Mangwel and the Konar River Valley

[Friends, with apologies, a stomach virus has laid the blog low.  Here's a re-run of a post that has been a reader favorite. We'll be back on Wednesday!]

June 22nd, the Washington Post ran an excellent article by Greg Jaffe, titled “A Personal Touch in Taliban Fight.” The piece is about a young Army captain, Michael Harrison, and his up-close-and-personal work as a company commander in the remote tribal villages of the Konar River valley in Afghanistan.

Flashback to 2003, same valley, same U.S. Army—different captain. This is the story of then-captain Jim Gant of Las Cruces, NM, and how he and Capt. Harrison are linked by a gift of honor, a 12-gauge shotgun.

A tribal chief

Mangwel is a village in Konar province, close to the border with Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Terrain is mountainous, no paved roads; Taliban fighters use the valley regularly as an infiltration route to and from Pakistan. The chief in Mangwel is Malik Noorafzhal. He’s 86 now; he fought the Soviets in the 80s; he’s been defending his tribe’s turf all his life.

In 2003, Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 316–twelve men, led by Capt. Gant–had Mangwel as part of its area of responsibility. The ODA helped the chief in some tribal warfare, fighting alongside him. The chief said he would return the favor to augment the ODA’s mission; he mentioned that he could deliver 8 men with guns, then upped it to 80. On 23 April 2003, Capt. Gant had a meeting with him and other tribal leaders. The following is from the captain’s OPSUM [Operation Summary], written immediately afterward:

The head local we have named “Sitting Bull.” He is an old, old warrior. He didn’t speak much. I didn’t speak much either. I mainly listened. I looked him in the eye often. After the meeting was adjourned, he asked to speak with me privately. So my terp [interpreter] and I went out back with him. He took my hand in his. “I want you to know, Commander Jim, that you have my loyalty. If you need men with guns you come see me.” He promised 800. From 8 to 80 to 800!

Bonding tribe-to-tribe

Capt. Gant made it a point to bond with Sitting Bull. This nickname that the ODA gave the chief captures the spirit of their affection and admiration. These tough Special Forces soldiers regarded the malik as a living figure of legend, a warrior who had fought and defeated many enemies, a leader to whom the highest respect was due. They loved to question him about his battles with the Russians and he loved to tell them his stories. The warriors, American and Afghan, would stay up deep into the night, drawing maps of ambushes and infiltrations. Capt. Gant had his own father, James Karl Gant, send Malik Noorafzhal a knife with “Sitting Bull” engraved on it—and a letter, man-to-man, father-to-father. Here is part of it:

My son says you are a great warrior. He respects you and considers you to be his friend. He tells me that your enemies are his enemies. He says he would give his life to protect you. Be my son’s father while he is in your country. Take this gift from us as a token of our friendship.

Through his interpreter, Captain Gant read the letter to the chief.

When I read [the letter] to Sitting Bull, he was outwardly moved by it and said, “Tell your father not a hair on your head will be harmed as long as you are with me, you are now my son.”

Sitting Bull, the shotgun and Capt. Gant, 2003

A gift of honor

Capt. Gant and the ODA wanted to give the chief their own gift of honor. They searched and found a beautiful 12-gauge shotgun. The photo on the right shows the moment they presented it. That’s Capt. Gant beside the chief. Up front is SFC Mark Read.

Flash forward to 2009, a few weeks ago. Marine Col. Bing West, author of The Strongest Tribe, about Marines in Iraq, is now in Afghanistan researching a book. He visits Mangwel and meets with Malik Noorafzhal. The first thing the chief does is to bring out, proudly, the gift shotgun and ask Col. West if he can get him some shells, as he is all out. The photo below tells everything. Bing West e-mailed it to now-Major Gant, who forwarded it to me. The young officer next to Sitting Bull is Capt. Michael Harrison—the company commander profiled by the Washington Post–who is now on his second tour in Konar. Here is part of an e-mail Capt. Harrison sent from there to Major Gant, 18 June 2009, a few days ago.

Over the past five months, he [Malik Noorafzhal] has helped us out tremendously. His son and son-in-law both work at our COP [Combat Outpost] as ASG [Afghan Security Guards.]

Sitting Bull, the shotgun and Capt. Harrison, 2009

Tribesmen relate man-to-man

Men of the tribes never forget an insult or a kindness. Six years later, Capt. Gant and ODA 316’s heartfelt gift of honor is paying dividends for follow-on generations of American soldiers. And Capt. Harrison (though he and Maj. Gant have never met) is employing the same tribal language of man-to-man, person-to-person bonding. From Greg Jaffe’s article in the Washington Post:

Between his two tours, Harrison, whose boyish face and blond hair make him look like an especially earnest grad student, had kept in touch with his interpreter and several of the Afghan leaders from his old sector via e-mail. He sent them packages of T-shirts, jeans and toiletries. Soon after he arrived in Konar for the second tour, Harrison bought mosque speakers for the religious leaders in his area. Although his current sector is a three-hour drive from his old base, Afghans whom Harrison hasn’t seen since 2007 sometimes arrive at the gates of his new base. Many show the guards scraps of paper bearing Harrison’s signature, proof that they once knew him. “You cannot come to me, so I am here to visit with you, my good friend,” one man told Harrison.

All this is not to say that life is roses today in Konar province. Successes are unfortunately the exception, and tribal-savvy breakthroughs like those produced by Capt. Gant and Capt. Harrison are, so far at least, only the model for achievements to come.

