects under the programme focus on finding solutions that can be fielded in the short term and that respond to the military needs of the Alliance – although the DAT POW also bridges the gap between long-term military requirements and urgent operational needs. The programme uses new or adapted technologies or methods to detect, disrupt and defeat asymmetric threats, covering a wide range of areas, including countering unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), biometrics, technical exploitation and countering improvised explosive devices (C-IED). The DAT POW is an integral contributor to NATO activities in the field of emerging and disruptive technologies, such as data, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.. Through this programme, NATO is consulting with stakeholders from industry, the military and academia to explore how new technologies can be leveraged in the fight against terrorism.

Protection of harbours and ports

The safe and uninterrupted functioning of harbours and ports is critical to the global economy and it is essential for maritime assets to be made as secure as possible. The DAT POW supports the development of technologies that enhance maritime protection. This includes sensor nets, electro-optical detectors, rapid-reaction capabilities, underwater magnetic barriers and unmanned underwater vehicles. In 2022, under the leadership of France, the DAT POW supported the third iteration of "Cut Away", a multinational harbour exploration and clearance exercise.

Additionally, under the lead of the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) located in La Spezia, Italy, the DAT POW supports the use of advanced and immersive visualisation media (virtual and augmented reality) to enhance situational and spatial awareness in countering maritime IED threats in harbour protection.

Countering chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats

NATO places a high priority on preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems to state and non-state actors, including terrorists. Ideally, terrorists will be prevented from acquiring and using such weapons, but should prevention fail, NATO is committed to defending against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) hazards that may pose a threat to the safety and security of Allied forces, territory and populations, and to supporting recovery efforts.

The NATO Combined Joint CBRN Defence Task Force is designed to respond to and manage the consequences of the use of CBRN agents. The Joint CBRN Defence Centre of Excellence in Czechia further enhances NATO’s capabilities. The DAT POW has also supported the Joint CBRN Defence COE in establishing and enhancing the NATO CBRN Reachback Capability, ensuring that CBRN expertise is available to the NATO Command Structure and Allied forces in theatres of operations.

The DAT POW also covers projects on the detection, identification and monitoring of CBRN substances, CBRN information management, physical protection, hazard management and CBRN medical counter-measures. Furthermore, the DAT POW facilitates training and exercises, including those conducted with live agents.

Explosive ordnance disposal and consequence management

Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians are experts in detecting, rendering safe and disposing of dangerous weapons like landmines, IEDs and explosive remnants of war. The DAT POW supports EOD demonstrations and trials, led by the NATO EOD Centre of Excellence in Trencin, Slovakia, as well as the exercising of high-end EOD capabilities in the annual exercise Northern Challenge in Iceland. With DAT POW support, the EOD community has also tested integrated exoskeletons that technicians can wear to protect themselves while undertaking this dangerous work. The integration of emerging technologies such as augmented reality into EOD training is another DAT POW priority. The strong community of interest includes experts from partner countries, such as the Irish Defence Forces' Ordnance School.

Countering improvised explosive devices (C-IED)

NATO must remain prepared to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in any land or maritime operation involving asymmetrical threats, in which force protection will remain a paramount priority. Several NATO bodies are leading the Alliance’s efforts on countering IEDs, including the Counter Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) Centre of Excellence in Madrid, Spain. Various technologies to counter IEDs have been explored, particularly stand-off detection, the integration of innovative materials into protective coatings for vehicles and buildings and the use of artificial intelligence to fuse massive quantities of sensor data in order to detect suicide bombers. The DAT POW supports the annual Northern Challenge exercise, led by Iceland, which tests counter-IED and IED disposal abilities. The biennial Thor's Hammer electronic counter-measures trial series and the radio-controlled IED database are two innovative approaches regularly supported by the DAT POW, which are now also being leveraged to assist with countering unmanned aircraft systems.

Countering unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS)

Terrorists have sought to use and manipulate various technologies in their operations, including easily available off-the-shelf technology. Drones, in particular, have been identified as a threat. Therefore, in February 2019, NATO Defence Ministers agreed a practical framework to counter unmanned aircraft systems. A new programme of work to help coordinate approaches and identify additional steps to address this threat was agreed in 2023 and is currently being implemented.

NATO is also developing a C-UAS doctrine, which is expected to be adopted by the end of 2023.The DAT POW supports comprehensive capability development in the field of C-UAS through tests, evaluation, exercises, concept development and technical standardization. In 2021, the DAT POW supported an innovation challenge for the development of artificial intelligence / machine learning techniques to track, classify and identify drones as they fly within a defined area. At the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, a technology display for Heads of State and Government covered some of the latest challenges related to C-UAS and exploitation capabilities.

Biometrics, battlefield evidence and technical exploitation

NATO is also addressing the use of information obtained on missions and operations. In 2018, Allies agreed a biometric data policy, consistent with applicable national and international law and subject to national requirements and restrictions. The policy enables biometric data collection to support NATO operations, based upon a mandate from the North Atlantic Council – NATO’s top political decision-making body. Furthermore, NATO's Strategic Commands have recognised that developing and improving this capability is a military requirement. The policy is particularly relevant to force protection and the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2396 highlights the acute and growing threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters and “urges Member States to expeditiously exchange information, through bilateral or multilateral mechanisms and in accordance with domestic and international law, concerning the identity of Foreign Terrorist Fighters.”

In October 2020, the NATO Battlefield Evidence Policy was approved. It aims to facilitate the sharing of information obtained on NATO missions and operations for law enforcement purposes. While the primary purpose of deployed military is to fulfil their operational objectives, troops often collect information or material on the battlefield, some of which may also be useful to support legal proceedings, including the prosecution of returning foreign terrorist fighters. In this regard, the policy also supports Allies in fulfilling their obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2396 in holding foreign fighters accountable. Cooperation with other international organisations, including the United Nations, INTERPOL and the European Union, is an important aspect of NATO’s work on battlefield evidence to ensure complementarity and added value. Since July 2021, NATO also has a Battlefield Evidence Programme of Work in place to guide the implementation of the Policy. Moreover, the NATO Stability Policing Centre of Excellence is providing a series of hands-on battlefield evidence training courses to law enforcement and military from partner countries in the region to the south of the Alliance.

Also in October 2020, a Practical Framework for Technical Exploitation was agreed. Technical exploitation collects material that has been in the possession of terrorists and other adversaries – such as weapons, computers and cell phones – and uses scientific tools and analysis to support the identification of actors, their capabilities and intentions. It enables NATO forces to derive important information and intelligence from material and materiel collected on the battlefield to support military objectives, protect our forces or support law enforcement outcomes such as battlefield evidence. In June 2022, the first NATO Martial Vision Technical Exploitation Experiment took place in Burgos, Spain to test and assess relevant technical exploitation doctrine. Further experimentation and concept development are underway to ensure that NATO has the ability to derive operational and intelligence information from this valuable resource.

Operations and missions

As part of the Alliance’s 360-degree approach to deterrence and defence, NATO’s counter-terrorism efforts extend through a variety of operations and missions , both within NATO territory and beyond the Alliance’s borders.

Since 2017, NATO has been a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. As a member of the Coalition, NATO has been playing a key role in the fight against international terrorism, including through its former operational engagement in Afghanistan, through intelligence-sharing and through its work with partners with a view to projecting stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and beyond. At the 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw, Allied Leaders agreed to provide direct support to the Global Coalition through the provision of NATO AWACS surveillance aircraft. The first patrols of NATO AWACS aircraft, operating from Konya Airfield in Türkiye, started in October 2016.

In February 2018, following a request by the Iraqi government and the Global Coalition, the Alliance decided to launch NATO Mission Iraq, a non-combat advisory and capacity-building mission. Its aim is to strengthen Iraqi security forces and institutions so that they are better able to prevent the return of Daesh/ISIS, to fight terrorism and to stabilise the country. In February 2021, Allied Defence Ministers, and in August 2023 the North Atlantic Council, agreed to expand the scope of the mission at the request of the Iraqi government. NATO operates in full respect of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and coordinates and consults closely with other international partners like the Global Coalition, the United Nations and the European Union.

NATO also takes part in counter-terrorism in the high seas. NATO’s operation Sea Guardian is a flexible maritime security operation that is able to perform the full range of maritime security tasks, including countering terrorism at sea if required. Currently, Sea Guardian operates in the Mediterranean Sea. It succeeded Operation Active Endeavour, which was launched in 2001 under Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty as part of NATO’s immediate response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks to deter, detect and, if necessary, disrupt the threat of terrorism in the Mediterranean Sea. Active Endeavour was terminated in October 2016.

Many other operations have had relevance to international counter-terrorism efforts. For example, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan, which began in 2003 and came to an end in 2014 - helped the government to expand its authority and implement security to prevent the country from once again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. Following the end of ISAF, NATO launched the non-combat Resolute Support Mission (RSM) to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces. In April 2021, the Allies decided to start the withdrawal of RSM forces by 1 May 2021 and the mission was terminated in early September 2021.

Crisis management

NATO’s long-standing work on civil preparedness , critical infrastructure protection and crisis management provides a resource that may serve both Allies and partners upon request. This field can relate directly to counter-terrorism, building resilience and ensuring appropriate planning and preparation for response to and recovery from terrorist acts.

National authorities are primarily responsible for protecting their populations and critical infrastructure against the consequences of terrorist attacks, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents and natural disasters. NATO can assist countries by developing non-binding advice and minimum standards and acting as a forum to exchange best practices and lessons learned to improve preparedness and national resilience. NATO has developed guidelines for enhancing civil-military cooperation in response to a CBRN incident and organises international courses for trainers of first responders to CBRN incidents. NATO guidance can also advise national authorities on warning the general public and alerting emergency responders. NATO can call on an extensive network of civil experts, from government and industry, to help respond to requests for assistance. Its Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) coordinates responses to national requests for assistance following natural and human-made disasters including terrorist acts involving CBRN substances.

As the global counter-terrorism effort requires a holistic approach, Allies have resolved to strengthen outreach to and cooperation with partner countries and international actors.

With partners

Increasingly, partners are taking advantage of partnership mechanisms and individual cooperation agreements with NATO for counter-terrorism dialogue and tailored practical cooperation, including through defence capacity building.

For instance, the Defence and Related Security Capacity Building (DCB) package for Jordan was reviewed in 2021 and now comprises 15 initiatives, including some that are specifically aimed at supporting Jordan in its counter-terrorism efforts, such as strategic communications, the non-proliferation of small arms and light weapons, maritime and land border security and the development of a curriculum for Jordan’s counter-terrorism education and training. Counter-terrorism is also a high priority for partners such as Mauritania and Tunisia, for whom Allies agreed new DCB packages at the June 2022 Madrid Summit. In Madrid, Allies also agreed to offer tailored support measures to enhance the resilience of vulnerable partners against security challenges and malign foreign influence. To that end, NATO will scale up counter-terrorism engagement with Bosnia and Herzegovina, enabling the country to develop a whole-of-government approach in countering terrorism and to strengthen its capabilities in the areas of critical infrastructure protection and countering online radicalisation and hate speech. Additionally, NATO will provide advisory support through the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Programme for the standardization of counter-terrorism education in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Moldova.

Allies place particular emphasis on shared awareness, capacity-building, civil preparedness and crisis management to enable partners to identify and protect vulnerabilities and to prepare to fight terrorism more effectively. Countering improvised explosive devices, CBRN defence, the promotion of a whole-of-government approach and military border security are among NATO’s areas of work with partners. For example, in 2023, partners from the Middle East and North Africa will attend a CBRN Awareness for First Responders Course at the Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence COE in order to build awareness of CBRN threats and the capacity of these partners to coordinate across military and civilian lines of response efforts.

As a result of multinational collaboration through the Partnership for Peace Consortium, NATO launched its first standardized curriculum on counter-terrorism in June 2020, aiming to support interested Allies and partners in enhancing their capacities to develop national skills and improve counter-terrorism strategies. The curriculum also serves as a reference document to support partner countries in addressing their education and training requirements relevant for fighting terrorism, under the framework of NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). In 2021, the Alliance began using this standardized curriculum to deliver online courses to participants of the Odesa Military Academy and the National Defence University in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since 2023, the Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum modules and e-learning course are available on the NATO website for interested Allies and partners.

Partners also contribute expertise, experience and capabilities to NATO’s work in the domain of counter-terrorism capabilities development. For example, Australia and New Zealand are part of the DAT POW community and participate in the work on Electronic Counter Measures for Radio Controlled Improvised Devices.

Counter-terrorism is one of the key priorities of the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme. The SPS Programme enhances cooperation and dialogue between scientists and experts from Allies and partners, contributing to a better understanding of the terrorist threat, the development of detection and response measures, and fostering a network of experts. Activities coordinated by the SPS Programme include workshops, training courses and multi-year research and development projects that contribute to identifying methods for the protection of critical infrastructure, supplies and personnel; human factors in defence against terrorism; technologies to detect explosive devices and illicit activities; and risk management, best practices, and use of new technologies in response to terrorism. For example, since 2018, the SPS Programme has overseen DEXTER (short for Detection of Explosives and firearms to counter TERrorism). This flagship initiative is composed of a number of projects all working together to develop an integrated system of sensors and data fusion technologies capable of detecting explosives and concealed weapons in real time to help secure mass transport infrastructures, such as airports, metro and railway stations. DEXTER was successfully tested in a live demonstration at a metro station in Rome, Italy in May 2022. Eleven governmental and research institutions from five NATO Allies (Finland (which acceded to NATO in 2023), France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) and three partner countries (the Republic of Korea, Serbia and Ukraine) have participated in DEXTER.

With international actors

NATO cooperates with the UN, the EU, the Global-Counter Terrorism Forum, INTERPOL, and the OSCE to ensure that views and information are shared and that appropriate action can be taken more effectively in the fight against terrorism. Counter-terrorism capacity building and border security – specifically across the maritime and land domains – are two areas where NATO cooperates closely with other international organisations.

The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, international conventions and protocols against terrorism, together with relevant UN resolutions, provide common frameworks for efforts to combat terrorism. NATO works closely with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee and its Executive Directorate as well as with the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force and many of its component organisations, including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. NATO’s Centres of Excellence and education and training opportunities are often relevant to UN counter-terrorism priorities, as is the specific area of explosives management. More broadly, NATO works closely with the UN agencies that play a leading role in responding to international disasters and in consequence management, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN 1540 Committee. For example, in March 2019, NATO and the UN launched a joint project to improve CBRN resilience in Jordan, which has since been completed.

