The balance of power in Afghanistan: explaining the improbable rise of the Taliban

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2011
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
Initially, the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, "Operation Enduring Freedom," seemed promising. It took a mere two mouths for U.S. and coalitional to capture every major Afghan city as American firepower completely overwhelmed the Taliban. Just days after the Taliban collapse the war was declared won by the American media, "Taliban fighters may try to wage guerrilla warfare from the mountains; [but] it is unlikely they can stage a military comeback. The Taliban regime is effectively finished." Little did Americans know that nine and one half years later, the war in Afghanistan would gain the infamous distinction of being America's longest with still no end in sight. Over this past decade, declarations that the war was turning in America's favor or that the Taliban's days were numbered have been commonplace, yet the Taliban are stronger today than they have been at any point since the fall of their regime. Needless to say the Taliban have proven a far more resilient enemy than most predicted. Most Americans' introduction to the Taliban came after September 11, 2001, but America's involvement with the Taliban began well before this. During the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's, the United States along with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia provided significant money and weapons to the Islamist insurgency. The self-titled Mujahideen, with the help of the foreign aid, were eventually able to force the Soviets to withdraw, but Afghanistan was forever changed. Pakistan, as the supplier of the money and arms, had become intimately involved in internal Afghan affairs empowering their allies and defunding their enemies. The preferred clients of Pakistan that benefited the most were the more extreme Islamic groups; after the Soviet withdrawal and subsequent civil war it was these Islamic groups that were the prominent power brokers in the country. Although the existing groups at the time were unable to break a stalemate, a new force arose in Afghanistan and eventually received substantial support from Pakistan. The Taliban, Arabic for students, were nothing more than a small group of religious students with ties to the Soviet resistance. At the time, their rivals did not see the Taliban as a significant threat, but within two years the Taliban had transformed from their humble beginnings into the de facto rulers of Afghanistan; a feat that could not be achieved by the Soviet Union in ten years, any other group in Afghanistan for four years, or by the United States for nine and one-half years and counting. Making their victory all the more improbable is the fact that it violates one of the oldest and influential theories in international relations scholarship, balance of power theory. in essence, balance of power theory states that no state will gain a preponderance of power thereby maintaining a balance of world power. Although traditionally applied to the great powers in international politics, its supporters claim that the theory extends to intrastate actors that behave like states. in Afghanistan, this was exactly the case where warlords functioned as mini-independent states, in charge of administering their own territory. indeed, history has shown that Afghans almost without fail join together against threats, earning it the title the "Graveyard of Empires." The Americans, Soviets, and even Alexander the Great were all unable to effectively conquer and govern the country. Even indigenous groups, such as those vying for power after the Soviet withdrawal were each met with stiff resistance ftoiti other Afghans making doniination impossible. In a break from this history the Taliban thced remarkably low levels of resistance in their conquest begging the question, why? The objective of this paper is to explore this question and evaluate potential answers based on the wide body of literature on the balance of power. Although much scholarship has been done on the balance of power it has been almost exclusively focused on, European or non-modern states. In. a world that is increasingly moving away from being Eurocentric and state based, Afghanistan represents an important and topical case in need of further research. To answer this question, the history of the balance of power theory will be discussed in detail, yielding a more accurate definition, explanation, and review of its development over time. What will follow are the criticisms of the balance of power theory that will form the basis for the three potential explanations that will be tested against the case of Afghanistan in the early 1990's. These are: 1) that the lack of a balancing norm caused a failure of external balancing; 2) that superior Taliban administrative capabilities enabled the Taliban to overcome my balancing coalitions; and 3) that external support from Pakistan allowed the Taliban to overwhelm the other warlords. After ensuring that the case is appropriate for applying the theory, the three explanations will be qualitatively tested against one another to determine which contributed the most to the Taliban victory. What is found is that while all three explanations were important, the superior administrative capabilities is the only explanation that can fully account for the rise of the Talibari and explain why other groups were unable to accomplish the same objective of domination. The findings will then be discussed along with the implications for the balance of power theory and international relations.
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