Deals in the Minimal and Maximal Goal Set Worlds

By Dave Anderson:

Bernard Finel offers the basic outline of a plausible, credible and mutually enforcable deal that could be cut with significnt elements of the Pashtun insurgencies in Afghanistan:

The deal we would cut with them is, OK, we will allow you to rule in your area, but you won’t allow foreign terrorists into your territory. But if the Taliban think they’re winning, they don’t have as much incentive to bargain. The message that we would hope to send to them is, guys, we can do this [attack and seize your territory] whenever we want. We can destroy whatever you’ve built in terms of institutions.

Here’s the deal: We can’t hold it, but you can’t hold it either. [my emphasis and slight re-formating]

That type of deal is premised on the assumption that the overriding US strategic objective is the prevention of "far enemy" terrorist strikes against US and US-allied national territories and citizens.

I think that is a valid, defensible and minimal US strategic objective. It is achievable by working with local actors who are mainly concerned about local problems including the significant problem of having a massive foreign army clumsily occupying the area. The Taliban and other Pashtun nationalists would be inclined to take a deal as it restores their autonomy even if they need to make a "Kurdish" bow towards the concept and joke of a central state that they nominally belong to and can send people to the Olympics under that banner. It does not impinge on their local autonomy and their local power concerns which, according to US intelligence, is the motivating factor for the majority of fighters. Once the local deal is cut, the extremists are again isolated and are forced to be the local douchebags who disrupt a decent status quo instead of useful idiots and allies.

Now if the premise of US strategic objectives is a maximist, system and society changing objective of turning Afghanistan into a modern, coherent nation state while beating down on Pashtun nationalism and dominance of Afghani politics by their plurality of the population, then cutting such a deal is counterproductive. Threatswatch uses the word "surrender" when it describes the leaks concerning potential negoatiations of a cease-fire in the Pashtun heartland:

the United States is talking to the Taliban seeking to trade control of 5 provinces in exchange for the cessation of attacks on US bases. MEMRI summarizes:

An Afghan source in Kabul reports that U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry is holding secret talks with Taliban elements headed by the movement's foreign minister, Ahmad Mutawakil, at a secret location in Kabul. According to the source, the U.S. has offered the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.

Kunar province borders the Khyber Pass region where the majority of US and NATO supplies pass enroute from Pakistan. And the4 remaining four provinces constitute fully the southern 25% of Afghanistan's territory.

This, if true, is a disturbing development.

It is only disturbing if the operating assumptions is that there is a minimal distinction between Pashtun fighters who are fighting a "local" fight and the Taliban and then Al-Quaeda. It is only disturbing if the US strategic interest is either infinite occupation or a complete societal transformation where the Pashtuns are told to suck on it for the next century or three. It is only disturbing if "winning" is defined as not leaving instead of achieving at minimal costs the desired political objectives. Deal making makes sense under minimalist goal sets, especially when the deals concern local issues where the US has minimal interest or long term stakes. Deal making is anthema to long term and maximalist goal sets of system transformation.