Violence as nation-building
Much of the current debate on Afghanistan is focused on efforts to understand the changing dynamics and consequences of the ongoing conflict, plus erratic and self-serving proposals by the international community – chiefly the Americans – to 'manage' the increasing violence and prevent a total collapse of the current regime, led by the unpopular Hamid Karzai. At the heart of these proposals is the consolidation of a 'security state', helped by Western arms and money, with the primary aim of preventing the capture of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its 'global jihadists' and reducing the potential of attacks against the United States and Western Europe. Unfortunately, this very focus holds the promise of greater instability.
The conflict in Afghanistan is generally explained by narrowing down the causal factors to the roles of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the impact of competing policies of regional powers. The regional dimension of the Afghan conflict is certainly important – first to properly understand the situation, and second to figure out how to bolster stability. However, this regional aspect cannot be seen as independent of internal factors, which are what must be addressed in order for real peace to have a chance. Afghans, followed by the international community, have developed the habit of blaming everything on Afghanistan's neighbours and other regional powers, while ignoring the conditions at home. While it is important to deal with the regional 'spoilers', it is equally important that Afghans put their own house in order and stand united against foreign interference. It is Afghanistan's own internal weaknesses and the abuse of power by the political elites that have allowed foreign interference to prosper and internal cohesion and solidarity to suffer.
As a consequence, the current mainstream narrative has produced a less-than-frank, less-than-useful understanding of Afghanistan's internal dynamics, and the challenges it faces. The current description of Afghanistan by Westem analysts and media has produced a one-dimensional, simplistic picture, ignoring many salient features of Afghan historical identity, society, culture, politics and economy. The results of such a reduced understanding by Western powers, who are attempting to re-shape the country's political and economic systems, has been devastating for the country's people, and has demonstrated the limitations of Western power in a postcolonial world. Most Afghans, meanwhile, are too remote to fathom the policies of their political elites (helped by their Westem allies), who are blindly and unashamedly pursuing the illusive dream of shaping their society after Westem models of political consolidation, governance and economic development. Those Afghans who do understand these policies, meanwhile, are too timid to question their relevance, or to point out the horrifying consequences of these policies for the future development of their country.
Internal colonialism
Centralised state power and state control over the Afghan people and territory was developed substantially during the reign of Amir Abdur al-Rahman Khan, from 188o until 1901. Known as the 'Iron Amir', he single-handedly contributed more to piecing the country together than any ruler before or since. In his two decades of iron-fisted command, he built a strong, centralised state with a preponderance of coercive resources – all thanks to large subsidies from the British. The chaos following years of internal conflict and the havoc wreaked upon the country after the second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-188o) are said to have motivated the Amir to pacify the country and to strengthen its defences against foreign invasion. In addition, having failed to bring Afghanistan under its direct rule, the British sought to stabilise its northwest frontier, and to keep Russia at bay, by supporting a ruler dependent on them for resources.
The Amir was engaged as the first central ruler to seriously attempt to break the power of the tribes and local strongmen of Afghanistan. He put down many rebellions using a combination of govemment regular forces and tribal Iashkars (tribal levies), the latter whipped into action by the rhetoric of jihad. Political opposition was defeated on the battlefield – and, alternately, bribed and co-opted, fragmented or exiled; tribal and religious traditions were likewise co-opted to gain legitimacy.
It has been argued that the social and cultural diversity of Afghanistan per se is not the reason for the country's continued instability. Indeed, there is evidence to refute those that attempt to explain the failure of Afghan governments to build a strong, centralised and unified modern state in terms of the geophysical problems, ethno-linguistic and religious- sectarian differences, and tribal organisation existing in the country. This view safely externalises the problem of state-building by blaming what is alleged to be the inherent conflictive, fragmentary character of Afghan society, independent of the policies and practices of the state-building agents. It is true that the geophysical characteristics of Afghanistan and the socio-cultural heterogeneity of Afghan society have played some part in affecting the processes of state building. But more importantly, it has been the specific policies and practices of the central governments toward the various peoples of Afghanistan that have transformed existing socio-cultural pluralism into fragmentation and opposition to centralised power. Such policies and practices have thereby produced a cumulatively negative impact on state-building efforts in the country.
