Afghanistan

Announcements of overlapping, temporary cease-fires by the Afghan government, U.S.-led NATO forces, and the Taliban are hopeful signs that there is still room to move toward a political dialogue to end the conflict. 

In twenty-three rounds of Afghanistan-Taliban peace talks, women were at the table just twice. They need formal roles in any new talks to protect their own progress.

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is authored by Carol Jenkins, president and CEO of World Learning, a global NGO empowering people and strengthening institutions through education, sustainable development, and exchange programs. 

A peace process with the Taliban is almost certainly the best way to end the war in Afghanistan, and arguments for postponing efforts to get one underway overlook the costs of prolonging the conflict.

This post is co-authored by Becky Allen, a research associate in the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. On paper, the law is clear: men and women enjoy equal property rights under Afghanistan's 2004 constitution. But on-the-ground reality says otherwise as a combination of tradition and customary laws keep most Afghan women unaware of their land rights and far from owning property. As the Afghan Ministry of Justice estimates, 90 percent of Afghans decide land rights according to customary laws – regulations developed and instituted at the regional and tribal level. For this reason, few Afghan women are able to capitalize on their right to inherit and own property. While customary law varies throughout the country, it typically pressures a woman to relinquish her share of an inheritance to her brothers in order to ensure her social protection in case of divorce; demonstrate family loyalty; and avoid discrimination and shame at the hands of her community. The cultural expectation is that a woman's husband will become her economic provider and therefore she does not need her own land in her name. According to this view, it simply makes more economic sense for a woman to leave her share of land to her brothers, who will use it to provide for their families while her own husband looks after her. But this tradition ignores the good that comes from putting land in the hands of women. For one, with women's entrepreneurship on the rise in Afghanistan, land could act as collateral for women who need credit to grow their businesses – and in the process create jobs and boost their family's income. Second, owning land could help women working in agriculture increase their production rates by 20 to 30 percent, contributing to improved food security throughout the country. And third, land ownership by women has been linked to reduced violence against women, with some experts estimating that a woman who owns land is up to eight times less likely to experience domestic violence, a scourge found all across Afghanistan and affecting nearly nine out of ten women.   With evidence of the benefits of women's land ownership clear, the question is: how can the U.S. and Afghan governments, along with multilateral organizations, put laws on the books into action when the law is so often left in the hands of local tribal leaders? USAID tried to tackle this question with the Land Reform in Afghanistan (LARA) project, which ran from 2011 to 2014. The initiative established a Women’s Land Rights Task Force comprised of prominent Afghan men and women as well as civil society to advise project leaders on land rights affecting Afghan women. The project proposed strategies for bolstering women's land rights, but it is unclear how much women's access to their land has changed since. The U.S. Institute of Peace recommends addressing women's land rights within an Islamic law framework, especially given that the Quran and Hadith permit women to both own and inherit property. As such, including local religious leaders in awareness raising campaigns and educational programming on women's land rights could boost buy-in from communities.   What is clear is that Afghan women face much more work ahead. As the most recent Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey noted, only 17 percent of Afghan women independently own a house, compared with approximately 50 percent of Afghan men. This issue is often seen as secondary to the conflict in the country and to the overall plight of Afghan women. But getting land rights right could help to address both the nation's stability and its prosperity. For all its citizens.