NATO and the European Union are committed to combatting terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. They exchange information regularly on counter-terrorism projects and on related activities such as work on the protection of civilian populations against CBRN attacks. Relations and regular staff talks with the European External Action Service’s counter-terrorism section, with the Council of the EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator’s office and other parts of the EU help ensure mutual understanding and complementarity.

NATO maintains close relations with the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department’s Action against Terrorism Unit. Areas of joint interest between NATO and the OSCE include gender and terrorism, border security, a whole-of-government approach to counter-terrorism, as well as countering terrorist financing.

NATO also collaborates with INTERPOL on countering terrorism. A key issue of cooperation between the two organisations is battlefield evidence and the exchange of information collected by the military with law enforcement. For instance, INTERPOL is regularly providing expertise to NATO training courses for southern partners in this area.

NATO is also working with other regional organisations to address the terrorism threat. In April 2019, NATO and the African Union (AU) held their first joint counter-terrorism training in Algiers and in December 2019, NATO hosted the first counter-terrorism dialogue with the AU. Since then, the AU’s African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism has been briefing Allies regularly and further practical cooperation is under development.

The use of civilian aircraft as a weapon in the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to efforts to enhance aviation security. NATO contributed to improved civil-military coordination of air traffic control by working with EUROCONTROL, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the US Federal Aviation Administration, other major national aviation and security authorities, airlines and pilot associations and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

NATO offers a range of training and education opportunities in the field of counter-terrorism to both Allies and partner countries. It draws on a wide network that includes the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany; mobile training courses run out of Allied Joint Force Commands at Naples, Italy and Brunssum, the Netherlands; and the Centres of Excellence (COEs), which support the NATO Command Structure. There are almost 30 COEs accredited by NATO, several of which have links to the fight against terrorism. The Centre of Excellence for Defence Against Terrorism (COE-DAT) in Ankara, Türkiye serves both as a location for meetings and as a catalyst for international dialogue and discussion on terrorism and counter-terrorism. The COE-DAT reaches out to over 50 countries and 40 organisations.

Opening of the first counter-terrorism course at the NATO-ICI Regional Centre in Kuwait

In 2021 and 2023, NATO delivered in-person counter-terrorism courses through Mobile Education and Training Teams at the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) Regional Centre in Kuwait, benefitting almost 50 participants from NATO partner countries in the Gulf.

expand timeline

The Alliance's 1999 Strategic Concept identifies terrorism as one of the risks affecting NATO's security.

11 September 2001

Four coordinated terrorist attacks are launched by the terrorist group al-Qaeda on targets in the United States.

12 September 2001

Less than 24 hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NATO Allies and partner countries condemn the attacks in a meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, and offer their support to the United States, pledging to "undertake all efforts to combat the scourge of terrorism". Later that day, the Allies decide to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the Alliance's collective defence clause, for the first time in NATO's history, if it is determined that the attack had been directed from abroad against the United States.

13-14 September 2001

Declarations of solidarity and support are given by Russia and Ukraine.

2 October 2001

The North Atlantic Council is briefed by a high-level US official on the results of investigations into the 9/11 attacks. The Council determines that the attacks would be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

4 October 2001

NATO agrees on eight measures to support the United States:

to enhance intelligence-sharing and cooperation, both bilaterally and in appropriate NATO bodies, relating to the threats posed by terrorism and the actions to be taken against it;
to provide, individually or collectively, as appropriate and according to their capabilities, assistance to Allies and other countries which are or may be subject to increased terrorist threats as a result of their support for the campaign against terrorism;
to take necessary measures to provide increased security for facilities of the United States and other Allies on their territory;
to backfill selected Allied assets in NATO's area of responsibility that are required to directly support operations against terrorism;
to provide blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other Allies' aircraft, in accordance with the necessary air traffic arrangements and national procedures, for military flights related to operations against terrorism;
to provide access for the United States and other Allies to ports and airfields on the territory of NATO member countries for operations against terrorism, including for refuelling, in accordance with national procedures;
that the Alliance is ready to deploy elements of its Standing Naval Forces to the Eastern Mediterranean in order to provide a NATO presence and demonstrate resolve;
that the Alliance is similarly ready to deploy elements of its NATO Airborne Early Warning Force to support operations against terrorism.

Mid-October 2001

NATO launches its first-ever operation against terrorism: Operation Eagle Assist. At the request of the United States, seven NATO AWACS radar aircraft are sent to help patrol the skies over the United States. The operation runs through to mid-May 2002, during which time 830 crewmembers from 13 NATO countries fly over 360 sorties. It is the first time that NATO military assets have been deployed in support of an Article 5 operation.

26 October 2001

NATO launches its second counter-terrorism operation in response to the attacks on the United States: Operation Active Endeavour. Elements of NATO's Standing Naval Forces are sent to patrol the eastern Mediterranean and monitor shipping to detect and deter terrorist activity, including illegal trafficking.

At their Reykjavik meeting, NATO Foreign Ministers decide that the Alliance will operate when and where necessary to fight terrorism. This landmark declaration effectively ends the debate on what constitutes NATO's area of operations and paves the way for the Alliance's future engagement with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

November 2002

At the Prague Summit, NATO Leaders express their determination to deter, defend and protect their populations, territory and forces from any armed attack from abroad, including by terrorists. To this end, they adopt a Prague package, aimed at adapting NATO to the challenge of terrorism. It comprises:

a Military Concept for Defence against Terrorism;
a Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism (PAP-T);
five nuclear, biological and chemical defence initiatives;
protection of civilian populations, including a Civil Emergency Planning Action Plan;
missile defence: Allies are examining options for addressing the increasing missile threat to Alliance populations, territory and forces in an effective and efficient way through an appropriate mix of political and defence efforts, along with deterrence;
cyber defence;
cooperation with other international organisations; and
improved intelligence-sharing.

In addition, they decide to create the NATO Response Force, streamline the military command structure and launch the Prague Capabilities Commitment to better prepare NATO's military forces to face new challenges, including terrorism.

10 March 2003

Operation Active Endeavour is expanded to include escorting civilian shipping through the Strait of Gibraltar. The remit is extended to the whole of the Mediterranean a year later.

11 August 2003

NATO takes lead of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. ISAF’s primary objective was to enable the Afghan government to provide effective security across the country and develop new Afghan security forces to ensure Afghanistan would never again become a safe haven for terrorists.

NATO's Strategic Concept, adopted at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, recognises that terrorism poses a direct threat to the security of the citizens of NATO countries, and to international stability and prosperity more broadly. It commits Allies to enhance the capacity to detect and defend against international terrorism, including through enhanced threat analysis, more consultations with NATO's partners, and the development of appropriate military capabilities.

At the Chicago Summit, NATO Leaders endorse new policy guidelines for Alliance work on counter-terrorism, which focus on improved threat awareness, adequate capabilities and enhanced engagement with partner countries and other international actors. The Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism is subsumed into the overall NATO approach. The NATO Military Concept for Counter-Terrorism, which reflects the policy guidelines, becomes a public document in 2016.

Responsibility for security gradually transitions from ISAF to the Afghan security forces in a phased approach. The Afghan forces assume full security responsibility, and ISAF is brought to a close by the end of 2014.

1 January 2015

NATO’s Resolute Support Mission is launched to provide further training, advice and assistance to Afghan security forces and institutions in order to help the Afghan National Unity Government to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a safe haven for terrorism.

At the Warsaw Summit, Allied Leaders decide to provide support through NATO to the fight against ISIS. NATO AWACS aircraft will provide information to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS. NATO will begin training and capacity-building in Iraq, while continuing to train hundreds of Iraqi officers in Jordan. Allies will enhance ongoing cooperation with Jordan in areas such as cyber defence and countering roadside bombs.

Allies also undertake to promote information-sharing through the optimised use of multilateral platforms and to continue to seek to enhance cooperation in exchanging information on returning foreign fighters.

October 2016

Operation Active Endeavour is terminated and succeeded by Sea Guardian, a broader maritime operation in the Mediterranean. Sea Guardian is a flexible maritime operation that is able to perform the full range of maritime security tasks, if so decided by the North Atlantic Council.

5 February 2017

NATO launches a new training programme in Iraq, teaching Iraqi security forces to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This is particularly relevant for territory newly liberated from ISIS occupation.

16 February 2017

Defence Ministers agree to create a new regional ‘Hub for the South’, based at NATO’s Joint Force Command in Naples. It will be a focal point for increasing both the Alliance’s understanding of the challenges stemming from the region, and its ability to respond to them.

31 March 2017

Foreign Ministers decide to step up their efforts inside Iraq, including with military medicine courses to train new paramedics, and with training to help maintain tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.

25 May 2017

At their meeting in Brussels, Allies agree an action plan to do more in the international fight against terrorism with: more AWACS flight time, more information-sharing and air-to-air refuelling; NATO’s membership in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS; the establishment of a new terrorism intelligence cell at NATO Headquarters and the appointment of a coordinator to oversee NATO’s efforts in the fight against terrorism.

5-6 December 2017

At their meeting, Foreign Ministers underline the continuing need to provide support to NATO’s southern partners in building counter-terrorism capabilities and institutions. They reaffirm their full commitment to Allied efforts in training and assistance, building Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s security capacity, which is an important part of NATO’s contribution to the fight against terrorism. Ministers also note that NATO’s role within the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS will evolve as the Coalition moves from combat operations to stabilisation efforts.

NATO and the European Union agree to boost their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, including by strengthening the exchange of information, coordinating their counter-terrorism support for partner countries and working to improve national resilience to terrorist attacks.

15 February 2018

At their meeting, Defence Ministers agree to start planning for a NATO non-combat advisory and capacity-building mission in Iraq, at the request of the Iraqi government and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

11 July 2018

At the Brussels Summit, Allies decide to establish a non-combat advisory and capacity-building mission in Iraq and increase their assistance to the Afghan security forces, providing more trainers and extending financial support. They will continue to contribute to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and will also increase their support to partners to further develop their capacities to tackle terrorism.

4-5 December 2018

Foreign Ministers agree an updated action plan on enhancing NATO’s role in the international community’s fight against terrorism. It consolidates NATO’s counter-terrorism activities related to awareness, preparedness, capability development and engagement with partners.

14 February 2019

Defence Ministers endorse a practical framework to counter unmanned aircraft systems and a set of guidelines on civil-military cooperation in case of a potential CBRN terrorist attack.

4 December 2019

At their meeting on the occasion of NATO’s 70th anniversary, Allied Leaders note an updated action plan to enhance NATO’s role in the international community’s fight against terrorism. They also take stock of NATO’s role in the fight against terrorism, including the Alliance’s missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which continue to play a key role in preventing the resurgence of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

12-13 February 2020

Defence Ministers agree in principle to enhance NATO Mission Iraq by taking on some of the Global Coalition’s training activities.

12 June 2020

NATO launches its first standardized Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum .

22-23 October 2020

NATO agrees a Battlefield Evidence Policy to facilitate the sharing of information obtained in NATO missions and operations for law enforcement purposes. At the same time, a Practical Framework for Technical Exploitation is approved.

NATO agrees a Programme of Work on Battlefield Evidence to guide the implementation of the 2020 Policy.

September 2021

Following the completion of the withdrawal of all Resolute Support Mission (RSM) forces from Afghanistan the previous month, RSM is terminated in early September. NATO Allies went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States to ensure that the country would not again become a safe haven for international terrorists to attack NATO member countries. Over the last two decades, there have been no terrorist attacks on Allied soil from Afghanistan. Any future Afghan government must ensure that Afghanistan never again serves as a safe haven for terrorists.

November/December 2021

At their meeting in Riga, NATO Foreign Ministers agree an updated action plan to enhance the Alliance’s role in the international community’s fight against terrorism. The plan consolidates and guides all of NATO’s counter-terrorism efforts, covering awareness, capabilities and engagement. It also includes new areas such as terrorist misuse of technology, human security and countering terrorist financing.

29 June 2022

At the NATO Summit in Madrid, Allied Leaders adopt the Alliance’s 2022 Strategic Concept – a key document that defines the security challenges facing the Alliance and outlines the political and military tasks that NATO will carry out to address them. The Strategic Concept identifies terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, as the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of NATO citizens and to international peace and prosperity. It states that NATO will continue to counter, deter, defend and respond to threats and challenges posed by terrorist groups. Furthermore, the Alliance will enhance cooperation with the international community to tackle the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, and will also enhance support to NATO’s partners, helping build their capacity to counter terrorism.

11-12 July 2023

At the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Allied Leaders task the Council in permanent session to update NATO’s Policy Guidelines and Action Plan on Counter-Terrorism, and to reassess, in consultation with regional partners, the areas where NATO can provide civil-military assistance to partners in this field.

12 October 2023

The Secretary General announces the new position of the NATO Secretary General’s Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism.

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47 Questions and Answers on the War in Afghanistan

With kind permission the following article which appeared on ZMagazine web site (ZNet), on October 15, 2001, has been reposted here. It is a series of 47 questions and answers on various aspects of the events surrounding the September 11 atrocity. You can see the original article at http://www.zmag.org/55qaframe.htm

The War In Afghanistan 47 Questions and Answers and additional links for further Information By Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom Oct 14, 2001

In the course of our discussions since the bombing of Afghanistan began, we have encountered certain questions over and over. Here we assemble those questions and provide short answers to each. In some cases we also provide a link or two for additional immediately relevant information or commentary. Much more information can be found via: ZNet's Complete Terrorism & War Coverage .

Also, we have ourselves previously offered September 11 Q/A Talking Points and Five Arguments Against War which provide backdrop for this essay.

