Afghanistan: Trump Digs Deeper

Donald Trump has a genius for digging holes to sink into. Amid the several areas of confusion that he has created in US politics, he has now announced the opposite of one of his most consistent campaign promises. His new minders have persuaded him that the risks in abandoning the disastrous Afghan campaign are so much greater than any potential benefits of quitting that the US must stay. And if they are to stay, they have to reinforce their resources there. Then they have to cajole their allies into helping them. Mrs May has already committed more forces, though less than 100 troops: for now. As has been noted here several times, Afghanistan has never been 'pacified' by alien forces. Alexander the Great, the great Moguls, the British Empire, and the Tsars all failed; before Brezhnev brought the USSR to bankruptcy by his attempt to subdue the country.

Ever since the US sent forces into Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden under the Command-in-Chief of George W Bush, many strategists have argued that the 'real' seat of terror is probably in Pakistan: which is where Bin Laden was finally tracked down. The people who were sheltering Bin laden temporarily were the Taliban, so removing them from power became objective number one. Once that was achieved, at least to the extent of having avowedly non-Taliban ministers installed in Kabul, it became clear that Afghanistan would be dangerously unstable - from the American perspective - if alien forces left. So the US and its little herd of followers stayed, and continued to loose lives and use up resources.

In the terms of western democracies, Afghanistan will never be stabilised. Trump, at least, has recognised this to the extent that he has renounced any pretension at building a democratic state: yesterday he simply said that his troops will 'kill terrorists'. How to identify an enemy or a 'terrorist' among the tribesmen of the Himalayas has never been answered explicitly. If someone if carrying a gun, it may be to protect his sheep from wolves. In such a social context, when someone is actually attacking western forces they can be regarded as legitimate targets; but not otherwise. The conflict cannot be won; but it will send a new flood of young men on the trail to Europe, hoping to join Merkel's million: some of whom will have nefarious intentions. And so the migrant problem for Europe, and explicitly for the European Union, becomes more intense.

In this one sense, Brexit might seem to provide a desirable context for the UK to strengthen its borders further. But then we came up against the problem of paying for proper border controls. To establish, man and maintain adequate borders for the UK would require a vast investment, followed up by hundreds of millions of pounds of recurrent expenditure. If that border is both a customs border and a border against the passage of people and financial assets, as Mrs May seems to desire, the cost is multiplied. Either austerity will have to be abandoned, or state expenditure in all areas but border controls will have to be cut back so far as to create intolerable strains throughout society.

So Trump's abandonment of yet another campaign commitment leads directly to a double dilemma for Britain. First comes the question, how can we meaningfully join 'the leader of the free world' in his madcap Afghan plan: if, as indicated by the government, we will submit so to do; within the present limits of defence spending? Second, how do we pay for meaningful border controls here in the UK?

Thus we come to the most consistent and fundamental issue with which this blog has always been concerned: how can we create the national income that will enable Britain to afford a better living standard for all and maintain the position of the UK in world affairs and in the world economy? The answer begins with the repudiation of the Economics that enforces austerity on the regime: we need a Political Economy that reinforces the concept of productivity by recovering from limbo the need for productiveness. I will return to this topic in the coming days: meanwhile, when you have time, do a word search in the past issues of this blog to see what productiveness means and implies.