Policy Commentary, August 21 2021
Will the blast outside the Kabul airport on the eve of American withdrawal prove to be a warning shot to the Taliban or a case of an isolated attempt to take advantage of a chaotic security environment? Be that as it may, one thing is certain—it won’t be long before the Taliban faces an ongoing paradox like every previous government in Afghanistan—in order to have a strong state, Afghanistan needs a weak center. This hard realization is something that since the late 1970s, each successive group running the country has been unable to come to terms with. There’s no reason to think that the Taliban will be any different this time around and therein lies a fundamental weakness for the new dispensation in Kabul.
That the first stirring of a militant opposition from within is coming from the Panjshir Valley in the north and led by the son of legendary fighter Ahmad Shah Masud is no surprise. Afghanistan is comprised of multiple ethno-linguistic minorities, all of whom have long sought to protect their de facto federal status and if necessary, fight for it. What should be surprising for any observer is the complete absence of any secession sentiment among these groups. This is despite the fact that Afghan minorities have next door kin, with Tajiks having Tajikistan and Uzbeks having Uzbekistan. Even after 42 years of war and turmoil, including five years of civil war in the early 1990s, the majority (barely) Pashtuns as well as all the others, seem to share a strong sense of Afghan national identity.
Theoretically, this should make it much easier for the Afghan state to hang together unlike so many other states with minorities that want a country of their own. Empirically though, the Afghan state flourished (or at least functioned reasonably) only when the country resembled a highly decentralized political entity with powerful regional powerbrokers in charge of their own affairs. This was the case much of the time prior to the 1978 communist coup against the republican Mohammed Daoud and during the earlier nominal monarchy of his cousin King Zahir Shah. The system worked because the central “state” represented by Kabul was fragmented and non-threatening and served more as a symbol of pan-Afghan nationalism.
Kabul has always been dependent on foreign sponsors to lesser or greater degrees precisely because of the de facto strong federated state and the lack of access to resources that are necessary to run the country. Customs duties, transit fees, taxes and the like that should be the privy of the central government, was largely in the hands of regional leaders. The American intervention could disturb but not dislodge this political economy system. U.S. dollars of course produced a financial bonanza for those who controlled Kabul starting in 2001 thanks to soaring levels of corruption, but external assistance also allowed the central government to take credit for important gains. According to the Human Development Report 2020, Afghanistan managed to make substantial strides from 2000 onwards in key areas. For example, life expectancy went up from 55.8 years in 2000 to 64.8 by 2019. Across the same time, expected years of schooling showed a dramatic increase from 5.9 to 10.2 years.
Now that the Taliban has swept in and the Afghan military forces melted away, a big question is how much political power the new central government is going to amass, and perhaps more significantly, how much it is willing to give away. It is hard to not to see the centralizing tendency taking hold among the militants, especially as they arrive in the capital on the wave of hubris borne out of defeating not one, but two, superpowers—the Soviets and the United States. The Taliban this time may be able to consolidate their power much better than any predecessor for a very different reason in this instance and it’s no thanks to internal support or transformation. Rather, it is because the regional environment they find is way better than they could have ever hoped for, given the simultaneous friendly ties to Pakistan, China and Russia.
American withdrawal has coincided with China’s increasing interest in Afghanistan’s mines and minerals and a new commitment to shore up its political credentials with the Taliban to secure those economic stakes. Investments were stepped up when NATO forces left in 2014 and more recently China has been attempting to expand its influence with Afghanistan via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which includes a network of roads, ports, oil and gas pipelines and optical fiber cables. For the world’s biggest rising power, this part of the BRI known as China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) could be optimized within a trilateral China-Pakistan-Afghanistan combination.
From the Taliban’s point of view, China is attractive not just for its deep pockets but because Beijing will leave them free to pursue any domestic policies they choose. If the Taliban exerts central control through harsh Sharia laws that affect rights of women and girls or squeezes minorities, they can expect a free pass from China, Russia and Pakistan.
Thus, this time around, the Taliban will have a much better externally permissive and resourced hand to rule from Kabul unlike their earlier regime in 1996-2001 which saw only Pakistani and Saudi Arabian support. This external advantage however may not be enough if the internal state-regional equilibrium is fundamentally disturbed. The strong state fallacy and the push for centralization and homogenization when Afghan history dictates just the opposite, might be what ultimately foils Taliban control.
Deepa Ollapally, Research Professor of International Affairs & Director of Rising Powers Initiative, George Washington University.
