The Afghan Syndrome in Geopolitics

The Afghan Syndrome in Geopolitics

"They do not try to go beyond their immediate strategic aim, which lies in 'winning the war,' and, contrary to historical experience, believe that military victory will lead to peace... Purely military strategy must be guided by a 'Grand Strategy' possessing a more far-sighted and broader perspective." — B.H. Liddell Hart

"The Graveyard of Empires"—this is how Afghanistan is frequently termed, and indeed, a cursory glance at history confirms this. On February 13, 1989, the last Soviet soldier left the Afghan capital, Kabul. On August 31, 2021, the last American aircraft departed Kabul airport. In both instances, the objectives of the world's superpowers regarding Afghanistan differed; however, today it can be boldly stated that both states returned defeated. As a result of the war, neither could leave behind the kind of peace that would allow us to claim the war ended in victory. Trillions of dollars spent, billions of dollars worth of various types of military hardware and equipment falling into the hands of the Taliban, the country’s uncertain future, and the Taliban returned to the helm of power. Added to this are the strengthened positions of other regional players—such is the incomplete list of results of the United States' longest war.

However, this was not the first such instance for the US. 58,000 dead and 350,000 wounded soldiers—such were the results of the war when, on April 30, 1975, the last American soldier left South Vietnam after the city of Saigon fell into the hands of North Vietnamese fighters. As we wrote in a previous article, the Four-Party Joint Military Commission, guided by the provisions and mandate of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, met in the North Vietnamese city of Hanoi. At this meeting, the head of the negotiation team for the US delegation, Colonel Harry Summers, told his Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tu, with a touch of superiority: "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." To this, the Vietnamese vis-à-vis replied with a smile: "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." With this brevity, the Vietnamese colonel conveyed the fiasco of the failed American strategy. With these words, he directly underscored the famous maxim that an army may be undefeated on the battlefield, yet the country may still lose the war. As is known, the Vietnam War is considered a vivid example of precisely such a realization of failed military-political tasks. Alongside this list, the now-concluded 20-year campaign in Afghanistan will take a "place of honor"—the Vietnam War, the second Iraq campaign, Afghanistan: this is how America's three great wars appear, where the peace established failed to deliver the realization of American political goals.

In all three wars, the error in military-political planning was clearly evident; it proved impossible to translate victories won on the battlefield into the kind of political reality that would make the new peace better than the past. In addition, in all three cases, the connection between military goals and the vision of Grand Strategy was not adequately conceived, or did not exist as such at all. Consequently, the fact that war is the continuation of politics, with its potential results, became a vague ending for each of these wars, and recent events in Afghanistan have proven this simple truth once again. Despite the expenditure of trillions of dollars, the peace that was intended for Afghan society returns to the US and other Western countries today only in the form of migrants, and the benefit for the future of the Afghan state is minuscule. In the case of all three wars we have listed, victories achieved in the battle space could not be transformed into the kind of long-term, new, and stable peace that would create conditions for a lasting US strategic victory. To explain more broadly, in all three cases, the vision of a "Grand Strategy" either did not exist or could not be implemented, which caused the dissipation and attrition of the results of victories obtained from combat operations. There was no link between military tasks and the larger political picture.

The Geopolitical Context

As you are aware, the final campaign in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, and it was precisely during these 20 years that the most significant geopolitical changes occurred on a global scale. At the end of the twentieth century, conversations about the "end" of geopolitics, geopolitical reasoning, or history acquired particular popularity. US dominance in international relations and the growing processes of globalization created, to a certain extent, an illusion of establishing a "Kantian peace." Geopolitics in its classical sense, as a discipline, was becoming increasingly less popular. A time of a certain "velvet illusion" arrived in international relations. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, became the signal for the shattering of this illusion. The threat of terrorism forced the US to commence a military campaign (on October 7, 2001) in Afghanistan, targeting the main terrorist organizations and, primarily, the sanctuary and operational base of Al-Qaeda.

