AnnotatedOpinions.com

The international community has failed so far to undercut the warlords, and its chances of doing so will steadily reduce as the Afghan government grows in self-confidence. . .  

So we should not be surprised at the increasingly overt dominance of warlords. Western governments should engage them, but with a high degree of transparency, consistency, and conditionality. A first step is to determine which ones show potential for long-term reform, and which ones are incorrigible. . .  

For those who show no inclination to reform themselves, there should be consequences. Ideally Karzai himself would see to this, but if he does not, donors can withdraw funding from the provinces they govern or the ministries they run. . .  

[AO: There are a number of concerns regarding the writer’s, Gerard Russell, recommendations. One concern is that although America has had limited success in Afghanistan in terms of improving conditions there, working with and funding Afghan warlords could have unintended consequences. Remember, our aid to Afghanistan in the form of assistance in defeating the Soviets led in part to conditions there now. This is the lesson of unintended consequences that America must consider before deciding to work with Afghan warlords.   

Supporting warlords directly has the potential to ossify the current culture of strong-man-rule, preventing or prolonging the day that the Afghan people can move beyond warlordism. Moreover, just having warlords will mean that certain problems, for example warlord related crimes and fighting, will continue as long as they exist.  

There is also the problem of identifying the warlords to work with. On the one hand, Russell advocates a transparent relationship between America and the warlords. But as warlords, America’s counterpart in that arrangement will no doubt be scheming and engaging in activities that it will not divulge to the US. In other words, American will deal transparently with warlords base on information it has on them while the warlords continue their actions and attempt to drive those actions further underground maximize their total benefit.  

That is, because warlords benefit by being, well, warlords, and because warlords can benefit by being friends or seen as friends of the US, the circumstance will incentivize the creation and perpetuation of warlords who can both seem to be on the right track, for US assistance purposes, and at the same time move as much of their warlord activities underground as possible. In short, following the writer’s suggestion could encourage development of a system that encourages survival of warlords who can do what we want while efficiently and effectively hiding their illegal actions.   

This is probably not what the US administration wants.]