472

 DOKUZ EYLÜL UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

I hereby declare that this master’s thesis titled as “US Policy Towards
Afghanistan, 2001-2021: From Military Intervention to Military Withdrawal” has
been written by myself in accordance with the academic rules and ethical conduct. I
also declare that all materials benefited in this thesis consist of the mentioned
resourses in the reference list. I verify all these with my honour.
Date
…../……/……

The 9/11 terrorist attacks that took place at the beginning of the 21st
century were among the most critical events that has shaped the century. With
concretization of the concept of international terrorism, it has entered the
agenda of states as one of the biggest threat and security problem of the new
era. The US as the victim of the attacks was most affected. While the attacks
caused a foreign policy change for the US, the term "global war on terror"
emerged and led to US military intervention in Afghanistan, which would last
for about 20 years.
With the beginning of the Afghanistan intervention, very different
discussions started in the literature. It has become important to evaluate this
intervention in terms of both US foreign policy and the concept of humanitarian
military intervention. The questions that constitute the main subject of this
thesis are shaped by these two evaluation points. Was US military intervention
in Afghanistan morally legal and necessary? Was US military intervention in
Afghanistan necessary for US interests and foreign policy? If there is no
necessity from both perspectives, what is the logic behind US intervention, the
reason for continuing of intervention and the reason for complete withdrawal
after almost 20 years?
In order to answer these questions, the thesis evaluates the necessity of
humanitarian intervention through the theory of "just war", and from a
realistic point of view. From these two perspectives, an assessment is presented
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by explaining the reasons behind the US decision of withdrawal. The reasons for
the prolongation of the intervention process, which could not be considered as
successful from both respects, are also examined.
Keywords: September 11 Terrorist Attacks, Afghanistan Intervention,
Humanitarian Military Intervention, Just War Theory, Realism.
v
21’inci yüzyılın başında gerçekleşen 11 Eylül terör saldırıları tüm yüzyılı
şekillendiren en kritik olaylardan birisidir. Uluslararası terörizm kavramının
somutlaşması ile birlikte, yeni dönemin en büyük tehdit ve güvenlik sorunu
olarak devletlerin ajandasına girmiştir. Bu olaylardan en çok etkilenen
saldırıların mağduru olan ABD olmuştur. Saldırılar ABD için bir dış politika
değişimine sebep olurken, “terör ile küresel savaş” terimi ortaya çıkmış ve
ABD’nin Afganistan’da yaklaşık yirmi yıl sürecek askeri müdahalesinin
başlamasına sebebiyet vermiştir.
Afganistan müdahalesinin başlaması ile birlikte literatürde çok farklı
tartışmalar ortaya çıkmıştır. ABD dış politikası ve insani askeri müdahale
kavramı açısından bu müdahaleyi değerlendirmek önemli hale gelmiştir. Bu
çalışmanın başlıca konusunu oluşturan sorular bu iki değerlendirme noktası
üzerinden şekillenmektedir. ABD’nin Afganistan’a düzenlediği askeri müdahale
ahlaki açıdan yasal ve gerekli miydi? ABD’nin Afganistan’a düzenlediği askeri
müdahale ABD’nin çıkarları ve dış politikası için gerekli miydi? Eğer iki
yönden de bir gereklilik ortada yoksa ABD’nin müdahalesi arkasında yatan
mantık nedir?
Bu sorulara cevap verebilmek için bu tez çalışması insani müdahalenin
gerekliliğini “haklı savaş teorisi”, ve realist bakış açısından
değerlendirmektedir. Bu iki bakış açısından ABD’nin geri çekilmesi kararının
vii
arkasında yatan sebepler de açıklanarak bir değerlendirme sunulmaktadır. Bu
iki açıdan da başarılı sayılamayacak müdahale sürecinin bu kadar uzamasının
sebepleri de irdelenmektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: 11 Eylül Terör Saldırıları, Afganistan Müdahalesi, İnsani
Askeri Müdahale, Adil Savaş Teorisi, Realizm.
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US POLICY TOWARDS AFGHANISTAN, 2001-2021: FROM MILITARY
INTERVENTION TO MILITARY WITHDRAWAL
CONTENTS
THESIS APPROVAL PAGE ii
DECLARATION iii
ABSTRACT iv
ÖZET vi
CONTENTS viii
ABBREVIATIONS xi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE
CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.1. JUST WAR THEORY 7
1.1.1. Understanding just war: jus ad bellum, jus in bello 9
1.1.2. Problems and critiques 13
1.2. HUMANITARIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION 15
1.2.1. Humanitarian intervention during the Cold War 18
1.2.2. Humanitarian intervention after the Cold War 19
1.3. JUST WAR THEORY AND HUMANITARIAN MILITARY
INTERVENTION 21
1.3.1. Responsibility to protect 22
1.3.2. Justification for the war on terror 26
1.3.3. Realist critique on humanitarian intervention 29
1.4. TOWARDS A REALIST APPROACH: US STRATEGY AFTER THE COLD
WAR 31
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CHAPTER TWO
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: US MILITARY INTERVENTION TO
AFGHANISTAN
2.1. PRE 9/11 ERA: AL-QAEDA, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE US 38
2.1.1. Afghan Civil War and Soviet Invasion 39
2.1.2. US Policy to Soviet Occupied Afghanistan 41
2.1.3. Origins of Taliban and Creation of Al-Qaida 44
2.1.4. Al-Qaeda’s Anti-American Attitudes and Actions 46
2.1.5. September 11 Attacks 49
2.2. POST 9/11 ERA: NEW US STRATEGY AND INTERVENTION – WAR
AGAINST TERRORISM 51
2.2.1. Initial Reactions to Terroristic Attacks and Operation Enduring
Freedom 51
2.2.1.1. Initial Reactions 51
2.2.1.2. Operation Enduring Freedom 53
2.2.1.3. The Strategy of the US Intervention 54
2.2.2. End of the Taliban’s Rule and Interim Government 55
2.2.3. The National Security Strategy and The Bush Doctrine 56
2.3. RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS: NEW CHALLENGES 60
2.3.1. Afghan Interim Administration 60
2.3.2. Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan 62
2.3.3. New Constitution and Elections 62
2.3.4. New Marshall Plan 63
2.3.5. Taliban Resurgence 67
CHAPTER THREE
MILITARY WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
3.1. OBAMA’ AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY 71
3.1.1. Obama’s Original Strategy of Removal 74
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3.1.2. From “Good war” to the concept “Afghan good enough” 77
3.1.3. The Surge and Death of Usama bin Laden 78
3.1.4. Bonn Conference II (2011) 80
3.1.5. Secret talks between representatives of the Taliban and the US (2008-
2012) 82
3.1.6. Transfer of Security Responsibility and US Withdrawal 83
3.2. TRUMP’S AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY: PRINCIPLED REALISM 85
3.2.1. Trump’s Desire to End the War in Afghanistan 88
3.2.2. Influence of Regional Actors 89
3.2.3. US involvement in Direct Peace Talks with Taliban under Trump 91
3.2.4. Doha Agreement and Intra Afghan Talks in Qatar (2020) 93
3.3. BIDEN’S STRATEGY: LEAST GOOD OPTION IN AFGHANISTAN 95
3.3.1. Withdrawal of Forces: “End of the Forever War” 98
3.3.2. Biden’s Pragmatic Realism 100
3.3.3. Future Prospects of the Afghanistan Conflict 103
3.4. ASSESSING US OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES IN
AFGHANISTAN 109
3.4.1. Evaluation of Afghanistan Intervention in terms of Just War
theory 110
3.4.1.1. Jus Ad Bellum 110
3.4.1.2. Jus In Bello 115
3.4.1.3. Jus Post Bellum 117
3.4.2. Declining national interest and realism in Afghanistan 118
CONCLUSION 122
REFERENCES 130
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ABBREVIATIONS
ADB Asian Development Bank
BSA Bilateral Security Agreement
ETIM East Turkestan Independence Movement
EU European Union
HIG Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
ICISS The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
ISAF International Security Assistance Force
ISI The Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan
ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
ISIS-K Islamic State - Khorasan Province
MAK Maktab al-Khidmat (Afghan Services Bureau)
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NSS National Security Strategy
PDPA People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
PNA Preliminary Needs Assessment
PRT Provincial Reconstruction Team
R2P Responsibility to Protect
RSM Resolute Support Mission
SALT Strategic Arms Limitations Talks
TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership
TTP Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSC United Nations Security Council
US United States of America
WB World Bank
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
1
INTRODUCTION
The 9/11 terrorist attacks were the most critical issue in the United States
(US) national security agenda at the beginning of the 21st century, leading to the
emergence of the global war on terror. The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in
American history. The reasons of the war in Afghanistan and why it has been so long
as well as ethical concerns have been discussed continuously over a 20-years period.
The global war on terror began with the Bush administration’s decision to
intervene in Afghanistan. As the concept of global war on terror evolved, the US
began to use it as a strategy to justify military operations and use of force in different
parts of the world (Johensen, 2014). The Iraq War, which Bush launched two years
after the Afghanistan intervention using the doctrine of preventive warfare, is the
most important example.
The war in Afghanistan became the longest war in which the US participated,
surpassing the Vietnam War, when its full withdrawal was completed in 2021
(Malkasian, 2021: 61). More than $2.3 trillion has been spent in this intervention
making it one of the most costly expenditures for the US (Crawford, 2021a). In
addition, nearly 1 million US personnel served in Afghanistan, with more than
20,000 injured and over 2,400 personnel killed (Crawford, 2021b). While an extra
"death gratuity" of around 245 million dollars was paid for those who lost their lives,
nearly 500 billion dollars were paid to post-9/11 war veterans within the scope of
disability and health payments (Bilmes 2021: 13). It is expected to reach 2 trillion by
2050. This has been a great disappointment for the US, both economically and
politically, at the point where the goals of the American intervention and the results
achieved are compared.
On the humanitarian side, the Afghanistan intervention has also caused
ethical problems in meeting the purpose of humanitarian intervention. More than
46,000 civilians have been killed by the conflict in Afghanistan, bombings, raids,
drone strikes, airstrikes, and mutual operations by both the US and insurgent
(Crawford and Lutz, 2021). Many more civilians have been injured, harmed, and
used because of these attacks (UNAMA, 2022). The Afghan community, which has
been trying to escape this violence, has been displaced for 20 years by having to
2
migrate to surrounding countries and further afield. The total number of displaced
people exceeds 3.5 million, while 2.2 million Afghan refugees are in neighboring
countries (BBC, 2021). With the Taliban regaining control in Afghanistan, people
fleeing the Taliban quickly flocked to the surrounding countries, fleeing as migrants
to countries including Turkey, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan.
The liberal internationalist foreign policy attitude of the US has been
criticized especially from a realist and isolationist perspective, especially when it
comes to the continuation of the war that started in connection with its national
security, the weakening of its importance for the US in terms of national interest, and
the consequences of the ongoing war. Academics such as Mayer (2018), Miller
(1998), Waltz (2000) and Walt (2018) have studied the necessity of Afghanistan
intervention under realist lens, together with their research on US interventionism
after the Cold War and post-9/11.
There were discussions on humanitarian military intervention in terms of the
objectives, strategies, and way of implementing. These discussions, shaped mostly
by the ‘’just war theory", questioned the necessity, justification, and continuity of US
intervention in Afghanistan. And it has created a concrete field of study of recent just
war theorists. Elshtain (2004), Orend (2006), Wheeler (2002) and Walzer (2002)
helped to create the starting point for many works on the ethical infrastructure of the
intervention by adapting the just war arguments on military intervention and
evaluating the war in Afghanistan. Based on these arguments this thesis evaluates US
intervention to Afghanistan. On the one hand, it is seen as an unsuccessful
experience when it is examined from a realist perspective, how much the war is
beneficial for the US, how profitable it is and how much damage is done. But at the
same time, from the ethical point of view, the theory of "just war" and from the
perspective of humanitarian intervention, it is valuable for the re-evaluation of norms
and even adding new norms, and there has been no successful intervention in this
regard in terms of the outcome of the war. Researchers such as Connah (2021), and
Varobej (2009) have chosen to analyze the "just war" of the Afghanistan intervention
from a realistic perspective and analyze why the Afghanistan intervention began and
ended.
3
The completion of the Afghanistan intervention and the complete withdrawal
of US troops is still an up-to-date event. In this respect, it is important to examine
and evaluate the entire twenty-year process. At the same time, it is valuable to
understand foreign policy transformation of the US and the reasons of withdrawal
from Afghanistan. After all, a good number of years in the 21st century has been
spent with this intervention. Understanding and evaluating the end of American
intervention is important not only for the US, but also for the actors involved and for
geopolitical developments. Furthermore, it is essential to analyze the intervention
from both ethical and realist frameworks, also from the framework of the US
national interests and necessity of the Afghan intervention carried out within the
concept of humanitarian military intervention, and from the framework of the
morally just war theory, to understand the necessity of war and complete withdrawal.
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the foreign policy changes and the path to
complete withdrawal in the process of the longest war of the US, which lasted twenty
years. While doing this, the thesis attempts to evaluate the "justification" of the war
in Afghanistan with a realistic point of view in terms of the national interests of the
US. In order to achieve this, the decisions of the US foreign policy and the change
process is analyzed beginning from the Obama era, when the decision to withdraw
from Afghanistan was first taken, to the Biden era, when the complete withdrawal
finally took place.
The thesis is based on qualitative research. The literature in the study, which
was conducted to be more desk research, was obtained from academic literature and
research from the official websites based on information and data obtained from
primary and secondary sources. In this respect, especially from the perspective of
"just war theory" and "realism", the policies of the US in Afghanistan are evaluated.
The fact that there has been a lot of work since the beginning of the intervention on
the subject helped on objectivity and access to information. This facilitated the
research in terms of analyzing and evaluating the entire process.
The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter is conceptual and
theoretical framework, the second chapter is on US military intervention and the
third one is on US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. In the first chapter,
"Conceptual and Theoretical Framework", the just war theory, its definition and
4
historical developments are explained. The concept of humanitarian military
intervention is explained through interventionism, which has been redefined for the
last few centuries, and also information about its recent use is given. Then, the
relationship between the concepts of just war theory and humanitarian military
intervention, their common aspects, and the intertwined concepts such as
“Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) have been explained and how the realist
perspective evaluates the concepts of just war and humanitarian military intervention
has been examined. Finally, a realistic evaluation of the post-Cold War policies of
the US is presented.
The second chapter, ‘’Historical Background’’, began explaining the
developments in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks. After the attacks, the
new foreign policy strategy of the US in the Bush period is explained. The US
National Security Strategy is examined under the name of the Bush Doctrine and the
global war against terrorism, the US strategies, reconstruction project, continuation
of the intervention and development process are evaluated.
In the third chapter, "Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan", the complete
withdrawal process from the US's first withdrawal decision and explanation of its
strategy are analyzed. In line with the new Afghanistan strategy of the US, which
changed with the Obama era, the exit strategy from Afghanistan is examined. The
strategy and logic of Trump's foreign policy plan in Afghanistan are explained. The
whole process is analyzed by focusing on the complete withdrawal of the US
involvement with the Biden era. Finally, this chapter is completed by evaluating the
US intervention in Afghanistan and the withdrawal process from a theoretical
framework based on the just war theory and realism.
The fact that this thesis is based on the sources in English and mostly on the
American literature on this event has provided limited perspective. In other words,
the failure to reach to the Afghan literature due to language barriers might cause a
limitation. Another limitation might be regarded related to the theories used in the
thesis. The subject is evaluated through the “Just War” Theory and Realism, thus
there is the lack of evaluation in many aspects of other international relations theories
such as liberalism, constructivism, and institutionalism. However, it is considered
important to analyze the intervention from two perspectives, in terms of evaluating
5
the Afghanistan intervention based on national interests and ethical values. Finally,
due to limited access to primary sources, access to data and information through
secondary sources can be said to be another limitation. However, the fact that most
of the data obtained from these secondary sources have direct access to primary
sources shows that the collected information is consistent.
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CHAPTER ONE
CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The 9/11 attacks were a major turning point in international relations and the
work of many disciplines. With the end of the Cold War, while the world was still at
a new milestone, this event, which took place in a short time, brought new meanings
to the perceptions of war, peace, law, justice and freedom, but also brought many
controversies. These new meanings include the concept of just war, which has been
discussed since the early years of humanity and has gained new meanings again in all
periods of history. The just war, rooted in historical and philosophical humanity,
rested as a matter of debate as a result of two sensational events at the end of the 20th
Century and the beginning of the 21st Century. The reappearance of the concept of
just war, which was mostly shaped in the Middle Ages, and the beginning of new
discussion also raised the question of "Is the 21st century the beginning of a new
Middle Ages?" by some scholars (Bull, 2002:246; Friedrichs, 2001: 475).
With the concept of humanitarian intervention, which has gained popularity
since the twentieth century, the just war theory has gained value again. In particular,
the concept of preventive warfare arising from the US National Security Strategy,
known as the Bush Doctrine, and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan
and Iraq, led to the reading of military actions and interventions through this concept
by examining the concept of just war (Ozluk, 2015, 17). Therefore, first, in order to
focus on the policies and development of the US within the scope of humanitarian
military intervention, the just war theory will be defined. Then the concept of
humanitarian military intervention will be explained and its relevance and historical
development to just war will be given in other section. At the same time,
humanitarian intervention will be evaluated from the Realist perspective, and finally,
a realistic approach will be presented to the post-Cold War humanitarian intervention
of the US.
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1.1. JUST WAR THEORY
After the 1990s, the discussion of the concept of just war and trying to enrich
it with new definitions owes its essence and its emergence as a theory to medieval
political thought and its scholars. However, its existence as a tradition is as old as the
war itself (Moseley, 2004). Which in many periods of history has been discussed by
other philosophers and scholars as "the child of civilization" (Toynbee, 1951) or "the
father of all things...". (Heraclitus, DK B53). As a result, the rules and principles of
war have been drawn up since the beginning of history. At the point where human
history and war history are held together, it can be said that the concept of just war is
the same age as humanity (Weeks, 2010:10).
Faced with the destruction of war with the emergence of the first great wars
and mass conflicts, it is also said that humanity has set some principles to limit
potential destruction and prevent the destruction of society, and thus the first rhetoric
of just war has developed (Moseley, 2004). These principles did not develop in every
land where there is humanity. According to cultures and traditions, different human
societies tried to determine the issues related to war. In this context, the principles of
war, which were initially focused on the concepts of honor and pride, emerged and
war began to be seen as a means of justice in the first developed societies such as
Ancient Greece (Coskun, 2018:150). The concept of justice has also been an
important starting point in shaping the basic framework of just war theory. However,
according to his research, Cox (2017) shows that a war ethics was formed not only in
Ancient Greece but also in Ancient Egypt, which was shaped as a theory of just war.
The principled foundations of the just war theory were laid thanks to
Christian culture and medieval theologues that developed during the Roman period.
During this period, some sections of the Holy Bible were referenced to the justice of
war and pointing to ethical behavior in war (Dearey, 2003:25). In particular, St.
Augustine's teachings and his role in the Christian tradition were a guide for many
scholars in the foundation of the teaching of just war (Holt, 2005). Medieval
theologues and scholar from St. Augustine demonstrated a limiting understanding of
war and began to shape the teaching of just war. Most importantly, Aquinas
attempted to define the conditions under which war could be just, and the principles
8
of just war began to be outsized based on his definitions (Morrow, 1998:28).
According to him, three conditions were required for the war to be just: sovereign
authority, just cause, just purpose (peace). However, Aquinas is also important for
theory in that he is the first thinker to systematically list the conditions under which a
war can be considered just and legitimate (Draper, 1990:180).
In the transition to the modern era, ideas about just war continued on the
foundations laid by Aquinas. It bears a very similarity to that of Aquinas in the
circumstances set by Francisco de Vitoria, who played a religiously important role in
Spain's colonial period and conquests (Ozluk, 2015:25). But unlike Vitoria, he said
that differences in religion and faith were not justified causes of war (Corey,
2012:131). There has been a transition in terms of modernizing theory and becoming
secular Grotius, considered one of the founders of international law, has added a line
of law to the teaching of just war, describing the ideas he put forward for the
regulation of wars and the conditions for the war to be justified (Corey, 2012:140).
Thus, the teaching of just war, which tried to establish a more religious center in
medieval teaching, became more secularized and the foundations of today were laid.
Other thinkers such as Suarez, Hobbes, Vattel, Kant, Wolff, Pufendorf in the
period that followed Grotius continued to work on just war and tried to make it a
teaching of law by trying to distance themselves from their religious phenomena
(Nussbaum, 1943:468). However, the implementation of the teaching of just war in
international law corresponds to a period that can only be considered as new. With
the end of the First World War, a sustainable peace environment was tried to be
established with the idea of the League of Nations at the beginning of the 20th
Century. It was also possible to prohibit the use of force against each other by the
Briand-Kellogg's Pact in 1928 (Ozluk, 2015:18). It then gained a more legal
dimension with the United Nations (UN) treaty, setting out the rules for the use of
force. With the development of international law, the war called the use of force was
characterized as a legal war rather than a just war (Demirbas, 2017:896).
The Cold War dynamics and emerging new types of conflicts and wars have
been discussed and brought up again in the teaching of just war. With the emergence
of the Korean War, the Cuban Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Arab-Israeli Wars, the
Soviet-Afghan War, the likes of Walzer, Struckmeyer, Ramsey began to renegotiate
9
the doctrine of just war (Johnson, 1984:301-313). The end of the Cold War ignited
the reassumed debate about just war. Especially the struggles against humanitarian
crises in the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosovo Wars), conflicts and wars in the Middle
East (Invasion of Kuwait, Gulf Wars) have been the main areas where just war has
been discussed (Domagala, 2004:5; Dolan, 2005: 22). However rising terror has
unleashed a new and unknown war and sparked more debate about adapting just war
to the present (Dolan, 2005:22). The new just war debate, which started with the
concept of humanitarian intervention, continues today due to crises such as the
Intervention in Afghanistan and the Iraq War and the Arab Spring and the Syrian
Civil War.
1.1.1. Understanding of Just War: Jus ad bellum, Jus in bello
The concept of just war is used to qualify that war can be carried out for a
number of just and fair reasons. It tries to present certain criteria for deciding
whether a war is fair or not, serves a just cause and purpose or not (Fixdal and Smith,
1998:286). This idea, which seeks to create a war ethics and morality, also refuses to
separate politics from ethics (Elshtain, 2001:3). Understanding is at its core the evil
of war and unethical. However, concept argues that war is a means to be applied if
just conditions arise to prevent greater evil and injustice. By today's scholars like J.
T. Johnson, war is not an evil in itself, they say that we can characterize war as bad
or good according to who used it and its purposes (Johnson, 2011:2). In other words,
tradition discusses the moral obligations of violence and the use of force. When
evaluating the behavior of war in a moral framework, it surrounds the action with
certain conditions and restrictions.
The theory of just war, which stands out as a war ethics, raises a series of
questions about resorting to war. Why do we fight; it's fair to fight for what; what is
allowed in war and what is not... (Elshtain, 2001: 4). These questions are not only
about in which situations the war will be justified, but also about the rules and
restrictions under which the war can be conducted. Although many different
additions and changes have been made to definition and scope since St. Augustine,
there are two basic principles adopted by general just war theorists: jus ad bellum
10
and jus in bello (Calhoun, 2001:45). The other principle adopted since the 20th
century but not so common is jus post bellum (Cryer, 2012; Stahn et al, 2014).
The first basic principle of just war is considered jus ad bellum. The main
problem with the concept of jus ad bellum is what are the criteria that can justify war.
It is a principle that expresses the environment before the war has even started. Main
questions what the conditions in the surrounding area are and what the parties are
fighting for and whether they have justifications to war (Kolb, 1997). These
justifications were also listed for centuries, starting with Aquinas. Although the
criteria of many just war scholars are different, they are similar in their basis. For
example, there are three jus ad bellum criteria for Aquinas: legitimate authority, just
cause, right intentions (Lazar and Frowe, 2018:131). An example from today is
Richard Miller's jus ad bellum criteria: right authority, just cause, right intention, last
resort, proportionality, reasonable hope, relative justice, open declaration (Miller,
1991:13-15). John M. Mattox lists the principles of just cause, comparative justice,
right intention, competent authority, last resort, public declaration, proportionality,
peace as the ultimate objective of war (Mattox, 2006:9-10). As you can see, although
different environments and periods create different criteria, they have similar outlets
at the base, but they are all extended or narrowed down. But the important thing is to
focus on and understand the key norms in the theory of just war.
The right/legitimate authority criterion since Aquinas is accepted by almost
all just war theorists. This criterion includes discussion about who has the right to use
force and how to exercise it correctly. The sovereign authority, which has no higher
authority over itself, can only decide war (Demirbas, 2017:903). For this reason, the
concept of sovereignty constitutes the essence and dilemma of this criterion. This
authority was attributed to God at the earliest days of the theory of just war and
throughout the Middle Ages. However, with the secularization of theory and the
modern states becoming the present, the fact that the sovereign states are the most
authoritative authorities has led to greater debate about who will use the power
(Crawford, 2003:7).
Another important criterion has been the just cause. As described in the
emergence of the theory of just war, war is seen as unethical and forbidden.
However, some reasons may require fighting. Previously, these reasons were usually
11
caused by religious and spiritual reasons, but today they are caused by more secular
and ethical concepts such as defending the innocent, defending themselves,
protecting humanity, punishing evil (McMahan, 2005:14). However, the fact that the
war is a bipartisan action is another dilemma here. Ian Holliday, for example, argues
that war will not be a just war if the other side has a just reason to fight (Holliday,
2002:562, as cited in Ozluk, 2015:29).
The right intention criterion is in contact with just cause. The right intention
argues that for just reason, it can be fought to achieve the listed goals (Domagala,
2004: 11-12). Therefore, whatever the just cause at the beginning of the war, the real
intention should be to achieve peace and reconciliation. For this reason, this criterion
envisages taking the necessary measures to prevent injustice, eliminate the crisis and
ensure peace (Lucas Jr, 2003:131). The ultimate goal of a just war will be to achieve
a peace that will bring justice (Elshtain, 2001:9).
One of the most important criteria for just ad bellum is undoubtedly the last
resort. According to this criterion, any war or military intervention should be used as
a last resort. In order not to fight before this, other early and coercive measures must
be taken (Domagala, 2004:12). These can be diplomatic negotiations, economic
sanctions, political restrictions, embargoes, etc. However, if such tools are used but
no results are achieved, use of force could be appliable (Lucas Jr, 2003:136).
In addition to these four main criteria, the other two criteria frequently
included by just war scholars, especially after the 20th Century, are proportionality
and reasonable hope/probability of success. Reasonable hope/probability of success
is the criterion that argues that even if there are fair grounds for entering a war, it
cannot be considered a just war if it has no chance of success (Elshtain, 2001:4). In
connection with this, proportionality is the criterion that compares the outcome of the
war and before. So, if the situation at the end of the war is worse than it was at the
beginning and has more harm than benefits, this war cannot be considered a just war
(Fixdal and Smith, 1998:303-304, McMahan, 2005: 3-4). In addition, open
declaration is frequently mentioned as jus ad bellum criterion. As its name makes
clear, it describes the obligation of one party to inform the other party and explain it
to the communities when entering the war (Calhaun, 2001:47). Otherwise, a war
cannot be considered just and undermines the justification of the just side.
12
According to jus ad bellum criteria, once the war is considered just, the other
principle of just war comes into play. This principle, referred to as jus in bello, has
been a matter of debate about how to conduct the war fairly. In the meaning of the
word, the principle has tried to establish limitations in the case of war based on the
questions of what is right in war and what should be the rights of war (Johnson,
1984:302). Walzer (1977:21) described the independence of jus in bello (law in war)
principle from jus ad bellum principle, saying that a war that is justified can be
conducted unjustly or a war that is unjust can be justified. The two principles
generally accepted under jus in bello criteria are: proportionality and discrimination.
The principle of proportionality describes proportionality of the forces and
tools used during the war (Johnson, 1994:323). The purpose of this criterion is to
minimize the destructiveness of war and to limit the use of excessive force (Elshtain,
2001:4). It is argued that actions such as rape, plunder, and embezzlement, which are
considered unethical and do not coincide with human values, should not be applied.
The discrimination criterion relates to the discrimination of targets in battle.
McMahan (2005:6), for example, explains this as the need for fighters' attacks to be
targeted only on military targets and soldiers. More specifically, it can be explained
as the immunity of civilians and innocents. Because according to just war, war is
opened up against those who cause harm and threaten humanity, its main goal is to
protect civilians and ensure that they are not affected (McMahan, 2006:50).
With the increase of just war debates in the 20th century, the principle of jus
post bellum, which was not previously included in the literature, began to be
adopted. This principle is related to the arrangement of peace and the provision of
justice after the conflict (Stahn, 2006:921). However, it also includes other actions
such as repairing the damage caused by war after the war, determining the
responsibilities of the warring and restructuring (Williams and Caldwell, 2006:315).
Generally speaking, the principles of just war have revealed the criteria
before, during, and after the end of a war. Although the principles of jus ad bellum
and jus in bello have changed shape almost since the beginning of history, there have
been two basic principles of just war. The recent change in the values and way of
war, and the development of international law and institutions, has played an
important role in the jus post-war bellum principle for the postwar situation.
13
1.1.2. Problems and Critiques
The theory of just war, which has been widely discussed and designed by
many scholars and theorists, also has many contradictions and dilemmas in it. Some
of these contradictions and dilemmas are caused by principles and criteria
themselves, but also by the new dynamics created by the changing world. Certain
scenarios that may arise for the principles and the criteria they create cause problems.
Just war theorists, on the other hand, have been criticized by others for their
mindsets, which can be considered invalid against these scenarios.
For example, the concept of just cause, which is one of the most basic and
indisputable criteria, causes some dilemmas in terms of scope. To protect yourself, to
protect your allies, to recover what they have lost or to punish the aggressive act are
such justifiable reasons that have formed the foundations since the classical teaching
of just war (Fixdal and Smith, 2005:295). The changes in the definition of the act of
aggression here and the new concepts are quite open-ended. Physical injury is an
aggressive act, as well as a commercial embargo against a society or state is an
aggressive act in the eyes of the states (Moseley, 2004). So, can the embargoed state
carry out an attack as feeling threatened? If this action is justifiable, is the embargoed
state deemed to have acted unfairly? Which side has committed the first unjust
action? Although it contains no violence, does the embargoed state give the opposite
state a reason for a just war with an aggressive act? There needs to be a consistent
and robust explanation of what is meant by the right reason for answering such
questions. Ultimately, the just war theory does not answer the question of what is just
war (Calhaun, 2001:50). Considering that both sides fighting can use this rhetoric
when the main goal is to ensure good and peace and to avoid evil, finding out which
side has the just cause can also lead to endless debate, because the element that
constitutes the just cause may differ from one interpretation to another (Kalkavan,
2018: 4).
