ISAF – COIN APPENDIX 2

Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Warfare:

Definitions, Political Nature, 5 False Expectations, Necessity & Lessons from Vietnam & Iraq for Afghanistan            

– Dr Regeena Kingsley

“[M]en must be governed by those laws which they love. Where thirty millions are to be governed by a few thousand men, the government must be established by consent, and must be congenial to the feelings and to the habits of the people. That which creates tyranny is the imposition of a form of government contrary to the will of the governed.”

– Edmund Burke, House of Commons Debate on British India, 27 June 1781

“We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all…that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys that make it worth living and also worth giving…and that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear.”

– Ève Curie Labouisse (1904-2007)

In blog ‘#31 BACKGROUND – COIN Warfare & the ISAF’s COIN Strategy: Battle for the Majority Population’, I briefly outlined the central theoretical doctrine and most important principles of Counter-Insurgency (COIN) warfare.

In the previous appendix I supplied additional information on COIN war, by examining the definitions, characteristics, psychological nature, forms of warfare and life cycle of insurgent armed rebellions against national governments (see ‘ISAF APPENDIX 1 – Insurgency: History, Definitions, Characteristics, Psychological Nature, Warfare & Life Cycle’).

This appendix will now present a fuller overview of counter-insurgency, by providing various definitions of COIN, the nature of COIN warfare to quell an insurgency, and – most importantly perhaps – addressing five false expectations of COIN war in the modern era that continue to frustrate national and international efforts to defeat dangerous and destabilising insurgencies in nations around the world today.

Defining Counter-Insurgency

Counter-insurgency (COIN) is most simply defined as ‘all measures adopted to suppress an insurgency’.[1] The term was first coined in the late twentieth century in response to the insurgent wars of national liberation occurring during the period of decolonisation from 1944-1980.[2] During this period of history much ink was spilled on the subject by theorists and practitioners from around the world, foremost among them David Galula, Robert Thompson, Frank Kitson, Bernard Fall, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara and Vo Nguyen Giap.[3]  

Drawing from these works and the collective experiences of its members, a broad definition of counter-insurgency was adopted by NATO in 1973, which defines COIN as:

‘Those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.’[4] 

This definition remains intact among NATO publications to the present day, and may be found within official government publications from countries such as the U.S., UK, France and Australia, including the U.S. COIN Manual of 2006.[5] 

David Kilcullen, one of the leading experts on modern insurgency and modern counter-insurgency warfare today, has also adopted this definition, adding only that ‘political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies’. [6]

The Political Nature of COIN Warfare

COIN War: An Expression of Politics

COIN, while vastly different from conventional warfare, is still a form of war.  Like all warfare, COIN is an expression of politics – it is a political instrument wielded by political masters towards a political objective. After all, war without a political goal would be a meaningless activity.  As Kilcullen states on the matter:

‘War is armed politics, and COIN is an armed variant of domestic politics in which numerous challengers compete for control over the population.’[7]

In fact counter-insurgency can only be understood with reference to, and counterbalance with, insurgency – they are a dichotomy: two sides of the one coin.

COIN: A Struggle for the Right to Govern

The landmark 2006 U.S. COIN manual (which, rather surprisingly given the commonality of insurgency warfare in world history, was the very first modern COIN manual to be written for American military personnel since the ignominious withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam War three decades earlier in 1975), explains these two insurgent and counter-insurgent forces in the following way:

‘Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate.’

Insurgents use all available tools – political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic – to overthrow the existing authority… an established government or an interim governing body. 

Counterinsurgents, in turn, use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging.’[8]

COIN: A Competition for the Political Power to Govern

This means that in essence COIN is a competition with insurgents for the political power to govern.

The insurgent fights to impose disorder, by building up informal structures, local institutions, and armed entities, while at the same time recalling older identities.[9]

The counter-insurgent fights to impose order, and does so by establishing formal structures, central institutions, and unarmed entities, while simultaneously affirming newer identities.[10] 

Legitimacy: The Importance of Gaining the Approval & Support of the People

To truly secure the right to govern, however, one side must achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the people – that is, their cause must be supported and approved of by the majority of the local population residing in the area.  It must secure the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local populace, and therefore their support, allegiance and vote of confidence.  It must also prove itself to be an effective, reliable and stable means of government.   As the 2006 U.S. Counter-insurgency Manual states:

‘The long-term objective for all sides remains acceptance of the legitimacy of one side’s claim to political power by the people of the state or region’. [11]

At its deepest level then, it may be seen that COIN is a competition with an insurgency for power over the local populace. 

The people are the king-makers: the victor will be determined by the local populace alone.

Key to Success: Wooing & Winning the “Undecided Majority” of the Population

Because the conduct of an insurgency-COIN campaign in an area usually results in the political polarization of the populace, this competition is in fact waged over the undecided majority of the population – sometimes called the ‘empty middle’ – with each side seeking to win this majority’s support (see image below).[12] 

Battle for the Population: Diagram showing the typical division of any population when in the grip of an insurgency. The passive majority is key to any counter-insurgency campaign and must be won over into active support for the COIN campaign in order for the campaign to be effective and to achieve real success.[13]

David Galula, the classical French COIN theorist and practitioner with experience in China, Greece, Southeast Asia, and Algeria underscored the importance of winning the support of the majority population, arguing that COIN warfare is essentially a battle for the population: the population is the ‘prize’ – the main goal or objective of the war.[14] 

In other words, in COIN warfare, campaigns are waged not so much to “defeat the Enemy” as to “win the people”, and thereby take away from the Enemy force their civilian support base supplying them with shelter, food, weapons and new recruits.

Securing Control via Popular Approval

According to Kilcullen: ‘Control over the population (through a combination of coercion and consent) is the goal of both government and insurgent’. [15] 

Securing control over the population is particularly important for the counter-insurgent because, as Galula explains:

‘If the insurgent manages to dissociate the population from the counterinsurgent, to control it physically, to get its active support, he will win the war because, in the final analysis, the exercise of political power depends on the tacit or explicit agreement of the population or, at worst, on its submissiveness.’ [16]   

After all, as T.E. Lawrence, the leader of the Arab insurgency against Turkish rule during World War I, wrote on the matter: ‘Rebellions can be made by 2 percent actively in the striking force and 98 percent passively sympathetic.’[17]

Winning the People: An Active Supportive Majority

This means then that in order to gain the upper hand and suppress the insurrection the counter-insurgent must not only secure control over the population, but additionally also work hard to win over active public support for the governing authority – to move them from a passive neutral majority to an active supportive majority.[18]

However, this vital transition within the population is something that is achieved primarily through political rather than purely military operations.[19]  Consequently, for the counter-insurgent, more than the insurgent, ‘every military move has to be weighed with regard to its political effects, and vice versa’.[20]

Indeed, it is this centrality of winning over the approval and support of the local population to achieve success, and fighting a political rather than purely military war, that renders COIN warfare so complex and difficult to execute effectively. 

Countering False Expectations of COIN War

X “Quick, Decisive Victories in Modern War of the Modern Era.”

The complex realities of COIN warfare contradict the prevailing tendency in the world today for people to think of modern war campaigns as generally quick and low-casualty affairs, rendered so by modern warfighting technology widely available to nations in the 21^st century.

This false view and expectation is particularly widespread in the West, and especially in the United States ever since the quick victory it achieved with its coalition allies in the First Gulf War (1990-1991) against Saddam Hussein, following the Iraqi dictator’s aggressive military invasion of its small neighbour Kuwait, a victory achieved predominantly through the use of overwhelming military force, using vastly superior military technology, in a conventional war. 

