In this deep-dive conversation, retired Colonel Chris Costa discusses his his experience working in human Intelligence with special operation forces in Afghanistan. He also analyses current US counterterrorism, intelligence-gathering capabilities, as well as the Taliban’s relations with China and Iran. He believes that the Taliban are “a problem” for the future rather than a solution.
Introduction:
Thank you so much, Chris Costa, Professor Chris Costa, for joining me on The crossroads for a deep-dive conversation on your intelligence work in Afghanistan and the broader strategic environment since the withdrawal of US forces from the country in August 2021.
Before we dive deep, I would like to introduce you to our audience, Colonel Chris Costa (Ret.) is the Executive Director of the International Spy Museum. He previously served as Special Assistant to President Trump & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration. A 35-year veteran of the Department of Defense, Costa served 25 years in the United States Army working in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces in Central America, Europe, and throughout the Middle East. Over his career, he ran a wide range of intelligence and special operations in Panama, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the first and second Iraq wars. He earned two Bronze stars for his sensitive human intelligence work in Afghanistan. Chris holds an MA in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University; and another MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College.
Question:
Professor Costa, I’d like to start off with your work in Afghanistan. Your bio on the International Spy Museum website notes that you offer “eye-opening observations” by drawing upon your “time working as a Human Intelligence practitioner overseas (Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq) with Special Operations Forces.” With that in mind, when were you first deployed to Afghanistan and how long did you work there? I know these are multiple questions, but also, looking back, what are some of the major observations from your time on the ground?
Chris Costa:
Yeah, Ali, thank you very much for having me. It is a privilege to be able to talk about my time in Afghanistan. And frankly my time in Afghanistan began in 2003. So to answer your question directly, that’s the first time I deployed to Afghanistan and got off an aircraft at Bagram air force base in spring of 2003 and I came back on multiple deployments, short deployments, very mission focused. I spent my first time in Afghanistan for four months and came back in 2004 and spent four to six months and I came back multiple times after that in 2009 and after 2013. And I ended up at the White House, as your bio suggested, where I worked on Afghanistan and and the South Asia strategy from a counterterrorism standpoint.
But my biggest observation, to just dive right in, is that Afghanistan has always been oversimplified, and there are very, very many assumptions that are made. We often looked at the country clearly through a counterterrorism lens, but Afghans experienced the war very differently through local power, tribal relationships, corruption, protection, fear, honor, all of the things you know far better than I will ever understand. And it’s very survival. So the Taliban, and I don’t want to give them too much credit, but, in fact I don’t want to give them a lot of credit at all, but they do understand the human terrain, they understand it better than we would ever understand it. And they understand the physical terrain.
So, in short, the Taliban’s real strength was not just its ideology or its battlefield skill, it was really patience. And let’s not forget that over the years, the Taliban variously was supported by Pakistan. That factored into this unique country that is Afghanistan. The idea though of local networks, support networks linked to al-Qaeda frankly as well as linked to the Haqqani Network, they all operated from 2003 forward after they reconstituted themselves after a very successful invasion and intervention by the United States and the aftermath of 2001.
So I’ll pause there to see if you have any any follow-up, but I do want to make the point that the early intervention of US special operations forces with CIA in working with tribal actors was a very very successful unconventional warfare operation that caused the Taliban to flee. The problems then evolved over time as the United States fought multiple wars over an extended period of time in Afghanistan.
Question:
Yeah, thank you. That’s really fascinating. And definitely you were dealing with the human intelligence work there and perhaps followed the Taliban’s bases closely, could you share your insights where?
Chris Costa:
Well, I mean it would depend on the time period we’re talking. Anywhere from Kandahar which is clearly was a centre of gravity for the Taliban, but my experience was operating and I worked against Taliban interests in the greater Kabul area and I also operated near Gardez and in border areas in Paktia and Paktika provinces. And remember in 2003 that is when the Taliban began to reconstitute and reemerge, so I spent some time trying to understand what those networks look like, where they were operating and in 2003 Americans were killed in Afghanistan near Gardez in particular and elsewhere in in Afghanistan.