Again, the criterion of legal authority in classical just war thinking is still an
ongoing condition for just war. The emergence was born of the idea that only legal
political organs, not individuals, could wage war. Thus, it was thought that there
could be a just war under the responsibility of a legal authority, not the legitimacy of
14
individuals and certain groups. But can the legality of an authority really be a
criterion? Wasn't Hitler himself a leader with legal authority and who had uncovered
his own justifications? How legal was the puppet government, which was formed
under the name Vichy Government? (Moseley, 2004) Therefore, it will be
controversial to refer to the concept of legal authority as a just criterion of war
without answering questions about what is meant with the state and how to ensure
the legality of a government (Johnson, 1984:309). At the same time, the international
emergence of new actors has raised another legal authority issue. Revolutionary
groups, separatist groups, terrorist groups have also ignited a huge debate about the
legality of the new world as actors involved in the concept of war (Hower and
Millies, 2006:9-13).
Another criticism came from the use of war as a last resort. Of course, a just
war should never resort to war first. However, the changing definition of war and
changes in today's technologies also see the use of war as a last resort as something
that may be too late (Calhoun, 2001:49). The more modern, more destructive, and
irreversible properties of weapons now make it difficult to use them, but they also
provide a window into the side that can use them (Baloglu, 2019:38). This reveals
one of the points at which the theory of just war is associated with humanitarian
military intervention and preemption. Accordingly, an obstruction that is too late
may cause more damage (Fixdal and Smith, 1998:302). Such a dilemma has been
pushed to be examined mostly in the name of discussions of humanitarian military
intervention.
While having the right intention is also less problematic, its robustness has
still been a critical principle, because it may be a mystery at what point the right
intentions and interests are separated and intersected (Childress, 1978:438). Helping
and defending a neighbor may seem like a moral act, but what if his actions and
interests deserve such aggression? In other words, if what is needed to achieve peace
is to attack the neighboring state, what will just war say about it? How can we
calculate the morality of action if defending the oppressed nation in a state but taking
advantage of the turmoil in that country serves the interests of the state? So, it's not
just about moving right it's about the right intention, but it's not measurable (Fixdal
and Smith, 1998:300).
15
The principle of reasonable success and the principle of proportionality also
create a moral-practical dilemma. If there is no plausible success, shouldn't an
oppressed group be helped? If a state has no chance of winning, does it have to give
up and surrender? How fair is it to crush a stronger side if it's more cost-effective and
more likely to succeed? (Moseley, 2004) Such questions indicate that while these
criteria may seem morally correct, there may be problems with their practical
application.
Criticism of jus in bello criteria also addressed the lack of practical aspect of
theory in general. The emergence of new forms of war on the principle of
discrimination, and especially guerrilla wars, has raised new problems in terms of
civil and combatant separation (Walzer, 1977:179). At the same time, the fact that
the weakness of modern weapons in attacks leads to civilian deaths as 'collateral
damage' creates unfairness of any just war (Walzer, 1977:151, Elshtain, 2001:5). In
addition, questions about the change of tactics to be used during the war in the new
world and that some unethical acts such as assassination can be used to achieve
better causes another problematic debate (Moseley, 2004).
The criticisms that can cause problems on the philosophical and moral side of
just war and remain philosophical in general have evolved into different discussions
due to the changing world, definitions, new ideas and concepts, especially since the
end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century. Especially with the
development of international relations and the concept of humanitarian military
intervention in the legal aspect, the theory of just war has been directed to be
discussed through this concept and to the concept of increasing interventionism today
as a field of discussion for theorists.
1.2. HUMANITARIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION
The concept of humanitarian military intervention can be defined as a state or
authority's use of military force to end human rights violations against another state
or authority (Marjanovic, 2011). Keohane and Holzgrefe (2002) accepted this
definition but highlighted the point of use of military force without the permission of
the intervened state within the concept of humanitarian intervention. However, many
16
theorists and scholars may have different additions or deficiencies in their
definitions. However, a common feature of the theories of humanitarian intervention
is that humanitarian intervention is based on Kantist moral ethics (Bagnoli, 2006;
Nardin, 2002; Pape, 2012).
The idea, theory and application of humanitarian military intervention also
present many dilemmas for the international community. Just as in the theory of fair
war, definitions that create gaps in humanitarian intervention raise some questions:
What are the standards of the humanitarian emergency, and to what extent do
different opinions agree on these standards? Even if an agreement is reached in such
a situation, do states have the right to intervene? And if it is to be intervened, who
should and according to what rules should it act? Basically, the scholars who try to
answer these questions are camped out through the "solidarist-pluralist" distinction
of the English School (Bellamy, 2003a: 3; Stivachtis, 2017:31).
Pluralists argue that there is no agreement on the standards of the
humanitarian emergency. And therefore, they say that the intervention of states in
humanitarian crises is usually not due to humanitarian emergencies, but to national
interests (Booth, 1999:94). This, arguing that this violates the rights of a state, defies
the norm of protection and non-interference in sovereignty, making weak states more
vulnerable to the powerful (Bellamy's, 2003a: 4; Dunne, 2016). For this reason,
pluralists like Bull argue that states defend the rules of the international community
not only with a sense of national interest, but also because the rules appear to have
moral and legal authority by the states (Wheeler, 1992:467). In other words, the
pluralists argue that humanitarian intervention is illegal according to the rules of the
international community, focusing on the norms of mutual recognition of state
sovereignty and non-intervention (Bellamy, 2003b:323).
Solidarists, on the other hand, almost completely oppose these views of
pluralists. First of all, he believes that the international community can have a
common position that will determine the standards of the humanitarian emergency
(Bellamy, 2003a: 4). As an example, they cite the human rights regime adopted by
the UN as an example. However, they say that the dominant model of pluralists and
the non-intervention rule will cause some states to exploit their own communities
and citizens (Dunne, 2016). Solidarists think that if there is a great deal of harm and
17
the sovereign state is guilty or unable to prevent it, then the international community
has a duty to intervene to help those who suffer it (Dunne, 2016).
These two views are important for separating the scholars and the
academicians to parties in the ongoing humanitarian intervention debate. Because the
different discussions in different periods were generally shaped by the definitions
within this solidarist and pluralist distinction, and the sides of many scholars were
separated from these two concepts. In order to understand the concept of
humanitarian military intervention through these explanations and definitions, it is
necessary to know the development of the concept of humanitarian intervention.
The humanitarian military intervention was first described in the 19th century.
As recently as a century ago, it entered into the debates of international law.
However, the roots that form the criteria and principles of the concept of
humanitarian military intervention are based on the teaching of just war. From the
just war point of view, the humanitarian military intervention advocates can only be
for humanity. However, the concept of nation-state and territorial integrity with the
1648 Westphalia Peace gave birth to the concept of non-intervention, which formed
the basis of international law and society, and forms another part of humanitarian
military intervention (Massingham, 2008:810). However, there is a dilemma here.
The concepts of respect for humanity and sovereignty do not correspond to the
concepts of war and military intervention (Cassese, 2005:375, Miller, 2000:5). This
dilemma over humanitarian intervention is still the basis of the debate over whether
such an application should be carried out.
The acceptance of the concept of humanitarian military intervention, which
we understand today, in the literature is a 19th-century originated concept. According
to Brownlie (1963:338), it is considered an inherently obscure and abusive concept
by powerful states. While there is no interpretation of this concept in any legal
document or agreement, the concepts of sovereignty and non-intervention of states
are emphasized. Yet the League of Nations, the Briand-Kellogg Pact and the
Saavedra Lamas Treaty explicitly banned any intervention, both armed and
diplomatic, and sought to remain within a more pluralist framework. (Massingham,
2008:812). After the Second World War, the principles of non-intervention, which
are still accepted today, were developed under the UN Charter. According to the UN
18
Charter, all states are equal to each other based on the principle of sovereignty (UN
Charter, art. 2, para. 1). It also prohibits the use of force that would harm or threaten
the territorial integrity or independence of any other state (UN Charter, art. 2, para.
4). Only the right to self-defense is designated as an exception to this prohibition on
the use of force (UN Charter, art. 51). Although human rights are mentioned in many
parts of the Charter, it does not contain a clause regarding the use of force. This led
to a continuation of the dilemma between a humanitarian cause and a violation of
sovereignty, and further fed the thoughts of the pluralists (Franck, 2003: 216).
1.2.1. Humanitarian Intervention during the Cold War
The Cold War and beyond is a paradigm shift for humanitarian intervention,
according to Bertschinger (2016). Interventionism in the Cold War was inherently
influenced by World War II regulations and considered illegal, including the use of
military force for any intervention (Welde and Wardhani, 2020:229). While the
unconstructed rule of non-intervention is accepted by the UN charter, human rights
violations or civil wars in member states are left to their own internal jurisdiction1.
And with the exception of the South Africa and Rhodesian examples of the 1960s,
the UN did not approach the search for intervention or resolution2. Thus, it can be
said that the pluralists prevailed during the Cold War.
However, there were inevitably interventions during the Cold War, and there
were far from humane. The Cold War rivalry led to numerous interventions by the
US and the Soviet Union. The ideological and strategic warfare of the Cold War
caused both sides to try to justify their interventions on moral grounds. Military
interventions by superpowers, especially during this polar war, appeared to be carried
out on humanitarian grounds, but were due to political interests and balance policies
(Ayoob, 2015:85-86). As the US rose to superpower status and was in no position to
prioritize legal and moral principles in its fight against the Soviets (Walt, 2018:9). In
1 UN Article 2.7. It constitutes the article which states that the UN does not have the authority to
intervene in matters that fall within the internal affairs of any state. See more in UN Charter.
2 UN member states intervened Rhodesian Civil War by imposed sanctions. Also, UNSC applied
Resolution 411 due to ‘’illegal racist minority regime’’ in Rhodesia.
19
such an environment, there were not many legal developments during the Cold War
to defend or advance the legality of humanitarian military intervention.
The 1960s and 1970s were a difficult time for humanitarian intervention.
Especially when the reactions against the Vietnam War and US policy combined
with the unsuccessful operation, a great disappointment emerged. However, the
regulation of refugee aid in the later Cambodia crisis3 can be said as a positive
development against humanitarian interventionism, although it serves political
interests. However, although the support for humanitarian intervention was tried to
be increased during the Reagan era, previous failures and the bad reputation of the
US did not allow this much (AFR, 2021).
During the Cold War, the US also carried out some of the actions it now
opposes under the circumstances of that period. For example, in the late World War
II, the US bombed German civilian areas, supported the regimes of anti-communism
dictators during the Cold War. Also opposed unnecessary interventions for his own
benefit, was reluctant to spend money, condoned mass killings like Cambodia and
refused to intervene unless there was a strategic and strong justification (Walt,
2018:9). Sometimes went into a pit like Vietnam to balance Soviet competition by
not serving its own interests and acting far from the realism of the US (Morgenthau,
1965).
1.2.2. Humanitarian Intervention after the Cold War
Since the 1990s, however, both the end of the Cold War and the different
dynamics that emerged have changed the situation. With the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the unipolar order that emerged in the hegemony of the US also led to a
change in humanitarian interventionism and implementation. After the Cold War, the
US became more casual and episodic, especially with much less concern about the
US interventions (Mastanduno, 1997:57). This was because of the comfort of the
lack of a superpower to respond to the US in a unipolar world. Which is a good
3 A 24-year crisis that started during the Vietnam War and continued with the invasion of Vietnam.
It has caused millions of Cambodians to die, displace and emigrate. It is important that the UN
Peacekeeping operations after 1991 and the United Nations Transitional Authority, which he later
established in Cambodia, took part in resolving the crisis and restructuring it. see more
https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/untacbackgr1.html
20
example of the fact that the US was not involved in the Yugoslav crisis until almost
the last moment. However, while oil concerns during the Gulf War and the US
interests accelerated the intervention, they resisted intervention in events that did not
affect the vital interests of the US, such as Rwanda and Somalia (Mastanduno,
1997:57).
At the same time, the definition of security changed and concepts such as
civil wars, conflict resolutions or conflict prevention began to take their place as
security objects of the post-Cold War era (Walde and Wardhani, 2020:230). The idea
that solidarists and humanitarian crises could also pose a threat to international peace
and security began to gain more power (Bellamy's, 2003b: 325). The process that
began with the invasion of Kuwait and subsequent UN Coalition intervention in Iraq
emerged as an exception to the principle of non-intervention, setting an example for
the humanitarian interventions of its successor (Bellamy, 2004:218). Subsequently,
the UN's decision to allow military interventions in regions such as Angola, Liberia
and Yugoslavia indicated an evolution within the UN within the framework of the
concept of humanitarian military intervention (Bellamy and Dunne, 2016:3). At the
same time events such as Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia... reinforced the arguments
of solidarists (Bellamy, 2003a: 4)
The new crises that emerged in the post-Cold War world were also new
opportunities for some. According to Wheeler (2000:154), Western powers began to
use humanitarian terms to justify their intrusive actions. According to the
observations made by Welsh (2006) and Teson, in the late 90s, although the UN did
not explicitly support humanitarian military interventions, it began to tolerate them
more, as in the case of Bosnia4 (Massingham, 2008:814). However, during the 90s,
many theories of human intervention began to emerge. While these theories and
discussions were mostly about determining the terms and principles of humanitarian
military intervention, the discussions began to intertwine, reinforced by the
principles of just war.
4 UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force), which was established with the decision
numbered UNSCR 743, was involved in the Bosnian War between 1992-1995 as a Peace Corps on
behalf of the UN.
21
1.3. JUST WAR THEORY AND HUMANITARIAN MILITARY
INTERVENTION
The new crises that emerged during and after the Cold War, and especially
those referred to as humanitarian crises, also led to the idea of humanitarian military
intervention gaining strength in the UN. The development of the concept of human
rights and the increase in its universal nature with globalization led to greater
expression of the right to receive humanitarian aid and the obligation of international
organizations to provide it (Roberts, 1993:435). Many new developments under UN
institutions have raised questions about whether consent is needed for peacekeeping
and humanitarian operations. The controversy swirling over the barriers that state
sovereignty has created to provide people with human aid has been coupled with
questions about whether states can serve their conqueror purposes by abusing it
(Thoolen, 1992 as cited in Roberts, 1993:436). According to Gerald Vann (1999),
different questions and answers constitute different intrusive typologies. Hawks who
argue that there should be a winner of the war and thus peace can be achieved; like
pacifists who argue that no intervention should be allowed in any way, and real
interventionists who want to stop the slaughter and destruction, no matter what
reason it is caused (Vann, 1999).
Today, when states intervene militarily in other countries, they strive to
legalize it by linking it to humanitarian purposes and principles. Indeed, while the
purpose of states is to protect the vulnerable, eliminate violence on people and strive
for humanitarian assistance, humanitarian military intervention is morally ambiguous
(Miller, 2000:3). This uncertainty has led just war theorists to develop ideas on
humanitarian military intervention in order to eliminate this moral uncertainty.
Nicholas Wheeler5 was one of the first authors in this field to make assessments on
humanitarian military intervention, referring to the principles of just war (Seybolt,
2007:13). Writers who wrote about just war, such as Elshtain, Orend and Walzer,
also wrote their own thoughts on humanitarian military intervention.
5 WHEELER, N. J. (2004). Saving strangers: Humanitarian intervention in international society.
Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
22
Scholars who write about humanitarian military intervention have often tried
to focus on in what situations humanitarian intervention would be legal. These
scholars, such as Wheeler, sought answers to the question of whether humanitarian
military intervention could be done through the criteria of just war (Davenport,
2011:518). For example, under the right authority criterion, no state can intervene in
another under conditions where each state is equal according to the UN Charter
today. Elshtain and Orend, on the other hand, reconcile the sovereignty of states with
the guarantee of the human rights of citizens, saying that a state that fails to ensure
the minimum rights of its citizens has lost its legal authority in international law
(Orend, 2006:35) In such a case, interfering with this country would not be a
violation of legitimate sovereignty. Orend, like Walzer, has been analyzing more of a
just cause for reading about the violation of sovereignty. Accordingly, he argues that
humanitarian military intervention is only possible in very difficult and narrow
situations, that is, when people are not only helpless, but in need, and it is impossible
for them to save and protect themselves (Orend, 2006:92). The International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) defined these situations
as genocide, ethnic cleansing and large-scale human casualties (ICISS, 2001:31).
However, Walzer also says that the UN is not an ideal authority for decision-making
cases and that a stronger and more central institution is needed under the Right
Authority criterion (Davenport, 2011:523).
1.3.1. Responsibility to Protect
The new crises that emerged after the end of the Cold War and the problem of
intervening in them also led to the emergence of new norms. In particular, major
genocides and tragedies that marked the 90s, such as Rwanda and Srebrenica,
demonstrated the failure of the international community. (Kerton-Johnson, 2011: 63-
64). This led the UN to question itself and its arrangements for intervention. It raised
questions from then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan about how to respond to
severe and systematic attacks against common humanity and human rights violations
(UNGA, 2000:35).
23
It wasn't just scholars who tried to set the criteria for humanitarian
intervention. At the same time, the ICISS, the interim commission established in
2001, has tried to determine the conditions for humanitarian military intervention
through theories of just war (ICISS, 2001). These conditions, which are determined
as six, bear the same names as the criteria for just war, but are similar in content.
The ICISS also set out the principles based on the responsibility of protect
(R2P): right authority, just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means,
reasonable prospects (ICISS, 2001: 32). As it can be seen, these criteria are the same
as the criteria of just war principles, but they are also very similar in content. The
first principle is just cause. Unlike just war, only severe humanitarian causes -
genocide, ethnic cleansing, large scale loss of life - can be the causes of humanitarian
military intervention (ICISS, 2001:32). The Right authority is attributed to the UN
Security Council (ICISS, 2001: XII). The content of Right Intention is almost exactly
the same as in just war theory, but the protection of human rights as the focus
constitutes a very large part (ICISS, 2001:35-36). While the concept of Last Resort
has almost the same characteristics as the concept of having the same name within
the criteria of just war, it refers to the moment when people need it most (ICISS,
2001:36). Proportional Means is similar to the proportionality criterion contained in
the principle of just ad bellum and argues that the scale, duration and intensity of
military humanitarian intervention should be sufficient to secure humanitarian
objectives (ICISS, 2001:37). The reasonable prospect requirement can also be seen
as an extension of the concept of probability of success in the criteria of just war
(Massingham, 2008:822). According to this condition, military humanitarian
intervention should not be carried out if there is no actual protection for people in
distress or if the intervention will result in a worse outcome in the human condition
(ICISS, 2001:37).
The events that followed after the emergence of the ICISS report, and in
particular the Iraq War, raised questions about whether the R2P norm could be at the
end. However, under the leadership of Secretary General Kofi Annan, norms
formulated by the ICISS commission have evolved (Evans and Thakur, 2013:201).
At the 2005 World Summit, the R2P norm was unanimously adopted with new and
narrower criteria (UNGA, 2005). Accordingly, only four crimes were identified that
24
could trigger and enforce R2P: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity (UNGA, 2005:31, Evans and Thakur, 2013:201). The UN member
states have acknowledged that they are responsible for protecting their populations
against these designated crimes (Rotmann et al, 2014:365). All member states have
accepted the responsibility of protecting, assisting and supporting people who have
been subjected to crimes if any state fails to meet its responsibilities to its people
towards these crimes (Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 2021).
In 2009, the new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon submitted a report to the
General Assembly and created a new perspective and evolution on the subject as the
first comprehensive document of the R2P6. This new report proposed a three-legged
approach and constituted three pillars of the current R2P norm: (1) the responsibility
of each state to protect its people against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity; (2) the commitment and responsibility of the international
community to help protect the peoples of states from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity; (3) the responsibility of the international
community to act decisively in accordance with the UN Charter in cases where states
have "clearly failed" to protect their own people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity (UNGA, 2009, Evans and Thakur, 2013:201).
The UN's idea of moving away from the name of humanitarian intervention
under the name "protection" aimed to move away from the language of
interventionism and break some prejudices (Evans and Sahnoun, 2002:101). R2P
sought to shift the discussions out of the focus of the right of intervention of the
intervening states to the responsibility of the international community to protect
rights and civilians from mass attacks and atrocities (Rotmann et al, 2014:363) Thus,
the elements that would cause problems to humanitarian intervention such as security
and sovereignty were evaluated mainly in the name of protecting society and its
people.
According to Evans and Sahnoun, there were three major advantages to
choosing R2P over humanitarian intervention: (1) it shifts the main focus to those
who need help, not those who will intervene; (2) accepts that R2P belongs to the
6 United Nations General Assembly follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit.
Implementing the responsibility to protect, A/63/677
25
state itself first, but seeks to remedy rights violations on sovereignty by claiming that
the international community has a responsibility to act if this does not happen; (3)
R2P seeks to be removed from a manipulative concept such as "interventionism" not
only on responsibility to react, but also as a responsibility to reconstruct and develop
(2002:101).
The standards and evolution of R2P not only created advantages, but also
caused some debates. The biggest criticism came from Robert Pape. According to
Pape (2012), there are some shortcomings of R2P. Pape tries to explain them in three
main points: (1) R2P has failed to establish a standard on the level of crime and level
of brutality that would justify military intervention, which compels them to intervene
in all kinds of natural disasters, diseases, failed states or civil wars, regardless of the
cause; (2) R2P has difficulty determining the casualty levels of the intervening forces
and the principles under which potential intervening states must make such
calculations. In other words, R2P requires states to devote large resources to ensuring
the welfare of foreigners, even at the expense of their obligations to their own
people; (3) R2P forces the international community to engage in the construction of a
nation after the intervention, which requires the seizure of control of the target state,
albeit to protect it (Pape, 2012:51-52).
Pape developed the concept of "pragmatic humanitarian intervention" in
several points: (1) Irrefutable evidence of crimes does not have to be expected before
intervening; (2) States will not need to put the safety of their own citizens behind the
security of foreign citizens thanks to their early intervention plans; (3) The
international community will only provide sufficient assistance to ensure the right of
the target population to self-determination, will not engage in costly efforts such as
reconstruction or further violate state sovereignty, and the possibility of being an
excuse for the interests of states has been eliminated; (4) Other interventions
following successful intervention examples should develop accordingly (Pape,
2012:43).
The R2P norm has remained as a problem, whether it is the concept of
"pragmatic humanitarian intervention" or any other form of humanitarian
intervention, in general, the reluctance to act against serious threats (Evans and
Thakur, 2013:205). The 2011 Libyan intervention demonstrated that the UN has a
26
defining goal in the protection of humanity and human rights (Ban Ki-moon, 2012).
Yet in the Libyan case whether the NATO-led operation can be considered as an R2P
is debated. The ongoing gaps cast doubt on its success due to crisis and civil war in
Libya (Thakur, 2011). This then caused divisions in the international response to the
Syrian crisis, creating divisions in the Security Council along with political reasons7.
Humanitarian intervention is indeed like a police job when read through such
conditions and standards, but also involves interfering in the sovereignty of another
state and entering its internal affairs (Miller, 2000:6). That's why Walzer (1977:101-
108) says that humanitarian military intervention has a higher burden of proof than
just war, even if it is subject to similar conditions to justified wars, because
governments have the potential to abuse it for their own benefit. That's why the
presumption against interference is always stronger (Walzer, 1995:54). Therefore,
although it creates a field of discussion within the theory of just war, the concept of
humanitarian military intervention is an issue that should be addressed within the
scope of discussions and criticisms within itself.
1.3.2. Justification for the War on Terror
The theory of just war, which has been around since the beginning of history
to regulate, set and control wars and conflicts between states, has been at the center
of international law with the development and current evolution of modern law.
Towards the end of the 20th century, and especially with the 9/11 attacks and the
beginning of the 21st century, increase of terrorism raised a new question. The fact
that the war against terrorism is different from interstate wars and what kind of war
model and response to terrorism can be uphold became new problems in
international law (Oberleitner, 2004:264).
According to international law, whether a war, armed conflict, a national
resistance, a revolution or civil war is international or not, it causes questions about
both intervention and just war to be unanswered (Calcutt, 2011:113). The UN still
7 Russia and China constantly veto the UN attempt to aid Syria due to relations with al-Assad. See
more NICHOLS, M. (2019). Russia, backed by China, casts 14th U.N. veto on Syria to block crossborder
aid. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-un-idUSKBN1YO23V,
(06.05.2022).
27
has difficulty making a joint decision on the extent to which these various armed
conflicts are legitimate and whether they are of an international nature. Especially in
the late 1990s, the rise of radical anti-Western Islamic terrorism and the emergence
of unprecedented acts around the world demonstrated the need for more regulation
on this issue. Since such arrangements are not easy to make and the continuation of
actions threatens basic civil peace and peace, Elshtain (2004:66) sees preventing
further damage and restored civil peace as a just cause of war.
Terrorism not only causes physical harm through its actions, but also a
psychological war in communities. For this reason, terrorism uses violence to create
fear in a wider audience (Garrison, 2003:40). In other words, it is not only the society
that is the target of the attack, but a mass attack. At this point, acts of international
terrorism led to local and international jurisdiction (Oberleitner, 2004:265).
Therefore, the legality of the fight against terrorism is questioned and other questions
arise: Can terrorist attacks carry out attacks without regard to "legality", but is
legality really sought in the response of states? Can the fight against terrorism be
carried out only to prevent the threat and ensure civilian peace? Do terrorist attacks
give target states the right to self-defense? If the fight against terrorism establishes
the right to self-defense, would it be a completely "legal" act under international law
and the UN Charter? Do states have to allow their own citizens and country to suffer
more in order to act "legally"? How logical is it to seek mutual "legality" within the
scope of terrorist acts and the fight against terrorism?
At this point, most international relations scholars and foreign policymakers
focus more on the legality of the war on terror than on its legality (Bellamy, 2005:
275). Of course, modern just war scholars like Elshtain and Walzer continued to
question fairness in the fight against terrorism. Furthermore, the legality of the fight
against terrorism was examined after 9/11 and later in the US interventions of
Afghanistan and Iraq. At this point, two different types emerged. The first is states
that commit acts of terrorism, are accused of doing so, and support individuals and
groups that have been proven to have done so. The other is individuals and groups
(Roberts, 2001) who are considered terrorists who are considered non-state actors
with no connection to the states. From this point of view, the Afghan intervention
complies with both groups within the scope of the fight against the state supporting
28
terrorist groups and the groups that carry out terrorist acts and is justified by the US
(Oberleitner, 2004:265). However, although this US operation is seen as part of the
fight against terrorism, the fact that it is an act of self-defense in terms of its legality
does not reflect the legality of the war against terrorism and the use of direct force
(Greenwood, 2002:305). This blurred the distinction between whether the actions
carried out within the scope of the fight against terrorism were an international armed
conflict or an operation against the terrorist group (Sykes and Posner, 2004, Calcutt,
2011: 115-119)
The resulting uncertainty led the US to defend the scope of the fight against
terrorism, especially in the early 2000s, by doctrines of self-defense and preventive
warfare. The doctrine of just war was used to justify and legalize counterterrorism
strategies by referencing to the criteria for protecting the innocent and self-defense
(Enemark and Michaelsen, 2005:547). For example, Elshtain (2004:68) in his book
“Just War Against Terrorism” assesses US actions in the scope of just war and says
that Afghanistan has become better after the intervention. It also suggested that the
US Congress met the right authority criteria by referring to article 51 of the UN on
intervention and self-defense (Elshtain, 2004:68).
There is a possibility that various violent acts may undermine the justification
for using them in the war against terrorism. In other words, actions carried out by
terrorist groups contribute to a legitimate and just war, while similar actions that can
be applied to terrorist groups during the fight against terrorism can harm the
legitimacy and purpose of the war (Abbott, 2004:3). It is also stated by Caleb Carr
(2002) that there should be no response to civilians in the same way during the war
and that terrorism against terrorism would be the wrong way (as cited in Elshtain,
2004:75). This makes a distinction from the perspective of just war: the war on terror
provides a just and just justification according to jus ad bellum principles, but jus in
bello principles are not provided for actions against terrorist groups during the war
and the observance of civilians. Even the theory of just war, which has no legal
validity, cannot be discriminated against and consensuses, while international law,
which has hardly ever regulated it, is very difficult to ensure the legality of the fight
against terrorism.
29
As a result, it has become more difficult for policymakers to judge and frame
their actions, whether humanitarian intervention or war on terrorism, than it was after
9/11. For example, although the US intervention in Afghanistan began as a selfdefense
and counterterrorism, the ongoing humanitarian intervention and
reconstruction process has emerged as an important criterion for ensuring the actions,
perhaps interests, and legality of the US to remain in the region (Dao, 2002, Quinlan,
2001, Kristof, 2002). From this point of view, neither the criteria for fair war nor
international law have been sufficient or able to stand up to providing legality within
the scope of the fight against terrorism.
1.3.3. Realist Critiques on Humanitarian Intervention
All thinkers and academics of course want to live in a world where crimes
against humanity are not committed, war crimes are not committed, genocide is not
attempted, and this is ensured. However, according to different schools of thought,
the political realities of the world we live in, and the dynamics contained in
international relations are interpreted differently. The idea of establishing a world
government to establish a utopian world without such mass atrocities among realists
drives them to defend that humanitarian military intervention is not possible in
today's world (Gallagher, 2012:337). Because the fact that realist thought sees the
international arena as an anarchy and an unstable environment and that there is a
world government that will limit this instability/anarchy causes states to act with the
motives of strength, security, survival and to be in endless competition. Therefore, it
may not undermine the security of that state if states pursue fair, dignified, virtuous
or moral foreign policy agendas, and they can only develop foreign policies in this
way when it is in the interests of the nation (Morgenthau, 1985:12). For this reason,
realists see practices and ideas embodied by moral and ethical dynamics such as
humanitarian intervention, the theory of just war, R2P as an unrealistic foreign policy
(Gallagher, 2012:339).
According to Martin Wight, realistic foreign policies and practices are based
on power policies (Wight, 1979:23-30). Therefore, the survival of the state can only
be made possible by selfish actions and trying to maximize its power. The idea that
30
humanitarian intervention does not help to maximize the power of a state, and that
intervention usually does not serve the national interests of the state, causes realists
to refrain from humanitarian military intervention (Morris, 1991; Wheeler and
Morris, 1996). Waltz, like Morgenthau, says that a moral and moral intervention that
may arise for reasons other than national interests is unnecessary and dangerous and
will undermine the power and prestige of the intervening state (Morgenthau,
1977:13). Robert Tucker argues that military intervention can only be reasoned for
special reasons and interests, such as the protection of oil resources, in times caused
by crises such as the 1973 Oil Crisis (Tucker, 1975).