The truth, however, is that COIN warfare is today – as it has always been throughout the history of the world – long, slow, hard and messy work that is manpower-intensive and casualty prone, with no decisive victory and often no satisfyingly clear end-point.  Indeed, T.E. Lawrence, a practitioner and author of classical COIN methods, once described the act of working to suppress insurgent armed rebellions against governing authorities as ‘messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.’[21]

For this reason, counter-insurgency war tends to come to an end in an inglorious, almost unremarkable, yet extremely significant way. Quite simply, the campaign dies down over the decades in step with the insurgency it is countering. Insurgents continue their attacks as long as they have hope that they will eventually win and achieve their goal of seizing power over the State and the population. Once insurgent members begin to realise that they will never actually achieve victory, no-matter how long and hard they fight, and no-matter how many people they have killed or how many comrades they have lost – in short, that their struggle is hopeless and doomed to failure and defeat – they lose motivation and abandon the fight, causing the insurgency movement to slowly but surely fizzle out and die.

For this reason, unlike with conventional wars, COIN wars are usually described in terms of having a ‘successful’ or ‘unsuccessful’ outcome – rather than one of outright ‘victory’ or ‘defeat’.  Progress in COIN is conveyed instead in the more cautious, less dramatic, but nevertheless steady and healthy language of ‘gains’, ‘losses’ and positive or negative ‘trends’ within the population. 

One could say that COIN wars are won very slowly: there can ultimately be victories, but they are victories in slow-motion.

[For more information refer to sections ‘(8)“Victory” vs “End”?’ and ‘(9) Duration’ in the following blog ‘ISAF APPENDIX 3 – 9 COIN Characteristics: Conventional vs. COIN War’.]

X “Conventional Military Methods will Secure Success against Insurgencies.”

In addition, the character of COIN warfare is such that conventional methods of war will not secure success in such campaigns, and may conversely actually cause the fight to be lost entirely.[22] 

Melshen argues, for instance, that such traditional concepts ‘will have little or no impact in the winning of counterinsurgency campaigns of the present or the future, and if they do, it will probably be more by chance than design.’[23] Or as Boot likewise emphasises on this point: ‘Small wars cannot be fought by big war methods.’[24]

The practical examples of counter-insurgency warfare in the world since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 has highlighted, starkly and dramatically, such false expectations about COIN warfare among modern spectators. The U.S. military’s experience battling insurgents in Iraq post-2003 is perhaps the best example of this: the most modern, well-trained and technologically-advanced armed forces in the world – the product of the Information Age and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) it engendered – soon found themselves overwhelmed, well-bloodied and frustrated by unsophisticated, technologically-inferior adversaries, just as their forebears had in the deadly jungles of Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s.[25]  As Boot has stated on this experience:

‘It is doubtful that any other army could have subdued Iraq at lower cost; there simply is no way to fight this kind of war on the cheap.  But that is precisely the point: Defeating an insurgency still requires the kind of messy, block-by-block fighting that many thought had been rendered obsolete by the dawn of the Informational Age.  Operation Iraqi Freedom showed that there were still some things that not even the most advanced machines could do.’[26] 

X “COIN War has the Same Aim & Focus as Conventional War.”

Of course, this is not to say that COIN does not truly constitute ‘war’.  COIN does indeed constitute ‘war’ by its very nature, what Clausewitz defines as ‘the continuation of policy by other means’ – namely, armed force.[27]

However, COIN warfare and conventional warfare differ from each other in that they lie at opposite ends of the warfighting spectrum and involve two very disparate approaches to war.  The aim of conventional war is to destroy Enemy forces and thereby the Enemy’s capacity to fight. As Clausewitz states on the matter: ‘The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy’s forces, is the first-born son of war’.[28]  Conventional war is therefore ‘Enemy-centric’ and focused on militarily defeating the Enemy. This destruction of Enemy forces is achieved through the use of relentless and overwhelming military force, by disempowering their capabilities, eliminating their equipment and personnel, interdicting their resources and lines of communication, fending off recruits, breaking cohesion through creating confusion and mayhem, and ultimately wearing down the Enemy’s will and means to make war. 

By contrast, the aim of political-military COIN war is not to crush the Enemy through overwhelming military force, but rather to win over the approval and support of the population and thereby steadfastly wear away the insurgents’ civilian bases of support and supply among the local population. This means that rather than being ‘Enemy centric’, COIN war is ‘people-centric’ or ‘population-centric’, and focused on politically and militarily winning the population over from supporting the Enemy.  The role of military forces in COIN is therefore to support wider political goals and through minimal force, first, to protect the population, and second, to provide the security necessary for political gains to be achieved that will ultimately win the consent and active support of the people.[29] 

One may see by this that the underlying doctrine and warfighting style between a COIN campaign and that of a conventional war campaign differ markedly, and should never be confused with each other.

The Islamic extremist, Pashtun-Fascist, insurgent forces in Afghanistan, known as ‘the Taliban’. Since its genesis in 1994 the Taliban movement has always been in essence a de facto Pakistan militia – created, armed, staffed, resourced, guided, assisted, trained and supported by Pakistan – while falsely operating in Afghanistan under the rubric of a ‘native’ Afghan movement. [30]

X “Non-Traditional, Low-Intensity COIN Wars are Easier than Conventional Wars.”

When it comes to comparing these two disparate modes of warfare described above, it is in fact non-traditional, low-intensity COIN warfare – or ‘war among the people’ – rather than traditional, high-intensity conventional warfare that is by far the more complex of the two.

This reality has led some to describe COIN as being more of “a thinking man’s war” than an active man’s war.  As Melshen emphasises:

‘In many ways conventional warfare is much less difficult to master than are low intensity conflict and counterinsurgency warfare – ‘Two divisions up and one division back, protect your flanks, and do not invade Russia in the winter’ and you are a conventional warfare genius. The mastery of low-intensity conflict, in the current case counterinsurgency warfare, is much more difficult. It is a ‘thinking person’s’ art form.’[31]

COIN war must be fought intelligently, thoughtfully and carefully – and with one’s eyes continuously focused on winning, by both political and military means, the active approval and support of the majority population.

X “COIN Wars are Too Long!”

There seems to be a widespread and commonly-held view today not only that all wars should be of short duration, but also that even long, politico-military COIN wars have a time limit by which they should be ended or given up. However this view exposes a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of COIN war and the importance of COIN campaigns, especially for the countries in which insurgent armed rebellions are violently taking place.

COIN war is, as it has always been throughout world history, a long-term commitment, regularly requiring an investment of between 10-12 years on average, and sometimes even lasting many decades before meeting its just end, as occurred after 33 years in Sri Lanka following its struggle against anti-government and ideologically extreme insurgents between 1976-2009.[32] 

By way of comparison, as of January 2021, the NATO allies have been implementing a true COIN strategy in its fight against terrorist and insurgent extremists in Afghanistan – in support of the new, modern, democratically-elected, moderate, terror-rejecting, non-menacing, and internationally friendly and cooperative Afghan government currently led by the moderate, balanced and beloved Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (aka “Baba Ghani”) – for a period of only 14 years since January 2007. (In fact, the OEF’s prior COIN strategy, which had been successfully implemented between 2003-2005 under the command of  U.S. Army Lieutenant General (LTGEN) David W. Barno of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A), was abandoned by NATO when it expanded the ISAF mission into the formerly OEF-commanded and –manned Regional Command sectors of Afghanistan. For more information see ‘Blog #31 BACKGROUND – COIN Warfare & the ISAF’s COIN Strategy: Battle for the Majority Population’.)

With counter-insurgency there is simply no ‘quick fix’.  Instead, each counter-insurgency campaign will have its own rhythm, duration, and end-point in response to the closing insurgent life cycle – and a ‘final end’ can not be predicted, determined or procured merely by desiring it. [For more information on the ‘life cycle’ of insurgencies, see ‘ISAF APPENDIX 1 – Insurgency: History, Definitions, Characteristics, Psychological Nature, Warfare & Life Cycle’.]  

