Transcripts For CSPAN Brookings Discussion On Afghanistan 20240713

Brookings. I am briefly playing the role of mc to say hello beforehand it over to our moderator. Tom is a distinguished and accomplished npr reporter. Really thrilled he would join us. He spent a lot of time in the field in afghanistan, embedded with u. S. Combat units in other parts of the broader effort there that is now approaching the end of its second decade pretty soon. , my copanelist, acting laura miller. She has been at the Rand Corporation subsequently, where she recently completed a 200 page study on in afghanistan Peace Agreement, written as a simulated or model agreement that parties themselves could consider because even though we are aware that america is not gonna write the ultimate peace deal, the parties could benefit from some provocation. Weve been talking about having a peace negotiation for a long time but its not clear how specific people have gotten in there overall concepts about how that would be. She is now with the International Crisis group. A remarkable organization that does Field Research around the world. Speaking of remarkable, my intrepid Field Researcher extraordinaire, who has written a book on afghanistan several years ago and also studied Transnational Criminal Networks and insurgencies around the world, currently working on a book on mexico, and also has recently studied in nigeria, where she is back from Field Research, and indonesia, and many other parts of the world. I am a huge fan of her bravery and brilliance as she studies this kind of phenomenon. Tom, thank you for joining us. Over to you. Thank you to everyone for coming out. Is back inbank the news things to the Washington Post and the afghan papers. I hope you have many questions because we will start calling on you quickly. I want to start by asking michael how he sees things right , andith the peace talks also talk a little bit about your proposal to have 5000 troops in afghanistan for the next five years. As some of you may know, there is talk about reducing the forces in afghanistan, now currently about 13,000, down to about 8600. That could happen sometime this week. Tor plan says to go lower, 5000 for five years. Why that number . On the peace talks, i will say that the others no more, i hopefully will wait your appetite whet your appetite. Me, what they have done is the essence of what we have seen so far in substantive discussion of powersharing compromises, taliban, andthe forces that have no interest in working together right now, they are bitter enemies in the field. I think peace is a long way off, that is the bottom line. I hope i am wrong. I think we need a concept that americans can discuss, debate, and hopefully settle on to some extent for the new presidency. Thisst decided to write 5000 troops for five years concept when President Trump was talking about pulling out of syria completely, and may be turning his gaze next to afghanistan, and when democrats were criticizing trump for his fecklessness and recklessness in talking about foreign commitments, i sensed that the democrats also did not want to commit to a longlasting afghanistan presence either, everyone hopes we pull something out of the hat and go home without defeat but i dont think that is likely. The 5000 for five years concept is a way to take drama out of afghanistan policy and say lets have about the same size presence in afghanistan that we have in iraq and gradually go down to that number. Not suggesting we do it the first week of the new president ial term, whether it is a democrat or be elected President Trump, that could be a conceptual framework that would allow us to keep two or three and at least initially, one or two in the east. That would create kind of major footprint that allows us to do intelligence gathering, airpower strengths airpower strikes, which we still do a lot, i think its the most since 2012 or so. This would allow us to sustain the Afghan Forces with the help they need most, but continue to leave most of the fighting to them, as we have already been doing, frankly, for the better part of half a decade. That is the basic logic of the concept. It there is a suggestion that we glide down to the floor the next couple of years and then stop having annual reviews in washington that takes so much time and energy from senior policymakers, and dramatize and elevate afghanistan almost too much in our National Security discourse. Thats the basic concept. Laurel, you came out with a report, a peace plan. Talk a little bit about that, and also, do you think peace is a long way off . Maybe the peace deal could come soon, but actual peace is a long way off . I think peace is a long ways off but that doesnt mean that the Peace Process has to be a long way off. That doesnt mean it is not worth doing. Worth staying, for militarily and diplomatically engaged in afghanistan for some period of time, to give it a real shot. Where my analysis differs from michaels is that i dont think that, given that we have all seemed to digest the idea that the u. S. Is not going to win the war, the secondbest satisfactory option is to keep it going for an indefinite period of time, or specify a number of years. I dont think that is truly sustainable politically in the u. S. , i dont think it is sustainable even operationally for an indefinite period of time. It certainly doesnt do anything for the Afghan People who are greatly desirous of peace. In my report, i tried to paint a picture of what the substance of an outcome of peace negotiation might look like. It is a set of ideas and options arealternatives that intended to fill in some of the gaps in thinking and analysis of what the substance of peace could look like. I think when you look at it, you see the process will take a while and why it is difficult to do, because these are issues that will be very contentious. But you also see that afghanistan, although complicated, is not so much more complicated than a lot of other places around the world that have had Peace Processes, some of which have actually produced results. The kinds of issues and the kind of possible solutions are ones that have been explored in other Peace Processes, and occasionally succeeded in bringing down levels of violence. The taliban have repeatedly said they want all International Troops out of afghanistan. Your plan calls for some sort of a residual force that would be going after terrorists, isis and so forth. Talk a little bit about how you envision that kind of a force. I have included the idea of potentially having some kind of militaryinternational element that would Counter Terrorism efforts, working with afghans. Whether that could be led by americans i think is somewhat questionable. By no means, am i certain that you could get taliban agreement to such a residual force, certainly not at the outset of a negotiation. I dont think you could enter into a negotiation assuming you could get that as an outcome. But i think its something that you could try to get as an outcome of a peace negotiation. But i do think theres a hard question for u. S. Policymakers as to whether thats a musthave element of a Peace Process or a great if we can get it element of a Peace Process. Because i dont think its certain that you could get that through a Peace Process. The pentagon has repeatedly said they would like some sort of residual force to remain in the country. What about that . Youve been recently in afghanistan, talking to the taliban. Would they accept some sort of a residual force, do you think . Well, so, first of all, i that of many of the members of taliban and to the extent that i was able to speak with individuals, its not at all clear how close they are. So its also very important to understand that the taliban is talking to tremendous amount of people, in fact, to just about all the power brokers except members of the president and government. They tend to tell to people what they want to hear. So same individuals or same factions will tailor messages very much on the basis of what they expect the audience to hear. That said, with this preface, and the need to understand that we are very much, we, the International Community, is very much operating in a very opaque environment where preferences are not clear and not stated, there have been some consistencies. One of the most significant, most striking dimensions from the conversations i had was that the taliban members were systematically expressing that a disastrous outcome would be for the United States to withdraw without a deal with them. So, they still very much want that the u. S. Strikes a deal and they very much like the deal that the ambassador achieved by the end of august and then President Trump cancelled for canceled. For them thats still the , starting point of my further talk and more or less the end of what they envision, the talk. They are, however, very unhappy about the possibility of u. S. Withdrawing its forces without a deal with them, fearing this greatly augments a chance for civil war in afghanistan that they very much want to avoid. Now, some of the military people i talk with over in afghanistan say that the u. S. Leverage is the money to keep the country going. That if all u. S. Troops leave, the money leaves with them. Talk about the taliban. Do they talk about that . Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. And thats another issue that they are very focused on with, really, quite consistent messaging across large numbers of interlocutors that it would be disastrous for the United States to liquidate its socioeconomic accomplishments in afghanistan and eliminate aid once they are in power. And they definitely believe that they will be in power, although they will make the argument that they will share power in some form with someone. And the in some form is really the crux of all the difficulties in the negotiations that will be the really, the hardest part. But nonetheless, they assume that they will be in power, that to some extent, in some form, they will share power and theyre also rather clear that they do not want to repeat the 1990s, including the economic, socioeconomic collapse in the country. And so, they message very clearly by pointing examples to saudi arabia and say, look, United States, you have such a great relationship with saudi arabia. We perfectly want a regime like saudi arabia. We would be very happy with a regime like this, so we and you could be friends after you made the deal with us and your forces leave. And you should keep the money flowing. And indeed, in my view, the really, the longterm or not even longterm, the grappling that the United States needs to , and the International Community needs to deal with is not just how do we get to a peace deal, how do we get to significant reduction of conflict, but how do we then shape the behavior of power brokers, one of which will be the taliban, quite likely in power in some form. What kind of leverage will we have so that we do not see really catastrophic loss of human rights and freedoms so that there is some accountability in the country and some respect for human rights and i very specifically say some because under the current situation, its problematic and its likely to see significant deterioration after peace deal. I wish that the peace deal could be the way the Afghan Government envisions it, essentially a replica of the colombian deal in which the taliban gets minimal penalties and just agrees to demobilize and have five seats in the afghan parliament. The Afghan Government still puts that forth as the model they want. They bring in colombian advisors constantly to explain the colombian process. I think its completely unrealistic. This is just not the way the deal will look like. Talk a little bit about the taliban. If all u. S. Troops leave, or even if theres a residual force, do you think the taliban have enough power to actually take over the country again . I would say they dont and they are well aware of it and thats why they are so leery of us leaving without having a deal with them, a deal that positions them well to have significant power in a Transitional Government and more than Transitional Government. So, they are well aware that they the security is the worst its been from many dimensions, the level of taliban influence is very significant. You can go to liberated districts in 20 miles out or 20 kilometers out of the liberated district, the taliban is there and government officials will not go there. In free districts, government officials might be absolutely hunkered down to just the office and have 40 body guards and not dare to step out of the office because of the level of taliban presence. But that said, the taliban is well aware they cannot just take the country. And that they will face a civil war that will be very fragmented civil war or that could erupt in the south. There are important southern power brokers who can become significant military obstacle and they will have capacities in the north. Its not going to be the line moving more and more north past the shomali plain, so they want to avoid that. The war is stalled but its stalled in the way that gives gradual, small accretion of power to the taliban. Ok. I would just add, i mean, i largely agree with that. Theres no question that if the United States left tomorrow, that the taliban would seek to take advantage of that. But there would be very strong opposition to the taliban. So likely a civil war . Likely an intensified and more multisided civil war than you see now. Its also why i find it quite worrisome that some on the Afghan Government side seem to be thinking theyd be better off with an american departure and no peace deal compromising with the taliban if thats a choice they had to make than going ahead and compromising with the taliban. I agree 100 but just to build on that point, i mentioned earlier, we all know that the United States has used more ordinance in afghanistan this last year or two than all through the 2010 decade except the very beginning of it. Thats extraordinary and it shows that the afghan army still needs a lot of help, even though theyre doing most of the fighting and dying and we only have, you know, at this point, 15 the number of people we had at peak, they are not ready to hold on. On the other hand, they do have all the major cities, 60plus percent of the population lives under Government Protection of one type or another, however imperfect. The u. S. Government stopped providing these kinds of statistics and the statistics are probably, you know, a lot more uncertain than i just made them sound anyway, but at present, the taliban is so far away from winning this away that winning this war that im really glad that laurel and vanda emphasized the point, they would not be the automatic and immediate victors if we pulled out, especially if we kept some of the Security Assistance flowing. So i think the most likely thing is either a hodgepodge of different smaller cities gradually falling into taliban control in different parts of the south and the north and the west, but the Government Holding on to other parts, or ultimately, you could imagine more of a ethnicallybased breakdown, pashtun versus tajiq with a lot of ethnic cleansing to each side help consolidate their own territories. I hope it never cops to that, of course, but you could imagine that as well. Those are the kind of outcomes as opposed to a complete taliban takeover. Now i would like you to each address this question ive been asking people really for the last several years, senior people, military people, civilian, how would you do it differently . Lets say the towers come down, the 9 11 attacks happened, military goes to afghanistan, overthrows the taliban, each of you is in charge of this effort. Tell me what your plan is. I go first . Yes. So, ill start with the early chronology. I think that and im not really being too harsh on the Bush Administration when i say this because everybody says they were distracted by iraq, they didnt care about afghanistan, but frankly, nobody cared about afghanistan. Once we got rid of the taliban, there was a hue and cry from any part of the american debate or europe that we should go in and do sort a medium footprint strategy and try to build up afghan institutions in what proved to be sort of a golden window of 02 to 06 when the taliban was not really fighting. That was the missed opportunity, above all others, in my judgment , because if you had built reasonably Competent Army and police in that period of time and tried to reach out, perhaps, to some more taliban elements and be more inclusive and more inclined towards amnesty for some of them, i think you could have built a society that sort of functioned and didnt create the huge opportunity for a taliban resurgence by 07, 08, 09. Thats the fundamental thing that the fundamental opportunity i think we missed , and again, im not really trying to be overly harsh on the Bush Administration because i wasnt advocating it myself at that time. I was distracted by iraq and by Homeland Security and by all the other things. So, its not accusatory but as i look back, that was the number one missed opportunity. Laurel . Youre in charge. I dont think that it would have been realistic to build up the Afghan Security forces or governance capacity, really, much more quickly or more effectively than was done, i just think there are natural limits on the ability to do those kinds of things in societies that are as poor and as institutionally undeveloped as afghanistan. The key thing is that period from 2002 to around 2005 preventing the insurgency from taking hold, from developing , would have required political outreach to taliban individuals. I dont say the taliban as an organization, as such, because it had lost some organizational integrity. Was that a mistake, not reaching out to the taliban . It was absolutely it was absolutely a mistake. It was not a mistake that was it was not, i dont believe, from people i have talked to, an explicitly considered and rejected policy choice by the Bush Administration. Because the viewpoint at that time was, what taliban . Weve swept them away. There are no more taliban. But there were people who understood afghanistan better than that, who knew that you were risking the rise of an insurgency if you didnt deal with that. Nevertheless rumsfeld, of course, said well bring the taliban to justice or justice to the taliban. Yeah. In early 02. Yes, there was really the idea that the Bush Administration, given that orientation, would have reached out, is somewhat implausible. But lets even set that aside. There were many opportunities over the last decade to be more serious about trying to negotiate with the taliban, and to have done that at the height of American Power in afghanistan at the time of the surge would have made a lot more sense than doing it at this low point of American Power in afghanistan that were at now. Well, i would add to the issue of reaching out early and reaching out at the peak of power, you know, before the surge and before the limitations of what the surge brought out became visible. Also, really being far more serious about governance. And at the beginning, the light foot approach significantly limited to what kind of governments the United States and the International Community could ask for, putting