Reference no: EM133327220

Case Study: Probably best to examine this region by looking back over the last 20-years and then forward. Twenty-years ago, we entered Afghanistan with the express purpose of dealing with Bin Laden and Al Queda when the Taliban government refused to hand him over. But, as we know now, we had an unrealistic expectation of our ability to nation-build there -- a task several nations before us had failed at spectacularly. Instead of assuming that we could do it better, we may have lost an opportunity to learn from the lessons of their mistakes. Between 1979-1989, we armed the Mujahadeen in their fight against the Soviet Union. That made some sense then, when we were still locked in the Cold War. But when the Soviet Union pulled out, so did we, and those weapons were then used by the Taliban to gain and enforce their horrific rule. Ironically, the Taliban has now returned and has taken control of the equipment we provided to the now defunct Afghan Army.

I am not saying that everything we did in Afghanistan was negative. Quite the contrary -- there were a lot of positive accomplishments by both the Afghans and our own troops and they deserve a lot of respect from all of us. But by looking at the things that did not go well, we are forced to ask this question: What is it about governments -- ours and others -- that makes it so hard for them to learn from past mistakes? (There have already been a number of books written about this over the past decades and I am sure there are more to come.)

Our relationship with Pakistan changed after 9/11 as well. Prior to 2001, our main focus on Pakistan was in terms of our main ally in the region -- which was India. Much of our focus was on keeping Pakistan stable to prevent its nuclear arsenal from falling into the wrong hands, and on making sure the relationship between India and Pakistan never destabilized to the point where a conflict escalated beyond conventional weapons. That is still a concern today. The close relationship between Pakistan's intelligence service (the ISI) and the Pakistan Taliban requires close attention, as does the potential for increased tensions over Kashmir. With the war in Afghanistan over, and the Taliban claiming victory, does that embolden jihadist fundamentalist groups in Kashmir -- backed possibly by the TPP or Pakistan itself? India's current leader, Modi, is much more nationalist and populist than recent leaders in that country and he has shown himself fond of harsh policies against the Muslim population in Kashmir. That is certainly not helping the situation.

And then there is the Taliban in Kabul. The two articles I added in to this module raise the question of how the Taliban is going to approach governing -- and whether they are even capable of governing. Continued media coverage does not provide much basis for optimism -- especially for women, but for all Afghans as well. How do outside governments now help the Afghan people and avoid looming humanitarian disasters without rewarding bad behavior on the part of the Taliban "government"?

And finally, what is the future of Al Queda and ISIS in these areas. While the return of Al Queda offers more of a possibility, a welcomed presence for ISIS is less likely. ISIS and the Taliban are not friends. The Taliban is not going to accept another armed force in its territory that it does not control. But in a seminar with the authors of several Frontline documentaries , I asked in the Q&A what they thought the chances were that the return of the Taliban and the fall of the Afghan Army would embolden activities by these groups in the region. The response was that the chance of this was "manifest" and that while the region can be a hard place to operate in, ungovernable spaces are always attractive to international pariah groups.

So here is the question for this week -- and yes it is a tough one. I even expect that views will change as the rest of the semester progresses, so if you do not feel comfortable jumping in right away on this one -- understandable. Still, its worth asking ourselves the following:

Question: Discussion Question In order to avoid some of the same mistakes in the future, what would your key foreign policy and/or counterterrorism objectives be for our relationships with India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Try for 1-2 per country and support your answer with examples from the materials we have read and watched. In particular, focus on the need to balance humanitarian needs in Afghanistan with concerns about legitimizing the Taliban and its supporters.