When do warlords contribute to state-building efforts? At first glance, this question might seem strange. The conventional wisdom, prominent in journalistic accounts and academic writings, is that warlords only serve to undermine the strength of the state through their predatory exploitation of vulnerable populations. In her fascinating book Warlords, Strongman Governors, and the State in Afghanistan, Dipali Mukhopadhyay calls into question this familiar narrative. She argues that warlords, far from being separate from and operating in opposition to the state, often choose to align themselves with it. She explores when warlords decide to tie themselves to central authorities and how this choice shapes both the reach and content of state power.

Reframing the study of warlords in this way allows Mukhopadhyay to generate a series of intriguing hypotheses. Her main thesis is that provincial warlords are more likely to align themselves with central authorities when they are “just strong enough” (p. 50). On the one hand, they must possess sufficient access to coercive instruments, capital, and social connections so as to have a reasonable chance of establishing and sustaining some modicum of local political control. On the other hand, they must also face competition from local actors who threaten their established power. When these two conditions are met, warlords have a strong incentive to align with the state, becoming “strongman governors” (p. 53) who exploit the resources and prestige offered by the center to consolidate their power in the periphery. In contrast, the absence of these conditions complicates bargaining between warlords and the state. Powerful but unchallenged warlords have little need for state support, while weak and vulnerable warlords make for poor intermediaries for state officials.

Mukhopadhyay explores these hypotheses through a careful examination of the political biographies of four warlords-turned-governors in contemporary Afghanistan. Two of these conform to her model of the strongman governor. In Balkh Province, the Tajik warlord Atta Mohammad Noor took advantage of his large militia and ties to local elites to establish a strong base of informal political control. Along the same lines, the Pashtun warlord Gul Agha Sherzai exploited his considerable wealth and connections to coalition authorities to consolidate power in Nangarhar Province. The author contrasts these cases with two failed attempts at warlord governance, notably the rapid rise and dramatic fall of the Iranian-backed Tajik warlord Ismail Khan in Herat, and the ineffectual career of regime crony Juma Khan Hamdard in Baghlan and Jowizjan Provinces.

Mukhopadhyay is careful not to exaggerate the beneficence of strongman governance, noting that both Atta and Sherzai “employed brute force, illicit earnings, and charismatic suasion to grease the wheels of their patronage machines” (p. 326). Yet she also concludes that strongman governors were “not only creatures that fed off the state; they were also feeding the state” (p. 362). Strongman governors remitted revenue to the central government, supported local public works projects, clamped down on illegal poppy cultivation, and worked to enhance the prestige of the government. Their methods may not have reflected a Weberian model of the rational and impartial state, but they helped establish a “primitive infrastructure that radiated outward from each provincial capital” (p. 56).

Taken together, there is much to admire about Mukhopadhyay’s detailed narrative of these cases. Her accounts of Atta and Sherzai in particular are based on extensive fieldwork in both Balkh and Nangarhar Provinces. She provides a clear and concise account of the careers of these provincial governors, both of which she interviewed in person, while never losing sight of the more controversial features of her subjects. I learned a great deal about the micropolitics of provincial governance in Afghanistan from this book, and would commend it to anyone interested in the complex process of state-building in fragile, war-torn countries.

Mukhopadhyay’s analytical framework does raise some important questions, however, especially as it applies to her specific cases. To begin with, it is unclear how comparable her two cases of strongman governors—Atta Mohammad Noor and Gul Agha Sherzai—are in practice. While both exploited their access to coercion, capital, and connections to master informal networks of political power within their respective provinces, their origins are quite different. Atta possessed a substantial base of support in Balkh prior to his appointment, while Sherzai—who made his fortune in Kandahar—was essentially an outsider in Nangarhar. The motives of the government in Kabul also appear to be different: With Atta it needed to co-opt a potential opponent, while with Sherzai it hoped to create a capable intermediary. Of the two, Atta appears to be a more straightforward case of a “just strong enough” warlord who struck a temporary bargain with the state to consolidate local power. In contrast, given Sherzai’s outsider status and initial dependence on Kabul, is it at all surprising that he acted as faithful servant of the state?

Similar questions emerge in the two cases of failed strongman governors. Of the two, Juma Khan Hamdard seems like a good case of a weak and ineffectual warlord incapable of providing local governance. In contrast, the case of Ismail Khan in Herat can be read a number of ways. Mukhopadhyay views it as a case of a “too strong” warlord who lacked any incentive to bargain with the regime (p. 244). Yet her narrative also suggests a rival view: Ismail Khan was not too strong but, rather, too weak to achieve his grandiose ambitions. As Khan was ethnic Tajik in a heterogeneous province in which his co-ethnics were a minority, his corrupt and brutal practices were bound to alienate the local population. Given that the pretext for Khan’s removal was escalating clashes with Herati-Pashtun militias, it also seems hard to argue that he did not face capable local rivals. Based on his perilous position, Khan should have had every incentive to strike some sort of bargain with the state, akin to Atta in the north. Did he fail to do so because of his idiosyncratic personality? Would the government and Kabul, not to mention its foreign backers, ever have accepted an Iranian-backed strongman in such a crucial province?

A second set of questions concerns the role of the central authorities in Mukhopadhyay’s framework. Since she is interested in the choices of warlords, much of her story and analysis focuses on the decisions and practices of provincial governors. But this leaves the identities and interests of central authorities somewhat obscure. When do central authorities have an incentive to bargain with warlords? Do they always seek to extend the writ of the state, or do they exploit center–periphery bargains for ulterior motives? Put bluntly in the context of Afghanistan, what drives the choices of President Hamid Karzai? Here, Mukhopadhyay’s narrative paints an interesting picture. In the north, Karzai seems to be engaging in a form of ethnic divide and rule: Atta was initially empowered as a potential counterweight to the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In the east, the motives seem to be more venal: Sherzai was appointed to strengthen the grip of the regime over lucrative customs revenues, as well as to clear the scene for the enrichment of the Karzai family in Kandahar. These examples lead me to wonder whether Karzai himself really is a state builder in the traditional sense or whether he, too, is a type of strongman governor writ large, whose primary goal is to exploit informal networks of power for personal gain. If this is the case, does it make sense to talk about these bargains as a genuine extension of “the state”?

A final question concerns the role of outside actors in this narrative. Obviously, the state-building enterprise in Afghanistan is not taking place in a vacuum: The presence of coalition military forces and donor agencies has a profound influence on the choices made by actors in both the center and periphery. At times, Mukhopadhyay portrays this foreign presence as an asset for strongman governors: Foreign troops help buttress their own coercive instruments, while foreign capital enhances their ability to cultivate patronage. Elsewhere, however, she seems to suggest that the foreign presence complicates the task of governing: Collateral damage from coalition military operations undermines the legitimacy of local governance, while the influx of reconstruction dollars encourages corruption and raises expectations that cannot be met.

How are we to assess these two competing claims? On balance, does foreign support tend to help support or undermine provincial governance? This question seems especially relevant as the international community is poised to reduce its presence in Afghanistan, which the author predicts will lead to a “drop in levels of coercion and capital in Kabul and across provincial political economies” (p. 360). If we accept this premise, are the days of the strongman governor numbered? The gloomy conclusion may be that as coalition forces withdraw and donor dollars evaporate, the traditional warlord is poised to make a bloody comeback.