Indeed, the only way to curtail the length of a COIN campaign is by either recognising an insurgency in its earliest stages and overpowering it while it is still in its infancy, or alternatively – and more frequently – through developing a well-defined strategy to keep the COIN war from becoming aimless, haphazard and unmethodical.[33] 

According to Metz & Millen, sustaining the political commitment of COIN forces is additionally a very important part of ‘force packaging’ in a COIN campaign during this long time period, since ‘successful counterinsurgency takes many years, often a decade or more.’[34]

COIN War – A Necessity when ‘Necessary’ or ‘Required as Better than the Alternative’

Despite the long-term commitment, continuous effort, and often great cost in blood and treasure that is required to sustain a COIN campaign against a violent destabilising insurgency in a theatre of conflict, this price-tag is ultimately necessary and required if the insurgency or insurgencies in question must be quelled or defeated in the interests of: (a) national security; or (b) international security – and even more so (c) if the campaign in question is important for both simultaneously (e.g. in Vietnam during the Cold War confrontation and in Afghanistan during the War on Terror sparked by the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on America).

Finally, the sustained, long-term commitment, effort and sacrifice is ultimately required and must continue if the only other alternative is for a democratically-elected and representative government to agree to share political power with a violent force that embraces toxic and radical ideologies, such as violent political forces who currently advocate or support the repugnant and subsequently overthrown Nazi-, Apartheid- or Taliban-style ideologies of history, which led to government policies of forced marriage, forced divorce, forced unemployment, forced labour, forced enslavement, forced sterilization, forced sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, forced segregation, forced execution, or other forms of government-ordered and government-enforced persecution and discrimination based solely on the basic human factors of ethnicity, skin colour, female gender, or personal religious belief.  

‘It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government

 – except all the others that have been tried…

All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word:

freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.’

– Winston Churchill

To illustrate, with regard to the currently NATO-supported country of Democratic Afghanistan, the Pakistan-created, -supported and -enabled Pashtun Taliban fighting force today represents just such a toxic and radical ideology, embracing as it does an utterly poisonous, intolerable and insufferable combination of radical Islamic fundamentalism, xenophobic racial Fascism, extreme female enslavement and persecution, and Islamist terrorism – with the Taliban having deliberately, routinely and consistently sent its Taliban combatants to conduct indiscriminate terrorist attacks against the Afghan civilian non-combatant population, over a period of more than two-and-a-half decades since their hostile takeover in 1996 – by brute military force – of the legitimate, multi-ethnic and democratically-elected Afghan government founded in 1992 by Rabbani and Massoud. [For more information on the ugly, Pakistan-enabled genesis and development of the Taliban movement, its military takeover of Afghanistan’s first legitimate government after decades of civil war, and the ‘Terror State’ it subsequently founded and developed until their military removal by a U.S.-led international ‘Coalition of the Willing’ after the Afghanistan-based 9/11 terrorist attack, refer to blog ‘#28 BACKGROUND – Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban’].

Taliban Rule (1994/6-2001) as retold by an Afghan survivor and witness in ‘The Kite Runner’ (2007)

Illegal to be Free: During the 5 years of Taliban rule from 1996-2001, all Afghan women were forced to live a severely restricted and controlled life, no-matter their individual, God-given gifts or capabilities. They were confined like prisoners in their own darkened homes, forced to wear full-length, body-covering burqas in public, stripped of their professions, education and medical care, and were deprived of nearly all of the basic human freedoms of expression and choice they had previously had and enjoyed for decades under earlier, more moderate, more caring, and far better ‘providing’ Afghan governments.[35]

“Since 1st Jan, Afghanistan has lost 3 female media workers, 1 female physician, 2 female judges. 4 of these women lived & worked in Ningarhar. 6 professional women lost to targeted attacks before 8th March. Let that sink in. This war is costing us too much. Stop targeted killings”

– Shaharzad Akbar, Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, 6 March 2021, Twitter

The impetus to reject any such “peace deal” with an extremely unpalatable insurgent force is even higher and more vital, furthermore, when that power-sharing agreement would result in shared government rule over the population of the nation, the majority of whom utterly despise and reject that insurgent ideology, along with the practical out-workings and policy implications of that ideology for everyday life in the country.  

Then and Now: A modern Afghan ANDSF soldier cares for a little Afghan girl in 2018, 17 years after the international community’s decisive overthrow of the tyrannical Taliban terror government and its ‘Terror State’ following the multi-pronged, Afghanistan-based 9/11 terror attack on the American homeland in 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 American and international citizens from 115 countries. [36]

In such cases, any agreement to share political power with the radical insurgent force would both upset and alienate the majority population of the country from the central government of that country, and lead to further unrest and instability in the nation and the region – particularly if horrified citizens begin to flee their own homeland and seek refuge as refugees in the lands of neighbouring or distant countries, that are ruled by comparatively safer governments with more moderate policies for daily living.

Death-Mongers: Leaders of the Islamic-extremist ‘Taliban’ fighting force, a de facto Pakistani militia created, trained and supported by Pakistan, deceptively negotiating with the United States of America at Doha in 2020 in order to once again seize power and control over the government in Afghanistan and its moderation-loving & freedom-loving and extremism-rejecting & Taliban-rejecting Afghan population. [37]

Indeed, with regard to Afghanistan specifically, it would certainly be a singularly unfair, undemocratic and disgusting deed in world history for any democratic country in the world today – especially those nations that have declared themselves to be ‘Friends of Afghanistan’ and ‘Friends of Women in Afghanistan’ such as America, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Australia, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other supposedly ‘supportive’ democracies of Europe, Africa and the Indo-Asia-Pacific – to insist and demand that Afghanistan’s legitimate, democratically-elected, population-representative and freedom-loving government led by President Ashraf Ghani, which since 2014 has been fighting long, hard and valiantly against all forms of extremism in Afghanistan to create a modern, stable, democratic and peaceful State in the region, agree to betray the majority population among the 39 million Afghan people that has elected it in national elections, in order to share political power in a make-shift, unelected and deeply unstable ‘interim government’, with a toxic, malevolent, terrorism-using and extremist fighting force like the Taliban, that these other government and Nation-State ‘Friends’ would never themselves consider – under any circumstances – inviting to become part of their own government, to rule over their own people, including their own women, in their own home country.

 ‘Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference…Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.’

– Winston Churchill

In fact the Taliban comprises just one of several, current, State-sponsored, extremist and terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan today, but one which has been mercilessly and ruthlessly preying on and terrorising the country of Afghanistan, and its long-suffering but courageous people, since 1994. 

By means primarily of the Pashtun Taliban, in addition to other militia groups, Pakistan has for three decades now villainously sought – by cunning strategy and stealth – to hijack and subjugate the power apparatus and seat of government of a different, neighbouring, sovereign country on its western flank, in order to rule over Afghanistan’s population, exploit the nation’s resources, assets and neighbours for its own profit and advantage, and dishonestly increase its own ‘political’ landmass, weight and status in the region vis-à-vis its obsessive rivalry with India to the east.[44]

In this respect, the true source of this destabilising, destructive and diabolical armed conflict, that is currently distressing the whole world, lies not within the country of Afghanistan (or more accurately ‘Khorasan’) itself, nor even with the hateful and extreme Taliban terror group, but rather across the border with successive democratically-elected – but totalitarian Taliban-supporting – Pakistani governments in Islamabad (at least the Taliban operating in neighbouring Afghanistan, not in the Pakistani homeland itself), and even more specifically, with Pakistan’s reportedly ‘often rogue’ covert intelligence and operations branch called the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency.