The fact is that successive regimes in Kabul have misused and misdirected the existing demographic diversity as part of state policy. Being traditionally weak, the central governments manipulated various groups in order to fragment and weaken society, often playing one community against another. This policy of weakening society and discriminating against the country's minorities helps to explain Afghanistan's decidedly long and non-linear state-building trajectory. From 188o until 1978, the Barakzai (a branch of the Durrani Pashtun) dominated rule in Afghanistan. This is a period that has been referred to as 'internal colonialism', which took place in tandem with neo-colonial domination of Afghanistan first by Britain and later by the USSR. Contrary to some suggestions, internal colonialism was not only directed against non-Pashtun minority groups. In fact, in the form of military pressure and coercion, such an approach was used against the unruly Pashtun tribes, as well.
Despite all his efforts, however, the Iron Amir failed to destroy tribal power. Maintaining a large standing army necessitated the expansion of bureaucracy to extract wealth by taxing trade and agriculture. To feed, clothe and pay his army, he also relied on external support, mainly from Britain. However, these resources were not sufficient for the efficient running of government, nor to support expanding state structures. The agrarian economy of Afghanistan suffered severely from the over-taxation, while the Amir's policy of isolation and overall economic policies condemned the country to remain impoverished. In the end, the Amir left to his successors a consolidated if terrorised state. Those successors continued his policies, gradually liberalising them as they went along.
No nationalism
The genesis of the Afghanistan state and economy provided an unstable brew as Afghanistan evolved into the modern era in the closing decades of the loth century. Growing vulnerability in terms of dependence on foreign aid and expertise, hostile foreign policies toward neighbours (especially the newly born Pakistan), massive spending on development and security projects, radicalisation of the educated elites (a by-product of the modernisation of the 195os and 196os), and the ill-fated liberalisation of the 'New Democracy' era – all of these combined to produce massive pressure on the Afghan state and society. Balancing these contradictory demands proved a handful for the royal governments, and subsequently dogged President Mohammed Daud Khan's regime of 1973-78. An 'autocratic nationalist', Daud's response to the growing political unrest was extreme violence, unleashing the state's modern coercive means against his opponents.
Daud's oppressive regime was brought down by his onetime communist allies, when they succeeded in carrying out the Saur Revolution of 1978. The communists, eager to accelerate the pace of change and development, embarked upon a radical reform programme, which ended up provoking countrywide armed resistance. Internal feuding between the Parcham and Khalq factions of the communist party – known as the People's Democratic Party of Afghani stan – and the inability of the government to effectively deal with the local revolts, eventually invited the Soviet invasion of December 1979. President Daud's overthrow by a pro Soviet communist clique, followed by the Soviet invasion, plunged the country into three decades of turmoil that continues to this day. The fact is, the royal governments and President Daud's republic continued to privilege the Pashtun at all levels of state policy. In fact, the nationalism they preached was no more than crude Pashtun chauvinism, and successive regimes in Kabul thus failed to develop a coherent national ideology. Official nationalism espoused the cause of 'freeing' the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and eventually uniting them with Afghanistan. No surprise, then, that Afghanistan's other communities showed little enthusiasm for the state's irredentist project. As in the past, any future moves to try and consolidate a cross border Pashtun homeland will not only further deteriorate relations with Pakistan, but has the potential to spark ethnic and sectarian tensions inside Afghanistan.
Even before the 1978 coup and the long years of conflict that ensued, the national or patriotic idea was weak and underdeveloped. In this regard, one is forced to speak less of some hypothetical all-embracing Afghan nationalism, than of rival ideas of the nation held by the country's different ethnic groups. Nationalism as such lacked broad appeal, except for the small and unrepresentative educated elite, mainly in Kabul. During the war against the Soviet forces and the factional fighting that followed their withdrawal, ethnic, tribal and sectarian divisions worsened, leading to further fragmentation. It could be argued that during this period, Afghans were neither one people nor one political community.
Afghan nationalism remained an elite concept, and its development was deeply intertwined with the Mohammadzai family as amirs and kings of Afghanistan, with their Pashtun origins.In fact, evidence suggests an intimate link between modernisation, nationalism and the institution of monarchy in Afghanistan; the masses were largely un-involved. The lack of mass support for state-driven nationalism and the difficulty of non·Pashtun groups to identify with it subsequently ensured that it did not evolve into a national consciousness. Although Afghanistan has made some progress since the 1950s, much of this has been restricted to Kabul and its small circle of educated elites. Even this group was deeply divided along ethnic Jines, with the Pashtun elites often claiming to represent the entire population, and the non-Pashtun bitterly resenting their virtual monopoly of power.(This has markedly changed during the last three decades, allowing non-Pashtun military politicial groups to emerge and control power.)
