Hailing from southern Afghanistan, a traditional stronghold of the Taliban, Abdul studied at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul. The first not-for-profit and nationally accredited university in the country, AUAF aspires to train future leaders well-versed in critical thinking and the values of respect, unity, and service.

Although not affiliated with the extremist group, Abdul held pro-Taliban views which were evident in classroom discussions and elsewhere. He refused to sit next to female students or work on group projects with them. (Female students comprised nearly half of the student body at AUAF.) Before matriculating at AUAF, Abdul had attended madrassas (religious seminaries) in Peshawar, Pakistan—a country under great scrutiny for its role in America’s longest war.

The new U.S. policy in Afghanistan has significantly expanded the scope of military operations in the country. However, given the realities on the ground, it is crucial not to overlook strategic soft power measures to counter the underlying causes and ideologies that give rise to extremism in the first place. The proliferation of madrassas and rising radicalization across Afghanistan, recruitment of children by extremist groups, regional actors’ involvement in the battle for hearts and minds, and international law considerations necessitate a closer examination of appropriate non-military interventions.

Overview of the new U.S. strategy 

Following the protracted and highly controversial Afghan presidential election, the Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement signed between Afghanistan and the United States in September 2014 was viewed as a significant milestone in the evolving relationship between the two countries. However, with the agreement envisioning a substantially more limited role for America’s involvement in the Afghan war, the Taliban were emboldened and other terrorist groups, including ISIL, also emerged as increasingly potent threats to the stability of Afghanistan and the region.

In outlining the new U.S. policy in Afghanistan, President Trump offered a "clear definition" of victory in a speech in Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia, in August 2017: "attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIL, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge."

This focus on military strategy is dictated by conditions rather than timelines. The key overarching pillars of the military strategy include modest troop increases, greater autonomy to combat forces on the ground, pressuring Pakistan, and engaging India. The idea is to quash the terrorist groups on the battlefield to force the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. The early results of the new strategy have been mixed, at best.

Preliminary results on the ground 

Following the announcement of the new strategy, September saw 751 bombs dropped on Taliban and ISIL targets—a seven-year record. However, as forewarned by the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Minister on Taliban and ISIL coordination, both groups responded with a series of deadly attacks on government forces and mosques across the country in October. 2018 has continued that pattern: Taliban have attacked heavily guarded areas and killed scores in January and February, while ISIL have terrorized vulnerable groups in March and April.

According to the latest report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office, there were more than 10,000 Afghan civilian casualties in 2017. Unable to thwart terrorist attacks in the heart of Kabul, the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has referred to these horrific acts as "divine tests" for Afghans, who are increasingly impatient and critical of the government’s incompetence. (Ghani recently ordered civil servants, and their families, to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The directive’s inherently prescriptive nature, and implicit threat, drew rebukes from many. Days later, ISIL killed scores at a voter registration center in Kabul.)

On the diplomatic front, Rex Tillerson’s first visit as Secretary of State to the region also proved difficult. The choice of the U.S. military base in Bagram, as the venue for meeting with Ghani, created headlines for all sorts of reasons. While the Indian trip went relatively smooth, Pakistan proved a bumpy road. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif declared that the United States had failed in Afghanistan and that Pakistan will not become a U.S. proxy. Meanwhile, Russia and Iran have been supporting the Taliban. To Ghani’s further embarrassment, in response to his substantial overtures, the Taliban have announced the start of their annual spring offensive.

Significance of non-military approaches: countering rising radicalization  

An undue emphasis on hard power tactics, while largely ignoring the underlying dynamics and competing ideologies, can play into the hands of the terrorists by undermining popular support among ordinary Afghans. The UNAMA report noted a significance increase in the number of airstrikes by international and Afghan military forces in 2017 resulting in 631 civilian causalities—the highest number of strikes in a single year since 2009.

Eliminating terrorists through record-breaking numbers of bombs, including the Mother of All Bombs, is not, on its own, a very effective approach.  Especially when there are factories churning out terrorists impatient to realize heavenly ambitions at a faster rate than military strikes against them. We’re talking about a region that houses 20 active U.S.-designated terrorist groups—the highest concentration in the world.

The overall strategy must counter the underlying causes and ideology that give rise to terror in the first place. (The latest attack in Kabul’s heavily fortified Green Zone was carried out by a 12-year-old suicide bomber.) UNAMA’s report expressed a deep concern for increased harm to civilians due to suicide attacks. Echoing those concerns, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said, "Such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law and are likely, in most cases, to constitute war crimes. The perpetrators must be identified and held accountable." The International Criminal Court is considering an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan.