Realists advocate non-intervention because of the right of states to govern
their citizens in their own sovereign territory regardless of external influences
(Welde and Wardhani: 2020:231). The state exists to protect citizens and their
fundamental rights. Therefore, foreign intervention cannot help the citizens of the
intervened states, but also causes the intervening state to put the lives of its citizens
at risk (Bellamy, 2003:10, Walde and Wardhani: 2020:231). This rhetoric is a realist
discourse that focuses on the people and resources of the intervening state rather than
those in danger. Therefore, it is argued that if there is to be a humanitarian
intervention, it must also be in the national interest (Williams, 2001:159). Carr, on
the other hand, was more pragmatist than Waltz, Tucker and Fiott. Like other
realists, he did not completely reject moral arguments (Carr, 1940: 100). For him, a
relationship between morality and interest had to be established in order for a
humanitarian intervention to be carried out. Still, Carr was against interference and
preferred the changing balance of power process (Carr, 1940: 284).
In the Cold War, a period when military interventionism emerged and was
widely used, it was the concept of balance of power that was important for realists.
Realists in this period argued that the focus should be on lasting peace between
superpowers, not on human rights (Fiott: 2013:769). Any humanitarian intervention
that could arise was not seen as logical by realists, as it could turn into a crisis that
could bring the two superpowers into conflict and escalate rapidly. Realists who felt
it was necessary to maintain balance and continuity in international relations also
thought that putting military and financial resources at risk beyond the national
interest would harm the international system (Waltz, 1979:185). At the same time,
31
realists place their attitudes against humanitarian military intervention into a legal
framework, arguing that the principles set forth in the UN Charter (Articles 2.4 and
2.7), established as an international authority, prevent humanitarian intervention
(Fiott, 2013:770).
But the post-Cold War era also created a challenge to realist arguments. The
humanitarian crises that emerged during this period, which is seen as a new unipolar
world order, have led to greater emphasis on the protection of human rights.
Experiences such as Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1992), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994),
Rwanda (1994), Kosovo (1998) began to form concrete examples of the necessity of
humanitarian military intervention (Fiott, 2013: 770, Roberts, 1998). With the 9/11
attacks and the rise of radical Islamic-linked acts, criticism of realism has also
increased. Yet the subsequent discussions on the Afghanistan intervention and the
Iraq intervention took it to a different level.
With the changing world order after the 2000s, realists began to accept that
morality cannot be removed from international relations and that the nature of
discussions of humanitarian military intervention requires both moral and political
perspectives. However, against the principles laid out by ICISS, the Cold War
realists put the principles of national interest and survival first. For this reason,
thinkers like Beardsworth promoted the concept of pragmatism. Accordingly, ethical
motivations apply in international relations and interventionism, the priority should
be on the power relations of states (Beardsworth, 2008). Thus, it can help outline the
boundaries when the urge to intervene on human grounds arises thanks to
"progressive realism", as Fiott says (Fiott, 2013:778). Thus the realist legacy from
the Cold War era still retains its place, bringing with it a stance against the concept of
humanitarian military intervention of realist thought.
1.4. TOWARDS A REALIST APPROACH: CHANGES IN US STRATEGY
AFTER THE COLD WAR
When humanitarian military intervention is viewed as a definition, it is an
external, foreign military intervention aimed at removing human rights barriers,
helping those in difficulty, preventing hunger/distributing food, or helping the people
32
whose basic human rights have been blocked by the government. Pickering and
Kisangani (2009) accept this definition of humanitarian military intervention, but
they say that the definition of US humanitarian military intervention is different and
that the US resorts to humanitarian justifications to justify and legalize its military
interventions. Pearson (1994, as cited in Choi, 2013) argues that humanitarian and
moral motives contribute less to US intervention. From this point of view, the US
focuses more on its own political, economic or geopolitical interests than on human
rights. This leads realists to claim that US humanitarian interventions are carried out
in the national interest by using humanitarian motives (Binder, 2009:329).
According to the study on characteristics of successful US military
interventions (Kavanagh et al, 2019) the US conducted approximately 145 different
military interventions between 1898 and 2016. Of course, the frequency of these
interventions and the periods in which they occurred corresponded to very different
political stages. And most of them were made within the scope of balancing and
framing policies during the Cold War period (Kavanagh et al, 2019:31). And these
were the mutual actions of the two superpowers during the Cold War, as realism
predicted, and were based on balancing each other (Walt, 2018: 9). It was also very
diverse regionally and had an intrusive approach that covered many parts of the
world.
Unipolarity in the post-Cold War world and US hegemony has now led to
changes in the concept of interventionism and goals (Barna, 2012:12). The
elimination of a Soviet-like threat to American security has given the US great
freedom over its foreign policy choices (Waltz, 2000:29). Although there was no
superpower to balance after the Soviets dissolution, the US did not withdraw its
military network, which had been scattered around the world, and instead began an
effort to spread a "liberal world order" to continue its dominance (Walt, 2018:10). To
spread democracy, to increase their alliances, to spend more investment and effort to
improve their population in ex-Soviet countries, which, according to Waltz (2000),
the US has a long history of intervening with the intention of bringing democracy to
weak states, and in doing so has not hesitated to impose sanctions on governments
and regimes that oppose it. With the more active non-state actors such as terrorist
groups and the emergence of the concepts of rogue states, the new era presented a
33
different political framework and required different measures. As a result, the US
chose military action in this period in order to achieve its interests, solve problems
and inadequacy of final situations (Mayer, 2018:5). And while this made less
popular, it allowed other major powers such as China to rise (Walt, 2018:15). These
actions of the US also paved the way for the realists of the period to oppose and
react8.
Since military power was the most expensive tool in state expenditures and
also the most dangerous tool of state administration, it was an objectionable tool in
the interests of states (Art, 2003:4). From a realist point of view, it would only be
possible to use this military force if it made sense as a result of a cost-benefit
calculation (Mayer, 2018:4). Benjamin Miller (1998) also tried to explain US
military interventions in his work by trying to read about the consequences and costs.
According to him, the combination between interest and cost is the main variable in
US intervening militarily or humanitarianly in other regions (Miller, 1998:87).
Accordingly, 1990s realists also came up with different alternatives to explain US
interventionist policy: neo-isolationism, selective engagement, primacy, off-shore
balancing, balance of threat (Posen and Ross, 1996/7: 5; Waltz, 2000; Walt, 2018;
Mastanduno, 1997). However, the different alternatives produced by the US to
understand in the post-Cold War era are not enough for us to understand
humanitarian military intervention alone. While different presidents pursued different
policies, they sometimes followed several policies at the same time, causing realists
to have difficulty explaining at some points (Barna, 2012:19).
For the first post-Cold War President George H.W. Bush, interventions for
humanitarian crises were the main focus of national interest. The Gulf intervention,
for example, supports this. For this reason, the dominance of a single power in the
Persian Gulf could hinder the flow of oil and gas and threaten the interests of the US.
Considering Iraq's intervention in Kuwait as a danger, the US sent nearly seven
hundred thousand soldiers, within the scope of off-shore balancing policy according
to Walt (2018), to ensure the security of the region and oil (Nationmaster, 2021,
Miller, 1998: 88). On the other hand, the humanitarian intervention in Somalia in
8 Scholars of international security affairs declaration about Iraq War that intervention was not vital
or security related interests. See declaration https://radioopensource.org/wpcontent/
TimesAd_01.pdf (06.05.2022).
34
1992 under the name of a peacekeeping operation was much less effective, because
Somalia and its surroundings did not have a direct connection with the national
interests of the US (Wolfowitz, 1994, Mastanduno, 1997: 57).
Although neo-isolationism was abandoned in the Clinton era, a selective and
collaborative approach was preferred (Posen and Ross, 1996/7:44). With US
willingness to protect its national interests, it adopted the idea of interventionism
ready for off-shore actions for continued US hegemony and global leadership. This is
why the intervention in the Bosnian Crisis took place. With a serious humanitarian
crisis and Serbian aggression and ethnic cleansing evident, the US did not even send
troops to the Peace Keeping Force, content only with its role on the Security Council
(Miller, 1998:95). Unlike the Gulf crisis, the US remained in the background because
an intervention in the region was too costly but did not directly serve U.S. interests.
The side factors such as the instability that the failure of the Western Europeans to
solve the crisis in Europe, the US wanting to assume a global leadership role and
Serbia's proximity to Russia resulted in limited US intervention in the region
(Binder, 2009:330, Miller, 1998:96, Choi, 2013: 125).
From a realist perspective, the US used its humanitarianism and the concept
of humanitarian intervention in order to secure the Kuwait crisis, the Somali crisis,
the US values in order to export US values, and the Bosnian crisis to protect its
NATO-based interests. However, the idea of widespread humanitarian
interventionism and the use of it for profit while advocating more non-intervention
ideas of realists during the Cold War and earlier periods provided a 'so-called legal'
basis for the interventions of a superpower such as the US. At the same time, the
absence of a serious competitor justified the US's effort to create a "liberal world
order" by using the crises of countries such as Iraq, Libya or Bosnia (Walt, 2018: 13;
Waltz, 2000: 37; Mastanduno, 1997: 81).
The US response to the 9/11 attack and its aftermath had a very different
concept than humanitarian military intervention or humanitarian military
interventions in the national interest of the US, whether it had done or not before.
Twenty years after the attack, as Biden explained, the US had no vital interests in
Afghanistan:
If we had been attacked on September 11, 2001, from Yemen instead of
Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan — even though the
35
Taliban controlled Afghanistan in 2001? I believe the honest answer is “no.”
That’s because we had no vital national interest in Afghanistan other than to
prevent an attack on America’s homeland and our friends. And that’s true
today. (Biden, 2021)
So what was the purpose of the US continuing this war for two decades, and
why did the war start in the first place? And how did the motivation of the war
change? They were criticized for getting lost in the US intervention in Afghanistan
by putting forward more realist views of these questions and more (Celso, 2021).
But was the Afghanistan intervention really necessary? The 9/11 attacks were
a bloody attack on US society, and until that event, many aftershocks had occurred,
even though they were outside their territory. 9/11 could have been the beginning of
more intense and perhaps violent attacks. From this point of view, the operations
against Afghanistan and al-Qaeda within the scope of "self-defense", including in a
realist view, were correct (Samples, 2011:24). However, although the intervention in
Afghanistan began in response to the 9/11 attacks, its objectives, motives and course
differed (Jacobson, 2010:586).
With the new NSS and the Bush Doctrine emerging a year after the start of
the intervention, the declared war on global terrorism and rogue states became the
main ignite of US foreign policy (Latham, 2021). the US, which initiated the
reconstruction process in Afghanistan with the withdrawal of the Taliban in the same
year, continued to move away from the initial purpose of the intervention.
According to realists, the intervention in Afghanistan was not a vital interest other
than "self-defense", and they argued that reconstruction Afghanistan, carrying
American liberal values there, did not serve any interest of the US (Posner, 2021).
They saw the Afghanistan intervention as an American attempt to establish liberal
international hegemony, believing it was a military engagement contrary to
America's core interests (Mearsheimer and Walt, 2016).
In Afghanistan, which has already spent almost the entire 20th century in war,
reconstruction efforts in a post-crisis environment and the continuation of the
implementation of military force to achieve this also made it inevitable that new
security threats would arise (Mayer, 2018:9). The Taliban installation and the
conflict with US forces and objectives in Afghanistan led the US to allocate more
resources to the region as part of counter-insurgency. The costs incurred by the
36
Afghanistan initiative in the White House and Congress, including during Bush's
second term, and the course of the war also led to more skeptics about the conduct of
the war (Jacobson, 2010:591).
As the war progressed, the situation in Afghanistan tended to be a bigger
dilemma. Policymakers of the time tried to approach the case from a more realist
point of view, thinking that the investments and policies pursued were no longer
worth the cost (Forsyth, 2011:113). In doing so, realist critics tried to cite US policy
in Pakistan in the 20th Century. Pakistan's hefty investments in military and
intelligence services to create a strong democracy and allies in the region did not
yield much result (Wright, 2011). At the same time, the US past report card on such
interventions, which included Cuba, Vietnam and Korea, reinforced the rhetoric of
realists.
Under Obama, there was a more bipartisan orientation. Obama could look at
Afghanistan from a realist perspective, thinking it was a costly and damaging
operation to US interests. While there were also those who wanted him to play a
more active intrusive role, he could not leave the ongoing al-Qaeda and Taliban
problem (Forsyth, 2011:111). For this reason, he tried to act rationally by presenting
a more cautious withdrawal project, and with the murder of Osama bin Laden in
2011, he initiated the process of US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The withdrawal process did not take place as expected. Although democracy
and stability within the country improved, especially with Abdullah and Ghani
forming a joint government, the Taliban's influence and power continued outside the
capital (BBC News, 2014). With the Trump era, ISIS stepped in and in 2017 the US
bombing of Nangarhar, where ISIS is hiding in Afghanistan, has caused much more
strain on relations with the Taliban and the US spending more resources on the
region (Cooper and Mashal, 2017). Peace talks with the Taliban and a ceasefire were
sought during the ongoing period, but the situation had been completely deadlocked
since the war began in 2001.
Biden's decision to withdraw completely after taking office, unlike Obama
and Trump, contained no caution. The gradual withdrawal in the past two decades or
the realization by the administration what the US intended in time would not succeed
in any way, ended with the complete abandonment of Afghanistan (Rohde, 2021).
37
This can be seen as a late but tangible success for realists who have been exploiting
US resources endlessly for years and advocating the end of the Afghan intervention,
which has in no way paid for its cost (Celso, 2021). The end of the Afghanistan
intervention, which lost its cause, path and purpose for a total of two decades in
general, is not a success in the realist framework, but rather the fact that the US is
able to allocate more resources against other potential rivals in the age of the new
great power struggle (Latham, 2021).
38
CHAPTER TWO
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: US MILITARY INTERVENTION TO
AFGHANISTAN
The concept of international terrorism has made a rapid entrance to the
literature in a global way with the 9/11 Attacks. This nomenclature, which was
previously seen in underdeveloped countries and regions in crisis, and generally
given to insurgent and harmful groups, did not exactly correspond to terrorism. With
the 9/11 Attacks, this definition became even more complex. Terrorism, no longer
territorial or regional, but on a scale from Afghanistan to the US, had become a
globalizing norm in the globalizing world. This showed that the measures taken
should no longer be on a regional but on a global scale.
What are the origins of the al-Qaeda its actions which were responsible 9/11
and? Why is this global terrorist organization connected to Afghanistan when it has a
Saudi leader and soldiers and commanders of many different nationalities? What is
the Taliban's connection to terrorism and the reasons for its struggle in the
Afghanistan War? Questions such as these are important to understand the process
leading up to 9/11, which is the most critical and major event of global terrorism, and
the path to the subsequent global war against terrorism.
In this part of the study, the process of Afghanistan's transformation into
terrorism, the events leading up to 9/11 and the historical development of the process
after it were examined. First of all, by looking at the origins of Afghanistan, the
Taliban and Al-Qaeda before 9/11, the anti-Westernism was examined. Then, the
events of 9/11, the reactions of the US and the change in foreign policy are
explained. Along with the Bush Doctrine, the US's intervention process in
Afghanistan, the subsequent restructuring process and up to the Obama era was
explained.
2.1. PRE 9/11 ERA: AFGHANISTAN, AL-QAEDA, AND THE US
Afghanistan is in a location between Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle
East, and the Caucasus regions and has a high geopolitical importance for the region.
39
(Dursun, 1999: 49). Due to such a geostrategic importance, it has been threatened by
great powers for a long time and has been heavily invaded. For this reason, the
country has had problems in ensuring political stability for the last two centuries. The
first of these great powers was Britain. In the 19th century, Britain tried to control
Afghanistan in order to protect the Indian colony from the Russian threat. This
struggle for control led to the Anglo-Afghan Wars (Britannica, 2020). After
declaring independence from Britain in 1919, Amanullah Khan established a
monarchy in the country in 1926 and proclaimed himself king. However, the
administration of the country by a monarch was not sufficient for political stability.
First of all, an uprising broke out against the reformist policies of the revolutionary
leader Amanullah and the King had to leave the country (PBS, 2011). King Zahir
Shah, who came to power later on, ruled the country for forty years and liberal
reforms were experienced in the country.
2.1.1. Afghan Civil War and Soviet Invasion
The period in which Prime Minister Daoud's taking power with a coup in
1973 became a new breaking point in the country’s history. The Marxist propaganda
which increased due to the economic and political instability in the country received
support from the Soviet Union (Bolan, 2009: 74). Daoud tried to reduce the influence
of the Soviet Union and to limit the communist supporters by establishing the
National Revolutionary Party (Clements, 2003: 180). With the rise of the People's
Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and the coup of Nur Muhammed Tariki,
instability in the country broke out again (Atız, 2020). With the coming to power of
the PDPA, the influence of the Soviet Union increased. The country was dragged
into a civil war. Especially after the coup, the socialist reforms that took place in the
country aroused local, cultural and conservative elements. The PDPA government
brought many economists and military officials from the Soviet Union to
Afghanistan. Even a friendship agreement was signed between Afghanistan and the
Soviet Union in 1978 under the development of bilateral relations (Bolan, 2009: 75).
However, Afghan resistance to the government and increasing anti-Soviet opposition
led to a coup attempt in 1979 and Army officers tried to seize the Presidential Palace.
40
After the events, the Soviet Union carried out a full-scale military intervention to
Afghanistan on 27 December 1979, which included 30,000 military forces, in order
to prevent the collapse of the regime and to protect its interests in Afghanistan.
(MacEachin, 2007; Gombert et al. 2014).
The transformation of Afghanistan in the 1970s and its relations with the
Soviet Union began to attract the attention of the US. When the US, which has close
relations with Iran, started to develop its military relations with Pakistan in 1954
(Hartman, 2002: 470), Afghanistan leaders searched for the return the Soviet support
(HRW, 2001). After the increasing Soviet interest in Afghanistan in the continuation
of the 70s and after the Revolution in Iran, the interest of the US increased even more
(Chadwick, 2021).
The PDPA tried to change the Afghan society with its new reforms. These
reforms provoked the indigenous people (Hoodbhoy, 2005: 18). The anger of the
local people, who are quite conservative and adorned with the Islamic culture,
against the long-standing Soviet friendship and libertarian innovations had increased
during the civil war. In the 1970s, when political stability was almost gone, a new
resistance group emerged in Afghanistan. They called themselves Mujahideen. This
term, which was previously used for Muslim resisters in the Anglo-Afghan wars, was
of Arabic origin and meant 'fighting in the name of Islam' or 'jihadist'. The
Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 20th century were much more diverse. Although
they mostly had local ethnic origins such as Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, volunteer
Muslims from other countries were also in the ranks of the Mujahideen (Szczepanski,
2019). Many supporters from the Sub-Saharan Africa, Chechen, Yemeni and Saudi
(Osama bin Laden, who would later form al-Qaeda was one of them) became a part
of the resistance of the Mujahideen from other Muslim countries. The Mujahideen,
who were mostly based on the borders of Pakistan and Iran, were very effective in
the southern parts of the country. Seeing the conflict as a Cold War battleground, the
US, the Islamist Saudis, and Pakistan, who thought it would serve their own interests,
were the biggest supporters of the Mujahideen group (HRW, 2001).
As the Soviet invasion continued violently, it had turned into a war between
the Mujahideen and the Soviet Union. In order to control cities and towns and control
the mujahideen guerrilla insurgents, 100,000 Soviet soldiers developed various
41
intimidation tactics. They tried to cut support for the Mujahideen with airstrikes and
bombings targeting rural areas. This caused the civilian population to flee, and nearly
5 million refugees fled to the two countries, Iran and Pakistan. (Britannica, 2021)
The American stance was one of the important factors that changed the
direction of the invasion. From the day the invasion began, it tried to mobilize the
world public opinion against the Soviet Union. In addition, the US boycotted the
Moscow Olympics and made military preparations for the Persian Gulf (Hoodbhoy,
2005: 20). It also played a critical role in organizing the mujahideen using Islam as a
defense against communism under the Carter Doctrine (Safa, 2017). It also supplied
weapons to the mujahideen through Pakistan during the bloodiest times of the war,
and supplied FIM-92 Stingers, which changed the course of the war against the
Soviet air force. These technologies and weapons provided by the US played a key
role in defeating the mujahideen's Soviet war machine (Hoodbhoy, 2005: 22).
At the end of the invasion, which took about 10 years, the Mujahideen won a
victory over the Soviet Red Army. The war in Afghanistan turned into a quagmire
and became the Vietnam of the Soviet Union (Hartman, 2002: 468). With the 1988
Geneva Accords, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw all its troops by February
1989. (HRW, 2021). However, the Afghan Civil War continued. After the Soviet
withdrawal, the new target of the Mujahideen was the Soviet-backed communist
President Najibullah.
2.1.2. US Policy to Soviet Occupied Afghanistan
Afghanistan was never a priority in US foreign policy agenda until the late
1970s. Afghanistan was seen as the area of interest of major powers such as the
Soviets and Britain. Although Afghanistan strained to develop good relations with
the US after declaring its independence, Europe and the Middle East were the foreign
policy agenda of the US. Still, the US did not want Afghanistan to become a Soviet
satellite. For this reason, the US tried to provide economic assistance to Afghanistan
between the years 1955-65 and to keep it as a neutral country (Khan, 1987:66).
Nevertheless, interest in the region has decreased further due to the Vietnam War and
42
the US withdrawal of troops from the Far East. Yet US policy in Afghanistan to the
Soviet invasion of 1979 remained consistent (Hammond, 1984:27).
One of the reasons the US brought Afghanistan to the agenda was the
revolutionary process that began in Iran in 1978. During the Pahlavi era, Iran was
always the most important partner of the US in the region thanks to its pro-US
stances. However, with the Islamic Revolution concluded in 1979, the US lost its
most important ally and the need to seek a new partner in the region (Onal, 2010:43).
Afghanistan stood out in this search for a partner and became the most important
agenda of the US with Soviet invasion.
The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was an example of Cold War
Soviet expansionist policy. It was also a manifestation of the idea of moving south
and expanding into warm waters9, which also constituted the policy of the Tsarist
Russia period. In connection with this, the Soviet invasion, which began on
December 25, 1979, was seen by the US as the beginning of the Soviet Union's
policy of reaching the warm seas via the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf route
(Hartman, 2002:468). At the same time, the Soviet approach to Middle East and
Central Asian oil and natural resources would threaten the US interests’ policies in
the region (Lowenstein, 2016:39).
During this period, the US closely monitored soviet interest in Afghanistan
and its meddling in its internal affairs. However, the US remained more reactive
because it could not draw a policy path to determine its position (Hartman,
2002:468). According to Hammond's (1984) interview with Brzezinski, the US
agreed on a "wait and see" policy and began observing the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, which was not so surprising. Thus, the US wanted to plan the right
strategy for its own interests, to create time for itself, and to measure Afghanistan's
response to the Soviet Union.
The U.S. policy plan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was revealed by
the Carter Doctrine, announced in 1980 (Brown, 2013:65). The doctrine mentioned
9 There is a common belief about Russia has historic obsession for warm water ports. Even though
no Soviet or Russian leader has admitted such obsession or no single study that demonstrate that
obsession. However, claims that Soviet or Russian politics were motivated by the desire for a hot
water port appear in both academic and journalistic writing, as well as in the thinking and behavior
of Anglo-American politics. See more in GREEN, W.C. (1993). The Historic Russian Drive for a
Warm Water Port: Anatomy of a Geopolitical Myth, Naval War College Review, 46(2), p. 80-102.
U.S. Naval War College Press.
43
the threat posed by the Soviets in the region and the damage to US interests. It has
also been explained that the US must take necessary measures against these
threatened interests and will use military force if necessary (Imran and Xiaochuan,
2015:45). In this direction, the US began to take drastic measures and increased anti-
Soviet propaganda in the international community. The US withdrew from the SALT
II10 agreement, boycotted the Moscow Olympics and deployed a military response
team to the Persian Gulf (Hoodbhoy, 2005:20). Economically, imposed some trade
embargoes, deprived the Soviets of fishing rights in its region and limited technology
transfers (Bolan, 2009:76). At the same time, there was an attempt to get European
leaders to support the anti-Soviet movement within the framework of the invasion of
Afghanistan (Lowenstein, 2016:44).
Another policy the US wanted to pursue in occupied Afghanistan was based
on revenge. The US wanted the Soviets to experience in Afghanistan what US
experienced in Vietnam. The US tried to make Afghanistan very costly for the
Soviets. For this reason, the US supported Afghan rebels in the US as the Soviets
supported Vietnamese rebels in the Vietnam War. Aid to the Afghan resistance,
which began in the 1980s, became a central part of Reagan's Afghan policy (Khan,
1987:73). Afghan insurgents were turned into propaganda by the US and touted as
freedom fighters (Emadi, 1999:59). Thanks to connections established by the CIA
and ISI, the US began funding the Mujahideen (Galster, 2001). The US assisted the
Mujahideen in training Afghan insurgents, providing satellite and intelligence
support, providing anti-weapons against Soviet technology, and establishing guerrilla
warfare schools (Hartman, 2002:476). Pakistan and ISI were critical to the US at this
point. In the quest for a new ally within the region, Reagan sought to forge close ties
with Pakistan. Accordingly, Pakistan has been given commitments to provide aid
packages and support in regional interests (Imran and Xiaochuan, 2015:48). The link
between ISI and Afghan insurgents was used as a supply network of weapons and
financial aid.
The US policy in Afghanistan against the Soviets during the Cold War
succeeded, but the US gain was limited, because this policy has also created many
10 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). Nuclear weapons treaty signed by Carter and
Brezhnev in 1979, aimed at restricting the production of nuclear weapons.
44
problems in the country such as refugees, civilian casualties, instability and
corruption. In the war between the Mujahideen and the Soviets, the refugees fled to
Pakistan using the Af-Pak border, creating a demographic problem (Jeffrey: 2002).
At the same time, the increase in drug production and trade and the use of ISI's
network for this reason damaged the international image of Pakistan and the US
(Imran and Xiaochuan, 2015:49). Due to over-armament, instability and loss of
security within the region led to larger conflicts in post-Soviet Afghanistan. The
anarchy and guerrilla culture in Afghanistan did not stop after the Soviet invasion,
leading not only to the civil war, but also to a great political instability that the US
would later be involved in.
2.1.3. Origins of Taliban and Creation of Al-Qaida
The withdrawal of the Soviets and the end of the invasion further fueled the
civil war rather than ending it. A huge power vacuum emerged throughout
Afghanistan in the 1990s. The Mujahideen, who fought together during the Soviet
invasion and had different loyalties, could not show the same unity in filling this
power vacuum. Although they were in an alliance against Najibullah, the tribalreligious
division among the mujahideen did not succeed in bringing them together at
a common point (Sander, 2003, as cited in Safa, 2017).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's political interests changed.
The Moscow government has withdrawn its arms support to President Najibullah
since 1992 (Polat, 2006). This caused the Najibullah government to focus on more
nationalist elements. He wanted to eliminate the pro-Soviet elements in the army and
started to assign tasks to local commanders. General Dostum, Uzbek origin, made an
agreement with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and took a front against Najibullah.
The Mujahideen, who acted together with Dostum's forces, took control of many key
points in Kabul, and Najibullah had to resign (Chadwick, 2021). After this event,
with the agreement signed in Pesh Avar, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi started to serve as
the head of state for 2 months. Mojaddedi's statement that he would stay in the
government for 2 years caused disagreements among the Mujahideen. Although
45
Rabbani was later appointed as the Chairman, this did not end the discussions among
the mujahideen and created new opposition groups.
During the chaos in the country, many the Mujahideen groups struggled for
power. Another group of Mujahideen was formed when a group of madrasa students
captured Kandahar in 1994 under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Because of the madrasah education and organization, they included in their
formation, this group called itself the Taliban, which means student (HRW, 2021).
Although their number was very small at first, they quickly started to gain more
followers. The group consisted mostly of Pashtuns and the former PDPA members
and had a mission to spread Islamic law throughout the country. These missions were
important in attracting the support of the public and they achieved a very rapid
growth rate by gathering a lot of supporters.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have supported the Taliban insurgents openly and
with the help of the US under cover. With the support and financing they received,
they gradually increased their influence over the country. As the number of provinces
that they captured increased, they came to the door of Kabul in 1996. By seizing
Kabul in September 1996, they captured Tajik president Rabbani, whom they
considered anti-Pashto and corrupt, and started the Taliban regime in the country
(Laub, 2014). As soon as the regime started, they brought sharia, the strict law of
Islam, which occupied the most important place in their mission. (Burke, 2004: 148
as cited in Safa, 2017). Against the new regime of the Taliban, Burhaneddin
Rabbani, Ahmed Shah Mesud and General Dostum formed the Northern Alliance
(BBC, 2001). After that, the harshest conflicts of the power struggle in the country
began to pass between these two groups.
The foundations of the establishment of Al-Qaeda are based on the civil war
in Afghanistan and the resistance of the mujahideen. In particular, the arrival of
thousands of Muslim young volunteers who participated in the declared jihad against
the occupation of the Soviet Union to Afghan lands formed the basis of Al-Qaeda. In
fact, this was such a foundation that among these young people was Osama bin
Laden, who was the founder of al-Qaeda and would be the key figure until his death
(Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 55).
46
Azzam and Bin Laden, who were in Afghanistan in the 1980s, established
Maktab al-Khidmat (MAK) (Afghan Services Bureau) (Burke, 2021: 13). The
purpose of the organization was to register and train foreign mujahideen and to fund
the war against the Soviets (Roth, et al, 2004: 88). Among those who funded the
organization, the US stood out with bin Laden and in fact formed the basis of the Al-
Qaeda organization with these aspects. And with the decision of the Soviets to
withdraw from Afghanistan, the Afghan mujahideen and the MAK succeeded. But
bin Laden's and Azzam's jihad ideas were not limited to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda,
meaning Base, was founded in September 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah
Azzam, and a few other Islamists. Al-Qaeda's motto has been “jihad and the rifle
alone: no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogues” (Rosenau & Powell, 2017: 9).
Al-Qaeda has started to implement its actions by adopting a new mission of
liberating all Arab lands from the influence of the West and the US.
2.1.4. Al-Qaeda’s Anti-American Attitudes and Actions
After the success of the resistance movement in Afghanistan, Azzam's and
bin Laden's goals also changed. Although Azzam was the head and ideological
leader of MAK, al-Qaeda was mostly under Bin Laden's command. Bin Laden saw
al-Qaeda's mission as more of a global jihadist movement and wanted to prepare the
Mujahideen for war anywhere in the world. Azzam, however, did not see the work in
Afghanistan as finished. Azzam wanted to continue fighting in the ongoing civil war
until Afghanistan passed an Islamic government (Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 56). After
Azzam's car was bombed and detonated in 1989, Azzam's followers and MAK joined
bin Laden and were digested by Al-Qaeda. And with the end of the anti-Soviet war
in Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia (Scheuer, 2011: 79).
