The Ripples from Afghanistan Just Keep on Coming…
How the successes of the Taliban impact migratory & jihadi movement patterns across the Middle East and beyond.
Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion says that a ‘net external force equals the change in momentum of a system divided by the time over which it changes.’ Objects, or in this case systems, tend to keep moving the same direction unless acted upon by an outside force, and (the systems) momentum is a product of the mass (or size) of the body and its velocity. Thus the momentum gives (the system) both magnitude and direction.
In Afghanistan right now, the withdrawal of US and allied troops has removed one such force, giving greater scope for the Taliban to move into the power vacuum, in the process gaining momentum and increasing the magnitude of their influence, something which manifested the day they took control of Kabul.
But the Taliban are not the only system gaining momentum in Afghanistan right now. The void left by the allied withdrawal has also allowed greater freedom of movement for ISIS-K (and perhaps even al-Qaeda, though this is yet to be determined) who are applying a counter-force directly against the Taliban in a very destructive and violent manner.
The force applied by the Taliban and ISIS-K (against each other) are in no way equal. The Taliban is more robust in every way theoretically, and the short sharp thrusts of attack applied by ISIS-K will inevitably result in a change in the both the direction and magnitude of the Taliban’s momentum despite their relative strengths.
The latest attack (though as yet ISIS-K have yet to claim responsibility, as of writing on 2 November) on Kabul’s main military hospital has resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people with more than 37 wounded. The Taliban responded to reports that gunmen had entered the hospital by dispatching forces to the hospital to deal with the likely ongoing threat.
This latest incident is yet another example of the struggle the Taliban is enduring in it’s battle to maintain control of the country it took over at the August. Their stretched resources are being pulled hither and thither, oftentimes to counterbalance the violence eschewed by ISIS-K in their continued theocratic war and one wonders how long the Taliban fighters, so long the aggressors and counter-punchers themselves, will be able to withstand the mental, emotional, physical and military onslaught brought by ISIS-K before some begin to question the validity of their position.
The change in the momentum and direction of travel for the Taliban has been extreme, changes that they are perhaps poorly equipped to deal with especially if the challenge of ISIS-K continues, as seems likely, and the much needed financial aid (or indeed the release of any Afghan funds) does not materialise quickly enough to at least help with the existential and emotional stress faced by the civilian population.
Newton may well have taken issue with my abduction and interpretation of his Laws to be used in such an unrelated context. Quite what he would make of jihadist momentum is anyone’s guess, though one might confidently predict that were he alive he would have a view.
Afghanistan today is awash with the movement of people: refugees seeking refuge; others seeking an exit and safety that has been promised elsewhere, but not yet delivered; the various armed factions of the tribal groups that still hold sway in some rural pockets; and then there is al-Qaeda, ISIS-K and the Taliban themselves all of whom are on the move to some degree or other.
But there is also momentum from outside the borders, and it is this unstructured movement, that falls outside of official channels that may yet have a decisive impact on not only the dynamics within Afghanistan, but potentially also on the direction of travel of some of the terrorist groups in relation to the West, and may in large part be a direct consequence of the power vacuum the US left behind.
In one of his many prescient moments over the rich history of his life, Henry Kissinger wrote in 2010 as Obama prepared for his much vaunted, but subsequently much maligned counter-insurgency, saying that ‘We have a basic national interest to prevent jihadist Islam from gaining additional momentum, which it will surely do if it can claim to have defeated the United States and its allies after (already) overcoming the Soviet Union.’
Following the chaos of the US and allied troop withdrawal jihadist groups everywhere have been emboldened and fortified, gaining the very momentum Kissinger had predicted, though the prism through which each (terror) group views the Taliban success story may differ and may depend on their degree of theological crossover (with the Taliban) and the placement of the particular groups jihadist sympathies.
It is thought that some veteran jihadists may migrate to Afghanistan from areas such as the Levant, to either bolster the Taliban themselves, al-Qaeda, ISIS-K, or even to strengthen ties and reinvigorate one or other of the many other jihadi groups (e.g. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Jund al-Khilafah, and Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)) that have populated the rural reaches of Afghanistan at some point or other during the last two decades.
These experienced jihadis will supplement the already significant numbers of foreign fighters on Afghan soil (thought to be in excess of 10,000 as of June this year) and may well only exacerbate the Taliban’s already significant problems. Effective as they were as an insurgent force, the change and almost direct reversal of their role to now act as the modifying, containing force providing a counter-insurgent presence is one the Taliban are patently struggling to manage with any comforting degree of success.
The deteriorating security situation, highlighted once again by the hospital attack (see above), and the apparent inability of the Taliban to contain the threat posed by ISIS-K just adds fuel to the fire. Worryingly al-Qaeda are once again on the up in Afghanistan and, unlike the limited nationalist vision of the Taliban, still retain global ambitions of Islamic dominance (known as pan-Islamism), much like ISIS.