What is Islamic fundamentalism?
What is the attitude in the Arab and Islamic worlds to (a) the Sept. 11 attacks, and (b) the current US war in Afghanistan?
What grievances fuel hatred for the U.S. in the Middle East?
Does trying to understand/explain the grievances of the people of the Middle East constitute excusing bin Laden, excusing terror, softness on fascism, etc.
What is Terrorism?
Are Bin Laden and his network terrorists?
Is the Taliban terrorist?
Is Hamas a terrorist group?
Is the U. S. government terrorist?
Why did the World Trade Center terrorists do it?
What is the legal way of dealing with terrorism?
If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would the international response have been to the September 11 attacks?
If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would be the international response to the embargo of Iraq, the bombing of Kosovo and Serbia, and the bombing of Afghanistan?
Is what the U. S. is doing consistent with a legal approach?
Which nations have been supporting the US war in Afghanistan and why?
What has been the role of the UN in the current war in Afghanistan?
What are the reasons to oppose U.S. bombing of Afghanistan?
But isn't it obvious bin Laden did it?
Is it possible that there is decisive evidence, but that its disclosure would compromise important intelligence gathering capabilities?
But didn't Afghanistan reject out-of-hand US demand to turn over bin Laden?
But you can't negotiate with terrorists?
But doesn't the U.S. have the right of self-defense?
But isn't the U. S. getting a vast coalition of support?
What do we think about the Sept. 14th Congressional resolution (passed 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House) authorizing President Bush to use force?
But aren't the targets being bombed in Afghanistan legitimate targets?
But aren't civilian casualties being avoided in Afghanistan?
But aren't U. S. food drops a sincere effort to help the people of Afghanistan?
What about the anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress, isn't that a step in the right direction?
How about the Bush administration's campaign to dry up terrorism's financial networks?
How about supporting the Northern Alliance, doesn't that hold out positive promise for Afghanistan?
How about invading Iraq, won't that be good for Iraqis?
How about increasing U.S. defense and military spending?
How about building a national missile defense system?
How about repealing the executive order prohibiting assassinating foreign leaders?
How about using racial profiling to counter terrorism in the United States?
What is a "war on terrorism," and why is it being elevated as the capstone of U. S. foreign policy?
But what about the role of oil in the current crisis?
So how long will the war in Afghanistan go on?
What dangers will we face in South Asia and the Middle East as a result of the current war?
But won't the "war on terrorism" reduce terrorism, and isn't that worth it?
Wouldn't changing US foreign policy under the threat of terrorism mean that we are giving in to terrorism?
Does the US support a Palestinian state? Should it?
What should the U.S. have done in response to September 11?
What other policies should our government be following to reduce the likelihood of people will undertake terrorist agendas?
The peace movement says "Justice, Not War. " But with terrorists, how can justice be achieved without war?
In what ways if any should the peace movement adjust its positions in the light of Sept. 11?
What should be the relation of other movements to the peace movement, and vice versa?

1. what is islamic fundamentalism, 2. what is the attitude in the arab and islamic worlds to (a) the sept. 11 attacks, and (b) the current us war in afghanistan, 3. what grievances fuel hatred for the u.s. in the middle east, 4. does trying to understand/explain the grievances of the people of the middle east constitute excusing bin laden, excusing terror, softness on fascism, etc., 5. what is terrorism, 6. are bin laden and his network terrorists, 7. is the taliban terrorist, 8. is hamas a terrorist group, 9. is the u.s. government terrorist, 10. why did the world trade center terrorists do it, 11. what is the legal way of dealing with terrorism, 12. if all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would the international response have been to the september 11 attacks, 13. if all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would the international response have been to the embargo of iraq, the bombing of kosovo and serbia, and the bombing of afghanistan, 14. is what the u. s. is doing consistent with a legal approach , 15. which nations have been supporting the us war in afghanistan and why, 16. what has been the role of the un in the current war in afghanistan, 17. what are the reasons to oppose u.s. bombing of afghanistan, 18. but isn't it obvious bin laden did it, 19. is it possible that there is decisive evidence , but that its disclosure would compromise important intelligence gathering capabilities, 20. but didn't afghanistan reject out-of-hand us demand to turn over bin laden, 21. but can you negotiate with terrorists, 22. but doesn't the u.s. have the right of self-defense, 23. but isn't the u.s. getting a vast coalition of support, 24. what do we think about the sept. 14th congressional resolution (passed 98-0 in the senate and 420-1 in the house) authorizing president bush to use force, 25. but aren't the targets being bombed in afghanistan legitimate targets, 26. but aren't civilian casualties being avoided in afghanistan, 27. but aren't u.s. food drops a sincere effort to help the people of afghanistan, 28. what about the anti-terrorism bill passed by congress, isn't that a step in the right direction, 29. how about the bush administration's campaign to dry up terrorism's financial networks, 30. how about supporting the northern alliance, doesn't that hold out positive promise for afghanistan, 31. how about invading iraq, won't that be good for iraqis, 32. how about increasing u.s. defense and military spending, 33. how about building a national missile defense system, 34. how about repealing the executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders, 35. how about using racial profiling to counter terrorism in the united states, 36. what is a "war on terrorism," and why is it being elevated as the capstone of u. s. foreign policy, 37. but what about the role of oil in the current crisis, 38. so how long will the war in afghanistan go on, 39. what dangers will we face in south asia and the middle east as a result of the current war, 40. but won't the "war on terrorism" reduce terrorism , and isn't that worth it, 41. wouldn't changing u.s. foreign policy under the threat of terrorism mean that we are giving in to terrorism, 42. does the u.s. support a palestinian state should it, 43. what should the u.s. have done in response to september 11, 44. what other policies should our government be following to reduce the likelihood of people will undertake terrorist agendas, 45. the peace movement says "justice, not war. " but with terrorists, how can justice be achieved without war, 46. in what ways if any should the peace movement adjust its positions in the light of sept. 11, 47. what should be the relation of other movements to the peace movement, and vice versa.

The term "fundamentalist" is used in a number of different ways. One definition is someone who interprets the texts of his or her religion in a literal way or who adheres to the original, traditional practices and beliefs of the religion. Another definition is someone who is intolerant of the views of other religions or sects. These two definitions often overlap -- traditional religions tend to be authoritarian and misogynist, which lend themselves to intolerance -- but they are not the same. (For example, some pacifist religious sects might be fundamentalist in the first sense, but not the second. ) Every religion has its fundamentalists -- Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and so on -- and some of these engage in terrorism.

Fundamentalists in the second sense have been on the rise worldwide. One reason has been the absence in so much of the Third World of a meaningful Left. Without a left alternative to the oppression and alienation of modern capitalism, many have sought solace in the easy explanations and promises of intolerant religion. Left organizations in many Arab and Muslim nations have either been smashed by right-wing forces (often backed by the major Western states) or discredited by ruthless dictatorships (as in Iraq) or Soviet-style parties. In this void, fundamentalism flourished. Fundamentalism was also supported by the opportunism of various states (for example, the United States backed reactionary fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden, against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and aided mullahs against the left in Iran; Israel gave early backing to Hamas in an effort to provide a counter-weight to the secular PLO).

The Taliban, the rulers of most of Afghanistan, adhere to a particularly extreme and intolerant variant of fundamentalist Islam. They came to power out of the in-fighting among the various Mujahedeen (religious warriors) groups following the Soviet withdrawal. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were the principal international backers of the Taliban

Pakistani intelligence maintained extremely close ties to the Taliban and Pakistani troops assisted their rise to power. Most Taliban leaders and many of its foot-soldiers were trained in the madrassas -- religious schools -- in Pakistan set up with funding from wealthy Pakistanis, Saudis, and others in the Gulf, which taught a version of the fundamentalist Wahhabism that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. Despite the anti-American and generally reactionary teachings of these madrassas, Pakistan has been a U.S. ally and Saudi Arabia has been one of Washington's closest allies

Ali: Q/A About Taliban and Islam...
Said: Clash of Ignorance

Every government in the region other than Iraq condemned the September 11 attacks, and even Iraq sent its condolences to the victims. The enormity of the slaughter horrified many people in the region, and there were many deeply felt expressions of sympathy for those who lost their lives. But a large reservoir of anti-Americanism led many people to feel that the United States was finally getting back some of what it deserved, or to believe one of the idiotic conspiracy theories so common in the Middle East (the Israeli Mossad did it, the CIA did it). Among Palestinians, a poll in early October found that two-thirds considered the attacks to violate Islamic law, while a quarter thought them consistent with it. The poll showed Palestinians angry about U.S. foreign policy, but not at Americans.

But even among those who were horrified by the September 11 attacks, most people in the region seem to oppose the war on Afghanistan. (The same Palestinian poll found 89 percent criticizing a U.S. attack on Afghanistan, with 92 percent believing that it would lead to more attacks on the United States.) Many pro-U.S. governments were tactfully silent when the air strikes began, sensing the popular opposition. The unilateralism of the U.S. response was especially criticized; Iran -- which had indicated its willingness to support a UN action -- sharply condemned the U.S. attacks

Fisk: Awesome Cruelty
Roy: Algebra of Infinite Justice

Anti-American sentiment is widespread in the Middle East, not just among Islamic fundamentalists. This anti-Americanism has a variety of sources. Some comes from specific U.S. policies in the region -- backing Israeli oppression of Palestinians, enforcing devastating sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq, supporting authoritarian governments, often by deploying U.S. troops on land considered holy by Muslims. Some comes from resentment of Washington's economic and political arrogance more generally. And some comes from religious opposition to the secular world, of which the United States is the leading power, an intolerance fed by sexism, anti-Semitism, and other reactionary doctrines. One indication of the weight of all these factors is provided by the videotape Osama bin Laden released on October 7 -- not because it tells us anything about the motives of bin Laden (who is probably totally unconcerned with oppressed or suffering people, hoping only to precipitate a holy war engulfing the entire region) -- but because bin Laden is an astute judge of what issues inflame people. In that video, bin Laden referred to 80 years of Muslim humiliation, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Iraqi starvation, and the atom bombs dropped on Japan. America, he warned, "will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad...." He felt these were the issues that people hearing him would be moved by, not an attack on Hollywood, much less democracy.

Shalom: Why Do They Hate Us?
Herman: Distaste for Civilization?

When some students killed their classmates at Columbine high school, people of good will tried to figure out the causes for such horrible events. In so doing, they were hardly justifying or excusing the heinous slaughter. The killers may have had some neo-Nazi sympathies (choosing Hitler's birthday as the day for their assault) -- but this didn't change our obligation to examine the deeper causes of adolescent alienation, to discover how schools might contribute to that alienation and what they could to do reduce it. No grievance of oppressed people can excuse or justify what happened on September 11. (As a PLO official declared: "It is true that there is injustice, terrorism, killing and crimes in Palestine, but that does not justify at all for anybody to kill civilians in New York and Washington.") But if we want to understand and reduce the widespread anti-Americanism that allows terrorism to find fertile soil, we need to attend to the grievances.

Chomsky, Albert, et. al. Reply to Hitchens

Dictionary definitions indicate it is creating terror, employing fear for political purposes. More aptly, terrorism is attacking and terrifying civilian populations in order to force the civilians' governments to comply with demands. So Hitler's bombing of London was terror bombing, unlike his attacks on British military bases. The issue isn't what weapon is used, but who is the target and what is the motive. For terrorism the target is innocent civilians. The motive is political, impacting their government's behavior. Attacks on the public for private gain are not terrorism, but crime. Attacks on a military for political purposes are not terrorism, but acts of war.

Herman: Anti-Terrorist Terrorism
Shiva: Against Terrorism

Bin Laden has issued public statements calling for the killing of U. S. civilians, among others. Evidence presented at trials compellingly ties the bin Laden network to terrorist attacks (the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the U. S. embassies in Africa in 1998). So even apart from Sept. 11, there is no doubt that bin Laden and Al Qaeda are terrorists.

Fisk: bin Laden...

In its treatment of the Afghan people -- especially women and religious minorities -- the Taliban has behaved in a terrorist manner. It has allowed bin Laden to establish training camps on its territory and prior to September 11, 2001, rejected UN demands that it turn bin Laden over to the United States. There have been no specific charges by the United States regarding any direct Afghan support for international terrorism. Prior to Sept. 11, Afghanistan was not on the U. S. State Department's (rather selective) list of nation's engaging in state terrorism.

Richter: Z Article Nov 2000

Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine engage in bombings of Israeli civilians. Despite the fact that Palestinians are oppressed, these attacks constitute terrorism. There can be no justification for blowing up civilians in a Sbarro's pizzeria or a Tel Aviv nightclub. These organizations are not the only terrorists, however. The Israeli government has killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians. These acts too are terrorism. One terrorism does not justify or excuse the other. The United States has been backing -- with military, economic, and diplomatic support -- Israeli terrorism.

When the U.S. government targets civilians with the intention of pressuring their governments, yes, it is engaging in terrorism. Regrettably, this is not uncommon in our history. Most recently, imposing a food and drug embargo on a country - Iraq - with the intention of making conditions so difficult for the population that they will rebel against their government, is terrorism (with food and medicine as the weapons, not bombs). Bombing civilian centers and the society's public infrastructure in Kosovo and Serbia, again with the intent of coercing political outcomes, was terrorism. And now, attacking Afghanistan (one of the world's poorest countries) and hugely aggravating starvation dangers for its population with the possible loss of tens of thousands, or more lives, is terrorism. We are attacking civilians with the aim of attaining political goals unrelated to them - in this case hounding bin Laden and toppling the Taliban.

We can't know, of course, but we can surmise. The September 11 attack was a grotesquely provocative act against a super power. No doubt many of those involved felt great anger and desperation due to U.S. policies in the region. But these attacks didn't alleviate such problems. The U.S. response is predictably violent and as any anyone would anticipate, reactionary forces have benefited in the U.S. and around the world.

But perhaps provoking the United States was precisely the intent. By provoking a massive military assault on one or more Islamic nations, the perpetrators may have sought to set off a cycle of terror and counter-terror, precipitating a holy war between the Islamic world and the West, leading, in their hopes, to the overthrow of all insufficiently Islamic regimes and the unraveling of the United States, just as the Afghan war contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union.

But if provocation rather than grievances motivated the planners of the terror strikes against the U.S., this wouldn't make grievances irrelevant. Whatever the planners' motives, they still needed to attract capable, organized, and skilled people, not only to participate, but even to give their lives to the planner's suicidal agenda. Deeply-felt grievances provide a social environment from which fanatics recruit and garner support.

In our world, the only alternative to vigilantism is that guilt should be determined by amassing of evidence that is then assessed in accordance with international law by the United Nations Security Council or other appropriate international agencies.

Punishment should be determined by the UN as well, and likewise the means of implementation. The UN may arrive at determinations that one or another party likes or not, as with any court, and may also be subject to political pressures that call into question its results or not, as with any court. But that the UN is the place for determinations about international conflict is obvious, at least according to solemn treaties signed by the nations of the world.

Thus, to pursue a legal approach means assembling evidence of culpability and presenting it to the UN or the World Court. It means those agencies undertaking to apprehend and prosecute culprits. It does not involve victims overseeing retaliation without even demonstrating guilt, much less having legal sanction, much less in a manner that increases the sum total of terrorism people are suffering and the conditions that breed potential future terrorism

Ratner: A Legal Alternative

Presumably, if provided proof of culpability, UN agencies would seek to arrest guilty parties. They would first seek to negotiate extradition. If a host government failed to comply, as a last resort they could presumably send in a force to extract guilty parties. But these actions would be taken in accord with international law, by forces led by international agencies and courts, in a manner respecting civilian safety, and consistent with further legitimating rather than bypassing respect for law and justice.