The utopia of al-Qaeda was a Muslim land to be governed by the rules of
sharia and stretched from Southeast Asia to Western Europe. They wanted to use the
caliphate as a tool to spread Islam all over the world (Rosenau & Powell, 2017: 6).
The path they followed in order to carry out these actions was narrower. Al-Qaeda
was trying to show the world its jihadist rhetoric and anti-Western attitudes mostly
through violence. These means of violence were radical and bloody acts that we call
47
terrorist acts. These actions and rhetoric were mostly against the US, which they
presented as the enemy of Islam. In the fatwa he published with Bin Laden and other
jihadist leaders in 1998, The US was presented as the devil (Bin Laden, et al, 1998).
In other discourses, he has always defined the US as a seditious, terrorist and bandit
(FBIS, 2004). Saying that it is a Muslim's duty to kill any American, bin Laden also
made the following statement: “We believe that the worst thieves in the World today
and the worst terrorist are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps
retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As
far as we are concerned, they are all targets.'' (Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 47).
With Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia and the Arab region felt
threatened by Saddam. Bin Laden offered Al-Qaeda and the Mujahideen to Saudi
Arabia both to protect the Kingdom and to join the war in Kuwait. However, Saudi
Arabia did not accept this and went to a coalition with the US and American forces
were deployed in Saudi Arabia (Jehl, 2001; Scheuer, 2011: 81). Disappointed bin
Laden not only denounced this action, but began to organize his own forces for the
war in Kuwait. However, this did not please the Saudi government and was
sentenced to house arrest (Burke, 2004, as cited in Polat, 2006). Thanks to his
family's reputation and ties to the Crown, he left his country to Pakistan in 1991,
never to come again (Gunaratna, 2002: 34).
In 1991, at the invitation of Sudanese Islamic leader Hassan al Turabi, he
moved to Sudan and moved the headquarters of the organization here and established
various commercial ventures to finance various terrorist actions. (Rosenau and
Powell, 2017: 10; Kean and Hamilton, 2004: 57; Scheuer: 2011: 88-89). Between
1992 and 1996, he led his actions and al-Qaeda through Sudan and became even
more radical. Al-Qaeda's strategy during the Sudanese era was to directly target the
West and raise potential terrorists, especially against the US (Sageman, 2009: 4).
In 1992, he started his first discourse with the deployment of American
soldiers to Somalia. In addition to issuing fatwas for the withdrawal of American
soldiers, al-Qaeda bombed two hotels in Aden in 1992, where they thought American
soldiers would stay, and carried out its first action against the US (Kean and
Hamilton, 2004: 59; Bergen, 2002: 170). According to American intelligence reports,
Al-Qaeda members, who started to train Somalians since 1992, were effective in
48
shooting down two American helicopters in 1993 and in the early withdrawal of the
US in 1994 (Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 60).
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef and several radical Islamists carried out a minibus
bomb attack on the World Trade Center (Mylroie, 1996; Parachini, 2000; Whitlock,
2007). With the emergence of Yousef's connections with Al-Qaeda in the later
information, the action was associated with the Al-Qaeda actions in this period
(Huntington, 2004: 240).
In 1995, another attack associated with al-Qaeda took place in Saudi Arabia.
Five American soldiers were killed in the bomb attack on the American training base
in Riyadh (Benjamin and Simon, 2002: 192; CNN, 1995). Just one year later, in
1996, an attack was carried out, this time in the city of Khobar. 19 American soldiers
lost their lives as a result of the bomb attack on the Khobar Towers, where the
American personnel were known to stay (Wright, 2006: 269; Creamer and Seat,
1998: 22). Although the attack is thought to have been supported by the Iranian
government, the fact that it also bears traces of Al-Qaeda has also associated this
action with Al-Qaeda (Benjamin and Simon, 2002: 301).
Due to the terrorist attacks between the years 1992-1996, the Saudi
government stripped Osama bin Laden of citizenship in 1994 and the bin Laden
family also rejected him. Then, in 1996, Sudan came under pressure from both
Western and regional states not to provide shelter to Al-Qaeda. Thinking that Sudan
is no longer a safe haven, bin Laden and al-Qaeda had to return to Afghanistan. Here
he was invited to Kandahar by making an agreement with the Taliban leader Mullah
Omar, with whom he had a relationship in the past Soviet-Afghan Wars (Wright,
2006: 281).
After 1996, the new headquarters of Al-Qaeda moved to Afghanistan. The
frequency and severity of the attacks against America increased even more after the
fatwa they issued in 1998 (see Bin Laden, et al, 1998). Six months after the fatwa, al-
Qaeda attacked the US consulates in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Nairobi in
Kenya with trucks loaded with bombs (Scheuer, 2011: 117; Kean & Hamilton, 2004:
69). The attack in Nairobi killed 12 Americans and 201 other nationals. Although the
attack in Dar es Salaam caused 11 deaths, no American casualties occurred (Kean &
Hamilton, 2004: 70). These attacks were also the first events that led to America's
49
use of force against al-Qaeda (OBL, 2003, as cited in Scheuer, 2011). The US
bombed al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa factory in Sudan,
which allegedly belongs to Bin Laden and produces chemical weapons (Astill, 2001;
Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 116). However, it was later revealed that this factory only
produced drugs and had no direct relationship with bin Laden.
By 2000, al-Qaeda members again planned new attacks. This time their target
was a US destroyer named USS Cole, located in the port of Aden, Yemen. Seventeen
American soldiers died in the suicide attack on October 12 (Scheuer, 2011: 118;
Kean & Hamilton, 2004: 153). This was also their last act before the September 11
attacks.
2.1.5. September 11 Attack
On the morning of September 11, 2001, an event took place that will perhaps
be felt throughout the 20th century. While it was a normal autumn morning in New
York, the planes crashing into the twin towers one after the other started the post-
September 11 era. 19 radical Islamists, thought to be al-Qaeda agents, organized this
terrorist attack by hijacking four different planes flying over the US domestic lines.
The first attack targeting the twin towers of the World Trade Center was
made by the plane of American Airlines flight 11 leaving Boston. The hijacked plane
crashed into the north tower of the Twin Towers at 8:46 am. Another flight from
Boston, United Airlines flight 175, crashed into the south tower at 9:03 am. Another
attack was made by American Airlines flight 77, which took off from Dulles Airport.
The hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 am. The last attack was United
Airlines flight 93 departing from the Newark Airport. The hijacked plane’s
destination was Washington, DC but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania while
trying to be intercepted and diverted by passengers and failed. While nearly three
thousand people lost their lives in the attacks, as many were injured (Burke, 2003).
At the beginning of the events, bin Laden made statements that he was not behind the
events (CNN, 2001). However, three years later, he said that he was behind the
events and that he had trained nineteen hijackers (CBC, 2004).
50
The feature that distinguishes these attacks from other Al-Qaeda and terrorist
attacks so far was the magnitude of the action, as well as the fact that the action took
place on American soil. No such action had been seen on US soil since the attack on
the White House by the British in 1812. Although the Pearl Harbor raid is shown as
one of these attacks, these attacks were made on the military base in the American
colony. The September 11 attacks, on the other hand, are an attack on national
territory and targeting civilians (Chomsky: 2001).
Although the attack created a shock effect in the US and the world, what was
done and written afterwards shows that these attacks were not actually a surprise. Al-
Qaeda, which has made an impact in the world with its anti-American rhetoric since
it was founded in 1988, also heralded the future of such an attack with its successful
and unsuccessful attacks between the years 1990-2000. For these reasons, the Bush
administration frequently blamed the Clinton era and made statements about not
taking the necessary precautions. However, the priority of Bush, who came to the
head of the state in 2000, was never Al-Qaeda until the September 11 attacks.
Despite Richard Clarke's briefings to the Bush administration, the administration was
skeptical that any terrorist organization would take such a large-scale action (Clarke,
2004: 228). Considering these, a surprise attack can actually appear as negligence
and indifference. In the period after the attack, the American intelligence was
criticized a lot and the fault of being unprepared for the attacks was attributed to the
lack of intelligence.
The September attacks had a very rapid repercussion in the world. With the
changing balance of power after the Cold War, this terrorist attack against the US,
which was seen as the only superpower in the world, revealed how dangerous
terrorism is for the world. After the terrorist attacks, countries around the world went
into high alert and began to take security measures for any aftershocks. Governments
began to enact terror laws, anti-terrorism packages emerged, countries began to make
intense efforts to prevent terrorist acts within themselves, and countries began to
enact their own Anti-Terrorism Acts (CBC, 2007; Miko and Froeclich, 2004; Coates,
2005; BBC: 2003).
After this incident, radical Islam started to become a symbol of terror in the
world (Safa, 2017: 20). The reconciliation between Islam and Terrorism in most
51
Western circles has damaged the structure of societies and caused discrimination
(Ingraham, 2015). A paranoid culture has developed against Islam, especially in the
US.
The attack, which went down in history with almost every aspect, is actually
an event that opened an era. Aside from the magnitude of the incident and the
entourage of the attacks, the transformation of the world, especially the US, together
with the September 11 attacks has undoubtedly written these events as a very
important turning point for history and international relations and will continue to do
so.
2.2. POST 9/11 ERA: NEW US STRATEGY AND MILITARY
INTERVENTION
US strategy developed by the Bush administration in the post 9/11 era is
examined below which also covers initial reactions, military operation, end of Taliban
rule and interim government.
2.2.1. Initial Reactions to Terrorist Attacks and Operation Enduring
Freedom
This section examines initial US reaction to the terror attacks and then the
military operation.
2.2.1.1. Initial Reactions
With the September 11 attacks, terrorism as a new threat that raised globally
after the end of the Cold War caused new kind of war: Global War on Terror
(Boukhallat, 2011). After that, the world's and America's perspective on terrorism
had completely changed. The September 11 attacks had now shown the world that
terrorist groups have the ability to inflict large-scale damage (Bolan, 2009: 126).
Global terrorism has now created a worldwide fear and the first response of the US to
this was the war against global terrorism (Cakmak, 2003).
52
Bush described the September 11 attacks as a war against them (Bush, 2002).
And the US has identified some issues of vital importance after the attacks. Such as
capturing or killing Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks; ending the
influence of al-Qaeda; struggling with the countries that support terrorism (Lobe,
2005: 10). In this direction, Bush said that countries hosting terrorists should also be
seen as equal to terrorists (Thomas, 2019: 3). For this reason, he saw the war against
terrorism as a war against the states that sponsor terrorism. It has designated as an
enemy not only the perpetrators, but also everyone who stands in its way. In the
international community, he said that this incident was an open attack on himself,
and that it gave rise to a legitimate right for his further actions. Bush's “either you are
with us or you are with the terrorist” rhetoric reflects this exactly (Bush, 2001). In
addition, his saying that he will act alone when necessary and that he will continue
the struggle alone even if no one fights can be counted as the starting point of the
uniteralist policies to be followed in the Bush era.
The US took action quickly to determine the strategy after the attack, on
September 14, S.J. Res. 23 (P.L. 107-40) voted in Congress to allow the use of
military force. The US, which took action quickly to determine the strategy after the
attack, on September 14, (P.L. 107-40) voted to allow the use of military force. The
US, which expects the support of all states, asked the UN to support military
intervention and the use of force. By adopting Security Council Resolution 1368, UN
announced that it would take all necessary steps and referred to the right of selfdefense
(Thomas, 2019: 4). However, there is no mention of any use of military force
in this Resolution, Chapter VII is not mentioned neither. NATO decided on 12
September 2001 that the attacks could consider within the scope of Article 5 of the
Treaty. With this decision, NATO states stated that they would follow the 51st
Article of the UN Charter and stand by the US once it became clear who carried out
the attacks (Stahn, 2002: 22). In other words, the US initially wanted to design an
international military operation under the name of 'War on Global Terrorism' in order
to fight al-Qaeda and other terrorists (Boukhallat, 2011).
In addition to the fight against terrorism in the international arena, the US has
given some reactions within itself to ensure national security and fight against
terrorism. One of the primary measures taken in this regard was the US Patriot Act. It
53
was signed by Bush on October 26, 2001 to strengthen the fight against terrorism
within the country by granting some extraordinary rights to the state to ensure US
national security against terrorism (P.L. 107-56). However, by establishing an
impartial 9/11 Commission in 2002, it was desired to create an official report on the
terrorist attacks against the US and the events that led to the 9/11 attacks. The report
was published in the summer of 2004 under the title “Final Report of The National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the US”. Although these are the steps taken
by the US on behalf of the national dimension of the event, they also received a great
support from the public. This has increased the US field of action in the international
arena.
2.2.1.2. Operation Enduring Freedom
Beginning on September 11, 2001, Bush and the National Security Council11
began meeting and planning their strategy against Terrorism. Within the scope of the
war with al-Qaeda, it was decided that it should be done jointly with other forces in
the region. In this context, it has started to take action with Pakistan, Afghanistan and
the Arab Countries. Pakistan partnership was given extra importance (Onal, 2010:
46). First, on September 13, 2001, Pakistani representatives of the US met and asked
Pakistan to stand by the fight against Al-Qaeda and to follow the seven steps (Kean
& Hamilton, 2004: 331). The next day, the Pakistani administration accepted the
seven-point condition presented by the US and declared that it stood by the US in the
fight against terrorism (National Security Archive, 2001). After Afghanistan's
response, the US sent an ultimatum to the Taliban. The ultimatum consisted of five
items: the surrender of al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan to the US; the release of all
foreign detainees, including Americans; protection of foreign journalists, diplomats
and aid workers; Closing al-Qaeda training camps and handing over terrorists to the
authorities; providing full access to the US to oversee training camps (Bush, 2001).
The US, which gave the Taliban a short time to make their demands, was also trying
to prepare an international coalition for the Afghanistan intervention. As a result of
the negotiations with states such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Egypt,
11 The group called the "Vulcans" that formed Bush's administration cabinet.
54
Russia, India and Pakistan, positive opinions were received for a military
intervention (Polat, 2006: 96-97). War preparations started by requesting
intelligence, superior and other support from NATO allies according to their
qualifications and resources. In addition, the US announced that it will use all its
resources and power to eliminate terrorism as a threat, punish those responsible for
9/11, and hold the actors responsible for terrorism (National Security Archive, 2001).
The Taliban rejected Bush's ultimatum, arguing that there was no evidence
linking bin Laden to 9/11. The US started air strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban
forces on 7 October 2001, and began Operation Enduring Freedom.
2.2.1.3. The Strategy of the US Intervention
The US military intervention in Afghanistan did not directly begin with
ground combat units. Afghanistan was very different from the regions the US had
fought before. For this reason, the US did not want to experience difficulties, did not
want to cause more crises in Afghanistan and was afraid that the event would turn
into a new Vietnam (Misra, 2002: 17). Bush's War Council was also skeptical of any
ground offensive. Events in the previous British-Afghan and Soviet-Afghan wars
pushed them to seek an alternative path (Junta, 2013: 34).
The alternative way for the US would be through the CIA. Instead of sending
combat troops to Afghanistan, it was the US plan to support and finance the anti-
Taliban opponents inside the country. The Northern Alliance, which has been the
biggest rival of the Taliban since gaining power in Afghanistan, would serve as a tool
for the US (Junta, 2013: 35). Not only the Northern Alliance, but also other tribal
leaders were financed and strengthened the opposition and forming a combat unit
against the Taliban (Anderson, 2011: 82).
With the formation of the CIA's local combat unit strategy, the US attack plan
was also shaped. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (2004: 337-338), the
plan consisted of 4 stages: As the first stage, the US and its allies would move their
forces to countries such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan to conduct operations from there,
which they was possible with the sympathy and support of the international
community for the US after the 9/11 attacks. In the period from the terrorist attacks
55
to October 7, 2001, this stage was actually accomplished. The second phase was
linked to the CIA's alternate route. Accordingly, the US was going to attack Al-
Qaeda and Taliban targets with air strikes and special operations, while the Northern
Alliance and other tribal anti-Taliban groups would launch attacks against the
Taliban as combat forces. As of October 7, 2001, the Afghanistan War had begun
(Malkasian, 2021)
In the third phase of the plan, all elements of US national power were used to
end the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and end al-Qaeda. As of November 9, this
phase started with the US-Northern Alliance coalition's capture of Mazar Sharif.
With the evacuation of Kabul by the Taliban on November 13, most of the areas
under the control of the Taliban in the period until December were captured by the
Coalition (Gresham, 2021). The final phase of the plan focused on the post-war part.
The task of the US forces in Afghanistan, which has been cleared of the Taliban and
Al-Qaeda, would change to ensure security and stability.
2.2.2. End of the Taliban’s Rule and The Interim Government
About 1,300 US Marines were deployed, along with Northern Alliance and
tribal soldiers, against the Taliban, which weakened after the airstrikes (Thomas,
2019). Coalition forces led by Uzbek General Dostum and Tajik General Rashid
quickly began to seize areas belonging to the Taliban. Successive Taliban forces in
the cities of Taloqan, Bamiyan, Herat, Kabul and Jalalabad were defeated or had to
retreat (CFR, 2021). They then continued to lose their southern and eastern territories
to the collegiate forces led by Hamid Karzai. On December 9, 2001, when Mullah
Omar and the Taliban forces left Kandahar, the last stronghold, the Taliban regime
was deemed to have ended (Kantzman and Thomas, 2017: 7).
On 13 November 2001 after Kabul fell, the UN Security Council adopted
Resolution 1378. Accordingly, the UN would play a central role in a transitional
period and would send peacekeepers to the region to ensure peace and stability. In
line with this, the UN invited a group representing the struggling Afghan groups, the
Northern Alliance and the former Afghan King to a conference in the city of Bonn.
The Afghan group gathered here adopted measures that would form the basis of
56
future administration. The first of these measures was that President Hamid Karzai
would have a transitional authority and a temporary mandate for a period of six
months until the assembly was formed. The interim government, which was formed
later, would govern Afghanistan for two years, a parliament would convene for a
new constitution, and then free/fair elections would be held. (Fields and Ahmed:
2011) On 5 December 2001, the parties signed the Bonn Agreement, which was
ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 138312.In addition, The International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established pursuant to the Bonn Agreement
and Resolution 138613. And on December 22, 2001, the interim government took
office under the chairmanship of Hamid Karzai. In addition, the deployment of the
Peace Corps and the withdrawal of the Northern Alliance from Kabul were also
decided (Onal, 2010: 47).
2.2.3. The National Security Strategy and the Bush Doctrine
On September 17, 2002, one year after the events of September 11, the US
published a National Security Strategy (NSS). This document, which was released
one year after the crisis presented the national security concerns of the US and what
kind of strategies it will implement against them. This is also defined as a
documentary expression of the foreign policy plan of the US, which we know as the
Bush Doctrine (Gitlin, 2003). The 2002 NSS begins with Bush's words:
Our Nation's cause has always been larger than our Nation's defense. We fight,
as we always fight, for a just peace—a peace that favors liberty. We will defend
the peace against the threats from terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the
peace by building good relations among the great powers. And we will extend
the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent. (US NSS,
2002).
The concepts of preemption, military primacy, new multilateralism
(American unilateralism), democracy promotion advocated by the NSS were the
main characteristics of the Bush Doctrine.
The NSS included the doctrine of preemptive war and military superiority.
While trying to say that all countries are now under threat against terrorists, who
12 UNSCR 1383, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/1383
13 UNSCR 1386, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/1386
57
were revealed to be capable of high-capacity actions with the September 11 attacks,
attention was drawn to the possibility of these terrorist groups' access to Weapons of
Mass Destruction (WMD). However, Bush advocated the use of preventive force
against groups and supporters who reached or tried to reach these WMDs (Lieber &
Lieber, 2002). Bush words, “The US cannot always entirely depend on a reactive
policy as we have been practicing in the past….We shall not permit our enemies to
endanger our national security and national interests” (US NSS:2002) was referring
to this argument. He argues that in order to maintain this preventive power, military
superiority must be maintained and only thus can terrorists and their supporting
states be prevented from accessing WMDs. When the conditions are necessary, the
US will be able to use its military superiority to deter the enemies with the doctrine
of preventive war and prevent them from achieving what they want (Daalder, et al,
2002).
Bush argues that the great states should stand on the same side to ensure
peace and against international threats. In addition, the NSS emphasized the
importance of alliances and international institutions by saying “We are guided by
the conviction that no nation can build a safer, better world alone…” (Lieber &
Lieber, 2002). Although it was said that the NSS cared about the international
community and its support, the sentence “…we will not hesitate to act alone....” also
showed that the US was willing to act alone (NSS, 2002). For this reason, America's
new understanding of multilateralism actually gave birth to the US unilateralism. The
concepts of preventive war and military superiority already included other principles
supporting the principle of unilateralism (Schmidt and Williams, 2008: 198).
Although Leiber (2002) argues that this unilateral movement used it alone because it
avoided creating the effect of multilateralism, in fact, this was a principle that
showed that he did not hesitate to use force and act alone even though it did not
receive international support, and it was one of the foundations of the Bush doctrine.
Another element is democracy promotion. This element is not only something
special to the NSS, but also a very important principle that we encounter frequently
in the history of American foreign policy (Schmidt and Williams, 2008: 200). The
strategy says that spreading democracy and freedom around the world is an
American ethical but also strategic imperative. “…Poverty does not make poor
58
people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption
can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks…'' (UN NSS, 2002), he
actually characterizes the strategy as a defense necessity to support democracy and
freedom. The Strategy also talks about different aid strategies and international
incentives to achieve this. For this purpose, the Middle East Partnership Initiative
(MEPI) was established in December 2002. Bush believed that these institutions and
aids, democracy promotion, would improve Western security (Dalacoura, 2012:
107).
In general, these three principles that formed the basis of the strategy were
also the basis of the Bush Doctrine, which would guide the foreign policy and actions
of the US. Although there were ambitious, legitimate and ethical goals in the
strategy, it also constitutes a justification for acting in accordance with the American
interests. But this has also led to much criticism about the ongoing actions of the US
and the discussion on the Bush Doctrine.
There has been a lot of discussion over the US policy towards Afghanistan
and the picture that emerged after the intervention. It has been argued that the
Afghanistan Intervention is multidimensional to be reduced to the September 11
events only, thus the other motivational sources of the US have been extensively
examined. The picture that emerged one year after the events and the publication of
the National Security Strategy and the creation of the Bush Doctrine led to the
questioning of the necessity of the Afghanistan intervention.
Although the Afghanistan intervention occurred as a reaction to the events of
September 11, the US also had other interests in Afghanistan and its geography.
Especially with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the power vacuum in Central
Asia plays an important role at this point. According to Brezinski, Eurasia; the
Middle East, Caspian Basin and Central Asia are of high importance in terms of
energy resources and therefore constitute a conflict area (Brezinski, 1997: 31).
Therefore, the US focused on democratic, economic, political and social freedoms in
this region and supported them and tried to follow policies in line with its own
interests to bring the countries of the region closer to the US. In other words, the
target of democratic promotion of the US, NSS is actually a target that was among
the policies of the US towards the region before. For this reason, democracy and the
59
application of democracy used by the US to fight terrorism are not universally
accepted, and that's why it is said that the Afghanistan intervention is not just an
intervention (Connah, 2020: 78).
Another criticism was towards the US fighting style. Although the purpose of
the US's invasion of Afghanistan was to stop the Taliban and al-Qaeda, it was also
seen as ensuring peace in Afghanistan. The intervention of the US, far from bringing
stability, caused civilian casualties, human rights violations, increased drug trade
and an asymmetrical battlefield (Connah, 2020: 77; Jones, 2008, 14). In other words,
the NSS and the Bush Doctrine, which emerged a year later, were far from being
successful in Afghanistan, which was actually a plot application. Although they tried
to increase the capacity of the state in the reconstruction process and tried to get the
support of the Afghan society, the increase in civilian casualties, the “collateral
damage” argument and the ongoing conflicts wore the society and led to the spread
of the anti-American perspective (Barry, 2017: 142).
Another issue that was most discussed and still causing the US actions to be
questioned was the 'justified reason for using force'. The US had put forward the
rhetoric of preemptive warfare as a defense against future terrorist attacks, assuming
that it justified the use of force (Connah: 2020: 77). However, this was a subject open
to abuse, as can be seen later in the Iraq War, because the US was creating a just
cause that it could exert power in any part of the world. In other words, the idea that
the war on terror declared by the US was built for the benefit of the US, together
with the Bush Doctrine and the preemptive war principle that forms the basis of the
NSS (Kaldor, 2013: 182).
According to Khattak, the most disturbing aspect of the NSS was that it was a
policy action that changed the containment and deterrence doctrines that the US had
been successfully carrying out for almost a century (Khattak, 2011: 165). In other
words, the US was presented a new doctrine that had not been tried before and whose
success was doubtful. Such a risk could and has damaged the image of the US and its
ongoing foreign policy patterns.
One more issue on which the NSS is not thought to be successful is the
killing of civilians. The data that emerged from the ongoing Afghanistan intervention
and later the Iraq War reveal that civilian casualties have increased significantly. If
60
these wars are fought for peace and democracy, as it is said in the NSS, why are the
innocents the ones who suffer? It reveals the problematic and damaging nature of the
military intervention, where the measures taken to alleviate these losses worsen the
situation (Connah, 2020: 78). In short the NSS and the Bush Doctrine have been
subject to controversy and criticism.
2.3. RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS: NEW CHALLENGES
Post-war reconstruction is a process in which the rulers of the country, the
international community, international organizations and high-level institutions such
as the UN in particular take place and make a long-term and extraordinary effort by
acting synchronized (Misra, 2002: 14). Bush referenced the Marshall Plan a lot in the
reconstruction plan after the Afghanistan Intervention (Bush, 2002). The
reconstruction process of Afghanistan started in 2002 as a process involving the reestablished
government of Afghanistan, the US and other foreign governments,
international organizations and many non-governmental organizations. The
international community started the nation-building through development of a new
elected government and a new constitution which are examined below.
2.3.1. Afghan Interim Administration
Afghan Interim Administration, known as the interim administration, was the
first administration of Afghanistan after the Taliban. Hamid Karzai was appointed as
the head of this interim administration together with the Bonn Conference. However,
this was only a six-month provisional authority, appearing to lay the groundwork
until the actual transitional government was formed. Interim administration was
including Provisional administration; Afghanistan Supreme Court; the Special
Independent Commission to call on Afghanistan's Grand Council, the Loya Jirga14
(Bonn, 2001).
14 Afghan National Assembly. An institution with hundreds of years of history (as known since 18th
century), where Afghan Tribes and Warlords form their representations. It is valuable in that it
provides the one assembly for the representation of different nationalities in Afghanistan.
61
The most important factor in the conduct of the process in this way was to
elect the President and the government that would lead the country to the democratic
process in 2004. At the end of six months, there were three candidates seen for the
election by the Loya Jirga: ex-King Zahir Shah; Northern Alliance President
Burhaneddin Rabbani; and US-linked and supported Hamid Karzai (Gupwell, 2002).
Meanwhile, the coalition forces were still conducting operations against
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Although the main purpose of the
operations was to try to destroy the Al-Qaeda and Taliban presence in Afghanistan as
part of the Afghanistan War, they were also a bodyguard to prevent any attack that
could affect the Loya Jirga elections. In March 2002, Operation Anaconda, which
was organized against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, was the largest operation in
which the US forces participated (Tanner, 2009: 315). Later, under the name of
Operation Jacana, four more operations were carried out by the UK and Coalition
forces from April to the first weeks of June15. Thus, the ground was prepared so that
the meeting of the Loya Jirga and the presidential elections would not be adversely
affected.
During the six-month period that started on December 22, 2001, there were
also changes in the candidates. First of all, after the reactions of the Northern
Alliance and Rabbani, former King Zahir Shah announced that he would not be a
candidate and started to support Karzai. After Rabbani said that he would not take
part in such a race and withdrew from the candidacy, only Karzai, who was
supported by the US, remained as a candidate (Grupwell, 2002). Although two more
candidates emerged later, they were counted mostly for show16. And finally, the
election for the head of the interim government took place on 13 June 2002. As
expected, Hamid Karzai was re-elected with 83% of the votes and became the
chairman of the Afghan Transitional Authority after the Afghan Interim Authority.
15 Operation Jacana was a code name for series of Operations carried out by Coalition forces: Four
other operations within Operation Jacana: Operation Ptarmigan, Operation Snipe, Operation
Condor, Operation Buzzard.
16 Masooda Jalal, important for she is a first woman candidate of Afghanistan.
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2.3.2. Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan
With Hamid Karzai's election as the head of the transitional government and
Loya Jirga's election of the Cabinet, the reconstruction process in Afghanistan had
officially begun. The main purpose of this transitional administration, which was
established and will serve for two years, has been defined as managing the transition
period of the country until fair, free and democratic elections are held (Grupwell,
2002). It was also another responsibility of the transitional government to draft a new
constitution by convening the Loya Jirga during these two years (Fields and Ahmed,
2011).
In this transitional government to be held for two years, Pashtun and Tajik
elements became stronger. While the number of Pashtun ministers in the first sixmonth
transitional authority was 9, this number increased to 13 in the new
administration (USCIS, 2003). At the same time, the warlords and the Northern
Alliance tried to increase their influence in the administration and influence the Loya
Jirga (Guler, 2004: 21). The names Karzai announced as vice president were soldiers
who took part in the Northern Alliance. While responsibilities such as foreign affairs,
army, police and security were mostly taken by the Northern Alliance and Tajiks, the
Pashtuns were given responsibilities such as state administration and economic
matters (Kiran, 2012: 110).
Apart from this, another important point in the transitional government is that
Karzai was under the influence of the US. Between 2002-2004, it was under pressure
to appoint more pro-Western figures. During this period, pro-US figures such as
Ashraf Ghani, Juma Mohammedi and Mohammad Wardak were appointed to
important positions17.
2.3.3. New Constitution and Elections
The Loya Jirga held meetings during the transitional government process and
met on 13 December 2003 to discuss a draft constitution published in November. As
17 Ashraf Ghani as Minister of Finance, Juma Mohammad Mohammadi as Minister for Mines and
Industries, Taj Mohammad Wardak as Minister of Interior.
63
a result of the Loya Jirga, which lasted for about a month, the constitution was
approved by the delegates on January 4, 200418. It was later approved by President
Karzai, the leader of the Transitional Government. Under the new constitution, the
country provided for a directly elected president and two-chamber legislature
(Petrov, et al, 2020).