So while the Taliban were reemerging, the United States and our partners, to include Afghan partners, were trying to understand the footprint, where those networks were, where their supporting nodes were and of course that’s something I would say that I never necessarily mastered. I say that with all humility because the dynamics were ever changing.
Question:
Thank you. Your bio also highlights your extensive experience interviewing “terrorists and defectors in U.S. custody” and co-authoring “some important contributions to terrorism literature.” And this gives you unique perspectives on “terrorist motivations, their activation for violence, and an explanation of the radicalization process.” Of course, you explore these exact themes in the “Terrorism/Counterterrorism” course you teach at Georgetown University. There you have specific questions for your course: “What motivates different types of terrorist groups? When does terrorism succeed and fail?” Applying that framework to your own experience, how do you view the Taliban’s motivations and their ultimate success during the US intervention? And do you agree that they ultimately succeeded against the US?
Chris Costa:
So I’ll answer the the last part. Most painfully but they did succeed, at a pure, from a pure insurgent and counterterrorism standpoint or terrorism standpoint depending on your perspective. The bottom line the violence was used selectively and symbolically and in many cases effectively but when I talked to students, not only was the Taliban a organisation that obviously was zealously religious, they also had streaks of nationalism, they exercised tribal traditions based on revenge, power, their identity.
And clearly for me to better understand those idiosyncrasies, those nuances, I talked to Americans that were born in Afghanistan that that were self-radicalised in the United States, and the question of self-radicalisation is is a matter of some subjectivity, but the bottom line is, yes, they were successful in the end because they achieved their political objective which is a regime under Taliban leadership. Now I would argue that the rest of the story is not decided because obviously the Taliban in Afghanistan has a long painful history of warfare and in many cases the future is going to depend, or in the case of the Taliban I should say, better said, the future is going to depend on Taliban choices.
Let me let me just tighten up this conversation a little bit and let me get back to radicalisation and then I'll talk about the Taliban choices. What I also tell my students: there is no one radicalisation path. I interviewed Najibullah Zazi, I talked to him about tribes and the impact his Pashtun tribal sensibilities were and his feelings toward tribes. Some of that was interesting.
But at the end of the day his radicalisation was very unique. It was based on dealing with other individuals and the feedback that he got and some of his own personal psychology. But what I have learned if anything by interviewing
a half dozen, I don't want to oversell, this was not a massive research project but I did want to understand from my experience the radicalisation of some of the Afghans and compare that to some of the individuals that radicalised and joined ISIS.
At the end of the day, the individuals I talked to that were raised in the United States felt a need to support the Taliban and answer Bin Laden's call for jihad and they thought that the best way to do that was to go and fight in Taliban and answer their call of duty. Now again their personal psychologies need to be studied and were studied. But when you talk to them at the end of the day, they felt a sense of duty and they made a significant error and they paid a price price for it. Zazi went to prison. Zarin is still in jail. This was Najibullah Zazi that was planning an attack in New York City at a subway.
So again, what I’ve learned from interviewing individuals that ultimately cooperated with US intelligence and with the Department of Justice, each radical path is very different, but, in their view, it was defensive and they recognised their mistake, at least Zazi did, but he paid a price for it. So back to the Taliban, I think the Taliban’s use of violence against their population, against other tribes, is one of the tools that they used not just against the coalition but also to terrorise villagers that wanted to support the coalition, while the United States and the coalition tried to rebuild Afghanistan during various years and of course that experiment failed ultimately.