in power not necessarily in power in government but putting de facto in power through relying on them for military gains, egregious war lords that generate enough entrenchment for the taliban that the taliban still has today. The taliban is vastly unpopular but its not the issue. The issue is what kind of governance people face at the local level. And oftentimes the governance through government or governmentassociated power brokers is more predatory, more capricious, more rapacious, less predictable than brutal and predictable but restrained governance by the taliban. So that has been a key problem both in the beginning because of light foot approach and later on when consistently the issue of , the moreexigencies taliban killed the better, compromised what we were asking for in terms of governance. Now i would point out or reinforce what laurel said, namely that there are limits to how fast this can be built and we see those problems across the world. In insurgency after insurgency, the initial clearing seems easy, and then the morass of governance undermines the gains and brings in resurrection enforcement of the defeated entity that morphs in one way or another. There are a few places when that hasnt happened but even in the most optimistic cases, the cases with sort of greatest gains, greatest institutional strength, like colombia, the Afghan Government points to, we see resurrection of the far. We see dissident groups, all kinds of new actors and real, real struggles to bring the state in, in an effective noncapricious, nonrapacious ways. Ok. And thats really the crux of our problems in afghanistan. Ok, great. Lets go to questions now. Do we have a mic out there . Here we go. A gentleman here, i think, was first. So, i see our reports are sort of a mess in the sense that they were providing overly pessimistic outlooks by d. O. D. Personnel as to the conduct of the war, but their analytics are fairly accurate and bna only has about 70 medium helicopters to cover the entire country. Is there a reason why, to risk invoking the vietnam model, that we are actually giving them the helicopters that they need for evac support and just to normal operations so they arent like a static army . I think your question is why we havent helped the Afghan Government build up its air force capacity more quickly . Was that the medium helicopters. I mean, i would just theres a long sort of sordid history of u. S. Efforts to try to build up any kind of air capacity on the part of the Afghan Government thats complicated by what the way u. S. Security assistance works, but is also perhaps even more importantly complicated by the difficulty of trying to build up these sort of highend capabilities in a in a military that has the kind of limitations of Human Resource capacity that the afghan that afghanistan has. And so, its been a its been a very slow process. Its not a matter of just giving them helicopters or not giving them helicopters. Theres the training. Theres the maintenance, theres all that goes along with it. If i understood your question correctly. Also, the difficulty of a country with 75 or 80 illiteracy, its very difficult to train pilots if they cant read, and as far as maintenance of a helicopter, you would have and they will likely have contractors for many, many years into the future. Couple additional points. Just to back this up. We decided as we got more serious about building an Afghan Police in the mccrystal and petraeus years. We decided to be more effective so we would not have to do so much of the fighting ourselves. The Afghan Air Force writ large, i know you were talking about helicopters, but air power writ large, there were a lot of problems in the corruption of the leadership of the Afghan Air Force even more so than other , parts of the Afghan Military , and we wanted to try to weed that out first to the extent possible. A third issue was do you buy them Russian Helicopters or not . Those are the helicopters theyre used to flying. Those may alleviate a couple of the maintenance challenges of taking care of a black hawk and yet, first of all, you know, do you really want to rely on that equipment at a time when the Russian Defense Industrial Base wasnt very strong . And then over time, did we really want to try to work around american sanctions on russia that were preventing that sort of thing . Those are some of the practicalities of why that didnt happen. I would add one larger issue and that is the one that you mentioned, the static army, and its the afghan army is a static army not simply by as a result of the physical capacity limitations it has but also very much as a result of choice. I mean, the reality is that with the exception of the Afghan Special Operations Forces that are vastly overstretched and overused, the majority of the afghan Army Continues to be in a static garrison mode. You never win a war by being hunkered down. Any kind of war, let alone a counterinsurgency war. Back there, sir. Yep. That gentleman right in the middle. Vanda, i was intrigued by something you said. Marvin weinbaum, the middle east institute. You mentioned there are discussions going on between the power brokers and the taliban. I heard similar stories, particularly what happened in moscow. That raises the possibility, does it not, that we could see a very different kind of Peace Process . A Peace Process in which these power brokers seek to strike their own their own deal with the taliban, something which bypasses a government which struggles for legitimacy anyway. Is this realistic, and if it does happen, what would that process look like . Well, its certainly something that its on the minds of many very important power brokers in afghanistan that there is a lot of activity to just about anyone who is not in the government and even some officials who are still in the government under the Current National unity government that have that on the mind. And frankly, the taliban is rather happy with the process. They very much engage in those talks, and sides believe that they can strike a deal and divide the spoils in a way that will outsmart the other group. So, the power brokers will outsmart the taliban, the taliban will outsmart the power brokers. This is taking place both in the south as well as in the north. I dont see how that process could be successful unless the official successful in the sense of even accomplishing that shortterm Power Division arrangement, not saying anything about its desirability or sustainability, but how you could even get to having that arrangement done without some significant weakening, significant hollowing out outright collapse of the Afghan Government because the Afghan Government is, of course, very actively trying to prevent those processes and stop those processes from going on. The significant issue, of course, here is the huge paralysis after the elections that is still not resolved, and the paralysis that is increasingly taking on crisis elements. I dont think we are in a fullblown crisis but there is more and more crisis markers to it and to the extent that that happens, that both saps the energy of the Afghan Government from thinking what it needs to focus on, which is real substance of the talks, as well as enables and empowering and fuels those side conversations and fantasies and perhaps really destructive scenarios. Because some of them involve power brokers who have very substantial followings and forces in the afghan National Security forces. I would just add to that, one hears from both sides engaged in these kinds of conversations and dialogues, the line, i mean, ive literally heard it from people on both sides, well, you know, when afghans sit with other afghans, we can sort these things out. You know, to which i then think, if you could just sort these things out, i think there wouldnt be some of the problems that there are in afghanistan. So, there is this sort of over optimistic idea, and of course both sides cant be right, that theyre going to succeed in outsmarting the other side. So, i dont think this is terribly realistic as a nearterm proposition so long as the United States is still engaged in afghanistan and still engaged in trying to get a Peace Process going. Because i dont think the u. S. Would tolerate that kind of informal format for a Peace Process. Even apart from the Afghan Governments views. Moreover, part of what the taliban wants out of a Peace Process is legitimacy, and international legitimatization of their role in governance, partly as a route to having the money continued to flow. And it would be pretty hard for them to achieve that objective through these more informal means. But if the u. S. Washes its hands of afghanistan, washes its hands of a Peace Process, i could imagine in that scenario, these kinds of varied Power Centers trying to come together to cut some sort of deal. Hard to imagine it would be any more sustainable than the kinds of deals that were cut and then immediately failed in the 1990s. Right here. Thank you very much. My name is paul, president of the Global Policy institute here in washington. I remember distinctly right after our victory, a senior afghan official said, in a private meeting, please dont leave, because if you go, in three weeks, the taliban will be back. And i said i was shocked. I said, i thought we won. I thought, as you alluded to, as the administration said, where is the taliban . Its gone, finished. Well, it looks that was pretty prescient in some sense. The next question i mean, my question really is, can we believe on the basis of what we know and what the ambassador has been doing that the taliban are negotiating in good faith . In other words, hes