After the constitution was ratified, the next step was to elect the actual
government and administrator. First it was announced that the elections would be
held in July 2004. However, both the Taliban's reaction to take action and the lack of
confidence that there would be a democratic vote caused the elections to be
postponed first to September and then to October (Khan, 2004). In the elections held
on October 9, 2004, Hamid Karzai became the first president of Afghanistan with a
superior majority of 55% (Jay, 2004). The Parliamentary Elections had to be
postponed in 2005 due to the insecurity caused by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda threats
and some assassinations. Although the results of the Parliamentary elections held on
September 18, 2005 were postponed due to fraud allegations, it was announced on
November 12 with the involvement of the UN (IRI, 2005). The fact that women were
included in the first Parliamentary Elections held after 33 years and that a certain seat
was reserved also stood out as an important point.
2.3.4. New Marshall Plan
As a result of decades of internal turmoil, political instability and internalexternal
wars, Afghanistan had almost fallen into ruins. Stabilization required a
reconstruction project covering the whole country. In addition, many conflict
elements had to be resolved within the country. In particular, the arms trade, drug
trade, and hunger that emerged during the decades-long war, along with the
destruction of agriculture, revealed the need for reconstruction (CRS, 2003).
In the framework of the US, this reconstruction has often been referred to as
nation-building under the name of the Bush Doctrine. Accordingly, the US has
sought to use a flexible, multilateral model supported by an energetic and robust
18 First Constitution of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which lasted 2021 by collapse of
Afghanistan Government and Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
64
American policy and programs. It has tried to ensure a large participation of
international initiatives, including neighboring countries, and has shaped it in line
with its own interests. The US tried to stay away from the conqueror identity not to
get the reaction of the society, and tried to show the nation building process in the
country in an organic way with the local leaders. (Khalilzad, 2005)
With the Bonn Conference, steps were taken towards democracy and freedom
in the reconstruction of the country. With the limitation of the power of al-Qaeda and
Taliban elements within the country, the international presence in the country has
increased to a great extent, especially since 2002 (Marsden, 2003: 93). With the
establishment of the provisional government, initiatives began in order to ensure and
finance the reconstruction in other respects as well. Bush called it the Marshall Plan
for Afghanistan, saying it was a post-war reconstruction. For this, on the economic
front, institutions such as the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB),
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) were asked to make plans for
reconstruction (CESR, 2002: 30).
First, at the end of November 2001, these three institutions held a three-day
conference in Islamabad. It was said at the Conference that international actors were
ready for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and that the Conference in general was
organized as a preparation for reconstruction (UN News, 2001). In this way, issues
such as the establishment of a temporary central monetary authority and the central
bank of Afghanistan, helping the Ministry of Finance to establish its basic functions
such as income generation and expenditure management, establishing close relations
with Afghanistan institutions for institutional developments and the development of
economic databases were mentioned (Iqbal, 2001). Soon after, it met in Berlin in
December 2001 to organize a donor conference for Afghanistan's immediate and
long-term needs. Organized by 16 donors under the name of Afghan Support Group
(ASG), the conference focused on Afghan refugees, the reconstruction of returnees,
and Afghanistan's development initiatives (The New Humanitarian, 2001).
Subsequently, NGO Conference in Tokyo on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan and
Afghan Reconstruction Steering Group Conference were held in Brussels on 11-13
December 2001 (CESR, 2002: 30). At the conferences held at the end of 2001,
mostly the systematic and planning of Afghanistan's reconstruction was done. While
65
doing this, an important place was given to social areas (education, health, food), and
priorities were given to the ideas that respect women's rights. And preparations have
been made for future reconstruction conferences.
The International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan,
also known as Tokyo Conference, was held on 21-22 January 2002. The aim was to
address the redevelopment program plans prepared by UNDP, WB and ADB and to
receive donation commitments from donor countries for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan (Marsden, 2002: 94). In Tokyo, both the Afghanistan Interim
Administration and the Preliminary Needs Assessment (PNA) Team presented
priority areas for Afghanistan reconstruction19. The Interim Administration tried to
prioritize issues such as improving administrative capacity and paying salaries. In the
PNA report, other priorities were identified as infrastructure improvements such as
education, health, sanitation, roads, electricity, telecommunications, as well as rural
development issues such as currency reform, food security, and agricultural reforms.
Accordingly, 60% of the total funds collected from donors were allocated to
humanitarian aid and social activities, while 40% was allocated to reconstruction
activities (Marsden, 2002: 94).
Despite the steps taken within the framework of the New Marshal Plan and
international funds, the Afghan Government was experiencing difficulties in
implementing them. In particular, the aid in the designated areas, called basic aid, did
not reach the rural areas. There was a lack of management and control in the
provinces and rural areas (Jones, 2008: 22). Therefore, the Provincial Reconstruction
Team (PRT), which will later serve in Iraq, was established in order to support the
reconstruction throughout the country. The fields of activity of PRTs are
reconstruction, security and supporting the central government (Jakobsen, 2005: 11).
The ISAF, which was established with the Bonn Agreement, was also
training the Afghan National Security Forces, and was an important part of the
reconstruction process. The Afghan Army, which was trained by the US and NATO
forces, had a critical place both in the fight against the ongoing Taliban and in the
19 International Conference on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, Tokyo/Japan. See
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/middle_e/afghanistan/min0201/index.html#:~:text=The%20Internat
ional%20Conference%20on%20Reconstruction,other%20representatives%20of%20the%20Admin
istration
66
transition of security to the Afghan Army in the continuation of the reconstruction
process. As of May 2003, this process started when the Minister of Defense
Rumsfeld declared that major combat operations were over and the focus of the US
soldiers in Afghanistan was to stabilize the country and take part in the rebuilding
process (Loeb, 2003). At the same time, the transition of ISAF's command from UN
to NATO as of 2003 strengthened the US command in this process and increased its
influence in the reconstruction process20.
Again, the US established close relations with the Afghan government and
Karzai during the reconstruction process. As part of these close relations, Bush
appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as ambassador21. At the same time, Khalilzad's risk
analysis for the oil pipeline known as Unocal during this period shows that the US
not only looks after the nation-building process but also interests in bilateral relations
(Safa, 2017: 57). Subsequently, they signed bilateral agreements with the Afghan
government by improving trade, economic and military relations. In 2005, they
announced the strategic partnership of the two countries by publishing a joint
statement22.
Despite all the planning and preparation, Afghanistan faced difficulties due to
its structure and complex past. For example, former power holders had problems
transitioning to a US model of nation-building; despite the end of the military
intervention, the presence of the US and other international institutions was still
disturbing the Afghan society; there was lack of training of indigenous personnel in
the reconstruction process in Afghanistan; the problem of how reconstruction aids
would be implemented damaged international law enforcement and aid forces due to
the ongoing dangers… (Danida, 2005: 42). These difficulties were seen from the
beginning as obstacles to nation-building in Afghanistan. And they played a role in
the failure of the reconstruction and nation-building process, with many more
problems to come.
20 UNSCR 1510, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/1510
21 Zalmay Khalilzad, Afghan American diplomat. He served as the Special Representative for
Afghanistan for the US and helped to peace process between US and Taliban.
22 Joint Declaration of the United States-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership, 23 May, 2005.
67
2.3.5. Taliban Resurgence
After the Battle of Tora Bora at the end of 2001 and the Anaconda and Jacana
Operations until June 2002, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were defeated and had to
retreat. After that, they started to regroup and reorganize to take action, as they did
during the Occupation period of the Soviets (Tanner, 2009: 317). Especially the
Taliban, which started to retreat to the southern parts of the country and to the
Pakistani borders, began to prepare for a resurgence and started to gather again
(Tohid, 2003). These preparations, which started in 2001, started to give their sprouts
in 2003 (Ahmed, 2009: 240). The gradual resumption of conflicts in 2003 and some
flyers circulating in Afghan camps showed that the Taliban was on the move again
(Garamone, 2003). In 2003, the ex-Taliban High Court Chief Justice Abdul Salam's
statement that the Taliban was back and Osama bin Laden's re-emergence in 2004,
making statements against the US and Bush, increased the fire in the region (Baldauf
& Tohid, 2003; Gall, 2004).
From 2003 to 2006, the US and ISAF continued to train Afghan forces while
fighting insurgents in the southern and eastern regions. These conflicts, which were
at a relatively low level, did not seem very threatening to security. During a threeyear
period, they succeeded in suppressing the rebel forces with attacks such as
Operation Avalanche, Operation Mountain Storm, Operation Lighting Freedom,
Operation Battery, Operation Red Wing, Operation Whaler (Kantzman and Thomas,
2017: 23). Beginning in 2005, however, the Taliban began resorting to new tactics of
attrition. They started to inflict more casualties on the US forces, especially with
their buried bombing and suicide attack tactics. Between 2005 and 2006, suicide
attacks increased 400 percent, bombing attacks 100 percent, and armed attacks 300
percent in Afghanistan (Barfield, 2010, as cited in Junta, 2013: 49). By the year
2006, the US had become fully aware that the Taliban forces using the Afghan-
Pakistani border and taking advantage there were a security problem23.
The Iraq War, which has been going on since 2003, also made things even
more difficult for the US. The recovery of the Taliban between 2003 and 2006 was
23 The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for Peace and Security: Report of the Secretary-
General (A/75/926–S/2021/570), see more https://afghanistan.un.org/en/132548-situationafghanistan-
and-its-implications-international-peace-and-security-report-secretary
68
ignored due to the money, military power and interest devoted to the Iraq War. This
gave the Taliban more leeway in Afghanistan. Thus, the Taliban was able to gather
more support, especially in Southern Afghanistan, where it began to spread.
The resurgence of the Taliban has also begun to undermine the US mission in
Afghanistan. The continued increase in violence and civilian casualties, especially
during the reconstruction process, led to an increase in anti-American sentiments in
Afghan society. As trust in the Americans waned, indigenous people's support and
belief in resurrection began to increase. The death of Afghan civilians as a result of
the crash of a US vehicle in May 2006 led to anti-American riots in Kabul (Gall,
2006). This was one of the important breaking points in which the nation-building
project of the US was interrupted.
One problem with the Taliban's resurgence was the opium industry, which
has long been used to fund terrorists. Although opium production was restricted
during the Taliban administration, it reached higher levels after the military
intervention of the US and especially in 2005-2006 (Junta, 2013: 52). With the
smuggled opium and heroin production and the profits from them, the Taliban could
fund their own fighters and strengthen their resistance economically. The attitude of
the US against this, on the other hand, strengthened the Taliban. Because by trying to
destroy the opium production in Southern Afghanistan the US destroyed the
livelihoods of Afghan farmers and brought them closer to the Taliban (Bergen, 2002:
190).
At the same time, the newly formed government and promises of rebuilding
did not go well in such a situation. The continued accusations of the government
about corruption and the failure to deliver the promised aid to the Afghan community
have damaged the image of the US. For example, when it came to 2005, only 6% of
the people had access to electricity (Junta, 2013: 51). Although there were
democratic efforts, constitution and elections, the Karzai administration in Afghan
society was not much different from the previous Taliban administration. The
Taliban used these government and international failures as a propaganda tool to
recruit soldiers and support (Jones, 2010: 151-163).
In the new NSS published in 2006, it is observed that Afghanistan still hasn't
managed to be the focus enough and has been overshadowed by the Iraq War. In the
69
new Strategy the Afghanistan and Iraq War continued to be seen within the scope of
the fight against terrorism in general (NSS, 2006). This showed once again that the
public support for the Taliban was ignored.
Although the operations carried out by NATO between 2006-2008 were
successful in clearing key areas and repelling the Taliban, re-infiltrations could not
be prevented (Kantzman and Thomas, 2017: 23). While some Taliban target figures
were hit, such as the capture of Mullah Obaidullah Akhun in Pakistan and the murder
of Mullah Dadullah in 2007, these were not significant moves to stop the resurgence
of the Taliban. The neglect of the US and the illusion that almost won turned into a
panic that nearly lost (Junta, 2013: 57). This set the stage for the US to send more
forces to the region.
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CHAPTER THREE
MILITARY WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
The US involvement and strategy in Afghanistan has changed over time. The
initial aim was to eliminate the terrorist bases, especially Al-Qaeda, to prevent the
biggest threat in international terrorism. However, both the Taliban's transformation
into an insurgent group and the US’s and UN's reconstruction project for making
Afghanistan's "failed state" work again changed the purpose of the intervention. At
the same time, the fact that the resurgence remained so strong and continued while
waiting for an easy war continued to necessitate US participation.
In the reconstruction process of Afghanistan, the investments of the US
turned into an economic burden. Plans to develop Afghanistan's economy, develop
its military power, and turn it into a working democracy were far from realism. The
bribery in Afghanistan, the inadequacy of the resistance despite the training of the
military force, and the increasing influence of the insurgent groups made it difficult
for the US to continue to intervene. At the same time, the strategies followed, and the
destruction experienced caused further questioning of the underlying logic of the
continued intervention from the moral side. Thus, the question arose: Why does
involvement continued when the US does not have a vital interest and does more
harm than benefit, and cannot meet the moral justifications?
In this section, the withdrawal process of the US from Afghanistan is
explained and the reasons for this are examined. First, the changing US policy and
exit strategy during the Obama era were explained. Afterwards, following a more
pragmatic policy during the Trump era and the US withdrawal agreement as a result
of the negotiations between the Taliban and the US is examined. It has also been
mentioned how a more radical retreat occurred during the Biden era. Finally, the
US's intervention in Afghanistan was evaluated as morally compatible with the just
war theory, and the reasons for the foreign policy behind the complete withdrawal
were examined from a realist point of view.
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3.1. OBAMA: NEW AMERICAN STRATEGY
When Obama took office as US president, he inherited the legacy of global
war on terror. The ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan created an obligation to form
the center of Obama's foreign policy under this legacy. For this reason, of course, the
Obama era of the US set out with the goal of resolving these crises and removing US
involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, the biggest promises of his
presidential campaign and his criticism of the Bush administration were post-9/11
policies and Bush's decisions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Another problem Obama inherited when he took office was domestic
economic problems. The US’s economic situation, which was in its worst economic
crisis since the Great Depression, also lost more resources in the swamp of the
Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, was another challenge for Obama. The economic power
of the US was the main factor in continuing to be involved in global competition,
maintaining its military superiority, its diplomatic strength, and ensuring national
security (NSS, 2010, 9). Therefore, it is fair to say that domestic issues are also an
important part of Obama's agenda to mitigate the impact of the global economic
crisis and to revive the American economy.
In one of Obama's election speeches on June 15, 2008, Washington D.C., he
outlined five strategies he would pursue during his Presidency: (1) responsibly end
the war in Iraq; (2) ending the war against Al-Qaeda; (3) prevent terrorists and rogue
states access to all nuclear weapons and materials; (4) ensuring energy security and
supply; (5) rebuilding alliances against the challenges of the new century. (Indurthy,
2011: 14).
Obama announced that he would be more selective in the use and preference
of interventionism and preventive diplomacy in his new foreign policy behavior, and
he wanted to re-establish the solvency in order to finance these strategies (Larrabee,
2009: 2). He also wanted the US to change its long-term military involvement and
intervention in the Middle East and focus on the Asia-Pacific region on trade and
investment (Unger, 2016). Thus, the US would be able to regain the ‘primacy’ that it
had since the end of the Cold War and maintain the US's claim on global leadership
(Obama, 2007). Obama seemed to shift to a more realist line by placing more
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emphasis on economic and security developments, as the US did during the Cold
War. However, he also stood against the prisoner and torture practices in the
Guantanamo and tried to signal that he would return the US to "just" policies in line
with the law and morality. The continuation of the war in Afghanistan and the
increase in the influence of the Taliban would cause this promise not to be fulfilled
(Unger, 2016).
The Arab Spring, which broke out at the end of 2010, started to harm the
interests of the US in North Africa and the Middle East, although it was getting more
and more violent. The crisis, which took its place on the foreign policy agenda in an
important way, caused the US to intervene in Libya through NATO and resulted in
the death of Gaddafi. The Syrian Civil War, which emerged with the successive
events and the Arab Spring's leap into Syria, made the situation even more dangerous
for the Middle East, while creating an opportunity for terrorism and resulted in ISIS
being active in the region as a critical terrorist group. Even if Obama did not want to
be deeply involved in the Syrian Civil War within the scope of the war against
terrorism, which the US is currently carrying out, he had to allocate resources by
organizing operations within the scope of the fight against ISIS (Nikolaenko, 2019:
55).
As of 2013, the increasing tension between Russia and Ukraine and the
Ukraine Crisis that broke out was another foreign policy issue for the Obama era.
The annexation of Crimea created the most serious crisis after the Cold War for the
relations between Russia and the US, which are already strained due to the Syrian
issue. The US and some G7 countries started to take an anti-Russian stance and they
applied some economic, military and diplomatic sanctions (Holland and Mason,
2014). This later led to an increase in the conflict of interest between Russia and the
US in the Syrian Civil War. At the same time, it would not be wrong to say that it
was the beginning of the US's sanctioning attitude in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine
War.
In terms of returning to the Asia-Pacific, Obama wanted to both balance the
global rise of China and catch an economic upward trend again. Just one month after
the presidential term began, Secretary of State Clinton's comprehensive Asian trip
was aimed this (Landler, 2009). At the same time, efforts were made to improve
73
relations with China. However, China's claims in Taiwan and the South China Sea
continued to hinder the development of relations with the US on the political side
(Christensen, 2019: 75). Nevertheless, the US continued its economic initiatives in
the Asia Pacific region and a free trade agreement was signed called the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP) (Nikolaenko, 2019: 81).
Expressing that he is very serious about nuclear weapons and access to these
weapons, Obama started to look for ways to prevent the production and supply of
nuclear weapons, especially through Iran. First, Obama tried diplomatic and
moderate ways and when he could not get what he wanted from his talks with Iran,
he preferred to resort to other ways. With the UNSC Resolution 1929, Iran's trade in
nuclear technologies was limited by the UN member states in military trade. In
addition, the US signed the "The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and
Divestment Act of 2010" to increase the scope of the sanctions on Iran24.
The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars remained the most important issue on the
foreign policy agenda of the Obama era. He started to take important steps towards
withdrawing from Iraq, which he saw as a "wrong war". It also paved the way for a
gradual withdrawal from Iraq (Tilghman, 2016). His main aim was to completely
eliminate the American presence in Iraq and focus on the Afghanistan intervention,
which he deemed more reasonable. Although his rhetoric in the presidential
campaign and his actions after taking office were consistent in line with his "new
strategy", the war and conditions that have been going on for about seven years have
pushed Obama to act more pragmatically, perhaps in a way he never wanted from the
very beginning. Which, from the very beginning, emphasized the importance of
Afghanistan within the scope of the fight against terrorism, and his discourses that
the real war should be in Afghanistan were criticized a lot, mostly because he
analogy the Afghan War as "good war" (Landler, 2017).
24 See detailed at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-111publ195/pdf/PLAW-
111publ195.pdf
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3.1.1. Obama’s Original Strategy of Removal
When Obama took office in 2009, he said that he was going to make policy
changes towards Afghanistan. This change can be seen in the 2010 NSS, which was
published a year after he took office. Removal of all al-Qaeda and Taliban forces
from Afghanistan and Pakistan was as a very important goal (NSS, 2010: 19-21).
However, according to Junta (2013) the NSS did not include the discourse of
reconstruction of Afghanistan among the main goals which stands out as one of the
most important differences from the Bush era. Referring to negligence after the Iraq
War, Obama shifted his policy focus back to Afghanistan. As soon as he took office,
he said that the Afghanistan mission was a high priority and that the effort of the US
should be reduced (Kantzman and Thomas, 2017: 24). But it was obvious that
reducing US effort and pulling back the US was difficult. Therefore, Obama tried to
build his Afghanistan strategy on gradual, deliberate, and controlled withdrawal
(Larrabe, 2009: 8).
Of course, determining Obama's strategy was not easy. Because first, what he
learned before he took office and what he learned about the crisis after he took office
were not exactly same. Although he foretold that the intervention in Afghanistan
would be more important for his administration, both the economic crisis of the US
and the Pentagon's recommendations on the military presence in the region put
Obama under great pressure (Hybel, 2014). Before deciding on his new strategy in
Afghanistan, Obama wanted to have full knowledge of all the information, plans,
options and justifications for the intervention and the ongoing war. He believed that
it would be pointless to send more troops until the plan in Afghanistan was
completely clear.
Obama's meetings with the National Security Council focused on several
options. (1) The first was to decide on the increase in troops after the situation in the
region was fully investigated and finalized. However, the risk of worsening the
situation while waiting or the lack of conclusive results of the research could result in
the US being late. (2) Another option was to completely suppress the Taliban's
insurgency by sending troops to the region at a time, not gradually. But in doing so,
if it was not completely successful, it could result in a great failure and resource
75
expenditure. And even if this action succeeded, not having a definitive strategy for
the aftermath could be another problem. (3) Another option was to take control of the
situation in the region by gradually sending troops, reducing concerns. In the
meantime, research on the situation would yield results and save time to structure the
NSS. But it would also make the US hesitant, question the confidence in its
decisions. (4) The last option would be to build up considerable troops in the region
to ensure security, but the failure of the option, although it is not much different from
the second option, could jeopardize the upcoming Afghan government elections
(Hybel, 2014).
Obama's real desire was an exit plan (Woodward, 2010: 156). To ensure the
withdrawal in Afghanistan, first of all, security and stability had to be ensured. In
order to ensure security in Afghanistan, Obama adopted the doctrine of
counterinsurgency. This strategy, which was seen as successful during the Bush
period in Iraq, was not effective enough in the fight against the Taliban due to the
high expenditure of resources on the Iraq War (Obama, 2009). For this reason,
Obama saw Iraq as one of the problems of the failure of Bush’s Afghanistan policy.
In addition, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda safe havens created on the border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan, the continuation of corruption, drug trade, insufficient
security forces and an undeveloped economy, despite the election of a democratic
government by the people were the reasons why Bush's Afghanistan policy was
accused of failure by Obama (idib).
Accordingly, Obama was aware of the necessity of troop increase and said
that troop increase was necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion (NBC
News, 2009). He also thought that he would have created a time for himself to
evaluate and change his decisions in the near future. And the subsequent
development of the decisions to be made in accordance with the Afghanistan strategy
in 2009 supported this idea.
When Obama took office, there were 37,000 US soldiers and 32,000 NATO
forces in Afghanistan (Witte, 2021; Jacobson, 2010: 602). In addition, in the spring,
the US announced that they would send 17,000 soldiers to Afghanistan (Hodge,
2009). Then, Obama continued the radical changes and appointed General
McChrystal, who ran the counterinsurgency in Iraq. The strategy based on more
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soldiers continued with McChrystal taking command. In his 2009 West Point speech,
he announced that 30,000 more soldiers would be sent to Afghanistan (Obama,
2009). In 2011, the number of US troops in Afghanistan reached 100,000, three times
the Bush-era numbers25.
Obama's first target on the way to withdrawal was determined to destroy Al-
Qaeda's safe havens in Pakistan, to take control of the Af-Pak border, and to stop the
Taliban crossing into Afghanistan (O'hanloni 2016: 3). In order to do all this, the US
had to develop a stricter standard than the Bush era and raise the struggle to the next
level. Eikenberry said that the transfer should also be included in the plan defined as
clean, hold and build (Junta, 2013: 60). Accordingly, Afghanistan had to be
completely cleansed from elements of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. This could only be
achieved with the use of more force. At the same time, Afghan forces needed to be
trained to actively participate in this struggle and to hold the post-US region. For
this, extra soldiers were needed. In other words, the most important element for the
US to realize its counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan was military power.
Another goal of Obama was that the trained Afghan forces gradually should
take responsibility for security in Afghanistan. Thus, the security vacuum that the US
was afraid of while gradually withdrawing from Afghanistan would not occur and
the Afghan State would be able to provide security in the country. This was grounded
in the 2010 NATO Lisbon Summit (NATO, 2010). The Lisbon Summit was the
starting point for the gradual transfer of security forces to Afghan forces (Reynolds,
2010). As a result of the summit, which Karzai also attended, the members agreed to
transition of military operations and security responsibilities until 2014. This was the
transfer part. In other words, the US wanted to get out of the business by giving the
responsibility to Afghanistan forces. In short for Obama, the main problem to be
solved in Afghanistan was how to get out of there (Junta, 2013: 59).
25 According to graphics that shows numbers of the US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Numbers
increased since Obama took the office till death of Osama bin Ladin. See detailed numbers at :
http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/22/world/asia/american-forcesin-
afghanistan-and-iraq.html
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3.1.2. From ‘’Good War’’ to the concept ‘’Afghan Good Enough’’
In the statements he made at the beginning of his presidential term, Obama
always stated that the ultimate goal was to withdraw responsibly from Iraq and
Afghanistan. It would not be wrong to explain what he means by this responsible
withdrawal as fulfilling the objectives of the interventions and leaving behind a
better region and country than it found. However, while Obama called the Iraq War
as a Bush's "bad war", he saw the importance of the situation in Afghanistan and the
"good war" worth fighting. The troubles he experienced during his presidency and
the Afghanistan intervention, which he saw as a just war that could achieve success,
transformed this thought over time (Landler, 2017).
The US intervention in Afghanistan was moving away from its intended
goals, causing America to lose its way even more. Even the structures once built
under the restructuring did not function functionally, and the rift between the Karzai
government and Obama led to more corruption and problems with the Afghan
administration. The steps taken to solve the problem were further reversing the crisis
with the behavior of other actors. At this point, Afghanistan's "good war" was not
progressing as Obama wanted.
The continued effectiveness of the Taliban and the Haqqani Network could
not be defeated despite more American soldiers and Obama's strategy, and they also
gained an advantage in winning the war of political attrition (Cordesman, 2012). The
cooperation between Pakistan and the US turned into more bribery aid. Obama's
efforts to bring Pakistan to his side in the war in Afghanistan could not go beyond
harming the resources of the US, and Pakistan was only ostensible stance. Also, the
Obama administration did not want to stay in Afghanistan and continue the
reconstruction/nation-building project after winning the war against the Taliban and
al-Qaeda. In this direction, the main goal began to take shape as helping the Afghan
government to ensure the competence to continue functionally. A practical strategy
that will work for Afghanistan to continue, namely “Afghan good enough” (Lubold,
2011).
The real question for the Obama administration in Afghanistan was whether
to block al-Qaeda and stop Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist base or turn
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Afghanistan into a European democracy (Landler, 2017). But given the realities of
the war and the situation in Afghanistan, it was clear that Afghanistan could not be a
Denmark. For Obama and his administration, the counterinsurgency campaign
seemed a more accurate option. But as Rhodes, then Deputy National Security
Adviser, said, even if counterinsurgency succeeds and war is won, the creation of a
political culture or nation-building are not things an army can achieve (Walt,
2018:76).
At such a point, the transition to the concept of "good enough", as Cordesman
(2012) called it, seemed much better than the illusions of nation-building or
reconstruction in Afghanistan. This was consistent with Obama making a "transition"
to such a mindset when looking for an exit strategy. In this direction, creating an
economic and effective Afghan army, cooperating with local forces and actors,
strengthening Afghan institutions and "hide, protect and support" from the "clean,
create and hold" tactic seemed to be a strategy that could work for Afghanistan
(Cordesman, 2010, 2012).
3.1.3. The Surge and Death of Usama bin Laden
At the end of 2009, Obama's Afghanistan surge began. In fact, this surge was
the first step of retreat. This was a take it or leave it situation for the US. Either they
would be successful thanks to the strategy they would follow for two years, and the
transition would be achieved in a way they expected, or Afghanistan would be
abandoned by concluding how expensive it was to stay in Afghanistan and that this
situation was far from success (SIGAR, 2021: 30). It should be underlined that
Obama was not trying to establish a perfect nation-state, he wanted to develop a solid
exit strategy (Woodward, 2010: 271).
Between 2009, when the surge began, and 2010, US reconstruction spending
increased by 50 percent. And in the following year, funding of US troops and
reconstruction projects was now more than double the maximum attainable GDP of
the Afghan state (SIGAR, 2021: 31). The very low contribution of such large inflows
of money to the reconstruction process raised the question marks for the Karzai
administration. Government corruption, which has been a problem for many years,
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was one of the things that bothered Obama. Obama warned Karzai about this
corruption during his first visit to Afghanistan (Witte, 2021). However, according to
the words of Rangin Spanta, Afghan National Security Advisor of the time,
“corruption was not the only problem of the system of governance, the problem was
the system of governance itself” (SIGAR, 2016: 4). In 2010, the tension between the
Karzai administration and the Obama administration increased when Karzai's
administration accused the US of meddling in its internal affairs and said that he
could join the Taliban if necessary (Acet and Doğan, 2017: 69).
Continuing operations under the new strategy generally continued in the
southern regions where the Taliban is strong. The attack on Marjah at the beginning
of 2010 was followed by the Kandahar attacks. At the same time, US military losses
were increasing. At the beginning of 2010, there were twice as many deaths as in
2009. This was also due to the lack of coordination between the US and Afghan
forces which were working together under the counterinsurgency, but the real
problem was that Afghanistan was a swamp. General McChrystal, who was
responsible for Afghanistan operations, criticized the Obama administration in an
interview with The Rolling Stone (Hasting, 2010). He was replaced by General
Patraeus, another person who had worked in Iraq. Patraeus' statements were in line
with Obama's strategy and seemed focused on reducing losses. Counterinsurgency
was a strategy advocated by Patraeus, as in McChrystal, and he wanted the troops to
be brought to Afghanistan as much as possible, not to withdraw (Junta, 2013: 63). In
addition, after McChrystal was dismissed, opposition to counterinsurgency began to
increase in the US society due to the emergence of some documents related to the
Afghanistan War and the security breach26 (Witte, 2021).
While the surge was continuing, one of the most important events for the
Afghanistan War took place in the spring of 2011. On May 1, 2011, Osama bin
Laden was killed by American forces in his safe harbor in Abbottabad, Pakistan. This
has further fueled the questions of whether we should continue the war after the
death of the key figure of Al-Qaeda, the perpetrator of the September 11 Events and
26 Leak of war documents called the Afghanistan War Diary. These leaked documents were released
to public by WikiLeaks in 2010. The leak of more than 75,000 documents included information
about the War in Afghanistan and U.S. strategies, the deaths of civilians, Taliban attack and several
countries thought to be involved in the insurgency.
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the responsible for the Afghanistan War. As a result, Obama announced a timetable
for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. According to this, the US would
withdraw 33,000 soldiers by the summer of 2012 and thus the surge would come to
an end. In addition, he said that in 2014, the responsibility for security will pass to
Afghan forces (Garamone, 2011).
As a result, the US government often funded programs that were
inappropriate or inflamed the conflict and that the Afghan government could not
sustain. Since the beginning of the war, the US has faced many economic problems
such as close to two thousand military casualties, 444 billion dollars in expenditures,
a deficit in the US budget and unemployment in the domestic affairs in the decade
since the war began (CFR, 2021). As a result of these, the agreement that would lead
to an exit now at least had hopes of exiting Afghanistan without further losses.