These acts, among many others, violate international law in many respects, not least because they harm civilians. Presumably, then, were international legal channels strengthened and respected, aggrieved parties could bring these and other cases to legal attention, leading to diverse prosecutions, many of which would be aimed at officials from the U.S.

To not present evidence, to decide guilt rather than respect institutions of international law, to prosecute not only presumed culprits but a whole population suffering terror and perhaps starvation--of course, international law has been violated. Worse, the mechanism for attaining illegal vigilante prosecution has been a policy which knowingly and predictably will kill many, perhaps even huge numbers of innocent civilians. We take access to food away from millions and then give food back to tens of thousands while bombing the society into panic and dissolution.

The answer is not to reduce the prospects of terror attacks. The U.S. government and all mainstream media warn their likelihood will increase, both out of short term desire to retaliate, and, over the longer haul, due to producing new reservoirs of hate and resentment. The answer is not to get justice. Vigilantism is not justice but the opposite, undermining international norms of law. The answer is not to reduce actual terror endured by innocent people. Our actions are themselves hurting civilians, perhaps in tremendous numbers.

All rhetoric aside, the answer is that the U.S. wishes to send a message and to establish a process. The message, as usual, is don't mess with us. We have no compunction about wreaking havoc on the weak and desperate. The process, also not particularly original since Ronald Regan and George Bush senior had similar aspirations, is to legitimate a "war on terrorism" as a lynchpin rationale for both domestic and international policy-making.

This "war on terrorism" is meant to serve like the Cold War did. We fight it with few if any military losses. We use it to induce fear in our own population and via that fear to justify all kinds of elite policies from reducing civil liberties, to enlarging the profit margins of military industrial firms, to legitimating all manner of international polices aimed at enhancing U.S. power and profit, whether in the Mideast or elsewhere.

For more on U.S. Motives, see also:

Mandel: Illegal War
Albert: What's Going On
Chomsky Answers Albert

The press refers to the "U.S.-led" war on Afghanistan, but in fact, except for the first day when some British Tomahawk missiles were fired, only U.S. military forces have so far been engaged in combat. Various nations -- in Europe, Canada, and so on -- have offered troops if the U.S. so requests. So far there has been no U.S. request, presumably because Washington wants to maintain total control of the operation.

No Arab nation has offered troops or even allowed its territory to be (openly) used for offensive military operations. While many regimes do not support the Taliban, they fear public reaction if they should participate in an attack on a Muslim country. Pakistan is providing bases that may in the future be used for helicopter raids. This was a reluctant response to U.S. cancellation of its debt, lifting of sanctions (for its nuclear weapons program), and an apparent U.S. guarantee that it would have a say in the future government of Afghanistan. Uzbekistan, which at first offered bases only for humanitarian operations, seems to have agreed to let the U.S. use the bases as it wishes, in return for a U.S. security guarantee.

Various other nations -- such as Russia and China -- have offered support, though non-military, to the United States, hoping thereby to have U.S. support as they battle their own domestic secessionist movements which they accuse of terrorism (in Chechnya and China's western Muslim Xinjiang province).

The Security Council passed two strong resolutions following September 11, but neither one authorized the use of military force, and especially not unilateral military force. The New York Times reported (7 Oct. 2001): "A sign of Washington's insistence that its hands not be tied was its rejection of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's entreaties that any American military action be subject to Security Council approval, administration officials said." Still less has the United States been willing to have the United Nations have control over the response to terrorism, including over any military operations.

Guilt hasn't yet been proven.
Bombing violates International Law.
Bombing will be unlikely to eliminate those responsible for the September 11 attacks.
Huge numbers of innocent people will die.
Bombing will reduce the security of U.S. citizens.
Albert/Shalom 5 Arguments Against War

There are many reasons to suspect bin Laden's responsibility for September 11 and his recent video gloating does not lessen these suspicions. But although Secretary of State Colin Powell initially promised that evidence of responsibility would be presented, the Bush administration "decided it was not necessary to make public its evidence against Mr. bin Laden" ( NYT , 7 Oct. 2001). The British government did prepare a document, "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001," ( http://www.pm.gov.uk ) which summarized real evidence regarding Osama bin Laden's involvement in earlier terrorist acts and noted the similarity of the Sept. 11 acts to the earlier acts (no warning given, intent to kill maximum number of people -- true of many terrorist acts), but provided very little information specifically regarding the events of September 11. The two crucial claims are contained in these statements, presented with no supporting evidence at all:

Since 11 September we have learned that one of Bin Laden's closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks.
There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of Bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release.

Our guess, having no access to intelligence sources, is that bin Laden does indeed bear responsibility for the horrible deeds of September 11. But wars should not be started on the basis of our, or anybody else's, guess. Certainly public opinion in the Arab and Islamic world is going to want more convincing evidence. "A decent respect to the opinions of mankind," said the Declaration of Independence, required a public statement of the causes which impelled the American colonists to a war of independence. Likewise, a decent respect for the opinion of the international community would require that before any action evidence of responsibility be presented. Washington might be satisfied with the evidence, but many others may not be.

We know of historical cases where U. S. officials have falsified evidence. (For example, in 1981 Washington issued a White Paper claiming to prove "Communist Interference in El Salvador"; Raymond Bonner promptly showed this to be "a textbook case of distortion, embellishments, and exaggeration.") But the issue goes beyond any deliberate manipulation of evidence. It's simply a basic principle of justice that people should not be judges in their own case. We know of other cases where U. S. officials were quick to act on totally inadequate evidence (as when they bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, alleging its involvement in producing chemical weapons, a claim that dissolved when subjected to examination).

Certainly it would be reasonable for a government to refuse to reveal intelligence sources which could help prevent future terrorist plots. No one is asking for names of informants and so on, but conceivably some evidence might point clearly to a specific informant. Consider, however, the following:

the U. S. was able to present evidence in court regarding the 1998 attacks on the U. S. embassies in Africa;
even if evidence could not be made fully public, could it not be shared with the Security Council for their assessment? Sharing the evidence with Britain and the rest of NATO is better than nothing, but not the same as sharing it with the body having legal authority for international peace and security;
some evidence (its nature and extent unknown) was apparently shared with Pakistan -- before its intelligence chief was sacked for being too sympathetic to the Taliban.

If there is evidence suitable for Pakistan, it's hard to see why that couldn't be made public. Washington, however, does not want to establish the precedent that it has an obligation to present evidence.

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan stated on October 5, "We are prepared to try him if America provides solid evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the attacks on New York and Washington." Asked if bin Laden could be tried in another country, the ambassador said, "We are willing to talk about that, but ... we must be given the evidence" ( Toronto Star , 6 Oct. 2001, p. A4). One report (AP, 7 Oct. 2001) quoted the ambassador as saying that legal proceedings could begin even before the United States offered any evidence: "Under Islamic law, we can put him on trial according to allegations raised against him and then the evidence would be provided to the court." Washington responded that its demands were non-negotiable and initiated its bombardment of Afghanistan. Was the Taliban offer serious? Could it have been the basis for further concessions? Who knows? Washington never pursued it. But do we really want a world where countries unilaterally issue ultimatums and then unilaterally decide whether the terms of the ultimatum have been met, cut off further negotiations, and open fire?

We might note that some other countries have refused to extradite accused terrorists, even when substantial evidence is presented. For example, Haiti has convicted Emmanuel Constant in absentia for being one of the leaders of paramilitary forces that killed thousands of civilians during the junta years in the early 1990s (with no small measure of U.S. complicity). Washington has refused to turn him over.

For the most part, you can't, but that is irrelevant to the issues at hand. You can't negotiate with serial killers, either, or with people who go berserk and shoot up their workmates in a post office. We don't deduce from the intransigence of perpetrators that the victims or the victims families should therefore become vigilantes and seek to arrest the culprits. We don't deduce that they should form lynch mobs, seeking the culprits dead or alive. And most important, we don't deduce that they should go after the families of the culprits, or their neighbors families, of the restaurant where they had breakfast.

That one can't sensibly negotiate with bin Laden and Al Qaeda - which may or may not be true - would only tell us that one shouldn't negotiate with them, not that we shouldn't pursue sensible channels of legal redress and prosecution, not that we should become vigilantes, not that we should adopt a lynch mob mentality, and that we should even go beyond that to attacking innocent bystanders in huge numbers, starving and otherwise terrorizing them.

If under attack, any country has the right to repel the attack, according to international law. But the right of self-defense is not unlimited. The standard precedent is the Caroline case, which held that action in self-defense should be confined to cases in which the "necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." Thus, self defense would permit the United States to shoot down attacking enemy planes, but not to wage a war half way around the globe a month after a terrorist attack, a war that U.S. officials say might go on for years. Instead, this is the sort of situation that should be turned over to the United Nations for action.

But let's suppose someone doesn't like the above formulation. What norm would we want instead? If a country's civilian population is attacked, then that country has the right to determine the perpetrator to its own satisfaction, issue an ultimatum, determine on its own the adequacy of the response to the ultimatum, and attack the perpetrator's host country, causing great civilian harm. Would we really want this to be a universal norm? This would mean that Cubans could attack Washington on grounds that Miami harbors support for terrorists who have attacked Cuban civilians. Likewise, Iraqis, Serbs, and now Afghans, not to mention Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Colombians, Guatemalans, and so on, could all target Washington on grounds that the U.S. government has attacked or abetted attacks on their civilian populations - and, for that matter, ironically, Washington can attack itself, on the grounds that it abetted the creation and arming of bin Laden's terror network which in turn attacked the U.S.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Britain was acting in self-defense because many British citizens died in the World Trade Center. But many Indian citizens also died; do we want India to issue an ultimatum to Pakistan (for its connections to bin Laden and other terror networks)? Do we want India to then decide whether Pakistan has met the terms of its ultimatum and if New Delhi decides no, then war ensues?

On October 14, the Taliban agreed to turn bin Laden over to a neutral country if the U.S. stopped the bombing. (We might note that a proposal to turn bin Laden over to a neutral country is not unreasonable, given the unlikelihood of a fair trial in a country whose president has declared that bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive.") The United States rejected the offer. Is this a decision that should be made unilaterally by Washington.

Is this the morality, legality, and practicality anyone could wish to advocate for international relations?

There was a vast outpouring of sympathy for the victims of the September 11 attacks. Many nations have indicated their willingness to participate in a campaign against terrorism. But, as indicated above (question 15), only one other nation thus far -- Britain -- has participated in the military actions against Afghanistan. More importantly, a coalition means a group of Washington's friends, which is not the same as obtaining legal international sanction for war.

No vote in a nation's legislature can permit that nation to behave contrary to international law. The Congressional resolution no more makes U.S. military action "right" than would a vote by India's legislature legitimate an attack on Pakistan or by Russia's legislature legitimate slaughter in Chechnya. Military actions that cause massive civilian harm as is now occurring in Afghanistan are wrong -- they meet our definition of terrorism -- no matter what the vote of a legislature may be.

One might also note how the members of the U.S. Congress -- with one courageous exception -- abdicated their responsibility. They are constitutionally assigned responsibility to provide a check on the arbitrary power of the executive branch. To pass a resolution authorizing the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons" is essentially saying that Congress wants no voice in assessing evidence, determining the appropriate way to respond to that evidence, or even whether we will go to war against one or several dozen countries.

First, if the agent of attack is illegitimate, no target it attacks is a legitimate one, even if the target might be proper were the agent someone else. Suppose Saddam Hussein decided to bomb Afghanistan on grounds he didn't like the role of the Taliban in abetting terror in the world and against the U.S. Even if he confined himself to targets entirely bearing upon the actions of terrorists and not significantly endangering civilians, still, we would say Hussein was acting illegally since he had no UN authorization to act, and we wouldn't temper that claim on the grounds he could be doing worse. The norm is general.

Even if the current U.S. bombings were internationally and legally sanctioned, thus not being carried out in vigilante style, not all targets are legitimate by any means. There is no justification in attacking in a manner that puts people at risk of starvation, that attacks civilian infrastructure, or that carries risk of substantial civilian deaths.

If the attacks had been initiated because bin Laden and his network were demonstrated guilty, and UN legal agencies called for their extradition, and the Taliban refused, and it became necessary to pursue the culprits in order to prosecute them, then yes, there could be a list of legitimate targets for such endeavors, but only if the seven million people at risk of starvation were not endangered, and if means of assault could be found which -- unlike those currently being utilized -- could be well controlled without causing terrible accidents.

On October 12, Mary Robinson, the UN's Commissioner for Human Rights, called on the United States to halt the bombing so that food could reach up to two million desperate Afghan civilians (Independent, 13 Oct. 2001)

Heikal: No Targets

If the question is, could the U.S. bomb in a fashion to induce greater civilian casualties, of course the answer is yes, so that in that sense it is avoiding many possible casualties. And if the question is, is it good that the U.S. isn't causing more deaths by our actions, again the answer is yes. But the question arises, why cause as many as we are? Why aggravate the desperate food situation to the point of possible calamity? Why attack in a manner that disrupts all social life and, inevitably, hits many civilians with bomb impact? This is not going to diminish hatred of the U.S. nor the violence in the region, but increase both. There is no justification for all this other than the desires to propel a state of war as a policy that benefits U.S. elites. If the food disaster materializes at the levels feared by aid and UN agencies, the catastrophe will be without historical parallel for such a short engagement

Chien: Civilian Toll

The first week's airdrops, we're told, averaged about 37,500 rations per day. One ration is 3 meals, or one person-day of food. There are between 3-7 million people at risk of starvation. Thus, in order to alleviate the danger, the rate of airdrops has to increase over the largest drops so far by a factor of between one and two hundred.

Bush pledged $324 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Each ration costs $4.25. Let us assume that there are only 3 million at risk of starvation, that every ration will reach one of those people, and that every dollar of that $324 million is going to rations (and not to the planes, fuel, staff, medicine, or any other item associated with delivery). Under these fantastically generous assumptions, there will be enough food to feed these people for 25 days. The reality is much worse: millions are now fleeing the bombing, and will not sow their crops of winter wheat. Much of the dropped food will land in minefields and remote areas. Most of Bush's money will not be spent on food. And there are probably 7.5 million in danger of starving, not 3 million. But even in this scenario the money is insufficient to last for the winter. Also for comparison, $40 billion was appropriated for the war effort, and a single B-2 bomber costs $2.1 billion.

To first aggravate the starvation danger faced by roughly 7 million at risk people by creating internal bedlam and cutting off food transport and aid through closing borders and bombing, and to then drop food for about one out of every hundred of the at-risk people, assuming all these meals were even accessible as compared to being scattered across terrain littered with military mines, is not a serious approach to saving lives. Rather, as the U.S. policymakers and commentators have repeated ad nauseam, it is a public relations effort aimed to reduce opposition, and nothing more.

