On the horns of a dilemma: A theoretical road to Kandahar

 Theories are essential to all disciplines let alone IR. In IR, theories may be understood as a pair of glasses with different colored lenses i.e each theory showing the same event with a different perspective. While theories, help interpret reality, through different perspectives it is also essential to note, they are not neutral, ie “ theory is always for someone and for some purpose.’​ (Cox, 1986)  This essay that grapples with a realist’s, liberalists and constructivist’s analysis on the the withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan,  needs to be prefaced with the note that this essay  does not provide a birds eye view of the security situation at hand; something essential in understanding security threats, in order to prevent silencing of insecurity or subsuming of security (Hansen, 2000) and further marginalization of referent objects. Lastly, this mainstream theoretical  analysis of the Crisis in Afghanistan, also assumes the absoluteness of security, which is not the case. While security is relative it is essential to also integrate critical theories that I would briefly touch upon to really deconstruct the situation at hand (Krause, Williams, 2018).

To contextualize this article it is important to know, the land that is Modern day Afghanistan has had a long history of conquests by foreign conquerors and internally warring factions. A fight for long standing unhindered autonomy and stability was a constant, ever since its independence in 1921. Set off on grounds to be a monarchy by soon to be ousted, Amir Amanullah Khan, Afghanistan only saw a semblance of stability under the next king Zahir Shah till 1973. However soon after this, Afghanistan got caught in the midst of the great power politics of the Cold War- where its insecurity was soon subsumed under cold war politics distancing this period from its own history; “easily forgotten that the East-West struggle was by no means 'cold' in the Third World, where millions died in Cold War-related and other violence in the years after 1945.” (Barkawai, 2004) Afghanistan's inclination to the Soviet Union and the latter’s invasion of the former was Afghanistan’s first move towards chipping away and leveraging its sovereignty as a bargaining chip for years to come. The Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979 thus changed the geopolitics and nature of security and securing agents of Afghanistan. The rise of the Mujahideen backed by the US and Britain as anti Soviet forces thus became a question of relativity of security- essential for fighting for their land’s sovereignty from the Soviet forces while also sculpting notorious extremists- the taliban and the Al Qaeda, who ultimately became the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. While the Afghan history can be compartmentalized and analyzed differently using the three theories- Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism according to time periods, I would be analyzing the nature of Afghanistan’s power politics in 2021 putting special emphasis on the withdrawal, of the US military from Afghanistan using the anarchy problematique the three theories emphasize on.
The first theoretical perspective I would be using to analyze Afghanistan is Realism. Realism as a school of thought in IR has dominated the discipline since the Cold War. The theory begins by presumming that states are rational and the principal actors of the international realm with the sole aim of self preservation. Here, an individual exists so long as the state exists and therefore the survival of the state is of utmost priority. The international realm, where all states operate in however, is one that is anarchic, i.e. , has no supervening authority. Being devoid of an overarching authority, states who have an inherent drive for power, are perpetually in suspicion of each other- leading the systemic order to be a self help system. Thus, realism rationalizes states  accumulation of resources and power, Internally and externally as essential. Thus due to anarchy, states are  required to expand their power in order to gain control over the international system to provide security for its citizens. 

Throughout the second half of the two decades, the reasons for the U.S.A's occupation in Afghanistan, became increasingly unclear. While for Realists US’ decision of entry in Afghanistan was simple; to terminate al-Qa’eda and prevent future terrorist attacks on the United States planned from Afghanistan; in the procss protect the sovereignty of the U.S from this birth of extremists and other non state actors, realists found it more than justified, for the United States to militarize Afghanistan. Operating in an unpredictable anarchic setup, it was in the US' interest to intervene in Afghanistan to protect itself from extremists who were potential threats. For realists in the US, terrorists and innocent men being tried in Guantanamo Bay near Cuba too was done in the name of state security. 

While realists justify US intervention in Afghanistan as justified by the sole idea that the U.S was defending its sovereignty post 9/11 attack, it is also essential to understand its withdrawal from a realist’s point of view. While George W Bush’s speech declaring the war on terror, not only acted as a soft power to externally garner support (from NATO, EU countries etc) U.S also prepared internally to deploy its resources and soldiers to Afghansitan.  Even after the execution of Bin Laden and the fulfilments of the initial objectives US had set out to complete, the United States did not withdraw until almost a decade later; having spent nearly $1 trillion on military aid to Afghanistan, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force all in the name of state interest and self help behavior. 

While on Afganisthan’s end, there was a desperate attempt to balance power and internally restore sovereignty translating into an increase in insurgencies from the Taliban, which led to counterinsurgency operations becoming the standard practice for tackling domestic terrorism in Afghanistan. The failure of the Afghan government to establish a safe society for Afghans caused the people of Afghanistan to believe that they needed the Taliban to save them from violence. Even during The Mujahedin rule (1992-1994) and Taliban rule (1993-2001) Afghanistan politics was embodied with continual fighting on ethnic lines. Four dominant ethnic groups Pashtuns, Tajiks Hazara and Uzbeks were divided into separate political and ethical factions and thus each seeking power and security. This domestic situation was a reflection of the anarchic international system of continual fighting and violence. This struggle for power resulted in pervasive internal conflicts. In Afghanistan, people were mobilized around the ethnic lines to seek power and security. 