3.1.4. Bonn Conference II
Ten years after the first conference, where the war and the future of
Afghanistan were first discussed, the parties came together again in Bonn to plan the
withdrawal process of the US. Germany hosted the conference held on December 5,
2011, while Afghanistan was the chairman. While coming to the second Bonn
conference, what was expected from the conference was to confirm the commitment
to Afghanistan security and development, to establish a long-term strategic
partnership between the US and Afghanistan, to talk about the adequacy of Afghan
forces to take security responsibility (Fields and Ahmed, 2011: 24). At the
conference attended by more than 100 parties the conclusion of the Afghan War, the
transfer of security responsibility to the State of Afghanistan and its scheduling until
2014 were discussed. The purpose of the Afghan Government at the conference was
to ensure the continuation of international aid and engagement within the country
until 2014. The US, on the other hand, showed its own economic problems and said
that corruption in Afghanistan puts an economic pressure on them. Mentioning the
previous commitments, the US emphasized that the principle of mutual
accountability should exist between the US and Afghanistan (Safi, 2011).
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The realization of the promises and mutual commitments made in Bonn was
not very possible in the ongoing process. The Karzai administration continued to
point out the reason for the corruption in the ongoing process as the international
community. In 2012, the video broadcast of the treatment of the US soldiers against
the dead Afghans also increased the tension. Again in 2012, the news that American
soldiers were burning the Qur'an led to the intensification of civil and military
protests (Witte, 2021). To solve these problems and to continue their long-term
cooperation, Afghanistan and the US made two different agreements. The first was
an agreement to transfer the detainees held by the US to a place under Afghan
control within six months (Nordland, 2012). Another was the transfer of some of the
US special operations in Afghanistan to the Afghan forces. The Afghan forces now
also took responsibility for the night raids carried out by the US against Taliban and
al-Qaeda leaders since 2009 (Al-Jazeera, 2012). The improvement created by these
agreements also laid the groundwork for the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership
Agreement. With this agreement, it was tried to create a long-term environment in
which relations would continue after the US withdrew from Afghanistan and that the
US was committed to its assistance to the Afghan state (Sweet, 2012). In addition,
the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) was signed to determine the terms of the
long-term engagement of the US in Afghanistan. However, this long-term
partnership, which was tried to be created, was not approved by Karzai, despite Loya
Jirga's acceptance, as it would increase Afghanistan's dependence on the US and
make its effects felt until the full withdrawal of the US (Thomas, 2019: 7).
With the death of Osama bin Laden and the subsequent Bonn Conference, the
US started to take the first steps of withdrawal. The number of soldiers, which
reached 100,000, would be reduced to 90,000 during the 2011 and reduced to 68,000
at the end of 2012. In addition, it was announced by Obama that the total US soldiers
would decrease to 34,000 by 2014 (Kantzman and Thomas, 2017: 25). Other
countries also began to withdraw their troops, complying with the new commitments
in Bonn, and the France-Dutch-Canada ended combat missions.
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3.1.5. Secret Talks Between Taliban and the US (2008-2012)
US communication and negotiations with the Taliban may actually be the
beginning of the Mujahideen movement and the Soviet Invasion. However, both with
the end of the Soviet invasion and the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, the US interest in the region decreased, and its communication with
regional actors was also erratic. In the 1990s, contacts with the Taliban were mostly
through sources in Afghanistan and through access to them through some companies
(Sheikh and Greenwood, 2013:13). There was a relationship based on the security of
the resources in the region in the negotiations, which took place mostly over the oil
companies. With the 9/11 events, the direct contact with the Taliban was made by the
ultimatum issued by the US regarding al-Qaeda and bin Laden. Bush (2003), said,
"... You can't talk to them, you can't negotiate with them, you must find them...''
which shows that the US did not want to make any contact during the Bush era.
Under Obama, the attitude toward the Taliban was not like during Bush. He
was signaling that he would take steps towards at least a meeting with the Taliban in
a moderate way (Cooper and Stolberg, 2009). After all, Obama's main request was an
exit strategy, and a possible reconciliation with the Taliban would be an important
step towards exiting Afghanistan. Although the counterinsurgency plan continued,
both the US efforts to undermine the Taliban and the weak steps taken by Mullah
Omar, created a window of opportunity for negotiations (Sheikh and Greenwood,
2013:14).
The first contacts between the Taliban and the US took place through the
German foreign intelligence service. Progress was made thanks to the meetings held
with Mullah Omar's representatives. Accordingly, meetings took place, first in Doha
and then in Munich. Secret talks between US representatives and Taliban
representatives began in Munich in November 2010. For two years, contacts between
US and Taliban representatives continued in Munich and Doha. Mullah Omar's
representatives have requested the opening of a permanent representative in Qatar.
US and Afghan government representatives have imposed a requirement that the
Taliban stay away from international terrorism in any way. Other issues of the talks
were more about prisoner exchanges. A specific agreement was reached on Bowe
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Bergdahl’s release in exchange for the five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo
(Wörmer, 2012:4). However, the new US demands for the release of detainees have
irritated the Taliban, and congressional discomfort has caused negotiations to be
suspended (Borger, 2012).
For the Afghan government, negotiations between the US and the Taliban
were also important. At that time, the Afghan government was trying to
communicate with Hazb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) and Taliban representatives, both
through Saudi initiatives and contacts of the EU and the UN (Sheikh and
Greenwood, 2013:2-3). In terms of its own negotiations and the expectation of the
US-Taliban contact, the Afghan government's main wish was to end the armed
struggle with the insurgent groups and to ensure that groups such as HIG and Taliban
took place in the elections and joined the system. However, the Afghan government's
requests were not accepted during this period as they would have been later.
For the US, the situation was parallel to the wishes of the Afghan
government. The US saw the Taliban and other rebel groups abandoning the armed
struggle and submitting to the new Afghanistan's constitution and system as one of
the main conditions in the negotiations. However, since it was also known that this
would not be easy, it was desired to develop relations with agreements and contacts
at other points until it reached to that stage. While the Taliban had no desire to
recognize the Afghan government or constitution, they also wanted the complete
withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Yet there was no guarantee that the
Taliban will lay down arms even if the US withdraws completely, and the Afghan
government's inability to stand up to the Taliban and other rebel groups showed that
this demand of the Taliban would not be met soon for that time.
3.1.6. Transfer of Security Responsibility
The withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan determined at the
2010 Lisbon Summit began in 2011. The planning of a gradual withdrawal by
Afghanistan was split into tranches. Firstly, on March 22, 2011, Karzai determined
the Afghan provinces according to operational, political and economic issues with
JANIB (Joint Afghan NATO Intequal Board). Later, on 27 November 2011, the
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provinces and districts where the second transition would take place were separated
according to the issues in the first group and transferred to the responsibilities of the
Afghan forces. On May 13, 2012, in the third phase, he announced the transition
process of the area covering two-thirds of the country, and this was the beginning of
the full transition in each state. On October 31, 2012, it was announced that the
remaining regions would enter the transition process and the whole process related to
the transition was defined. On June 18, 2013, Karzai announced the start of the fifth
and final phase. With the implementation of this decision, 11 provinces in the
country would be under the control of Afghan security forces (NATO, 2020).
Creating a safe transition for the Afghan forces has been a problematic
process. One of the unanswered questions was whether the US/NATO forces would
remain as trainers or advisers after ISAF/NATO forces ended their duties in 2014.
The Karzai administration's rejection to signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement
was one of the main factors causing problems in this regard. At the same time, the
problems that the Karzai administration has been experiencing for years brought with
it the necessity of establishing a more effective administration in terms of ensuring
the transition and its continuation. With the new administration in Afghanistan, the
commitments made since the Tokyo Conference could be fulfilled and administrative
obstacles in front of Afghanistan could be removed after the transition period
(Cordesman, 2014). With the election of Ashraf Ghani as president in 2014, a more
docile government took over the administration of Afghanistan. Ghani's signing of
the Bilateral Security Agreement as soon as he took office also showed that the
administrative problem was resolved in favor of the US (Cordesman, 2014).
Obama presented a timeline after announcing the withdrawal of troops in
2014. Accordingly, in 2015, 9,800 US soldiers would stay in Afghanistan under the
name of Resolute Support Mission (RSM) to train Afghan forces. Some of this group
would also go on to conduct some operations against al-Qaeda remnants (CFR,
2021). By the end of 2016, its military strength would decrease to 5000 and Bagram
Airport would be used as a base. In the process after 2016, the US military forces
would pass under the authority of the US Embassy, and their next responsibilities
would be to protect the US bases, to ensure the Foreign Military Sales process in
Afghanistan, and to train Afghan forces for the use of these weapons (Kantzman and
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Thomas, 2017: 26; Holland, 2014). With the resolution of post-transition
commitments with BSA, the combat missions of the US and NATO were officially
ended on 28 December 2014. However, a force of close to 13,000 soldiers remained
in Afghanistan to train and advise the Afghan troops and to protect the US presence
in the region (Witte, 2021). The ISAF was replaced by RSM as of January 1, 2015.
The RSM is defined as a combat mission established to provide advice and training
on long-term security in the country under the BSA between Afghanistan and the
US27. In short at the end of 2014, US air power was reduced, as ISAF transferred its
mission to the RSM, and PRTs were transferred to the Afghan forces.
With the plan prepared by Obama, the preparation of the withdrawal from
2009 and the gradual implementation of the first withdrawal plan seemed to have
been relatively successful. This was the first time that the US believed that it would
withdraw from Afghanistan. Despite the troubles he had in Afghanistan with the
legacy of the Bush era, Obama's plan was to withdraw, and he seemed to have
succeeded. However, it was clear that there would be problems in the sequel.
Because the withdrawal process, which started in 2011, in the tenth year of the war,
may actually be completed ten years from then, with the vice president of the Obama
era Joe Biden becoming president in 2021, in a way that the US never wanted ten
years ago.
3.2. TRUMP’S AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY: PRINCIPLED REALISM
As of January 2017, Donald Trump became the 45th President of the US. He
had to face many threats and problems left from the periods of previous presidents.
Trump's foreign policy was unpredictable and unbalanced (Brands, 2019, Bennhold,
2020). Unlike in the previous period, he began to take a stance that preferred to focus
on personal relations with other countries rather than the international agreements
(Amanpour, 2016). He considered that pursuing multilateral policies limited the US
and placed it under some obligations, which put the US in a difficult position in
economic, social, military or global contexts (Kiyici, 2021:51). Many times, he
27 See more at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/30/statementpresident-
signing-bilateral-security-agreement-and-nato-status.
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mentioned that, particularly about NATO, US commitments are being abused by
European states and other Middle East allies, and has created controversy over its
financing (Trump, 2019, Kaufman, 2017:263). He described NATO as an "obsolote"
alliance (Masters and Hunt, 2017).
Calling his approach "principled realism", Trump first set out to devise a
foreign policy on American rhetoric (Nakamura and Philip, 2017). In line with this
rhetoric, he found international commitments inefficient in the interests of the US.
Trump's "principled realism" advocated an opinion aimed at miniaturizing the
importance of international organizations when there are no mutual interests in the
international arena or if there is no balancing act (Chifu and Frunzeti, 2018:8).
Trump has tried to eliminate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Intermediate Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Paris Climate Agreement and many UN-related
commitments (Bugos, 2019, Hersher, 2020, Glass, 2019). At the same time, his
serious rhetoric on burden-sharing on NATO was an important issue for
understanding the Trump's foreign policy view (Tarpaulin, 2018:162).
Trump's “America First” rhetoric has a realist view that puts national interests
first. He also did not shy away from praising populist and neo-nationalist rhetoric by
describing himself as a nationalist (Cummings, 2018, Carrothers and Brown, 2018).
However, due to the confusing different policies he pursued, he could not be
described as a traditional realist or as a liberal and created his own pattern of foreign
policy (Anton, 2019). And, while he shares his isolationist views that the US focus
should be more on domestic problems, he has not pursued moves to ignore US
foreign goals and interests (Sestanovich, 2018). Rather than being a symbol of
justice, power or peace in a global police or international order, he wanted to get rid
of these burdens of global leadership (Kaufman, 264). Although Trump argued
before and after the election that there should be a protectionist and isolationist US
foreign policy, global dynamics, and relations with countries such as Russia, China,
Iran, Syria, North Korea and Afghanistan in the interests of the US should be said
that Trump's isolationist rhetoric does not coincide with reality (Ari, 2020:62). For
example, in order to balance the growing influence of China and Russia in the
international arena, it has tried to maintain the military and economic 'primacy' of the
US by focusing on relations with these countries and countries alike. He has imposed
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travel bans on seven Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism in the Middle
East28. He also withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Agreement by imposing sanctions
against Iran in order to increase its influence in the Middle East and especially in the
Gulf (Landler, 2018). North Korea, on the other hand, has pursued an aggressive
policy of developing its nuclear arsenal, but Trump has sought to build close ties
with Kim Jong-un as part of his policy of denuclearization in South-East Asia
(Bennett and Kim, 2020). And in doing so, he chose a tougher, sanctions-oriented
path, removing Obama's soft power policy from being a priority. He used economic
pressure to achieve his foreign policy goals (Hilsenrath and Norman, 2020). From a
realist point of view, Trump's priority appears to be the interest of the US rather than
relations of friendship or hostility (Ari, 2020: 63, Bjornson, 2016).
Trump has made the fight against terrorism, the first priority of US foreign
policy. For Trump, the challenge was to fight against terrorism on two different sides
when he took office (Addicott, 2020:8). As the long struggle with Taliban continued
in Afghanistan, the threat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was also causing resources and
policies to divest. Accordingly, he stressed that defeating ISIS and other radical
Islamist terrorist groups is the top priority of the US (Ari, 2020:61).
As part of the fight against terrorism, consistent with the rhetoric of
"principled realism," Trump wanted to avoid costly military interventions that have
long occupied a huge part of US economy (Baemon, 2017). For this reason, he also
opposed further implementation of neo-conservative policies such as imposing US
power on other states at gunpoint or trying to move democracy to other countries
through methods such as state building29 (Baemon, 2017: 8, Addicott, 2020:9). For
example, the Trump administration, which was content to hit only a military base in
response to Assad's use of chemical weapons in the Syrian crisis, did not welcome
the idea of a military intervention in Syria and was therefore criticized for its
inflammatory views on Assad's actions (Ari, 2020:64).
28 Trump’s Executive Order 13769, labeled as ‘’Muslim ban’’ by most. About travel restrictions on
travel to Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen. With Executive Order 13780 and President
Proclamation 9645 more countries such as Chad, North Korea, Venezuela, Nigeria, Myanmar,
Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania added to travel ban list. Later some countries removed
from the lists.
29 See full speech at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/asia/trump-speech-afghanistan.html
Access: 06.05.2022.
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Unlike the Taliban, ISIS has had difficulty surviving and being funded as an
organization that threatens the interests of many more powers in the region. The fact
that ISIS has lost a lot of power since 2017 and has been defeated in most ranks has
enabled the US to turn its focus more on Afghanistan. Since his election rhetoric,
Trump, like Obama, advocated the necessity of withdrawing from Afghanistan, and,
like his predecessor, decided to order military reinforcements and started his
Afghanistan policy by showing that he would act as the conditions required (Elliott,
2017).
3.2.1. Trump’s desire to End the War in Afghanistan
One of Trump's promises during the election campaign was US withdrawal
from Afghanistan. He was widely critical and planned for a full withdrawal, when he
became the president (Ranade, 2017:1). After taking office, the situation has moved
away from being the case, because the complex nature of the Afghanistan problem
made it difficult to create workable solutions. However, withdrawal strategy
continued to evolve throughout the Trump era.
On August 21, 2017, Trump announced the Afghanistan policy. The center of
his strategy was "the transition from a time-based approach to a conditions-based
approach" (Trump, 2017). With his rhetoric, Trump pointed to the failure of the
Obama-era planned retreat tactic. He also believed that plans should be made more
discreet and faster by creating a more flexible American policy (Trump, 2017). This
did not say definitively about withdrawing from Afghanistan but indicated that
withdrawal was not the right option at the time and would put US interests at risk
(Calamur, 2017). A month after the strategy was announced, it approved the
deployment of more than 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total
number of US troops to more than 14,000 (Ward, 2017, Nakamura and Phillip,
2017).
Another important element of the strategy was the integration of diplomatic,
economic and military powers towards a successful redefined outcome (Ranade,
2017: 2, Caro and Hehn, 2017). Trump's goal was not to build a nation in
Afghanistan: "We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists." Increasing
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the number of troops in Afghanistan was also supportive. While he was sending the
message to the Taliban that he would not just leave Afghanistan, he also thought the
Afghan government couldn't face the Taliban. As of 2018, the Taliban controlled 4%
of the country, but its physical presence was over 60% (Sonmez et al, 2020:70). "If
we left precipitously right now, I don't believe they would be able to successfully
defend their country", McKenzie30 said in 2018, means that in fact the Afghan
government had no chance against the Taliban (Gibbons-Neff and Mashal, 2018).
So, the purpose of Trump's new involvement was to strengthen his hand before
possible negotiations with the Taliban, which refused to negotiate with the Afghan
Government, began (Qazi, 2019). The complete waste of what the US has spent over
the past 20 years could be seen as a huge failure for the US and the Trump
administrations.
3.2.2. Influence of Regional Actors
Another important element for the strategy was to focus on the influence of
regional powers, which were important in the crisis. Pakistan still plays a crucial role
in the crisis and has often been accused by the US of supporting the Taliban and al-
Qaeda under the phrase "safe haven". Trump agreed with those accusations, saying
Pakistan would not remain silent in the face of safe havens for the Taliban and other
terrorist organizations (France 24, 2017). And in this context, he tried to put pressure
on Pakistan not to help the Taliban with his statements that US support and
assistance to Pakistan would be limited and even ended (Byman, 2017, Sen, 2017).
It is very interesting that he is seeking a strategic partnership with India in
Afghanistan in the region. Although this is seen as a balancing act on Pakistan, it is
extremely important that India gives more than 2 billion supports to the Afghan
government for sectors such as security, infrastructure, reconstruction and education
(Munir and Shafiq, 2017:41, Ranade, 2017:7). Trump also wants to balance China's
influence in the region after India wants to increase its economic influence in
Afghanistan (Ratan, 2019:16).
30 General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. During 2020-2021 he was a leader of US and NATO forces in
Afghanistan.
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China, which has had a significant influence in the region against Trump's
initiatives in Pakistan and India, has also not remained silent. China, which is mostly
in contact with the Afghan government, has frequently shown on various platforms
that it stands with Pakistan to balance its regional rival India while evaluating
opportunities for its own interests (The Hindu, 2017, Tribune, 2018, The Wire,
2019). China, which is troubled by the Muslim Uighur population, did not want any
Islamic movements to spread to its territory (Ratan, 2019:11). They also wanted an
end to the conflict in the region and security as part of the BRI (Belt and Road
Initiative) investment (Zhenhong, 2018).
Russia, on the other hand, continued to maintain good relations with the
Taliban for a way to end the crisis in Afghanistan in its favor while seeking a greater
role in the region (Rowlatt, 2018). Thus, they would be able to become an effective
force in Afghanistan in a possible Taliban win and increase their strength in the
region (Isachenkov, 2021). This could prevent the threat of IS from spreading to
Central Asia. It would also be able to secure its own sphere of influence by striking
down the hegemony the US is trying to establish in Central Asia (Blank, 2017). That
is why Russia was in contact with the Taliban and local warlords while maintaining
relations with the Afghan government (Gurganus, 2018).
Iran, which has been providing arms and funds to the Taliban for many years,
also continued to support the Taliban movement against the Afghan government
(Stancati, 2015). In response to the new US strategy to move to peace talks, Iran
continued to side with the Afghan Taliban, fearing a possible post-crisis American
presence in Afghanistan (Majidyar, 2017).
Trump's new Afghanistan policy after he became president was greeted as
unpredictable as any other foreign policy decision. This Afghanistan policy by
Trump, who has pledged to be more realist under American policy first and has
criticized Afghan participation, does not coincide with his words and commitments
(Carter, 2017). Walt (2017) interpreted this new Trump's strategy more as delaying
the acceptance of defeat and avoiding a possible failure in his presidency. On the
other hand, Trump's attempt to run his Afghanistan strategy away from the support of
other Western powers meant that US obligations would increase. This raised greater
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doubts in Congress about Trump's strategy and whether this war, which is an
economic burden on the US, will end (Landay, 2018).
3.2.3. US involvement in Direct Peace Talks with Taliban under Trump
America's goals in the Trump era in Afghanistan have changed. Restructuring
or nation-building was no longer a goal, but even a project to avoid. Trump's goal
was to crush al-Qaeda, prevent the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan and prevent
terrorist attacks against the US (Dobbins et al, 2019:2). Trump's ultimate goal was to
leave Afghanistan, eliminating threats. Trump, who has endorsed more troop
involvement in 2017, hoped military effort could create a favorable environment for
a political solution. However, the exact objectives and conditions of the new US
military effort in Afghanistan were not specific (Tariq, 2020:104). While the process
is underway, US efforts to negotiate with the Taliban and the peace process initiated
from July 2018 can be seen as the result of a policy shift towards achieving the
ultimate goal of the Trump administration (Khokhar et al, 2021:44).
After the suicide bombing in Lashkargah in early 2018, the Afghan people
carried out a civil action under the name "Helmand Peace Convoy"31 (Archiwal,
2020). The march also led to ceasefire talks between the Afghan government and the
Taliban. In June 2018, on the occasion of the Muslim Holy Eid al-Fitr, the two sides
signed a short ceasefire, sending a message that they could at least meet (Reuters,
2018). The Afghan government favored a ceasefire and a US prolonged ceasefire,
but the Taliban did not want to compromise its strong stance.
The developments after Trump implemented his new Afghanistan strategy,
and the lack of military influence in particular, showed that the US needs a new
approach. During this period, he began to strive for direct negotiations with the
Taliban (Thomas, 2020:2). Accordingly, the US-Taliban talks took place in Doha,
where the Taliban previously had representation (Shah and Nordland, 2018). Zalmay
Khalilzad played an important role in the negotiations. And here the US and the
31 Also known as People’s Peace Movement. Non-violent resistance group created after suicide car
bomb attack in Lashkargah in 2018. Calls military forces to ceasefire and peace process.
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Taliban talked about the framework of peace and agreed to continue negotiations
(Mashal, 2019).
Khalilzad's appointment as special representative for Afghanistan peace talks
in September 2018 positively influenced and accelerated the talks (Khan, 2018). In
Qatar in October, talks between the Taliban and the US continued in Russia in
November, leading to a significant move to reach an agreement (BBC, 2018).
Although bilateral talks have progressed, the Afghan government requested by the
US has not been included. The Taliban in no way wanted to make a deal with a pro-
American Afghan government (Palgham, 2019). Karzai and the Taliban later held
talks in Russia, but this was not an official meeting and the Afghan government was
not involved (NDTV, 2019).
As the talks continued, Khalilzad announced in March 2019 that the
principles for a peace agreement between the US and the Taliban had been agreed
upon (Tariq, 2020:105). The draft of this agreement was on the withdrawal of
American troops and NATO from Afghanistan and the Taliban's severing of ties with
terrorist groups (BBC, 2019, Gaouette, 2019). He also announced that negotiations
between the Taliban and the Afghan government would begin in terms of a political
settlement process within Afghanistan, adding that an important path had been taken
(Thomas, 2020:3). Accordingly, the number of talks between the Taliban and the US
increased rapidly, but the Afghan government remained outside. As peace talks
neared their conclusion, reports emerged that the US was also preparing to withdraw
its troops from Afghanistan (Lamothe et al, 2019).
In September 2019, with the killing of US soldiers and 11 others in an attack
in Kabul, Trump announced that he was halting peace talks (Stewart and Lange,
2019). However, it did not take long for these talks to be interrupted. Although the
Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, it said it wanted to continue peace talks
and was still eager for peace (Sirat, 2019). Meanwhile, Khalilzad sought
communication with the Taliban, asking for further talks. At the same time, Karzai
tried to show goodwill in negotiations with the Taliban by releasing three key
detained Taliban members instead of two NATO personnel who were captured
(Tariq, 2020:105). Promising for future talks between the Afghan government and
the Taliban, this event is also a significant development for peace talks with the US.
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And peace talks between the US and the Taliban resumed in December 2019 (Al
Jazeera, 2019).
3.2.4. Doha Agreement and Intra Afghan Talks in Qatar
February 2020 was a significant development in the peace talks. First, in the
first weeks of February, US and Taliban officials reached an agreement to reduce
attacks against Afghan Government Forces (Finnegan and Agha, 2020). This
agreement came into force on 22 February and there have been significant reductions
in attacks across Afghanistan (Mashal, 2020). Taking advantage of this opportunity,
US and Taliban representatives met again in Doha and signed the Agreement for
Bringing Peace to Afghanistan agreement, known as the Doha Agreement, on
February 29, 2020. The agreement was based on mutual commitments for the US and
the Taliban and was seen as an important step towards peace in Afghanistan.
The first part of the agreement includes US commitments to the Taliban. It
covers the ceasefire between the Taliban and the US and the withdrawal of US
troops. Accordingly, within 135 days of the agreement's signed, the number of US
forces will be reduced to 8,600, and all forces will be withdrawn completely within
the next 9.5 months, although the first part of the agreement also included provisions
for a mutual prisoner exchange between the Afghan government and the Taliban and
the lifting of international sanctions against the Taliban. (Agreement for Bringing
Peace to Afghanistan, 2020)
The second part of the agreement covers the Taliban's commitments to the
US. Accordingly, the Taliban has acknowledged that it will not host, assist, or
cooperate with any group or individuals in Afghanistan that would threaten the
security of the US. In addition, the Taliban undertakes that asylum seekers, visas,
passports, and other legal documents will be checked to consider the security of the
US. (Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, 2020)
The third part of the agreement is related to future commitments. It calls for
recognition and ratification of the agreement by the UN Security Council. There is
also a promise to develop positive relations between the Afghan Government and the
Taliban in the future. While pledging to contribute to these relations and cooperate
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economically in the US, it affirms that it will not interfere in intra-Afghan talks,
dialogue, and agreement (Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, 2020)
After 19 years, the US has achieved a victory for Trump to end the endless
war in Afghanistan. The Trump administration, which has tried to act pragmatically
and says it is pursuing a realist policy in the interests of the US, has promised to
move away from nation-building and "defeat terrorism". But there were question
marks over the commitments of this agreement (Addicott, 2020:11). It would be
more difficult for the Taliban in particular to keep its word and for the intra-Afghan
talks to succeed after the US left the equation. This was exemplification by trump's
rapid withdrawal of US troops and the disruption of peace talks between the Afghan
government and the Taliban by the Taliban (Azizian, 2021:21).
Although the agreement between the US and the Taliban was reached, the
commitments between the Taliban and the Afghan government were very difficult to
achieve. After the agreement, intra-Afghan talks were supposed to start in March
(Thomas, 2020:3). However, both the Taliban and the Afghan government were
challenging the implementation of the Doha Agreement's commitments. However,
the US agreement with the Taliban to withdraw its troops has made the Taliban more
reckless against the Afghan government.
First of all, the controversial Afghanistan Presidential election in September
2019 created a painful situation for the Government in Kabul, complicating Ghani's
position (Thomas, 2021a: 8). At the same time, delays in prisoner exchanges in the
Taliban-US peace deal were also causing congestion in intra-Afghan talks. In
addition, the Afghan government said that prisoner exchange was a commitment of
the US, not theirs, saying that this could not be a condition for the start of
negotiations and that a change of 5,000 to 1,000 would not be fair (BBC, 2020). The
Taliban, on the other hand, took this with great anger and started their operations
again, attempting a strategy of intimidation against the Afghan government,
escalating the violence (Shalizi et al, 2020).
In response to the escalating Taliban attacks against Afghan Security Forces
since early March, the US responded to Taliban forces by conducting an air
campaign for the first time since the peace deal (Rahim and Mashal, 2020). To
improve relations and reduce tensions, Ghani began to put forward a gradual prisoner
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exchange, firstly releasing 1,500 Taliban prisoners (Shalizi, 2020). Even if the
Taliban were uneasy about it, he gradually began to release prisoners, and as the
fighting continued, the prisoner exchange was fully completed in August (Gul,
2020).
The other obstacle to peace talks is the re-escalation of fighting between
Taliban and Afghan forces after the US announced it would withdraw. While the refiring
of attacks was difficult for Afghan forces lacking the support of US troops, the
US ability to conduct airstrikes only increased the Taliban's appetite for operations
against Afghan forces and areas dominated by the Afghan government (Tariq,
2020:106).
In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic affected the talks, as well as intra-Afghan
peace talks as a reason for disrupting the US withdrawal timetable (Gibbons-Neff
and Barnes, 2020). In particular, the Taliban's delay in withdrawing the US and its
allies from Afghanistan was met with inconvenient. But Trump's desire for to
continue withdrawal despite the pandemic and the start of intra-Afghan talks from
September have all lessened those concerns (Lee and Kube, 2020).
Intra-Afghan peace talks could only begin in September. The purpose of the
Afghan Government was to reduce Taliban violence and attacks across the country
so that negotiations could be made healthier (Brenner and Wallin, 2021:2). The
Taliban, on the other hand, wanted to decide on the structure of the Afghan state and
secure its own position before any ceasefire could be reached (Putz, 2021). But the
intra-Afghan talks are not progressing as quickly as expected, and although talks
continue until 2021, the Taliban have raised questions about whether they are using it
as a distraction, waiting for American and allied forces to withdraw from the country
(Al Jazeera, 2021a, Khan, 2021a). The introduction of the Biden era in 2021 has also
raised uncertainty about the intra-Afghan talks and what the US future in
Afghanistan will bring.
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3.3. BIDEN’S STRATEGY: LEAST GOOD OPTION IN AFGHANISTAN
By 2021, Trump's presidency was over, and Democrat Joe Biden, who had
previously served as Obama's vice president, took office as the 46th President of the
US. He was particularly critical of Trump's policies during the campaign, showing
that he had a very different perspective on most areas than Trump before he became
president while making anti-Trump policy promises (Martin and Burns, 2020).
The first impressions of the Biden era were to ensure that, unlike Trump, the
US became a multilateral actor again. He had a more international, alliance-minded
and multilateral view of Trump's individual and unilateral foreign policy stance,
which is mostly based on national interests (NPR, 2021). However, in his
presidential speech in 2021, he again drew attention to this point of view, adding that
the solution to Covid-19 and the Afghanistan crisis was on his agenda (NPR,2021).
