Another Painful Lesson in Afghanistan: The Afghanistan Study Group’s Final Report

On February 3rd, the Congressionally mandated Afghanistan Study Group, in conjunction with the United States Institute of Peace, released its “Final Report”. The Study Group was co-chaired by former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr (Ret.), the United States’ 19th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ms. Nancy Lindborg, President and CEO of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and former president and CEO of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). The remainder of the Study Group’s composition was academics and scholars at think-tanks and universities, including former ambassadors to Afghanistan. The Group’s mandate from Congress was to “consider the implications of a peace settlement, or the failure to reach a settlement, on U.S. policy, resources, and commitments in Afghanistan.” 

The Final Report outlined the policy recommendations that would give, in the authors’ opinion, the opportunity to “align U.S. policies, actions, and messaging behind achieving a durable peace settlement to end four decades of violent conflict in Afghanistan.” The authors additionally state that their review determined that the U.S.’ continued interest in Afghanistan is that the country does not become a threat to the region; is not a safe haven for terrorist groups, especially ones who are intent on obtaining nuclear weapons or materials; is able to control extremism, illicit narcotics trade, mass migration, and other threats; and retains a respect for human rights, all without a permanent American military presence. 

The Report outlines what the authors believe are the fundamental impediments that may constrain U.S. policy options in Afghanistan. These begin with the security situation, with the authors being advised by experts on the ground that a U.S. troop withdrawal could lead to a rapid disaster. Experts advised that, in the absence of a peace agreement, troop withdrawal would allow terrorist groups to be able to rebuild their capabilities in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region significantly enough that they would be able to mount an attack on U.S. soil within 18-36 months. Furthermore, despite Taliban commitments to not cooperate or host al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and to prevent them from training and fundraising in their territory, the Taliban has yet to demonstrate their willingness, or ability, to do so. Compounding this, the security situation regarding the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) is especially fraught, with the security forces almost entirely reliant on U.S. funding and support that can only be supplied by American and allied, in-country,Train, Advise, & Assist (TAA) personnel. 

The next set of conditions that need to be included when considering the constraints and dynamics of the Afghanistan situation is the stability of state structures. Afghanistan, the report argues, is the textbook example of a “fragile state”, with a broken social contract, weak institutions, and a government with disputed legitimacy. The Afghan state is so dependent on foreign donor funding that even if a stable peace agreement were initiated tomorrow, it would be years before the government is able to raise the kind of revenue needed to sustain itself. Complicating matters further is the fact that the country is still plagued by corruption, predatory governance, warlordism, and the inability of the government to resolve disputes and provide justice to its citizens, all of which has created grievances that are exploited by the Taliban to gain legitimacy. 

A further consideration is the regional context of the situation, in that while most of the region’s countries are united by the desire to fight the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and al-Qaeda, long-standing differences between countries in the region play a role in influencing the future of negotiations. 

These negotiations are the final key consideration when looking at the dynamics of the Afghanistan situation. U.S. support for the Afghan government during the talks, which will continue to be drawn out, should not be construed as a blank check for the Afghan government to walk away from the table or to drag talks on indefinitely. Importantly, the authors clearly state that one of the essential components of the “Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” (U.S.-Taliban agreement) is that the Taliban commit to a ceasefire. The Taliban claims that they only agreed to a ceasefire when a political agreement is reached, but the United States believes that the commitment was a condition for talks, not acceptable result from talks, meaning that there is a fundamental dispute about the very nature of the agreement.

In addition to the particular dynamics of the situation at present, the mandate of the Afghanistan Study Group was to not only make comprehensive recommendations for future policy, but to address the legacy of American involvement in Afghanistan, beginning with the current status of the peace talks. The report also covers the evolution of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan, the aid dependence of the Afghan state, Afghan politics, the state of the ANDSF, state of the Taliban, and the various regional stakeholders and relevant dynamics thereof. Finally, there is the progress made by civil society since the introduction of American troops in 2001.

Peace Talks Status

The status of the peace talks, as the Study Group’s authors make clear, is tenuous, and at risk of collapse at any moment. These talks, which were instigated through a process begun by the Trump administration that lacked the consent or involvement of the Afghan government, began in 2018, and were led by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad who was appointed as the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation. Ultimately, the Afghan government and the Taliban did reach an agreement on talks on the same day that the U.S.-Taliban agreement was signed on February 7th, 2020. That agreement contained a Taliban commitment to ensure that terror groups could not train, recruit, or function in ways that threaten the U.S. or its allies in areas controlled by the Taliban, in return for a U.S. commitment to reducing forces from around 15,000 troops from that date to 8,600 troops in July 2020, with a full withdrawal complete by May, 2021, subject to conditions being met. The Taliban further agreed to not attack international forces, large Afghan cities, and some other targets. While they initially respected the letter of the commitment, violence remained at high levels and Taliban fighters continued to conduct small-scale attacks against Afghan army units. 

