Why Regionalism Is Important for Afghanistan

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis.

While Russia and the United States continue to act as geopolitical rivals during what is now dubbed the “new Cold War,” they often agree to deals on political crises and conflicts around the globe. 

Recently, the two countries discussed the Donbass War between two Moscow-backed self-proclaimed republics—the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine’s Donbass region—and the Washington-sponsored Ukraine. But will that finally end the bloodshed that erupted in the energy-rich region of eastern Ukraine after more than 89 percent of voters in the Donbass voted in May 2014 for independence from Kiev?

Every conflict has its epilogue around the negotiating table. In 2015, the self-proclaimed Donbass republics, as well as Ukraine, Russia and European mediators signed the Minsk Agreement, which effectively ended offensive military operations in the war-torn region. But it did not end the war itself. To this day, sporadic shelling and gunfire remain part of everyday life for the local population. 

On October 13, Ukrainian Armed Forces captured Andrey Kosyak, the officer of the Luhansk People’s Republic Office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination. Kosyak is one of about 600,000 Donbass residents who hold Russian citizenship in a region of 2.5 million people. In response to the arrest, local activists blocked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)’s headquarters in Donetsk, demanding Kosyak’s release. The mission then suspended its operations in the Donbass. The Kremlin’s reaction to this incident appeared weak. It took a week for the Russian foreign ministry to demand Ukraine grant access to the Russian citizen. Kiev, backed by the West since the neo-Nazi rampage the Obama-Biden administration fueled, is unlikely to rush to allow Russian diplomats to meet with the captured officer. That means the Kremlin has no option. However, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on October 11, “Russia knows how to wait. We are patient people.”

Indeed, endless waiting along with a few weak actions seem to be the Russian strategy. After the Ukrainian Army on October 26 captured the village of Staromaryevka in the Donbass, Russia did not take any steps to defend its proxies in the region. More importantly, Ukraine has destroyed the artillery of pro-Russian forces in its first combat deployment of the Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, and the Kremlin’s reaction was yet again soft. Even though Kiev confirmed its army has used the sophisticated weapon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “It is very hard to figure out what is true and what is false.” It is not a secret Ukraine purchased Bayraktar drones from Turkey after the unmanned combat aerial vehicle proved to be a game changer in the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia.  

Given the Kremlin hesitates to engage in a direct military confrontation with Ukraine, Kiev is expected to continue its limited military operations in the Donbass, quite aware Moscow will turn a blind eye to Ukrainian actions. Russia is still waiting for Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements and grant the Donbass a special self-governing status after it holds elections under Ukrainian legislation. In return, the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk’s People’s Republic would allow Ukraine to reinstate full control over its border with Russia. Neither side, however, seems determined to implement the deal.

From the Ukrainian perspective, a special self-governing status for both Donbass region republics would mean a second Crimea has been created. Another pro-Russia entity potentially creates obstacles in Ukrainian political life, which has been heavily linked with the West since late 2013’s Euromaidan. From the Russian perspective, returning the Donbass region to Kiev’s control would mean Moscow has de facto betrayed its proxies in the region and has lost control over the Donbass coal mines at the time when coal prices in the global market have hit a record high.

Still, the Kremlin has appeared to have signaled it is ready to compromise over the energy-rich region. On October 11, U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met in Moscow with Dmitry Kozak, who serves as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff. According to reports, the two officials had a “productive discussion about the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the restoration of peace, stability, and Ukrainian sovereignty in the Donbass.” That Nuland, who was on Russia’s sanctions list, was allowed to visit the Russian capital is a sign Washington has the upper hand in its relations with Moscow. The Kremlin had lifted targeted sanctions on the U.S. diplomat in exchange for a lift in U.S. sanctions on a few Russian officials and foreign-policy experts. As the U.S. dollar still controls transactions throughout the world, U.S. sanctions have had devastating consequences for 39 countries. Plus, the United States had requested Nuland’s visit to Russia. In other words, Russia had to make a concession to the United States. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed his country would not object to U.S. participation in talks on the Donbass if Washington supports the Minsk Agreement.

Given Washington is the major foreign actor operating in Ukraine, any peace process that excludes the United States is unlikely to have major success. So far, Moscow and Kiev have been attempting to resolve the Donbass conflict through Normandy-format talks that have included Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France. But no progress has been made. Lavrov recently suggested inviting the United States to these talks, but Germany reportedly refused the Kremlin’s proposal, which means warfare in the Donbass likely will continue for the foreseeable future.

This means the region will be stuck in a state that can be described as neither war nor peace, although forces on both sides will try to change the status quo. Alexander Borodai, who was prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014 and is now a member of the Russian Parliament, said Russia should abolish the border with the Donbass republics. However, customs points between the republics already have been abolished and both entities have been integrated into the Russian economy. As Borodai pointed out, the Donbass already is a de facto part of Russia. However, unless the conflict in the region escalates into a large-scale confrontation, the Kremlin unlikely will incorporate the coal-rich territory into the Russian Federation. 