As Doctors Without Borders, one of the agencies that had been working in Afghanistan, put it, "What is needed is large scale convoys of basic foodstuffs.... Until yesterday the UN and aid agencies such as ourselves were still able to get some food convoys into Afghanistan. Due to the air strikes the UN have stopped all convoys, and we will find delivering aid also much more difficult." As for the U.S. airdrops, "Such action does not answer the needs of the Afghan people and is likely to undermine attempts to deliver substantial aid to the most vulnerable."

Doctors Without Borders
Buckley: Afghan Disaster
Monbiot: Genocide or Peace?

We need to distinguish between privileges and basic rights. Being able to get to an airport just 25 minutes before your flight is a privilege, not a basic right. We should be more than willing to give up this privilege if it is necessary for security. But we should insist on an extremely high burden of proof before we're willing to scuttle fundamental rights. There are good reasons to think that the provisions of the anti-terrorism bill go far beyond what is necessary for security. For example, the definition of terrorism in the bill would cover domestic political organizations engaging in civil disobedience.

ACLU materials
ACLU: Surveillance Report

Terrorist organizations have been able to finance their operations by laundering their money through banks. But cracking down on money laundering requires challenging the power of the banking industry and of the wealthy who use off shore banks to hide their assets something the politicians in thrall to the rich have been loathe to do. So U.S. officials have failed to use the legal tools they had to investigate terrorism's financial trail and have failed to request the new tools they needed. In May 2001, the U.S. blocked an effort by the OECD (the main industrial nations) to crack down on bank secrecy. (See Lucy Komisar, "U.S. Bank Laws Fund Terrorists," [AlterNet], 21 Sept. 2001, http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11556 ; Tim Weiner and David Cay Johnston, "Roadblocks Cited in Efforts to Trace bin Laden Money," NYT, 20 Sept. 2001.) U.S. officials consider Saudi officials especially uncooperative in freezing bin Laden's assets (NYT, 10 Oct. 2001). Ultimatums anyone?

Weisbrot: Financial War

The Northern Alliance have in the past demonstrated a facility for barbarism only minimally less horrible than that of the Taliban. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), who have been struggling for years for democracy and against fundamentalism, have warned against allowing the Northern Alliance to come to power.

This strategy of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been used before with disastrous results. This was the logic that led to U.S. and Western support for the Mujahideen, leading to the Taliban, and aid and support for Saddam Hussein, and so on. It is not hard to predict that support for the Northern Alliance will, in years ahead, lead to still more travail and horror for Afghanistan, for the region, and perhaps for the world beyond.

Prashad: Into the Past?
The Northern Alliance?
Human Rights Watch report

An influential group of Pentagon officials and national security elites have been urging that the United States use this opportunity to take military action to depose Saddam Hussein. Hussein is a monster and many Iraqis would be thrilled to see him go. But going to war against him without the most compelling evidence of his responsibility for the September 11 attacks would lead to massive instability in the Muslim world -- with horrific human consequences. A recent meeting of Islamic nations did not condemn the U.S. bombing Afghanistan (thanks to the efforts of U.S. allies), but all agreed that any further military action would be utterly unacceptable. Whatever benefit the Iraqi people might obtain from the deposing of Hussein would likely be outweighed by the horrors of a war in Iraq and of holy wars from North Africa to Southeast Asia. The simplest way to help the people of Iraq would be to lift the economic sanctions that have caused such devastating hardship.

Despite their eagerness to link Saddam Hussein to September 11, Israeli, Jordanian, and U.S. intelligence have found no connection ( NYT , 11 Oct. 2001). Though both Al Qaeda and Hussein hate the United States, Hussein is not an Islamicist, and Al Qaeda considers him an infidel.

At the moment it seems as if the State Department, with its strategy of just going after Afghanistan, at least for now, will prevail over Defense Department officials who want to go after Iraq. But the United States delivered a note to the Security Council saying that its self-defense measures might require it to attack other countries. (Apparently this sentence was added by the White House to the U.S. note without informing Secretary of State Colin Powell [ NYT , 12 Oct. 2001].) Thus, we must await the result of the bureaucratic struggle within the Bush administration to see whether we'll go to war against Iraq. Is this a decision that Congress should have declined to get involved in? More crucially, is this a decision that should be up to the United States government rather than the United Nations?

Does it make sense for some effort to be made to develop means of better predicting and interdicting terrorist attacks? Yes. Can one make a cogent argument that a large country needs some military expenditure to be in position to repel attacks, and to even engage in war should that horrible eventuality come to pass? Yes, though many will reasonably disagree. But does the U.S. need to spend not only $343 billion as in the year 2000, which was 69 percent greater than that of the next five highest nations combined (with Russia spending less than one-sixth what the United States does, and Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spending in total $14.4 billion combined and Iran accounting for 52 percent of this total), but still more to accomplish such security? No, the rush to spend more on militarism has nothing whatever to do with security against terrorism and has everything to do with military profiteering.

From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan

Such a system has nothing to do with protecting against terrorism. Such a system in fact destabilizes world prospects for peace by propelling a new arms race as well as a launch on warning mentality in other countries. The system is pursued by the U.S. government largely as a sop to high tech industry and profit making and should be opposed on those grounds, and due to the danger it places all humanity in.

Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival -- Part 1 / 2

The U.S. government has been targeting foreign leaders for a long time, perhaps under an explicit waiver from the executive order, perhaps not. For example, the U.S. air force targeted not just Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 1986 -- on the grounds that his barracks were command and control centers -- but (according to Seymour Hersh) even his family. Today, the U.S. is hitting the homes of Taliban leaders. So it is hard to imagine that Washington needs a freer hand. In situations short of war, a basic principle of our jurisprudence is that people should be brought to trial, not subjected to extra-judicial execution.

We need to distinguish between two different kinds of situations. Consider first the sort of situation that even strong opponents of racial profiling agree would be appropriate police work: "Police receive a credible tip that a white man armed with a bomb is somewhere in an office building. They surround the building and then enter it. The police examine white men more closely than those who are non-white." (See Randall Kennedy, Race, Justice, and the Law , Vintage, 1997, pp. 141, 161.) In these kinds of emergency situations, it would be reasonable to scrutinize whites more closely (or blacks or Middle Easterners, depending on the situation). But this is very different from making the targeting of a particular ethnic group a routine part of police work. Doing so involves two real dangers: (1) It's not likely to be very effective. The suspected 20th hijacker, a native Moroccan, looks black, not Middle Eastern. And next time, Islamic terrorists might use an Asian-looking Indonesian or a white-looking Bosnian. Recall too the pregnant Irish woman in 1988 whose luggage contained a bomb, put there unbeknownst to her by her Palestinian boyfriend. (2) It's likely to undermine an important protection against terrorism, namely, the cooperation of the Arab and Muslim communities in the United States. If these people are treated abusively, they are not likely to come forward with information needed by the police.

So what happens when a Middle Eastern man gets on a plane and the flight crew doesn't feel safe? In one notorious case, a Pakistani was removed from a Delta flight after the pilot said he wouldn't fly with the man on board. We can sympathize with the pilot's concern -- reporters have shown how easy it was even after September 11 to board a plane with knives and other weapons -- but his solution was totally unacceptable and discriminatory. The proper solution was for the pilot to say to Delta that security remains inadequate and demand that an armed air marshal be put on board. People's fears are real and legitimate. But we must try to address those fears in ways that do not scapegoat and abuse Arabs or Muslims or anybody else.

A war on terrorism is a project of attacking whomsoever the U.S. proclaims to be terrorist. In that sense it has many aspects. It can be used to assault opponents who are in fact terrorist, or other opponents who are not terrorist but are labeled to be. It can be used to induce fear in the U.S. population, so as to justify huge military expenditures, violations of civil liberties, and other elite-benefiting policies - much as the Cold War served the same purpose in decades past. It doesn't risk serious conflict as the scale of the engagements and their targets are entirely up to us. It doesn't legitimate international law, and so it does nothing to risk the U.S. being held accountable for our actions.

In other words, the War on Terrorism, like the Cold War in earlier decades, for reasons having little to nothing to do with its rhetorical aims is quite serviceable to elites, supposing that they are able to convince the population of its efficacy.

Oil of course plays a greater or lesser role in everything political and economic that happens in the Mideast, sometimes forefront, sometimes background. U.S. geopolitical and economic policies have as one of their prime motives maintaining access to and virtual control over oil sources around the globe. Pursuit of profit per se, and oil profit, are at the foundation of U.S. institutional arrangements in general, and thus impact our large-scale motives, of course. But the idea that oil is the proximate reason for the attack on Afghanistan, is very far fetched, just as the notion that the U.S. engaged in the war in Vietnam to gain access to minerals within Vietnam was far fetched. What is primarily at stake, geopolitically and economically, is not access to specific resources (or pipeline routes) but the rules of global interaction, the further delegitimating of international law, the development of a replacement for the Cold War - in this case, a war on terrorism - as well as actual concerns about terrorism itself.

There is no way to say with confidence, but since Afghanistan is too poor to fight back and has so few targets of any substance or scale, serious assaults are unlikely to persist too long, one hopes. Nevertheless, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of the British defense staff, said military operations "must expect to go through the winter and into next summer at the very least" and President Bush said that the military operation would continue for days, months or even years ( NYT, 12 Oct. 2001).

To literally rip the fabric of the society to shreds and continue to obstruct possibilities for serious food aid could yield a holocaust, and even the most callous U.S. policy makers can't possibly be so ignorant as to conclude that the hate that would arise for the U.S. around the world would be in their interests. On the other hand, the war on terrorism has utility only insofar as the U.S. population can be kept focused on it, made fearful due to it, and thus willing to abrogate democratic influence and even a limited say over policymaking, as a result. So if the U.S. government can get away with doing so, a continuing attention to terrorism is to be anticipated.

Perhaps the greatest danger is that a Taliban-like regime might come to power in Pakistan as a result of war-induced destabilization. Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan is no minor player: it has nuclear weapons. Even with sober leaders, Pakistan has pursued highly reckless policies with regard to Kashmir, bringing it close to conflict with its nuclear armed neighbor, India.

More generally, there is the danger that the calls for holy war, largely ignored in the Muslim world in recent years, will now gain a wider following.

First, the attacks on civilians in Afghanistan, and the aggravation of the starvation conditions, is itself terrorist, greatly increasing the terrorism at play in the world.

Second, killing innocent civilians, as has already occurred and will increasingly occur, will likely create more terrorists in Afghanistan and more widely throughout the region. The New York Times reported (10/13/01) of an Afghan village struck by U.S. bombs, with many civilian casualties. "Maulvi Abdullah Haijazi, an elder from a nearby village, had come to assist. 'These people don't support the Taliban,' he said. 'They always say the Taliban are doing this or that and they don't like it. But now they will all fight the Americans. We pray to Allah that we have American soldiers to kill. These bombs from the sky we cannot fight.'" And when they can't kill U.S. soldiers, they can at least join a terror network. This is the bad fruit our rain from the sky nurtures - among survivors.

Suppose a postal worker attacks his mates and some folks in the post office one morning. The government - not the surviving workers in the post office - moves to capture and prosecute the culprit (not to attack his neighbors, etc. ). But hopefully the government also looks into the conditions that contributed to the postal workers heinous acts, as well. Suppose it discovers that stress levels in post offices are abysmal and contribute to anger and personal dissolution leading to "going postal. " Would the government be giving in to criminal pressures if it advocated a reduction in stress in postal work? No, on the contrary the government would be acting sensibly to reduce just grievances that needed reduction in any event, and which would have the very good by-product of helping reduce the likelihood of other postal workers attacking their workmates.

The same logic holds in this case. For the U.S. to alter its foreign policy to not support despots abroad, to not punish civilian populations abroad, to not support unjust policies by allies abroad, to indeed try to redress huge injustices of economic impoverishment abroad, are all choices that should occur in any event, in their own right, and whose implementation would also, as a desirable side benefit, reduce the conditions that breed the hate and desperation terrorism feeds on.

The Bush administration has now declared that its vision for the solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict includes a Palestinian state. The Bush administration is now in line with the former Clinton administration. This is better than Bush's previous backtracking, but it is still very far from what is needed. Washington says the boundaries of the Palestinian state are to be worked out by the parties -- the Palestinians and Israel -- but that means that Israel has an effective veto over any settlement, and until there is a settlement, Palestinians remain under Israeli occupation. Everyone now says they support a Palestinian state, including Israel, but the crucial question is whether the specific terms address the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The issue is not a few square kilometers of desert on one side of the border or the other, but whether there will be Israeli security zones carved out of the Palestinian state, whether Israeli security roads will traverse the Palestinian state, and whether Israeli settlements will remain. In addition, there are the questions of whether Israel will continue to control East Jerusalem which it conquered in 1967 and whether the Palestinians have to foreswear their right to return to lands from which they have been driven out. Until the United States is willing to use its influence to pressure Israel to accept real self-determination for Palestinians, the problem will remain.

The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to have been to assure the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of others.

Any response should have avoided targeting civilians or so-called dual-use targets and should have been carried out according to the UN Charter. We should have sought freely-offered Security Council authorization with the UN retaining control of any response.

For more specific recommendations, made before the bombing began, see also:

Albert & Shalom: Z's Sept 11 Talking Points

It isn't crazy, in the U.S. to have locks on some doors, etc. But it is wise to try to enact policies that reduce poverty and desperation as well, not only because it is moral to do so to benefit those suffering, but because it will dramatically reduce inclinations to steal. Similarly, internationally, it isn't crazy to expend some energies and resources guarding against terrorist attack. But it is wise to try to enact policies that reduce conditions of poverty and disenfranchisement, not only because it is moral to do so to benefit those suffering, but because it will dramatically reduce inclinations to terrorize and prospects for finding allies willing to abet that terrorism.

What else could we do? David Corn offers some suggestions: a large increase of funding for the public health infrastructure (which is today inadequate to deal with a serious biological or chemical terror), funding programs to secure or neutralize Russian nuclear material and to prevent Russian weapons scientists from being exported, stop exporting hand-held guns that can bring down airplanes. Having the federal government take over airport security is a suggestion we made previously; right now the Bush administration opposes Congressional legislation to this effect because it will increase big government. Richard Garwin has additional suggestions. All these make sense. And they are likely to enhance our security, while war is likely to do the opposite.

First, it can't be achieved via war because, in this case, war kills huge numbers of innocents, reduces the attentiveness to law and justice, and creates huge reservoirs of hate fueling future terrorists possibilities.

Second, it can be achieved without war, however, by following the norms of international law, which, if need be, may even involve military aspects along with diplomacy and other features - but not war as in one country, or a pair, attacking another.