Complicating calls for a quick start to peace talks was the fact that Afghanistan’s President, Ashraf Ghani was still dealing with a dispute over the presidential election from Abdullah Abdullah, who would eventually agree to assume the position of Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation. Further complicating the situation was the confidence-building provisions in the agreement that called for Kabul to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The Taliban’s insistence on being able to name the prisoners that should be released, despite some of them having been accused of horrific crimes led to strong pushback from the United States. 

Once talks did begin, they were quickly deadlocked due to concerns over dispute resolution mechanisms and whether the U.S.-Taliban agreement should be the sole document anchoring the talks, a position the Afghan government would not accept as they were not party to negotiation of that document. Talks eventually resumed, but violence that had been prevalent throughout the lead-up to talks continued during the stalemates, with the assassinations of five civil society activists during the intervening periods. 

Evolution of the Terrorist Threat

The report outlines the fact that South Asia remains an important region for anti-American extremist groups, with the region’s symbolic place in jihadi mythology, a remote geopgraphy with a rugged terrain that makes it hard to conduct counter-terror operations, and historically weak governments. All of these combine to make the region attractive to extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISKP, and a myriad of lesser groups that still possess the capacity to threaten U.S. interests in the region. 

While most Americans are familiar with al-Qaeda and its historical relationship with Afghanistan, the groups off-shoots also consists of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), founded by Ayman al-Zawahiri, in addition to what is referred to as “AQ core” which are the direct, political heirs of Osama Bin Laden. The other key group, ISKP, began in post-2003 Iraq, then expanded through their ability to capitalize on the Syrian civil war. The group has a claimed ambition to create a caliphate that unites Muslisms and transcends state boundaries, and ISKP’s early Afghan members were mainly dissident Taliban commanders as well as former members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban. 

While the threat from Afghan based terror groups has subsided in recent years, the report’s authors argue that this is primarily due to the sustained U.S. military presence. The report also states that there has been a sustained evolution in the global terrorist threat, and that Afghanistan forms merely one part of a required global strategy that counters the threat.

The State of the State

Put simply, the arguments presented by the reports authors show that Afghanistan is a state that teeters on the brink of economic collapse, supported mainly through external subsidies. The authors contend that this has been the case dating back at least two hundred years, with state collapse occurring after the Soviet Union departed, withdrawing aid in 1989. This led to a decade of civil war and then Taliban rule. After the U.S. invasion in 2001, that pattern of donor dependence resumed and got markedly more intense. The authors claim that much of that economic dependence on foreign support can be traced to the fact that much of the international communities’ foreign aid is unpredictable and uncoordinated, making it difficult to progress towards self-sustainability. The report argues that too often, international donors, not Afghans, set the agenda in regards to development funds, weakening the relationship between donors and the Afghan government as well as between the Afghan government and its people, which were not consulted in the use of funds. Endemic corruption made the situation even more dire. 

In recent years, with a strong U.S. Treasury Department support, the Afghan Ministry of Finance has proven more reliable, which has allowed the government to increase revenues to $2.2 billion in 2018, which at 11.3% of GDP, is only 3 points below the average for similar low-income countries. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on future expectations. Further complicating future expectations is the fact that, in the past two years, as the Ministry of Finance, and the Afghan central banks have become more politicized, they have predictably begun to erode in quality. This erosion could lead to donors being more inclined to provide funding through third parties, and greater conditions placed on assistance. 

The European Union and its members, who have a strong interest in stability in Afghanistan in regards to jihadist networks, narcotics flows, and concerns about migration, continue to provide funding on a multi-year basis, especially in the civilian sphere. However, the United States has recently decided on only single-year funding commitments, with the most recent contributions at the Geneva aid conference being a $300 million pledge with another $300 million contingent on progress in the peace process. 

While Afghanistan has areas of possible growth in agriculture, mineral extraction, and the transit trade, the agriculture sector is still dominated by poppy cultivation. Major investments in irrigation and water management, as well as other critical infrastructure will need to be made if a transition to other high-value crops is going to be pursued by Afghan farmers instead of continued contributions to the illicit narcotics trade. 

