Calibrating Engagement with the Taliban

AbstractSince the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban quickly took over the country, Western governments, including the United Kingdom, have been reluctant to engage with an Islamist regime that has hosted al-Qaeda and trampled on human rights. Under the Taliban, however, violence, corruption and narcotics traffic appear to have been dramatically reduced. The Taliban regime has also established a reasonable level of security and cracked down on corruption. Completely isolating the regime could have perverse security as well as humanitarian consequences. Short of another invasion and occupation, there is no prospect of a secular, Western-style government re-emerging. Through discreet engagement, the West should try to nudge the current regime away from its unworldly posture towards a more pragmatic one.Key words: Afghanistanal-QaedaEuropean UnionHALO TrustIslamic State – Khorasan ProvinceTalibanTobias EllwoodUnited KingdomUnited NationsUnited States Notes1 See Arne Strand and Astrid Suhrke, ‘Quiet Engagement with the Taliban’, Survival, vol. 63, no. 5, October– November 2021, pp. 35–46.2 The Daily Mail has preserved the video for posterity. See ‘Tory MP Ellwood Hails “Transformation” of Afghanistan by the Taliban’, Daily Mail, 17 July 2023, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2981441/Video-Tory-MP-Ellwood-hails-transformation-Afghanistan-Taliban.html.3 See, for example, Toby Dodge, ‘Afghanistan and the Failure of Liberal Peacebuilding’, Survival, vol. 63, no. 5, October–November 2021, pp. 47–58; and Laurel Miller, ‘Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal: A Verdict on the Limits of American Power’, Survival, vol. 63, no. 3, June–July 2021, pp. 37–44.4 See Laurel Miller, ‘Protecting US Interests in Afghanistan’, Survival, vol. 64, no. 2, April–May 2022, pp. 25–34; and Graeme Smith and Ibraheem Bahiss, ‘The World Has No Choice But to Work with the Taliban’, Foreign Affairs, 11 August 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/afghanistan/world-has-no-choice-work-taliban.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames M. CowanMajor General (Retd) James M. Cowan is CEO of the HALO Trust and the former commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Helmand province. An earlier version of this essay appeared on the Survival Editors’ Blog on 14 August 2023 at https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/survival-online/2023/08/should-the-uk-engage-with-the-taliban-government/.