Ukraine, for its part, is not expected to start any significant military operations until it gets the green light from Washington. On October 18, during U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to Kiev, a fresh allotment of U.S.-made arms and other military equipment was delivered, part of a $60 million package the Biden administration had approved.

Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $2.5 billion to support Ukraine’s forces so that they can preserve their country’s territorial integrity and secure its borders and territorial waters. pic.twitter.com/MqKupUaQSo

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 19, 2021

According to Austin, the United States has committed more than $2.5 billion since 2014 to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and Turkish defense company Baykar is expected to build a maintenance and modernization center for Bayraktar drones in Ukraine, which means the former Soviet republic is seriously preparing for a potential war against Russia.

At this point, a major escalation of the Donbass conflict does not seem probable. But, in the long term, such an option will almost certainly be on the table.

Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Enquire.

Nine provincial capitals in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban in six days—Zaranj, Sheberghan, Sar-e-Pul, Kunduz, Taloqan, Aybak, Farah, Pul-e-Khumri and Faizabad—while fighting continues in four more – Lashkargah, Kandahar, Herat & Mazar-i-Sharif. U.S. military officials now believe Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, could fall in one to three months. 

It is horrific to watch the death, destruction and mass displacement of thousands of terrified Afghans and the triumph of the misogynist Taliban that ruled the nation 20 years ago. But the fall of the centralized, corrupt government propped up by Western powers was inevitable, whether this year, next year or 10 years from now.

U.S. President Joe Biden has reacted to America’s snowballing humiliation in the so-called “Graveyard of Empires” by once again dispatching U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to Doha to urge the government and the Taliban to seek a political solution, while at the same time dispatching B-52 bombers to attack at least two provincial capitals.

In Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province, the U.S. bombing has already reportedly destroyed a high school and a health clinic. Another B-52 bombed Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan province and the home of the infamous warlord and accused war criminal Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is now the military commander of the U.S.-backed government’s armed forces.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that U.S. Reaper drones and AC-130 gunships are also still operating in Afghanistan. 

The rapid disintegration of the Afghan forces that the United States and its Western allies had recruited, armed and trained for 20 years at a cost of about $90 billion should come as no surprise. On paper, the Afghan National Army has 180,000 troops, but in reality most are unemployed Afghans desperate to earn some money to support their families but not eager to fight their fellow Afghans. The Afghan Army is also notorious for its corruption and mismanagement. 

The army and the even more beleaguered and vulnerable police forces that man isolated outposts and checkpoints around the country are plagued by high casualties, rapid turnover and desertion. Most troops feel no loyalty to the corrupt U.S.-backed government and routinely abandon their posts, either to join the Taliban or just to go home. 

When the BBC asked General Khoshal Sadat, the national police chief, about the impact of high casualties on police recruitment in February 2020, he cynically replied, “When you look at recruitment, I always think about the Afghan families and how many children they have. The good thing is there is never a shortage of fighting-age males who will be able to join the force.” 

But a police recruit at a checkpoint questioned the very purpose of the war, telling the BBC’s Nanna Muus Steffensen, “We Muslims are all brothers. We don’t have a problem with each other.” In that case, she asked him, why were they fighting? He hesitated, laughed nervously and shook his head in resignation. “You know why. I know why,” he said. “It’s not really our fight.”

Since 2007, the jewel of U.S. and Western military training missions in Afghanistan has been the Afghan Commando Corps, or special operations forces, who comprise only 7 percent of Afghan National Army troops, but reportedly do 70 percent to 80 percent of the fighting. But the Commandos have struggled to reach their target of recruiting, arming and training 30,000 troops, and poor recruitment from Pashtuns, the largest and traditionally dominant ethnic group, has been a critical weakness, especially from the Pashtun heartland in the South.

The Commandos and the professional officer corps of the Afghan National Army are dominated by ethnic Tajiks, effectively the successors to the Northern Alliance that the United States supported against the Taliban 20 years ago. As of 2017, the Commandos numbered only 16,000 to 21,000, and it is not clear how many of these Western-trained troops now serve as the last line of defense between the U.S.-backed puppet government and total defeat. 

The Taliban’s speedy and simultaneous occupation of large amounts of territory all over the country appears to be a deliberate strategy to overwhelm and outflank the government’s small number of well-trained, well-armed troops. The Taliban have had more success winning the loyalty of minorities in the North and West than government forces have had recruiting Pashtuns from the South, and the government’s small number of well-trained troops cannot be everywhere at once.

But what of the United States? Its deployment of B-52 bombers, Reaper drones and AC-130 gunships are a brutal response by a failing, flailing imperial power to a historic, humiliating defeat. 

The United States does not flinch from committing mass murder against its enemies. Just look at the U.S.-led destruction of Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria. How many people in the United States even know about the officially-sanctioned massacre of civilians that Iraqi forces committed when the U.S.-led coalition finally took control of Mosul in 2017, after President Donald Trump said it should “take out the families” of Islamic State fighters?

Twenty years after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed a full range of war crimes, from torture and the deliberate killing of civilians to the “supreme international crime” of aggression, Biden is clearly no more concerned than they were with criminal accountability or the judgment of history. But even from the most pragmatic and callous point of view, what can continued aerial bombardment of Afghan cities accomplish, besides a final but futile climax to the 20-year-long U.S. slaughter of Afghans by over 80,000 U.S. bombs and missiles?