When it comes to Afghanistan’s political situation and the health of the Afghan state, there is still quite a long way to go towards achieving the status of a coherent nation-state. The 2004 Afghan Constitution enshrined a framework for the exercise of power and attempted to redefine citizenship to create a link between participation, representation, legitimacy, and stability. Women’s equality was enshrined in the constitution while ethnic minorities received recognition. That same Constitution, however, created a system where elites gravitated towards parochial considerations and has had detrimental effects on critical institutions to this day. The authors point out that elections have proven the most disappointing arena when considering the promise of Afghanistan’s centralized Constitution, as they have devolved into arenas for elite horse-trading and rampant fraud. U.S. support has helped tamp down on some of the consequences, but absent that aid, the prospects for free and fair elections appear dim.

Complicating the governing situation was the fact that the enormous streams of donor aid created perverse incentives for political figures, with state institutions flush with vast amounts of international aid money becoming seen as sources of patronage rather than tools to advance national interests.  

Unlike how the U.S. Constitution ideally operates, the 2004 Afghan Constitution has been immutable, unable to respond to turbulent developments, and its rigid structures entrench the polarization of the Afghan elite, particularly during elections. The tension means that despite the elite’s commitment to the republic’s preservation, the ruling coalitions that form are brittle and more concerned with power maintenance than achieving long-term national goals. 

All of this leads the Afghan government to face the question, at the negotiating table, of how to incorporate the Taliban into a state structure where differences are resolved without violence when their own guiding governmental document is unable to meet the task as it is. 

Warring Sides: The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces

To have a full picture of the state of play in Afghanistan, one must fully understand the conditions surrounding both the ANDSF as well as the Taliban. 

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are still heavily reliant on U.S. support, which provides for 80% of all public security expenditures, as well as 85% of all donor support for security. Payment of Afghan National Army (ANA) salaries is still largely dependent on U.S. funding, and over half of all maintenance work is performed by U.S. personnel. 

While the ANA has made progress in advancing from simply a light infantry force, they are not self-sufficient by any means, with capability gaps reflected in their lack of strategic options beyond vast amounts of ineffectual, frequently dangerous, checkpoints throughout the country. The lone bright spot appears to be the Afghan Special Security Forces (ASSF) whose units maintain close relationships with U.S. Special Operations forces who have ensured high recruitment standards for the force that have enabled it to avoid the endemic corruption in regards to promotion and selection that plagued the regular army force. 

The report argues that future sustainability of Afghan Defense and Security Forces will be dependent on greater institutional capacity within institutions like Afghanistan’s Ministries of Defense, Interior, and the National Directorate for Security. These institutions provide for budgets, human resources, procurement, and logistics which have been largely provided by American staff. While the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan has attempted to build up the capacity for these institutions, those efforts have often been neglected in order to focus on combat-related requirements, to the detriment of the professionalization of the overall forces. 

As will be touched on later, there are enormous questions regarding the capacity of security forces to maintain their morale and cohesion if a sense of U.S. abandonment becomes prevalent through the peace negotiation process. 

Warring Sides: The Taliban

While most know the basics of the organization, which emerged after a civil war between mujahedin groups that resisted Soviet occupation, it is important to understand its the group’s basic organizational structure as well as its objectives in regards to Afghanistan. 

After the United States invaded, the Taliban had faded into the countryside as well as Pakistan to regroup. After being excluded from all political processes following their defeat, they reconstituted as a fighting force in resistance to what they described as “the occupation of Afghanistan.” By 2006, its leader, Mullah Omar, had organized these forces into a more consolidated movement and by the time of his death in 2013, the Taliban had proven a resilient insurgency, capable of replenishing their ranks as well as providing basic governing services in the areas that they conquered and controlled. 

The report makes clear that the Taliban are distinct from al-Qaeda in that it does not support al-Qaeda’s global jihadi agenda. However, the two groups have retained close ties, and there are a diverse set of opinions in regard to whether the Taliban are a fragmented group with different goals or more of a monolithic structure. Whatever the case, most of those consulted for this report agree that the two main goals of the Taliban are to end the U.S. occupation and replace the current Afghan government because they view it as a Western creation, and illegitimately holding the reins of power. While they have, in talks around the peace process, indicated a willingness to soften some of their positions, they have not presented a true alternative to their vision of an “emirate” run on the basis of the strict interpretation of Islamic law. Such an “emirate” would likely roll back progress made on education, health, and human rights in the past twenty years.

