VIDEO BLOG
Episode 1: “It’s the Tribes, Stupid”
The real force in Afghanistan isn’t Islamism or jihadism. It’s tribalism. Mr. Pressfield compares Alexander the Great’s Afghan campaign (330-327 BC) to our own wars today.
View the credits and transcript for Episode 1.
Mr. Pressfield,
Some ideas for you. I started reading your blog back in July, and I agree that Afganistan is a clear tribal stituation, and your description of the tribal society and mindset is very well done. Thinking through history, I believe tribes are dominated in two basic ways by a statelike society: the complete subjugation by war and the collapse of the society followed with swift colonization, or the annexation by treaties with the tribes that can see it is in their best interest, supporting them in proxy wars in the destruction of their enemy tribes, and the eventual corruption of the tribal society by the more advanced, sponsoring culture to the point where they become dependent.
For example, compare what happened in Spanish “territory” in what is now the US and the Amazon and southernmost South America. Periodic warfare into the tribal areas but with no followup by large scale colonization for hundreds of years. Both areas were pacified only by savage warfare, sometimes the elimination of some tribes, over the last 150 years (it’s still occurring now in the Amazon), followed by immediate, large scale colonization which breaks the hope that the tribe could outlast the invaders. The Boers in South Africa would be another example.
The second method, using annexation and proxy wars, your example of Alexander the Great in Afganistan is what first comes to mind, as well as what the British and French did with the Iroquois and Hurons, or the US with the Pawnees, Crows and some Apaches in the west. Sometimes there is a combination of both methods, such as with Cesar in Gaul.
If these hypothesis are true, then obviously the first approach is not an option for the US and NATO in Afganistan (while it was for the USSR), so we need to find the proxy tribes we want to partner up with. Currently it appears the US Government is recognizing that the Afgan government is not working and is starting to act, not just look, at using all the tribes (idealistic)to provide stability and security at a local levels for the Afgan state in a limited way, strongly and sensibly suggested elsewhere in your blog. I hope that it will work out, as well as the other strategies that we are using to get Afganistan into a manageable mess, that with time all the tribes would merge into a cooperating agglomeration of Afgan tribes recognizing the state as their greater entity.
But tribes are tribes, and hatreds old. If our new, “all tribes” strategies are not working, then we’ll either need to run away, get deeply involved, or let our chosen proxies have fun killing and intimidating their enemies for a while (remember how important warfare is for honor in tribes) while we support them, just like we did in 2001. Either way there will be warfare. Given the material and time, and the supported tribes, even if initially smaller, can destroy the larger ones (Genghis Khan). Tribal alliances can rapidly merge into statelike structures (Iroquois, Mongols). Our original northern alliances and confirmed Pastun allies could be a good start. Selected problem tribes/areas could be targeted for control by the proxy tribes, while those with more prudent, often powerful tribal leaders could be left alone when they showed unwillingness to fight (Redcloud in 1876, White Mtn Apaches in 1880’s). The US role would be limited, to disrupt problem tribes/areas supplies, air support, and field advice.
It is not a “democratic” model, it is a tribal model, it is how tribes have always been.
Hopefully the current US strategy works, then the scenario I suggested above won’t need to be contemplated in a serious way.
Regards,
David Heyl
Mr. Pressfield,
I’m curious to know what constructs define a “primitive tribal foe” and the “tribal mindset”. I think those terms are sufficiently vague as to be misunderstood. They may mean many things to many people.
I appreciate the historical context of a contemporary story. We need more of those narratives today.
Mr Pressfield
Just started reading your blog, very interesting, some excellent material to prompt thought. If I may I would like to comment that some of the issues we face in the military is our soldiers are told to fight the enemy and concentrate thier efforts on doing exactly that. What they do not do or have not done to date is focus on the critical or vital ground of the people. Why refer to the Taliban as the enemy, they are people with a different view, who have no way of expressing it apart from fighting, by calling them the enemy the military are unlikely to sit down and discuss alternatives, hence polarised mindsets will drive a continued battles. Tribal warfare is not just an Afghan issue, the US War of Indepence, your Civil War was a tribal war. We are however, not taught to examine it in that manner.
Having said this may I thank you for sharing your thoughts and work with us all. As a military trainer I will be using some of the ideas that you have highlighted in order to make Officers and soldiers think about the people they are trying to influence.
Regards
Peter
Peter, you do not know who the enemy is?
It IS the Taliban. You are a military trainer and hopefully are not confusing our Soldiers and Marines as to who the enemy is.
They throw acid in children (girls) faces for going to school.
They torture, terrorize and behead people.
They are killing our Soldiers and Marines in the MOST COWARDLY Fashion – with them damn IED’s.
They killed my Husband and he was a Special Forces Green Beret.
Have you fought in that war? You need to go to Afghanistan and get on the front lines to realize that they ARE THE ENEMY.
Connie Moralez-Piper
Mr. Pressfield,
Your comments and MAJ Gant’s paper come at a timely matter. We were in the middle of discussing campaign planning for AFRICOM and then switched to AF-PAK at the USAWC. This information is as thought provoking as “Three Cups of Tea,” I hope our fearless leaders take note and the right thing: adapt and overcome.
Cordially,
Paul
“The tribal mind-set (warrior pride, hostility to all outsiders, perpetual warfare, the obligation of revenge, suppression of women, a code of honor rather than a system of laws, extreme conservatism, unity with the land, patience and capacity for hatred) permeates everything.”
I live at the edge of the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. I see exactly these same mind-sets here in this small town and in most small towns around here, both on and off the rez. They are not universal, but anything political must deal with exactly these same forces. They are strongest in high school, where I believe people learn them, largely through sports events, and then carry them forward through their lives.
I can give you lots of examples.
Mary Scriver