Chapter 7 - Managing Militant Entrepreneurship

In the previous chapters we examined five conditions which enabled the creation, the political legitimacy and the economic sustainability of a warlord democracy in Afghanistan. The fifth pattern presented a global tendency to transform the societal model of interrelations between economy, militancy, state and society in favour of militarized economy or commodified militancy. Despite the minor role assigned to the state in figures 7c and 7d, the state-building paradigm still treats the state as in figure 7b, as a potential regulator of militancy and economy. Militancy and economy do not treat the state as the state-building paradigm does, and they resist a modern state-model (Fig. 7b) imposed on them. In Afghanistan, apparently, it is not the state-building paradigm and its proponents who have the upper hand.

Afghanistan is not a unique case of warlord democracy. Unfortunately, in many countries (a number of African, some Central-Asian states, Kosovo in the Balkans, etc.), formally democratic regimes mask the underlying predominance of informal forms of warlord rule. These countries seem to mechanically graft democratic institutions onto traditional autarchic cultures, were militant entrepreneurs inhabit and instrumentalize democratic institutions without changing its essence, priorities or agenda.

Neither science nor practice has come up yet with a functional body of knowledge for managing militant entrepreneurship. Typically, post-conflict intervention starts with humanitarian aid, peace-keeping forces and international political power-brokers who design the country’s future institutional framework and governance in cooperation with local actors. I shall refer next to only segment relevant to this thesis, that is, strategies for dealing with local militant figures: (a) elimination - neutralization and persecution, and (b) incorporation - pacification and legitimization. The two sets of approaches will be tested on the case-country through their probable and actual outcomes. I shall conclude with finding a relevant segment missing: the one which is to deal with post-modern, globalized militant entrepreneurship.

7.1. Elimination

Elimination includes physical liquidation of warlords (and sometimes of their troops) in armed combat, or legal persecution for war crimes and imprisonment of singled-out figures. Although a strategy with a clear and quick end, its ethical dimension is not so clear. The key weakness of this approach is the possible Manichaean treatment of militants, which homogenizes warlords with emphasized exchange relations with their communities, with those without. Elimination-proponents may confuse relatively legitimate “freedom fighters,” ethnic protectors, and militant entrepreneurs of various kinds. Quick assessment of all former militants as criminal warlords is likely to be superficial or manipulated by local parties to eliminate political competition.

Secondly, the wished-for quick solution is not likely to be so quick either.  Eliminating one warlord is likely to be superseded by rebellion of other warlords who may see their coming fate similar to the eliminated one. An eliminated warlord is likely to have a successor, or a number of them, who, through the bond of loyalty, may seek revenge over the executing party, or may enter power-struggles amongst them for assuming the top position of the eliminated leader.

Karzai and many of the international decision-makers are aware that attempting to neutralize warlords, firstly, is ethically unclear; and, secondly, may be the end of the fragile stability of the country, and the beginning of a new civil war. “Security is a necessity, justice a luxury Afghanistan cannot afford now,” Karzai summarized . From this perspective, the choice of Afghanistan lies in-between the poles of justice and security, and at present obviously the right course would be more toward security, less toward justice. Further on, we saw that even the issue of justice is a difficult and ambiguous one. Whose justice is to be followed? Against whom, and against whom not? For which deeds, and for which not? Who will fill the local security vacuum when a warlord is eliminated?

The postponement of the issue of justice in Afghanistan may be a disappointment for human right zealots. Meanwhile, the call for justice has been frequently manipulated against dangerous competitors for private ends. International war crime tribunals, although dealing justice selectively and retrospectively, may offer an alternative. However, the fundamental value differences between the Western-modelled international law and the local customary laws may open new grounds for dispute and dissatisfaction.  

7.2. Incorporation

Another way to approach militant entrepreneurs is to work with them on the clearly stated and agreed upon common goal. This was attempted in Afghanistan where the UN-stated goal was the state formation through democratic processes, and the U.S.-stated goal in co-opting warlords was the fight against the Taliban and the hunt for bin Laden.

The consequences of the incorporation/co-option strategy resulted with no adjustment of warlords’ behaviour in accordance to the democratization paradigm, but brought to adjustment of democratic institutions to the warlords’ paradigm. We saw that the warlord agenda can include support to state-building so long as the state is weak, utilizable and non-interfering. Clearly, they can offer their military services to the U.S., despite a probable anti-American sentiment. Peace and military alliance in the last five years have been temporarily rented from warlords in exchange for political power.

7.2.1. Unintended Consequences

The warlords and their allies used the political and military power granted to them by the UN and the U.S. to expand and consolidate their informal economic and military networks. Rubin’s warning, given before the U.S. attack on the Taliban, that peace would transform the criminalized war economy into “an even faster-expanding criminalized peace economy” proved correct (Rubin n.d.). He further warns that there are no major incentives the state (licit) economy can offer. Contrary to that, “the economic incentives for misgovernment are nearly irresistible. Only the drug and transit trade are really worth the effort of taxation, while the rest of the economy is hardly productive enough to make governing it worthwhile,” he says (Rubin n.d.).

Ever since the consolidation of the Afghan militant entrepreneurs in the global market economy, their independence has grown. If the two international contractors, the U.S. and the UN stay in the country, the warlords will function as military contractors for the prior party, and as security guarantors for the latter party. Even without these two contractors leave, warlords may again function as security providers for local actors and international companies.

7.2.2. Taming Violence and Profit

The question relevant to science and state-building practice is what sort of long-term strategy to adopt – within post-modernized Afghanistan - in order to increase the chances of the country for survival.

One way is to attempt differentiation between violence and profit: to signal two future paths militant entrepreneurs can take – to choose either the path of taming and legalising entrepreneurship, or the path of taming and legalizing violence. The first path includes strong disincentives for illicit economy, and strong incentives for licit one. Developmental investments can be made from the opium money. Illicit networks can be transformed into licit activity networks, without disrupting the dependence of a number of families on them, without alternative livelihoods. The path of legalizing violence includes formation of national multiethnic, internationally monitored army and police, and - private security firms. Both paths need meticulous international monitoring, in order to bring clearly decoupled military and economic engagements into state-aimed, that is, society-interested activities.

However, in reality, most options in Afghanistan are not of the either-or nature, but of the and-and type of solution: warlords, as flexible rational players, choose all promising paths at once. They may use democratic rights as trumps when it suits their purposes, and they may continue illicit engagements. They may re-establish their fiefdoms within government and maintain autonomy and independent political, economic and military capabilities under governmental roles. Moreover, legitimate means may not have the effectiveness to compete with warlords in their flexible game of dedifferentiation between illicit and licit, and formal and informal means. The state may be driven to adopt illicit and informal practices in order to manage illicit and informal actors.

Despite the apparent peace-seeking wisdom of gradual incorporation and pacification of the Afghan warlords, the influence of the global economic system on the political life of Afghanistan cannot be avoided. It can hardly be controlled and is likely to remain a predominant force dictating the process of state-building (state shaping, state shattering and dissolution) as a force beyond the power of the modern state. The warlords are intertwined with the local opium production and with the global opium market in a way that neither their neutralization, nor integration, nor pacification can disrupt significantly or permanently the military-economic symbiosis between the local and the global actors. Militant entrepreneurs have extremely benevolent conditions for further maintenance, strengthening and extending their previously established patronage networks, which enforce their military, economic and political power to a globally relevant level.

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