Continuing conundrums: debates on Afghanistan and the feeling of déjà vu

In the 1993 motion picture Groundhog Day, a man wakes up every day to find himself reliving the exact same sequence of events. Debates on the future of Afghanistan remind me of Groundhog Day. The Afghanistan summit taking place this week in London is only the last in a long row of summits at which decisions are reached that amount to “too late and too little”, and in the end have little to no effect on the larger strategic objective of preventing Afghanistan lapsing back into the black hole it was before 9/11.
Over the last decade, representatives from what are primarily European and American strategic communities convene to discuss the future of Afghanistan. They talk about the progress made in building local Afghan capacity and the handing over of responsibility for security to the Afghan authorities; they emphasise the need to revise, design or even come up with a counternarcotics strategy; they reflect on the problems of the different Rules of Engagement (RoE) brought to the battlefield by different nations bearing responsibility for separate provinces; they talk about the urgency of sealing the Afghan-Pakistan border; they go on about the necessity of a comprehensive approach and the need for a triple D modus operandi (Defence, Diplomacy, Development); and, as a red thread running through all of this, they speak about how this time around, they will come up with a new strategy that will lead to an often newly defined form of victory.
Looking at the situation on the ground, there may be some signs of progress in the humanitarian realm progress made in the (re)building of schools and an increase in the number of people with access to (rudimentary) medical care but the overall security situation is and has been deteriorating for years, and it is doubtful whether the most recent surge will result in a change for the better.
The Karzai government and the international forces have far from succeeded in pacifying the country and the Taleban have re-emerged as a serious power broker in Afghanistan. Endemic corruption continues to plague the functioning of both the government and the economy, vividly illustrated by President Karzai’s re-election last year, which was plagued by widespread fraudulent practices. This is also underscored by reports of the president’s brother being simultaneously the largest drug dealer in the country as well as on the pay list of the CIA. Despite significant efforts by the international community, the production and trade of opium constitutes a significant share of the national Gross Domestic Product. Meanwhile, transferring responsibility for security to the national government has posed considerable problems, with the training of Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) falling short of the desired results. There is anecdotal but repeated evidence of the fact that the quality of the ANA and ANP is below par, not to mention the fact that neither one of them has been able to conduct one significant military operation independently. Meanwhile, the security situation remains bleak around the country and Western armed forces pay off the Taleban who control the roads to allow their convoys through. Despite courageous and at times effective conduct by armed forces from a number of countries amongst which those of the Netherlands they simply don’t have sufficient numbers to make a real difference in a country bigger than France, and a porous border with neighbouring Pakistan, which is impossible to monitor let alone close down entirely.
So how and when will Groundhog Day come to an end? Will the international community be able to put the clock forward and start a new day? With already eight years into this mission, no real solution is in sight. It is unclear whether the international community will indeed be able to put its money where its mouth is and massively increase the much needed comprehensive effort in Afghanistan. In the light of tight government budgets in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and over the years slowly dwindling support for the mission, this seems, although not impossible, very unlikely.
Should the international community then cut its losses and withdraw its forces leaving the future of Afghanistan to the Afghans and other individuals, as happened during the 1990s? While the current approach is clearly no guarantee for success, leaving Afghanistan neither seems a viable option given the strategic interests at stake. Leaving aside humanitarian issues, the reason why the international community went to Afghanistan in the first place was to prevent a repetition of the events of 9/11 2001 which were partly planned and coordinated in the many training camps Afghanistan hosted by the Taleban regime. Allowing Afghanistan to plunge again into a black hole amidst a region that is increasingly relevant to international security with Iran on its western – , Pakistan on its eastern and the -Stans on its northern borders will in the long run produce new threats to international and Western security and thus run counter to the strategic interests of all parties involved. It seems that for the foreseeable future, the Groundhog Day-syndrome will continue to haunt us.