There was never, there was, in some ways the United States lost their operational patience and we tried again, just to flash forward in 2017, with the 2017 South Asia strategy that general McMaster championed, I truly believed that the strategy instead of pulling forces out of Afghanistan, the idea of changing the kinds of US forces that would support with Afghanistan so they could continue the fight as US forces condition-based left Afghanistan over time, at a time of our choosing, no date or marker on the calendar. So I thought it was a sound strategy in 2017 and it was a broader strategy to put and to ensure, Ali, that Pakistan was again on notice that the United States was not leaving Afghanistan. That was the the idea in 2017 and it was a regional strategy it wasn’t just Afghanistan, there were many regional issues that started to bleed into great power competition. So that’s how I saw things in 2017 and when I left in 2018, that South Asia strategy was still in place.
Question:
I would like to come back to that point in a bit. Before that I wanted to have a follow-up to my previous question. I also took a terrorism and counter-terrorism course at Columbia University and my professor kind of refused to characterise the Taliban as a terrorist organisation and also even during their insurgency. I would like to have your views on that and also could you tell us how the Taliban differ from other militant and jihadist groups like the Islamic State or ISIS.
Chris Costa:
Yeah, I think it’s very complicated and it’s probably too short of a podcast to really dive deep. But at the end of the day, it was a specially designated terrorist group if I recall. But at the end of the day, it was not a global terrorist organisation in terms of its objectives.
Its ideologies clearly were all about estab, establishing, excuse me, an emirate in Afghanistan. It was about controlling the Afghan space and people. However, I would again, this can be debated and this can be unsettled, but at the end of the day the Taliban did use terrorism methodologies clearly, at times indiscriminate indiscriminate terror, assassinations of political leaders, but at the end of the day the objectives were not necessarily indiscriminate violence.
But I would separate that from the Haqqani Network that is, is a terrorist organisation and did use terrorism against the population and horrific terrorism and kidnapped Americans and Afghans and committed acts of rural terrorism.
So terrorism is a methodology, whether it’s designated or not, those are policy and political decisions, but the end at the end of the day the Taliban behaved like an insurgent group that used terrorism to include kidnapping and holding hostages like Caitlin Coleman and others.
Question:
Thank you so much and coming back to the point that you raised earlier. President Trump took office with an “instinct” to pull out of Afghanistan. Yet in August 2017, following “a comprehensive review of all strategic options” in the region by his national security team, he announced a new strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia, as you mentioned. The strategy laid out five major pillars, including shifting from a time-based approach to one guided by the conditions on the ground, to ensure the Taliban could not simply wait out the US forces. But by July 2018, President Trump instructed top diplomats to engage in direct talks with the Taliban. This led to a secret meeting in Doha between Alice Wells, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and a six-member Taliban delegation, excluding Afghan government officials. This marked a significant concession to the Taliban who had long demanded direct and bilateral negotiations with the United States. How did the intelligence work and analysis inform this shift in strategy?
Chris Costa:
Ali, so I’m not dodging the question, but I left the administration in 2018. So my observations would have been from outside the US government and based on academics and talking to veterans. But here’s how I will couch it. The president trump did come in to the administration, his sensibility was no more forever wars, no more country-building, no more spending billions and billions of dollars on Afghanistan, the the Afghans had to be, had to be prepared to defend their nation.
And I was very very supportive of the strategy and the arguments behind giving the South Asia strategy and opportunity at the end of the day the president had choices and he had courses of action and as we already talked about a conditions-based regional approach with the five pillars you referenced was adopted. But by 2018 the United States patience was worn thin, the situation wasn’t changing dramatically for the better, so the president had an option to begin talks. The sensibility I think for talks are right. Strategists, former diplomats, people, academicians, Afghans themselves for years are going to argue was it right to cut out the Afghan government from those talks, especially back to your point earlier insurgency versus terrorism is about legitimacy.
And I should have said that at the outset. The coin of the realm is legitimacy. By cutting the Afghan government out of those talks because the Taliban didn’t want them there, there was little time to work out the power sharing agreements. I think that’s what Ghani wanted. All of these things seem to be playing out with the clock ticking. I cannot speak to the, the decisions again in 2018, but it seems to me in hindsight that the Afghan government should have had a seat at the table but that wasn’t a decision I made. I was out of the US government. I think, also in the hindsight, it is easier to look back at the mistakes made. The mistakes made were cutting the Afghans out of the discussions, not necessarily have negotiations. But in some ways having the Taliban to the negotiation table required that and there had to be some back and forth and give and take.
