If You Stand With Ukraine, You Must Also Stand With Afghanistan (Part 2)
This article is the second in a two-part series. Read the first article here.
Image courtesy of Andre Klimke via Unsplash
One of the biggest fallacies for refusing to support Afghanistan is that Afghans supposedly wanted the Taliban back and refused to fight for their democracy. While many of Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed leaders, who were chosen for their controllability and not their resolve, chose to flee the country, civilians resisted against their occupiers and the Afghan Army continued to fight. When the republic collapsed, what remained of the Afghan Army retreated to Panjshir Province, the last province not controlled by the Taliban. There, they formed the National Resistance Front under the leadership of Ahmed Massoud, an Afghan politician and son of deceased anti-Taliban military commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Although the Taliban, along with Pakistani forces, were initially able to drive them into the mountains, they have been able to hold out and even without any significant outside support, have been able to inflict massive casualties on Taliban forces. As far as the general public goes, support for the movement is high as public support for the Taliban, although not often polled, was under 10 percent during the republic, and the National Resistance Front is often seen as the only alternative. Unlike the Northern Alliance, the resistance movement against the Taliban in the 1990s, the NRF does not directly control any territory;they argue that they do not need to. An NRF spokesperson stated “Our aim at the moment is not to sustain control of areas that we liberate. We are fighting an unconventional war with an enemy that is heavily armed with 7 billion dollars’ worth of US-made arms. Our objective is to show that we are able to challenge the Taliban, liberate large areas like districts and gather as many resources as possible.”
The interviewer, a longtime expert on the region, noted that this was a repeat of the tactics the Mujahideen, the Islamist rebels who fought the communist government and later the Soviet Union for over a decade, successfully implemented. The Mujahideen defeated the Soviets by creating bases throughout the mountains in hard to reach areas and launching raids and ambushes on the Soviet military but not attempting to conquer territory or engaging in large battles. This tactic, along with generous foreign aid eventually mounted enough casualties to convince the Soviets, the largest army in the world at the time, to give up the fight. Without the Soviet military presence, the Afghan government abandoned communism and eventually became weak enough that the Mujahideen took power themselves.
The NRF has roughly been replicating this tactic. In the most recent fighting season (significant fighting only takes place in the summer months in Afghanistan), the NRF launched frequent ambushes and raids on Taliban positions in the north of the country. The Taliban faced massive casualties that forced the provision of reinforcements from other parts of the country, who are not as experienced in fighting in the treacherous mountains. While the Taliban are being starved of men and materials, the resistance has faced few casualties and seldom lost their fortified positions.
If the NRF wants to see the same success of the old Mujahideen, they need to succeed in another factor: gaining foreign support. The Mujahideen were provided with millions of dollars worth of military equipment and general funding from the Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistani military intelligence, and a few other countries which helped them sustain their campaign against the communists. They also had a safe haven in Pakistan where they could launch their attacks from. The NRF has a safe haven in neighboring Tajikistan but currently lacks funding and material aid, services America or NATO could provide as an easy way to uphold their values and commitments to their allies.
There are more than just ideological reasons to support the NRF. The Council on Foreign Relations explained that maintaining a set of allies in the region, such as how the US maintains support for armed groups in Syria, could provide a more efficient way of gathering intel on and targeting terrorists. At the end of the day, the fight in Ukraine and Afghanistan are two fronts of the same fight. A few months after the Taliban takeover, China and Russia gave the Taliban embassies in their countries, and Iran has recently followed suit. The Taliban now allow Russia to fly planes over the country, and China has been one of the main bankrollers of the Taliban’s attempts to extract Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth. Russia is even rumored to be buying American military equipment from the Taliban’s captured stockpiles for evaluation and use in Ukraine.
While no country has officially recognized the Taliban, it is clear that America’s enemies see them as a partner. This gives America and their allies a unique opportunity. By supporting the Afghan people in their fight for freedom, they can open up a second front in the containment of Russia by destroying one of their increasingly vital allies
Supporting rebel groups to fight proxy wars is not a new tactic for the US. By supplying the Mujahideen in the 1980s, the U.S. was able to contribute significantly to the USSR’s demise without a single American life lost. While it is true that some Mujahideen extremists would go on to form terrorist groups, no such extremist faction exists in today’s resistance. The resistance leadership have generally been supportive of the United States and have sought a closer relationship with America.
While another military intervention in Afghanistan is not advisable, simply offering the Afghan people the same humanitarian, political and military support as Ukraine has the potential to do great amounts of good. Declarations of solidarity, material aid, and intelligence-sharing among other forms of cooperation have already helped Ukraine defend itself against one of the most powerful armies in the world. The Taliban are still isolated, poorly organized, and poorly equipped, meaning that a democratic victory is still possible.
Ultimately, Ukranians and Afghans are in the same fight. If America would like to retain its global democratic order, all peoples fighting for democracy must be supported. Whether it is in Europe or in Central Asia, the struggle against authoritarianism is global, and the United States cannot afford to ignore an entire front.
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