(This raises the important and pivotal question of the hour – who is really in control of the Pakistani State? Its high-level, legitimate and elected government of the new, very popular and well-liked Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, created in a deliberate political and strategic move away from the Pakistani “Terror State” of past decades since the late 1970s? Or its mid-level subordinate instruments of power – the ISI and branches of the Pakistani military, particularly the overly-powerful Pakistan Army after General Zia’s radical years of undemocratic and autocratic military coup and dictatorship?) [45]

[For more detailed information on the historical record of successive Pakistani governments providing political and military support to the Taliban group, that Pakistan originally created in 1994 to conquer and control Afghanistan for its own ends and interests, using thousands of radicalised Islamist students recruited from the borderland ‘Pakistani Pashtun’ Deobandi and Wahhabi ‘Madrassah’ schools (9,000 of these schools had been established in Pakistan proper and a further 1,000 in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, during his undemocratic and authoritarian military ‘coup’ dictatorship from 1977-1988, with the express purpose and intent of radicalising the Pakistani population), and for details on the concrete manifestations of this continuous government support for the Taliban provided by the ISI and the Pakistani Army as once subordinate instruments of government, refer to blog #28.]

Indeed, Madiha Afzal, from the Brookings Institute, has very accurately outlined the crux of the present political and military situation in Afghanistan. Writing in October of 2019, Afzal describes these worn-out, tired and dusty grooves of distorted truths and biased beliefs in Pakistan, that are driving both its behaviour and the vicious war it has for decades supported in neighbouring Afghanistan:

South Vietnam, Iraq & Afghanistan: Lessons from History 

The case of South Vietnam, and America’s complete withdrawal of its military combat and advisory forces from that vital conflict during the Cold War, should be a lesson from history regarding the manifold long-lasting and harmful political, military, economic, social, and human consequences – in terms of both American and international Allied military combatants and non-combatant civilians – of premature, politically- and emotionally-driven American defeats in war.  

A 2015 documentary on the human consequences of America’s withdrawal from South Vietnam and its Capital Saigon, entitled “Last Days of Vietnam”.[39]

Indeed, it is no understatement to say that the War in Vietnam was decisively lost on the homefront in the Capitol and White House government buildings of Washington D.C., not the battlefield of Democratic South Vietnam – which following the institution of the COIN ‘Vietnamization’ strategy in 1969 (after the 1968 Tet Offensive) was actually beginning to bear fruit in the early 1970s and actively turning the war in America’s favour (see endnote).[40]

This defeat was due mostly to the pressure brought to bear on weak, irresolute and emotionally-swayed policy-makers in government by public protests inspired by Communist infiltration of American media, Hollywood films, academic universities and schools, and society at large, leading to strong sympathies for Communism and North Vietnam among substantial swathes of the American population.

‘Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.’

– Karl von Clausewitz

Small rudders turn great ships – and any ship can be turned back around.

At the time of America’s politically-driven decision to concede defeat in South Vietnam and to withdraw all of its military forces not just from the nation of South Vietnam, but also symbolically from the hotly-contested and Communist-embattled ‘Indochina’ Southeast Asian region of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the Asia-Pacific, the United States had suffered the loss of approximately 60,000 military personnel killed or missing, in addition to tens of thousands of demoralised, depressed and battle-scarred serving and retired veterans, who would tragically never live to see any positive, long-term outcome in South Vietnam from their hard fight for Democracy in Southeast Asia. 

Following America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, the Southeast Asian nations of Laos and Cambodia  likewise both quickly lost their civil war struggles with domestic Communist insurgencies, that were now backed by a victorious and forcibly united Communist Vietnam (the present-day Socialist Republic of Vietnam), to become additional Communist States in the region, also leading to the establishment and empowerment of the vicious Khmer Rouge ‘Kampuchea’ State in Cambodia that went on to commit – largely with impunity – national campaigns of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity against its civilian population.

The Cambodian film on the Khmer Rouge government, “First They Killed My Father”, released by Netflix in 2017 and directed by UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie, whose father Jon Voight has also stated on his earlier anti-Vietnam War activism and the issue of America’s dishonourable and consequential withdrawal from South Vietnam: ‘I regret being caught up in the hysteria of the Sixties. The Left have blood on their hands and I do too.’ [41]

In other words, America’s withdrawal from South Vietnam triggered a negative ‘domino effect’ in Southeast Asia, the complete opposite of the positive domino effect that took place in the Middle East decades later between 2010-2012 with the sudden and spontaneous pro-democratic representation, pro-government accountability, and anti-government corruption “Arab Spring” of popular protests and calls for greater democracy and  more honest governance from politically and materially neglected and impoverished Muslim populations in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria, Mauritania, Djibouti, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, the self-governing Palestinian territories within their neighbour Israel’s borders, and Lebanon.

‘The empires of the future are the [ideological] empires of the mind.’

– Winston Churchill

This greatly astonishing – and still unfolding – popular movement in the Arab World of the Greater Middle East (the Middle East and North Africa combined), whereby diverse national populations unexpectedly rose up and demanded real and tangible improvement in their nations, specifically better and less self-indulgent and self-interested governance, protection, provision and care from their leaders (as ‘Carers’ not ‘Predators’ of the people, national ‘Shepherds’ assisted by government and military State servants, not national ‘Thieves’ in command of cruel and lawless ‘wolves’), took place after 7 years of Iraq’s friends and neighbours observing the “success story” of a post-Saddam, young, modern, democratically-elected, population-representative, and stabilising government of Iraq between 2003-2011, (especially the latter 4 years from 2008-2011 following the anti-terror and anti-destruction ‘citizen awakening’ of concerned and native Iraqis).

This tyranny-free and revitalised Iraqi State was being supported and helped at great national and personal sacrifice by the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain (as Lead Nation of the South American ‘Plus Ultra Brigade’, at least initially until the targeted 2004 Al-Qaeda Madrid Bombings), Poland, Romania, Estonia, El Salvador, Georgia, Jordan, the effectively anti-terrorist (SOF), bilingual and reliable Iraqi Kurdish government forces from the ancient-tribal, autonomous Peshmerga or Kurdistan territory within the sovereign and multi-ethnic Iraqi State (e.g. soldiers like the daring and brave, Iraqi-Kurdish, demining hero Colonel (COL) Fakhir Berwari), and other sincerely-committed, anti-terrorist and freedom-loving allies in the world (refer to endnote for a list of other nations tangibly supporting the young democratic State and government of the Republic of Iraq).[42] 

This robust, anti-terror, ‘preventative’, U.S.-led coalition, multilateral war against the terror-supporting Dictator Saddam Hussein also bore good fruit for world stability and security in another key area of concern – that of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (WMDs) in the hands of terrorists, or more dangerously, terror-supporting States (especially rogue ones in breach of international law and in defiance of majority consensus in the international community of nations) – motivating in the year 2003 the cessation or abandonment respectively of both Iran and Libya’s active nuclear weapon programmes.

‘No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.’

– Karl von Clausewitz

However, unfortunately and tragically, in most cases these loud popular calls for real improvements in governance made by the various Middle East peoples were met with angry, deaf, and hard-hearted resistance by their leaders, leading to thousands of needless civilian deaths and the destabilisation of many countries (including Lebanon, which is right now at the government-caused and self-destructive crisis point of complete political, economic and social State failure and collapse – refer to the documentary below).

The 1975 withdrawal of the American superpower as a unique and crucial ‘Force for Democracy’ among the nations of the world (see endnote), followed by the sudden prospect of the military invasion of both North Vietnamese Army (People’s Army of North Vietnam or PAVN) and South Vietnamese “Viet Cong” insurgents into South Vietnam and its Capital Saigon, sparked an instantaneous ‘refugee exodus’ from Democratic South Vietnam.[43] This exodus was comprised of millions of frightened, Democracy-supporting and freedom-loving people, including both non-combatant civilians and combatants of the formerly U.S.-backed South Vietnam Army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN), among whom 200-250,000 ‘boat people’ refugees perished at sea from various causes somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The subsequent South Vietnam bloodbath of human abuses and atrocities committed  against the South Vietnamese civilian population, following the military invasion of South Vietnam by the politically ‘victorious’ North Vietnamese PAVN and Viet Cong forces, was afterwards known around the world as the horrific “Rape of Vietnam”.  It was called this due to the invasion’s grisly similarities to the two-month-long ‘Rape of Nanking’ of 1937-1938 – also known as the ‘Nanjing Massacre’ – of deliberately cruel army killings, rape and acts of body and genital mutilation committed by invading Japanese military forces of ‘Greater Japan’ (the aggressive and expansionist ‘Empire of Japan’ from the time of the Manchurian invasion in 1931 until its Allied military defeat in 1945) against approximately 300,000 innocent, unarmed and terrified Chinese civilians, prior to the 1941 Pearl Harbor military attacks on American Hawaii that Japan went on to commit three years later, and the start of the Pacific arena of war during the Second World War.