trying to arrange some kind of a deal of power sharing of some kind. Is that realistic . Or its just window dressing because essentially we are surrendering, we are leaving, and we want to put some kind of a nice window dressing to the whole thing and say, ok, weve done our best, which leads me to my own personal conclusion but i would like to hear yours. This reminds me of the paris agreements in vietnam when the north vietnamese realized that the United States was bogged down with all our internal domestic issues, watergate, nixon and what have you, well, they attacked South Vietnam and the South Vietnamese, when they saw that we were not coming to the rescue, folded in two weeks. Thats a good question. Michael, you want to address that . Can the taliban be trusted if re is a peace ddeal deal . I think you need to write a deal that doesnt depend on trust, which is part of why im thinking its so hard and i so appreciate laurels report. Im not going to betray any confidences but about a year ago i spent an hour with the president who was gracious enough to receive me and it was pretty clear, hes made it amply obvious, that any kind of a peace deal that he was interested in, if you were going to have taliban join security force, they would have to be individually vetted and recruited into an existing afghan army and police. That was my sense of what he and other afghan leaders have been envisioning. But thats not realistic as a, you know, thats basically victory for the Afghan Government and defeat for the television, who then get fairly for the taliban, who then get fairly gracious, forgiving terms for their individual fighters. Thats what that is. So, laurel got into things like, could you rewrite the constitution so that theres some direct power for local leaders, more than there is today, maybe even direct elections at local levels, even though the taliban would like to control the whole country. They could have some share in the overall country but maybe dominance in some of the south and east. Even that, theyre not going to like. Thats not what they want, but that is the sort of thing we have to let them think through, both sides, because otherwise, youre asking one side or the other, essentially, to acknowledge the other side has the upper hand or the other side has won. I dont think either side is anywhere near that. The president certainly wasnt when i spoke to him or anything ive heard him say publicly , and the taliban think theyre winning and theyll certainly win if and we depart. So both sides think they have the upper hand and the actual mechanism for sharing power in a way that doesnt depend on trust and keeps both leaders safe physically, very hard to envision. If theres a peace deal between the u. S. And the taliban and the taliban goes to talk with the Afghan Government, wont the taliban legitimately believe they have the upper hand . We just dealt with the u. S. , now were going to see you folks. Im afraid thats possible. Yeah. And the trust issue, you both want to i mean, i think that depends on trust in what. So there are multiple dimensions to the talks as they exist, one of which is can the taliban be trusted to prevent the emergence of antiu. S. , antiallied terrorist groups and counter them, particularly al qaeda, but arguably wider set. That is apparently part of the deal that the ambassador agreed to. There is great deal of variation on whether people believe that the taliban will hold up to that. I think there is great deal of variation bntwithin the taliban in how they react to it. For a long time, some taliban members believed al qaeda was a plague on afghanistan and they believe it was a big mistake that they hosted it. Others were much closer to it. It is very different leadership, different constraints. Its leadership thats much more integrated into global Jihadi Networks and has significant liabilities and commitments to them. So, its not an easy thing for them to truly agree to that. Will they hold up i also want to say that the taliban is very focused on not using International Legitimacy and not losing international money. That will be the leverage. Will the taliban live up to the intraafghan deal . Depends on how much power they get. The taliban believes they will have power and will kindly share some power with nontaliban power brokers. If thats the outcome of the deal, theyre quite liable to hold up to it. Because they won. If there was a priori trust between parties, you wont need a peace negotiation. The point of a peace negotiation is to test the possibility that you can find a sufficient overlap of interests and accommodations and compromises between the sides that theyre willing to abide by the terms that they agree to, but youre only going to know that if you actually engage in the negotiation and then you try to mitigate the risks of failed implementation through the structures that you set up. But you can never know in advance whether you can have absolute trust in the other sides willingness to abide. Back there. Jeff stacy, ive been doing some consulting in recent years with the Foreign Ministry and the finance ministry, primarily on Regional Economic integration issues. Theres a lot that is basically looked at in the near future as being possible to achieve, assuming a government is formed and a peace deal is reached. My question really is about the power brokers outside of afghanistan. The stakes that the big, for lack of a better term, the great game players, so china, russia, iran, but primarily pakistan. What are your thoughts about how helpful theyre being in the in these peace talks and what role or are they being are they pushing the taliban . Are they giving any sort of assurances or backstops or are they playing a role of sort of a spoiler role or a hindrance role . How to you assess things at this point . Do you want to jump in . Ill start. China was leaning on the pakistanis to come up with a deal to not have any more safe havens because they want a nice level Playing Field for the one belt, one road. If you could address that. Possibly. I mean, i think that the short answer to your question is, yes and no, and everything in between. I mean, there are ways in which there are, at times, some pressure in, you know, the right direction. I mean, towards stabilizing the situation in afghanistan, towards coming together in a Peace Process with respect to china. Specifically, i believe, yes, china would prefer stability to instability in afghanistan. But its bottom line is really whats best for pakistan and whats in pakistans interest given the very close relationship between china and pakistan. For india, i dont think i dont know if you mentioned india, indias basically just opposed to a Peace Agreement but its not going to play much of a role in actually spoiling it for actually spoiling it. For iran and for russia, theyre in the somewhat comfortable position of having it either and both ways. If there is a Peace Agreement that brings greater stability to afghanistan, they benefit from it. If there isnt, they get to blame the United States. So, they can more or less sit on the sidelines and pick and choose when they want to be a little helpful, when they want to be a little less helpful. Pakistans obviously the most complicated of these. My sense is that in the last year, as the United States has shown more seriousness of intent to negotiate a Peace Agreement with the with the taliban, that the pakistanis have been relatively more helpful in pushing the taliban along, but the pakistanis have, at the same time, always been perfectly clear that they are not going to, as they would put it, fight the afghan war on pakistani soil. And that means theyre not going to make the taliban, the afghan taliban, their enemy. And so they will use their leverage, they will pull their strings, but theyre not going to cut the strings altogether. Ok. Right here . I am an afghan scholar here at National Security. Im always thinking that we are in 89 where the russians thinking how we get out of afghanistan and now were thinking how are we going to leave and thats also a question. Really, do we want to leave . Well, yes or not and its for us good to leave afghanistan, yes or not. I think the russians at least had a clear answer for themselves, we want to get out of afghanistan. This question, i think, also good to her first. The second question, we are talking about, like, Afghan Government and the taliban, like two body institutions that cannot talk with each other. But its not also true and Afghan Government is start with arc and finish with arc. Today we are talking here is the first is the Vice President is fighting with ghani, both of them in the same election and abdula is fighting with ghani and going on. So theres no Afghan Government, and even if for us exists here in an Afghan Government, for the Afghan People does not exist. And i agree with you that some case they prefer taliban above, unfortunately, above the Afghan Government in the local issues. My last question is, are we talking about the taliban . Theres the gentlemen who were enjoying the hotels and talk and conversation with us, or you are the same who are fighting on the ground . Are they going to accept the decision . Because same as with, like, someone like major, he comes back and joins the government but wheres the pupil of his . Joined isis, joined the taliban, joined the pakistani taliban. What will happen with all those forces . And we have unfortunately today more taliban fighters than in 2002. You know, its an interesting point. Is the taliban a cohesive unit, are they fragmented, are the folks in doha speaking for the entire movement . Or are some military commanders on the ground saying, we dont want a peace deal or were going to start bombing outside of bagram or in the east. What are your thoughts on the taliban as a cohesive unit . The perpetual dream of u. S. Policy and also currently a dream of at least some members of the Afghan Government is that the taliban can be fragmented and many strategists have been attempting to do that. I think its quite remarkable how cohesive the taliban has been and thats one of the sources of its endurance. I will say there are two sources of its endurance. One is the overall cohesiveness its been able to maintain for three decades now and the second is its capacity, especially capacity after 2001 to push back from most egregious brutality, when the community pushes back against them, its really the capacity to calibrate brutality on local communities by being somewhat responsive to local communities. That gives it the endurance that it has. Now, does that mean that every single unit, every single commander would obey by the decisions . Probably not. Thats rarely, almost no nowhere, but very rarely, i can think of the malis for a while, but just for a while, almost never the case where you have 100 compliance. The question is, can you have 80 compliance . 