Brian M Downing
Reports of Russian bounties to Taliban fighters for killing GIs have created a storm. The debate concerns how reliable the intelligence is and whether or not the president was briefed on the matter and if so, what if anything did he do.
The issue underscores the president’s inattentiveness to major issues and puzzling attitude toward Russia. The report might be considered in the context of American-Russian interactions in Afghanistan. After all, the region has been the site of bitter and often violent great-power contestation since Kipling’s days.
The Russian intervention of 1979
Reeling from the loss of Iran as a strategic partner and sensing vulnerability from the Right in coming elections, the Carter administration sought to cause trouble for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Kabul was embarking on a sweeping modernization program that was stirring widespread discontent. (Even the Kremlin thought the program ill-advised.) The US encouraged discontent, especially in a heretofore unimportant part of the country – its mullahs.
Discontent became revolt and the Soviet Union sent in tens of thousands of troops. Washington decided to bleed the Soviet Union. Moscow would have its Vietnam. The US found help from the Sunni monarchies, Pakistan, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Though deeply hostile to the US, Iran was incensed by Russian intervention in a nearby Islamic country. It sent help to the guerrillas in the north and west.
The Soviet Union withdrew in 1989 but continued to send money and arms to the Kabul government. Against expectation, Kabul began to pull the country back together. With no Soviet troops to fight, guerrilla forces had either disintegrated or fallen into infighting. Many areas sought Kabul’s protection and pledged loyalty in exchange for money and troops. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the subsidies ended and Afghanistan fell apart again.
The American intervention
The Taliban emerged as the strongest power – and al Qaeda fought alongside it. The 9/11 attacks brought unprecedented world support for the US. Most NATO allies sent contingents to stabilize post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Despite suffering casualties and humiliation from American support to Afghan guerrillas, Russia was not in a vindictive mood, at least not yet. It saw Islamist militancy as a threat to its Caucasus region and Central Asian periphery. Russia trained Afghan security forces and allowed supplies to transit from the Baltic.
The calculus has changed. Putin is acting more assertively in the world and is eager for revenge against the US – less for supporting the mujahideen, more for weakening the Soviet Union and moving NATO east. Putin began shipping arms to the Taliban several years ago. So did his ally, Iran.
Bounties or not, the aim was to kill Americans.
The Russians and Taliban are not natural allies. Moscow sees the Taliban as radical Islamists who evolved from the Pashtun mujahideen group Hisb-i-Islami Khames. But today they serve Moscow’s strategic vision, just as they served Washington’s years ago.
– Discontent is growing within NATO partners who followed the US into a costly war and trusted its vision of modernization and democratization.
– The US is being bled on the Afghan plains and the public’s zeal for foreign commitments is waning, especially with younger people.
– The Taliban have demonstrated remarkable tenacity and have solidified power in the south and east. They cannot be defeated and must be reckoned with.
– Though Islamists themselves, the Taliban may be useful in eliminating more internationalist groups such as AQ and ISIL and preventing them from reaching more vital Russian interests such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
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In this context, the Russian-bounty report is plausible, even likely. If we add in Putin’s dark record of assassinating opponents at home and abroad, it becomes all the more so.
The US may respond, if only after the November elections, by increasing lethal aid to the Ukraine and moving more troops into Eastern Europe. However, the most damaging response would be to withdraw from Afghanistan and leave the burdens of irremediable corruption and growing militancy in the hands of Russia and its allies.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.