Following America’s withdrawal from South Vietnam, all three political, military and social spheres of the American nation descended into an intellectual and emotional “Vietnam Syndrome” of aversion to any American military involvement in important overseas theatres of conflict, especially the more complicated COIN wars and COIN doctrine (although in fact a true COIN strategy was adopted very late in the 20-year war from 1955-1975, only during the last 6 years of America’s campaign against Communism in South Vietnam). 

The United States did not again fully emerge from this conflict-averse ‘Syndrome’ until the heinous Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the American homeland two-and-a-half decades later on 11 September 2001, with the prosecution of respectively punative and pre-emptive defensive wars against the Islamist Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation and its State-sponsors and protectors, which began within a month of the attack, first in Afghanistan in 2001, and then subsequently in Iraq in 2003.  First in Iraq, when suddenly faced not only with terrorist resistance from the ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq’ (AQI) terror cell, but also with multiple, anti-American or anti-Democracy, Saddamist Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian, and international jihadist “foreign fighter” insurgency groups, and then subsequently in Afghanistan when faced with the Pakistan-inspired “Taliban Resurgence” of 2006, the United States was compelled to relearn the art of COIN warfare she had so long tried to forget and ignore, since the nation’s traumatic – if politically-based – defeat in South Vietnam in 1975. Some lessons just must be learnt in life, they are not merely a voluntary option.

Following America’s premature military withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 – a second major and massively consequential withdrawal from an important and strategic theatre of war – which left behind in its wake a colossal and unfilled power-vacuum in the Iraqi State and the Middle East region, the AQI terrorist cell in Iraq seized the opportunity and mutated into the black-hearted and exceedingly violent ISIS entity.  Quickly gathering recruits into its formerly COIN-thinned ranks, ISIS militarily seized huge swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria, and caused such alarm and horror around the world that another international Coalition of the Willing had to be speedily assembled and deployed to defeat ISIS on the very same blood-soaked ground America, Britain and its allies had just militarily withdrawn from (according to a Brookings Institute panel, AQI had formerly also been the ‘main source of U.S. casualties during the Iraq war’).[46]

ISIS ambitiously and ruthlessly seeks now, as it always has, to establish an ‘Islamist Empire’  in which it may enslave and terrorise the free peoples of the world, first attempted in Iraq/Syria, then in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and now – ten years later – in Indonesia and across the whole continent of Africa, from Mali and Nigeria to Mozambique.  

‘To secure peace is to prepare for war…[Peace through Strength/State-to-State Deterrence & Self-Defence].

…Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.’

– Karl von Clausewitz

Peace through Strength (political, military, economic and moral) & Self-Reliance (politically independent and stable, militarily secure and capable, economically secure and prosperous, and possessing a sound moral compass) creates its own rewards: the simultaneous deterrence of Enemies & attraction of Friends and Partners.

As one may see by this brief overview of the South Vietnam War above, which took place over two decades from 1955-1975, it is clear that decisions made in political Capitals both to begin and to end wars have massive human and strategic consequences for millions of people around the world, both at home and abroad. 

This reality should underline and underscore the critical importance of power-holding politicians, such as the current Biden-Harris Administration, fully estimating and “counting the cost” politically, militarily, financially and morally of both starting war and ending/withdrawing from war, including an assessment of the long-term political commitment, determination and resolute resolve required by the State to achieve success, maintain stability and preserve the State’s reputation internationally in these theatres of war, before making, declaring and enforcing landmark decisions with regard to conflict, in the international affairs of nations and peoples.

“We, as the Afghans have been suffering endlessly and have so many enemies, they never stop, Why??!! In the eyes of the world, armed religious radicals #Taliban #ISIS … and many more, are the sworn enemies and killing us everyday. We deserve to live in peace like other nation.”

– Sediq Sediqqi, Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs for Strategy & Policies and Former Spokesperson for the Afghan President, 17 March 2021, Twitter

“You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory.

Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror.

Victory however long and hard the road may be. 

For without victory there is no survival.”

– Winston Churchill, First Speech as British Prime Minister at the House of Commons, 13 May 1940.

* For information on the extent and impact of national caveats on the NATO-led ISAF Operation in Afghanistan, see Dr Kingsley’s full Thesis and its accompanying volume of Appendices (including ISAF national caveat lists), which can be freely viewed and downloaded from Massey University’s official website here:

http://mro.massey.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10179/6984

Endnotes

---

[1] D.J. Kilcullen, ‘Counter-insurgency Redux’, Survival, vol. 48, no. 4, (Winter) 2006, p. 111-112.

[2] Ibid.

[3] J. Kiszely (LTGEN), ‘Learning about Counter-Insurgency’, RUSI Journal, (December) 2006, p. 16, www.rusi.org/publication/journal/ref:A4587F6831E1A6, (accessed 11 March 2009).

[4] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), NATO Standardization Agency (NSA), Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2008), 2008, p. 2-C-18, http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/other/nato2008.pdf, (accessed 6 January 2011).

[5] NATO, NSA, Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2008), ibid., p. 2-C-18; United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), Headquarters Department of the Army (DA), FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, 15 December 2006, p. 1-1, http://www.cfr.org/publication/12257/, (accessed 29 January 2009); United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (U.K. MOD), Glossary of Joint and Multinational Terms and Definitions: Joint Doctrine Publication 0-01.1, 2006, p. C-26, http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E8750509-B7D1-4BC6-8AEE-8A4868E2DA21/0/JDP0011Ed7.pdf, (accessed 5 January 2011); Australian Department of Defence (DOD), ADFP 101 Glossary, Australian Defence Force Publication- Staff Duties Series, Canberra, 2009, p. C-18.

The French have also adopted an exact translation of this English definition for counter-insurgency or ‘contre-insurrection’: « Mesure militaires, paramilitaires, politiques, économiques, psychologiques ou civiles destinées à combattre les menées insurrectionnelles » (cited in NATO, NSA, NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2010), 2010, p. 3-C-20, http://www.scribd.com/doc/40014713/NATO-AAP-6-NATO-Glossary-of-Terms-and-Definitions-English-and-French-2010, (accessed 6 January 2011).)

[6] Definitions within U.S. military document FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, cited in D.J. Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, Presented at Small Wars Center of Excellence Counterinsurgency Seminar 07, Quantico, VA, 26 September 2007, http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/COINSeminarSummaryReport.doc, (accessed 5 January 2011).

[7] Ibid.

[8] U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1-1.

[9] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[10] Ibid.

[11] U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1-2.

[12] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[13] Modified image ‘Figure 1-2. Support for an insurgency’ taken from U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 1-20.

[14] D. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice [1964], Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2006, p. 4; Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[15] U.S. DoD FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, cited in D.J. Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, ibid.

[16] Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, op. cit.

[17] Cited in ‘Iraqi Insurgents Learning from Lawrence’, Small Wars Journal, cited in Small Wars Council – Historians [web blog], http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5330, (accessed 5 January 2011).

[18] B. Reeder, ‘Book Summary of Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice by David Galula’, Conflict Research Consortium, The Conflict Resolution Information Source, http://www.crinfo.org/booksummary/10672/, (accessed 6 January 2011).

[19] Ibid.

[20] Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, op. cit., p. 5.

[21] Cited in D. Ucko, ‘US counterinsurgency in the information age’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 17, issue 12, (December 2005), p. 11; J. Black, ‘Qualifying Technology’, Rethinking Military History, USA, Routledge, 2004, p. 123.