90 compliance . In a way that substantially changes the security picture. I would just add one more thing, laurel, before you talk. But the taliban is the taliban leadership. Its clearly very uncertain as to the preferences of its own military and middle level commanders. And thats why the taliban punts all the difficult questions, all the core questions about what kind of arrangement it wants down to future. The response to what kind of representation, how many ministries, what kind of role for women, everything is answered through, after we have a deal, after we are in Transitional Government, we are going to create a commission that will study that. And one of the reasons they say that is because they understand that committing itself clearly on human rights, womens rights, pashtu and nonpashtu issues will be highly controversial. Laurel i fuelly agree with that vanda said and i was going to add which is that the taliban themselves are going to be cautious about what they do in a Peace Process because of concerns about maintaining their cohesion and being able to implement any commitment they make in the Peace Process. You dont see them moving forward with developing policy positions, with developing negotiating positions, articulating them, because those will be divisive issues. And why take the risk of being divisive before you absolutely must make those decisions and have those internal conversations . But you know, it doesnt mean that they cant get to that point. It just is yet another reason why a Peace Process is going to take a long time because they havent done that hard work yet. Richard coleman, retired from cvp. Looking at the afghan papers and i didnt read every word its such a sad commentary and indictment on the kabul to continue to lie to the American People, how successful everything was, the afghans are doing their part, you know, we really are pushing the ball forward. And statements from top military people saying what the hell is our mission, what are we doing here. And so i mean, looking back after 20 years of treasure and blood, what is our mission other than avoiding embarrassment, political embarrassment and some one party being able to point to the other and say you cut and run, it was yours. You lost afghanistan, when it was lost from the beginning. Do you think any of those lessons will ever sink in . We had vietnam already, and the russians had afghanistan before us. Is there a possibility that we will ever have a military that you can trust when their assessment of how things are going, or is it just, you know, fog of war . Michael ill start on that. We all have thoughts on this. First you asked about what is the goal, what is the purpose. I think preventing another 9 11 that originates from or near afghan soil has to be the central purpose. I think weve essentially achieved that so far at a very high cost, and not the right strategy as we look back perhaps. Nonetheless, we have achieved that. Secondly, there have been a million mistakes and frustrations. I think the mission has not gone great overall. Having said that, knowing most of the commanders and ambassadors and s reps and others who have spoken to this issue publicly, some of them have tried to look on the cheerier side, give a more hopeful message. I dont know anybody who tried to deceive the American People publicly. There may have been an air force officer at a command in host province who wrote in the Washington Post yesterday who was told to only show the good news. Im sure that happened at a number of levels. But consistently we know the president s of the United States who were behind this mission wanted to put it in perspective. None of them stayed very bullish very long, even in their public pronouncements. None set high goals that they stuck to very long. The commanders and diplomats and ambassadors and s reps, the special representatives, tended to have their debates in public eye about, do we go for a Peace Process first, do we do a search first, how much air power do we use, do we allow attacks against the taliban . We all know the afghan army and police arent doing well. That message came through loud and clear for 18 years. I dont know anybody who said the army and police are doing great, were on the verge of handing the war over to them. There were hopeful strategies. Sometimes people listened to experts like vanda at least briefly how to build antiopium strategies. They didnt work. It doesnt mean people were being completely duplicitous, saying the opiums gone, give us one more year. While i admire reporting at the Washington Post in the subsequent stories out of that sixday series about the first day was fundamentally incorrect. The first day that construed this pattern of duplicity and deceit on the part of american policymakers, i dont think that existed. Im pretty emphatic in disagreeing. You raised the issue of vietnam. Im wondering how much of this issue over the past 18 years you can lay on the at congress. Congress really never had serious hearings on the afghan situation. Really going back 18 years. There was no jay William Fulbright that had serious, longterm hearings on afghanistan. Could you each address that . There are multiple hearings, so to say there were none, i dont think is serious,talking about longterm hearings akin to the fulbright hearings. Ive been going to afghanistan for years now, and i would watch almost all the hearings on the hill. A general would come in sir, whats going on in afghanistan . I havent arrived yet. Ill let you know when i go. Come back, and let us know, just keep in touch. That was repeatedly going on laurel what congress does is a reflection of the american public. I mean, in vietnam, there was a domestic political opposition that rose up to the vietnam war, and therefore you had that kind of you had that kind of move in congress to look for how to get out, how to hold the leaders to account. There is no widespread domestic opposition to the war in afghanistan. If you look at opinion polling, its increasingly unfavorable, but its by no means comparable to what we saw in the vietnam era. Tom true, because because there was a draft clearly. Laurel obviously a big factor. And 50,000 americans died. Tom Still Congress had an oversight role. And im just wondering did they handle that oversight role . Vanda you know, i think that really the most tragic and the most difficult issue is how can the system correct itself. I, too, do not believe that every portrayal of the war, however positive, however inappropriately positive was motivated by deception. But there clearly have been many structural difficulties in recognizing problems and then being able to afford risks. So the system makes it very difficult to experiment with policy and the excruciating difficult, unpredictable circumstances and constraint and to say this didnt work, lets try something else. Policy is not like toothpaste, but policy is like toothpaste, you can squeeze it out of the tube, but its very difficult to ram it back into the tube. Often it doesnt work. But also for individual officers both in the civilian side and the military side to say we did our best and it really didnt work, that honesty will often be punished. Similarly to be an officer in charge of dispensing money and concluding we have too much money, we really dont need it, will result in punishment by congress including allocating much less money, and that creates other sides. It was well known that in the system that there were real problems, but it was very difficult for the system to tolerate the mistakes and correct them in ways that were useful. And all along, and especially as the policy was unwinding, we the question became, if you dont do this, are we willing to live with the consequence of catastrophic demise if we pull out under the circumstances. So the real hard reckoning took place at policy levels and among the public of saying, ok, the patient is on life support, but do we let the patient die, do we allow dramatic collapse, dramatic war by liquidating a policy thats not radically improving things but thats keeping some level of hope, some prevention of utter meltdown. Laurel i would just add to that. I think of the sort of systemic problems that need to be addressed in the future, a big one is that the policy discussions and the socalled strategy discussions focus overwhelmingly on how much effort to put in. Now you could talk to people who would deny