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should have attuned themselves to unjust and horrific violence that victimized the weak and was engaged to benefit the powerful. The same holds now.

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should have opposed unjust wars, particularly perpetrated by their own countries, and any policies making such wars more likely or more brutal. The same holds now.

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should have examined institutional causes for wars, seeking to reduce those causes as much as possible. The same holds now.

So did anything profound change calling for re-thinking by peace movements?

Yes, one thing did change, quite dramatically. For the first time some of the abhorrent violence has been turned toward the civilian populations of the developed nations. This means that defensive motives will enter developed nation's calculations vis-a-vis international relations with poor countries not solely rhetorically, but in fact. Peace movements will have to pay attention to that new reality even as they also pay attention to on-going structural causes of war and injustice.

Albert: Movement Prospects

Winning gains against intransigent elites depends on convincing them that to ignore demands will lead to more losses for them than to meet demands. What accomplishes this is always the specter of growing numbers of people taking the side of dissidents, becoming sufficiently aroused and impassioned to work to recruit still more allies, and to manifest their dissent in demonstrations and civil disobedience, and especially of growing numbers whose concerns begin to transcend immediate issues and call into question broader and even more important institutional allegiances of elites.

Thus, peace movements, anti-racist movements, labor movements, anti-capitalist movements, ecology movements, feminist movements, movements against capitalist globalization, movements for great democracy or against incursions on freedom, and any other social movements will benefit to the extent they mutually support one another and convince elites that to ignore their focus is to risk enlarged opposition not only on that issue, but on all others as well. They will suffer losses in their efficacy to the extent that they are isolated from one another, or even pitted against one another

Peace movements and other movements should support and even take up one another's struggles, to the extent circumstances and resources permit

Garson: Multi-Focus or Bust

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Posted: Monday, October 15, 2001

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The Terrorism Warning Lights Are Blinking Red Again

Echoes of the Run-Up to 9/11

By Graham Allison and Michael J. Morell

From his confirmation hearing to become director of Central Intelligence in May 1997 until September 11, 2001, George Tenet was sounding an alarm about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. In those four years before al Qaeda operatives attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Tenet testified publicly no fewer than ten times about the threat the group posed to U.S. interests at home and abroad. In February 1999, six months after the group bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he claimed, “There is not the slightest doubt that Osama bin Laden . . . [is] planning further attacks against us.” In early 2000, he warned Congress again that bin Laden was “foremost among these terrorists, because of the immediacy and seriousness of the threat he poses” and because of his ability to strike “without additional warning.” Al Qaeda’s next attacks, Tenet said, could be “simultaneous” and “spectacular.” In private, Tenet was even more assertive. Breaking with standard protocols, he wrote personal letters to President Bill Clinton expressing his deep conviction about the gravity of the threat. And several times in 2001, he personally discussed his concerns about al Qaeda’s plans with President George W. Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The CIA and the FBI may not have uncovered the time, place, or method of the 9/11 plot, but Tenet’s warnings were prophetic.

Two and a half decades later, Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, is sounding similar alarms. His discussions within the Biden administration are private, but his testimony to Congress and other public statements could not be more explicit. Testifying in December to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wray said, “When I sat here last year, I walked through how we were already in a heightened threat environment.” Yet after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, “we’ve seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole nother level,” he added. In speaking about those threats, Wray has repeatedly drawn attention to security gaps at the United States’ southern border, where thousands of people each week enter the country undetected.

Wray is not the only senior official issuing warnings. Since he became commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) in 2022, General Erik Kurilla has been pointing out the worrying capabilities of the terrorist groups his forces are fighting in the Middle East and South Asia. These include al Qaeda , the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), and especially Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the ISIS affiliate that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Christine Abizaid, the outgoing director of the National Counterterrorism Center, described “an elevated global threat environment” while speaking at a conference in Doha last month. And in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee just last week, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, speaking about the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States, said that the “threat level . . . has gone up enormously.”

Only with complete access to intelligence information could one form a fully independent view of the threat. But the FBI director’s and the CENTCOM commander’s statements almost certainly reflect the classified intelligence they are reading and the law enforcement and military operations in which their organizations are involved. Their words should be taken seriously. In the years since 9/11, other officials have warned about terrorist threats that, fortunately, did not materialize, but that does not mean Wray’s and Kurilla’s comments today should be discounted. The wax and wane of terrorism warnings over the years has generally corresponded with the level of actual risk. In many cases, too, those warnings triggered government responses that thwarted terrorists’ plans. Given the stakes, complacency is a greater risk than alarmism.

Combined, the stated intentions of terrorist groups, the growing capabilities they have demonstrated in recent successful and failed attacks around the world, and the fact that several serious plots in the United States have been foiled point to an uncomfortable but unavoidable conclusion. Put simply, the United States faces a serious threat of a terrorist attack in the months ahead.

Fortunately, the United States has learned a great deal over the past 30 years about how to combat terrorist threats, including threats that are not yet well defined. President Joe Biden and his administration should now use that playbook. It includes steps the intelligence community should take to better understand the threat, steps to prevent terrorists from entering the United States, and steps to put pressure on terrorist organizations in the countries where they find sanctuary. One of the best models to follow is the set of measures Clinton authorized when the terror threat rose in the summer and fall of 1999. Those steps prevented a number of attacks, including at least one attack on the U.S. homeland. That success—as well as the United States’ failure to prevent 9/11—offers valuable lessons for modern policymakers. Today, as then, it is better to be proactive than reactive.

PIECES OF THE PUZZLE

Without access to classified intelligence, piecing together information from public congressional testimonies, successful terrorist attacks abroad, and foiled plots in the United States and elsewhere is the best way to build a picture of the threat. Clues about unsuccessful attempts in the United States in particular have come into view since the Biden administration persuaded Congress in April to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the provision that allows the U.S. government to compel U.S. telecommunications and Internet providers to turn over the communications of foreigners outside the United States whose communications travel through the United States.

In at least eight appearances before Congress since last fall—including one just last week—Wray has identified three different categories of threats to the U.S. homeland: international terrorism, domestic terrorism, and state-sponsored terrorism. All three, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in December, are “simultaneously elevated.”

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee in March, he said that “the number one category” of terrorist threats in the United States included “lone actors or individuals operating in small cells using readily available weapons.” Noting the influence of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, Wray has warned of “homegrown violent extremists” motivated by both Hamas’s attack and Israel’s response. He has said that the FBI is investigating many such individuals, but he has not provided further detail.

Assessing the threat from abroad, Wray told the Senate Homeland Security Committee last October that Washington cannot “discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may . . . conduct attacks here” in the United States. In April, he told the House Appropriations Committee that “the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland” was “increasingly concerning.”

The United States faces a serious threat of a terrorist attack in the months ahead.

Wray has focused on one country as a potential state sponsor of terrorism: Iran . In October, he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that Tehran continues to plot against high-ranking “current or former” U.S. government officials as a means of exacting revenge for the United States’ assassination of senior Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Although Iranian plans have failed so far, there is no guarantee that the next one will. The successful killing of a U.S. citizen, especially if it takes place on U.S. soil, would not only strike fear among the American public but also plunge Tehran and Washington into a crisis on a scale unseen since the Iranian regime took power in 1979.

The FBI director has also highlighted a specific security vulnerability. In December, Wray warned the Senate Judiciary Committee that foreign terrorists trying to get into the United States have the “ability to exploit any point of entry, including our southwest border.” In March, he drew the Senate Intelligence Committee’s attention to “a particular network [operating on the southern border].” He told the committee that this smuggling network has overseas facilitators with “ISIS ties that we are very concerned about.”

Kurilla has been sounding similar alarms from CENTCOM. The forces under his command conducted 475 ground operations and 45 airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria last year—killing or capturing almost 1,000 of the group’s fighters. In a March statement, Kurilla affirmed that both ISIS and al Qaeda “remain committed to inflicting violence.” Although U.S. forces have kept ISIS from controlling large portions of Iraq and Syria, by Kurilla’s count, the group still has at least 5,000 fighters. Over the span of just two weeks in early 2024, ISIS conducted 275 attacks—its highest rate in years. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, continues to operate from Afghanistan and Yemen.

Kurilla has called particular attention to ISIS-K, the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In March 2023 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, he warned that the group would be able to carry out an “operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning.” His words proved prescient earlier this year, when ISIS-K mounted the deadliest terror attack Iran had experienced since the founding of the Islamic Republic, in which two suicide bombers killed at least 95 people at a memorial on the anniversary of Soleimani’s death. ISIS-K struck again in March, when four terrorists killed 145 people and injured 550 more in a brazen attack on a concert hall in Moscow.

The commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Michael Langley, has painted a similar picture. In testimony in March before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Langley noted that al Qaeda and ISIS are exploiting “underdeveloped, undergoverned areas” and that “recent military takeovers in West Africa are giving space to violent extremist organizations.” Langley told the committee that his forces conducted 18 attacks on those terrorist groups in 2023 as part of a larger campaign. His testimony is consistent with the assessment of most terrorism experts in and out of government that al Qaeda and ISIS groups in Africa are thriving.

Observable trends add weight to these officials’ concerns. Most important is the growing number of both successful and foiled attacks. According to the Global Terrorism Index , deaths from terrorism increased by 22 percent from 2022 to 2023. This year has already seen the two large ISIS-K attacks in Iran and Russia. And were it not for the outstanding work of German intelligence and police, the list of successful acts of terrorism in the past few months would have been longer. German authorities arrested foreign nationals who were allegedly planning attacks on the Cologne Cathedral late last year and the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm in March.

Foiled plots inside the United States should be the ultimate wake-up call. In April 2022, the Justice Department charged an Iranian government official based in Tehran with attempting to hire a hit man to assassinate former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton. The following month, the FBI reported that it had thwarted the plans of an Iraqi national living in Ohio to smuggle four people across the southern border to assassinate former President George W. Bush. Most recently, the FBI—as part of the Biden administration’s effort to convince Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—shared declassified intelligence with Politico showing that the agency had stopped a plot to attack critical infrastructure in the United States last fall. According to the FBI, the organizer inside the United States was in regular contact with a foreign terrorist group, had identified specific targets, and had made sufficient preparations to put the plan into motion.

A final piece of the puzzle is the string of recent statements by terrorist groups calling for attacks. Many pegged their threats to the events of October 7 . Shortly after that day’s attack, al Qaeda issued a statement urging Muslims around the world to seize a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to commit acts of violence in support of Hamas’s cause. In January, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released videos calling for attacks on commercial flights worldwide and on targets in New York City. And in March, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, an ISIS-K spokesperson called on individuals to carry out lone-wolf attacks on Christians and Jews in the United States, Europe, and Israel. When terrorist groups make explicit threats to the United States, Washington should listen. It is not uncommon for adversaries to say precisely what they are going to do—as bin Laden did before 9/11.

THE LOGIC OF THE THREAT

Identifying terrorist threats involves identifying motive, means, and opportunity—the three key elements in any criminal investigation. In the case of terrorism, however, one more element is necessary: organizational capacity. If an individual or a group does not have the skills or connections to turn plans into action, they will not cross the threshold from a potential risk to an active one.

Motives abound for potential perpetrators of terrorist attacks. Two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as U.S. drone strikes in more than a dozen other countries, have generated resentment toward the United States that could drive individuals to seek violent retribution. More recently, Israel’s ongoing response to the horrific attacks on October 7 has killed at least 36,000 people (of which more than half are civilians) in Gaza. That operation will have what Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has called a “generational impact on terrorism” and will create what Kurilla has described as “the conditions for malign actors to sow instability throughout the region and beyond.” The assassination of Soleimani in 2020, too, has prompted Iran to attempt attacks in the United States ever since. These efforts may accelerate as Iran faces a deepening conflict with Israel and instability at home following the death of its president. Even the threat of domestic extremism and lone-wolf attacks—the least predictable forms of terrorism—is likely to grow more serious as the United States approaches a polarized election between two candidates who regularly issue dire warnings that a victory by the other side would be the death knell of American democracy.

Next, consider means and opportunity. Airport security may have tightened significantly since 9/11 , but weekly mass shootings prove that it remains relatively easy in the United States to buy high-powered assault weapons and enough ammunition to kill large numbers of people in a short period of time. Last year, hundreds of individuals on the United States’ terrorist watch list attempted to enter the country via the southern border. It is not difficult to imagine a person, or even a group, with the intent to do harm slipping across a border—where U.S. officials reported 2.5 million encounters with migrants in 2023—and then purchasing assault rifles and carrying out a large massacre. There is no shortage of locations across the United States where hundreds, if not thousands, of people gather on a regular basis—and all may be ready targets for those seeking to incite terror.

The final factor is organizational capacity. The United States’ “war on terror” has eliminated large numbers of fighters and planners. But as Kurilla warned earlier this year, ISIS and other groups still have the leadership, foot soldiers, and organizational structures necessary to orchestrate attacks. Wray, too, has urged lawmakers not to take too much comfort in terrorist groups’ shrinking sizes. As he said in December, “Let’s not forget that it didn’t take a big number of people on 9/11 to kill 3,000 people.”

PREVENTING THE UNTHINKABLE

The Biden administration already has a lot on its plate, between supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s large-scale invasion, bracing for the possibility that Israel’s failing war against Hamas in Gaza will turn into a wider war against Iranian proxies in the region, and maintaining its focus on China. But policymakers should not underestimate the threat of a terrorist attack inside the United States. Assessments of national security threats must account for both the level of risk and the scale of potential consequences—and in the case of terrorism, both should compel the administration to take action.

Biden should launch a comprehensive campaign to halt any terrorist planning that may be underway, taking a page from the playbook Clinton adopted at the end of his second term. After listening carefully to the intelligence community’s warning about potential terrorist plots, Clinton resolved to take action. The attacks that were prevented at the turn of the century offer lessons today—as do the ones that weren’t prevented on 9/11.

When terrorist groups make explicit threats, Washington should listen.

In the fall of 1999, U.S. intelligence agencies collected information that strongly suggested bin Laden and al Qaeda were preparing to launch multiple attacks to coincide with the millennium. Although the adversary and the timing were clear, the targets and method of attack were not. This lack of detail did not stop Clinton from ordering a swift and sweeping response. As Tenet recounts in his memoir, what followed was a “frenzy of activity”: the CIA conducted operations in 53 countries against 38 targets, including the detention of dozens of suspected terrorists. The CIA engaged foreign partners, most notably working with Canadian authorities to break up an Algerian terror cell in Canada and helping Jordanian authorities arrest 16 terrorists planning an attack on tourists in Amman. As a result, no terrorist group successfully carried out an attack at the millennium. Among the more celebrated successes was the arrest of al Qaeda operative Ahmed Ressam, which thwarted the group’s plan to attack Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999. Immigration officers in Port Angeles, Washington, were on high alert because of the Clinton order, and they pulled Ressam aside at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing. In the trunk of his car, they discovered 100 pounds of high explosives and materials for multiple detonators. Ressam was later convicted on terrorism charges.

