More troops won’t solve Afghan mess

The suicide truck bombing that blew a crater in downtown Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 90 people and wounding some 400 more, was among the most devastating attacks of a war whose purpose becomes less and less clear as the years go by.

Since it began in 2001, the con ict has taken tens of thousands of civilian lives, claimed thousands of NATO military casualties, including 158 Canadians, displaced more than a million Afghans and cost trillions of dollars. And for all this, what has been gained?

Today, the Taliban is resurgent, reaching into nearly half the country; Al Qaeda and Daesh are growing stronger. Afghanistan’s security forces are bloodied and reeling, its political leadership fractious and corrupt. Heroin remains the country’s top export. Peace and stability look ever more remote.

In recent months, alliance commanders have pointed to the growing chaos in the country as reason for NATO nations to add more troops. At the recent NATO summit in Brussels, the organization’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, asked member countries, including Canada, to send reinforcements for the 13,450 allied troops currently training and assisting the embattled Afghan forces.

U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering the request, weighing a so-called “mini” surge of 5,000 military personnel. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, has wisely shown little enthusiasm.

Some will no doubt cite last week’s tragic bombing as further proof of the need for increased military support. Rather, in the face of the latest attack and the larger intractability of the Afghan nightmare, NATO leaders should carefully consider whether, a er 16 largely fruitless years, more of the same really makes sense.

Why, a er all, would a few thousand extra troops make a decisive di erence now? At the mission’s height, the NATO alliance had more than 100,000 military personnel stationed in Afghanistan. Even that massive force did little to bring stability to the country. Moreover, the stated purpose of the proposed surge would be to buttress ongoing e orts to train Afghan soldiers. Yet this training appears to have done little to prepare local security forces for the ght against militants who continue to outmatch them. e problem, according to the U.S. Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, stems from pervasive government corruption. It’s not at all clear what more training and assisting could do to address the root of the Afghan military malaise.

Alliance leaders long ago gave up on the anachronistic dream of some sort of military resolution to the con ict. Ideally, the surge would serve to buy time for a political truce between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But that, too, seems unlikely in the current context.

A er all, it would require diplomatic guidance from the U.S., whose president, despite his purported deal-making prowess, lacks any experience or demonstrated expertise in international relations. It would require a good-faith e ort on the part of Afghanistan’s compromised leadership. And it would require the cooperation of Pakistan, which continues to complicate matters for its northern neighbour by supporting various militant groups ghting there.

Military solutions have done little to improve the situation in Afghanistan and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change now. Alliance leaders have yet to articulate a new strategy that gives con dence that a better outcome is possible. Until they do, Trudeau’s caution seems the wisest course – and not just for Canada.