Our Mission in Afghanistan

We must build an Afghanistan strong enough to resist terrorism.


Soldiers of A Company of the1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles preparing for a patrol at their patrol base in a Nahr e Saraj village, in Helmand, on June 22, 2010. Image: Getty Images

By Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence for The Wall Street Journal

In each generation, there are moments of history that people remember vividly. Some such moments are confined to national experience—in Britain, the death of Princess Diana, or the resignation of Margaret Thatcher—but some have a global impact.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was in the House of Commons in London. I watched on television as the second plane smashed into the South Tower. My disbelief turned to horror. This was not an accident, but a well planned and executed attack against a highly symbolic target. Not an attack against individuals, and not against the United States alone, but against all free peoples. The smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center marked the graves of more than 2,500 people. The carnage did not discriminate between nationality, color or creed. It changed the lives of thousands of families and it changed the way political leaders saw the world.

In Afghanistan today, the NATO-led operations are a direct consequence of 9/11, with troops from 46 countries, including 9,500 British forces. The Taliban gave al Qaeda sanctuary and allowed it to run terrorist training camps from Afghanistan. Now, though driven out of power, reduced and under considerable pressure, al Qaeda and their backers in the Taliban continue to pose a real threat on both sides of the border with Pakistan.

Afghanistan is where the will of the international community is being tested and it is where the sacrifice continues to be significant. The brunt is being borne by America, but there are grieving families in countries across the coalition.

It is understandable that our democratic societies question whether the sacrifice is worth it. We need to be clear about our objectives, and clear about how we will achieve them. We must not confuse the reason we are in Afghanistan—to deny terrorists a safe haven—with the way in which we will succeed: building an Afghanistan that is strong enough to resist on its own.

We must remember that Afghanistan, just as Iraq, is not a classic war of attrition—this is counter-insurgency, and it will not be won by military means alone. There is no group of commanders sitting patiently in a tent awaiting a delegation under a white flag offering a formal surrender.

This is about reducing the threat to a level that the Afghan government can manage on its own, without the risk to the outside world that we saw graphically at 9/11. Our mission is focused on creating a stable enough system of security and governance to achieve this.

With Pakistani forces bearing down on terrorists and extremists on their side, al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters are taking a considerable hit. As the forces of the coalition surge and the Afghan National Security Forces grow and become more effective, the challenge is being taken into the remaining strongholds of the Taliban-led insurgency. But our opponents are determined, motivated and adaptable. They will continue to test themselves against the surge in international troop numbers, seeking to prove their relevance and resilience. We can expect ground to be contested across Afghanistan, and, sadly, we can also expect more casualties across the coalition.

We must hold our nerve and maintain our resilience. If we want people to pay the price of success, we must spell out the cost of failure. If NATO left Afghanistan now, the Taliban would wrest control of parts of the country and al-Qaeda and their terrorist training camps could return. It would be a shot in the arm to violent extremists everywhere. Instability could spread across this volatile region. Failure would also damage the credibility of NATO, which has been the cornerstone of the defense of the West for the past half-century. We would be less safe and less secure, our resolve called into question and our cohesion weakened.

In the capitals of the coalition, we must recognize that tactical set-backs are not strategic defeats; that progress will be incremental, where there are more good days than bad; and that our impatience to see our troops come home should be subservient to the needs of national security.

As a coalition we need to have clear messages for the Afghan people, and those messages need to be communicated by our deeds as well as our words. We are neither colonizers nor occupiers. We are not in Afghanistan to create a carbon copy of a Western democracy, and we are not there to convert the people to Western ways. We seek government of Afghanistan by the Afghans themselves. We insist only that it does not pose a security threat to our interests or allies.

American and Britain have stood shoulder to shoulder many times in the past, in the face of tyranny and adversity—in defense of freedom. Today in Afghanistan we stand shoulder to shoulder again, alongside our many partners and alongside the Afghans themselves. The struggle against terrorism endures and is bigger than any single country or any single leader, political or military. In the long shadow of 9/11, only united will we prevail.