And the United States does deal with with insurgent organisations, it does engage with terrorist organisations. What we don’t do is pay terrorist groups to bring US hostages home but there are confidence building measures that need to get built into and humanitarian issues that can be built into those confidence building measures. I think many of those things were tried and tested but the United States was losing its operational patience.
Now back to the point of intelligence, what I can say is I always argued that Afghanistan is going to continue to be a US national security problem because of sanctuary historically given to al-Qaeda and now some 20 plus terrorist organisations are training, are free to move in Afghanistan and are giving succor by the Taliban and possibly support but I have no way of knowing that. I don’t have access to the intelligence and I’m not sure we have our focus on Afghanistan. But I will say and I’ve gone on too long, I apologise, but I will say,
Ali:
It’s absolutely fine.
Chris Costa:
Looking at my article that I wrote, hopefully you can share with your audience right before the United States began its bombing of Iran, I had co-authored a piece that suggested the Taliban better change their behaviour because by tethering themselves to an axis of convenience with Iran, they are very very vulnerable. I would argue the Taliban should be deeply deeply concerned with what has happened by the United States in terms of strikes in military forces being used against the Iranian regime, the Taliban need to be very careful. They also are paying a price for playing the kinds of power politics they’ve tried to play. Now Pakistan is deeply deeply disturbed in conducting military operations against Pakistan because of their support to terrorism isn’t that ironic.
Question:
You referred to the presence of 20 plus terrorist groups or militant groups in Afghanistan under the Taliban and you’ve previously responded to questions about the US shifting resources toward near-peer competition by suggesting a balanced approach. As you put it: “Our rebalancing can’t be binary; it can’t be an either/or proposition. We can’t, for instance, focus on North Korea or China and forget about CT [counterterrorism]. We’re going to have to figure out a way of doing both.” Given that perspective, do you think effective counterterrorism operations are still being maintained when it comes to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?
Chris Costa:
So I’ll answer your question, that’s an excellent question this way. First of all you made reference to a mantra that I’ve argued since I left the White House in 2018 that the United States is a great country we have great partners across the world we can do both great power competition and counterterrorism and I want to make a really important point I argued and I still maintain that the United States should have left a counterterrorism footprint on the ground in Afghanistan in the uh when the Biden administration made a decision wrongly i believe for a full and complete withdrawal out of Afghanistan with a date in a marker on the wall and giving up Bagram airbase had we left a footprint on the ground had we had a supply chain had we had the opportunity uh to be in place despite the hazards of that the United States also would have been in a position to counter China to send a strong message I’m talking about commercially with resources.
I, so i think you you you have to combine CT along with with working commercial interests in supply chains and maybe down the line normalisation of a relationship with the Taliban. And I think that’s what some Americans envision but we’re a long way away from that although it’s good news that the Taliban released they had no choice candidly they needed to release Americans that they’ve held in the last year that was a good choice by the Taliban. I, we know that they harbored in the past the Haqqani network clearly Sirajuddin Haqqani is a part of the Afghan government and Zawahiri was there even though the Taliban promised that they would not allow al-Qaeda to have sanctuary. So the idea of sanctuary, the idea of where the United States is currently only time will tell but we’re coming up on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and the United States prob probably does not have a great sense of what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan but that’s not to say the US intelligence community along with foreign partners isn’t collecting, isn’t working with liaison partners, isn’t working closely with, with the Pakistanis for example or the Tajiks I have no sense for that but I, I do believe the united states understands the necessity to watch what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan to the extent it can.