that this is what the conversation was about. But it really is a lot of what the inside policymaking was about. How much do we turn up the dials, how much do we turn down the dials on the level of effort. There really isnt a means within the system for addressing the question of how do you end the war. Its just not part of the way that the policy discussion, that sort of concept of war termination is not part of the conversation and policymaking within the u. S. Government. And so then what you see is just a modification of the aim. The initial aim was to eliminate the problem of al qaeda and to get rid of the taliban because they were part of the problem and replace them with something else. Then it morphs into a Preventive Mission that is never neverending. Members of of sorry, my name is derek boyd. Members of the panel seem to agree that peace is a long way off. In the near term, it seems to me anyway that were in this period where we were discussing the u. S. Withdrawal from afghanistan. And what im interested in are what are the constraints on that issue that the government, the pentagon, and so on will face. Michael well, ill put it this way that President Trump not entirely unlike president obama, two different guys, slightly different in their personalities and politics, but they are not totally different on afghanistan, as i read them. They both concluded that no ambitious strategy was going to work. They both essentially said so. Most of their presidencies. And they both had to balance the desire to get the heck out with the desire to protect the homeland from another major terrorist strike, or regional dislocation on a scale that like we saw with isis taking over syria and iraq could flood refugees into important allies of the United States. They both had to wrestle with competing impulses that were almost contradictory. We saw almost annual policy reviews in the second obama term and now in the first three years of President Trumps term. Were always on the verge of saying weve had enough, and president s emotionally are almost always at that point, and most of their voters are at that point. But then you say, does going to zero really work . Is that really responsible . So far no one has concluded that it would be. My prediction, part of why i wrote the 5,000 troops for five years paper, i think we can settle into a presence that may concede more territory indirectly to the taliban but allows the Afghan Government to hold on to the big cities with a more modest and sustainable u. S. Force. I hope like laurel im not wishing war for an indefinite period. I think its going to take a while. In the meantime, lets sort of make the u. S. Military presence there more sustainable, less dramatic, less in need of constant review. I think thats the way you sort of reconcile these otherwise contradictory pressures. Laurel you know, weve all agreed about what the consequences of a rapid withdrawal of the u. S. Probably would be. And weve talked about a deterioration security and likely intensified civil war. In terms of what the impact would be on the United States, i personally think there are a lot of questions there as to what the impact would be on u. S. Security. And one of the issues that i as far as ive seen is actually not touched on in the afghanistan papers that have been published so far, but i think is much more important than a lot of the issues that are touched on is the failure of u. S. Leaders to both internally have a clear analysis of what really is the remaining terrorist threat for afghanistan, and does it justify from that dimension alone the level of u. S. Effort there . And to articulate in an honest way publicly what the remaining threat is. Because of the sort of the shadow of 9 11, it looms in a way that i think has obscured cleareyed analysis of what the quantum of thread really is from afghanistan. I personally think its lower than many claim. Tom if anything, the military is saying the terrorist threat has expanded. They say there are 21 terrorist groups operating now in and around afghanistan. Laurel i challenge anyone to name me a group number ten on that list. That is a greatly exaggerated statistic. Tom they always come up with a number but never the names. Laurel right. Little, tiny splinters. Tom all the way in the back there. Thank you. James sebens. There have been a number of mentions of the necessity of keeping u. S. Aid flowing into afghanistan following whatever peace deal might be reached. At the same time, there have been several mentions of corruption and, of course, the afghanistan papers have reminded us all of course, there was nothing revealed there that anyone who was paying attention didnt already know. But it has reminded us of how much u. S. Aid has fed into the corruption that exists in afghanistan even among the Afghan Government. So i wanted to ask in this sort of Political Climate of America First and ending endless wars how the u. S. Taxpayer dollars that are going to afghanistan can be used in a way that doesnt fuel corruption and Illicit Trade and trafficking. Vanda look, i dont think there is a way to in countries like afghanistan or nigeria or somalia or even colombia for that matter, the golden child of u. S. Counterinsurgency efforts to get to a stage where you have zero diversion and zero corruption. You will only have that stage if you have zero diversion and zero corruption to start with in systems that are that have extremely weak institutions. And really based around Patronage Network and client corruption is the purpose of government. And the essence around which politics is organized. That said, we can be much more diligent, the United States and the International Community can be much more diligent about preventing the most egregious and destructive forms of governance of corruption. And this is where i have been urging policy to go for a while. Say what forms of corruption are more most destructive. When they systematically exclude particular ethnic groups, particular geographic groups, for example, or corruption that systematically undermines the National Security forces. Then when we decide what corruption is most destructive to state building and peace building in the country, we we need to develop the wherewithal to follow up on what we say are our red lines. Unfortunately, the policy in afghanistan and in other countries, somalia is another prime example, has forever been ok afghanistan, in order to qualify here are 21 conditions. If you fail these conditions in the review a year from now, you will be denied money. The year comes and it is not just the u. S. , it is our international partners, and afghanistan fails 20 of the 21 conditions. We say, ok, you tried, you met one. Next time around, we mean it and well really cut off money. So as long as we set unrealistic guidelines and the tools that we for one reason or another because of military exigency is to violate anticorruption tools will be limited. Laurel but theres an explanation for why that happens. And its that in afghanistan, we had intertwined counterterrorism objectives, counterinsurgency objectives, and nationbuilding objectives, and because of that, the United States had a strategy that depended for achievement of its counterterrorism objectives on the the continued existence and performance of the Afghan Government. Because we decided that our counterterrorism objectives required the physical presence of the United States military in afghanistan, we, therefore, had to have a counterterrorism partner in afghanistan which was the Afghan Government. So we made our we created this codependent relationship where we were dependent on the survival and the performance of that Afghan Government. And therefore, you can just never impose genuine conditionality in that scenario. They have you over a barrel because they know that you need them as much as they need you. Vanda id like to use that as a transition to answer your questions, sir, but what is it that the United States wants in afghanistan. Surprisingly or maybe not surprisingly, there is tremendous confusion in afghanistan among Afghan People and including among the Afghan Government as to what the u. S. Wants. I mean, i would posit what the u. S. Wants is to get out and get out in a way that avoids meltdown, that avoids civil war, that leaves the best possible chance for peace. But to get out. And with good reason. The war may not be unpopular in the extent that it generates massive demonstrations on the mall, but there are very genuine, very important questions to ask with the resources being invested at this point to generate generate outcomes and generate benefits that justify those expenditure versus putting the expenditures into tackling the Opioid Crisis in ohio or versus putting those expenditures improving education in montana. Those are very valid, very important questions to be asked. And they have to be asked with the question, ok, if we go out, are we prepared to live morally in terms of international relations, security counterterrorism objectives, the very real possibility that afghanistan will slide into civil war. Nonetheless, the fact that we have set conditions and waived them, that we have set conditionality and ignored it, and the fact that we have had a set of president s all wanting to get out and not getting out at the last minute, whether it was president obama in 2016 or President Trump, has generated a situation in afghanistan where the afghan political elite believes they can get away with anything, including literally murder because we will not have the wherewithal to leave, and so the politics, all this remains about bargaining, bringing the ship of stage to