For Washington to mount a similar effort to counter today’s terror threat, the intelligence and security community must explain the danger to policymakers and the American public more consistently. Wray and Kurilla have been vocal about their concerns, but other officials have so far been more reserved. It is not clear whether this public reticence is merely a political calculation or an indication of disagreement. To clarify officials’ assessment of the threats, congressional intelligence committees should convene unclassified hearings with the directors of National Intelligence, the CIA, the FBI, and the National Counterterrorism Center and ask each agency to offer its candid views. Diagnosis must precede prescription. Policymakers need a clear picture of the threat before they can determine how to proceed and how to bring the American public on board.

Next, U.S. intelligence agencies should review all previously collected information related to terrorism. A reexamination of earlier reporting can yield new insights or even uncover information that was overlooked the first time. Tenet ordered a similar review in the summer of 2001. Although it did not stop 9/11, the exercise did reveal that the CIA had learned in 1999 that two al Qaeda members who later became hijackers possessed U.S. visas, but the CIA did not put them on the watch list at the time. When this information came to light, the two men were immediately put on the watch list, and the FBI began to search for them, albeit unsuccessfully. Similar clues could be out there today, and to find them, intelligence professionals will need to start doing what they call “shaking the trees.” One of the most effective measures they could take would be to ask the United States’ international counterterrorism partners to detain and interview—within their legal authority—individuals with ties to terrorism.

These steps to identify threats are critical, but action to prevent attacks is even more important. Given the particular vulnerability of the southern border, Biden’s recent executive order to restrict asylum processing is a valuable step toward limiting entry to the United States. But with U.S. Customs and Border Protection reporting close to 200,000 encounters with migrants at this border each month so far in 2024, and with thousands of people each week crossing the border undetected, the government will need to take additional action—including the use of national emergency authorities—to ensure that terrorists are not exploiting this overwhelmed channel to enter the country.

Action is also required to address threats before they come overseas. ISIS-K poses the most immediate threat, but it is based in Afghanistan, where the United States has not had a military presence since its withdrawal in 2021. Washington may therefore need to do something otherwise unthinkable: work with the Taliban. The group, which again rules Afghanistan after two decades of war with the United States, considers ISIS-K an adversary. The possibility of coordinating with the Taliban to target ISIS-K militants has been raised before, including by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in 2021. Washington does not need to provide weapons to the Taliban or put boots on the ground, but it should consider limited intelligence exchanges in which the United States offers information about possible ISIS-K targets inside Afghanistan in return for information from the Taliban about ISIS-K’s capabilities and plans for overseas attacks. The United States should likewise work with Pakistan, where ISIS-K also operates, to neutralize the group.

Taking these steps would be difficult in the best of times, let alone ahead of an election. But terrorists can strike without warning, and they feel no need to respect the U.S. political calendar. For the past two decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the efforts of thousands of Americans in the military and intelligence communities have spared the country a second 9/11—or worse. This is an extraordinary achievement, but the work is not done. A terrorist attack is a preventable catastrophe. As the threat increases, policymakers must rise to the challenge to protect the U.S. homeland.

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GRAHAM ALLISON is Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University.
MICHAEL J. MORELL is Senior Counselor and Global Head of Geostrategic Risk at Beacon Global Strategy. He was Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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War Veterans and Family Testify at Al Qaeda Commander’s War Crimes Tribunal

Victims of insurgent attacks in wartime Afghanistan described their loss to a jury at Guantánamo Bay to give a human face to a written guilty plea.

A portrait of an older man wearing a cap that says “Veteran” and a polo shirt. He is standing behind a younger woman in a red striped blazer over a white top. His hand rests on her shoulder. Behind them is a highway running over water.

By Carol Rosenberg

Reporting from Guantánamo Bay

A U.S. Army veteran spoke about being left blind by a sniper’s bullet in wartime Afghanistan. A Florida father said he lost his best friend when a roadside charge killed his eldest son, a Green Beret. A former bomb squad member described two decades of trauma and anxiety from dismantling a car bomb that could have killed him.

The physical and emotional carnage of the early years of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was on display Friday as prosecutors presented their case to an 11-member U.S. military jury hearing evidence in the sentencing trial of a prisoner called Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi .

Mr. Hadi, 63, sat silently alongside his American military and civilian lawyers, mostly with his head bowed, throughout the testimony. Next week he will address the jury about his own failing health and trauma from time in U.S. detention, starting with several months in C.I.A. custody after his capture in Turkey in 2006.

The case is an unusual one at the court, which has focused on terrorism cases, such as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In an 18-page written plea, Mr. Hadi admitted that he served as a commander of Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan who had committed classic war crimes, including using civilian cover for attacks such as turning a taxi into a car bomb.

Friday’s testimony cast a spotlight on the invasion by an international coalition assembled by President George W. Bush after Sept. 11 to hunt down Osama bin Laden and dismantle the Taliban for providing safe haven to Al Qaeda. It was America’s longest war and ended in a withdrawal of U.S. forces in August 2021, 10 months before Mr. Hadi pleaded guilty .

Sgt. Douglas Van Tassel , an active duty Canadian paratrooper, donned his uniform including his jump boots to testify to the loss of a compatriot, Cpl. Jamie B. Murphy, 26 , who was killed in 2004 when a suicide bomber attacked their two-jeep convoy as they drove near Kabul.

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After September 11

Afghanistan and Threats to Human Security

The concept of human security unifies fields of policy and analysis that have conventionally been kept separate: humanitarianism and development on the one hand, and international security on the other. For years, those concerned with the suffering and ordeals of the people of Afghanistan found it hard to gain a hearing in the precincts of so-called “high politics,” where security dominated. Afghanistan was defined largely as a “humanitarian emergency” to be treated with charity. Regional states, especially some Central Asian leaders, argued repeatedly that the failure to rebuild Afghanistan and provide its people with security and livelihoods threatened its neighbors. Since 1998, an increase in what we may, in retrospect, call relatively small acts of terror traced to the al-Qa’ida organization, did place Afghanistan on the global security agenda. But the means chosen to address that threat—sanctions against the Taliban, combined with humanitarian exceptions, with no reference to the reconstruction of the country—showed that those setting the international security agenda had not drawn the connection between the terrorist threats to their own security and the threats to human security faced daily by the people of Afghanistan.

The people of Afghanistan have for twenty years faced violence, lawlessness, torture, killing, rape, expulsions, displacement, looting, and every other part of the litany of suffering that characterizes today’s transnational wars. Groups one after another, aided by foreign powers, have destroyed the irrigation systems, mined the pastures, leveled the cities, cratered the roads, blasted the schools, and arrested, tortured, killed, and expelled the educated. Statistics are few and far between, but one study estimated that “excess mortality,” in the demographer’s phrase, had amounted to nearly one-tenth of Afghanistan’s population between 1979 and 1987.

Some of the results of this destruction are summarized in the table reproduced here (see end) from a previous publication. It shows that whatever measure of human welfare or security one chooses—life expectancy, the mortality of women and children, health, literacy, access to clean water, nutrition—Afghanistan ranks near the bottom of the human family. But this table shows something else as well. The figures in it are all rough guesses compiled by international organizations. Afghanistan is no longer even listed in the tables of the World Development Report published yearly by the UN Development Program, because it has no national institutions capable of compiling such data.

In a lecture published years ago, Professor Amartya Sen compared the records of China and India in food security, particularly in the prevention of famine, and he demonstrated a fundamental result: access to information is one of the chief guarantors of human security. Professor Sen showed that the restrictions placed on freedom of expression by the Chinese government allowed famine to rage unchecked during the Great Leap Forward, whereas India’s freer system more easily halted such disasters.

Afghanistan also faces a challenge of information, but an even more fundamental one than China: it has no institutions capable even of generating information about the society that could be used to govern it. Over the past two decades Afghanistan has been ruled, in whole or in part, at times badly and at times atrociously, but it has not been governed. Above all, the crisis of human security in Afghanistan is due to the destruction of institutions of legitimate governance. It is as much an institutional emergency as a humanitarian emergency. Accountable institutions of governance that use information to design policies to build the human capital of their citizens and support their citizens’ economic and social efforts, and that allow others to monitor them through the free exchange of information, are the keys to human security.

The insecurity due to the absence of such institutions and the effect on the population accounts for many of the threats that Afghanistan has posed. The rise and fall of one warlord or armed group after another is largely accounted for by the ease with which a leader can raise an army in such an impoverished, ungoverned society. One meal a day can recruit a soldier. No authorities impede arms trafficking, and no one with power has enough stake in the international order to pay it heed.

The expansion of the cultivation and trafficking of opium poppy constituted a survival strategy for the peasantry in this high-risk environment. Opium cultivation supplied not only income and employment, but cash for food security. Afghanistan used to be self-sufficient in food production, but it now produces less than two-thirds of its needs. Futures contracts for poppy constituted the only source of rural credit, and only the cash derived from these futures contracts enabled many rural families to buy food and other necessities through the winter.

The lack of border control, legitimate economic activity, and normal legal relations with neighbors, combined with disparities in trade policy between the free port of Dubai and the protectionist regimes elsewhere in the region, made Afghanistan into a center of contraband in all sorts of goods. This smuggling economy provided livelihoods to a sector of the population while undermining institutions in Afghanistan’s neighbors.

The lack of any transparency or accountability in monetary policy since the mid-1980s has both resulted from and intensified the crisis of institutions. Governments or factions posing as governments received—and continue to receive—containers of newly printed currency, which they transfer to militia leaders or other clients to buy their loyalty. They need not bother with the inconvenience of taxation or nurturing productive economic activity. The resultant hyperinflation has driven wealth out of the country and contributed to the already bleak prospects for investment. It has virtually wiped out the value of salaries paid to government workers, including teachers, undermining the last vestiges of administration and public service, except where international organizations pay incentives to keep people on the job.

This is the context in which Afghanistan became a haven for international terrorism. The origins of the problem go back to the creation of armed Islamic groups to fight the Soviet troops and the government they had installed. Islamist radicals, mainly from the Arab world, were recruited to join the ranks of the mujahidin. But the Afghans, by and large, did not want these fighters to stay after the Soviet troops left. If the people of Afghanistan had been able to rebuild their country and establish institutions of governance, they would have expelled the terrorists, as they are doing today. But in the atmosphere of anarchy and lawlessness, the armed militants were useful to both some Afghan groups and their foreign supporters.

The money that could be mobilized by Usama bin Ladin and his networks also played a role. As the Taliban, in particular, became increasingly alienated from the official international aid community, with its various strictures and demands about women and other matters, they increasingly turned to this alternative, unofficial international community. The financial and military support they received helped cement the ideological and personal ties that grew between the top leadership of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. In an impoverished, unpoliced, ungoverned state, with no stake in international society, al-Qa’ida could establish bases from which it strengthened and trained its global networks.

That network’s most spectacular act of terrorism, on September 11, finally revealed how dangerous it can be, not only to neighboring countries but also to the whole world, to allow so-called humanitarian emergencies or failed states to fester. A US administration that came to power denouncing efforts at “nation-building” and criticizing reliance on international organizations and agreements, has now proclaimed that it needs to assure a “stable Afghanistan” to prevent that country from ever again becoming a haven for terrorists. The US, along with every other major country, has committed itself to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan within a framework designed by the United Nations.

The recent Agreement on provisional arrangements in Afghanistan pending the re-establishment of permanent government institutions—to give the Bonn Agreement its full and accurate title—resulted directly from this new level of commitment and political will by both Afghans and major powers. Most reports on this agreement treat it as a peace agreement, like those that have ended armed conflicts elsewhere. But in Bonn, the UN did not bring together warring parties to make peace. The international community has defined one side of the ongoing war in Afghanistan—the alliance of al-Qa’ida and the Taliban—as an outlaw formation that must be defeated. In Bonn, the UN brought together Afghan groups opposed to the Taliban and al-Qa’ida, some possessing power and others various forms of legitimacy, notably through the person of the former king of Afghanistan. The task they set themselves was the central one of protecting human security: starting the process of establishing—or, as the Afghans insisted, in recognition of their long history, re-establishing—permanent government institutions.

This agreement thus differs from many others, which, as critics have noted, sometimes amounted to the codification of de facto power relations, no matter how illegitimate. This agreement does recognize power, especially in the allocation of key ministries to the relatively small group that already controls them in Kabul. In most respects, however, this agreement attempts to lay a foundation for transcending the current rather fragile power relations through building institutions.

The Interim Authority of Afghanistan established by this agreement will include three elements: an administration, a supreme court, and a special commission to convene the Emergency Loya Jirga at the end of the six-month interim period. It also provides for an international security force, one of whose major purposes is to ensure the independence of the administration from military pressure by power-holding factions.

The Bonn Agreement does not contain a Supreme or Leadership Council composed of prominent persons. Such institutions in past Afghan agreements gave legitimacy to de facto power holders, including those whom some call warlords, as well as leaders of organizations supported by foreign countries. Some of the discontent with the agreement derives from the fact that it does not give recognition to such leaders. Many Afghans seem to consider this a positive step.

Instead, the agreement emphasizes the administration. The term “administration” rather than “government” indicates its temporary and limited nature, but it also emphasizes that the role of this institution is actually to administer—to provide services. The presence of the supreme court as well as measures defining an interim legal system require this administration is to work according to law, and the incoming chair of this administration, Hamid Karzai, has also emphasized this in his public statements. Some had hoped that this administration would be largely professional and technocratic in character, and that is certainly true at least of its women members. In Afghanistan, as elsewhere women can usually obtain high positions only by being qualified, whereas men have other options for advancement.

Some little-noticed elements in the agreement are designed to strengthen the ability of this administration to govern through laws and rules and provide for transitions to successively more institutionalized and representative arrangements. The international security force should insulate the administration from pressure by factional armed forces. At the insistence of the participants, the judicial power is described as “independent.” The Special Commission for the Preparation of the Loya Jirga has a number of features to protect it from pressure by the administration, including a prohibition on membership in both. The SRSG is also given special responsibility for ensuring its independence.