Question:
Thank you on that note, following his appointment by President Trump as National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz emphasised the urgent need to recover an intelligence footing in Afghanistan. In a Washington Post interview published in January 2025, he stated that the administration would assess US intelligence-gathering capabilities in the region to ensure “we’re not surprised again—yet again—from that part of the world.” However, he clarified that this strategic assessment does not mean “we’ve got to go back and fight in Kandahar.” As someone who understands these capabilities on the ground, how do you think the US has maintained or reestablished this intelligence footprint?
Chris Costa:
It would really be speculation on my part, but again I'm not going to sidestep the question. It's an excellent question and I completely completely support the ambassador's [Mike Waltz, US ambassador to the UN and former national advisor] comments. And he and I have talked about this in the past.
The idea of of human intelligence operations and platforms that found al-Zawahiri in Kabul can still be employed. Standoff capabilities, liaison partners, I can only surmise that the United States has assessed those capabilities, has worked with with foreign partners to ensure the United States is understanding what happens.
This is a little redundant to what I said earlier, but I want to underscore that in the aftermath, I'll take us back to the cold war, the early cold war, the United States didn't have a human footprint necessarily on the ground in the Soviet Union, so we used U-2 aircraft famously, over time we had satellites and and we had sources that were able to travel legitimately into Afghanistan, merchants and in a full range of people to debrief and talk about. Similarly we could tap into refugee populations throughout the early part of the cold war. These are all opportunities.
And another point I will make is there are insurgent groups that are fighting rightly the Taliban, current Taliban regime as well as, of course, ISIS-K, which is unequivocally a terrorist organisation.
We want to see the Taliban prevail against a very dangerous ISIS-K, but at the same time, there are oganisations that are putting pressure on the Taliban. So clearly some intelligence must fall off the table because these individuals travel abroad and other intelligence services must or presumably debrief them.
Question:
Thank you, you earlier mentioned about the Taliban’s choice of releasing American nationals that they detained. On March 20, 2025, a U.S. delegation led by Adam Boehler, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, traveled to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqi. That same day, the Taliban released American national George Glezmann on “humanitarian ground” and as a “goodwill gesture,” as the Taliban put it, aimed at signaling that the regime was ready for further engagement with the United States. The Taliban had held Glezmann since December 2022 when they detained him while he was visiting Afghanistan as a tourist. Apparently in return for his release, the Trump Administration dropped millions of dollars in bounties on the Taliban’s acting Interior Minister Serajuddin Haqqani, his brother Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and brother-in-law Yahya Haqqani. State Department officials confirmed to the media that “there is no current reward” for the three Haqqani Network officials, but they remain “Specially Designated Global Terrorists and the Haqqani Network remains designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” As someone who managed counterterrorism and hostage recovery from inside the White House, how do you view this exchange? Does a concession like lifting a bounty in return for the release of hostages show that the Taliban’s hostage-taking strategy is actually paying off?
Chris Costa:
Well, they’re certainly not taking, I’m talking about the Taliban, they’re not making mistakes and taking Americans hostages now nor will they I feel safe to say that in the short term and long term, although it’s hard to predict obviously the future, it’s my educated guess. That said these are policy decisions and likely made at the White House I can only presume it and in consultation with the national security advisor and the Secretary of State Rubio clearly the Taliban are on notice. As somebody that’s work hostages, we use all means, all instruments of US power, we use diplomatic, diplomacy, we clearly use our intelligence services to inform those decisions. We have the opportunity to conduct military operations. We have the opportunity to conduct hostage rescue operations along with that and we have economic tools and sanctions so the idea of reducing charges the idea of trading prisoners as confidence building measures or humanitarian gestures those are policy and presidential decision decisions.
At a human level, it is unacceptable to take somebody’s freedom away from them and that was a part of the tool of malign regimes like Russia with as well as Myanmar as well as on occasion China, wrongful detentions unacceptable, kidnappings unacceptable, we could parse out what those those terms mean but the at the end of the day taking somebody hostage, taking somebody away from their family, put them in some oppressive condition, they don’t know whether they’re going to live or die, their families are seeking answers from the US government in these cases. So I’m an advocate for getting these people home in balancing out the long term risks. And I think the United States would have done the risk management and looked at the long term risks and found ultimately those courses of action acceptable, supportable.
