AFGANİSTAN’DA AYAKLANMAYI BASTIRMAK: YANLIŞ TEŞHİS, YANLIŞ TEDAVİ
COUNTERING THE INSURGENCY IN AFGHANISTAN: WRONG DIAGNOSIS WRONG TREATMENT

Summary/Abstract: There has emerged vast literature on the counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts of Coalition Forces (CF) in Afghanistan at the strategic level for almost nine years. A great portion of the literature available addresses the insurgency in Afghanistan as an integral part of the struggle against al-Qaeda-led global extremism. Nonetheless, to see Afghanistan as a “front” in the struggle against global extremism severely distracts our focus and falsely leads us not to see other underlying causes of the current turmoil of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the primary consequence of this distraction is to excessively focus on enemy-centric COIN approaches which, in fact, exacerbate the insurgency. Afghanistan, in contrast, has been highly in need of population-centric COIN approaches to drain the swamp which breeds the extremism. This article attempts not to fall into the single-factor fallacy by presenting the contemporary history of Afghanistan and her geostrategic features as two primary underlying causes of the insurgency in Afghanistan. By doing so, it aims to emphasize the relevance and importance of population-centric approaches when tailoring COIN strategies for Afghanistan.

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