Barnett R. Rubin

The Fragmentation of Afghanistan

T -JLhe withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan has made clear that the crisis in that country was not only one of foreign intervention but also of the breakdown?indeed, frag mentation?of a state. Having sacrificed over a million lives, the people of Afghanistan today face the unhappy alternatives of a government they reject and a resistance they fear. The turbulence of this once isolated land can no longer be a matter of indifference to a world whose powers have invested so much in the struggle. Five to six million Afghan refugees?more than a third of the countrys population?strain the resources of neighboring Pakistan and Iran. The United States and U.S.S.R., having spent years of effort and billions of dollars and rubles, continue to pour in sophisticated firepower. A disaster for the Afghan people, a permanent danger for Pakistan, a serious irritant in U.S.-Soviet relations, the conflict in Afghanistan continues. Is there a way out?

Peace building and state-building in Afghanistan: Constructing sovereignty for whose security?

Abstract In the aftermath of civil wars, international actors often worry about the incoherence, tribalism, and division of war-torn nation-states like Afghanistan. However, the problems encountered in the Afghanistan recovery and reconstruction effort illustrate that the divisions, rivalries and fragmentation of authority of the ‘international community’ have constituted just as big an obstacle to what the UN now calls ‘peace building’. Sustainable stability and peace, to say nothing of democracy, require international actors to delegate some sovereign functions to a multilateral entity that can reinforce rather than undermine the institutions responsible for the reconstruction of the nation-state. The history and contemporary situation in Afghanistan makes clear that there is an important need for the peace-building mechanisms proposed by the UN Secretary-Generals High-level Panel. This would involve a unified international decision-making body that would act as a counterpart to the recipient national government and potentially bring order to the anarchy that invariably flows from the multiple agendas, doctrines and aid budgets of the array of external actors involved in ‘peace building’ in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Post-Soviet political order : conflict and state building

1. Introduction: Reconstructing Politics Amidst the Wreckage Of Empire Jack Snyder 2. After Empire: Competing Discourses and Interstate Conflict in Postimperial Eastern Europe Alexander J. Motyl 3. The Great War and the Mobilization of Ethnicity in the Russian Empire Mark von Hagen 4. Will Russia Survive? Center and Periphery in the Russian Federation Steven Solnick 5. Ethnolinguistic and Religious Pluralism and Democratic Construction in Ukraine Jose Casanova 6. Possibilities for Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Post-Soviet Central Asia Rajan Menon and Hendrik Spruyt 7. Russian Hegemony and State Breakdown in the Periphery: Causes and Consequences of the Civil War in Tajikistan Barnett R. Rubin 8. Conclusion: Managing Normal Instability Barnett R. Rubin

Crafting a Constitution for Afghanistan

On 4 January 2004, nearly all 502 members of the Constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Council) meeting in Kabul silently stood to approve a new constitution for the “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.” President Hamid Karzai signed and officially promulgated the document on 26 January 2004, inaugurating Afghanistan’s sixth constitution since King Amanullah Khan promulgated the first in 1923. Delegates hoped that this relatively liberal Islamic constitution would provide a framework for the long task of consolidating basic state structures, as the country struggled to emerge from decades of anti-Soviet jihad, interfactional and interethnic civil war, and wars of conquest and resistance by and against the radical Islamists of the Taliban movement. In his speech to the closing session of the Loya Jirga, President Karzai explained why he thought that the new constitution—which mandated a presidential system with a bicameral parliament, a highly centralized administration with unprecedented rights for minority languages, and an Islamic legal system safeguarded by a Supreme Court with powers of judicial review—would meet the needs of a desperately indigent but proud country searching for a period of stability in which to rebuild. The constitution was the next to last step in the road map to “reestablishing permanent institutions of government” outlined in the Bonn Accords of 5 December 2001. Afghans signed that agreement under UN auspices as the United States was completing the job of routing the Taliban regime that had given refuge to Osama bin Laden. The constitution provided a framework for the “free and fair elections” to choose a Barnett R. Rubin is director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation of New York University. In late 2001, he advised UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi during the talks that led to the Bonn Accords. Rubin’s books include The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (2nd ed., 2002).