And I am truly glad there are no Americans as far as I know being held by the Taliban today. I will also hats off to the current trump administration they’ve done extraordinary work on the wrongfully held detainees or or hostages space as well as hostages being held by terrorists, to include Hamas it is unacceptable as I said to take somebody hostage violates law and its a violation of who we are as people so I appreciate that Adam and I have talked to him and thanked him personally on other cases. I appreciate his commitment, the administration’s commitment, I want also make an important point for our listeners that each administration worked hard on trying to resolve hostage issues. We were successful in the first Trump administration setting conditions for bringing home Americans and I think we, with the continuity from the previous administration, the Obama administration to the first Trump administration to the Biden administration and some spy trades for other wrongfully held detainees in Russia etc. So I think the United States is committed to being bringing Americans home but we have a long way to go to prevent this kind of malign behaviour by regimes like the Taliban. So I think this was an excellent outcome.
Question:
And you know President Trump has been talking about the need to regain access to Bagram air base. And of course, you are, we just discussed the recovery of American nationals held by the Taliban. Do you know if the administration has engaged the Taliban, with the Taliban on those other fronts?
Chris Costa:
I have no sense if something’s happening back channel. That was eye-opening for me to hear that and that suggested the possibility for some kind of normalisation, some kind of agreements with the Taliban but I have no sense for that I would go back to the original sin was vacating Bagram and going to zero in Afghanistan, not a political comment, just my judgment was going to zero was the wrong message to send and the Taliban understood what that meant and continued to operate across Afghanistan and had a plan and the United States of course withdraw withdrew and I think that sent a poor signal to the world candidly and makes us vulnerable in other places maybe Ukraine maybe Taiwan. So that’s up to historians to assess. I do know that I’m looking forward to understand from the US there’s a commission that’s looking at Afghanistan and I very much want to understand what some of the big lessons learned were although I suspect I know what they are.
Question:
Thank you for that but you know that this was a negotiated settlement or deal between the United States and the Taliban in Doha. Would it have been acceptable for the Taliban if the US wanted to, wanted to maintain some presence or footprint at the Bagram airbase?
Chris Costa:
I can’t speak to what’s tolerable or not for the Taliban. I mean you know they’re a malign regime and and that’s how I assess them. They oppress their people, they oppress their women, they oppress kids in school. I think it’s, I understand there are, there are different points of view and there are cultural aspects of these things but at the end of the day it’s untenable. But I have no idea what their calculus is and I would never speak for the Taliban. But I will say that any negotiation is also, can be adjusted as a result of actions on the ground. We’re seeing that play out right now in Doha ironically. I don’t know what’s happening currently but on this date it’s possible that the United States might be using Doha as a platform to talk to the Iranians. So at the end of the day the negotiations and dynamics change in their actions that the actions on the ground matter.
Remember the United States was considering, also inviting the Taliban to camp David and what happened the Taliban did what the Taliban do and killed lots of innocent people in Kabul as I recall and and maybe American casualties, I do not recall the details regrettably. But I know it was enough to truly truly make any such travel by the Taliban untenable to the United States, again back to that point on legitimacy.
Question:
Thank you. I know you also follow the Taliban’s relations with the neighbouring countries. In an article “Iran and the Taliban: An Axis of Convenience the United States Cannot Ignore,” which you co-published with Wahab Azizi in March, you write “For nearly a quarter-century after the September 11 attacks, U.S. policy rested on a useful assumption: that Iran and the Taliban were irreconcilable enemies whose ideological and sectarian differences would prevent meaningful cooperation. That assumption was convenient for a time—but it is no longer valid.” Looking at the region since the US withdrawal, how exactly has the strategic environment changed and what are the primary shared interests driving the Taliban and Tehran together?