the precipice but never becomes about serious governance. I wish we had the strength to say, afghanistan, you face a dire moment, you have a chance for peace, 40,000 of your people are dying per year. Develop interest in yourself to fix it. And i think if that our messaging about our need to leave, about our desire to leave needs to be couched within that because unfortunately, many in afghanistan believe that we want to be there because of Great Power Competition with china, russia, because of the promise of the trilliondollar worth of minerals and the afghan dust for all kind of imaginary objectives and, hence, they believe that they dont have to negotiate because well stay and well continue fixing the problems. That they dont have to fix the Afghan Military and get it out of its mold because we will stay, and we will fix the problem. That they can continue having fights like over the past 24 hours because we will continue holding fixing the problem for them. Leaving afghanistan and solving the afghanistan problem is not cannot be coexist im wondering that if you reduce the number of troops in afghanistan and in using the to solve the afghanistan problem, whether we choose another alternative which is to stop this overspill of the afghanistan problem by isolating them and cut down the transnational network which is faithful to the spread of the terrorism and also the insurgency. That is kind of the to isolate it. Michael ill just say that afghanistan was pretty isolated in the 1990s, and look what we got. So im not sure in the in principle your idea sounds good, i dont know how to make it work in a way that protects from the numberone concern i had which was a major terrorist strike. Ill add one more point and a tangent. Mentioning that period, theres one thing i want to say about the Afghan People. Its not reason enough to stay if our mission is bound for failure, but it is something to keep in mind, they helped us win the cold war in a more direct way than almost any other american ally. To be blunt, they bled the soviets through the 1980s. And they did the hard work, and they did the they accepted the risk. They did the dying for that mission to be successful. And that largely is what brought an end to the cold war. Im not suggesting that 30 years later that should fundamentally guide our policy if were not able to come up with a strategy that works. If we have a strategy thats sort of muddling along and the cost has become tolerable, i think its something to keep in mind before we pull the plug. That kind of moral and historical debt to what theyve done to help us. Laurel if i could add to that, some of the they in that sense are people who later became the taliban or members of the haqqani group, so its complicated. Thank you. Bill goodfellow, afghanistan peace campaign. I find it hard to believe after 19 years, youve been a great cheerleader of the militarized approach. After 19 years, particularly after the devastating Washington Post series, how you could still advocate basically watered down version of more of the same with the idea that it might work. It just seems to me i mean, we are losing, our guys are losing, and your five years, 5,000 troops i dont think will change anything. And it just it seems we need a new plan. Sort of regional diplomatic approach that laurels talking about, but just continuing with the same militarized policy just seems to me to be madness. Michael first of all, to be clear, i support laurels concepts. And vandas work in some of the ngo engagements she has on the Peace Process. Im just not enthusiastic about the nearterm prospects of success. But i commend very much the effort, point one. Point two, i accept that this has been a frustrating mission. And i accept that it a lot of americans have paid a very high price, and the american taxpayer has paid a high price. But we are trying to protect from another 9 11, and now were at a point where i think 5,000 troops can do it. And thats sort of the kind of level weve got in iraq, its the level weve got in couple of other middle eastern countries. Weve, as tom said, got a number of regional terrorists and extremist movements not all of them equally seriously threatening to us maybe not 21. Michael maybe not 21. I think a posture that basically creates major strongholds for american collaboration with indigenous partners, intelligence gathering, and where necessary the application of air power or special forces is the right strategy because i cant think of a better one. And i wish i could. But i dont see leaving as the strategy, and i fully support the Peace Process. But again, youve got parties to this that barely are even willing to talk to each other, and each of which thinks it has the upper hand. You tell me how soon thats going to work. The realistic alternative we have to Something Like what i sketched out is to accept defeat and go home and run the experiment. And i hope laurels right if we do, that we can probably survive the resulting terrorist threat to the United States that it doesnt get a lot worse. Those are the two choices, if you want to make a decision tomorrow either or. I very much support what theyre trying to accomplish with the Peace Process. I just think its probably going to take two to five years. Carter, cnn. Tom, can i ask you a question . Tom yes. Youve been observing this war for 18 years. Youve gone there multiple times. You also Pay Attention to the political situation in the United States. From a political perspective, can the United States, can a u. S. Leader go to zero in afghanistan . Can a u. S. Leader bear is there risk for a u. S. Leader of not having a ct presence there . Or is there not and we can just get out . Tom i think it depends which president youre asking that question. I think this particular president would like to he said repeatedly he wants to get out of afghanistan completely. My guess is that those at the pentagon and elsewhere would say, well, sir, we should leave some number of troops there to fight that like michael was saying, maybe 5,000, maybe 2,000, 3,000. He also wanted to leave syria, and that did not happen. He said three times over the past year and a half i want everyone out of syria, certain people talked him out of it. And we still have troops in syria. So my guess is, you know, listening to trump, he wants to get everyone out. My guess is he will be persuaded not to do that. Laurel i think its 50 50 either way. But i find it hard to imagine that if President Trump pulled troops out of afghanistan within the next year that it would have any impact on his election one way or another. I just find it hard to believe that thats going to be the consequential purely political issue barring a major terrorist attack that ensues in the immediate aftermath. But i dont find that particularly likely otherwise. I would just say to the question about just the persistence of an American Military presence there at 5,000 or 2,000, a problem with that proposal from my point of view is that so long as your counterterrorism policy and strategy relies on your continued presence, youre going to have the insurgency perpetuated. Youre, therefore, going to have a weak partner in the Afghan Government because it will be facing the existential questions of having to fight an insurgency which its always going to prioritize over u. S. Counterterrorism objectives. And youre going to continue to have the u. S. Drawn in to the counterinsurgency because those military officers present are going to be under threat. And so the idea that theres some, you know, just small number of american troops that you can keep on the ground indefinitely just attending to u. S. Counterterrorism objectives and setting aside the Counter Insurgency to me is implausible. And therefore, while i agree that, you know Peace Process is not high probability of success, you have to then face the question if the Peace Process fails, do you just leave anyway . Vanda tom, i would add to the counterterrorism question here. Afghanistan is in some ways in the special place in counterterrorism because we are there. Say that we faced a major attack out of nigeria, out of mozambique, out of somalia, out of pakistan. Realistically, would there be President Trump or a democratic president , president bloomberg who would say, ok, lets invade these countries with full force, topple the regime, take over governance . We couldnt do it even in somalia, and i would posit that we should not do it in any of these countries. In afghanistan, we are stuck in a place where we have said the threat happened once and, hence, we cannot imagine any other way or we cannot risk running the threat even though we have to live with that threat in other places. So to me, the the counterterrorism issue is clearly key vital u. S. National security objective. Thats not implying necessarily, though, that this means of prosecuting it is the only way of prosecuting it. I think where we have to answer the reckoning is if we leave, if we leave without a peace deal or even with a peace deal, on we willing to then live with the consequences of civil war, including massive levels of afghans being slaughtered. Are we living to live the humanitarian, moral, and other consequences, and the answer may well be yes. But that is the question to me that we have to face as a country, that our policymakers need to face, and the public needs to grapple with. And i would add to that that the question today we should be asking is what are the red lines under which we should leave. And i have articulated a set of developments in afghanistan where i did not believe it was justifiable anymore to stay. And on the upside, what are the minimal positive developments where we should leave. Tom ok. Weve got about ten minutes. Lets try to keep the answers to a minimum. Sir . My names carl poser, and i have a project called the center on capital and social equity. Im not an expert on this region. Just as somebody whos been observing, in terms of defining what our National Interest is, nobodys mentioned oil. The whole region, the reason why do we have so many footprints in that region and bases . Because we protect the lifeblood of the capitalist economy, that we protect across the globe. What is different now . 