[22] Kiszely, ‘Learning about Counter-Insurgency’, op. cit., p.20.

[23] P. Melshen, ‘Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan: Critical Considerations in Counterinsurgency Campaigning’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol.18, no. 4, (December) 2007, p. 666.

[24] M. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, New York, Basic Books, 2002, p. 285.

[25] M. Boot, War Made New – Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World, New York, Gotham Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006, p. 466.

[26] Boot, ‘Humvees and IEDs: Iraq, March 20, 2003 – May 1, 2005’, War Made New – Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World, ibid., p. 418.

[27] Kiszely, ‘Learning about Counter-Insurgency’, op. cit., p.20.

[28] ‘Karl Von Clausewitz – Clausewitz Quotes/Quotations’, Military Quotes, http://www.military-quotes.com/Clausewitz.htm, (accessed 7 February 2011).

[29] C.S. Gray, ‘Irregular Warfare: One Nature, Many Characters’, Strategic Studies Quarterly, (Winter) 2007, p. 48-49, 50; Ucko, ‘US counterinsurgency in the information age’, op. cit., p. 10; Melshen, Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan, op. cit., p. 669.

[30]  Modified images taken from ‘Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History. “A Recipe for Endless War” – The Rise of the Taliban’, Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training, 1998, https://adst.org/2014/08/a-recipe-for-endless-war-the-rise-of-the-taliban/, (accessed 10 August 2019); ‘Photos: The Taliban’, in E Labott, N Paton Walsh & T. Hume, ‘Rocket strikes in Kabul intended for John Kerry, Taliban say’, CNN, 10 April 2016, https://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/10/politics/kerry-afghanistan-taliban-rockets/index.html, (accessed 10 August 2019); H. Bloch, ‘The View From Kabul’, NPR, 8 September 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/09/08/492000767/the-view-from-kabul-on-sept-11-2001, (accessed 10 August 2019); and ‘The Taliban: How it began, and what it wants’, CNN, 13 March 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2018/03/13/taliban-militant-afghanistan-pakistan-war-soviets-orig-lon-ak.cnn, (accessed 10 August 2019).

[31] Melshen, Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan, op. cit., p. 666.

[32] Gray, ‘Irregular Warfare: One Nature, Many Characters’, op. cit., p. 49; Melshen, Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan, ibid., p.672.

[33] Melshen, Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan, ibid., pp. 670, 671.

[34] S. Metz & R. Millen (LTCOL), ‘Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21^st Century: Reconceptualizing Threat and Response’, U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), p. vii, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/insurgency21c.pdf, (accessed 21 July 2010).

[35] Modified images taken from S. Levi, ‘The Long, Long Struggle for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan’, ORIGINS – Current Events in Historical Perspective, Published by the History Departments at The Ohio State University and Miami University, Vol. 2, issue 12, September 2009, https://origins.osu.edu/article/long-long-struggle-women-s-rights-afghanistan, (accessed 10 August 2019) and ‘Photos: The Taliban’, in E Labott, N Paton Walsh & T. Hume, ‘Rocket strikes in Kabul intended for John Kerry, Taliban say’, CNN, 10 April 2016, https://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/10/politics/kerry-afghanistan-taliban-rockets/index.html, (accessed 10 August 2019).

[36] Modified photo taken from Ejaz Malikzada, Twitter [shared photo], 27 November 2018, https://mobile.twitter.com/EjazMalikzada/status/1067346366526119936 (accessed 23 March 2021).

[37] Modified image taken from A. Hagstrom, ‘Trump Announces Mike Pompeo To Finalize Taliban Peace Deal’, Daily Caller, 28 February 2020, https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/28/pompeo-esper-taliban-afghan-peace-deal/, (accessed 29 February 2020).

[38] M. Afzal, ‘Order from Chaos – Imran Khan’s incomplete narrative on the Taliban’, Brookings Institute, 14 October 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/14/imran-khans-incomplete-taliban-narrative/amp/, (accessed 27 March 2021).

Peace talks resulting in an agreement that essentially, sadly and farcically equates to: “Please target and attack only the legitimate, democratically-elected Afghan government and its vital forces that we are expressly here to support, but not us Americans or our Allies – as we have had enough now and want to leave – and we prefer to believe that, despite your appalling, dishonest and doubtful track record, the outrageously warped corruption of your core ideological and religious beliefs, and your abiding contempt for and hatred of women, especially female human beings with God-given intelligence and integrity who are educated, earning* and brave, as well as the fact that you really are Pakistani invaders and “foreign fighters” here too, you really will do as you promise and cut all ties with terrorist groups and terror tactics, despite decades of Taliban-Al-Qaeda intermarriages stemming back to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden and their daughters**, and deep and longstanding inter-tribal terror affiliations, and voluntarily stop being an Islamo-fascist terrorist entity in this nation, and also the Central and South Asian regions, to instead self-transform into a more moderate political party engaging fairly and honestly in the democratic, free and majority-elected Afghan political system of governance for the modern and revitalised country of Afghanistan, and the modern era in world history of the 2020s.”

** Each voluntarily earning to help support her own family, or her wider family, or to help pay for her own personal needs or studies, usually with the permission of her father, brother, husband or fiancé, in accordance with traditional Afghan culture.

** For decades there have been strong and repeating rumours that the ideological and financial “Unholy Alliance” between the Taliban Terror State and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, detailed at length in blog ‘#28 BACKGROUND – Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban’, were cemented by the “blood ties” of intermarriage and children between the two terror groups.  In 1996 the original one-eyed Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, is believed to have taken Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s daughter in marriage, and there are also rumours that in exchange, Osama bin Laden also married Mullah Omar’s daughter, the girl becoming his 4^th wife. This tradition of cementing terror-bonds between the two groups via intermarriage has continued over the decades since, until the present time two-and-a-half decades later, meaning that there are hundreds – if not thousands – of mixed Taliban-Al-Qaida “terror families” living in Afghanistan or among the strongly-independent mountain tribes of the inflammable and volatile FATA and NWFP border regions of Pakistan [‘BBC Profile: Mullah Omar’, BBC, 29 July 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-13501233, accessed 26 April 2021].

In fact, a UN report sent to the UN Security Council one year ago, in May 2020, stated that:

(1) ‘Relations between the Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network…and Al-Qaida remain close, based on friendship, a history of [1] shared struggle, [2] ideological sympathy and [3] intermarriage’;

(2) ‘The Taliban regularly consulted with Al-Qaida during negotiations with the United States and offered guarantees [to the Al-Qaida terrorist network] that it would honor their historical ties’ come-what-may;

(3) The regularity of meetings between Al-Qaida seniors and the Taliban ‘made any notion of a break between the two [today] mere fiction’;

(4) The Taliban leadership, especially those advocating less extremism and more balanced moderation in their ideology and actions, ‘had not fully disclosed the details of the agreement [to their own Taliban soldiers among their fighting forces], particularly any commitment to cut ties with Al-Qaida and foreign terrorist fighters, for fear of a backlash [from the rank and file]’ (emphasis added);

and perhaps worst of all that

(5) ‘Al-Qaida has reacted positively to the agreement [between the previously ousted regime of the Terrorist Taliban and Democratic America – an America-centric agreement that deliberately excluded from both the negotiations and the final agreement the true, legitimate, elected, and democratic government of Afghanistan led by President Ghani], with statements from its acolytes celebrating it as a victory for the Taliban’s cause and thus for global militancy’ (emphasis added).

[C. Putz, ‘UN Report: Taliban Maintains Ties to Al-Qaeda’, The Diplomat, 2 June 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/un-report-taliban-maintains-ties-to-al-qaida, accessed 26 April 2021.]

