All Things Considered asked listeners to e-mail questions for three military thinkers featured on the show's hourlong special report on Afghanistan: "Hard Choices in Afghanistan: What's Next?"Thomas Hammes is a senior military fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies; Max Boot is a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations; and Austin Long is assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.
Just how big is the Taliban threat in terms of number? We are led to believe that most Afghans want a Taliban-free peace in which to live. If that is true, why do the "most" keep getting their butts kicked by the minority even with massive foreign support?
Fred Braman
Captain, U.S. Navy (ret)
Fleming Island, Fla.
THOMAS HAMMES: Fred, good question — and almost impossible to answer. Despite the fact the North Vietnamese had unified the resistance movement into a single entity, the U.S. intelligence community had massive disagreements over the number of insurgents in Vietnam — particularly over whether or not to count part-time guerrillas or not.
Afghanistan is even tougher because the insurgency is not a unified insurgency. Rather it is a coalition of the angry. And it's not just the people angry at the government or even the Western powers, it also includes criminal elements, elements of one tribe or clan that are fighting another tribe or clan that is on the government side, economic opportunist and even bored young men.
Further complicating the count is the fact that, in many rural areas, every adult (i.e., over 14 years old) Afghan male is armed and part of a tribal militia. As long as that tribe is not fighting, the count is essentially zero. Once they choose to fight, the count is every male in the tribe. And of course, how do you count all the men in Pakistan that cross the border at times to fight in Afghanistan?
In short, you won't get an accurate count of insurgents. I think the published accounts are best estimates of the full-time insurgents. As far as why the "most" keep getting their butts kicked — combat in Afghanistan is very local and fluid. While many people will say they don't like the insurgents, that doesn't mean they are ready to fight yet. Much like most citizens of a drug-infested neighborhood in the U.S. would like to see the dealers go, they won't get involved unless the police can protect them. And if they know the police cannot protect them from retaliation 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they remain silent.
Afghan villagers may not like the insurgents, but unless someone (i.e., the government) can provide unity and resources that give them a very good chance of winning, they won't join the fight.
MAX BOOT: I don't think anyone has a good count of the Taliban. Such figures aren't worth much anyway since most of the Taliban are part-time fighters, and their numbers fluctuate with the season and with other factors.
Suffice it to say there are a lot of them — many thousands — and they are well-funded and well-armed. They have little appeal for most Afghans; only about 4 percent of those surveyed in opinion polls say they want a return to Taliban rule. That would be a critical problem for the Taliban if they were trying to win free elections, but they're not. They advance their cause at gunpoint. There has been no shortage of examples of how unpopular groups can shoot their way into power and stay there notwithstanding the wishes of most of the population. Iran provides a particularly dramatic example of the phenomenon today.
Most people in Afghanistan, like anywhere else, are not fighters or heroes willing to put their lives on the line to fight against violent groups. Most are determined to do whatever it takes to survive, and sometimes this requires making accommodation with thugs and criminals and religious fanatics — but that is certainly not their preference.
Our role should be to provide the aid and resources needed for Afghans to fight for their own freedom — as many of them are doing today in the Afghan National Security Forces. But those forces are far too small to defeat the Taliban, and it will be years before they are big enough and strong enough. In the meantime, U.S. troops can provide a vital stopgap as they did in Iraq to protect the population from the predators and to buy breathing space for the expansion of indigenous security forces.
AUSTIN LONG: Not particularly caring for the Taliban does not make one love the government or the United States. The vast majority of Pashtuns don't like either side. Also bear in mind the Taliban receive considerable support from outside actors. Finally, the Taliban are not kicking butt in parts of Afghanistan. For example, in the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul, a Tajik area, there is essentially no Taliban presence.
Source: www.npr.org
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