Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is in danger of capsizing in a perfect storm of insurgency that mimics operations and tactics witnessed in Iraq. This article assesses this insurgency and the re-emergent Taliban. The common view of the Taliban as simply a radical Afghan Islamist movement is overly simple, for that organization has been able to build on tribal kinship networks and a charismatic mullah phenomenon to mobilize a critical and dynamic rural base of support. This support, buttressed by Talib reinforcements from Pakistan's border areas, is enough to frustrate the U.S.-led Coalition's counterinsurgency strategy. At the operational level, the Taliban is fighting a classic “war of the flea,” while the Coalition continues to fight the war largely according to the Taliban “game plan.” This is resulting in its losing the war in Afghanistan one Pashtun village at a time.     

Russia: “European But Not Western?”

The question whether Russia is part of the Western world has plagued Russian intellectuals and Western observers alike for the past two centuries. The question matters because where Russia “belongs” is part of a larger debate about how one differentiates between “the West” and “the Rest” given changes in the Western family of nations, and because of larger questions of geopolitical alignment. The Slavophile vs. Westernizer paradigm, which suggests that throughout Russia there are two opposing camps engaged in a struggle to determine the course of the country is too simple to reflect the true complexity of post-Soviet Russia. Moreover, an equilibrium may have been reached where not answering the question of Russia's relationship to the West is desirable for all parties concerned.     

Putin's Silovarchs

Since the late 1990s, most of Boris Yeltsin's oligarchs have left the political stage. In their place, a new business elite has sprung up, most from the network of security service and law enforcement veterans known as the siloviki (roughly, “power agents”) who form the backbone of President Putin's administration. Indeed, the security forces’ takeover of corporate boardrooms is coming to define Putin's regime. Silovarchs can deploy intelligence networks, state prosecutors, and armed force to intimidate or expropriate business rivals. Their temptation to use secret service tools and techniques predisposes the regime toward authoritarian politics. Western policy towards Russia will have to recognize these realities. The most promising path toward authentic democracy in Russia involves the cooptation of leading siloviki into the international business world.