Regional Players 

There are five key countries, when it comes to the interplay between Afghanistan and its larger region, including Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, and India. On top of that, there are a variety of lesser players like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar that have roles to play. In regards to Pakistan, they are one of only three countries in the region to recognize the Taliban in the 1990s and they have supported the insurgency over the past two decades. Further, they are a continued threat to be a safe haven for the Taliban. Pakistan has also adopted a policy that can best be described as preferring an unstable Afghanistan to a stable Afghanistan that is allied to India. While Pakistan has retained a good degree of influence over the Taliban, it does not maintain total control over the movement, and there are further indications that Pakistan is reevaluating its strategy vis-à-vis Afghanistan, as the current financial situation in Pakistan has made the country more desirous of economic opportunities in the region. 

China, as a great power on Afghanistan’s border, which would seem to have a greater interest in the country than it does, has not expanded the Belt and Road Initiative to Afghanistan. While they have been supportive of the peace process, the close China-Pakistan relationship has meant that Beijing tends to hew closely to Islamabad when it comes to Afghanistan policy.

Russian interest in the region are more consigned to keeping Afghanistan free of terrorism and illegal drugs, with Russian fears of a substantial U.S. military presence allayed by the drawdown in the overall number of American troops in recent years. In the past few years, the Russian government has formed a relationship with the Taliban that it justifies through their mutual commitment to fighting the Islamic State, but that may be more of a hedge against a strongly Taliban-dominated future Afghan government after the peace process ends.

Similarly, Iran, with its 950 kilometer border on Afghanistan’s west, shared history, and shared cultures, has pursued a trajectory similar to the Russians’. Since 2003, when they were designated as part of the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil”, they eventually began to discreetly support U.S. enemies like the Taliban. Unlike the Russians, however, Tehran does have political, and social influence to use, and they’ve used it to attempt to frustrate U.S. interests as well as to try and secure a political configuration in Afghan politics that is more to their liking.

India’s role in Afghanistan is essentially the mirror image of Pakistan. As the only major country in the region without some relationship with the Taliban, India has a strong interest in a democratic Afghanistan that maintains continued U.S. support. India’s main anxieties relate to a flawed peace deal that allows terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba to threaten Indian territory.

As for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, they all have had various impacts in the country, with Saudi Arabia mostly serving to amplify Pakistani priorities while using their soft power to promote Sunni politics. The UAE has served as the second home for many of the Afghan elite that seek to escape the chaos and fighting in their home country, and Qatar has risen to prominence as the hosts of the peace talks.

Positive Trends

Despite all of the aforementioned issues, there are a few bright spots, as the report rightfully points out. These bright spots include the fact that, despite the problems with the Afghan government and its constitution, there have been significant gains in the civil society arena since the United States entered the country. In the period between 2001-2010, female enrollment in public schools rose from zero to three million. Furthermore, by 2019, millions of women had voted, and women made up just over a quarter of members of parliament. Additionally, in a country as young as Afghanistan, where 62% of the country is below the age of 24, there has been an explosion in the education sector. In 2003, the country had only 30,000 university students, and in 2018 that figure was 386,778 with over 100,000 of them women. 

The Path Forward

In light of U.S. interests, and the complex situation on the ground, the Study Group offers a five-pronged effort toward achieving a stable peace. This effort begins with a renewed focus on regional diplomacy in order to shore up support for the peace process. Second is continued civilian and military assistance to the Afghan government that supports core state structures, with conditions derived from the 2019 U.S. Global Fragility Act which emphasizes accountability, legitimacy and inclusion across all lines of assistance with incentives for the government to play a constructive role in the peace process. The third key element of the effort is that U.S. military presence should continue to focus on counterterrorism operations while taking care to shape conditions that enhance the prospects of the peace process. Fourth, the U.S. needs to acknowledge the role that civil society has played in securing developmental gains to date and the role that they can play in the negotiating process and the implementation of a wider peace agreement. Finally, the United States must not forget that Afghanistan was entered as part of a wider international effort, and those international partners are critical to the achievement and implementation of any peace agreement. 