President Donald J. Trump outlined last night the much-anticipated strategy his administration will adopt in Afghanistan, now the United States’ longest war. Trump placed Afghanistan in the context of the larger U.S. fight against global terrorism and mentioned the rise of the Islamic State as the result of a political vacuum in Iraq after the American withdrawal. By placing his Afghanistan decision against the chaos that emerged in Iraq, Trump clarified why he had changed his mind from his initial “instinct,” as he put it, to simply pull out. He then offered three “pillars” that would characterize the “new” U.S. efforts, which would include the deployment of an unspecified number of additional troops. These new pillars include: the end of a time-bound commitment to Afghanistan and a pivot to a “conditions-based” evaluation instead; the integration of “diplomatic, economic, and military” approaches; and a changed approach to Pakistan, especially the continued problem of terrorist safe havens there. He then added that the growing U.S.-India strategic partnership would also be a “critical part” of the South Asia strategy, and welcomed greater Indian economic assistance for Afghanistan. These pillars are not so new, actually. To me they suggest a gear shift drawing upon trends already perceptible. While a conditions-based presence differs, for example, from former President Barack Obama’s earlier time-bound troop surge, the deterioration in Afghanistan’s security had already resulted in an Obama administration rethink on a complete withdrawal according to the previous timeline. Second, the integration of diplomatic, economic, and military efforts is decidedly not new—it simply recognizes the reality that military power is just one tool that has to be in support of some political goal. Trump’s indication that “perhaps it will be possible” to find a political solution between the Taliban and the Afghan government—coupled with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s more direct statement on a path to a political negotiation—again indicates continuity with the Obama administration’s approach. The combination of a more counterterrorism-focused approach in Afghanistan without a stated timeline for withdrawal could, theoretically, prevent the Taliban from just waiting the United States out and could help create conditions more conducive to a political negotiation. The president’s blunt remarks on Pakistan’s terrorist safe havens publicly affirmed a problem that has become increasingly unsustainable. Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism, but that fact does not absolve the country of its selective efforts to go after terrorists on its soil. In early August, for example, a Pakistan-based terrorist group under longstanding UN Security Council designation, active against India and Afghanistan, took steps to register itself as a political party without any previous indication of renouncing violence. Pakistan has not upheld its obligation to prevent all terrorist elements from operating on its soil. U.S. members of Congress and executive branch officials have already begun to call out Pakistan for its terrorist safe havens, and former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter as well as Secretary of Defense James Mattis have been unable to certify that Pakistan is making “sufficient” efforts to target the Haqqani network. So the Trump emphasis on tightening up on Pakistan marks a stepped-up continuation of a trajectory that has been driven by Pakistan’s choices. The elevation of India to a more prominent position as part of the larger U.S. strategy in the region marks to my mind the most significant departure from the past. But Trump stated up front the role that India has already been playing in Afghanistan—India is and has been the fifth-largest bilateral donor to the country, and has been a supportive partner to Afghanistan over the years. India has been deeply involved in building infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, and the Afghan parliament; training officials; providing food assistance; and contributing other forms of much-needed development support. We should be doing more with India to support Afghanistan, including helping to shore up its challenged government. Questions unanswered in the new Trump administration strategy: At what point, and how, will the diplomatic effort kick in to “support an Afghan peace process,” as Tillerson’s statement put it? How will the State Department, enfeebled by a lengthy restructuring and without a full complement of senior officials to run policy, let alone complex diplomacy, execute the responsibility? What role will the Trump administration see for all of “Afghanistan’s neighbors,” as Tillerson stated, in this peace process? These questions will need answers quickly or the “new” South Asia strategy will be left with a military component in search of its diplomatic partner. My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, will be out in January. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

President Trump’s much-anticipated Afghan policy rightly avoids troop withdrawal timelines but offers little prospect for progress against the durable Taliban.

Nearly sixteen long years on, the United States still struggles with how to devise a strategy for success in Afghanistan. The Donald J. Trump administration’s ongoing strategic review, according to press accounts, remains in a cycle of developing new options. Those presented so far have not earned the president’s approval. It’s possible to deliberate for months over the right troop levels, clearly. It is also possible to deliberate over the appropriate mix of military strategy, diplomacy, and development, especially given the reduced weight the Trump administration appears to place on the latter two. But in all honesty, it’s hard to see what combination of troops, aid, and statecraft will overcome the continued problem of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan. Pakistan’s strategic location has given it a vital role in the war in Afghanistan, despite the widespread recognition by U.S. officials that it remains insufficiently focused on addressing the many terrorist groups operating from its soil. During his visit to Islamabad in April of this year, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said, “…we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after these groups less selectively than they have in the past and the best way to pursue their interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere is through diplomacy not through the use of proxies that engage in violence.” In July, Secretary of Defense James Mattis declined to certify that Pakistan had taken “sufficient action” against the Haqqani network operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Without the certification, Pakistan cannot receive additional coalition support funds from fiscal year 2016. Secretary Mattis’s action mirrors that of former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter last year, who declined to certify Pakistan’s “sufficient action” against the Haqqani network, thereby limiting the coalition support funds Pakistan could receive. In the White House, the top official on the National Security Council staff managing Afghanistan, Deputy Assistant to the President Lisa Curtis, has deep expertise on Pakistan and, prior to entering the Trump administration, published widely on the country’s terrorism problem. She coauthored a major report last year that argued for strengthening conditions on assistance to Pakistan to “more effectively contain, and eventually eliminate, the terrorist threats that continue to emanate from the country” that threaten vital U.S. interests, including stabilizing Afghanistan. A national security advisor, a secretary of defense, and a deputy assistant to the president with a clear-eyed view of the threat terrorists in Pakistan pose to U.S. interests—you would think officials and generals in Pakistan might take greater, more credible action against terrorists given the high-level concern from senior Washington policymakers. But earlier this week, news emerged from Pakistan that the organization headed by Hafiz Saeed, an individually-designated terrorist on UN sanctions lists, has registered as a political party with the name Milli Muslim League. This group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been under UN terrorist designation since 2005. In 2012, the United States issued a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Saeed, the “suspected mastermind” of the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, for which not one single accused has been brought to justice in Pakistan. (Trials have been continually delayed since 2009.) The group is active in Afghanistan—President Ashraf Ghani has named it among the terrorist groups fighting against his government. The fact that despite these designations, Saeed and compatriots continue to operate unfettered in Pakistan is well known. He is presently under house arrest, but that does not seem to have curtailed his group’s activities and ambition. How can a designated terrorist group register itself as a political party and declare ambition to contest in Pakistan’s 2018 national election? The idea that a UN- and U.S.-designated terrorist group long under international sanctions could suddenly march over to the Election Commission of Pakistan and morph into a political party is ludicrous. The Pakistani government cannot expect that anyone will believe claims that it is sufficiently countering terrorism in their country if terrorists under well-known, longstanding international sanctions not only escape justice but shift out of the shadows to the political arena. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