Tribes and Alexander the Great

When Alexander fought in the Afghan kingdoms 2300 years ago, a gift of honor might be a horse or a Damascene sword. Alexander understood that such tokens, presented man-to-man, warrior-to-warrior, were the currency of tribal alliance. The celebrated tale of Alexander marrying the Afghan princess Roxane is usually told as a romance–the youthful king smitten by the ravishing damsel. There may be an element of truth to this, but Alexander was also a shrewd political animal whose army was then mired in a disastrous three-year counter-insurgency campaign with no end in sight. He married his way out of that quagmire, by taking to wife the daughter of his most powerful foe, the warlord Oxyartes, thus making his enemy into his father-in-law.

That marriage was an act of honor. In tribalspeak it said to Oxyartes and the other warlords, “I honor you as an equal, you have fought me to a draw and won my respect; let us make war no longer but join our two peoples in a peace whose issue will be prosperity and happiness for all.”

A shotgun and a bride, a gift and an act of honor. Perhaps the Obama era’s young officers and men, incoming now to Afghanistan, can take a page from Alexander and Oxyartes, from captains Gant and Harrison, and from a chief called Sitting Bull.

Download Major Jim Gant’s “One Tribe At A Time” to your computer, or view it right now.

[Because of the extraordinary response to Maj. Jim Gant's paper, One Tribe At A Time, I've decided to leave it up all week in the "Number One Slot."  My ongoing interview with Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai will pick again next Friday; the Chief has been in Kabul all week, meeting with U.S. and British commanders, and we haven't had time to speak. So all's well that ends well!]

The downloadable and open-able .pdf of One Tribe is here, on the right. On a personal note, let me say again that I consider it a privilege to offer this document in full, not only because of my great respect for Maj. Jim Gant, who has lived and breathed this Tribal Engagement idea for years, but for the piece itself and for the influence it is already having within the U.S. military and policymaking community.

One Tribe At A Time is by no means a super-pro Beltway think tank piece. What it is, in my opinion, is an idea whose time has come, put forward by an officer who has lived it in the field with his Special Forces team members–and proved it can be done. And an officer, by the way, who is ready this instant to climb aboard a helicopter to go back to Afghanistan and do it again.

Questions and comments

At the moment, Maj. Gant is at Fort Polk, Louisiana, getting ready to deploy to Iraq, where he will lead an Iraqi commando battalion. He’ll be available in the meantime, however (depending of course upon time demands), to answer questions or take criticisms. Just respond in the comments section below. And I myself have further thoughts I’d like to offer on this subject in the coming weeks.

Here’s a quick one:

The most common response I anticipate to the Tribal Engagement concept (and it’s a valid criticism, shared by Maj. Gant) will go something like this: “Yeah, this is a great idea–but where are we going to find the men to implement it?”

Men for the job

Tribal Engagement Team members, should this concept be adopted, would be called upon to commit for multiple tours under the loneliest, harshest and most hazardous conditions imaginable. To succeed with the tribe they are assigned to, they would have to demonstrate impeccable combat credentials and, even rarer, possess the “people skills” to establish and maintain rapport across a cultural chasm—Western to Tribal Afghan—that has defeated every outside entity from Alexander the Great to the British and the Soviets. The task would be extraordinarily difficult, dirty and dangerous, and in the end would almost certainly be rewarded neither by career advancement (because the enterprise would be unprecedented and outside the normal channels of military promotion) nor by recognition from the public at large, who in all probability will rarely hear of it and wouldn’t understand or appreciate it if they did.

How can we identify and attract such men?

Do you remember this tiny, three-line ad from the London Times, December 29, 1913?

Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.

5000 volunteers queued up in response to this advertisement, posted by Ernest Shackleton seeking crewmen for his Antarctic expedition.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think our young American warriors would respond with any less enthusiasm than their British cousins did a century ago to a similar call. Do you?

Again, many thanks to Maj. Jim Gant for writing One Tribe At A Time, to Printer Bowler for designing and editing the .pdf and to Callie Oettinger for managing the outreach. I’m proud to put this document in circulation with as much reach as this modest blog can offer. We all hope it proves of interest and of use.

[The blog is "on the road" this week, so I'm going to re-run last week's One Tribe At A Time post.  I actually wanted to do this anyway, just because it produced so many interesting comments and questions.  We'll have the full free downloadable .pdf of Maj. Jim Gant's One Tribe At A Time next Monday.  Thanks, friends, for your patience!  Now to business ...]

What would it take in cash and gear to put one U.S. Tribal Engagement Team to work with one Afghan tribe in one village? Here is Special Forces Major Jim Gant’s start-up shopping list:

Three to twelve [U.S.] men, based on the environment

2 interpreters

2 SAT phones

2 SATCOM radios (piggyback frequency)

2 PRC-119s

2 ATVs

2 Pickup trucks

3 Generators

2 Computers with a biometrics kit

Plus initial infill logistics package for the tribe:

100 AK-47s

30,000 to 50,000 rounds of ammunition

Assorted medical supplies

A ‘Gift of Honor’ for the tribal chief

Last week, we discussed the concept of the Tribal Engagement Team–a “small team of highly-trained and motivated men” who would live with, train, supply and fight alongside a Tribal Security Force, to provide security for its home village and district. Maj. Gant related how his own Special Forces ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) 316 had done just that in 2003 in Konar province–and that the effort, totally “home-grown” at the time, had succeeded beyond all expectation. The thesis of Maj. Gant’s paper is that such a strategy can work today throughout all Afghanistan.