All of these facts present extremely grave reasons for concern not only with regard to the true state of affairs in Afghanistan with reference to the international community’s success of ‘combating and defeating terrorist entities’ in the State that, since 1996, spawned multiple Islamist terror attacks around the globe culminating in the 9/11 terrorist attack on Washington D.C. and New York in the American homeland, but also with respect to the kind of future that awaits the current moderate, democratic, freedom-loving and peace-loving Afghan nation, following the international community’s withdrawal of the bulk of its training, supporting and stabilising political and military forces, over the course of the next year and the next decade from 2020-2030. 

This precarious and unstable situation is especially poignant given that it is still as yet unclear to the world what kind of role Pakistan will now choose to play in this critical world conflict, in:

(a) promoting stabilisation (a heroic, anti-terror and rescuing role);

OR

(b) either actively or passively enabling further deterioration and descent into the Taliban-driven chaos of extremism, terror and targeted mass-murder – especially the Taliban’s deliberate targeting of innocent, unarmed and defenceless civilian women (a continuing villainous, terror-supporting and damning role as the harbinger of further death, destruction and misery, not only to the tens of millions of people living in neighbouring Afghanistan, and potentially also within the Pakistan homeland itself, but also further hundreds of millions in the South Asian region, and even beyond this, to unknown multitudes of international civilians of various countries traumatised, wounded, maimed or murdered in global Islamist terror attacks that – without irreversibly decisive, direct and deliberate terror-rejecting and terror-condemning decisions and actions by PM Khan’s ruling government – may yet emanate from the uncontrolled and unconquered terror entities operating with freedom and impunity in Pakistan’s home region of the world).

[39] ‘Last Days in Vietnam – Who goes? And who gets left behind?’, PBS, 28 April 2015, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lastdays/, (accessed 28 March 2021).

[40] ‘The Fall of South Vietnam’, Britannica Encyclopaedia [online], 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War/The-fall-of-South-Vietnam, (accessed 28 March 2021).

[41] J. Mulkerrins, ‘Jon Voigt interview: ‘The Left has blood on their hands’’, The Telegraph, 29 July 2013, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10203196/Jon-Voight-interview-The-left-have-blood-on-their-hands.html, (accessed 28 March 2021).

[42] Including Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea (South Korea), Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Thailand, Tonga, the Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. 

[43] For most of its long 400-year history, from the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 until mid-2020, the United States of America has been the most powerful, most sacrificial, and most respected ‘Force for Democracy’ in the entire world of nations and peoples, as a sovereign and moderate* State  that is uniquely founded not on a homogenous native people as most other countries are, but on a foundational and uniting idea or principle: the principle of political, religious, economic and social freedom for all its native-born and legally-immigrated citizens. These freedoms, combined with the hallmarks of a free and democratic society – individual, community and media freedom of information, freedom of choice, freedom of belief, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression (except in cases where certain information and free speech must be censored and suppressed because it explicitly promotes political, religious, financial or environmental acts of ‘violent extremism’ against the State or other citizens, and/or promotes terrorist acts of murder and mass-murder domestically or internationally) – are put in place by the government so that each individual person is free to live according to his or her own conscience, as he or she personally believes is good, right and just under God, within the limitations of just and reasonable confines of law that is truly ‘blind’ and therefore shows no partiality or favouritism** to anyone, and without harming or endangering the human lives – from conception in the womb to burial in the grave – or livelihoods of others (“Law and Order”).    

* A moderate, strongly-centered and balanced State comprised only of political parties on the moderate center-Right [Republican], Centre [Libertarian, Vermont Progressive, Independent, Alliance], and center-Left [Democrat] of the political spectrum, which have historically always utterly rejected the extreme and violently dangerous ideologies of both the Fascist Far-Right and the Communist Far-Left.

** Impartial, blind, bribe-free, fair and honest justice with judges, courts, tribunals, and juries showing no regard for the divergent power, social status, wealth, religion, ethnicity, colour, gender, age, opinion, political party affiliation (unless the party is expressly illegal under federal or state law e.g.  extreme Neo-Nazi Fascist, Racialist, Islamist or Marxist/Communist political parties), political benefit/harm, or financial advantage/disadvantage of various citizens involved in legal cases, and judgements and punishments determined under law solely on the proven facts and actions of claimants or defendants in each individual case on a case-by-case basis, and in a general, sequential, ‘first-come, first-serve’ timetable of trials. (Except in rare emergency situations, for example following a terrorist attack on sovereign territory when urgent legal prosecutions of captured, living, domestic terrorists, who are guilty with evidence of planning, committing or encouraging illegal acts of lethal violence intended to wound or kill one or multiple civilian or military persons, are required for their imprisonment or just execution – if terrorism is designated by the national government as a ‘death penalty crime’ – under existing and enforced State law).

In such a free and democratic government, that is honestly elected by the population of the State in free and fair elections (without government or military interference, and protected from all forms of ‘malign and covert’ foreign external influence or coercion in this political process, as well as domestic intimidation by terrorist, insurgent and criminal groups), elected political parties form two main power blocs of:

(1) The Government – Elected persons using current facts and realities within the country to formulate and argue for the introduction, continuance or improvement of – and also the nationwide enforcement of – certain policies and laws, first, to defend the sovereign country from external or internal subversion or attack, and second, to both protect and provide for the needs and interests of the country’s entire and often diverse population, that freely chose these political candidates in democratic elections to become their  power-holding government,

in order to –

(a) defend and protect the lives and well-being of citizens, by means of the government-commanded and government-controlled Armed Forces, Police Force and Intelligence Service of the State, whose personnel must be both held to high standards of conduct and held accountable to the government for any illegal or immoral behaviour,

(b) provide good governance over them, including by investing in State institutions, basic infrastructure, basic medical, educational and social services, and government programmes to improve the lives of the whole population nationwide, and

(c) establish good political, security and economic relations between the country and the rest of the world, also thereby improving the lives of citizens by increasing the opportunities, services, markets, jobs and products available to them;

and

(2) The Opposition – Elected persons holding the elected-by-majority and power-holding government to account for their actions,

by –

(a) keeping the government honest through exposing any occurrence of government dishonesty, corruption, misuse of public money (e.g. taxes) intended to tangibly benefit the lives and well-being of the people, illegal practices by either government ministers or State institutions, or poor policies or laws with disadvantageous or harmful effects for the nation and its people, either in conception or implementation, and

(b) working to improve, enhance and fine-tune for the ‘greater good’  the government’s final policies, though the politically-required acts of questioning and debating these policies and laws in parliament, with reference to all the relevant facts and arguments for and against the government’s intended policies or laws, so that well-reasoned and more balanced policies result in the protection and governance of the nation’s population;

in addition to

(3) Independents – Elected persons wishing to remain independent of both main political groups in parliament, but contributing to the debates and the votes largely as independent, balanced,  neutral and mediating moderates and buffer-zones between the two governing blocs of the Government and the Opposition, in the performance of their oppositional-but-polite, politically-required and politically-expected democratic roles. 

In fact, it is hard to truly ‘paint the scene’ or describe the merits, energy, interest, deserved fame, entertainment, humour, good fun and even sheer excitement that can occur within the debate chambers of parliamentary houses of government, when true democracy is being exercised for the good of the people of the State in the formulation of their governing laws and foreign and domestic policies. However, any observation of the polite, respectful but definitely robust British House of Commons debates in London, Great Britain, will give a rather good idea of the appropriateness, effectiveness and sheer joy that democracy as a form of government within a Nation-State is and can be – the fairness and the glory that has been in history, is now in the present, and forevermore will be in the future: “government of the people, for the people, by the people”.

[44] Pakistan and India are both strategically powerful and populous “twin son” States born of “Mother England” – the strategically powerful, populous and important governing entity that was British India or the “British Raj” and “Jewel of the English Crown” during earlier centuries from 1858–1947 – and both of significant weight and importance in their own respective regional vicinities to the west of Pakistan and to the east of India, as respectively ‘the second-most populous country in the Muslim world’ (and fifth-most populous country in the world) with regard to Pakistan and ‘the second-most populous country in the world’ (and most populous democracy) with regard to India – a  fact that has led to the new strategic “Quad” alliance in the Indo-Asia-Pacific and carries strong geopolitical implications with regard to the post-WWII, ‘frozen-in-time’ UNSC.