In May 2016, President Barack Obama authorized a U.S. military drone strike that killed Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour. A year later, we can judge whether this leadership “decapitation” strike achieved its intended political objectives.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster will head to Afghanistan, and reportedly Pakistan and India as well, this weekend. In the wake of Thursday’s Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb drop in Afghanistan, targeting Islamic State cave-and-tunnel hideouts on the border with Pakistan, McMaster will have much to discuss with his Afghan interlocutors on the security front. The Donald J. Trump administration will need to reach a decision soon about the size of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Worrying trends in Afghanistan, like the fall of Sangin to the Taliban just weeks ago, underscore the need for a reassessment. The presence in Pakistan of internationally-proscribed terrorist groups like the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network undermine efforts to secure Afghanistan. Challenges to political stability, governance, and economic growth make it harder for Afghanistan to deliver opportunities for its citizens. The country could use assistance from all its partners on its economic growth and prosperity agenda. Once he arrives in New Delhi, McMaster should have in-depth discussions with his Indian interlocutors on regional stability. He will likely find that Indian officials view the situation very similarly to American officials, but may have different prescriptions due to their regional position and difficulties with neighbor Pakistan. He should use the opportunity to discuss how India—the fifth-largest bilateral donor to Afghanistan, and a power with deep expertise on governance, development, infrastructure, and commerce—could be a larger part of the international efforts to assist Afghanistan. I have argued previously that India can bring to the table some special strengths in addition to the infrastructure work it has carried out in Afghanistan. India could play a more active diplomatic role with the politically-delicate Afghan government—a unity government that the International Crisis Group has called “shaky.” International observers worry that the possible collapse of the Afghan government could risk its progress on security and development. New Delhi has an opportunity to use its good offices and ties with both President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah to help. As the region’s economic vortex, India and its successful private sector companies can continue to assist Afghan enterprises with markets for their goods and training to manage their businesses. India’s chambers of commerce have been active on this front for years.  Last summer’s Made in Afghanistan trade fair in New Delhi marks just one example. Of course, enabling trade across the South Asian region would bring a commercial boon to Afghan producers, and here Pakistan has a chance to take advantage of its location and enable region-wide trade, not block it as it has continued to do. India’s expertise in the arena of civilian security has been largely overlooked, but the country has capabilities—especially in training and skill development—which could be helpful to Afghanistan. Greater budget support for the Afghan National Security Forces would be welcome. In addition, the kind of training capacity on issues like countering improvised explosive devices, or security support functions like literacy training, logistics and supply-chain management, or military medicine, to name just a few, present possibilities for Indian expertise to help the Afghan security forces. For a more detailed description of how India could help Afghanistan in the civilian security areas, take a look at my Policy Innovation Memorandum on the subject, published in 2015 but (sadly) still relevant to the region today. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).