While liberalism also views states as rational actors it talks about how anarchy has the potential to be tamed through aspects such as economic interdependence, institutionalism and democratic peace theory.( Mearsheimer, 2012) This provides hope to scholars about the very fact that the conflictual nature of international politics can be put an end to for peace to prevail among states

“The state that emerges at the end of history will be liberal as it recognises and protects the right to freedom and democratic.” (Fukuyama, 1992) The victory of the US, post cold war, resulted in liberal democracy becoming the norm of the international order and soon Liberalism as a theory too became increasingly conflated with the American foreign policy in Afghanistan. Liberalism that accounts for the security of the free standing individual thus in the context of U.S interventionism, failed miserably in the context of Afghanistan. Liberalism that focuses on the Democratic Peace Thesis and harps on advocating for states to turn to liberal democracies, as democracies are less likely to go to war. In the name of restoring democratic rights in Afghanistan and setting up a liberal democratic institutional set up, liberalism further justified US intervention in Afghanistan. What started off as a war on terror thus soon turned to nation building project in process of taming the uncertainty of anarchy. Thus, the United States funded projects in Afghanistan to promote economic growth, create and sustain a stable democratic government, preserve social gains in health, education and women’s empowerment and the rule of law, to protect the rights of girls, women and minorities and build self-reliance (White House 2021). This, at the face of it, sounded like a moral and responsible task, taken up by the U.S, was highly problematic, as this characterization of a liberatory U.S. military action was alleged to be a mere façade by many analysts and feminists in the U.S and Afghanistan. Feminists have argued how the U.S military merely used Afghan women as symbols and pawns in their geopolitical conflict to legitimize their invasion.  

“The liberal internationalism of the Woodrow Wilson era was built around civilizational, racial and cultural hierarchies. It was a creature of the western white man’s world. It was a narrow type of principled internationalism.” ( Ikenerry, 2018)

The fall of Afghanistan thus  to the Taliban was a major political and ideological defeat for the United States, and especially for liberal interventionism. The withdraw from Afghanistan in September 2021 without having eviscerated the Taliban, exported freedom and democracy or emancipated the women of Afghanistan—the main aims of liberal advocates of the war Afghanistan 

events we have witnessed over the last few weeks—the utter collapse of the apparently “well trained and equipped” Afghan army and government; the mayhem and frantic evacuations at Kabul airport; the Taliban conquest of entire provinces without a shot being fired—have exposed just how complete a failure this “nation building” project was. In exchange for twenty years of bloodshed and exorbitant investment, the US succeeded in replacing a failed state not with a functional Afghan national state, but with a dysfunctional, corrupt pseudo-state whose imaginary authority in Kabul fell woefully short of being able to assert its sovereignty across the country: a so-called state built like a house of cards, which collapsed at the first blow. Doha agreement 

“States (or other political institutions) represent some subset of domestic society, on the basis of whose interests state offıcials define state preferences and act purposively in world politics.” (Moravcsik, 1997)The case of Afghanistan was thus for the longest time a classic case of domestic liberalism in practice where  private groups have had an extremely influential role on state apparatus. Certain states behaves in a certain manner, not attempting a normative change just explain behavior it balance of domestic interest groups, domestically constituted by individuals who are driven to pursue interests state behavior outside domestic society takes. This is reflective thus in the case of afghanistan.  

In contrast to Realism and Liberalism, however, Constructivism centralizes socially constructed identities in relations between states, the initial focus of ontological security theory. Constructivism, therefore highlights the fact that anarchy is a phenomenon that is not absolute but is what states make of it. The U.S intervention in Afghanistan and their launch on terror drew a lot of ts legitimacy from the collective memory from the 9/11 attacks and U.S ebassy bombing in Africa,that was largely the causal factor of US’ actions in Afghanistan. While Geoge Bush in his speech made clear that there was no room for extremists to threaten America’s sovereignty there was also very clear bruising of the American identity that took place as a result of 9/11. The idea of a foreign other, having hit home, was something the United States could not grapple with. Even the policies that followed 9/11 was a result of a mutual constitution of the ‘other’ who was perpetually threatening the American way of life. Having an inherent hegemonic place in the world order, US’ resultant securitization of Islam was one that was highly problematic. Acts like the Patriot Act and other acts of discrimnation increased as a result of this and was justified by the collective memory of the World Trade Center collapsing. Even Afghanistan’s behavior in the international arena can be analyzed  by Constructivists the best. While realists, tend to black box the domestic realm of the state from its behavior in the international realm, Constructivists of the state, in many sporting events for example the olympics, there was a stark further explain state behavior by opening the black box and building a narrative around the identity of state. Afghanistan in the past couple of years has been sending all male delegations to a lot of sporting events such as the Olympics etc. This is a direct translation of the mutually constructed identity of the female perceived by the Afghan society throughout history where performativity of women is restricted to the private sphere.

Thus, in an attempt to analyze the security issue looming large over Afghanistan post American invasion, it is essential to also look beyond these theories. Critical theories here have played a huge role in understanding and voicing a lot of security concerns in Afghanistan in itself, areas mainstream theories are unable to grapple with. Thus, it is essential to know that security studies, “making sense of one's own life has been seen as a way of making sense of the lives of others. The personal, the political, and the international.” (Booth,1994) 

Bibliography

1. Barkawi, Tarak. “On the Pedagogy of ‘Small Wars.’” International Affairs 80, no. 1 (2004): 19–37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2004.00363.x. 

2. Booth, Ken. Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist. Routledge, 1997.

3. Cox, Robert W. The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1997. 

4. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Penguin Books, 2020. 

5. G. John Ikenberry, The end of liberal international order?, International Affairs, Volume 94, Issue 1, January 2018, Pages 7–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iix241

6. Hansen, Lene. ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’. 2000. Millennium 29 (2): 285–30

7. Krause, K., & Williams, M. (2018). Security and “security studies.” The Oxford Handbook of International Security, 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.2

8. Moravcsik, Andrew. 1997.“Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics.” International Organization 54 (4): 513-553.

9. Schouten, Peer. “Theory Talk #49: John Mearsheimer.” Theory Talk #49: John Mearsheimer. Accessed May 6, 2022. http://www.theory-talks.org/2012/06/theory-talk-49.html.