Influence Without Authority. Maj. Gant with tribal leader Malik Noorafzhal.

My team ODA 316 and I created a model for successful tribal engagement and all that it requires. The relationships we developed not only worked while we were there, they have stood the test of time and continue to this day. I could re-insert a Tribal Engagement Team in Mangwel tomorrow. Given the time and resources, I would go anywhere in the country and do this.

Maj. Gant acknowledges that some districts are more “accessible” than others and that even in friendly villages, risk would be high and the Tribal Engagement Teams would be vulnerable and exposed.

Each TET tribe will become a target and they will take casualties. There will be fighting. But the fighting will be U.S. soldiers alongside tribesmen against a common enemy. Isn’t that what we want?  There will [also] be push-back from assorted Afghan officials, power brokers, warlords, criminals. It will become a very personal fight. Once we commit to the tribe, the Pashtunwali code [honor, revenge, hospitality] comes into effect for the [U.S. teams] as well. In the end it will be the team’s ability to build a true bond with the tribe that is backed up by the warrior ethos: the ability and desire to fight and die alongside them when necessary.

What exactly would be each Tribal Engagement Team’s goals?

1. Establish and maintain rapport with the chosen tribe in the area. Advise and assist them in all matters.

2. Provide real security for the village. Not presence patrols, but 24/7 on-site security. A permanent presence that the tribes can rely on. “Advise, assist, train, equip and lead” a Tribal Security Force (TSF), an Arbakai.

3. Facilitate tactical civic action programs. Integration with the local Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) is crucial, along with the ability to use funds that units have at their disposal for “quick” money to help tribes who are facilitating the success of Coalition Forces and the Afghan government. Basic health care and services (water, power, irrigation), construction and repair of schools and clinics to improve the life of the tribe and employ the tribe as well. These programs would be worked through the local/district/provincial/national government when possible and be integrated into the U.S. battle space owner’s overall plan.

"ODA 316 built this well for Dr. Akhbar"

4. Employ an aggressive tactical PSYOP plan that ties into the overall strategic Information Operation campaign in the area. Tribes also can counter the extremely skillful Taliban propaganda.  The world has to see Afghan tribes and U.S. soldiers working, living, laughing, fighting and dying together.

5. Report “Ground Truth” continuously. This activity will tie the tribe in with all the other levels of the government system. It would also be the process by which the tribe’s concerns would be fed directly to the Coalition Forces military apparatus. This would act as a check and balance for what is actually happening on the ground and what the GIRoA (Gov’t of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) may say is happening. “Ground Truth” provides feedback to headquarters level units in charge of the area ANA and ANP. They would then find solutions for everyday problems and political problems as well.

TET solutions should always be answers to local problems, yet always with an eye to integration with regional and national government representatives. It will also be imperative for TETs to watch for scenarios where local, district, provincial and national government forces can be successful. In other words, cooperate and help set the government up for success.

In return, the TSFs (Arbakais) and tribal members would provide security, intelligence and early warning of insurgent attacks to the U.S. teams, who would then pass this on to higher commands.

A properly executed Tribal Engagement strategy can be so effective that the Taliban feel threatened by our very presence, without us even firing a shot.

 

I asked Maj. Gant if there was an historical precedent for this? Has any Western force ever pulled off something like this before?

One of the main areas under contention today is in Southeast Afghanistan near Khas Khonar, Asadabad and the Pesch Valley areas. This is exactly where our team served. This same area was one of the British Empire’s most challenging territories. How did the English deal with it?

“From the 1890s to 1947, British control relied heavily on a small number of highly trained British officers. These frontier officers were highly educated, committed, conscientious, and hard working. Many had studied law and the history of the area and spoke some of the local languages. They had a deep sense of duty and a strong national identity. All required a depth of administrative competence and judgment to successfully wield the extensive powers at their disposal. They contributed significantly to the province’s security and stability. These men were particularly valuable in navigating the intricacies of tribal politics.” (To Create a Stable Afghanistan, Roe, p. 20, Military Review, Nov-Dec 2005)

Can Americans do this? Is our U.S. “high-and-tight” military mind-set capable of finding, training, funding and granting sufficient latitude and autonomy to such Tribal Engagement Teams?

The key to a successful tribal engagement strategy is the ability to identify individual officers and enlisted men who have a special gift for cross-cultural competency and building rapport—that is, they must become educated in the ways of the tribes and build strong relationships with them based on mutual trust and objectives. These men must like to fight and spend countless months, even years living in harsh circumstances. They will have to fully comprehend tribal concepts of honor, loyalty and revenge—the Pashtunwali code. Initially, they will have very little physical security other than the AK-47 they carry, their planning skills and the tribal fighters they live with.

A late-night meeting with Malik Noorafzhal and other elders

The situation will vary with each tribe, but it will always be complex and difficult.  Each will present its unique spider web of loyalties and subtle agendas that a TET must deal with smartly and brutally when necessary. At the same time these men must be alert to detect and mediate local rivalries, sometimes within the tribe they are advising. They will have to be subjective on one issue and objective with another.

 

The American public is not known for being patient, particularly with a strategy that seems so innovative and unfamiliar. I asked Maj. Gant what he would say to this.