The only time a sense of national feeling developed countrywide was in time of foreign invasion, as seen against the British colonial forces in the 19th and the Russian occupation forces in the 20th centuries. This took the form of national resistance, a duty to safeguard the independence of the homeland against foreign invasion.A second factor also developed as a result of the harsh experience of civil war and exile, what has been described as 'territorial national identity', which promoted a sense of national belonging. This was the factor largely responsible for the emergence of the minimum national consensus on maintaining Afghanistan's territorial integrity, and was an interesting phenomenon, consider· ing the deterioration of ethnic relations over the years of conflict. Despite the fact that the political and jihadi parties used ethnic references in their war propaganda, the Afghan population failed to let go of the nationalist idea throughout the decades of conflict.
The initial support given to the Taliban can partially be explained by the significance that the majority of the Afghan people attached to the national territory. The declared aim of the Taliban – to re-unite the country and disarm rival military actors – won it considerable sympathy and support. The Taliban utilised brutal measure for re-unification, but their rule made it clear that spatial integrity was one thing and national social integration quite another, particularly in the absence of a common ideology . Indeed, the Taliban's capture of the entire country held the possibility of destroy· ing the fragile balance of power between ethnic groups, and held the threat of underminingthe very unity of Afghanistan as a multi-ethnic state.
Indeed, Taliban rule did deeply divide the Pashtun and non-Pashtun populations, who saw in the new rulers a repeat of the 19t1Kentury Pashtun-driven internal colonialism, marked by massive violence and countless atrocities. Even today there are disagreements as to whether the Taliban pursued its military conquest of the whole of Afghanistan exclusively on the basis of Pashtun nationalism (reinstating the Pashtun monopoly of power), or as a conquest in the name of Islam. What is certain is that Taliban attempts to reconstitute a strong, highly centralised state driven by a harsh medievalist ideology failed in the face of resistance from the country's other politico-military power-holders, including Pashtun communities opposed to them.
The long years of conflict had two main consequences for Afghanistan. One was the unravelling of the political structure, the national framework and the interactive relationship between central authority and peripheral forces. The second was the fragmentation of power and the emergence of various local and regional power-holders and warlords. In the end, while Taliban rule tore the national fabric, there were enough reasons for Afghanistan's various communities to want to remain within one country that the tattered fabric managed to hold.
Chopping the tentacles
Considering its troubled history and unsuccessful state-building efforts, how appropriate is it today to speak of 'nation' and 'state' in the context of Afghanistan? As a country, Afghanistan has always lived beyond its means, as statebuilding agents pursued overly ambitious projects to create a strong and intrusive state; in so doing, they jeopardised the country's national independence and economic security. As a society, no serious thought has been given to the fact that the goal of constructing a capable, effective and modern nation state has been based on unrealistic expectations and a wrongful reading of global historical processes. These goals have not reflected the national imagination, but only represented the narrow interests of the ruling elites. Today, as in the past, Afghanistan has once again embarked upon the road taken by its forefathers, repeating past mistakes while pursuing the elusive dreams of building a nation state. Following seven years of failed experiments after the American invasion of Afghanistan, it simply does not make sense to view the problem of state-building in the same light as much of conventional development theory tends to do. The present set of problems is unlikely to be solved by simply capacitating and liberalising the state itself — especially in a situation where deep divisions exist over the very definition of the Afghan polity. As experience has shown, simply strengthening the state might only increase conflict in places where the state is viewed as representing narrow interests, intent on lording over the country's various communities.
A dispassionate study must be made of the template for statehood being proposed for Afghanistan and other 'failed' states receiving Western aid to rebuild in the post-11September world order. Lessons learned from Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan are currently changing mainstream views in favour of alternative views based on the realisation that the European model of the nation state, on which the donors rely, is inappropriate for dealing with deeply divided societies. In view of the violence that is ravaging every aspect of life in Afghanistan, it is indeed time to forego the forcible creation of the 'ideological state'; to resist committing violence and excess in the name of the state; and to give up the sordid practice of unleashing the state's coercive and interfering power on a highly fragmented society, particularly one that is characterised by a strong tradition of resistance to arbitrary, centralised rule.
