100 Treatises

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 3

Continued from yesterday’s post…

Conclusions and Recommendations

American policymakers would be wise to heed the lessons of history. Although Muhammad Zahir Shah reigned over a stable central Afghan state for 40 years, the period was marked by limited progress for the country as a whole, and the central government depended so heavily on the support and cooperation of the regions that as soon as they became disenchanted with the liberalizing reforms of the 1970s, they withdrew support and allowed the central state to fall.

Above all, the concept of a single Afghan identity was never fully embraced by the vast majority of people. The US currently is seeking to build a state without a nation underlying it. This strategy of course worked for the original European states in the early modern period, given their wide discretion in the areas of violence, propaganda and culture (essential for cultivating a national identity) and economic capital. Today the Afghanistan government has little to no power over these areas of society, and can barely even project its authority to the regions, much less use that authority.

The proper approach for the US and its allies in Afghanistan is to work to build state structures on the regional level where they are likely to be most effective and enjoy greatest legitimacy and support from the people. The regional and tribal entities have demonstrated for over 200 years their status as the ultimate political authorities in Afghanistan, and have shown a superior ability to make good on the claim to monopolize violence and win the legitimacy and loyalty of their people. They have shown that they are the ultimate source of autonomy and sovereignty, not a contrived and distant government dependent on a foreign sugar daddy. Finally, they have enjoyed and continue to enjoy integration with the larger society, derived as they are from the local social and cultural system.

The United States must work to strengthen, modernize, formalize, depersonalize and bureaucratize these smaller-scale political entities—perhaps within the context of a weak federal system that has limited authority over economic and foreign policy matters—and move them in the direction of popular rule. Such a project will not be easy, but in any case it will be inordinately easier and cheaper than the current strategy. That is because the hardest part, in many ways—gaining sustainable legitimacy and loyalty from a community of people who have a common identity—is already done.

The US can either try to force a new identity to the fore, or just work with the ones already in place. The choice, it would seem, has been made for us. Did Obama get the memo?

Sources

Poggi, Gianfranco. The State: Its Nature, Development and Prospects. Stanford University Press, 1990.

Rubin, Barnett R. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. 2nd ed. Yale University Press, 2002.

Tilly, Charles. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.”

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This ends the main portion of the article, adapted from a paper I wrote earlier this year. Tomorrow I will post some final thoughts.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

MORE ARTICLES:

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 2

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 1

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 4