Blood on the doorstep : the politics of preventive action

Throughout the 1990s, US policymakers thought they could insulate the country from the collapse of distant states and the spread of war and disorder in some of the worlds poorest regions. The attacks on September 11 2001, however, showed that dire conditions in seemingly isolated regions could become incubators for violence that hits America directly. This volume, based on Barnett R. Rubins years of experience as director of the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that initiatives aimed at preventing regional crises must form a key part of the US global security strategy. Drawing on his experience leading CPA projects in the Balkans, Central Asia, Central Africa, and West Africa, as well as his extensive work on Afghanistan, Rubin illustrates how seemingly exotic and distant conflicts are deeply integrated into our international system through the effects of global strategies and markets. These conflicts, the author argues, are harder to contain once they flare into violence, and yet may be easier for global actors to prevent than common wisdom claims.

Constructing sovereignty for security

In a global order based on juridical sovereignty of nation-states, the missions called ‘peacebuilding’ by the UN or ‘stabilisation operations’ by some governments necessarily require the building of states. The international organisations and governments involved in such efforts, however, have neither the doctrine nor organisation for such tasks. Problems encountered in recent efforts signal the need for a unified international counterpart for the recipient national government. Peacebuilding and statebuilding require transitional governance institutions that incorporate the concurrent need for internal and external legitimacy transparently, rather than in a fragmented, secretive and ad hoc way. The peacebuilding mechanisms proposed by the Secretary-Generals High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change have the potential to bring order into the anarchy often created by multiple agendas, doctrines and aid budgets.

Women and pipelines: Afghanistan's proxy wars

Afghanistans capital, Kabul, was captured by the forces of the Islamic Taliban movement in September 1996 after a period of hostilities which marked the downfall of the old Afghanistan. This article sets the military and political manoeuvres that preceded andfollowed this event in the regional political and economic context, and examines the involvement of external actors, including Russia, the United States, Iran and Pakistan. It explores the repercussions for the Kabul population of the Talibans draconian measures restricting the activities of women as well as the salience in foreign attitudes towards the Taliban of interests in the transportation of oil supplies within and across Central Asia.*

Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan

Over the past 25 years, Afghanistan has been plagued by local, regional and national conflict, effectively handicapping any ability of the country to successfully govern itself while protecting its citizens and interests. Regional networks of armed groups, narcotics traffickers and traders hoping to avoid customs regulations freely traverse Afghanistan’s territory, further contributing to its political and economic unrest. In addressing the need for regional reconstruction of Afghanistan, this article first examines the factors contributing to the country’s current state of instability including the presence of religious militant groups and warlords struggling to maintain control. As a result, poverty and drug addiction run rampant throughout the region, causing widespread emigration and loss of human capital. Next, this article addresses the need for regional cooperation to ensure the successful implementation of increased security, additional physical infrastructure and improved trade and economic agreements. Last, this article suggests ways in which Afghanistan may achieve reconstruction through cooperation with trade associations, establishment of a trust fund and creation of a regional forum. This article concludes that through encouraging investment and enlisting the collaborative efforts of its regional partners, Afghanistan will likely become a more successful and peaceful state.

Transitional justice and human rights in Afghanistan

Like other societies emerging from protracted conflict, Afghanistan confronts a legacy of past crimes and violence. Communist rulers, Soviet occupiers, rural resistance fighters, Islamist parties, the Taleban movement, Pakistani volunteers, al-Qaeda members, power-seeking warlords, and the anti-Taliban coalition all contributed more or less to the litany of abuses since 1978. Almost no one in the society has been untouched, and almost no one with any power has clean hands. For these very reasons, caution and care are necessary. Demobilizing and reintegrating tens of thousands of irregular militia, as well as creating new security forces are the necessary conditions for the rest of the peace-building agenda, and, as shown by the authors first-hand experience in the Bonn negotiations over the post-Taleban succession, raising the issue of past crimes prematurely may lead fighters to revert to previous modes of behaviour. He argues for a careful start that emphasizes documenting the scale of the abuses with an emphasis on the suffering of the victims rather than the guilt of the perpetrators, in order gradually to support an Afghan debate on how to reconcile the society with its history.

The UN and the Prevention of Armed Conflict

• seeking development strategies that decrease the risk of internal war; • improving global regulatory frameworks to prevent grave violations of human rights, trafficking in human beings and illegal substances, moneylaundering, small arms trafficking, and trade in conflict goods; • building the capacity of the UN to engage in mediation; • developing more effective sanctions regimes and preventive deployments; • establishing a standing intergovernmental Peacebuilding Commission, assisted by a Peacebuilding Support Office in the UN secretariat, with budgetary authority over a standing peacebuilding fund that could be used for multi-functional tasks. (The HighLevel Panel recommended that the Peacebuilding Commission have standing to act on the basis of early warning. However, the Secretary-General rejected that proposal, suggesting that states could seek the assistance of the Peacebuilding Commission in developing capacities to prevent conflict.)