In President Biden's presidential speech, he also sought to base his foreign
policy priorities and policies on his presidency. Biden's goal was to fully withdraw
from Afghanistan, and his goal was to shift priority in American foreign policy to
Russia and China (Varshney, 2021, Laderman, 2021). Accordingly, he said he would
stay away from nation-building efforts by focusing on ending the 20-year war in
Afghanistan (Shear and Tankeresly, 2021). However, by focusing on "over the
horizon" capacities, the rhetoric that the future counter-terrorism policy would focus
more on satellites, drones and unmanned vehicles indicated that the US military was
focused on eliminating the burden on other resources and reducing casualties
(Varshney, 2021, Biden, 2021a). But when the efficiency of this policy was revealed
and in the ongoing process, it was widely criticized (Brunstetter, 2021). Biden also
signaled that soft policy practices involving economic and diplomatic approaches
would be preferred over military and hard policies while continuing to prioritize
democracy and human rights in American foreign policy under his administration
(Varshney, 2021).
In line with these signals, Biden began his first acts after taking office. First,
he re-joined the Paris Climate Agreement, which Trump unilaterally abandoned
(Milman, 2021). He also announced that he was canceling the XL Keystone
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Pipeline32 project (Arvin, 2021). Biden announced he was halting trump's Mexico
wall project by opposing it (AP News, 2021). Since the Covid-19 Pandemic is one of
the most important parts of US agenda, it has issued a number of orders on vaccines
and set targets for the US within the scope of the pandemic (White House, 2021a).
In foreign policy, Biden wanted to improve relations with Europe in
particular and sought to renew the importance of NATO. The US has previously
begun withdrawing military forces in different regions in the name of vital national
interest, starting with Afghanistan (Varshney, 2021). However, the forces in Japan
and South Korea would continue to remain. Because the forces here were important
to China in Biden's new balancing act. Biden did not think the military presence in
Afghanistan was important to Russia, China or the US itself. In fact, he believed that
when Osama bin Laden was killed, this war should end, and he was not afraid to
mention it in his campaign promises (Miller, 2021:37).
Afghanistan, on the other hand, began as the Biden administration's biggest
test. Biden's belief that he could not control Afghanistan in any way, military,
diplomatic, economic or international, led him to the decision to withdraw
completely, with the idea that the US could not benefit from it. Of course, Biden's
view and his views have been criticized by other scholars, officials and countries. For
some problem was not “withdrawal” but “how to withdrawal” (Varshney, 2021). For
example, while the withdrawal of US troops and personnel has been welcomed by
the public, the loneliness of Afghans who have been cooperating with the US for
years against the Taliban also illustrates the political reality there. His withdrawal
from Afghanistan alone with a unilateral decision to paint a picture of an
internationalist foreign policy and revive old alliances also presents a contradiction
for these revived alliances.
Finally, the disregard for all the investments in Afghanistan and the fact that
it has left the Afghan government alone in its fight against the Taliban also raises
questions about Afghanistan’s future and what kind of policy the US will pursue in
the event of a Taliban victory. From this point of view, as Varshney (2021) said,
32 The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and US. The Keystone XL
pipeline extension, proposed by TransCanada in 2008, was initially designed to transport the
planet’s dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to market—and fast.
98
there is no complete answer to what and how America's policy will be, only doubts
about its plans and strategies.
3.3.1. Withdrawal of Forces: “End of the Forever War”
Biden's new foreign policy plan generally seemed to be very different from
what Trump did. However, some policies appeared to continue. One of them was
Trump's uneasy withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden continued the withdrawal and
intra-Afghan talks that have already started. Accordingly, Ghani's announcement on
March 6, 2021, that peace talks with the Taliban would be a case for forming a
democratic government seemed like an important development for the US to leave
(Shalizi and Greenfield, 2021).
The statements that emerged in the days that continued to do so, in a letter
written by Secretary of State Blinken, and in April by Biden himself, supported the
complete withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan. Blinken's letter also stated US
plans to withdraw from Afghanistan even if a possible intra-Afghan peace had not
been achieved and expressed concern that Afghanistan would fall into Taliban hands
very quickly (Blinken, 2021). Even making this clear made it clear that they thought
that the US exit from Afghanistan would be in almost no way in the best interest of
the Afghan government.
On April 14, 2021, Biden announced that American forces remaining in
Afghanistan would withdraw on September 11, 2021, in tribute to the 9/11 events,
demonstrating that the US would withdraw from Afghanistan regardless (Satia,
2021). By July, almost 90 percent of the withdrawal of American forces had been
completed (US Central Command, 2021). It also stepped-up efforts by the Afghan
government to reach a peace deal with the Taliban and steps towards forming a joint
government (Al Jazeera, 2021b).
But the intra-Afghan talks did not continue as expected. With the
encouragement of the US withdrawal, the Taliban increased attacks against Afghan
forces, which it considered more vulnerable, but also increased its dominance in
areas of Afghanistan. The fact that McKenzie, the commander of the region, was
concerned about the inadequacy of Afghan forces against the Taliban and that he
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stood against a complete withdrawal was due to the Taliban's position (McKenzie,
2021). But the insistence of the Biden administration and Biden's statements that
Afghan forces could stand up to the Taliban indicated that a complete withdrawal
would continue (Gould, 2021) which has created some problems. For example,
American troops hand over Bagram Air Base33 to Afghan forces, leaving them alone
against the Taliban (Risch, 2022:7). At the same time, support for Afghan forces has
begun to be cut. As a reflection of this, it evolved towards the Taliban's attack on the
capital in August 2021.
In August, Taliban violence spread throughout Afghanistan provinces.
Starting on August 6, Nimroz and then Sheberghan provinces were occupied by the
Taliban, respectively. Sar-e Pol, Kunduz and Takhar regions continued. The invasion
of Samangan, Baghlan and Ghazni also prompted Afghan forces and Afghan
authorities to quickly flee to Kabul. By August 14 and 15, with the fall of Herat,
Kandahar and Helmand, the Taliban had taken control of all major provinces (Gajic
and Rajic, 2021:109). With the fall of Kabul on August 15th and President Ghani's
escape, the Afghan government disbanded, and the Taliban gained control of
Afghanistan (Seir et al, 2021).
The Taliban's victory over Afghan forces before the US forces fully
withdrawal was unexpected, according to Biden, and he continued to advocate full
withdrawal. (BBC, 2021). Biden criticized Afghan forces claiming they did not fight
enough and argued that US troops should not die for the war of others (Watson,
2021). Accordingly, to evacuate all remaining American troops, Afghan allies and a
limited number of Afghan civilians, Biden decided to send additional troops to the
region (Gajic and Rajic, 2021:220, Carvajal and Vazquez, 2021). Although 170
people, including 13 US soldiers, were killed in a suicide attack on August 2634,
Biden called the fallen soldiers ‘heroes’, and added the decisive withdrawal would
never stop (Seyler, 2022).
The 20-year war in Afghanistan is now completely over for the US after the
last American plane took off from Afghanistan on August 31. All American troops
33 Bargham Air Base was the largest US military base in Afghanistan. US and NATO forces
conducted larger operation towards this base.
34 Suicide attack during evacuation from Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai Airport. 183 people were
killed and 13 of them was American soldiers.
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from Afghanistan left Afghanistan to the Taliban, hoping they would never return
this territory of Central Asia. Although Biden’s decision has been criticized both
within the US and internationally as an abandonment. However, he has been
successful in story of withdrawal since Obama and has been "winner" by ending it.
3.3.2. Biden’s Pragmatic Realism
Biden's new post-Trump View of American foreign policy emerged closer to
a more multilateral, more liberal view and became known as a liberal internationalist
(Paripani, 2020), which is why the policies he pursued and the American leadership
he was trying to undertake supported it. But to say that Biden is just a liberal
internationalist would be more reductive and unrealistic. According to Slaughter
(2021) rhetoric Biden had something for everyone:
On relations with the West and the Transatlantic alliance, for example, Biden
was at a different point from Trump's realism. He explained that he put diplomacy at
the center of his foreign policy with the rhetoric of "America is back" (Biden,
2021b). In this respect, Biden has tried to define the US as its place in the new world
in order to repair NATO relations, restore its former dignity to international
institutions and treaties, prioritize human rights, take a stance against autocratic
regimes, change approaches to weaker and weaker countries, promote soft policy
tools and prioritize both current and global crises such as pandemics and climate
change (Wright, 2020, Biden, 2021b). These views and efforts after taking office
have shown that at some point, he was liberal internationalist and even globalist.
However, at the point of ending the war in Afghanistan, he followed a policy that did
not conform to the "liberal internationalist" propositions of restoring the region
according to US values, creating a democratic Afghanistan, or acting with its allies in
the interests of a common view and interests when withdrawing. (Shifrinson and
Wertheim, 2021).
As for global competition, Biden preferred a realist view rather than a liberal
internationalist. He tried to show that he was in a utilitarian grip, especially by going
to balance power against China and Russia, and with the new intensity he would give
to these countries in terms of international competition (Lewis and Pamuk, 2021).
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Although he was in a rhetoric that sought to glorify democracy by staying away from
Trump's relationship with autocratic leaders (Wright, 2020), he also offered a
changing, adaptable and "pragmatist" realism that sought to preserve US power and
supremacy and to protect American interests in a liberally competitive world
(Shifrinson and Wertheim, 2021).
Biden's understanding of foreign policy, which can be considered volatile,
adaptive and pragmatist depending on internal and external circumstances, and his
current form, has also been seen since he entered the Senate in 1973. He opposed the
deployment of more troops on the grounds that it did not serve the interests of the
US, advocating withdrawal in line with the state of the Vietnam War against a more
moderate stance within the conjuncture of the Cold War (Naylor, 2007). He voted
against Reagan's military campaign against the Soviets (May, 2022). He again
opposed sending troops to the region during the Gulf war (Richter and Levey, 2008).
In the Bosnian Crisis, he changed policy and advocated military intervention
(Gordon, 2008). He then supported the interventions of Afghanistan and Iraq as a
result of the 9/11 events, thinking it was important for the national security of the US
(Crowley, 2009). However, he did not stand by the idea of building any nations in
either Afghanistan or Iraq and continued to express his opinions against the ongoing
operations there.
Biden's sometimes moderate, sometimes liberal internationalist, sometimes
globalist and democracy promoter, and sometimes anti-nation-building stance
suggests that he has not a fixed foreign policy but a pragmatic foreign policy. The
only thing Biden has in common with the different ideas put forward in these
different events has been Biden's consistent and pragmatic stance that puts US
national security first (Shifrinson and Wertheim, 2021). Of course, when we read
through his rhetoric after becoming president, it is quite possible to think that the US
is turning to a multilateral system that promotes liberal and democracy. However, it
would not be wrong to say that the rhetoric and the attitudes we have seen in the
short period so far are more utilitarian, pragmatist and somewhat realist, which puts
the national security and security interests of the US first.
In the Afghanistan case, it was the most obvious example of Biden's
pragmatic realism. Biden, who has been much more involved in this since the Obama
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era, thought that even if the involvement in Afghanistan could not be victorious for
the US in any way, it would not serve American interests (Miller, 2021:38). The
strategy of eliminating the Taliban also obliged America to prepare and restructure a
post-Taliban Afghanistan. But two decades of war have shown that while this
imperative required a lot of time, resources and dedication, it was completely futile
when the Taliban did not disappear. So according to Biden, the mission in
Afghanistan should never have been a nation-building (Biden, 2021c).
And a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan wasn't just Biden's plan. Since
Obama's election campaign, the US has been looking for ways to withdraw from
Afghanistan. But the situation in Afghanistan has increased turnout like a swamp,
and the Obama-Trump administrations have failed to show exactly Biden's resolve.
However, Biden made the decision to end this intervention by claiming that he had
only two options, either more troops or a complete withdrawal, choosing that he
pragmatically thought it was more beneficial for the US (Frigerio et al, 2022:17, Sen,
2022:93).
In terms of the situation in Afghanistan, their actions and objectives since the
US joined the region have been further apart. Of course, it would not be fair to say
that the Afghan government and security forces are completely futile at this point.
However, it has emerged that it is extremely far from the point of qualification with
the complete withdrawal of the US. For this reason, Biden saw no difference between
withdrawing from the country completely after a few years and withdrawing
immediately (Frigerio et al, 2022:18). Based on this, a complete and rapid
withdrawal was highly compatible with Biden's pragmatic realism.
From an international perspective, the view that US global adversaries are
taking advantage of America's situation reflects another pragmatic reality that is
decisive in Biden's move (Biden, 2021b). Therefore, although the decision to
withdraw completely contradicts liberal internationalist views on the points of human
rights, democracy, or world leadership, it is obligatory from a realist point of view.
In addition, the new situation with the withdrawal of from Afghanistan may
be more beneficial for the US when viewed in terms of opportunities. For example,
at the point where the Taliban are now an international actor, it will be much less
costly and easier for the US to pressure and control them (Biden, 2021d). In addition,
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the US may have a better advantage in establishing dialogue and cooperation with
the Taliban. And the US hand will be stronger against other threats such as ISIS-K35
in Afghanistan, and perhaps there may be a chance of cooperation against the
common threat (Frigerio et al, 2022:18).
Of course, the US had major problems in achieving the purpose of the Afghan
intervention but had succeeded in eliminating Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which
it considered the real threat. And the Taliban dominance that would emerge from the
withdrawal was also seen as tolerable by Biden (Miller, 2022:42) However, when it
comes to what withdrawal brings and what staying in Afghanistan takes away from
the US, withdrawal is much more beneficial, much more logical, and much easier to
fit into Biden's pragmatist reality.
3.3.3. Future Prospects of the Afghanistan Conflict
The end of the two-decades war in Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to
Kabul have led to a shift in the balance in the region and the need for actors to plan
carefully according to this change. New agreements, new cooperation or new
conflicts may also emerge, especially in the changing conjuncture of the powers that
influence the region such as China, Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia. However, for the
US, which has lost its bases in Afghanistan, finding new allies for control of the
region could become a more important strategy. But looking at the situation in
general cannot be exactly enough to understand the different interests and different
aspirations of all countries from this new situation.
For Pakistan, which is considered a regional actor and perhaps always a key
figure in the Afghanistan crisis, the Taliban's capture of Afghanistan and the reestablishment
of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, of course, creates many and
options and obstacles. Pakistan was one of the three countries that recognized it
when the Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan, and neighborly relations with
Afghanistan have consistently negatively affected Pakistan since the Taliban deempowered
it in 2001, leaving Pakistan facing too many problems (Khan and Syed,
35 Islamic State – Khorasan Province knowns as ISIS-K. Affiliate of IS in South Asia and Central
Asia. Especially has been active in Afghanistan.
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2021:457). The most important of these is due to the Durand Line36, which forms the
border with Afghanistan. However, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) remains a significant
security threat to Pakistan, and the TTP's ties with the Taliban affect relations
between Pakistan and the Taliban (Rafiq, 2022).
It will be the creation of a stabilization in Afghanistan, which will serve
Pakistan's wishes and interests. For Pakistan's security, the situation in Afghanistan is
an important variable. For this reason, Pakistan began to try to become a partner for
Afghanistan in order to establish a permanent and inclusive government in
Afghanistan (Khan, 2021b). It also took care to keep its relations with the Taliban
relatively friendly and positive in order to prevent the formation of a pro-Indian
government in Kabul (Thomas, 2021b: 46). This was another indication that Pakistan
is trying to increase its regional power in South and Central Asia and gain an edge
over India (Perley, 2021).
In terms of Pakistan's internal security, terrorist organizations in Afghanistan,
such as al-Qaeda, ISIS-K and TTP, posed a threat. The Taliban's need for Pakistan to
recognition and develop new relations also gives Pakistan an edge in relations. That
is why Pakistan is supporting the new Emirate of Afghanistan internationally and
working to reduce the influence of the TTP and other terrorist organizations in
Pakistan (Khan and Syed, 2021:458). The fact that at the end of 2021 made
references to the Taliban's good relations with Pakistan, but the TTP's announcement
that it was not part of the Taliban shows that Pakistan's efforts have been successful
for now (Dawn, 2021, Pipa, 2021).
Another problem for Pakistan is the Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban. The
flow of Afghan citizens who feared the Taliban after the US withdrawal or who had
previously been in contact with the US to the surrounding countries could become
even more problematic in an Afghan civil war that could arise later (Mashal al al,
2021).
For India, which is trying to pay more attention to the region, especially with
the 21st Century, the situation was different from Pakistan's, but there were also
points of a resemble due to ties between the two countries and some common
36 The Durand Line is a border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Region has high elevation and
bounded by mountains. Refers as one of the most dangerous borders in the world because of
terrorist activities. It also caused territorial disputes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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problems. Although it shares a small border with Afghanistan, the Kashmir issue and
the Taliban flagged religious extremism in Afghanistan affect India just like
Pakistan's TTP (Jan, 2020: 262). Security and stability in Afghanistan is vital to
India's Kashmir issue due to the relationship of influential terrorist organizations in
India such as Lashkar-e Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Haqqani Network with
the Taliban and Afghanistan (Thomas, 2021b:54). This also preoccupies relations
with India and Pakistan, but thanks to relations between Pakistan and the Taliban, the
balance in Kashmir shifts in favor of Pakistan and intimidates India (Kothari,
2020:112).
Afghanistan's prominence in Indian foreign policy has also emerged with US
intervention and an effort to take control of the region. The US, which wants to use
India and its investments in Afghanistan to balance Pakistan in particular, has
revealed India's interest in the region. However, Afghanistan has become more
important to India in terms of a balancing policy against Pakistan and China gaining
influence and power in Central Asia (Patnaik, 2016:127). The fact that the Taliban
are an effective force in Afghanistan cannot be considered a positive development by
India. Although ensuring stability and security is a positive development, in terms of
cooperation with the Afghan government and the US, the Taliban seems to prefer its
relationship with Pakistan, China and Russia to its relationship with India (Dubey,
2018, Khan and Syed, 2021:462). At the same time, his investments in Afghanistan
and his assistance to the former government may be in some way wasted by the
complete withdrawal of the US from the region. The Taliban's alliance with India's
rival China internationally and its new investments in the region appear to weaken
India's influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan and across Central Asia (D'Souza,
2021).
For China, the situation in Afghanistan could be one of the turning points in
becoming the next global hegemon. In particular, the US withdrawal from
Afghanistan under regional control and US encirclement policies could be
highlighted as a positive development for China. Because already, US participation
in Japan, South Korea and Guam was seen as a threat to China's security policies
(Maan, 2022:6). But the Taliban's coming to power also posed a danger to China
(Thomas, 2021b:48). For China, which is already experiencing problems in the
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Xinjiang-Uighur region, separatist movements were revived by the activation of
groups such as ETIM/the Turkestan Islamist Party, while the Taliban's victory could
provide fuel for these movements (Ahrari, 2000:659).
Ensuring security and stability in the region is a necessity for China's
economic and military interests in the region. Stability is needed in Afghanistan,
especially for the security of China's investments in terms of access to and use of
natural resources in Afghanistan after the US leaves. That is why China has always
taken care to keep its communication with the Taliban open (Maan, 2022:9). In
principle, he tried to stay away from domestic issues in Afghanistan and did not want
the crisis to spill over into the Uighur issue. Accordingly, they also held bilateral
meetings with the Taliban and announced that they would act in mutual interest
(MOFAPRC, 2021, Wenting and Yunyi, 2021). Subsequently, the Taliban's move to
expulsion of Uighur militants from Afghanistan was an example of what was
discussed in this meeting (Wee and Xiao, 2021, Standish, 2021).
After taking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban developed ties with China
economically, making it its most important ally. China's technology is especially
important to the Taliban in extracting underground resources and minerals
(Horowitz, 2021). Security and stability in Afghanistan are also important for the
One Belt One Road37 project, but the Taliban's involvement could also be an
important variable for the development of bilateral relations (Marsden, 2021).
For Russia, it will be one of the countries with the greatest interest in
ensuring security and stability in the region. Russia is concerned about the Taliban
for spread of radical Islam, separatism and terrorism, not only in Afghanistan but
also in the entire region. To prevent this Russian, try to improve its relations with the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Khan and Syed, 2021: 460). Furthermore, for
Russia, which was unhappy with the US presence in Afghanistan from the very
beginning, the complete withdrawal of the US was an opportunity to fill the power
vacuum in Afghanistan (Thomas, 2021b:50).
The failure of the US in Afghanistan and the frustration of Western nationbuilding,
which was tried with intervention, also benefited Russia in terms of the
37 One Belt One Road initiative now known as The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global
infrastructure plan developed by China in 2013 and includes more than 100 countries and
international organization. Aims economic development and inter-regional connectivity.
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balance of power in the region and perceived it as a signal of the failure of 'pax
Americana' (Stepanova, 2022:138). Russia has attempted to balance the US and its
partner India by cooperating with China and Pakistan to fill the power vacuum (Cura,
2021). Not only that, but it aims to develop good relations with the Taliban to curb
the Taliban's support for militants in other countries in Central Asia, such as
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and to ensure the security of its Central Asian allies (The
Guardian, 2021).
Another interest in Russia in Afghanistan for the Taliban to come to power
may be the opium trade (Landay, 2021). Especially during the war, the opium trade,
which constituted the largest source of income for the Taliban, led to the entry of
large quantities of illegal opium into the Central Asian Republics and through these
countries to Russia (Aliyev, 2020). With new cooperation and relations with the
Taliban, Russia also hopes to prevent this trade (Stepanova, 2022:140).
The US exit from Afghanistan may also start to limit Russia's military
participation, which has been facilitated by the 9/11 attacks. While the intervention
of South Ossetia, the control of the Abkhazian Republics, the annexation of Crimea
and its military presence in Syria are relatively easy, their new participation may no
longer be so easily met (Tierney, 2021:72). Especially with the Ukraine crisis
continuing since 2014, it seems likely that the US, which has lost power in Central
Asia, will try to be more effective in Eastern Europe in Ukraine as part of balancing
and containing Russia.
From the Taliban's point of view, they are carefully trying to balance their
relationship with all these actors. First, efforts to ensure stability and balance in
Afghanistan, as well as the prevention of a possible civil war before it even begins,
will be the priority of the Taliban both in terms of internal affairs and the relations it
will establish outside. Because the Taliban's dominance in Afghanistan will play an
important role in the search for new allies and in the effort to gain strength
internationally. It is very important that the Taliban provide this for recognition as a
legitimate government (Khan and Syed, 2021:461).
From a regional point of view, cooperation and allies are important for the
legal recognition of the Taliban. For this reason, the relations Taliban established
began to be based on mutual interest. Their closer ties with Pakistan, as well as their
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approach to major anti-US forces in the region such as China and Russia, are a
foreign policy priority. However, while the Taliban also sought representations
globally, it wanted to represent Afghanistan at the UN and began to strive to
establish a consulate in Pakistan (Ahmad, 2021, Al Jazeera, 2021c).
Economically, the development and financing of Afghanistan is also
important to the Taliban. Trying to fund itself illegally throughout insurgent (opium)
seems unlikely after becoming the authority of Afghanistan. For this reason, the
continuation and security of relations and investments with China will continue to be
one of the priorities of the Taliban (Seckin, 2021). However, by choosing its side in
the Uighur crisis as China, Taliban will prefer not to scratch this issue if cooperation
continues. Not only that, but the Taliban has also been obliged to fulfill some
commitments to improve its relations with Pakistan, China, and Russia. These can be
considered as abstaining from Pakistani relations with the TTP, not provoking
militants within other Central Asia, not threatening the security of the Central Asian
Republics, and avoiding the relations it has established with terrorism during the 20-
year war. (Yousaf and Jabarkhail, 2021)
A complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan could be seen as a weakening
of America's strength and presence in Central Asia. Of course, for the US and Biden,
getting rid of commitments such as military presence in Afghanistan, the fight
against the Taliban and support for the Afghan government is seen as a success, but
it has weakened America's interests in Central Asia and the region, while paving the
way for rivals such as China-Russia to benefit from it (Ahmadi et al, 2021). In
addition, this benefit will cause not only Afghanistan, but also China to be more
audacious in the Taiwan crisis and Russia's Ukraine crisis. Which may not be
entirely related to the escalating Ukraine-Russia tensions in the first months of 2022
and Russia's operation in Ukraine.
For the US, which has lost power in Central Asia, different policy options
may arise. Since taking office, Biden has changed the balance of power in Central
Asia against himself, damaging his image, despite saying he would pay more
attention to global competition and focus more on Russia-China (Anderson, 2021).
Instead, his interest in the Middle East and his move towards reviving relations with
NATO allies may be indicative of his efforts to reassess himself.
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It is likely for Biden to focus specifically on the Gulf region to regain
diminished confidence in the Middle East (Harvey, 2021, Mazzuca and Alexander,
2022). Kagan (2021) sees this as an opportunity to renew US engagement in the
Middle East and to improve diplomatic relations in this region. Accordingly, he
explained Biden's short-term Middle East policy as human security, conflict
resolution, Arab-Israeli relations, and America's military presence in the region
(Domingo, 2021:432). Still, Biden remains timid about any involvement in the
Middle East (Haass, 2021).
In the case of NATO, Biden did not continue to clash with allies, unlike
Trump, although he dismissed Afghanistan as pursuing a policy in the event of a
withdrawal (Haass, 2021). Instead, he went on to say that he would revive NATO
and improve relations with Atlantic allies. NATO can become a priority of the US,
especially with the latest developments between Ukraine and Russia. With Russia's
operation in Ukraine, it is also possible to revive NATO, which is in crisis (Guyer,
2022).
From a Central Asian and Afghan perspective, a complete US exit could also
mean a retreat from American interventionism. At the same time, in the balance of
power between Russia, China and America, in the eyes of other states, it may have
put America in a less reliable position (Domingo, 2021:431). And in the equation
dominated by the Pakistan-China-Russia trio in Eurasian geography, it may be
possible in the future that India will move away from American views in terms of
protecting its interests in the region. In other words, the US end of "endless war" is
an indication that it has also moved away from its interests and interests in Central
Asia, and perhaps given up.
3.4. ASSESSING US OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES IN AFGHANISTAN
After examining the US Afghanistan intervention and the entire involvement
process, the difficulty and eventual realization of the complete withdrawal process is
an important milestone. This milestone is important both for military humanitarian
interventionism and for the new foreign policy transformation of the US. The
intervention, which lasted 20 years, was both the longest humanitarian military
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intervention and a very important event that occupied the US foreign policy agenda.
Complete withdrawal will gain more importance when new developments in these
two issues are examined. In below section, US decision to intervene in Afghanistan
and after 20 years to withdraw from Afghanistan will be evaluated in terms theories.
3.4.1. Evaluation of Afghanistan Intervention in terms of Just War
theory
After the events of the 9/11 War in Afghanistan and US Operation Enduring
Freedom, has been discussed in all areas. Realists, liberals, social constructivists, as
well as lawyers, ethicists, economists judged the intervention so much that was
almost uncountable. The war in Afghanistan has also set an important example of
just war theory.
Since the 9/11 events and the start of the war in Afghanistan, the strategies
and objectives of the US have changed. There are quite differences between the
dynamics and decisions of the time of the war and the continuation of the war and
the dynamics in which the complete withdrawal took place in 2021. This has led to
differences in the evaluations made from the point of view of just war theory.
Therefore, when looking at the changing strategies and facts, it will be easier to look
at what differences this causes for the criteria of just war. At the same time, the war
in Afghanistan is a very suitable example for both regional and global powers to
evaluate the criteria for just war as it has become a sphere of influence to achieve
different objectives (Dorn, 2011:243).
3.4.1.1. Jus Ad Bellum
The main event behind the initiation of the US intervention in Afghanistan is
the 9/11 and the US response to these attacks under self-defense. The purpose of the
intervention in Afghanistan by then-President Bush was initially described as
responding to 9/11 attacks and punishing those who carried out, preventing future
terrorist attacks (Dorn, 2011:245). According to the Just War Theory, this is also
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legally seen as part of Just Cause (Fixdal and Smith, 2005:295). But America's
policy shifts after the intervention has caused problems under just war.
Bush's stance on the Taliban and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, and his
shifting the balance of a country towards eliminating a terrorist organization,
undermined the just cause of the US (Bush, 2001a). Bush's efforts to legalize his
actions with the concept of war on terror have also sparked a new controversy among
just war theorists. First of all, although there is no global definition of terror and
terrorism, there is no consensus on whether terrorist groups or terrorist actors are
"legitimate target" (Williamson, 2009:35, Alm, 2021:20). While right-leaning war
theorists like Orend may see terrorist groups and their sponsors as a legitimate target,
for those who, like Walzer, are more upbeat, the answer is unclear (Vorobej,
2009:47).
After the American intervention in Afghanistan, their objectives began to
change. Deciding to continue its participation in Afghanistan in order to ensure
regional security and stability, the US began to strive for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan (Thistlewaite and Katulis, 2009). These efforts, which can be
summarized as developing Afghanistan economically, helping to form a democratic
and stable government, ensuring that people have access to their rights, protecting
civilians from regional conflicts and ensuring Afghanistan’s security, can be
acceptable justifications under the concept of just cause. However, other questions
will arise about the sole purpose of the US to develop Afghanistan. As a result, a pro-
American Afghan regime rather than a Taliban regime is also seen as a strategic
target for US interests in Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia. This
undermines US just cause for Afghanistan's restructuring.
With the Taliban regaining power, the US began to lose its way (Thistlewaite
and Katulis, 2009). After defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the US began
reconstruction of the Afghan government, and with the new war against the Taliban,
it began to pursue a policy of preventing the Taliban from recapturing Afghanistan.
Especially with the death of al-Qaeda leader bin Laden in 2011, the real purpose of
the intervention, which reached its original purpose, began to be questioned more
and further away from just cause. The Taliban's control of Afghanistan, along with
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the withdrawal in 2021, demonstrates a great deal of frustration and failure that the
US has been trying to do for 20 years.
It is not wrong to say that the legality of the Afghan intervention according to
international law is more blurred (Vorobej, 2009:49). Today, the highest authority
that determines and approves the fairness or compliance of any war with
international law is the UN and the Security Council (Cole, 2002:38). And according
to Article 51 of the UN Charter, a UN member state has the right to respond to
violence inflicted on it in self-defense, but this right is not limitless. (UN Chartes,
article 51). On September 12, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1368,
recognizing the right to self-defense against terrorism. Yet this did not mean that the
US had the right to conduct military operations on Afghan territory (Dolan,
2005:88). It is fair to say that there is a validity under the right authority, if not
entirely. However, without a decision to attack Afghanistan, the US began bombing
Kabul, and Resolution 1378 was adopted after the Taliban fled Kabul (Dorn,
2011:249). This Resolution did not include any content related to the use of force in
Chapter VII.