[Both India and Pakistan would additionally greatly benefit from a new trilateral India-Pakistan-Sri Lanka “Strategic Cooperation, Defence & Trade” alliance or grouping as together comprising an important, anti-terror ‘Strategic Single Entity’ in South Asia, facing similar Islamist terror and geopolitical threats, with Sri Lanka playing the conciliatory, interpretive and mediation role of ‘buffer State’ between Pakistan and India.]

Until General Zia’s malevolent and revolutionary political and religious actions in violently seizing power by way of a military coup in Pakistan, the terrible effects of which has been felt and suffered by people in Pakistan, the region and the world ever since, both South Asian countries had enjoyed relatively stable and peaceful years of population-chosen and -accountable democratic government representation from the year of their independence from Britain on 14-15 August 1947.

However, as a result of Pakistan’s “national insecurity complex” with regard to being geographically (but not politically or strategically) smaller than its political brother and neighbour India, worsened further by Pakistan’s internationally blackened reputation as a result of General Zia’s tyranny and radicalisation of the country, combined with “Terror-Export” policies of successive Pakistani governments governing the Pakistani “Terror State” during the decades since under the leadership of Pakistan’s older and less moderate political parties* (culminating not only in the calculating and unneighbourly political-military creation, Kabul-installation and support of the notoriously wicked Taliban fighting force in Afghanistan next-door, but also the hosting of multiple and notorious terrorist groups in the FATA and apathy towards their acts of terror against the sovereign Afghan State and acts of violence against Afghan combatants and non-combatant civilians), Pakistan has in its recent history – up until now – lost the glorious, population-representative, glow and splendour of being a democratic nation on the world stage that is governed by free individuals chosen and elected to rule by the majority population of the country.  

In terms of Pakistani politics specifically, it is well beyond time for a healthy radical change and departure from Pakistan’s history of jealous rivalry, expansionist aggression, and anxiously insecure India-gazing and navel-gazing towards greater democracy, greater neighbourliness, and greater help and assistance to other nations of the world, in both verbally promoting and physically tangibly supporting (including with deployments of military forces) international security, stability and peace. If Pakistan would choose it, the State has a much better, cleaner and more respectable and respected role to play in global affairs. This transformation towards a brighter and better future will require, however, the kind of determined, steadfast, and resilient bravery in word and deed shown recently by “The Good Pashtun” Mohsin Dawar (leader of the independent Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement rights group or PTM), who was the only elected politician of the opposition to show up for the critical vote, during the recent ‘avoid-criminal-prosecution-at-all-costs’ Vote of Confidence against PM Khan (won by him with 178 votes to 172), that Khan strongly argues was invoked by corrupt Pakistani politicians to secure impunity and amnesty for their greedy and corrupt political practices of State theft and abuse of power in their political positions and roles as ‘servants of the people’ (or more accurately ‘robbers of the people’) in the democratic government(s) of Pakistan.

The latter included deliberately-chosen and non-transparent ‘secret ballots’ in recent elections, which were as undemocratic in that process as the ‘mail-in’ ballot fraud that has occurred in recent times in other countries, whereby illegal, ‘non-citizen’ immigrants and even people long dead and buried – with some having birth dates numbering over 100 years ago  –  have somehow ‘miraculously come back from the dead’ to register to vote and actually cast ballots in current national, state and regional elections, a truly sure sign of dark and sinister election corruption of the intended honest, fair, transparent and accurate electoral process in these countries. Indeed in the United (Disunited?) States of America, a 2012 Pew study found there were close to 2 million dead people still registered and eligible to vote on voter rolls around the country, a further 24 million registered voters equating to 1 in every 8 Americans having voter registrations that were either ‘no longer valid or incorrect’, and another 3 million Americans registered to vote in more than one single State of actual physical residence (Tucker Carlson, ‘Tucker Carlson: Yes, dead people voted in this election and Democrats helped make it happen’, Fox News, 12 November 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-2020-presidential-election-voter-fraud-dead-voters, (accessed 1 April 2021).

[45] With regard to a more peaceful and stable future between India and Pakistan, and especially the beautiful mountainous region and superb tourist destination of Jammu and Kashmir that has been so long and hotly-disputed by both countries, in my view there are only a small number of logical, peaceful and potentially acceptable and workable options for its future. These ‘sensible solutions’ are:

(1) Pakistan and India both individually agree to grant the region complete sovereignty, so that it becomes a small country in its own right, with its own government, military, police force and borders to protect and defend, and enters the international community of nations as a new Nation-State on the world stage;

(2) Both countries agree amicably to keep and care for their own respective halves of Jammu and Kashmir, and deploy defensive forces only to defend (not attack) their own respective centre-dividing (Line of Control) and periphery delineating borders of the territories from each other and surrounding nations, and to politically and militarily protect their respective citizens from predatory and destructive terrorist and insurgent groups and ideologies, with (a) Pakistani Kashmir incorporated fully into the Pakistani State and governed by the laws and defended by the military and police of Pakistan’s central government in Islamabad (and its Kashmiri citizens granted and given the freedom to travel worldwide under Pakistani passports) on the one hand , and (b) Indian Kashmir incorporated fully into the Indian State governed by the laws and defended by the military and police of India’s central government in New Delhi (with its Indian Kashmiri citizens granted and given the right to travel worldwide under Indian passports) on the other;

(3) Both countries agree amicably to give autonomy to their own respective halves of Jammu and Kashmir, allowing Kashmiris in each territory to have their own flag, political constitution and seat of government, with its own self-governed and essential government institutions, economic budget, basic infrastructure and police force, but both countries retain ultimate sovereign control and responsibilities of military defence over the outer delineating borders of the territories, so that each of their respective territories – while autonomous – are still contained within their own northernmost borders of their own respective States (however this is potentially a more risky, unstable and more problematic option, as the establishment of two neighbouring and self-governing territories may inevitably lead to competition, rivalry, jealousy  and ill-will between citizens of the two disparate – and inevitably different and unequal – autonomous halves of Jammu and Kashmir); and lastly

(4) One country deliberately decides – after very careful and judicious consideration as to the desires and ultimate peace, security, fate and well-being of the Kashmiri population in their own respective half of Jammu and Kashmir – to make the giant gesture of goodwill in bilateral relations by ceding their own half of the territory (and therefore the whole disputed region) to the sovereign control of the other country, in order to sharply and dramatically calm and de-escalate fighting and tension in the region, and reduce its own military responsibilities and burdens so that it might be free to deploy those resources elsewhere in the country or the world, where they might be more needed, valued and appreciated.

The Heads of Government of both countries, Prime Minister Modi of India and Prime Minister Khan of Pakistan, must decide themselves and with the members of their own elected government cabinets on the basis of intellectual reason and reasonableness (not passionate, irrational and dangerously-flammable emotion), which of these options they consider good, better and best, and then meet bilaterally (or trilaterally with Sri Lanka or another chosen, willing, respected and reasonable mediating country) to choose the most mutually-desired, fair or best option for a dramatically improved and more harmonious bilateral relationship, with greater security and stability in their own countries, for their anxious and distressed neighbours, and the South Asian region as a whole being, as it is, a significant region that really counts in the world and in geopolitics.

[46] Discussed by J.M. Berger and J. Stein, authors of ‘ISIS: The State of Terror’, at a Brookings Institute panel moderated by ‘Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World (IWR) Director W. McCants, cited in K. Anderson, ‘ISIS and the state of terror: The genesis, evolution, and impact of the Islamic State’, 3 April 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2015/04/03/isis-and-the-state-of-terror-the-genesis-evolution-and-impact-of-the-islamic-state/amp, (accessed 4 August 2022).