The military goals of the war's initial cycle appeared absolutely understandable and natural—the destruction of the operational hubs of terrorist organizations and the neutralization of their ability to operate on a global scale was a rational goal. The military campaign launched by the coalition envisioned precisely these military-political objectives. However, in 2003, these events were joined by a military campaign launched against Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, which relied on such a chimeric pretext for war as the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the Iraqi dictator and the potential for their use. In reality, as history subsequently proved, this pretext was far from reality. We were presented with a military campaign that relied not only on fabricated reasons but also lacked appropriate international legitimacy, setting as its goal the termination of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. War, as we know, is the continuation of politics to achieve a desired new peace using military means, or other methods. It was precisely here that the main strategic problem appeared—what this post-war new peace was supposed to be seemed unclear in the case of both countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The processes accompanying these wars ultimately led the Middle East region to the creation of such a power vacuum that the US could not adequately fill, primarily from a political standpoint. The "breeze" of the Arab Spring, which began in 2011, blew into Syria as well. A civil war began against Assad's rule, which has not ended to this day. However, in parallel, Russia, standing on its feet due to increased oil prices resulting from the two ongoing wars, began to review its foreign policy place and reality, the result of which was precisely the Russia-Georgia War of 2008. This was followed by active Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict; against the backdrop of ongoing wars, the Obama administration's inert reaction to the Syrian conflict and the red lines violated within it was also a green light for Russia to act, now against Ukraine. The vacuum created in Iraq facilitated the emergence of such a global threat as "Daesh" (ISIS). Parallel to the processes cited above, China's growing economic and technological rise concluded with the establishment of its status as a global superpower, which openly began the protection and implementation of regional interests; moreover, today it represents a major global power.

It represents a power that has finally ended US dominance in a unipolar world, and today, according to official Washington, Chinese policy represents the main challenge for the White House. The listed events are, of course, not an exhaustive list of the trends that have occurred on the global geopolitical landscape—in its military, economic, political, technological, or social dimensions—over the last 20 years. However, all these events, major technological or economic changes, proceeded against the backdrop of two ongoing wars that the US was waging and where it was expending enormous resources.

To return to Afghanistan: following the realization of primary military goals, the issue of arranging a new peace for Afghanistan also appeared on the agenda (parallel to Iraq, where processes ultimately ended with the consolidation of Iranian influence). Washington took upon itself the mission of effecting a "civilizational leap" for the Afghan state and society—a society which, according to their calendar, lives in the 14th century, was to be transformed into a state based on the principles of democratic governance. This vision concluded in 2012 with a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the US and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which detailed spheres and scales of cooperation. In reality, this agreement effectively declared Afghanistan to be a major non-NATO ally of America. Its clauses were directed precisely toward the establishment of a novel peace, which ultimately was supposed to ensure a painless US exit from Afghanistan. In reality, over the last 10 years and even earlier, the effort exerted by the US aimed to create a state in Afghanistan based on democratic principles, which would never again be the epicenter of a challenge to US and global security. However, everyone clearly saw the actual results on August 31, 2021. Much is written about the reasons for the fiasco of these goals, but simply put, for the vast majority of Afghan society, which to this day consists of dozens of different tribal unions, it was impossible to artificially change their traditional way of life and form them into a society operating on democratic principles within that period. The American recipe for post-war peace, as noted by more than one researcher, was doomed to fiasco from the start. The end of the war according to the American vision could not be realized, and ultimately, we all witnessed the return of Taliban power in the country and the strengthening of the interests of other global players in the region. Furthermore, over 20 years, Washington failed to alter Pakistan's position regarding the Afghanistan issue, which in the final analysis had a major influence on the results of this war. As is known globally, over the last decade, the order based on liberal democracy is retreating. For 75 years, the main locomotive of the "Arsenal of Democracy" was and is the US. As a result of the two unsuccessful global wars it waged, it became impossible to contain those forces that used these geopolitical tremors to implement their own interests and opposed democracy wherever the opportunity arose. We consider that this result occurred due to the absence of an appropriate "Grand Strategy" against the backdrop of the waged wars, which would have defined more acceptable contours of a new global peace for the democratic world. Naturally, these wars were not the sole reason for these changes; they were accompanied by transformations in technological, digital, economic, and social spheres. This had a major influence on the way of life and political discourse of Western societies. We also witnessed the rise of populism, which has already left its corresponding mark on the Western political dimension as well. In the final analysis, due to the absence of a desired Grand Strategic picture, liberal democracy, left without leaders, is experiencing a decline, and this is already visible to everyone.

As you know, the essence of war lies in the fact that, unlike a sport, for example, it is not a zero-sum game. That is, the military defeat of one side does not necessarily mean the victory of the other. A war may end in such a way that neither country wins. For example, in terms of post-war peace, both Georgians and Abkhazians (that is, the winning and losing sides of the war) found themselves in a worse situation, including the post-war peace, than they were before the war. Germany and Japan, defeated by Russia [and the Allies], received a better peace than they had before the war. More such examples can be cited from history, but this only confirms what was noted above: winning a war in a military sense may not mean winning from the perspective of Grand Strategy. That is, victories on the battlefield, and countless human and material resources sacrificed, may not be the guarantee of a new, better peace.