History should teach us something, after all. Instead of thinking in terms of constructing a 'strong' and highly centralised state capable of extending its tentacles from Kabul to conquer the whole of the territory, a significantly decentralised state is both more realistic in the short term and more viable in the long term. Such a state would require few resources to build and operate, and would be closer and more relevant to the people and communities. The current concern with a highly bureaucratic and domineering state runs deeper than the fact that the country is forced to live beyond its means. More importantly, a highly centralised ideological state will again run into confrontation with other powerful local and regional forces, which are variously described as 'micro-societies' and 'borderland communities'. It is believed that as long as the Afghan people harbour rival ideas regarding the nation, centralising the state and political power will only lead to more conflict and further fragmentation of society. Reflecting this thinking, the only reasonable way to achieve political stability in Afghanistan is by devolving power out of Kabul, which has thus far been the all-powerful and a perennial seat of conflict.
It is important to remember that, historically, the state in Afghanistan was not strong. But it was always centralised. Around the world, state-building is an ugly and violent enterprise. The commonly projected fantasy of a liberal state, benignly providing basic services and public goods, is sharply contrasted by the history of state-making in Europe and the contemporary state-building efforts of rulers in much of the so-called Third World. Some have taken this to push for a more effective centralised state, which would be able to monopolise the means of violence and overcome competing societal forces through the replacement of a large number of traditional, religious, familial and ethnic political authorities with a single secular, national political authority. In practice, in most Third World countries, the state has rarely completely overcome other competing forces. More importantly, there is perhaps no overriding need to do so. In highly fragmented societies, a centralised state, dominated by elite vested interests, has often set the foundations for violent conflict, consequently undermining both state and society.
The problem of statefailure is no doubt the most significant challenge of our times. Today, there are many places in the world where states are either weak, on the verge of failing, have failed or have collapsed altogether. This problem has become so acute that the traditional development discourse has changed markedly in recent years, partly in recognition of the central role played by the state in countries ravaged by war, poverty, famine and underdevelopment. The neoliberal discourse hinged upon the belief that political stability is a by-product of economic development, something that is seriously contested these days. From being a secondary concern of development, state-building now occupies a prominent place in academic and 'donor' discussions. This has never been more relevant than in the post-ii September environment, when considerations of security and concern with international extremism has highlighted the need to help weak, failing and failed states.
Against this backdrop – and in the case of Afghanistan, in particular – it is urgent to introduce a semblance of order and balance to the debate. What needs to be explored is the form, size and, indeed, desirability of a new state, as well as the question of the consolidation of political power in a national framework based on the nation-state model. It has been argued that reconstructing an accountable, legitimate, effective state is the primary task facing Afghanistan. This is clearly an immensely challenging task, and will have significant implications both for the people of the country and for the international engagement there and beyond. In view of recent warnings that Afghanistan may never make it as a full-fledged nation state, the need and urgency to critically examine the country's past and current efforts is obvious.
Global backwater
While discussing the problem of consolidating political power in countries that have 'borderland' characteristics, the concept of the nation state should not be regarded as the only or indeed the preferred analytical variable. In these countries, the state tends to be one institution among many. The borderland perspective is less assuming or deterministic than the common centre-periphery models, and focuses on how the borderland interacts with the state. Borderlands have not always been inimical to national interests, after all; during foreign invasions, border societies have constituted the first line of homeland defence. To protect their traditional mode of life, borderland societies have often stood in the way of both internal and external conquerors. Afghanistan has been and continues to be described as a global periphery – itself a borderland in its own way – acting as a geographical buffer that marked the edges of imperial control during the 19th century and struggled with liberal power during the 2oth century. The colonial frontier is a geopolitical area at the edge of politically and militarily controlled imperial space: a zone of transition of low administrative intensity outside the centres of empire.
But in general, such areas have made an uncertain transition to postcolonial independent nation states. With the emergence of the modern state system, borderland societies underwent many changes. The once-vibrant and prosperous lands of Asia, sitting on ancient trade and pilgrimage routes, have become the backwater of the world system. In most cases, these postcolonial states are today facing significant difficulties in putting together functioning states structures that guarantee security, representation and welfare. Seriously limited by geopolitical location and landscape, socially and politically fragmented, poor in internal resources and living on the margins of the international system, countries such as Afghanistan have far greater difficulty in adapting the modem state structures than do societies elsewhere in the international system, even in the developing world. An alternative reading of Afghanistan's troubled attempts at building a nation state is needed to help it overcome its current challenges. In general, when it comes to explaining the troublesome experience of state-building in Afghanistan, the focus has been on the modern state. The difficulty of statehood is generally explained in terms of failure to fully realise states according to the European model. Instead of addressing the root causes of the problem, the maintained thinking continues to attribute the conflict to the weaknesses of the state and the inability of the state machinery (the army, police, bureaucracy) to assert itself forcefully.
