Synopsis of Thomas Barfield’s Presentation: Afghanistan Approaches 2014: Transition
or Drop Dead Date
Dr. Barfield began by pointing to two points of simultaneous transition for
Afghanistan: the transition of international troops out and the transition associated with
the 2014 presidential election. He also noted this will be the fourth foreign troop
withdrawal since 1841 before pivoting to his central question: can the Afghan
government survive without foreign troops? His simple answer was “we don’t know” and
this is because there are still a lot of outstanding issues that need to be resolved.
First, there is currently no Status of Forces Agreement in place and there may or
may not be one in time for the election next April. We do not have a Status of Forces
Agreement because Hamid Karzai thinks that the U.S. needs Afghanistan more than
Afghanistan needs the U.S. and because Karzai is misreading U.S. public opinion. There
is also the possibility that Hamid Karzai will just decide to make the Status of Forces
Agreement his successor’s problem. Furthermore, a lack of an agreement could have
major negative implications for Afghanistan. If there is no Status of Forces Agreement
and the election gets postponed, which could easily happen, it would be almost
impossible to provide sufficient security. The lack of an agreement will also make it
much less difficult for the Taliban to go conventional in their fight against the central
government. Until there is a Status of Forces Agreement, we also do not really know
exactly how many NATO troops will remain in Afghanistan and exactly what role they
will play. A final worry along this front concerns the possibility of military intervention
in the event of a civilian government collapse given the greater build up of military
institutions than civilian ones over the past twelve years.
Second, it is difficult to form coalitions in Afghanistan because everyone wants to
be in charge of the coalition. In 2009, 40 people ran for the presidency. To make the task
of coalition building even harder, no one really has any idea who will succeed Hamid
Karzai or even if Karzai will agree to leave. The lack of a clear successor also means that
there is no guarantee that the new president will have legitimacy among both Afghans
and foreigners. It also increases the risks of inter-factional strife. In previous foreign
military withdrawals, the exiting power has chosen someone despite not giving them
much chance at survival. One example of this was the Soviets putting Najibullah in place,
who subsequently outlasted the Soviets time in power. However, the United States has
been unwilling to do this in part because it has been more concerned with the process of
governance rather than ensuring the most helpful outcomes. Dr. Barfield did argue
however, that with no foreigners in the mix, it may be easier for various factions, to cut
deals with the central government.
Third, Afghanistan’s state is not institutionalized; it is a highly centralized and
patrimonial state. There are no political parties, for example, and it is an open question
whether the only adhesive holding the system together is corruption. Essentially, there are
few institutions for internal dispute resolution in a country that is practically guaranteed
to have internal disputes. If international powers do not stick around, what is to prevent
these disputes from becoming violent and weakening an already weak state?
Fourth, while the size of the Afghan military and police is workable (300,000 and
150,000 respectively), the current level of training is inadequate. Given its very small tax
base, funding any sizeable military even without more training will require international
funds and we really do not know where those funds will come from. Afghanistan has not
paid for its own army in two centuries. Dr. Barfield believes that as opposed to the
Soviets who continued to send aid after they withdrew troops at the end of the 1980s, the
United States is likely to withdraw its troops and its money even though this would be a
mistake that could lead to the Taliban gaining power again or the country devolving into
a civil war as it did in the 1990s.
Fifth, we still do not really know what role younger Afghans will play in the
transition. Most Afghans today were born after the Soviets left and so are of a different
political generation than those who currently run the country. The passing of power from
one generation to the next is still done in very old-fashioned ways, but the younger
generation seems to have different outlooks. Though literacy is low, cell phone use is
widespread and the youth constitute huge portions of the urban population, which we
know very little about.
Finally, we are not entirely sure about how neighboring states’ involvement in
Afghanistan will impact the country’s political situation. Both India and China would like
to gain access to Afghanistan’s mineral wealth and have been investing heavily in order
to do so. On the one hand, it is certainly a good thing for Afghanistan’s stability if both of
Asia’s superpowers have an interest in promoting that stability. On the other hand,
Pakistan’s support of the Taliban, as well as its other efforts at interfering in Afghanistan,
has rarely been good for the Afghans.
Given all of these concerns, Dr. Barfield argued that generally speaking,
Afghanistan could venture down one of two possible paths. The first, involves nonWestern states such as India and China becoming Afghanistan’s new patrons. If
Afghanistan’s neighbors have an economic interest in stabilizing the country and
supporting the central government, then that can mitigate many of the dangers the
country faces after the pullout of NATO troops. The other path is much darker. It
involves the country descending into a civil war with partition being a possible though
unlikely outcome. Which path will Afghanistan travel? Dr. Barfield argues that nobody
knows and that in Afghanistan, pretty much every prediction turns out to be wrong.