When a Chinese bamboo tree is planted, the grower must water and nurture it. The first year, it does not grow more than one inch above the ground. During the second year, after more watering and fertilizing, the tree does not grow any more than it did during year one. The Chinese bamboo tree is still no more than one inch high after four years. Nothing tangible can be seen by any outsider. But, on the fifth year the tree often grows more than eighty feet. Of course, the first four years the tree was growing its roots, deep into the ground. It is the roots that enable the tree to grow so much in year five.

Bottom line: A Tribal Engagement Strategy will have to be given time to do its work. But in the end, the result will be far-reaching and strategic in nature—a strong presence, firmly rooted, great in stature.

[We're hoping to have a free downloadable .pdf of the full text of One Tribe At A Time by next Monday. We'll set it up in this space if the schedule holds.  Maj. Gant is at Fort Bliss, TX right now, preparing to deploy to Iraq. He'll be glad to respond to questions or comments, contingent of course upon time demands. Thanks to all for your terrific input and support!]

Last week in our first excerpt from Special Forces Major Jim Gant’s paper, “One Tribe At A Time,” Maj. Gant laid out the concept for a specialized type of American unit–a Tribal Engagement Team. Such teams would be small, highly trained and motivated, and granted broad latitude in the means of pursuing their mission. They would live full-time in the villages with the tribes, “lead, assist, train, supply,” and help organize Tribal Security Forces (TSFs.)

Dr. Akhbar was the first person ODA 316 met in Mangwel village

Will this work? How does Maj. Gant know? This week I’d like to examine the real-life basis for the Tribal Engagement Team idea, from Maj. Gant’s experience. Here he describes his team’s arrival in Afghanistan:

ODA 316 [Maj. Gant's 12-man Special Forces "A" team] deployed to Asadabad in Konar province in April of 2003. The mission was broad, “kill and capture anti-coalition members.” We needed to immediately get a feel for the area and everything that entails. I came up with a plan to conduct multiple Armed Reconnaissance patrols to gather information and meet with as many village elders as possible.

In the village of Mangwel, ODA 316 encountered and befriended a tribal chief, Malik Noorafzhal, who was then at the brink of an armed conflict with other tribal elements who were affililated with HIG, Hezb-e Islami, the party loyal to the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

First meeting between Maj. Gant and Malik Noorafzhal

It is hard on paper to explain the seriousness of the situation and the complexity of what we both were facing. [Malik Noorafzhal] had asked for help, a thing that he later would tell me was hard for him to do (especially from an outsider) and I had many options. Could I afford to get involved in some internal tribal warfare? What were the consequences if I did? With the tribe? With the other tribes in the area? With my own chain of command? The decision I made was to support him. “Malik, I am with you.”

 

To make a long story very short, the dispute was resolved in Noorafzhal’s favor after it became clear that the Americans were on his side. Stability was restored. A bond had been established between the tribe and ODA 316. Not long after, the Malik invited the team to spend the night in his village, pledging that he would protect them.

The dispute was resolved in the tribe's favor

… we moved to Malik Noorafzhal’s compound. I immediately was able to count over sixty [tribal] warriors, all armed, in the area. There were sentries high in the mountains (on the Pakistani side) that we were not meant to see and at least three layers of security near his compound. The Malik then approached me and told me he wanted to take me somewhere very special. I, of course, agreed. I grabbed three of my men, gave a quick contingency plan to the rest of the team, and got in several pickup trucks with Malik Noorafzhal and his men. We began traveling up towards the beautiful mountain range behind Mangwel (with just weapons, no body armor) towards Pakistan. We drove up a valley and began passing an Afghan cemetery with the large flat rocks emplaced into the ground. There were many graves. Off in the distance there was what appeared to be an old village that had been destroyed. The vehicles parked and we all got out. Malik Noorafzhal grabbed my hand and we walked hand in hand up a small valley into the mountains. We turned a small bend and there was a beautiful waterfall. He told us to drink the water. He then came next to me and said, through my interpreter, “Jim, the last time I saw a person with a face like yours (meaning white), the Russians killed 86 of the men, women and children of my village.” He continued, “This is my old village. We fought the Russians. They never took my village. We are ready to fight again if we have to.” He looked and finished with, “You have great warriors with you. We will fight together.” We then just stood there for a few minutes and looked back into the valley, where you could see the old village and the new one. It was an incredible moment that cannot be put into any metrics or computer program that says “success” today. But it was. The bond continued to grow.

Just before going up to Old Mangwel. Fifth from the left is Malik Noorafzhal, holding Maj. Gant's M-4. The other Americans are SFC Travis Weitzel, standing; SFC Mark Read, kneeling on the left, and SFC Scott Gross on the right.

 

A unique aspect of Special Forces training is that it stresses “people skills.” One of the missions that SF teams train for is insertion into remote areas with the aim of establishing rapport with the local “G-chiefs”–guerrilla leaders–and indigenous elements. This means face-to-face, person-to-person.

I want to interject a couple of situations that might also tell of the relationship that was built with Malik Noorafzhal and my team. He and Dr. Akbhar were very open with their homes and families. I spent countless hours playing with Dr. Akhbar’s small children and the Malik’s grandchildren. The Malik used to say to me, “Jim, I am getting too old, play with the children today, they love you.” So do you know what my primary task would be for the day? I would play with the children–for hours. They would teach me Pashtu and I would teach them English. We would be watched by literally hundreds of younger children and women as we played. I often thought that these ‘play sessions’ did more for our cause in the Konar than all the raids we did combined.

 

Another point here is that my men developed their own very personal relationships with the people. Each one had his own “following” of people that included other elders and other children. When we would drive up to the village, different sets of people would run up to different members of the team calling them by name.