The altemative reading relates to how borderlands interact with the modern state. The significance of this interaction is not so much in the ability of the state to overcome various competing societal forces, considered a key requirement for the emergence of the modem state. On the contrary, the alternative view cautions against blindly following state building efforts, requiring that a single, secular, national political authority – ie, the state – overcomes all competing societal forces. What is therefore needed is to minimise the confrontation between state and rival contenders for power in society, and mechanisms to bring about a more peaceful coexistence between the two.
The point of equilibrium and stability in Afghanistan corresponds to when relations between the state and the micro-societies have been interactive and cooperative. Far from considering the nation state as the universal `container' of the body politic, the idea and basic form of the state should be left open to question. For Afghans, the constitution-writing process provided this opportunity in 2003-04. Unfortunately, this was wasted and no real public debate took place to offer alternative views of Afghanistan's future development. Therefore, contrary to views that assume the basic legitimacy of the Western style central-government state to be unproblematic, there is now a need for a fresh approach to state formation in borderlands of all kinds. The most informative perspective from which to study the phenomenon of borderlands is thus to detail an 'inside-out' account of the evolution of these borderlands and their experience with the nation state system. Revitalising the concept of borderlands in international politics is an attempt to deepen understanding about certain areas of the postcolonial world, beyond that provided by existing literature on weak and failed states.
Reconstructing the Afghan state on the conventional Euro-centric model would amount to repeating past mistakes. Evidence from the Third World suggests that an externally financed centralised coercive state, lacking a sound ideological basis (religion, tribalism, regionalism, nationalism, etc), deeply contested and based on unrealistic assumptions, is bound to run into serious difficulties. Most importantly, the Kabul establishment should recognise the limitation of this vision, and allow existing rival identities to operate in a national framework, instead of forcibly creating an artificial 'nationhood'. The danger of Afghanistan fragmenting along ethnic or regional lines does not stand up under objective scrutiny. Despite years of brutal civil war, ethnicised politics and untold excesses against each other, the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan have stayed committed to the territorial integrity of Afghanistan, a fact that can be explained by the trauma of exile and loss of homeland during the years of conflict. And yet, the idea of a country should be stronger than the fact that it will not break apart. And if the advancement in the social, cultural and economic spheres is to be the goal, than this idea of a diverse, non-centralised state structure is what will work for Afghanistan.
Instead of expecting the borderlands to adapt to the nation state, it is time we looked for other models of political organisation, social control and economic development that are flexible enough to adapt to the peculiar situations of these societies. Instead of following the well-trodden path of either the 'nation-building' pundits or the 'failedstate' gurus, a somewhat different perspective may have greater relevance for a society that has lived at the periphery of the international nation-state system for most of its modern existence. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that the centralised nation-state model has noteworthy limitations when applied in a 'one size fits all' manner to countries that are characterised by deeply diverse societies, and where the state is in constant competition with other social organisations for political and social control.
Re-building nation-building
Reconstructing an accountable, legitimate and effective state has been identified as the primary task currently facing Afghanistan. But what kind of state? The answer should not simply be reduced to ending the Taliban insurgency. The Taliban is not the only cause of conflict in Afghanistan today; there are many and they are local. And within-country politics have as much to do with the conflict as do broader aims such as driving out Western forces or reforming the central government in Kabul. Today, the central government is weak, and has been unable to extend its power and influence beyond Kabul. This may even be a welcome development. For decades, after all, external donors have promoted an ineffective, centralised hegemony in Kabul while disregarding the rest. Today, likewise, much of the international reconstruction effort is concentrated in the capital. What Afghanistan needs is a distant but benevolent and legitimate state, regarded as a broker or an ally helping to establish a favourable local balance of power and influence – working with rather than against local and regional power-holders.
