Book Review
Posted on : February 19, 2024Author : Debendra Sanyal
The Taliban Shuffle, written by Kim Barker and published in 2011, provides us with an account of her experiences in the South Asian region, when she was working as a foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune, a fledgling news media company, covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book is divided into two halves. In the first half of the book, we get to know about the author’s journey in Afghanistan, where she vividly describes her experiences with warlords, politicians, and embeds with the US military. Later she decided to cover Pakistan in around 2007-08, which was going through a political churn at the time. The country was of relevance to her as most of the Taliban militants used to hide in the tribal region along the Af-Pak border, and also because of the ISI’s covert backing of the Taliban. There, she was witness to protests, demonstrations, bombings and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She also observed how Pakistani politics operated, and the salience of the military and the intelligence in Pakistani politics. From time to time, she kept making small trips to Afghanistan, where the situation kept deteriorating rapidly. In the final stages of the book, she returns to the US, and reflects on her observations from the region, and how the situation would ultimately play out. In 2016, based on this book, the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was released, in which Tina Fey played the character of the author, and also starred Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, and Alfred Molina.
The book provides the reader with a detailed view of the ground situation in Afghanistan at the time. The author did a great job in covering the story from a journalistic perspective, which often entailed operating in dangerous terrain, like in provinces in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban was dominant, and interviewing former warlords or. However, there were occasions when the journalistic boundary was slightly breached, such as the instance when she attempted to lecture her Afghan fixer on Islam, or when she gave instructions to a NATO officer regarding how to go about a certain issue. There were also moments when the author questioned her positionality in the issue, for she sometimes felt that she acted a bit too American, or sometimes even overly attached herself to the Afghans. But overall, Barker ensures that journalistic objectivity does not get overly compromised.
Although the focus of the book is largely on Afghanistan, the book is a great attempt at understanding a phenomenon which has troubled not just South Asia, but the world at large, which is terrorism. Walter Laqueur defines terrorism as “the substate application of violence or threatened violence intended to sow panic in a society, to weaken or even overthrow the incumbents, and to bring about political change.” (Laqueur 24)
In response to 9/11, the US launched the ‘War on Terror’ and led a NATO intervention in Afghanistan. The mission failed to achieve its desired objective of eliminating terrorism, and fared even more miserably when it came to rebuilding Afghanistan post the intervention. Post-intervention the US had two objectives: target whatever was left of the al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and set up a democratic regime in order to ensure that the terrorists do not come back. “Bush and his team assumed that once these things had happened the United States could withdraw. Significant investments in reconstruction, economic development, and institutions were not conceived.” (Malkasian 80-81) The NATO intervention was also a disjointed effort, as the countries focused their efforts in only certain regions of Afghanistan, and were more focused on preservation of troops than peacebuilding. Importantly, since the Iraq war was happening simultaneously, the US had prioritised all their attention towards Iraq, and Afghanistan was clearly neglected, even though their mission was far from over. Then Senator John F. Kerry recounted, in a Senate hearing in 2009, that “many military people complained to me at various times about the diversion of resources and of strategic thinking from Afghanistan to Iraq.” (Committee on Foreign Relations) By the time America realised how grim the situation was in Afghanistan, it was stuck in a quandary. Western presence in the region began to be seen as unwelcome, and leaders like Hamid Karzai began to move away from the West. The Afghan government that was in place was corrupt and inefficient, and in many places the people actually began to support the Taliban as an alternative. The Americans were desperate to exit Afghanistan as military losses and burden on the exchequer were mounting, yet they could not leave the country without putting a proper system in place.
Overall, the American campaign in Afghanistan was marked by a sense of confusion. The mission was envisaged as a quick and decisive military intervention. In the environment of war hysteria and yearning for immediate military retribution, the strategists failed to realise that the “qualities needed in a serious campaign against terrorists- secrecy, intelligence, political sagacity, quiet ruthlessness, covert actions that remain covert, above all infinite patience- all these are forgotten or overridden in a media-stoked frenzy for immediate results, and nagging complaints if they do not get them.” (Howard 9) The US needed to play the long game, and make significant investments in reconstruction, which they were unwilling to do.