The intellectually and strategically bankrupt U.S. military and CIA bureaucracy has a history of congratulating itself for fleeting, superficial victories. It quickly declared victory in Afghanistan in 2001 and set out to duplicate its imagined conquest in Iraq. Then the short-lived success of their 2011 regime-change operation in Libya encouraged the United States and its allies to turn Al Qaeda loose in Syria, spawning a decade of intractable violence and chaos and the rise of the Islamic State. 

In the same manner, Biden’s unaccountable and corrupt national security advisors seem to be urging him to use the same weapons that obliterated the Islamic State’s urban bases in Iraq and Syria to attack Taliban-held cities in Afghanistan. 

But Afghanistan is not Iraq or Syria. Only 26 percent of Afghans live in cities, compared with 71 percent in Iraq and 54 percent in Syria, and the Taliban’s base is not in the cities but in the rural areas where the other three-quarters of Afghans live. Despite support from Pakistan over the years, the Taliban are not an invading force like the Islamic State in Iraq but an Afghan nationalist movement that has fought for 20 years to expel foreign invasion and occupation forces from their country. 

In many areas, Afghan government forces have not fled from the Taliban, as the Iraqi Army did from the Islamic State, but joined them. On August 9, the Taliban occupied Aybak, the sixth provincial capital to fall, after a local warlord and his 250 fighters agreed to join forces with the Taliban and the governor of Samangan province handed the city over to them.

That very same day, the Afghan government’s chief negotiator, Abdullah Abdullah, returned to Doha for further peace talks with the Taliban. His U.S. allies must make it clear to him and his government, and to the Taliban, that the United States will fully support every effort to achieve a more peaceful political transition. 

But the United States must not keep bombing and killing Afghans to provide cover for the U.S.-backed puppet government to avoid difficult but necessary compromises at the negotiating table to bring peace to the incredibly long-suffering, war-weary people of Afghanistan. Bombing Taliban-occupied cities and the people who live in them is a savage and criminal policy that Biden must renounce.           

The defeat of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan now seems to be unfolding even faster than the collapse of South Vietnam between 1973 and 1975. The public takeaway from the U.S. defeat in Southeast Asia was the “Vietnam syndrome,” an aversion to overseas military interventions that lasted for decades. 

As we approach the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we should reflect on how the Bush administration exploited the U.S. public’s thirst for revenge to unleash this bloody, tragic and utterly futile 20-year war. 

The lesson of the United States’ experience in Afghanistan should be a new “Afghanistan syndrome,” a public aversion to war that prevents future U.S. military attacks and invasions, rejects attempts to socially engineer the governments of other nations, and leads to a new and active U.S. commitment to peace, diplomacy, and disarmament.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Editor’s Note: This report was originally published by Antiwar.com.

CBS News retracted a documentary it briefly released on August 7 after pressure from the Ukrainian government. The original documentary (watch it here) CBS put out examined the flow of military aid to Ukraine and quoted someone familiar with the process who said in April that only 30 percent of the arms were making it to the frontline.

We removed a tweet promoting our recent doc, "Arming Ukraine," which quoted the founder of the nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman's assessment in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/EgA96BrD9O

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 8, 2022

“All of this stuff goes across the border, and then something happens, kind of like 30 percent of it reaches its final destination,” said Jonas Ohman, the founder of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that CBS said has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with aid in Ukraine since the start of the war in the Donbas in 2014. “30-40 percent, that’s my estimation,” Ohman said.

After the documentary sparked outrage from the Ukrainian government, it was removed from the internet by CBS. In an editor’s note, CBS said it changed the article that was published with the documentary and that the documentary itself was being “updated.”

The editor’s note also insisted that Ohman has said the delivery of weapons in Ukraine has “significantly improved” since he filmed with CBS back in April, although he didn’t offer a new estimate on the percentage of arms being delivered.

The editor’s note also said that the Ukrainian government noted U.S. defense attaché Brig. Gen. Garrick M. Harmon arrived in Kyiv in August for “arms control and monitoring.” Defense attachés are military officers stationed at U.S. embassies that represent the Pentagon’s interests in the country. Previously, it was unclear if there was any sort of military presence at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv after it reopened in May.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the retraction by CBS was not enough and called for an investigation into the documentary. “Welcome first step, but it is not enough … There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why,” he wrote on Twitter.

In the documentary, Ohman described the corruption and bureaucracy that he has to work around to deliver aid to Ukraine. “There are like power lords, oligarchs, political players,” he said. “The system itself, it’s like, ‘We are the armed forces of Ukraine. If security forces want it, well, the Americans gave it to us.’ It’s kind of like power games all day long, and so eventually people need the stuff, and they go to us.”

Other reporting has shown that there is virtually no oversight for the billions of dollars in weapons that the United States and its allies are pouring into Ukraine. CNN reported in April that the United States has “almost zero” ability to track the weapons it is sending once they enter Ukraine. One source briefed on U.S. intelligence described it as dropping the arms into a “big black hole.”