The foremost issue facing Afghanistan today is not security per se; nor is it the creation of a central government with a standing army and effective bureaucracy. The challenge lies in balancing local and regional powers in a manner that minimises human conflict. The internal and regional dimension of the conflict is closely related and requires coordinated action. The Afghan government and its international allies have accepted that the current military and political strategies have not produced the desired results. The escalating violence has produced an ongoing reassessment of the situation, and a new consensus is emerging that a military solution is impossible. Instead, the realisation has dawned that a political solution is necessary to end the conflict, an important element of which is outreach and reconciliation with armed groups opposing the government.
A broad-based national dialogue has been proposed as the mechanism to facilitate reconciliation with the Taliban and other insurgents. The offer of entry into the political arena, in return for respecting the Constitution and laying down arms, is a familiar exit strategy from civil wars around the world. In principle, power-balancing and power-sharing are key factors in the quest for reconciliation and peace. Yet this is qualitatively different from the concept of reconciliation that asks individuals to give up fighting and integrate in the post-2001 political order, as some Taliban and several Hezb-e-Islami fighters have already done. Many of them ran successfully for Parliament, and some have been rewarded with high administrative positions. In this scheme, however, the terms of integration are laid down by the government, and the official expression captures its one-sided nature: these individuals are said to have 'reconciled' with the government.
In tandem with such reconciliation efforts, as noted previously, the national dialogue needs to propose a framework for the devolution of centralised nation-state power and resources out of Kabul. The country's various ethnic, sectarian and linguistic groups all play at the centre for political power. By devolving political power to district and provincial levels, the tension at, and pressure on, the centre can be defused. Unless Afghanistan is transformed into a multi-level state where dynamic interactive relationships are established between the central authority and the various communities – and among the latter through appropriate institutionalised processes of political, economic, social and security reconstruction – the Afghan people are likely to remain in the wilderness for years to come. Devolution needs to take place to the village, district and provincial levels, with powers to tax and spend locally and to perform key administrative and municipal functions.
The conflict's regional dimension can also be addressed by working with the governments of Southasia, especially that in Islamabad, to address the threat of insurgency within Pakistan and its spill-over into Afghanistan. The international community, especially Washington DC, can play an important role in ensuring a conducive regional environment for peace in Afghanistan and beyond, including the resolution of regional issues involving the India-Pakistan conflict, tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the latter's issues with the Western world. Washington can also help Pakistan in terms of its fear of a pro-India Afghanistan, by ensuring that Afghanistan remains neutral and does not join efforts to destabilise Pakistan.
After a century of misrule, the people of Afghanistan are in desperate search of a formula by which to govern themselves. The issue is not who should rule Afghanistan, but rather how it should be ruled. The mechanism most often being mentioned is centralised government, controlled by an alliance of some combination of ethnic groups. Yet the painful lessons of Afghanistan's history have been that strong, centralised government in any form leads to abuse of power. The current conflict in the south is not simply one thrown up by the Taliban insurgents. The blatant abuse of power by centrally appointed officials has resulted in the victimisation of rival Pashtun groups, who are then forced to seek protection by joining the Taliban.
The international forces simply view these groups as anti-government, and hence legitimate targets of their military operations – producing more victims and generating more grievances. This strategy has neglected the underlying tribal dimensions and the abuse of power by government officials who pursue their own individual and group agendas at the expense of the public interest. Bad governance and abusive practices, corruption, impunity from prosecution and lack of justice play an important role in the nature and transformation of conflict at the local level. These factors further complicate the conflict scenario, and are often not sufficiently addressed. Yet the generalisation of the conflict, by attributing it mainly to a monolithic Taliban, has helped to keep these conflicts hidden from public scrutiny.
What Afghanistan needs is a loosening of centralised power and help in envisioning and creating decentralised or devolved governance within a strong national constitution that attracts ownership by all communities. The current government should embrace the principles of community self-governance at the village, district and provincial levels. Such a governance framework will be expected to provide a substantive degree of representation and legitimacy by allowing greater self-government, instead of incorporating all rivals into the centralised state, which would only lead to more conflict. This is the only alternative to the current plan of arming militias, enhancing the state coercive power and reducing Afghanistan to a 'security state' – one governed by a few strongmen who can keep the country stable, and who can prevent the Taliban and al-Qaeda from retaking Afghanistan and using its territory for attacks against the Western world. The only way that such goals can be met is for the focus to revert first to Afghans themselves, particularly those outside of the capital.