Says the oh-so-wise PMSH:
On Afghanistan, the dominant defence and foreign policy file, Harper again looks ahead to tough choices. Rather than talking up the military mission in Kandahar as an inspiring undertaking, he used the year-end sit-down to vent frustration at slow progress in building a self-sufficient Afghan government. “You know, the United Nations and our allies will have been in Afghanistan 10 years in 2011. For God’s sakes, Germany was basically fully restored within four years; Germany joined NATO ten years after it was conquered.”
Any comparison of Afghanistan to post-WWII Germany is fundamentally flawed in several dimensions.
First, it ignores the massive cultural delta between Afghanistan's would-be occupiers and Afghanistan's denizens. Germany was a relatively trivial case, as Germany was a European power being rebuilt primarily by countries that it shares common history with.
Second, by WWII, Germany was a major industrial power, with a generally well educated population. Conditions in Afghanistan speak to a much different environment, with Afghanistan arguably still in a "Pre-Industrial" state with relatively minimal education in the populus.
2 comments:
Another major difference is that the rebuilding process in Germany was done AFTER the war had finished. The 'war' in Afghanistan is far from over, and any rebuilding efforts are pretty much a waste of time, money, and effort. Another point that should be made here is that the war with Germany was a conventional war against an identifiable nation state, that once defeated laid down its arms. Whereas the conflict in Afghanistan is against a subgroup of its population which has no identifiable head that can call upon all of its members to cease hostilities.
SB
I would also add the following. Germany was fully occupied and had unconditionally surrendered as well. And they had the burden of the Holocaust hanging over their collective heads. The situation in Afghanistan is so different; the Taliban escaped through the traditional routes they used to transport both arms into and opium out during the Soviet occupation and thus their command structure was relatively intact. They also feel they've done nothing wrong and are actually fighting for their own 'independence' from the West, as well as the interests of the drug producers of the region.
The insurgency is one similar to what the Americans faced in 'Nam. There are the Taliban forces who periodically strike at the NATO forces to only modest effect and then retreat into their hidey holes in the surrounding regions and 'partisan' units who may be working within the government units or hiding in plain site with the population. Along with funding from the local drug lords, Al Qaeda, and very likely Iran, the Taliban are nothing to be taken lightly.
The region we know as Afghanistan has a long history of being invaded and occupied, and of fighting these invaders and watching them all leave. In their eyes this is just the latest lot of outsiders showing up to impose their will upon the region. So far the various tribal interests are divided, some for & others against the western forces. Eventually, these groups will unite to either drive out NATO or the Taliban but it will take a concerted will to achieve this. Unless NATO is able to make significant headway against the insurgency the Taliban and drug lords only have to play the waiting game and get the local populace to do the dying until NATO pulls out.
E.
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