Afghanistan (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who is a highly respected chair of the committee. I was not a member of the committee at the time, but I suspect that if this debate had been held last summer, there would have been unqualified praise for the quality and comprehensive nature of the report’s analysis and its recognition of the challenges faced. However, the report was published over a year ago, so much of the evidence must have been gathered over the previous year, since when—to adopt and adapt a parliamentary phrase—an amendment has been moved. Of course, the amendment is the events of August 2021 and the Taliban victory.

What were we trying to achieve by our intervention in Afghanistan? The aims of the UK Government are set out in paragraph 37 of the report. They were:

“to safeguard what it describes as the UK’s legacy in Afghanistan since 2001. It wishes to strengthen the gains made in this period, and defines its legacy in terms of improvements in human rights, particularly of women and girls, and the strengthening of the Afghan state since the fall of the Taliban administration.”

It is fair to say that the committee noted in the next paragraph that

“gains made since 2001 could be lost”,

but the options it considered did not include the collapse entirely of the Afghan Government.

The committee noted the considerable expenditure by the UK taxpayer in development aid—more than £3 billion over the period—the training and equipping of the security forces, the tragic loss of 456 UK troops killed in the campaign from 2001 to 2014, and the more than 600 British military personnel with life-changing injuries. However, despite all that expenditure and loss of life, the Afghan army speedily collapsed, surrendering its weapons, and the President fled with much of the Government. Poverty and hunger among the people have increased and would surely have a larger focus in the report if the committee were to consider the humanitarian situation today, which the noble Baroness mentioned.

So one is bound to ask: was it all a waste of time, resources and lives? What is, in fact, the legacy? What is left from that major allied and western effort? Is the report essentially now a historical document? Time will tell, of course, but many of the more educated and modern Afghanis have taken the opportunity to leave the country. There are major question marks over the plight of women and girls under the Taliban regime, but some of that taste of freedom might indeed linger and be capable of surviving when circumstances change, as surely they will one day.

Perhaps we should have had a more profound appreciation of history, such as the British history of intervention in the 1840s and 1880s as part of the great game, the Soviet intervention in the 1980s—what Gorbachev called the “bleeding wound”—a greater appreciation of the reality of Afghan society and the tribalism which apparently the Taliban are experiencing even now, and the intense localism I experienced when I visited Herat and heard that those trained were most reluctant to leave the immediate vicinity of their homes. Did we think that we could graft a western concept of democracy on a very different society? Are there lessons to be learned?

The report concludes that the US talks with the Taliban in Doha were about withdrawal rather than peace negotiations, and that the Afghan Government were sidelined and, indeed, undermined. It rightly points out that the UK and other allies very much played second fiddle to the US in the conflict, and that when the US left we had to leave, together with the European Union and other allies. Was this a reality check for us and the EU? Is it the Government’s view that the Taliban as a whole is in any way different from when it was last in power up to 2001? I would welcome the Minister’s views on whether the Taliban will encourage terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and ISKP—the Islamic State Khorasan Province? Will there be an even greater transfer of narcotics to the UK? These are key questions, which it is perhaps premature to ask at the moment and to expect clear answers from the Minister. It may be more productive now to reflect on some of the geostrategic consequences of the Taliban victory.

First, with the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, will the West be a little more cautious about intervention? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with his experience, will say something about this. Will nation-building be less high on the agenda and spreading democracy now be less favoured? Is there a danger that the correction will go too far in the opposite direction and be very cautious about intervention?

Secondly, the credibility and trustworthiness of the West has been damaged worldwide. It happened before, of course, given the US defeat in Vietnam, but then the US was very much the dominant hegemon and China was not the rival it is today. Taiwan and Ukraine will be especially worried. Countries in the Middle East and Africa will hedge their bets and seek to make peace with China. The UK and the European Union will be similarly affected. Perhaps, as a result of what has happened in Afghanistan, the integrated review needs now to be revisited.

Again, terrorism throughout the world, from Mozambique to the Sahel and Iraq, even in Pakistan, will exult and be emboldened. Is it likely that more such groups will find a safe haven in Afghanistan? What is the Government’s judgment in this respect?

China will, of course, take advantage of the US humiliation and seek ever closer links with Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, including mining concessions, particularly in respect of rare minerals. In short, the West will need to rebuild its credibility globally and it will take some time for this to happen. Perhaps China will, over time, overreact in Africa.

Positively, however, we in the UK need to have a period of soul-searching in respect of Afghanistan and make our priorities clear: for example, how to get aid to its suffering people and whether some of the assets need to be unfrozen. There is also how to get the aid there without channelling it through the Taliban. We need to reverse the cuts in our own aid and develop areas where we are a superpower, such as in soft power. We need to know ourselves better, avoid any pretensions to great-power status and rely massively on what remains as our major advantages globally.