I testified today to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in one of a series of hearings the committee is holding on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was asked to address the terrorist dimension of the conflicts there, with particular reference to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. What follows is a portion of my testimony.

South Asia, and more particularly the portion of it encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan, has come to be associated strongly with extremism and terrorism. That association is understandable, given the connection of the area with one of the most traumatic events in U.S. history. The lines of contention in the region are complex, however. Different dimensions of conflict there, such as between moderation and extremism, or what may pose a terrorist threat to the United States and what does not, do not coincide with each other.

The connection of this region with militant Islamist terrorism is rooted in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. That insurgency became the biggest and most prominent jihad, attracting militant Muslims from many different countries. Although the anti-U.S. terrorist group we came to know as al-Qaeda did not develop as such until the late 1990s, its connection with Afghanistan and South Asia is based on the earlier effort against the Soviets. When Osama bin Laden left Sudan to take up residence in Afghanistan in 1996, he was returning to the scene of his earlier contribution, which was chiefly logistical, in helping the Afghan insurgents to defeat the Red Army.

There is no intrinsic connection between Afghanistan and international terrorism. In fact, Afghan nationals are conspicuously absent from the ranks of international terrorists. A rare exception was Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in 2009 for allegedly plotting to bomb the New York City transit system. But even Zazi had left Afghanistan with his family for Pakistan when he was seven years old, and he had lived in the United States since he was fourteen.

Pakistan has developed its own connections with international terrorism. This has included groups, most notably Lashkar-e-Taiba, with some capability to operate far afield. But the primary focus is still within South Asia, and specifically on the Kashmir dispute and other aspects of confrontation with India.

In short, the link between this region and international terrorism is not based on inherent qualities of the region or of the conflicts that bedevil it. Instead it is more of a historical accident related to an attempt by the Soviet Union to quell an insurgency in a bordering state, with the link greatly enhanced in American minds by the residence in Afghanistan—ten years and more ago—of people associated with the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Current violence in Afghanistan is a continuation of an Afghan civil war that began after a coup by Marxist-Leninists in 1978 and, although the line-up of protagonists has changed from time to time, has never really stopped. After the departure of the Soviets in 1989, the fall of the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime in 1992, and internecine fighting among the warlords who had pursued the insurgency, a new movement known as the Taliban—benefiting from Pakistani backing and the support of an Afghan public disgusted by the warlords' violent squabble—asserted control by the mid-1990s over all but the northern tier of the country. The civil war continued as a fight between the Taliban and a mostly non-Pashtun collection of militias known as the Northern Alliance. The intervention in late 2001 of a U.S.-led coalition, in what we call Operation Enduring Freedom, was a tipping of the balance in this civil war. It was enough of a tip for the Northern Alliance to overrun Kabul and to drive the Taliban from power.

The current phase of the Afghan civil war, although commonly seen as a fight between the internationally-backed government of Hamid Karzai and a terrorist-associated Afghan Taliban, is a far more complicated affair with multiple dimensions. The ethnic element is a large part of the conflict, with the Taliban largely Pashtun and other ethnic groups having a major role in the government forces. Other relevant divides are between Sunni and Shia and between rural interests and the urban elite.

The Afghan Taliban constitute a highly insular, inward-looking movement whose leadership is concerned overwhelmingly with the political and social order of Afghanistan. It concerns itself with the United States only insofar as the United States interferes with its plans for that political and social order. It is a loosely organized movement in which the leadership group known as the Quetta Shura, led by Mullah Omar, is the most important but not the sole point of decision-making.

The motives of the rank-and-file who have taken up arms under the Taliban label are diverse and at least as locally focused as those of the leadership. Those motives include assorted grievances such as ones associated with collateral damage from military operations and resentment over what is seen as foreign military occupation. Probably few of the rank and file are driven primarily by a religiously based desire to remake the Afghan political order, and hardly any of them have perspectives that reach beyond Afghanistan's borders.

The Afghan Taliban are not an international terrorist group. They have not conducted terrorist operations outside Afghanistan. There is nothing in their record or their objectives that suggests that they will.

The connection between the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda is an aspect of 1990s-era history. As the Taliban leaders were in the midst of their war against the Northern Alliance, and bin Laden was establishing a new home for himself and his followers after leaving Sudan, each side had something to offer the other. Bin Laden provided resources and manpower to the Taliban's prosecution of the civil war. The Taliban provided bin Laden hospitality. Although the two sides both had radical (though hardly identical) Islamist ideologies, the relationship was largely a marriage of convenience, and not without frictions.

The basis for the marriage is largely gone. The Taliban cannot provide the hospitality they did when they were the government of three-fourths of Afghanistan. Bin Laden (before his death) and what is left of his organization within the region can provide little material support. As U.S. officials have repeatedly observed, there is minimal al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, with personnel numbering only in the scores.

Any prospect for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to reestablish anything like the relationship they had in the years prior to 9/11 is severely constrained by the changes (some of them irreversible) that have since taken place in all of the parties concerned: the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the United States. Taliban leaders are acutely aware that the biggest setback their movement has ever suffered—their being swept from power in the opening weeks of Operation Enduring Freedom—was a direct response to an al-Qaeda operation. They have no incentive to do anything that would facilitate a repeat of that experience. Al-Qaeda leaders are also unlikely to perceive an advantage in having more of a presence on the northwest side of the Durand Line than they already do on the southeast side of it. This is especially so because the Taliban and al-Qaeda alike know that the standards for use of U.S. military force in Afghanistan have changed drastically since pre-9/11 days. Unlike back then, the re-establishment of anything remotely resembling al-Qaeda's earlier presence in Afghanistan would become a target for unrestricted use of U.S. air power. This would be true whether or not the United States was still waging a counterinsurgency on the ground in Afghanistan. And such use of force would be far greater than the still major restrictions on anything the United States can do militarily in Pakistan.

Bin Laden never intended whatever organization he controlled to be the entire story as far as jihadist terrorism is concerned. The very name of his group—al-Qaeda, or “The Base”—implies that it would instead be a foundation or starting point from which bigger things would grow. This in fact is what happened. The overall violent jihadist movement to which the name “al-Qaeda” is customarily but loosely applied now goes well beyond anything bin Laden controlled or that his surviving associates in South Asia have been directing. Bin Laden's role in recent years was far more as a source of inspiration, ideology, and ideas (including operational ideas) than command and control. This role was confirmed by what has so far become publicly known about the material seized in the raid at Abbottabad.

Most of the initiative, planning, and preparations for terrorist operations under the al-Qaeda label in recent years has come from outside South Asia. Some of it has come from formally named affiliates—most notably, though not exclusively, from the Yemen-based group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Some has come from less formally affiliated groups and individuals, including during the past few years several individuals in the United States. Even though “links” are sometimes traced back to South Asia, the initiative is largely coming from the periphery.

This pattern implies that the situation on the ground in the AfPak region is not one of the more important factors determining the degree of terrorist threat to Americans. To the extent that control of a piece of real estate matters, whether that real estate is in Afghanistan is hardly critical. Other places, such as Yemen, are available. This is in addition to the question of how much the control of any piece of real estate affects terrorist threats. A lesson from terrorist operations in recent years—including 9/11, most of the preparations for which took place well away from South Asia, including in Western cities—is that the effect is less than that of many other factors shaping terrorist threats, and that virtual space is more important than physical space in planning and coordinating terrorist operations. The point is not that terrorist groups will not use physical space when they have it—they do—but that it is not one of the more important determinants of how capable they are and how much of a threat they pose.