Their families were our families

One of the most critical and underappreciated aspects of fighting an insurgent enemy is the acquisition of actionable intelligence.

Then the Malik told my interpreter he needed to speak with me alone, outside. He then handed me a list with five names on it. He said these men were “bad and against the government and U.S. forces.” I had my interpreter read the names to me and knew that at least two of them were local members of Hezb-e Islami. Then the highlight of my military career took place. The Malik took my hand, looked me in the eyes and said through my interpreter, “Commander Jim, I have 800 warriors and they are at your disposal. You only need to ask and they will be yours…”

 

As our relationship grew, there many other stories and examples that I could give the reader to make my point, but I will only give a few more examples. One particular trip, Malik Noorafzhal said he had a “problem” he wanted to discuss. He said “people” (between the lines it was personnel from HIG) had come down in the village and accused him of allying with the Americans and that he and his village were becoming “Christians” and that Allah was going to make them pay for their actions. We spoke about the topic for quite a while. The bottom line was that I told him,” We should kill them.” While all of this was going on, we were getting an incredible amount of actionable intelligence from Malik Noorafzhal’s “kasheeka.” We received a lot of information from locals at our firebase on a daily basis, but most of it was worthless. The intelligence we got from Malik Noorafzhal and his men was correct–100 percent of the time.

Maj. Gant acknowledges one mistake that has powerfully influenced his conception of future Tribal Engagement Teams–the fact that he and ODA 316 did not have the resources to maintain a 24-hour presence in the village of Mangwel to help provide security for the tribe.

It became very apparent that the relationship we had built with the tribe was causing them to become a target for HIG in the area. We could not stay in the village 24 hours a day due to our other mission requirements and in retrospect and many more years of experience under my belt, not moving to Mangwel was a mistake. Since we could not maintain a 24 hour presence in the village (which they had asked for on two separate occasions), I decided to give them as many weapons and as much ammo as I could get my hands on. I felt like not only was it the right and best thing to do, but the moral thing to do as well. I had asked them to risk so much–what else was I supposed to do? I am very comfortable with the decision for two reasons. First, they needed more weapons to help defend themselves and more importantly Malik Noorafzhal and his people viewed us giving them weapons as gifts. These gifts bound us together even more than we already were. Power in this area was about the ability to put armed men on the ground to attack an adversary or defend their tribe. Guns were the ultimate currency.

 

The Tribal Engagement Teams proposed in Maj. Gant’s paper would arm the Tribal Security Teams and finance them, as well as living with them, training, assisting and leading. Could such a Tribal Engagement strategy work today in Afghanistan?

The key to this strategy is going to be the ability to identify men (Tribal Engagement Teams) who have a special gift for understanding cross-cultural competency and building rapport. These men will have to like to fight and spend countless months, even years, living in very harsh circumstances. They will have to truly understand concepts like honor, loyalty and revenge. Initially, they will have very little physical security other than the AK-47 they carry, their planning skills and the tribal fighters they live with.

 

My true belief is that a relatively small number of special officers and non-commissioned officers could maintain influence within large portions of Afghanistan by advising, assisting, training and leading local tribal security forces– ‘arkabais’–and building true relationships with the tribes they live alongside.

 

The tribes are not the enemy. The ‘insurgents’ are the enemy. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, HIG (Hezb-e Islami) and the Haqqani networks and several other enemy elements are the enemy. The tribes and their systems are not the enemy. Most of the Taliban are Pashtuns. However, all of them are from tribes. Doesn’t it make sense to make friends with as many of them as we can, while at the same time learning about our enemies? In truly engaging the tribes and understanding tribalism at its core, we will also be able to link and understand the problems in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

[In Part 3, next week, Maj. Gant's paper will get into the "how" of Tribal Engagement. Meanwhile this blog's crack design staff--former Army captain Printer Bowler of Missoula, MT--is busting his butt preparing a free, downloadable .pdf of the entire document.  We'll post it in this space as soon as we've got it.

[Questions for Maj. Gant? Type them into the Comments boxes. Maj. Gant is currently at Fort Bliss, TX, preparing to deploy to Iraq.]

The thoughts and I ideas that I will put forward in this paper are mine alone. Although I credit the U.S. Army Special Forces for the training I have received and the trust of [its] commanders, nothing in this paper reflects any other person’s or organization’s ideas.

Maj. Gant and ODA 316 in Afghanistan 2004

This is the opening author’s note from Maj. Jim Gant’s paper, “One Tribe At A Time,” which this blog is proud to present–in excerpt and quasi-serialization form–over the next few weeks. We’ll archive the posts in one place as they appear and also have a free downloadable .pdf of the full piece soon.

Why do I think this presentation is valuable? First I agree with it. I believe tribal engagement is the best, if not the only, “light-footprint” way to stabilize the current situation in Afghanistan and offer hope for a long-term Afghan-centric solution. Second, Maj. Gant’s ideas form a revealing and instructive complement to Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai’s actions and proposals, which this blog is presenting in this space each Friday. Third and most important, because Maj. Gant and his Special Forces team have tried these ideas in the real world and they have worked.

I have fought [Maj. Gant says] on the battlefields of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan is by far more the trying, the more difficult and the more brutal operational environment. The enemy there has never been defeated. And time is on their side. Trust me. I have sat face to face with Afghans, both friends and enemies, who will endure hardships that are unimaginable to us. They will do it, their children will do it and their children’s children will do it. They own all the time.