Study Group Recommendations

The Study Group’s Final Report closes with a list of five recommendations that the authors feel that the United States should pursue if their goal is to achieve an acceptable negotiated end to the conflict in Afghanistan. The first is that the U.S. needs to clarify its end state in Afghanistan. This end state should entail an independent, democratic, sovereign Afghan state with the stability, governance, and security forces required to prevent terror groups such as al-Qaeda and ISKP from achieving the ability to strike at U.S. or allied interests and territory. Further, an ideal end state, according to the authors, is one where Afghanistan is able to exercise sovereignty over its own borders and internal affairs, which would enable them to govern in ways that reflect the will of its citizens. Coupled with this is a desire for an Afghan state that supports and protects minorities, women, the free press, and the democratic character of the state. 

A second recommendation is that the United States reinforce the conditionality of its final troop withdrawal. The Group’s reading of the February 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement, as well as public statements by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, all point to complete U.S. withdrawal being contingent on certain Taliban actions. Because the Taliban has fallen short of their commitments to not cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States or allies, coupled with the escalation of violence in 2020, mean that troop withdrawal should only happen once the Taliban has demonstrated their willingness and capacity to contain terrorist threats as well as reduce the violence they inflict on the Afghan people. Furthermore, real, tangible progress towards a political settlement should be a necessary requirement for the United States to finish the drawdown of troop presence in the country. 

The third recommendation provided by the Study Group is that the United States clarify its commitment to the existing Afghan state and the ANDSF. Just as the U.S. needs to hold the Taliban accountable in order to produce the conditions for a proper negotiated political settlement, the Afghan government needs to demonstrate that they are truly committed to the peace talks as well as continuing the work of expanding and protecting women’s rights and human rights. The authors recommend that international donor aid be conditioned on progress at the peace talks as well as progress on rights issues. However, the Study Group does not feel that conditioning military aid is a particularly good idea, and suggests a maintenance of current financial and operational support levels for the ANA, ASSF, and Afghan Air Force. In this realm, the group also recommends that the U.S. work with donors and the Afghan Ministry of the Interior to begin to convert the ANP into a community policing organization rather than a paramilitary force as it is currently constructed. 

Fourth, the United States needs to conduct an active diplomatic strategy to ensure the peace talks, ideally through the appointment of a third-party mediator from the United Nations. In addition, the group proposes a number of measures to reduce the level of violence and create conditions for a permanent ceasefire including the establishment of disengagement zones, the appointment of civil society leaders, local elders, and other figures to monitor nonviolence agreements, and limited agreements to reduce violence based on violence type, geography, or time of attack. As part of this strategy, the group also recommends supporting outside peace facilitation from Germany, Indonesia, Norway, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, with pressure to move the talks, if necessary, as there are concerns that the Taliban are negotiating from a position of strength while in Qatar. 

Finally, the group recommends formulating an overarching regional strategy to enlist countries in the region to use their relationships with Afghan actors to promote successful negotiations, allow the countries in the region to share the burdens of sustaining a peaceful Afghanistan, and anchor the process within an architecture endorsed by the UN. Such engagement would encourage regional states to take steps to pressure both sides to continue with the peace process; to build consensus on the concrete details of the compromises the parties should be urged to accept; to encourage rhetorical support for the peace process as well as its outcome; spur action to put pressure on the parties to follow through with any steps they agree to as part of the overall settlement; generate financial support for implementation; foster a willingness to forgo interference in Afghanistan in the future; and promote a tolerance of a continued U.S. and NATO presence while the peace process continues, or in the event that it collapses. 

The authors also provide a number of other suggestions including resuscitating the dormant International Contact Group as a rebranded “Friends of Afghanistan”. The group contains key donors, regional states, and major troop contributors, and should be chaired by Germany and the Afghan government in order to enable the broadest possible sharing of information. Finally, the group recommends that, to build on any consensus with concrete actions, the regional states involved should be encouraged to “witness”, by signature, any agreements produced by the Afghan Peace Negotiations, as well as sign their own separate agreements declaring and specifying their support for the peace process outcomes. These efforts are part of an attempt to achieve a greater level of buy-in from regional actors who will thus be more invested in maintaining the status quo ante. 

Evaluating the Report’s Conclusions

Back in July of 2020, Anthony H. Cordesman at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, authored a report entitled, “Afghanistan: The Prospects for a Real Peace” wherein he looked at many of the same issues as the Afghanistan Study Group. Cordesman, in his analysis, believed that the Taliban’s ongoing violence, their preoccupation with dictating terms on prisoner release, and an utter lack of any indication of a change in the group’s ideology painted a grim picture for the peace talks. Furthermore, the lack of progress over twenty years for the Afghan state to achieve even a semblance of self-sustainability means that it is highly unlikely that a peace settlement will suddenly mean the Afghan government can effectively provide services to its citizens and keep the peace. That is not to mention the fact that the ANDSF, as described by U.S. Department of Defense reports, are a shell of a modern fighting force, unable to train and promote within their own ranks, and unable to do maintenance on the vehicles that they do possess.