20 years ago we were really importing most of our oil. And now we dont, we really export it. Weve been somewhat selfsufficient even for maybe for a few decades. I think geopolitically, i would be thinking about can we, you know, 10, 20 years from now, do we need to go back once we, you know, exhaust all the fracked oil. Maybe im totally off, but that might be a part of the whole calculus calculus. Tom anybody . Is oil part of this . Laurel not really. There is some natural gas in one part of afghanistan, but its not its not a place yeah. Afghanistan is a different picture in terms of what its potential, exploitable resources are. And frankly, its, you know, its also a landlocked country. Its not a you know, if youre going to look at american policy objectives from that perspective, afghanistan is not one of your more useful places to be investing your resources. Tom ok. Way in the back there. Stanley cober. How secure are our supply lines . The supply lines for the u. S. Military . Yeah. Laurel thats not been a major issue of late. I havent you know, first of all, with the reduction in the number of u. S. Forces, it makes the scale of the challenge there less. And things have been on a a more shall we say stable footing in the u. S. Pakistan relationship in the last years where ive not heard of any threats to the supply lines, threats to close that down tom really going back years, there havent been many threats in the supply line. Youre right, the level of troops now with 13,000, 14,000, youre not having nearly the supplies coming in that you had in past years. Also the trucking mafia in pakistan im sure makes sure that those routes are secure. Laurel its lucrative. Dave louden. Have any of our discussions detected any generational sea change that offers any kind of promise . And if so or if the issue is civil war or stay in, what kind of metrics might you apply to just monitoring such a thing . Rel vanda well, you know, indeed, much of the analysis that are optimistic about afghanistan centered on the very impressive young afghan generation. That the level of Human Capacity has expanded greatly. Many young afghans my age or younger are very impressive. Will they be able to change the system enough is one of the important questions. I could again draw analogies to other countries nigeria has enormous capacity, extraordinarily impressive oxbridgeeducated individuals, young people, and has had for several generations. Nonetheless, the country continues to grapple with egregious misgovernance and corruption. So will the young individuals in afghanistan be able to change the system toward better is one big question. The second is there is enormous urban rule divide. You also have very many young Afghan People that are in rural spaces. It might be that most people are in cities, but you still have a good number of people in rural spaces and even in the cities, many of them lack opportunities. They might be educated, they many will have been born after 9 11. And they do not want to go back to the 1990s. Nonetheless, they face no jobs, many graduates are without jobs. Many of them are not motivated to work in agriculture, subsistence agriculture, or opium poppy agriculture, what are the alternatives . One of the issues that really is a huge challenge for afghanistan with the taliban in power, with the powersharing is whether the countrys leadership will be able to develop prospects for those young people, or whether we will see in rather short amount of time the emergence of Muslim Brotherhood like mobilizations, a coopation of other sources and new conflict emerging five years after the deal. Laurel theres another generational dimension on the taliban side. There are some close analysts of the taliban who say that the younger generations in the taliban are, in fact, more cad radical than some of the senior generations and that this is a phenomenon thats developed in part because during the war, more traditional structures, tribal structures, Community Structures have broken down. I dont myself know the scale and dimensions of that problem. But if its real, then thats thats another reason why even if there is a peace deal, its implementation could be difficult. Vanda the younger leadership or younger midlevel commanders are much more plugged in to the global Jihadi Networks than the older generation was. In the 1990s, to talk about palestine and afghanistan is like what, whats the issue . There is now much more because of internet communications, fundraising strategies, much more knowledge of whats happening in the global jihadi spaces elsewhere. And we saw it significantly with isis and the afghan branch. Tom ok, i think we have time for a couple more. Anybody else who hasnt asked a question . Way in the back. Laurel cant hear you. Sorry. Hi, is this better . All right. Mary smith from dai. Id like to address this to laurel first before other members of the panel. The jobs for Peace Program and the continuation of the Womens Society program. They have kind of been placed in a holding pattern. What would you advise the folks in the embassy to do regarding best practice on tailoring these programs amidst all this uncertainty . Laurel i hesitate to say this because i dont know it for a fact, but i very strongly suspect that whats going on is that existing programs are being redefined to be supposedly in support of a Peace Process or implementation of a Peace Process. I say that partly because thats i know how the u. S. Government works, and thats a typical way it works. You know, i dont think theres if there are programs that are being pegged specifically to implementation of a Peace Process, i dont think that theres really much you can do other than stand by and see if one develops some some traction. But i also would say, you know, there are probably at this stage limitations to how effective some of these programs are going to be anyway unless a Peace Process takes hold. Tom anybody else . Last question. Lets say you have an unrealistic miracle and the taliban do form a government along with the existing government. What kind of policies or programs would they want implemented other than just holding on to power . Vanda well, the taliban is rather explicit that it wants a country thats ruled in accordance with Islamic Doctrines. Now of course, Islamic Doctrines can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways and under the existing institution, islamictan is the republic of afghanistan. The taliban does not believe that the islamic character of the republic is adequate. One of the big fights is whether the war should be emirate or republic or what kind of combination that expresses how they believe how they believe that the existing setup is inadequate. Now thats part of the issue that will be very very much questioned. There are big discussions about what role for women, some taliban interlocutorys will say, look, a woman can be even the minister, but absolutely not a Prime Minister or president. Others will express much greater restrictions on the role of women and the role of public space when they reach puberty certainly. If you look at how the taliban rules and practice on the ground in territories where they control, it varies substantially by the shadow district governor and military commander, but they tend to impose significant restrictions on what we would define as Civil Liberties and freedoms. They will tolerate education for girls up to a certain point. They will often have a taliban member present in the school to make sure that only what they believe is appropriate. At that same time, they will make sure the teacher shows up. So certainly they have been prohibiting music and tv, soap operas. They sometimes say we are only preventing it now. Once we are in power, well allow it. Right now we cannot allow it. They are quite explicit that they do not want an economic collapse. Now that does not mean that they that they have really an Economic Vision other than preserving the flow of International Aid and possibly international investments. And have been quite effective in reaching out to china, for example, and promising china that chinese investments will be protected in the country ruled by the taliban. Laurel i mean, they claim that they recognize, they claim to foreigners at least that they recognize mistakes of the taliban regime of the 1990s and that it will be important not to repeat those mistakes. Precisely what they regard as mistakes and what they will do differently is another question. And you know, one hopes if there is a Peace Process and it takes time, these are questions that will be explored. But i dont think in reality youre really going to know until the aftermath. Tom so on behalf of vanda, thank you for coming. Thank you to tom and laurel. Happy holidays to everybody. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal, live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, the Bipartisan Policy Center discusses the 1. 37 trillion Government Spending bill that will be voted on in congress to avoid a government shutdown. 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