The Lost Strategic Thread and Grand Strategy

Generally, to simplify, the term "Strategy" is best understood in its literal sense—as the "art of the general," i.e., the actual leadership of the armed forces, distinct from politics, which determines not only its (the armed forces') use but also its relation to other means: economic, political, psychological. Such policy is implemented using the highest type of strategy, and it is called "Grand Strategy."

Grand Strategy does not represent any single aspect of foreign policy, or foreign policy in its entirety. Foreign policy is the sum of the government's interaction with the outside world. It is expressed in initiatives and actions, starting with diplomacy and ending with the use of force in foreign support. In contrast to this, Grand Strategy represents a conceptual logic that clarifies that the aforementioned political instruments are used to the maximum benefit of the country's fundamental interests. Grand Strategy gives form to a country's foreign policy, its diplomacy, etc. It represents an integrated concept (conceptual vision) of interests, threats, resources, and policies. Grand Strategy is the intellectual architecture to which foreign policy gives structure and form; it helps the state, the nation, to find its own path and place in the world.

This logic can, of course, be applied both to a single state and in relation to alliances. The logic of waging global wars without creating the necessary components for its desired, realistic post-war new peace yields precisely the results we received in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. To avoid this, it is desirable for a strategic connection—a thread—to exist, which will clearly link the political goals of the war to "Grand Strategy," or at least to its realistic visions. Without this link, events, as history teaches us end as they did on August 31, 2021, just as we witnessed in Kabul.

In the context of the Afghanistan war, the long-term "unsettled" relations with Pakistan mentioned above are, for Washington, precisely on the level of Grand Strategy in terms of importance. Washington was unable to balance regional interests in a way that would allow it to reduce Pakistan's support for the Taliban to a minimum. In 2001, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf officially announced the cessation of support for the Taliban, although in 2004 he restored this patronage. In a 2015 interview given to The Guardian, the former President of Pakistan says that then-President of Afghanistan Karzai: "helped India stab Pakistan in the back, allowing anti-Pakistan Tajiks to play a major role in the Afghan government and to get closer to India."

As a result of this assistance, the Taliban constantly had the rear support necessary to gather strength and the opportunity to position itself as the only force fighting against occupation, and that Taliban fighters were the defenders of those Afghan cultural and religious traditions, which implied fighting until final victory against the enemy for the protection of their own identity and homeland. The significance of this cultural factor has been confirmed by more than one study conducted by various research organizations in Afghanistan since 2007. All of this points precisely to an inadequate comprehension of the Grand Strategic context on the part of Washington.

The Caspar Weinberger principles given in our past articles, which describe the logic of starting a war, serve the creation of precisely such a strategic thread or link. The rational logic of strategic planning requires holding high-ranking military and political officials to account in precisely this manner regarding the circumstances of starting a war and exiting it.

How will the results of a long war affect the political life of American society? What mandate will they give to local politicians, and what influence will this have on Washington's foreign visions? These are questions that will be of considerable importance in the future due to their consequences. Today, it is a fact that more than one researcher has already termed incumbent President Joe Biden a realist politician as a result of the steps he has taken.

It should not be difficult to guess what the consolidation of this vision in international relations could potentially mean for small states.

Today, the term "Vietnam Syndrome" is associated with human tragedy and the severe psychological trauma experienced by soldiers in war. It is often used to describe military-political events where public protest forces states to cease waging war despite victories achieved on the battlefield. The term "Afghan Syndrome" can now boldly be applied to a situation where the world's superpowers (Great Britain, USSR, USA) wage wars from which the new peace established upon exit is hardly better than what existed before the war, and further worsens the strategic positioning of major players on the forestage of global politics.

The New Reality and Georgia

As a result of these wars and other simultaneous world processes, we have arrived at a geopolitical reality where Western influence globally has returned to positions existing at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Geographically, a certain civilizational fracture has emerged, which is very similar to the boundaries of global confrontation given by Samuel Huntington in the Clash of Civilizations (reformatted, yet still relevant).

In a broad geographical cross-section, Georgia is today the only country with the ambition of becoming part of the Western world that is located right on the border of this new fracture of geopolitical influences and, as before, continues to try to reach the desired shore peacefully.

This circumstance, in the case of Georgia, along with challenges, creates opportunities both for us and for our main strategic partners, so that the history of our Euro-Atlantic integration may finally end with a so-called 'Happy End.'

Tbilisi, 2021