Chris Costa:
Well, I think now and I alluded to it earlier, Ali, the Taliban are extremely vulnerable as a result of what’s happening with Iran. They are on notice as we’ve talked about throughout this excellent conversation. They are on notice, they certainly are paying a price rightfully so from Pakistan pressing the Taliban so taken together the Taliban have to be extremely extremely mindful that the United States will use force if necessary to press the Taliban. Clearly that’s not a decision I have any sway on but I think by looking at what the United States has done against the Taliban, I’m sorry Iran.
Currently I think that the Taliban have to be very very cautious at the decisions they make diplomatically and militarily in, in the future and they are not a stable country by any stretch of the imagination. And I do want to say my heart does go out to the Afghan people, the children, the families, people that just want to live peacefully in a beautiful country of Afghanistan. I see the Taliban as as more of a problem in the future than a solution.
Question:
Thank you. Maybe my last question before we wrap it up. During the Biden Administration, Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that the Taliban were receiving training from China to use American weapons left behind. From an intelligence point of view, what is your assessment of the Taliban-China relations and their implications for the U.S. interests in the region?
Chris Costa:
Yeah, I really can’t speak to Secretary Hegseth’s comments on intelligence in China. I do know that China, their foreign policy is exploitive in nature, that’s why we’re in a competition with China. Lieutenant general McMaster, the former national security advisor, talked about their strategy of coercion and exploitation. So I see China filling those vacuums in Afghanistan to exploit the resources, to to counter the United States by building a relationship with the Taliban. Remember China is also concerned with Uyghurs and and you know part of China touches Afghanistan as I recall, right?
So I think that it only will follow that China will continue to build a relationship on the ground with the Taliban government what I don’t have a sense for what’s happening with the leftover weapons. Clearly the Taliban is using it against, in some cases, against the population, but I have no sense for the Chinese being trained or Russians for that matter or mercenaries or anyone else.
I do know that the TTP, the Pakistan Taliban, are a threat to Pakistani stability. So that’s something that I’m sure Pakistan looks at, how are they being armed? are they being armed by the Taliban? So not a great answer to your question because I have no sense for, for the intelligence that the secretary offered.
Question:
And maybe the last bit, what do you think should a US policy towards the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan look like? We know that the administration has been doing a review of the US approach towards Afghanistan, but we have not seen any official policy yet. What do you think should a US policy should look like?
Chris Costa:
I think over time, Ali, I would like to see some normalisation but that time is very very much up to the Taliban’s behaviour. So again it’s going to be based on Taliban decisions what normalisation looks like. And I don’t see that happening anytime in the near term because of bad policy choices being made by the Taliban and their double game. I want to see evidence of what they’re doing against ISIS-K. I want to see evidence what they’re doing against other terrorist organisations that can provide regional instability or trigger regional instability. They cannot be trusted, so it’s gonna take time.
But I think diplomacy fits, but also the United States has a carrot as well as a stick. And I’d like to hope that all of that, those instruments of national power, get built into some policy output for the current administration. I think a lot is going to depend on what’s happening with Pakistan in Afghanistan currently. Clearly, Afghanistan is being attacked, I’m not talking about Afghanistan targets, Taliban targets are being attacked as we’ve talked about repeatedly because of their support to the TTP.
At the same time Pakistan is playing a role in negotiations, as I understand it, with with Iran and the United States. So I think that just like the South Asia strategy, Pakistan’s going to have a role in, in any kind of normalisation with the Taliban. Clearly the time isn’t right, that might be years from now, could be a decade from now but diplomacy can be, can be worked clearly.
Ali:
Thank you so much, Professor Chris costa, for this excellent and insightful discussion based on your intelligence work in Afghanistan. I really appreciate your time.
Chris Costa:
Thank you, Ali, thank you to your listeners and I appreciate the opportunity to talk based on my history, based on some of my experiences, but I am an outsider now. And my assessment is through the lens of policy, not politics, and, and through the lens of my experience as a counterterrorism professional and somebody that’s been involved in counterinsurgencies as well. And I really just appreciated the time today.
Ali:
Thank you so much.