The UN's involvement with ISAF has further increased compliance with the
concept of right authority, which began with the defeat of Taliban and al-Qaeda
forces. Unlike the US operation, ISAF was established with Resolution 1386 in
accordance with Chapter VII and began to serve as a security provider. With
NATO’s command, ISAF had duties such as ensuring security in Afghanistan,
protecting civilians and training Afghan forces, as well as his commitment to the
highest authority and his legality. But American operations, increased participation
in Afghanistan under Obama, and the conflicts until a complete withdrawal took
place have been steps taken by the US as individuals rather than UN and NATO
resolutions. Which is that under Biden, a complete withdrawal was carried out, and
the fact that the US acted more independently without consulting NATO allies was
more unethical in Afghanistan than the right authority.
Understanding the US intention to intervene in Afghanistan is a more difficult
benchmark. Because setting intentions may not always reflect an honest reality. The
US intention to legalize intervention in Afghanistan has taken a humanitarian view
and has made it a mission to protect innocents and civilians against the Taliban
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regime (Alm, 2021:21). This is explained by the livelihoods and hunger of the
Afghan people under the Taliban, the destruction of women's rights, the suppression
of religious criteria and the execution of even the government's own people with a
repressive regime, and American intervention also seems acceptable in the right
intention section of their commitments that American intervention will bring
prosperity, peace and peace to the country and end the violence (Bush, 2001b).
The Taliban’s failure to become a whole state between 1996 and 2001, its
inability to meet economic and social qualifications, the dissatisfaction and suffering
of the majority of the population, human and women's rights abuses constituted a
legality to intervene in Afghanistan under the right intention (Vorobej, 2008:52). At
this point, trying to reinvest the state for humanitarian reasons was also seen as a
right intention to prevent it from being used as a superior to terrorists (Dorn,
2011:246).
At the same time, the US has put the international arena in a compulsion.
Bush's discourse that “either you are with us or with terrorists” has made the right
intention criteria problematic (Bush, 2001b). And it is important to remember that
the main purpose and intention is to prevent the use of Afghanistan by terrorists.
Nevertheless, for some scholars, even if humanitarian intentions are secondary,
according to the just war theory, the fact that America's intentions are selfish and
self-interested, regardless of this, the presence of humanitarian reasons accepts that
this is counted as a right intention (Alm, 2021: 31).
So, was the Afghanistan intervention the only and last resort to respond to the
9/11? Although, different theorists may try to answer differently, the course of the
situation cannot be changed. In the days after the attack, the US blamed al-Qaeda for
the attack and sent the Taliban an ultimatum without any talks or agreements (Bush,
2001b). In this ultimatum, the US demanded the closure of all terrorist camps in
Afghanistan and the handover of all connected leaders (Osama bin Laden). And in
recognition of the failure to meet the demands, US made a clear threat by declaring
that the Taliban would pay for it.
The US has not attempted to engage in a meeting with the Taliban, which de
facto holds the Afghanistan authority. The Taliban, in turn, did not fully comply with
the US ultimatum, but said that they wanted to meet and negotiate with the US. A
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third country and an Islamic court stipulated the extradition of Osama bin Laden
(Frantz, 2001). However, the Bush administration avoided these talks and took a
more aggressive stance, launching Operation Enduring Freedom. At this point, it is
obvious that the negotiations have become difficult due to the fact that the Taliban is
not a de facto government, but it is fair to say that the negotiations have not taken
place in any environment and that the US has not tried enough options in terms of
sanctions. So maybe we can say that the US did not use intervention as a first option,
but it is also clear that it did not apply as a last resort.
In the 20-year war, it was mostly not the last resort for the US to resort to
violence. For example, Taliban representatives were not called at the first Bonn
Conference, then instead of agreeing to eliminate the Taliban within Afghanistan,
and refused diplomatic negotiations (Dorn, 2011:251). Under Obama, more
international talks began and diplomatic routes were resorted to, which Bush refused
to consider. Talks were also tried through Pakistan, secretly meeting with Taliban
leaders, and thus looking for alternative routes (Thistlethwaite and Katullis, 2009).
Which with the Taliban's growing influence, forced US control of Afghanistan into
Taliban talks and reached its peak under Trump.
As for probability of success and proportionality, we can say that there is a
huge imbalance, because as of 2001, the US was economically, militarily, and
politically the most, powerful, the most capable and most developed country in the
world. At this point, a war with the Taliban and al-Qaeda was seen as a good chance
of success (Leaning, 2002:354). But the lack of dominance in the region, the lack of
allies in the area and the unexpected resistance of al-Qaeda-Taliban forces showed
that the chances of winning this war were not so easy. Accordingly, more troops
were constantly sent to the Bush and then Obama era against the Taliban, resulting in
huge expenditures, losses, and casualties for the US.
It has not been so easy to raise humanitarian standards, maintain dominance
in Afghanistan and achieve reconstruction. Of course, there have been improvements
in human standards (UNDP, 2009, Rawa News, 2009), but still this rise was not
significant. Many domestic reasons, especially corruption in the Afghan government,
erratic attitudes of warlords, and the illegal opium trade, also emerged as reasons that
stood in the way of development (Dorn, 2011:248). Accordingly, there was no
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proportionality in the expenditure of resources. At the same time, the lives at risk and
the fact that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is worse than before, in line
with the intention of the US, suggests that the criteria of proportionality are far from
met.
3.4.1.2. Jus In Bello
The US assessment about the conduct of the war also does not seem very
positive. When we make an assessment between the warring parties within the scope
of proportionality of means: despite the high technology and weapons that the US
and allied forces have; the Taliban forces mostly had weapons and equipment from
the era of the Old-Soviet occupation, as well as more guerrilla equipment (Dorn,
2011:252). Given the number of fighters, the Taliban's initial numbers were lower,
but continued to grow during the surge period, but far fewer than the US, the allied
forces and the Afghan National Army. According to some data from 2014, the total
number of Afghan forces and ISAF troops was more than 400,000, while the Taliban
forces were not fully known, but not more than 100,000 (Dawi, 2014). Nevertheless,
this imbalance in powers did not mean disproportionate force. Because the coalition
forces in particular needed the technology and forces to defend civilians (Dorn,
2011:252). But the use of this technology, drone strikes and civilian casualties under
the name 'collateral damage' raised other questions about the how just the war is
(Thistletwaite and Katulis, 2009).
The US was trying to "win the hearts and minds" of the Afghan people in the
direction of bringing peace, peace and stability to Afghanistan. However, increased
civilian casualties and 'collateral damage' prevented this (Barry, 2017:142). While it
was already being debated whether the war complied with jus ad bellum, the fact that
the intervention also undermined the jus in bello criteria contradicted the moral
arguments of just war theory (Connah, 2021:75). 14,000 between 2006 and 2013,
between 2016 and 2017, 4,653 Afghan civilians were killed, (Knickmeyer, 2021,
Downes and Monten, 2013: 91, Institute for Economic & Peace, 2018:12). While the
US is expected to reduce the number of civilians killed by the Taliban and terror
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groups, its negative contribution to that number, especially because of airstrikes, was
one example of the war against the proportionality criteria.
US strategies for defeating the Taliban and other terrorist organizations were
also a problematic point for Just War. For example, torture of key figures to gather
intelligence, night raids by Afghan security forces with US intelligence, mistreatment
of prisoners by Afghan forces do not comply with international law, human rights
and jus in bello principles (Petty, 2011; Connah, 2021:76).
Furthermore, the US failure during the war to defend and protect women's
rights under Right Intentions is one example of the failure of both jus ad bellum and
jus in bello principles by the US. Even if there has been an improvement in women's
rights under the Afghan government as part of the reconstruction, 20 years of war
and domestic instability have caused more women to suffer (Connah, 2021:76). Both
suicide bombings by the Taliban and US drone and airstrikes within the scope of
counterterrorism have resulted in the deaths of mostly women and children
(UNAMA, 2019:10). Furthermore, the fact that the Islamic Emirate, which was
established with the end of the war, caused more restrictions under the name of
'sharia' made the situation the same as before the war.
Increased civilian casualties in Afghanistan could also mean more forces are
needed to stop the Taliban. However, with the strategies pursued by the US and its
allies, it became very difficult to distinguish between those who died due to terrorist
attacks and those who died as a result of intervention as the civilian casualties
increased (Connah, 2021:78). This is problematic for US military humanitarian
intervention. While the number of casualties was expected to come down and
terrorist activities to decrease, the opposite has happened, and situation turned into
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it" as Carter (2018) quoted it.
Which proves the civilians killed by US strikes in Kunduz in 2018 (UNAMA,
2019:41). According to jus in bello principles, these strategies resulting from
intervention do not correspond to the theory of just war.
All this situation has led to further questioning of the purpose and tactics of
the Afghan intervention. Although the US cited one of the objectives of its
intervention in Afghanistan as endangering the lives of the Taliban and terrorist
civilians, the path it took during the intervention led to more deaths and increased
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mistrust in Afghanistan. In this case, the US did not fully observe the criteria of
discrimination or proportionality with the strategies it followed, and problems arose
in the compliance of the jus in bello principle.
3.4.1.3. Jus Post Bellum
The American intervention in Afghanistan and the subsequent reconstruction
process can be evaluated within the scope of jus post bellum. However, the fact that
the crisis in Afghanistan has not been fully resolved for two decades and the
continuing conflict has emerged as an obstacle to jus post bellum. According to
Ledwidge (2013:263), the focus must be on ending the current state of war, conflict
or crisis, followed by improvement, configuration and infrastructure work, for jus
post bellum to work. However, the ongoing conflict situation in Afghanistan and the
inability of the Afghan government to be effective at certain points cause both
reconstruction and development efforts to be not efficient enough.
The US and allied states were responsible for the jus post bellum in
Afghanistan. Accordingly, it is obvious that efforts and developments have been
made in education, infrastructure, health services, house reconstruction, anticorruption
efforts, employment resources, training of local forces, funds for security
and government, counter-terrorism and measures against illegal opium trafficking,
and more (Carati, 2015: 202, SIGAR, 2019:43, Connah, 2021: 81). However,
reconstruction efforts have not been very effective, both because of the Taliban's
resistance and because the US prioritizes the defeat of the Taliban over the
establishment of jus post bellum.
US military-based strategies for achieving humanitarian objectives in
Afghanistan also did not help with postwar reconstruction (Rotberg, 2004: 97 as
cited in Connah, 2021:80). Instead, it can be said that a mutual understanding of
Afghan society by focusing on its socio-cultural background can be more efficient
during the reconstruction. Thus, it can also be said that engaging with the Taliban
and other separatist groups, jointly and going through the peace process that requires
minimal use of violence, will benefit the Afghan people, the international community
and the US more. However, the inconsistency of the plan has also led to the
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unsuccessful management of the jus post bellum process, with the US constantly
sending more troops to Afghanistan, putting its strategy on a military basis, and
prolonging the process too far against the rhetoric of withdrawal (Carati, 2015:213).
3.4.2. Declining National Interest and Realism in Afghanistan
Over the past two decades in Afghanistan, the causes and necessity of war
have become more uncertain, but with the sudden withdrawal, the process has
become more questionable. Reasons such as eliminating al-Qaeda at the beginning of
the war, preventing terrorist organizations from being defeated, bringing democracy
to Afghanistan, ensuring women's rights, and creating a livable world for children
and civilians seemed to provide just cause for intervention. However, with their
failure, the failure of the US to balance power in Central and South Asia, the effort to
ensure access and security to valuable resources in the region, the effort to create a
pro-American government and the desire to maintain a military presence in the
region, as the realists call it, the failure of what can be considered as "national
interest" and the fact that it does not matter to the US In the "vital interest" point, it is
a good way to explain the changing strategies in Afghanistan and the complete
withdrawal offers perspective.
Over the course of two decades, US spending and changing plans, especially
in Afghanistan, began to harm US national interests. After Bin Laden's death in
2011, the ongoing war began to damage the US presence, even though it seemed to
have achieved its original goal (Biden, 2021e). The US used more than $1 trillion
over the two decades from 2002 to 2022 for Afghan security forces (Brown
University, 2022). This expenditure provided training, weapons and ammunition,
other combat equipment and technologies for over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and
police (Tian, 2021). However, the inefficient and unsuccessful structure of the
Afghan army, the influence of the warlords within the country and the conflicts of
interest of other actors within the country have led to the inefficiency of the money
spent (Sen, 2022:91). The fall of Kabul before the US full withdrawal from
Afghanistan was complete, and with the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan in less
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than a month, it was another example of unrequited spending and a major damage to
the already low national interest of the US in Afghanistan.
US plans for Afghanistan to use its resources were also unsuccessful. Even
before the intervention, the Taliban were blocking and damaging a pipeline project
and investments for Central Asian oil reserves under the Unocal (Martin, 2001).
With the government of Hamid Karzai established after the intervention, the US
began to gain access to Central Asian mineral reserves and natural resources (Imran,
2019:58). The Taliban's surge led to greater US involvement in the region. American
forces establishing more bases in the region under the BSA have also begun to do
more to maintain access to energy resources (NATO, 2014, Enduring Strategic
Partnership Agreement, 2012, Security and Defense Cooperative Agreement, 2014).
However, this was met with harsher condemnation by the Taliban and continued to
provoke the group. After the Taliban began to control the country, the US has
difficulty to have access over the energy sources.
The US has not only funded military budget of Afghans to build their own
forces, within the scope of reconstruction, it has also funded Afghanistan to ensure
economic developments, establish democratic governance, form a stable government
and build infrastructures such as health and education (White House, 2021b). At the
same time the US has combated against especially in the Middle East, thus the
address of the global war against terrorism was not only Afghanistan (Biden, 2021e;
2021a). Yet to continue to fund Afghanistan was not economically and politically in
America's national interest anymore.
At the time of the intervention, the US was in a unique position as the world's
largest, most powerful and influential dominant force. It also affected his actions and
policy strategies. So, in an unrivaled, unipolar world, the new threats to the US were
rogue states, global terrorism, and failed states. In the new order, which America
maintained primacy, it used soft and hard powers under the name of "liberal
international order" to control and look after its own interests (Latham, 2021). Al-
Qaeda's 9/11 attacks were also a strategy against this order of the US, and under the
circumstances of the period, the US response was based on the dynamics of the
period. However, during the war, US involvement in the Middle East and Central
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Asia advantaged the emergence of China and Russia as stronger and more effective
forces (Pihl, 2021:25).
The weakening of the US fight against global terrorism and its intervention in
Afghanistan has also jeopardized the US role as the only superpower, with China
rapidly rising as a global power. Which Biden didn't hesitate to say in his remarks is
that China's rise and global competition should be emphasized (Biden, 2021e). For
this reason, it has been announced that it will be in the interest of the US in a new
global competitive environment to withdraw from Afghanistan and stop the funds
and resources spent there. In doing so, however, the power vacuum created in
Afghanistan will be filled by Russia and especially China, but it will also cause the
US to lose power in Central and South Asia (Trofimov and Page, 2021).
It would be in the greater interest of the Taliban to take over again in
Afghanistan. Latham (2021) was saying from a realistic perspective that withdrawing
from Afghanistan was not a disaster. According to him, while the strategic
importance of Eastern Europe or the Gulf region has increased during the new period
of global competition, that the Taliban sovereign Afghanistan will benefit the US by
causing problems for regional and global rivals such as Russia, China and Iran.
Russia and Iran financed the Taliban while the US remained in Afghanistan, forcing
them to spend more of the US resources (Malkasian, 2021:428). The US could have
used the same against its global rivals.
Relations with Pakistan had also become more difficult to stay in
Afghanistan, with the US changing strategy and involving India. This has led to the
development of relations between Pakistan and the Taliban against the US (Pihl,
2021:27). In the process, Trump used financial aid to Pakistan as a leverage in
relations, but had not got what he wanted. Nevertheless, Pakistan played an
important role in the US and Taliban peace talks, and by using it to its advantage, it
was able to turn the supremacy in Afghanistan to its side in the Indian competition
(Malkasian, 2021:429). This meant that with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan,
India, which could see itself as its own ally, could not fill the power vacuum.
In terms of security, US priorities in Afghanistan and elsewhere have
changed, but in some ways, they have been struggling. Counter-terrorism was
becoming both costly, especially in Afghanistan, which has become a much more
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unstable region since the Taliban's insurgence began. In addition, due to civilian
casualties and the unending nature of the war, it has gradually reduced public
confidence in US participation and the Afghan government (Pihl, 2021:28). This led
them to think that the Taliban's victory, despite the repressive and martial law of the
pre-intervention Taliban era, would save them from all this violence and destruction,
causing the US to lose its advantage on the ground (Malkasian, 2021:418).
Finally, with the change in US foreign policy, the change of vision reduced
the importance of Afghanistan in line with the new plans. The role of human rights
and moral values, American ideals, American interventionism in US foreign policy
under the liberal international order decreased (Posner, 2021). Of course, under the
US intervention in Afghanistan, not only these reasons, but also its desire to adopt
the American system, ideals and institutions from all countries as the only
hegemony. However, with the failure of the intervention option of military
intervention to achieve this, it has raised some questions about the preference of noninterventions
to achieve national interests (Posner, 2021).
The economic and global impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has
erupted since 2020, have affected involvement in Afghanistan and the acceleration of
the withdrawal process. In particular, the fact that the losses from the terrorist attack
remained much less than the pandemic, as well as the emergence of a serious
economic crisis, tested the necessity of involvement in Afghanistan (Malkasian,
2021:448). American interests in Afghanistan decreased compared to other issues on
the agenda during the period when the economic burden of Afghanistan funding on
the US could be used for Covid-19 and the national interests of the US were newly
defined (Pihl, 2021:25).
A complete US withdrawal could be seen as a win, as the strategy shifts in
Afghanistan and the necessity and objectives of intervention in Afghanistan become
more profitable for US interests. However, the justification and ethical
considerations of the intervention are questioned in terms of the legacy it leaves
behind, also in terms of the interests and gains of the US. Less than a year after the
withdrawal, it may not be enough to understand how the recent complete withdrawal
from Afghanistan has affected and what it will bring under new US foreign policy
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strategies, thus it will be more accurate to reevaluate the withdrawal in the coming
years.
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CONCLUSION
The September 11 attacks were recorded in history as one of the turning
points and most important breaking moments in terms of feeling terror danger at the
highest level in the US and the consequences it caused globally. The fact that the
danger of terrorism became concrete after the attacks and that even a country like the
US was exposed to such violence within its own territory revealed the necessity of an
international response against terrorism. It is considered that terrorism posed a threat
to Western norms such as democracy, human rights, and freedom. But the most
important part for the US was that it was attacked while dominating the international
arena as the only superpower after the Cold War. After the attacks, national security
was at the top of the agenda for the US.
The US developed a new security framework by emphasizing the concept of
‘Self Defense’. The UN resolution and NATO decision tell us that there is no
unlawful intervention in terms of legal authority. However, it has led to the
questioning of the legality of war, in some unethical events caused by the intervening
forces and especially the operations and strategies carried out by the US. In this
regard the first chapter 1 presented the definition and history of the Just War Theory.
The concept of just war, was shaped through abstract and relative concepts
such as glory and honor, started to be based on certain principles with the Christian
culture that developed during the Greek and Roman period. The ethical obligations
that people had to comply with during fighting are developed, with examples from
the Bible of medieval theologians. In particular, St Augustine and Aquinas revealed
the first principles of just and legitimate warfare. With Augustine and Aquinas, the
first principles of just and legitimate war are formed. Later, it became more secular
and religious foundations were removed and tried to be placed on legal foundations.
However, the validity of the rules of international law and the lack of organs that
control it led to the idea of just war only as an ethical and moral concept. As of the
20th century, the idea of establishing an international supervisory manager with the
idea of the League of Nations was seriously involved in international law. And for
the first time, the first example of the Briand Kellog Pact with the limitation of the
use of force was formed. At the moment, the regulation of the use of force through
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Charter and institutions of the UN, which is still valid, has enabled the just war to
have an environment to be evaluated within a legal framework.
The formation and legality of the concept of humanitarian military
intervention emerged as a practice defined as just warfare within this framework.
Particularly, interventionism in the Cold War period started to form the first
examples of humanitarian military intervention. However, the fact that the two
superpowers have used as a tool to apply power and influence in the global
competition explains that the legality and justness of humanitarian military
interventions is a controversial concept. Crises in many regions such as South Africa,
Rhodesia, Korea, and Vietnam emerged as the application areas of the concept of
humanitarian military intervention. With the end of the Cold War, the dynamics of
humanitarian military intervention also changed and became more haphazard and
episodic under US hegemony. The intervention in Iraq was more related to the
national interests of the US, while regions with no vital interests such as Rwanda and
Somalia were bypassed. This revealed the impression of humanitarian military
intervention as a tool used by states to achieve their national interests rather than just
war theory and moral values.
9/11 was the event that opened a completely different door to humanitarian
intervention. The attacks and the Afghanistan intervention, which started with Bush's
declaration of the global war against terrorism, created new debates about the
redefinition of the concept of "terrorism" and its place in international law. While a
common definition of terrorism was not yet in place, the rules and justness of the war
against terrorism were a bigger question mark. Although just war theorists have
published articles and books on this subject, it is obvious that it is difficult to place
the war against terrorism in a legal framework and to judge its justness. For this
reason, it is important to evaluate different regions and crises correctly, not the same
in every war against terrorism. In evaluating the legality of the fight against terrorism
in Afghanistan, it is necessary to know the dynamics here, to understand its
importance for the US, and to have a good knowledge of Afghanistan's past which is
full of interventions. Thus, the question of whether the US intervention in
Afghanistan a just war or a tool is used to achieve its national interests is evaluated.
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Afghanistan, which has been between power games since the 19th century,
was tried to be used, dominated, and even exposed to interventions by the great
powers of the period. It has been exposed to foreign interventions for two centuries,
including England, Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and finally the US. The
invasion of the Soviets was the event that opened the door to the events of 9/11. The
Soviets' interest in Afghanistan since the 1970s and the effort to control it turned into
a military intervention in 1979. The resistance against this intervention led to the
organization of mujahideen groups that would form the basis of al-Qaeda and the
Taliban. The Soviet invasion, which lasted almost a decade, turned into a war of
resistance between the Mujahideen and Soviet forces. The US, after losing its most
important ally in the region, Iran, in 1979, did not want Afghanistan to enter the pro-
Soviet regime. In this direction, the policy followed by the US in Afghanistan has
been on the side of the mujahideen due to the Cold War. And especially the weapon
support had a critical role in the success of the mujahideen against the Soviets.
The end of the Soviet invasion did not point to the end of the crisis for
Afghanistan. Both the struggle between the different Mujahideen groups in the
region and the Soviets weapons left in the country caused over-armament, instability
and lack of security in the country. However, the Taliban, who stood by the
Mujahideen groups during the struggle for power, became the main power in
Afghanistan when most of them began to control the regions in Afghanistan towards
the end of the 90s. At the same time, they continued their activities in Afghanistan
thanks to their relations with the Taliban in Al-Qaeda, which was organized by the
merger of the Mujahideen from different countries during the Soviet invasion. And in
the 90s, they began to take their anti -US actions. The attacks on American troops in
Somalia and Saudi Arabia started with the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993
and continued. On September 11, 2001, the actions that constitute the starting point
of the thesis took place and the main reason for the intervention of Afghanistan was
formed.
Especially after the attacks, the first reaction of the US to the Taliban and the
subsequent intervention formed the beginning of the global war against terrorism in
the Bush era. With the evolution of the mujahideen groups it supported during the
Soviet Invasion, the new situation in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda started to pose a
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danger to the US. The US intervention in Afghanistan and the War in Afghanistan
began with the emergence of the Bush Doctrine, the US had waged a global war
against terrorism. However, with the Iraq intervention Bush started to make military
actions without waiting for UN resolutions on the right to enter the war. This can be
seen as the beginning of Bush's "pre-emptive war" strategy.
The intervention that started with the aim of preventing global terrorism,
preventing terrorist organization, and destroying terrorist bases in Afghanistan
gained a much different dimension with the UN's involvement and reconstruction
strategy. The new aim was to reconstruct the "failed" Afghan state and create a
democratic state within the framework of Western norms. Under the name of
"Reconstruction of Afghanistan", a nation-building project was started with the role
of the US and the UN. The new state of Afghanistan was founded by taking steps
towards the provisional government and the constitution. With the first democratic
elections held in 2005, the reconstruction was progressing as desired. Economic
development was also aimed within the framework of the Bonn Conference, The
International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan and the New
Marshall Plan. In addition, within the framework of ISAF, it was desired to eliminate
the vulnerability by training Afghan forces. However, there were still local obstacles
to the realization of all this. The lack of centralization in Afghanistan, its
demographic structure and local power centers under the guise of warlords were the
things that made it difficult for the whole process to progress successfully.
The beginning of the Taliban resurgence, on the other hand, was the
beginning of a process that was wearing out for its intervention and its aims. The
reorganized Taliban forces and local supporters, in addition to their attacks on the
Afghan government and US-Allied forces under the name of insurgency, also
changed the way of the intervention. The intervention, which was already
controversial compared to a just war, became more difficult in terms of the strategy
of the intervention with the increase in civilian deaths. In line with the interests of the
US, the increase in material and military losses and the inability to achieve the
intended goals led to more questioning of the necessity of the intervention. With
President Obama's coming to office, the idea of withdrawing from Afghanistan
became the American top foreign policy agenda.
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First, Obama's new strategy and foreign policy priorities were evaluated.
Inheriting the global war and the Afghanistan-Iraq interventions from the Bush era,
Obama's main goal was to end the intervention in these two regions. However, he
considered the war in Afghanistan rather than Iraq as a more just and good war. He
saw the Iraq War as a burden and a bad war and aimed to remove the crisis thereby
spending the resources allocated for the war in Iraq on Afghanistan. At the same
time, although the Afghanistan war was seen as a "good war", it not only did not
serve the vital interests of the US in line with realist interests, but also gave an
advantage to its rivals such as Russia and China in the global competitive
environment. Obama, who wanted to both increase the US activity in the
international arena and maintain its global leadership wanted to end the Afghanistan
intervention as soon as possible. However, the situation in Afghanistan was not as
optimistic as Obama had expected. The reconstruction was not fruitful, the Taliban
resistance stronger than expected. But at the same time, the US economy was not
suitable for transferring more resources to Afghanistan due to the severe crisis it was
experiencing.
Obama's new strategy was to increase the level of troops against the Taliban
and other rebel groups in the region, to ensure security and to bring the Afghan
government to a level where it can defend itself. Accordingly, it increased military
involvement in Afghanistan and operations against terrorist targets. It can also be
said that it achieved relative success with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. In
order to turn this relative success into a greater success, the first serious steps were
taken towards the withdrawal by determining the US withdrawal plan from
Afghanistan with the Bonn Conference II, and the planned withdrawal of the US
troops began.
In the Trump era, the goal was not different from the Obama era. Calling his
foreign policy strategy principled realism, Trump wanted the involvement in
Afghanistan to end and a focus on global competition, especially China-oriented.
Trump, who wanted to follow a more pragmatic policy, wanted to act according to
the circumstances. The withdrawal that started during the Obama era also made his
job relatively easy. However, conditions were not conducive to a full retreat. The
overwhelming superiority of the Taliban and insurgent groups over Afghan
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government forces and increasing control in Afghanistan showed that the Afghan
government was not ready for a complete US withdrawal. For this, the strategy of
sending more soldiers to the region continued in the first years of Trump. Far from
the idea of nation-building like Obama, Trump's main goal was to complete the
withdrawal without jeopardizing the petty interests of the US. Trump, who used
diplomatic relations for this, started direct talks with the Taliban after a long time and
tried to agree on a realistic withdrawal. Although this did not please the Afghan
government, Trump, within the framework of his pragmatic realistic policy, wanted
to end this intervention as soon as possible, because of there are no further US
interests in Afghanistan and intervention was a huge burden on the economy. These
efforts, which concluded with the Doha Agreement, actually showed that the US had
ended the intervention idea.
Biden, on the other hand, was more radical. He saw the complete withdrawal
as a foreign policy priority and wanted the US to return to its global leadership role
as soon as possible. Thus, it would be easier to compete with Russia and China, and
it would be able to avoid some disadvantages due to its presence in Afghanistan.
Although the intra-Afghan talks after Doha did not go as expected and the control of
the Taliban in Afghanistan during the intervention period was at its peak, Biden did
not give up on the idea of withdrawal. The completion of the full withdrawal within
9 months of taking office has been the subject of criticism from both his allies and
some inside the US. Still, Biden thought that withdrawal from Afghanistan would
only be like this, and he earned sort of "success". Thus, while the intervention that
lasted for 20 years came to an end, the reasons and necessities of the intervention
failed.
Of course, the Afghanistan War did not concern only the US and
Afghanistan. Both during the duration of the intervention and the dynamics created
by the War in Afghanistan were global. The participation of regional powers such as
Pakistan in the war and the post-war Afghanistan situation were important. However,
the end of US involvement in Afghanistan was of greater importance in terms of the
international balance of power, with global great powers such as China, India and
Russia. While Russia can benefit more from the difficult situation of the US in
Afghanistan, they will have to review their own interventionism especially in
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Ukraine after the intervention that has now ended. At the same time, greater US
interest in the global power race may reveal a tougher competition for China. While
the partnership between India and the US may become tangible in Afghanistan, the
withdrawal of the US from the region and the unilateral decision of withdrawing
from Afghanistan makes the future of this cooperation curious.
While analyzing the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the research evaluated
the necessity and continuity of the intervention from two extremes within the scope
of just war theory and realist perspective. Thus, the rationale behind the US
continued intervention has been examined from ethical and realist perspectives. The
fact that the process has become so complicated, costly and long despite the
withdrawal, especially during the Obama era, has caused US interests and gains in
the region to become blurred. At the same time, the fact that the purpose of the
intervention in Afghanistan has become blurred and nothing change but destruction
compared to 20 years ago, shows that the justness of this intervention is very
doubtful. Thus, the intervention became a tangible and valuable example for the
reassessment of the concept of both just warfare and, in connection with,
humanitarian military intervention.
The ethical and realistic logic behind the continuation of the US intervention
in Afghanistan has been questioned. In particular, the beginning, continuation and
end of war, as an important example for humanitarian military intervention and just
war theory, provided a good evaluation point for the concepts of jus ad bellum, jus in
bello and jus post bellum. From a realist point of view, leaving aside ethical
concerns, the continuation and eventual withdrawal of this intervention by the US
offers a good realist review window on what the 20-year process has gained and lost
for the US. This is why, in Chapter 3, the intervention is evaluated from these two
perspectives.
This thesis, aimed to evaluate the whole process of intervention from the
beginning to the withdrawal. It examined the US role and activities in Afghanistan.
The analytical framework used in this thesis based on just theory has raised questions
on the causes and necessity of war. With recent withdrawal, US policy has become
more questionable. However, it may be early to evaluate whether the US cannot
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shape the situation in Afghanistan according to what they want within their new
foreign policy strategies.
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