The agreement confronts the country’s monetary crisis by authorizing the establishment of a new central bank and requiring transparent and accountable procedures for the issuance of currency. This measure is partly aimed at ensuring that the authorities will be able to pay meaningful salaries to officials throughout the country, thus re-establishing the administrative structure that has been overwhelmed by warlordism. Appointments to the administration are to be monitored by an independent Civil Service Commission. While this body will face severe constraints, it is aimed at curtailing arbitrary appointments, whether for personal corruption or to assure factional power. The Civil Service Commission will be supplemented with a formal Code of Conduct, with sanctions against those who violate it. For the first time, the Afghan authorities will establish a human rights commission, which will not only monitor current practice but also become the focal point for the extremely sensitive discussion about accountability for past wrongs. The SRSG also has the right to investigate human rights violations and recommend corrective actions.

The Agreement provides for the integration of all armed groups into official security forces. Though this is not what specialists refer to as a “self-executing provision,” a number of other measures will reinforce it. The international security force will assist in the formation of all-Afghan security forces. Monetary reforms and foreign assistance to the authorities will enable the latter to pay meaningful salaries to soldiers and police, providing an incentive for them to shift their loyalties from warlords. The latter may become generals, governors, politicians, or businessmen, as institutions are built and the economy revives.

Building these Afghan institutions will constitute the core task of protecting human security in Afghanistan. The Agreement provides a framework. But implementation in such a war-torn and devastated society will largely depend on how the international donors and the UN system approach the task of reconstruction.

As donors, agencies, and NGOs rush in, they risk losing sight of the central task: building Afghan institutions owned by and accountable to the people of Afghanistan. The Bonn Agreement states that the SRSG “shall monitor and assist in the implementation” of the agreement, but it does not establish a UN transitional administration in Afghanistan. It vests sovereignty in the Interim Authority. The Afghan participants at the meeting scrutinized every provision that provided for international monitoring or involvement to assure that the new authority would be fully sovereign. The lessons of the past two decades in Afghanistan and elsewhere are that only accountable and legitimate national institutions, though open to the outside world and subject to international standards, can protect human security.

There is a real risk that, as the actors in the reconstruction market bid for locations in the bazaar that is opening in Afghanistan, they may harm, hinder, or even destroy the effort to build Afghan institutions. Donors and agencies seeking to establish programs need to find clients, and it is often easier to do so by linking up directly with a de facto power on the ground. Such uncoordinated efforts have reinforced clientelism and warlordism in Afghanistan for years in the absence of legitimate authority, but they will now have to come to an end. Programs will have to be coordinated to assure that they work together to reinforce the capacities and priorities of Afghan institutions.

Establishing a large international presence, with more white Toyota Land Cruisers than staff, with high salaries and big houses, will overwhelm the new administration and distort the economy. When the mujahidin took power in Herat in 1992, I was told, the city had ten qualified Afghan engineers working in the municipality. Before long it had only one, as the other nine went to work as drivers for UN agencies, where they earned much higher salaries. This is just one example of how the normal operation of the international aid system can actually deprive countries of the capacities they need.

If the vast sums that seem to be flowing toward Afghanistan are to help reinforce rather than undermine the fragile institutions established in the Bonn Agreement, international actors must also establish new institutions, to monitor and control the disbursements in partnership with the Afghan authorities. The expenditures must follow the priorities they set in consultation with the SRSG, not the multiple priorities set by the agendas of various countries or agencies. We in the international community may have to sacrifice some of our immediate interests, but as we have learned only too bitterly, it is worth paying a modest price to protect the self-determination and human security of the people of Afghanistan. Our own security depends on it.

This essay was adapted from a speech delivered in Tokyo on December 15, 2001, at the International Symposium on Human Security: “Human Security and Terrorism – Diversifying Threats under Globalization”—from Afghanistan to the Future of the World.

News | Pakistani army kills 11 militants in raid in…

News | Pakistani army kills 11 militants in raid in the northwest following bombing that killed 7 soldiers

Pakistan’s authorities say security forces have killed 11 militants in an overnight operation in a former stronghold of the pakistani taliban in the restive northwest.

DERA ISLAMAIL KHAN, Pakistan DERA ISLAMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout, killing 11 in an overnight operation in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the restive northwest, authorities said on Tuesday.

The intelligence-based raid was in retaliation to Sunday’s roadside bombing that killed seven soldiers in the same Lakki Marwat district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan, the military said in a statement.

It added the operation is still ongoing “to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area” and that security forces were “determined to wipe out the menace of terrorism” in Pakistan.

No one has claimed Sunday’s attack, however, blame is likely to fall on Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, an ally of the Afghan Taliban but is a separate group. It has stepped up its assaults in the region since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Pakistani officials often accuse Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of giving shelter to TTP fighters, a charge that Kabul repeatedly denies. Pakistani Taliban says it is not using Afghan soil for attacks in Pakistan.

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Echoes of History: a Reflection on “We didn’t Start the Fire”

This essay about Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” explores how the lyrics reflect significant historical and cultural events from 1949 to the 1980s. It highlights the song’s portrayal of continuous global challenges and progress across generations, emphasizing the importance of historical awareness and the enduring impact of past events on contemporary society. Joel’s refrain serves as a reminder of the cyclical nature of history and our role in shaping the future.

How it works

“We Didn’t Start the Fire,” a song by Billy Joel, resonates with the historical and cultural echoes of the late 20th century, encapsulating over four decades of global events, figures, and trends in its rapid-fire lyrics. Released in 1989, the song serves as both a history lesson and a reflection on the persistence of human challenges across generations. Each verse of the song recounts significant moments and personalities from 1949, the year of Joel’s birth, to the end of the 1980s, illustrating a continuous, tumultuous journey through modern history.

The song opens with references to post-World War II events and figures, such as Harry Truman, Doris Day, and the Red Scare. This period marked the beginning of the Cold War, an era defined by ideological conflict between the capitalist West, led by the United States, and the communist East, led by the Soviet Union. The fear of nuclear annihilation loomed large, symbolized by the mention of the H-bomb and Joseph Stalin. The lyrics swiftly move through the Korean War, the rise of rock and roll, and the advent of television, highlighting the rapid technological and cultural changes that characterized the 1950s.

As the song progresses into the 1960s, it captures the social upheaval and political turbulence of the era. The civil rights movement, symbolized by figures like Martin Luther King Jr., fought against racial segregation and discrimination, leading to landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The decade was also marked by the Vietnam War, a conflict that deeply divided American society and sparked widespread protest. Joel’s lyrics reference these events alongside cultural milestones like the Beatles’ invasion of America and the countercultural revolution, emphasizing the profound shifts in social norms and values.

The 1970s brought a different set of challenges and transformations. The Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, eroded public trust in government and underscored the importance of accountability and transparency. The energy crisis and economic stagflation highlighted vulnerabilities in the global economic system, while the rise of environmental awareness, exemplified by the first Earth Day in 1970, signaled a growing recognition of humanity’s impact on the planet. This decade also saw significant advancements in science and technology, with the Apollo moon landings capturing the world’s imagination and marking a pinnacle of human achievement.

Entering the 1980s, Joel’s song reflects the continued geopolitical tensions and cultural shifts. The Cold War persisted, with events such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The decade also witnessed the rise of conservatism in Western politics, epitomized by leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, the emergence of new technologies, such as personal computers and the early internet, began to reshape society in unprecedented ways. The AIDS epidemic brought a new public health crisis, challenging social attitudes towards sexuality and prompting advancements in medical research and advocacy.

Throughout “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Joel’s refrain—“We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning, since the world’s been turning”—serves as a poignant reminder of the cyclical nature of history. The song suggests that each generation inherits a world fraught with challenges and crises, but also with opportunities for change and progress. It emphasizes the continuity of human struggles and achievements, and the idea that while individuals may not have initiated these historical events, they are nonetheless participants in an ongoing narrative.

Reflecting on “We Didn’t Start the Fire” invites us to consider the interconnectedness of historical events and their lasting impact on contemporary society. The song’s rapid-fire enumeration of names and events underscores how quickly history unfolds and how each moment builds upon the past. It also highlights the importance of historical awareness, as understanding the context and causes of past events can inform our responses to current and future challenges.

In a broader sense, the song speaks to the human condition—the perpetual striving for progress amidst adversity, the oscillation between conflict and cooperation, and the relentless pursuit of meaning and purpose. It serves as a musical time capsule, preserving the memory of pivotal moments and reminding us of the enduring relevance of history. As we navigate the complexities of the present and look towards the future, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” encourages us to reflect on our role in shaping the world and to recognize that, while we may not have started the fire, we have the power to influence its course.

Ultimately, Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is more than just a song; it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring significance of historical consciousness. It calls on us to acknowledge the legacies of the past, to learn from them, and to strive for a better future. In doing so, we honor the echoes of history and contribute to the ongoing story of humanity.

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Chiquita Found Liable for Colombia Paramilitary Killings

National Security Archive Schedule of Chiquita’s Paramilitary Payments Evidence at Trial

Jury Awards Banana Company Victims $38.3 Million in Landmark Human Rights Case

Washington, D.C., June 10, 2024 – Today, an eight-member jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, found Chiquita Brands International liable for funding a violent Colombian paramilitary organization, the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), that was responsible for major human rights atrocities during the 1990s and 2000s. The weeks-long trial featured testimony from the families of the nine victims in the case, the recollections of Colombian military officials and Chiquita executives, expert reports, and a summary of key documentary evidence produced by Michael Evans, director of the National Security Archive’s Colombia documentation project.

“This historic ruling marks the first time that an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country,” according to a press release from EarthRights International , which represents victims in the case.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro reacted to the news on X (formerly Twitter) by asking why Colombian justice could not do what had been done in a U.S. court.

¿Por qué la justicia de EEUU pudo determinar en verdad judicial que Chiquita Brands financió el paramilitarismo en Urabá?. ¿Por qué no pudo la justicia colombiana? Si el acuerdo de paz del 2016, que ya sabemos es una declaración unilateral de estado que nos compromete ante el… https://t.co/pT2l86cuyH — Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 11, 2024

In 2007, Chiquita reached a sentencing agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in which it admitted to $1.7 million in payments to the AUC, which was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 2001. Chiquita paid a $25 million fine for violating a U.S. anti-terrorism statute but has never before had to answer to victims of the paramilitary group it financed. In 2018, Chiquita settled separate claims brought by the families of six victims of the FARC insurgent group, which was also paid by Chiquita for many years.

This trial focused on nine bellwether cases among hundreds of claims that have been brought against Chiquita by victims of AUC violence. The nine plaintiffs were represented by EarthRights, International Rights Advocates, and other attorneys who years ago agreed to consolidate their claims against Chiquita and collaborate in multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida. Today, the jury found Chiquita liable in eight of the nine cases presented to them.

Plaintiffs contended that Chiquita willingly entered into “an unholy alliance with the AUC,” a group responsible for horrible atrocities and grave human rights abuses, at a time when the banana company was buying land and expanding its presence in Colombia’s violent banana-growing region. Attorneys for Chiquita argued that the company was “clearly extorted” by the AUC and had no choice but to make the payments. [1]

Jurors found that the AUC was responsible for eight of the nine murders at issue in the case; that Chiquita had “failed to act as a reasonable businessperson”; that “Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance to the AUC” that created “a foreseeable risk of harm to others”; and that Chiquita had failed to prove either that the AUC actually threatened them or that there was “no reasonable alternative” to paying them.

Testifying on May 14, Evans described the “1006 summary” he created for the plaintiffs tracking ten years of Chiquita’s paramilitary payments and based exclusively on thousands of internal records produced by Chiquita in the case. Evans explained how he sorted through thousands of payment request forms, security situation reports, spreadsheets, auditing documents, depositions, legal memoranda, and other documents from Chiquita’s own internal records to create the summary, which tracks over one hundred payments to the AUC, most of them funneled through “Convivir” self-defense groups that acted as legal fronts for the paramilitaries.

Importantly, Evans found Chiquita payments to Convivir groups beginning in 1995, two years earlier than Chiquita had previously admitted, and several other Convivir payments not included on the list proffered by Chiquita in the case that resulted in the 2007 sentencing agreement. Other notable items in the schedule include payments that were funneled through an armored vehicle service run by Darío Laíno Scopetta, a top leader of the AUC’s Northern Bloc who is now serving a 32-year sentence in Colombia for financing paramilitary operations.

Since 2007, the National Security Archive has obtained thousands of internal records on Chiquita’s “sensitive payments” in Colombia through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and through FOIA litigation, even overcoming Chiquita’s “reverse FOIA” attempt to block the release of records by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Key revelations from these FOIA releases are featured in numerous publications from the Archive’s Chiquita Papers collection. Since most of these records and many related documents were also produced during the discovery phase of this case, plaintiffs asked Evans to summarize them in the schedule that was presented at trial.

The schedule of paramilitary payments was also one of the last images left in the minds of jurors as plaintiffs closed their case-in-chief several weeks ago. After discussing the details of some of Chiquita’s more unusual paramilitary transactions, lead counsel Marco Simons of EarthRights walked the jury through the text of a document that was featured in the Archive’s first-ever Chiquita Papers posting in 2011 . Written by Chiquita in-house counsel Robert Thomas, the handwritten memo described assurances from Chiquita staff in Colombia that payments to a paramilitary front company were necessary because Chiquita “can’t get the same level of support from the military.”

Plaintiffs also relied on the Chiquita Papers records during the cross examination of key defense witnesses who were involved in making the illicit payments. In one example, plaintiffs drew from an internal report on the conflict situation in Colombia in 1992 ( originally published here ) to help elicit important admissions about the origins of the paramilitary payments from Charles “Buck” Keiser, the longtime general manager of Chiquita operations in Colombia. The report from Chiquita’s Colombia-based security staff said that among the armed groups then getting payments from Chiquita was one, the Popular Commands, that was considered a “paramilitary” group. Prompted by documents and other evidence, Keiser steered the jury through the process by which voluntary payments to the Popular Commands became payments to the AUC. (See our previous posting featuring key documents about Keiser and 12 other Chiquita officials accused of crimes against humanity in Colombia.)

Crucially, Keiser also admitted that a supposedly pivotal meeting with top AUC leader Carlos Castaño that has long been one of the pillars of Chiquita’s duress defense had virtually no bearing on the company’s decision to pay paramilitary groups and that, in fact, the company had already begun to pay paramilitary-linked Convivir self-defense groups long before the Castaño meeting. Several witnesses, including Keiser, also admitted that the company had never actually been threatened by the AUC or been the victim of AUC violence, according to trial transcripts.

A future Electronic Briefing Book will focus on some of the key evidence that was brought forward in this case. In the meantime, those interested in reading more about the case and the entire episode can start at our Chiquita Papers page.

[1] David Minsky, “Chiquita Capitalized on Colombia’s War. Victims’ Families Say,” Law360 , April 30, 2024.

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