When one says “Afghan people” what they are truly saying is “tribal member.” Every single Afghan is part of a tribe and understands how the tribe operates and why. This is key for us to understand. Understanding and operating within the tribal world is the only way we can ever understand who are our friends, who are our enemies and how the Afghan people think and what is important to them, because they are all tribesmen first.

“One Tribe at a Time” reflects what I believe to be the one strategy that can help both the US and the people of Afghanistan by engaging the centuries-old tribal system present in Afghanistan. We must engage these tribes at a very close and personal level and with a much deeper cultural appreciation than we have ever had to engage in before. When we gain the respect and trust of one tribe, in one area, there will be a domino effect throughout the area and beyond. [One tribe] will eventually become 25 or even 50 tribes.

I asked Major Gant, “Isn’t the U.S. implementing a form of this strategy already?” Yes, he said, but not with the depth of understanding and commitment that is necessary to make it work.

Maj. Gant with Dr. Akhbar and others, Mangwel village, Konar

This is Ph.D. level warfare and one that will take a drastic shift in the current paradigm held by the US military.

What is needed, Major Gant says, is a strategy based on US Tribal Engagement Teams (TETs) working with Afghan Tribal Security Forces (TSFs) to secure tribal villages and districts from infiltration, intimidation and domination by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, corrupt warlords or other insurgent forces.

TSF is an acronym that will be used throughout this paper for Tribal Security Force. I will put the term Arbakais beside this term … as this is the Afghan term that is most used to describe the type of element the TETs would “advise, assist, train and lead.”

These American Tribal Engagement Teams will not be big, heavy-footprint behemoths, but small teams whose members would commit to living and fighting with the tribes over the long haul–months and years. They would be given the broadest possible latitude in action and support in firepower, funding and civil affairs assistance. Could it work? Maj. Gant has no doubt that it will with the Afghans. The biggest problems, he fears, will come from our own hidebound military bureaucracy. Below are just the first few in a long list of “questions, criticisms and obstacles” …

[A true strategy of tribal engagement will require a] complete paradigm shift at the highest levels of our military organizations–and then the ability to push these changes down to group/brigade and battalion commanders. I believe Secretary Gates, Gen. Petraeus and Gen. McChrystal are flexible enough and forceful enough to embrace and initiate a strategy of this type. [My fear is that] the farther down the “food-chain” it went, the more it would be resisted by the ground commanders. What changes would need to happen to make this strategy work?

1. Command and Control of the TETs would have to be streamlined dramatically. “One radio call could get an answer…”

2. The CONOP approval process (the process currently used to get missions approved from higher headquarters) would also have to be streamlined and shortened. To take this one step further, some missions would have to be conducted with no approval, due to the time-sensitive nature of the opportunity. The TETs would need special “trust and approval.”

3. The risk-averse nature of our current method of operating would have to change. American soldiers would die. Some of them alone, with no support. Some may simply disappear. Everyone has to understand that from the outset.

4. The TETs must be allowed to be on their own to grow beards, wear local garb, and interact with the tribesmen at all levels, at all functions. [They must be allowed] to be what they are: “American tribesmen.”

5. The OPFUND (money) issue would need to be streamlined and made more efficient. The TETs will once again need special trust to do what is needed with the money that they are allocated to help the tribe. Money and guns equal the ultimate power.

6. Rules of Engagement (ROE) must change. Using the TETs will become a very intense, personal fight. If they need to drop bombs or pursue an enemy, they will need to be able to do so. [Because the teams will always be fighting in conjunction with Tribal Security Forces], no missions will be conducted unilaterally. There will always be an Afghan face on any mission. However, there will be much fighting at some point.

8. The problem of identifying, attracting and training American personnel who could truly do this type of mission would be a daunting task.

Major Gant cites this recent quote from Inam-ur-Rahman, head of the Swat Valley peace committee in Pakistan: “Even if you take a Pashtun person to paradise by force, he will not go. He will go with you only by friendly means.”

Operating with the Tribal Security Force (TSF)

Afghan tribes always have and always will resist any type of foreign intervention in their affairs. This includes a central government located in Kabul, which to them is a million miles away from their problems, a million miles away from their security.

“Democracy” only has a chance to be cultivated at the local level by a small group of men who are willing to dedicate their lives to the Afghan people and cause.

At a time where the outcome of the war in Afghanistan hangs in the balance … when high ranking military officers are asking for more troops … I believe the [light-footprint] approach put forth in this paper will not only work, but will help to ease the increasing need for larger and larger numbers of US soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan.

[End of Post #1. These excerpts are from only the first six pages of "One Tribe At A Time," which is 55 pages long. Lots more over the coming weeks. This initial post at least gives a flavor of Maj. Gant's thinking. He goes into great depth and detail in future segments. Stay tuned each Monday. We'll archive all "One Tribe" posts in one place for easy reference. Thank you, Maj. Gant, and thanks to our readers.]

Site of the tribal gathering in Zazi, Paktia province

They say that every enterprise, from D-Day to a kitchen remodel, takes three times as long as you think and costs three times as much. I must apologize: our two new series have run afoul of this same syndrome. Here’s the latest:

We will launch, for sure, next Friday, with a reconfigured site.

Series #1: A multi-part, in-depth interview with an Afghan tribal chief

Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai was recently elected to the paramountcy of eleven tribes in his home district, the Zazi Valley in Paktia province. His first act was the creation of an 80-man tribal police force to protect the valley from insurgents. Chief Zazai must be doing something right because last week, his enemies tried to blow the force up.

