The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 34

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk Members podcast focuses exclusively on the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. What will be the immediate repercussions of the botched evacuation by Western powers of their citizens and only a limited number of Afghan allies? How big is the security threat of a Taliban governed Afghanistan for the region and the West? What does the handling of this crisis say about the state of elites in the world's major powers? Are they still capable of competently managing international affairs and protecting their national interests? And finally, what are the knock on effects of the Afghanistan evacuation on the federal election currently underway in Canada? Will this crisis impact how Canadians' vote in September? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.wmunkdebates.com, and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Welcome to this, our regular Friday podcast. This is the program where we delve into the big issues and ideas in the news, hopefully leave you with some new analysis and insights. As our guide every week on this, the monk members podcast, we are fortunate to be in dialogue with Janice Gross Stein.

She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned scholar and author, and she's all ours for the next half hour. Janice, great to be in conversation with you on, you know, a fraught, high tension, ultimately a tragic week as it relates to Afghanistan. So let's dedicate the show to Afghanistan to what's happening. And I want to begin by asking you to put yourself in service of our listeners who are struggling to understand what are the real implications of this? Where should we be both concerned and where potentially should we be focusing our energy in the days and weeks to come now that the airlift is over and now that we are really confronting the reality of a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as of September 1st.

That's a great question, and there are so many parts in the answer. Let me start with the extraordinary avalanche. of emails I've been getting all week this week from monk members, but from Canadians more generally, about the human story, how distressed they are by the fact that there are Afghans who helped Canadian forces over the years and that they are beginning to understand that these people are still trapped. And stories have begun to begin to understand that these people are still trapped. And stories have begun to come out of Afghanistan largely through this unbelievable effort of private citizens in Canada over this last week. Frankly, Rudyard, just astonishing. Manning their phones,

their mobile phones for the last week, getting texts from safe houses. You know, two groups stand out in particular. One are the Veterans Associations, which, have made contact with every single fixer or interpreter that they had. They know exactly where they are in which safe house they are tracking them. And angry, angry. The veterans in this country aren't angry because, unfortunately, we didn't get more than 20% out of the country as you and I speak. The other group, just this unbelievable group of women, led by Sally Armstrong, the journalist. But many, many journalists participate in this as well as human rights workers who, again, created safe houses for their fixers.

And one of the things I think that is not appreciated in the current context, Roger, these journalists are boiling, Matt, we have very prominent journalists in this country who still have access to mics, who's fixers, they struggle for 10 days to get out of the country. Some succeeded through just amazing efforts. I really can't find any words to describe what these women have done, but some did not. and I think we are underestimating the impact that these furious journalists will have over the next few weeks as they begin to write those stories. But, Janice, you know, in some ways, what a judgment. It's not just on Canada's evacuation.

It's on all the evacuations that people got out on the basis of who they knew. And specifically whether they had access to a high-level elected or bureaucratic officials who, could then intervene on their behalf behind the scenes to get their names on lists, to in some cases even send teams out into the city to rescue people and bring them in. I mean, this is, you know, I guess this is how things happen in a crisis, but it hardly seems fair. It hardly seems equitable. And as you said, you know, Canada's numbers, pretty much middle of the pack, around 3,000, 2,700 people evacuated very similar to France, Germany, Italy. So, you know, let's acknowledge that. It was tough for everyone. But as you say, a fraction of the total, because of that

2,700, Janus, surely there's a lot of Canadian diplomats, Canadian citizens. I mean, maybe at the end of the day, we're talking less than a thousand Afghan allies that have come out. So I don't know. I just feel that there's, that's part of the anger I'm feeling, you know, is just how unfair this was and listening to the BBC, which has had exemplary coverage. Lees Doucette, a Canadian who's also their senior international correspondent, amazing reporting from Kabul, and just listening to the stress, the voices, the anguish. It is, it's searing. It really has been serious.

And you're absolutely right, Roger. most of the Afghans who got out of the country had to know somebody. They had to know a veteran. They had to know a journalist. They had to have some connection. And yet we had thousands of people standing, frankly, in a sewage canal, which is where in a sewage canal, unable to get food or water as they waited for help, which never came, which did not come.

