Conclusions and reflections
Abstract
In his famous work The Open Society and Its Enemies, the philosopher Karl Popper remarked that history has no meaning, but we can give it a meaning.1 Something similar is true when we seek to learn lessons from experiences such as those which the various chapters in this volume have documented. They are not self-evident: to different observers the same experiences may provide different lessons. For that reason, the reflections offered in this concluding chapter are just that: reflections. They are neither objective nor incontestable, but simply represent what one observer finds most striking in the various cases set out in the preceding pages. There is a further complication that also needs to be noted at the outset. Hegel’s famous saying that the Owl of Minerva spreads her wings as dusk is falling applies with particular force to the international project in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan survives the transition in 2014, then the temptation to look favourably at how things were done in the years after 2001 will be considerable. On the other hand, if 2014 triggers some kind of collapse, then historians (if not history) will most likely look unkindly at how things were done. In reality, neither would be a particularly fair or useful way of analysing the approach to reconstruction after 2001. The real world is messy, with failures accompanying successes, unintended consequences continually surfacing, and complexity crowding in from all directions. Whether deliberately or not, all the chapters in this book highlight the complexity of the undertakings they discuss, and if there is one point of broad consensus across all the essays, this is surely it. Involvement in Afghanistan At the dawn of the twenty-first century, no one expected that Afghanistan would be a major focus for international endeavours over the following decade. It took a completely unforeseen contingency - the 9/11 attacks - to lay the foundation for such endeavours. A result, however, was that the US and its allies reconnected with Afghanistan in the midst of fast-moving events for which no one had specifically prepared, and, as a result, there was no on-the-shelf plan for postwar reconstruction in Afghanistan and engagement with the civilian population. Indeed, in late 2001, to the extent that civilians’ involvement was being sought, it was to cope with the possibility, fortunately unrealised, of a major.