The entry of the US in Af-Pak influenced the politics of the countries in the adjoining region. Pakistan began to be seen as a strategic ally by the US in the ‘War on Terror’ due to its proximity to Afghanistan and having helped them in the past, such as in driving away the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1979 War. Hence, Washington chose to support the military ruler Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, for they believed that he would be a convenient ally. But Pakistan chose to play a double game, by providing assurance of assistance to the US in the ‘War on Terror’ and receiving aid in return, while at the same time harbouring terrorist groups and Taliban militants so as to use them against its arch-nemesis, India. Pakistan had realised long back that it would be unable to match India in conventional warfare, so it decided to resort to unconventional methods such as fomenting insurgencies in Kashmir and state-sponsored terrorism. Moreover, Pakistani military and intelligence had played a key role in the formation of the Taliban, and they did not want to turn in their old friends to the Americans. Pakistan kept hoodwinking the US by capturing minor terrorist targets, but sheltering the major ones in the tribal regions, where the government had no control and militants roamed free. The author had described this as ‘Pakistan capturing the Number 3 in al-Qaeda whenever the US came calling.’ (Barker) It was this dynamic which stymied US efforts in combating terrorism in the region, something which the Americans realised much later. Former US President Donald Trump said in 2017 that the US “can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations… We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists we are fighting.” (Remarks by President Trump)
For me, The Taliban Shuffle was a really captivating read. The author manages to keep the readers hooked to the story, and the writing style is genuine and honest. In the story, the author recounted how she struggled to balance her personal and professional life, as well as her difficulties in maintaining friendships built with people on the field, such as Farouq in Afghanistan and Samad in Pakistan. She was honest in the sense that she was willing to admit her flaws and mistakes. Another highlight of the book was her recounting of the experiences while on the field, along with her interactions with major political leaders like Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. They massively help in adding spice to the storyline, thereby enhancing the overall reading experience. Finally, what also caught my attention was the way in which Barker put her observations from the field into perspective in the final stages of the book. In the epilogue of the book, Barker argued that the US would look to create a temporary stability in Afghanistan, and then make a political deal with the Taliban before heading out. In this way, a civil war would ensue, and the Taliban would portray themselves as peacemakers, with Pakistan playing a behind-the-scenes role. This argument can be considered as prophetic, considering how the events of July-August 2021 panned out in Afghanistan. Also, in the final stages of the book, in her new position as a press fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations, she advocated that the international community needed to make an indefinite, full-fledged commitment to build systems of governance, as a solution for the problems in the region. This prescription arose from her experiences in Afghanistan, where she first-hand witnessed the corruption and inefficiency of the government in Kabul, as well as the lack of initiative shown by the US in the first half of the 21st century. The reason I specifically found it interesting was because if we look at how the situation ultimately unfolded, Afghanistan suffered from weak state capacity, and in this context, the Taliban began to be seen as a bigger player in Afghan politics. If the administration in Kabul was really strengthened, the Afghan peace process could have taken a different trajectory.
In conclusion, The Taliban Shuffle provides the audience with a view from the field, of how Afghanistan unravelled after the American intervention in the wake of 9/11. The story is gripping, for the readers feel as if they are actually in Kabul, or Helmand, or in Pakistan. The author’s writing style makes the story even more endearing to the reader. Overall, it is a fascinating read, and it provides a perspective into how the American ‘War on Terror’ destroyed Afghanistan.
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Works Cited
- Barker, Kim. “Under Pressure.” The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Doubleday, 2011.
- Committee on Foreign Relations. Exploring Three Strategies for Afghanistan. United States Senate, Sept. 2009, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-111shrg55538/html/CHRG-111shrg55538.htm. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
- Howard, Michael. “What’s in a Name? How to Fight Terrorism.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 81, no. 1, 2002, pp. 8-13, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032999. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
- Laqueur, Walter. “Postmodern Terrorism: New Rules for an Old Game.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 75, no. 5, 1996, pp. 24-36. https://doi.org/10.2307/20047741. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
- Malkasian, Carter. The American War in Afghanistan: A History. Oxford University Press, 2021.
- Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia. White House, 21 Aug. 2017, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.
Debendra Sanyal
Intern Asia in Global Affairs
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, in his personal capacity. It does not reflect the policies and perspectives of Asia in Global Affairs
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