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In Washington, it’s a term that sends shivers down policymakers’ spines — often invoked to describe an unknown or undesirable alternative to a policy that is problematic and often overly idealistic, yet that officials nonetheless desperately want to succeed.

In 2007, soon after U.S. authorities had announced a high-stakes troop surge in Iraq, a group of governors visiting Washington asked a popular question of the day: “What’s Plan B?” The White House offered a befitting response: “To make Plan A work.” More recently, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry articulated a variety of messy and complicated Plan B options, should a new and fragile ceasefire in Syria not hold — from a partition arrangement to deeper collaborations with the Syrian opposition.

And then there’s Afghanistan.

Ever since U.S.-led forces stormed into the country in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime and eliminate al-Qaeda sanctuaries, Washington’s exact objectives have been difficult to discern. For the Obama administration, Plan A until 2014 consisted, broadly speaking, of using military force to beat back, if not defeat, the Taliban insurgency and bring some semblance of stability to Afghanistan in order to ensure that al-Qaeda could never shelter there again.

In 2014, foreign troops ended combat operations in Afghanistan with the war still raging. Consequently, Washington’s post-2014 hopes for Plan A rest on an elusive political aim: full-throated support for, and furious efforts toward, a reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban. While Washington seeks to support such a process, it continues to advise and assist beleaguered Afghan troops. Unfortunately, for Washington, betting the farm on a peace process could amount to a big strategic mistake — and yet the alternatives are no more promising.

In effect, Washington is banking on a peace deal to end the Afghanistan war — a highly ambitious objective that is a long shot at best.

Unsuccessful efforts to engage the Taliban in talks extend back more than 10 years. To be sure, there have been periods of promise. In July 2015, Taliban representatives launched formal negotiations with Afghan government officials in Pakistan. However, the talks were quickly torpedoed by the news that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar had been dead for several years. In recent months, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States, and China have formed a Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) to prepare the grounds for peace talks. For weeks, the QCG has insisted that direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban are just around the corner — until March 5, when the Taliban released a statement saying they currently had no intention to participate in talks.

There are three good reasons to fear that Washington’s Plan A is more likely to fail than succeed.

First, the Taliban have little incentive to lay down their arms and seek a peace deal, given their strong performance on the battlefield. One may argue that this position of strength could actually incentivise the Taliban to join talks, given that the movement could enjoy a favourable bargaining position. For now, however, the Taliban leadership has refused. At any rate, Kabul is unlikely to accept the large demands of an emboldened Taliban — which may include receiving ministerships. There’s no indication Kabul has even accepted the Taliban’s preconditions for talks — which include the departure of all foreign troops.

The second reason to be sceptical about a successful peace process is the fragmentation of the Taliban, and the influential internal interests that are rigidly opposed to talks. Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor, who is said to support the idea of reconciliation, is opposed by powerful anti-peace factions that would likely remain active on the battlefield if peace talks were to begin — and even if a peace deal were to be announced. There may need to be an intra-Taliban reconciliation process before there can be one with the Afghan government.

The third reason to be sceptical is Pakistan. For one thing, some within the Afghan political class resent the prominent role that the QDC has accorded to its mistrusted neighbour. For another, by no means is Pakistan guaranteed to bring the Taliban to the peace table — a core justification for its inclusion in the QDC. Quite simply, Pakistan is losing leverage it has long enjoyed with the Taliban — leverage derived from the sanctuaries it has granted to the Taliban in North Waziristan. Taliban triumphs in Afghanistan have allowed them to carve out new de facto sanctuaries in that country. Additionally, a Pakistani military offensive in North Waziristan (targeting other militant groups) has driven Afghan Taliban forces into Afghanistan, further dampening the appeal of a Pakistan-based sanctuary. From a broader regional stability perspective, these developments are all the more concerning given that some Pakistani Taliban factions are also now holed up in Afghanistan, and use the country as a base for attacks on Pakistan — including the December 2014 school massacre in Peshawar.

Keep in mind as well that while Mullah Mansoor is believed to be close to the Pakistani security establishment, some Afghan Taliban factions harbour no love for Pakistan. As I wrote two years ago, interviews with Taliban detainees, conducted by NATO interrogators back in 2011, revealed that many didn’t trust Pakistan and resented the tight control exerted on them by Pakistani intelligence. And this doesn’t even get to the question of Pakistan’s questionable commitment to peace, given its pursuit of policies meant to support and strengthen violent forces in Afghanistan that aim to minimise India’s footprint. Recall that back in 2012, Afghanistan’s High Peace Council launched a “Peace Process Roadmap to 2015” plan that, like the current QDC model, involved a central Pakistani role. This initiative, suffice it to say, failed to achieve its purpose.

This all underscores that the time has never been riper to pose that uncomfortable question: If not reconciliation in Afghanistan, then what?

Washington is unsurprisingly mum on the matter, but its implied answer is patience — give peace talks more of a chance, and especially, as U.S. diplomats have told me privately, because there is no better alternative. Interestingly, this was the very position articulated to me by a senior Pakistani official in Islamabad last month, who insisted that a reconciliation process can be successful so long as there are no short-term deadlines.

A position of strategic patience has some merit, but it is at best shaky. For instance, in time, the Islamic State’s growing — where some disaffected Taliban fighters have thrown their support behind the group and are engaging Taliban forces in battle — could compel the Taliban to step off the battlefield and negotiate an accord (that said, at this point Taliban forces are successfully fighting off their Islamic State-aligned foes). Additionally, perhaps down the road Mullah Mansoor could solidify his hold on power and impose enough organisational discipline to get rival factions behind him in support of reconciliation (given the extent of Taliban fragmentation, however, such an outcome is unlikely). Finally, the Taliban may in due course become less rigid about their preconditions for talks. The group, at least rhetorically, has telegraphed a willingness to be flexible — as seen in a statement following a Pugwash conference in 2015, when it said that women should enjoy the right to knowledge, work, and ownership. Of course, such tactics should be taken with grains of salt; the Afghan Taliban often decry attacks on civilians (including Pakistani Taliban attacks on polio workers in Pakistan) even as it continues to attack civilians. Additionally, years ago, mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan often resorted to conciliatory messaging to trick the Soviets.

(A version of this article appeared in print in War on the Rocks on March 10, 2016)

(To be continued)

The writer is the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He can be reached at michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org and on Twitter @michaelkugelman