The Study Group’s report, in contrast, was much lighter on the specifics of how poor a shape the Afghan government and security forces are in. In fact, the difficulties that would be encountered by integrating the Taliban into the existing ANDSF structure is so daunting, that the Afghanistan Study Group merely states that “should a peace agreement be reached, there will be the immediate question of whether and how to integrate Taliban forces into the ANDSF.” Statements like this are simply endemic of the Study Group’s entire thought process when it comes to evaluating what U.S. policy should be, in that it’s light on detail and heavy on hope. 

The authors of the report, in a supplemental section, go over some of the alternative pathways that were discarded in favor of their preferred pathway of maximizing existing U.S. leverage to achieve an acceptable negotiated peace agreement. Among the paths that were rightly dismissed, was a calculated military withdrawal that still prioritized U.S. interests and attempted to mitigate risks with nonmilitary means. This path was discarded because the authors felt that the obvious drawbacks were that the U.S., in that case, would be highly unlikely to achieve even a minimum definition of its interests, and that the result would be an Afghanistan in chaos. Another dismissed policy was a simple washing of hands, with a prompt military withdrawal and diplomatic disengagement. This outcome would be the worst of all worlds, as it would run the risk of fomenting more conflict than it resolves through a precipitous withdrawal, and would pose a risk to U.S. soil within 18-36 months. 

The final rejected pathway, and one they probably should have considered further, is a recommittal to the Afghan state. The group feels that this should not be the path pursued as the indefinite nature of this approach would provide Afghan leaders with little reason to seriously negotiate with the Taliban. Further, the group feels that in the event that the U.S. maintains its presence but conditions on the ground continue on the path that they have been, the Afghan government might need to return to the negotiation table, but this time with far less leverage. While that sentiment is appreciated, it seems to ignore the fact that this is the current situation on the ground. Currently, the insurgency is going well for the Taliban, and the level of violence, coupled with the drawdown of U.S. military presence mean that the Afghan government is negotiating from a position of relative weakness. The fact that negotiations were begun without the advice or consent of the Afghan government merely illustrates to the Taliban how weak the United States government thinks the Afghan government is. 

The government of Afghanistan, while trying, has failed to achieve self-sufficiency, and are unlikely to achieve it any time soon. Their military forces are unable to secure the country without massive U.S. assistance, and face the prospect of having to integrate with their former enemies, the Taliban. Supporting the peace negotiations, and using what leverage the United States has is a noble goal, and one that may produce something resembling a peace agreement. Even if peace is possible, and the slow pace of peace negotiations casts doubt on that eventuality, there’s nothing in the Study Group’s analysis that points to why it will be a lasting one. 

Working with regional stakeholders to get them to achieve some level of buy-in to the process is a good idea, as is supporting mediation and other negotiation support efforts like the five-nation facilitation group. However, when all is said and done, the end result may be no different than what is achieved through a calculated, or even precipitous, withdrawal of forces, and the Study Group’s report simply does not seem to recognize that fact. 

Therefore, senior U.S. policymakers will need to confront an unpleasant choice. Trying to use what leverage they have to influence the ongoing peace talks is certainly worth a shot, but should be accompanied by the acknowledgement that if this track fails, the United States will be back at square one, with a choice between immediate withdrawal or an indefinite recommitment to the Afghan government. 

If the goal is a stable Afghanistan that is not a threat to its neighbors, the region, or the United States, the only viable path forward is to recommit to the Afghan state, to increase funding and troop levels, and put in the work until a functional Afghanistan emerges. While this track probably has no political support, or even public opinion behind it, it is the only path forward that offers anything but wishful thinking. 

If the United States wishes to pin its hopes on negotiations between a Taliban that has yet to show it can keep its word, and an Afghan government who has yet to show it can be stable enough to provide for its citizens, it is more than welcome to. However, it should be understood that this suggestion is merely an advocacy for hope. Staking all such hopes on a negotiated settlement carries with it the exact same dangers as simply walking away from the country does, only without the clear-eyed knowledge that this may very well be a similar abandonment of Afghanistan to its uncertain fate.