And they were told to go back to their homes because the airport was not secure, and those intelligence warnings were right. But there is, I believe, coming out of this, a residue of anger at the failure of governments. And in Canada and the United States, in Britain, I think frankly political leaders are underestimating the anger that's going to come from people with powerful voices

about how they did not get on the ground earlier. They did not organize. They did not do what was necessary in a timely way. I do not accept the arguments of governments, all the governments that you talked about Rudyard that more could have been done and should have been done in advance. I think that's a big part of the ongoing story of this. the second.

Jedd, yeah, let's move to the second point, which I think I'm trying to struggle to understand. And you could help me here is what is the risk going forward to us, particularly in the West generally, because one of the claims that the Biden administration in particular men made prior to this shambolic collapse of Kabul and the evacuation was that, you know, don't worry about the withdrawal. We have this quote, over the horizon capacity. maybe you can explain what that means, to curtail and suppress the resurgence of a terrorist threat in Afghanistan. And here we are on the last 48 hours of the evacuation with a horrific bombing

perpetrated by one of the worst, the nastiest of the jihadist groups, ISIS K, which really, to me, puts paid to the notion of the Biden administration that, A, these people aren't already in the country organizing potentially going forward with greater plans outside of Afghanistan and be, you know, this quote, over the horizon, surgical, antiseptic counterterrorism. How does that work when you have no intelligence on the ground? You have no local allies. You don't have a security force that you can partner with. Again, I just, you're right, Janice.

It's this sense of anger and a loss of faith in the elites who are tasked. with this complicated issue. It's complicated. I get it. Lots of reasons it could and maybe would have gone wrong, but it just seems like a litany, frankly, a bullshit and missed opportunity and outright incompetence and mistakes. Well, let's start with your first argument is over the horizon, which means standing back, not on the ground.

So you use assets that you have largely drones, right? to target militants as they're organizing based, as you rightly put it, Roger, on good intelligence. Well, we have the best technical means in the world to listen in and to watch, and there's no substitute for on-the-ground intelligence, for being on the ground and for talking to people who are talking to people who know stuff. And it doesn't matter how high-tech we are, the best intelligence is on the ground. local intelligence. So our government leaders are, and particularly in the United States, are not leveling. This is a much bigger challenge going forward than it was. And there isn't a

security expert I know who doesn't agree that claiming that this will, that the capacity to disrupt militants that are planning attacks will be as good as it was before is not as you aptly put it BS, frankly. But there's a bigger picture here, Roger. It was impossible for governments to stay in Afghanistan forever. And yes, you could say that we could have kept the, the United States could have kept the 3,500 or 5,000 forces on the ground. But ultimately, they would have been the subject of attack sooner or later.

There's also nobody who says that was sustainable, that a garrison force of 35,000 to 5,000 people on the ground would have prevented what we're seeing. So the criticism of this shambolic mess, frankly, is justified, but the bigger picture remains the same. And yes, this is a big new challenge because the Taliban, despite its fearsome reputation, does not exert control in a meaning,

We have reports already of foreign fighters, the numbers vary 5,000, 6,000 that have moved into Afghanistan in the last three months. The Islamic State K, or Khorasan that you talked about that perpetrated these bombings yesterday are enemies of the Taliban. The Taliban, so there is a possibility of likelihood of violence between these groups as they battle it out. So are attacks against Western assets more likely? Yes.

But there's one big picture story, I think, for Canadians here. The Taliban, believe it or not, are a local group. They have no interest in attacking the West in the West. They never have. They are a local group. So the number of fighters that we have to be focused on are really the al-Qaeda network and the ISIS network, both of which, by the way, grew up as a result of Western occupation of these countries and in the Middle East.

So if I can put it that bluntly for you, that really explains how tough this is. And there are credible arguments that if you get Western forces back, not as occupiers, these militant groups are going to have more trouble sustaining their support among the local population. Big risk, when we start to use drones and civilians get killed, that reverses what I've just said. It's a tough one. Great insights. When we come back from this break, let's talk about the kind of political fallout in the United States, the first major test. Some would say a major fail by the Biden administration.

And then here in Canada, how is this going to play out? We're in the middle of a federal election. This crisis isn't ending on September 1 because we're out of there. So let's unpack those two issues, Janice, when we're back from this break. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.w monk debates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode

and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.