I was having dinner with my family when I received a phone call from my commander, Amir Mohammed, telling me that an IED had been placed in the mosque where [the tribal police] were having a dinner. A small device went off … thank God the main bomb did not … it would have killed 30 to 40 people easily.

Chief Zazai’s father, who fought the Soviets and the Taliban, was assassinated several years ago; the chief himself has survived two attempts on his life. His cause is to unify the Afghan tribes and use them as a basis, not only for security for the Afghan people and state, but for a new (actually very old and traditional) form of governance for the entire country.

Inside the tent: elders from eleven tribes

Series #2: Special Forces Major Jim Gant’s “One Tribe At A Time”

Major Gant, who has served in Helmand and Konar provinces, approaches this same problem from the US side. While Chief Zazai is attempting to work with the 10th Mountain Division, whose area of responsibility is the chief’s home district, Major Gant lays out a program for US Tribal Engagement Teams to reach out to the tribes all over Afghanistan, one at a time. This is from his Foreword:

Afghanistan. I feel like I was born there. The greatest days of my life were spent in the Pesch Valley and Musa Qalay with the great “Sitting Bull” (a tribal leader in the Konar Valley who you will meet later in these pages). I love the people and the rich history of Afghanistan. They are a people who will give you their last bite of food in the morning and then try and kill you in the evening. A people who will fight and die for the mere sake of honor. A great friend and a worthy enemy.

Major Gant with "Sitting Bull," Konar province

Both Chief Zazai and Major Gant express the same belief:

The US [says Chief Zazai] has only one card to play in Afghanistan and that is the tribes.

Major Gant agrees.

… the answer lies in understanding and then helping the tribal system to flourish.

We’ll get these series rolling next Friday, I promise. And we’ll have free downloadable .pdfs of both, with photos and video, as soon after that as possible. Thanks, friends, for your patience.

Three items will be coming up this week (and in the following weeks) in this space that I think will be extremely interesting and provocative. I can say that with confidence because none of them will be coming from me.

First, in the next day or two, we’ll post a response from Michael McClellan to George Will’s recent “This Week” comments and Washington Post column. Mike is an extremely thoughtful and articulate young lawyer and Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. I don’t know what he’ll say but I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

Second, I’m very excited to use this space as a platform for a white paper titled “One Tribe At A Time — A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan” by Special Forces Major Jim Gant. If you’ve followed this blog, you’ve seen Maj. Gant’s name a number of times. He’s an ODA team leader, recipient of the Silver Star, with three combat tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan–on his way back for a fourth tour in Iraq in about a month.

Major Gant is not a pundit or a think-tanker; he’s a warrior whose points of view derive from time on the ground, in the villages and under fire, and whose ideas come from real experience that has really worked. In a nutshell his thesis is that, if the U.S. hopes to succeed in Afghanistan, it must work with the tribes. There’s no other way. The good news is that he believes this can be done–in a light-footprint way, without massive additional troop deployments and without egregious casualty counts (though it will take specially-trained, motivated and supported Tribal Engagement Teams). In his paper, Major Gant lays out the specifics for how he believes this can be done. What makes his recommendations carry weight, in my view, is that he is speaking from real-world experience. The course he proposes, he and his team have lived out. It has worked. Whether you agree or not, this is going to be fascinating reading.

Third, I’m hoping to provide a forum for an Afghan tribal chief, just elected to the paramountcy of eleven tribes in his home valley. This gentleman (who I won’t name for the moment, out of respect for him, and also because this announcement may be a bit premature) is knowledgeable in a way that no Westerner can be and is extremely articulate and passionate in championing the tribal cause in Afghanistan. He has survived two attempts on his life–and that’s the least of his personal story.

Like Major Gant, the chief believes that the tribes are the only avenue by which Afghanistan can truly achieve stability, autonomy and evolve to a state from which the forces of global jihad can be neutralized or eliminated. He has very specific ideas and propositions and he too has lived them out in the real world.

I’m hoping to run a number of stories on these issues, primarily in the words of these individuals. One thing they have in common is a belief that it would be a mistake for the U.S. to disengage from Afghanistan at this time. What is needed, they say, is not so much more American involvement as smarter involvement.

I don’t know specifically what any of these gentlemen are going to say, but I’m sure it’s going to make for some really interesting debate.

Tribal elders tell US Special Forces about their "muj days," fighting the Russians

A week ago I ran a post about two young Army captains—Jim Gant and Michael Harrison—who served in the same valley in Konar province, Afghanistan.  Their service was six years apart, yet the two were linked by their bonds with a tribal chief named Noorafzhal and by a gift of honor—a shotgun that Capt. Gant and his Special Forces ODA 316 had presented to the tribal elder in August 2003. Just three weeks ago, June 2009, Noorafzhal was still showing that gun off—this time to Capt. Harrison.

This is Counterinsurgency (COIN) at its best and something equally important—positive continuity. The following is from an e-mail Capt. Harrison sent me from Konar a few days ago:

 There is definitely a direct carryover of goodwill and overt support for American forces from Maj. Gant and ODA 316. During our first shura (meeting) with the elders in Mangwal [Noorafzhal’s village], we discussed the importance of working together to better their country and village. They all agreed, bringing up their past relationship with “the bearded Americans.” 