Indeed the withdrawal seems to have driven some past US employees, including ex-spies and former members of the US trained Afghan special forces and elite units, into the arms of al-Qaeda and ISIS-K after having been effectively abandoned by the US, all of which has had the Pentagon this week warning that the US mainland may potentially be attacked by one group or another within the next 12 months.
What’s more across the West there has been an uptick in lone wolf terror attacks (from Bangladesh to New Zealand to Norway to the UK) that may have been inspired by this tumultuous turn of events. The defeat of America, cheered and applauded by right-wing extremists groups in the US, has once again highlighted the soft underbelly of Western democracies to the whims, fancies and trends of the Western media and public opinion.
In a world where politicians are only ever one election and a handful of years from relative obscurity, Western politicians, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Premiers are constrained and restricted by the, in political terms, short years of their reign. And whilst that accountability is a fact of living in a democracy, it is also an inherent weakness that can be exploited and used by enemies/competitors everywhere, regardless of their size, funding or ideology.
Waiting it out in order to fulfil a political, ideological or theological aim is no more nor less than patience, a trait that Western politicians are destined to be short of for the duration of their careers.
Biden, a long time critic of the war in Afghanistan, didn’t have to blithely tow Trump’s line and withdraw fully from Afghanistan. The reasons he did what he did we know about and are not part of this current discussion. But the moment he announced his intention to abide by Trump’s decision, even if the timeline was altered slightly, all the Taliban needed was patience. Bide their time, playing the negotiating game while American politicians duly fell into line with public opinion.
And Biden’s decision caused ripples. Ripples that continue to spread out across the globe, each ripple taking with it messages that are interpreted in many different ways by the many different ears and eyes that receive them.
The costs of America’s longest war are immense with numbers that become almost incomprehensible if one takes the time to delve, and what’s more, those numbers have not yet finished mounting.
What, however, remains incalculable is the effect those ripples have had globally on democracies everywhere. On politics and politicians all across the West and, for that matter, in the East. On the explosion of radical Islamic jihadism and the inexorable rise in the number of groups that peddle such violent agendas. On the anti-democratic and right-wing extremist groups that have proliferated and flourished both within, and without the political arena across the West. On the support that authoritarian and dictatorial leaders have garnered and gathered about them as democracies everywhere backslid and worked not to fall into the violence of a nationalistic mire that is so hard to escape from without much sorrow and much bloodshed.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fading myth of the American dream, and for me that dream was swallowed up in the aftermath of 9/11 and the loss of American exceptionalism. That 9/11 changed the world is readily apparent, but that change has come about in large part through the reaction of America to that tragic, tragic event (1).
In the days that followed 9/11 Bush and his cronies stirred up a belligerent form of ‘us and them’ nationalism that at the time seemed justified, welcome even, but looking back now it’s easy to see how it poisoned American politics and the American journey alike, and that belligerence has rippled out around the globe. No corner has been left untouched or unsullied by the war on terror and the excesses it wrought.
And those same belligerent excesses have been commandeered and usurped by authoritarian strongmen, political henchmen and dictatorial wannabes everywhere to justify their own political excesses. After all, what’s good for America…!
Newton’s 1st Law of Motion states that a body (or system) continues in its current direction unless acted upon by a force.
Those belligerent ripples will keep on rippling unless the West and its leaders make a concerted effort to push back against the forces that threaten democracy and threaten our way of life.
All this as Halloween season has just passed us by, and Trump still lurches about in the dark, swampy reaches of American politics, hoping no doubt to put his own ghosts to rest come 2024 and return us to his own heaven, a Trumpian dystopia where fools blithely doff the stars and stripes cap, and don’t dig too deep, taking what the master says as the only word that counts, much as al-Qaeda and ISIS-K see their radical interpretations of the Quran as the only word in town that matters.
Questioning such blind adherence is not advised in either instance. Education and the educated are unwelcome by those peddling their own versions of the truth, whichever side of the political or moral fence they sit. Facts and alternative views don’t sit well and don’t prosper. Just ask Adam Kinzinger. Just ask Ahmed Shah Massoud. Just ask Svaitlana Tsikhanouskaya. Just ask Alexie Navalny.
Momentum is all in the race to power. And the uncaring, the reckless, the power hungry will do whatever they need to do to gain, and then maintain that momentum.
For the rest of us, who believe in the truth, and believe in the facts, and are willing to listen and not dictate, the ripples of destructive momentum are forces to be withstood and repelled at all costs, lest we too will be swept away like so much flotsam, like so much jetsam, into the cold, deep reaches of nothingness.
- Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 era destabilized America and produced Trump; S. Ackerman, 2021.
