Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. US$33.00, paper. ISBN 9781032334943
Three years since the collapse of the republic government in Kabul in August 2021, what allowed the Taliban to seamlessly take over power in Afghanistan continues to be explored pedantically and in policymaking circles. Reasons for the sudden collapse of the Afghan government and the decimation of the two-decades-long efforts of the international community to set up a modern democratic state are myriad—ranging from the hasty decision of the international community, especially the United States, to exit from the long-drawn expensive conflict to ethnic fissures, governance deficit, and power contestations among Afghan elites. While factors like corruption hollowed out the Afghan government’s efficiency, the US-Taliban deal signed in February 2020 in Doha put the final nail in the coffin, laying out a metaphorical red carpet for the Taliban to return to power. Timor Sharan examines all these and many other factors, weaving them around a theoretical construct of political networks within Afghanistan that made the experiment of democratic state building in the conflict-ridden country unsustainable.
Sharan explores in 10 chapters, the fragile history of Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, providing historical insight into Afghan political networks and centres of power, which he argues began in the 1960s. Although these networks have evolved over the decades, they remain at the centre of “state formation and state building” (xviii). Sharan explains the key events and power dynamics of political networks over control of the Afghan state and its constituents such as the bureaucracy and the security establishment. He also delves into the perennial state of crises that has occupied much of the international community and successive civilian regimes in Afghanistan. Afghan elites and the international community were, on many occasions, equal and competing participants in the game for power and influence. As an election observer in 2014, it was evident that public support for the democratic state was waning in the face of presidential election fraud that further fractured as the National Unity Government unravelled in the face of severe infighting between the Ghani and Abdullah camps. Internal policy paralysis and the international community’s lack of effort to establish consensus among the elite worked to the advantage of the Taliban-led insurgency.
Although rooted in theoretical framework, the book’s strength lies in its real-story presentation of the events and facts surrounding the crumbling of the Afghan state in 2021. Sharan’s fieldwork provides an empirical foundation, along with his work experiences with the Afghan government and international organizations. Much of what he says in the book isn’t new, as these arguments have appeared in a number of essays and scholarly publications over the past three years such as Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili’s Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan, who four years before the collapse of the civilian government argued that the profound political order in rural Afghanistan maintained through self-governance defied efforts to build the Afghan state. Similarly in urban Afghanistan, warlords extended their sphere of influence to cast a shadow on the workings of the state. As a result, the Afghan state could never have become a welfare state, which would have been essential to garner popular support; it remains predatory, serving the power elites and their narrow interests.
One of the important highlights of Sharan’s work is his characterization of Afghan state institutions as they existed between 2001 and 2021. In chapters 3 and 4, he argues that these institutions, “rebuilt and re-assembled with international support, were thoroughly captured by the endogamous power networks” (285), so much so that state and political networks were indistinguishable from one another. This is in sync with his argument regarding the August 2021 collapse of the state, which had little grounding in popular support.
Sharan’s analysis highlights numerous reasons for the international community’s failed state-building efforts in Afghanistan. There are several counterarguments suggesting that the primary focus of these efforts was on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency rather than on actual nation-building. President Bush for example prioritized limited counter-terrorism operations and was largely opposed to nation-building. And in his speech on December 1, 2009, President Obama articulated the Af-Pak strategy, clearly stating that nation-building in Afghanistan was not a US goal. As Obama indicated, the US was not interested in waging an endless war in Afghanistan. The announcement of a US exit emboldened the Taliban, allowing them to reclaim regions lacking state presence and wait out their time. Shifting US strategy based on American electoral calendars and lack of a clear vision of an end state in Afghanistan did not help in the stabilization of the conflict-ridden country.
Sharan refers to Afghanistan as a post-conflict society. This is a misreading of the post-August 2021 situation in the country. Under the Taliban, the nature of conflict in Afghanistan has changed. Endemic structural violence targeting girls, women, minorities, and the elements of the deposed civilian regime continues unabated and the lack of inclusion is sowing the seeds of future conflict. Repeated and increasing attacks by anti-Taliban resistance forces and groups in places like the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province continue to claim lives. And the widespread governance deficit has remained a source of state disruption. Sharan himself predicts the “fragmentation of order and possibly a civil war” (294) as one of the outcomes of the deteriorating state of affairs.
Such perception variations notwithstanding, Sharan’s work is an important contribution to understanding the failure of a significantly expensive effort by the US and the international community in Afghanistan. While the political-network approach is indeed a useful tool for academic understanding of the failure of the state-building exercise in Afghanistan’s recent history, the complex Afghan imbroglio needs a more nuanced and comprehensive approach that factors in elements like the deep ethno-tribal fault lines, opportunism, and self-aggrandizement among power elites. The lessons learnt from the failed international intervention underscores the need to understand context-specific intricacies of local traditional societies wracked by decades of conflict and to focus on long-term institution-building to prevent future debacles like the one witnessed in Afghanistan.
Shanthie Mariet D’Souza
Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies, Goa