When in a newscast at the 0345 hours, it is announced that big figures have been killed and there is a list that long of damaged targets that has been destroyed people react in two ways. Still others are relieved since they are sure that there has been some threat that has been dealt with. Others are horrified that they will get the blowback and blood. Both replies can be concurrent, as the actions like those by Ghazab Lil Haq do not end when the final aircraft is able to land at home. They start a second phase, that which make the region less dangerous, or only more furious.
The reports that are being disseminated are sizeable, 133 Taliban Kharjis were confirmed dead, more than 200 wounded, and the dead are estimated to be higher after attacks in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar on military targets. According to the officials, more than 80 tanks, artillery pieces, and APCs have been attacked, 27 posts were destroyed, 9 captured, and some headquarters, depots, and a logistics base were attacked, among others.
Half that would have been the case would have made the operation break capacity, not merely punished. It attempts to render control to be perplexity and provision to be want. Theoretically, that reduces the strength to support or protect armed gangs that raid neighbours.
The first threat is the easiest to ignore, the allurement of using the harm and the disheartening. Razing down of property can be a sweet cure. Currently though, deterrence is founded on what the other party does, and not on your guns alone. Once the leadership and its followers feel that they will be in a situation to absorb the losses and carry on with its networks, then it may revert to patient and asymmetric attacks. They have the ability of bursting at every instant, in the event that they feel that survival requires escalation. Anyway, it is not controlled by strike package regarding the response. It is controlled by their incentives.
That is why every person that wants to be stable should fear the fact that retaliatory counter measures still exist. Additional counteraction can be narrowed and directed, or go off on a tangent. The cycles are mostly initiated by one party stating that we have no choice. This is then repeated by the other party. The public gets the bill.
Start with clarity. Does it seek to avert the inter-country attacks by disrupting specific facilitators and launch nodes? Is it to urge Kabul to cut off ties with networks who are not in Afghanistan? Is it to penalize military forces that provide security to such networks? The connotation of both objectives varies. The operations become unclear and this leads to the expansion of the operations because expansion is like a growth. It is not. It is drift.
Then, numbers are impermanent and not divine. First news of casualties and damage estimates to battles are not normally comprehensive. They are misted up at times, they are conservative at times. Either way, they change. By making your publicly visible story closed to an individual, you predetermine the debilitation of the credibility in future. The credibility issue is critical as it is the intermediary between the force and the legitimacy. Lose it and everything that follows that comes will be harder to explain at home and even abroad.
This is followed by the worst part, civilians. Actual danger can be involved in strikes in big cities or in places close or near the military targets, although they are military. In the case of civilians as the victims, two things happen. The families are radicalized and the outside world hard on you. Armed groups know this. They have a reason why they hide in the midst of civilians. A serious campaign considers the civilian protection as one of the main endeavours and not an add-on PR. It means that it has to pay closer attention to the target validation, stricter regulations with regard to follow on strike and actual on-site investigation in the event of credible claims. Checks: Accept the things that are wrong. Silence is not strength. It is a slow leak.
The pouring that we need towards the regional image. It is not new to claim that Afghanistan is the haven of all kinds of terrorist organizations that destabilize the whole region. It is not also the one country argument. Many neighbours have made many such accusations many different times and against many different actors. The existence of such a history is a crucial point to note because it means that the area is surrounded by mistrust. Unilateral action is safer because of the distrust. Unilateral action increases mistrust. It is between this that the tension between South and Central Asia comes in.
In order to avoid getting into this cycle, all one has to do is this: make it about behaviour, and not about identity. Kabul city needs to prove that they are not a facilitation centre so that they can be recognized and allowed to have some breathing space in terms of the economy. Not through words, but through deeds, which can be confirmed. Arrest key facilitators. Shut down camps. Restrict the movement channels that have been turned into pipelines. Collaboration in financial tracking. Authority to external checking where feasible even at the cost.
Simultaneously, off ramp on the other side should be put in place by the states involved in the pressure. Not a concession. A path. What will become of Kabul in the event that it meets some requirements? Reduced pressure? Reopened talks? Limited economic measures? Border arrangements? Without an off ramp, then it is apparent that the message to Kabul is quite simple and straightforward: nothing can alter anything. That is a message that is open to rebellion.