While terrorist groups have intensified recruitment of child soldiers, Afghan army recruitment has been dwindling.

The seeds of ignorance aren’t sowed in madrassas in Pakistan alone; the brainwashing occurs on the other side of the border as well. According to Human Rights Watch, the Taliban’s recruitment of child soldiers in Afghanistan has soared since mid-2015. The group’s recruitment efforts have flourished in northern Afghanistan; areas that were deemed relatively stable and outside Taliban control a few years ago. Madrassas in Kunduz, Takhar, and Badakhshan are becoming hot breeding grounds for Taliban recruits, some of whom are 13 or younger.

The Taliban had recruited and deployed more than 100 children from Kunduz’s Chahardara district alone in 2015. Moreover, in Taliban’s takeover of Kunduz in 2015, dozens of children between 10 and 15 were deployed by the group. Other terrorist groups, including ISIL, have also been recruiting children through madrassas and other propaganda machines. While terrorist groups have intensified recruitment of child soldiers, Afghan army recruitment has been dwindling.

Extremist pro-Taliban ideologies are increasingly indoctrinated in other madrassas, schools, and universities across Afghanistan including places such as Balkh, Herat, and Kabul—areas where the government is supposed to wield greater control. In addition to the plethora of registered and official madrassas, there are as many as 635 unregistered madrassas in the northern Balkh province alone. In the eastern province of Nangarhar, two-thirds of the province’s 1,500 madrassas operate without permits.

The battle for hearts and minds is crucial in ensuring that the overall strategy in the Afghan war is successful. This entails adopting a comprehensive and nuanced approach that treats non-military interventions as core elements of the policy.

A religious school in Herat recently made the news for sheltering the orchestrator of a major terrorist attack. Arrests of suspected terrorists in religious schools are rare, and prosecution is even rarer. Local politicians and civil society groups have increasingly voiced concerns over growing religious fanaticism and terrorist plots in schools across the country. The government has been incapable of curbing this worrying undercurrent of rising fundamentalism in seminaries and schools across the country.

Other regional powers have been increasingly leveraging their soft power. In addition to funding several media networks, Iran has been supporting various universities including the Islamic Azad University—further down the road from AUAF on Darulaman Road. (Iran is planning to expand Islamic Azad University’s reach to Iraq and Lebanon as well.) Afghanistan has proven a fertile ground for promoting Iran’s regional agenda as seen through Iran’s support for the Taliban as well as Iran’s recruitment of Afghan children to fight in Syria—some as young as 14.

Noting Iran’s influence, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily to establish its own Islamic universities in Afghanistan. The Saudis are spending nearly $500 million to establish the third largest Islamic university in Nangarhar, eastern Afghanistan. Nangarhar has been the base of ISIL operations in Afghanistan. Although religious sectarian conflict has not engulfed Afghanistan, recent years have seen upticks in attacks targeting Shias in mosques and elsewhere across the country. (In December 2017, ISIL attacked a Shia cultural center and news agency in Kabul, killing 41 and wounding 86 people. In justifying the attack, ISIL cited the Shia center’s links to Iran.)

The battle for hearts and minds

The battle for hearts and minds is crucial in ensuring that the overall strategy in the Afghan war is successful. This entails adopting a comprehensive and nuanced approach that treats non-military interventions, particularly measures countering the rising radicalization across Afghanistan, as core elements of the policy. In doing so, the strategy must support Afghanistan’s hard-fought (and relative) progress over the past 16 years including access to education, girls and women’s empowerment, and freedom of press.

Losing the trust of ordinary Afghans, increasingly tired of the ideology that manifests itself in recurring terror, will be a major setback. Dwindling goodwill and trust will create a vacuum that others are eager to pounce on. As America recalibrates tactics in the Afghan war, effective soft-power initiatives must not be relegated to an afterthought. 

And Abdul? After graduating from AUAF, he completed a Masters in the West. Since returning to Afghanistan, he has been working on women’s advocacy programs including girls’ education. He’s now a controversial figure in his village, where many support the insurgency. However, some younger relatives are now looking up to him. A number have even solicited Abdul’s advice on future career paths. With 64 percent of Afghans below 25 years of age, many are pondering the same question.

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Mehdi Hakimi is the executive director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.