 Tribesmen connect man-to-man. In Mangwal in 2003, Capt. Gant and his team loved to stay up till all hours with Noorafzhal–to whom they gave the honorific nickname, Sitting Bull–listening to his stories of how he and the other tribesmen fought the Russians in the 80s.  (Note, in the photo, the sketch of the topography of an ambush.)

I feel [Capt. Harrison’s e-mail continues] that the way Maj. Gant and the rest of his unit dealt with Noorafzhal helped us establish ourselves and cut down on the time required to develop the trust and relationships that yield cooperation, accurate and timely intel and buy-in from the village elders.

 This sounds like a success story and it is.  But the point to take note of is how accidental it all was. Capt. Gant didn’t know Capt. Harrison. There was no planned or institutionalized contact between the two officers, no handover, no collaboration. A number of other units served in the valley between their deployments. It was just luck that two such tribally-savvy officers happened to work, in different eras, with the same elders and the same tribesmen.

“Sitting Bull” still carries enormous influence [reports Capt. Harrison]. Whenever he arrives at a shura, everyone shuts up and stands up.  He is the first to speak on all issues.  He “allows” the sub-governor [a non-tribal post of the Afghan government] to assert his power and is careful not to circumvent or marginalize the district leadership. But it is apparent that the respect and power is still there. He could definitely put armed men into the field if he wanted to.

 Donald Vandergriff, a retired Army officer and military leadership maverick, asks:

What would have happened if Capt. Harrison and his unit had overlapped with Maj. Gant and his team? It would have made the good situation that Capt. Harrison describes even better. In today’s personnel system, people are seen as individual replacement parts. The system does not take into account the intangibles of unit cohesion, trust and competence. The only way we can successfully wage this war is through the building of professionalism and trust.

To that, I would add the building of ongoing and uninterrupted bonds with village and tribal leaders.

In his book The Sling and The Stone, Col. T.X. Hammes makes a related point:

The weakness of our current personnel system is that it is a hundred years old and grooms people to run organizations based on concepts from another century. Unfortunately, that is not the only weakness. The bureaucratic model itself is a major problem. In this model, “career development” requires frequent moves and a wide variety of duties. The idea is to ensure that every person has the broad range of skills necessary to function at the top of the organization. It focuses on creating generalists rather than experts … [The typical officer’s career pattern] consists of a series of short (one to three years) postings in a wide variety of jobs … They are, in effect, amateurs by profession. They never spend enough time in any one job to become an expert.

 How many critical Afghan-to-American relationships are we destroying by failing to rotate or redeploy outstanding officers back into Areas of Operation (AOs) where they have successfully bonded with tribal leaders and elders? Officers like Jim Gant and Michael Harrison should be working together. Their tours should be overlapping or tag-teamed so that tribal leaders don’t have to reconnect with new faces each time around, but can deepen and broaden already-established bonds with men and warriors they know and trust.

I’m certain that addressing this situation is on Gen. McChrystal’s to-do list.  I applaud it.  And one further thought.

Maybe the clean-shaven look is overrated.

First, many thanks to all correspondents and contributors for the tremendous and very thoughtful response  to the previous post, “A Tale of Two Captains.” More to come in a couple of days about Capt. Harrison’s work, including an update dispatch from him in Konar.

But first, here’s a strikingly apt flashback to 2006—when Army Times journalist (and author of the excellent Not A Good Day To Die)  Sean Naylor and I did an interview together for C-SPAN’s “BookTV.” The topic was “The War in Afghanistan.”

We thought the piece was pretty timely then. I just watched it two days ago. Not only has very little changed in AfPak since that air-date in ‘06, but very little has changed since 327 B.C. 

I was citing Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Afghan kingdoms 2300 years ago.  I made the point that that ancient superpower army had its hands full against a cunning and resourceful hit-and-run foe who employed the tactics of insurgency, rallied and regrouped within mountainous and cross-border sanctuaries and recruited reinforcements from tribal populations in the north and east. In the interview, Sean Naylor said this of our troops:

They are fighting a counter-insurgent, counter-terrorist campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and allies of al-Qaeda that are hiding out in the mountains, regrouping in Pakistan, coming back across the very porous Afghan/Pakistan border and gathering strength in the Pashtun tribe lands in Eastern Afghanistan.

In a piece that appeared in Small Wars Journal , titled “Sisyphus and Counterinsurgency” Major Niel Smith wrote:

In Greek legend, Sisyphus was a king condemned by the gods to roll a huge rock up a hill only to have it roll down again for eternity. Students of counterinsurgency often feel like Sisyphus, as the United States Army continually resists institutionalizing counterinsurgency across the force, only to have to re-learn the lessons at a heavy price later before preparing to discard them again.

Watching the C-SPAN interview three years later, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room–in this case, the huge rock being rolled up the hill over and over again.

 June 12, 2009, Lara Jakes of the Associated Press reported:

Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit “the highest level” since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban. . . . “Some of this will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must. . . . But there is no question the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years in particular and there are difficult times ahead,” he said.

Three years after the C-SPAN interview, we are back down at the bottom of the hill, with the same rock ready for pushing. 

Despite all this, I’m encouraged. I think we have outstanding commanders in place, whose thinking is bold and innovative and who are adapting fast to a situation that has bedeviled Western military men for more than two millennia.

Which brings me back to Major Jim Gant and Capt. Michael Harrison from our previous post. Can their successes be replicated on a wider scale? Is working with tribalism instead of against it part of the answer?

And can we do a little better this time, rolling that rock up the hill?