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 challenge for General McChrystal is creating a comprehensive and integrated strategy for Afghanistan out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of peoples, identities, and conflicts in the country.

This next quote from Sitaraman’s op-ed reminds me of the work of then-Captain Jim Gant and Captain Michael Harrison, which I wrote about in the post “Gifts of Honor: A Tale of Two Captains.” It takes getting to know people on a one-on-one basis. As Tom Daly wrote in his guest post “Lessons from Ramadi”—which Neptunus Lex also pointed out to his readers (Thanks, Lex!)—“step one is showing up.”

Paradoxically, the right strategy for the Afghan war is one that recognizes there can be no single strategy. To be sure, broad principles and strategic direction are absolutely necessary, but the strategy must be flexible and adaptive. It must recognize that what works in one province or district might not work in the next, and that some of the most important strategic decisions cannot be made by generals in Kabul or Washington, but only by the soldiers and civilians who are out in the villages.

About two weeks ago, Seth G. Jones made some of the same points in his Wall Street Journal op-ed “Going Local: The Key to Afghanistan—The U.S.’s strategy of building a centralized state is doomed to fail in a land of tribes:”

One of the biggest problems, however, is that since late 2001, the United States has crafted its Afghanistan strategy on a fatally flawed assumption: The recipe for stability is building a strong central government capable of establishing law and order in rural areas. This notion reflects a failure to grasp the local nature of Afghan politics.

When I started writing this blog, I came under fire for what some perceived as a lumping together of everyone in Afghanistan. Not the case or intention. My point has always been that the tribes should be worked with—understanding that each tribe and region is different. Jones adds:

Tribal, religious and other local leaders in Afghanistan best understand their community needs, but they are often under-resourced or intimidated by Taliban and other insurgents. This is where the Afghan and U.S. governments can help. A key starting point is security and justice. In some areas, local tribes and villages have already tried to resist the Taliban, but have been heavily outmatched. The solution should be obvious: They should be strongly supported.

This past Thursday, the elections in Afghanistan took place, and the following two quotes from the article “Of Afghan Warlords and Polling Places” (from Stratfor’s Geopolitical Diary) caught my eye:

What we have here is a clear indication that the underlying geopolitical nature of Afghanistan has not been altered by attempts to steer the country toward democratic politics. Political parties have not supplanted ethnic- and tribal-based warlordism. On the contrary, warlordism determines electoral outcomes. . . . 

 

 

Given the objectives of the Taliban, any political settlement would not come in the form of a democratic framework, and especially not Western-style democracy. Ironically, it is the politics of warlordism that could provide a framework for calming down the insurgency. A wedge will not be driven between pragmatic Taliban elements and the more hard-line ideological types because the pragmatists play by the rules of a Western-style political system; rather it would materialize as deals are cut with various Taliban commanders who would be willing to lay down arms in exchange for recognition of their domains of power.

Then there’s the report “Afghan Voters Defy the Taliban” from CBS’s “Washington Unplugged.”

The segment features John Nagl (Center for a New American Security) and T.X. Hammes (National Defense University). Afghanistan election talk aside, T.X. asked:

Are we destabilizing Pakistan? We’re driving the drug dealers out of Afghanistan. Where are they going? Are we destabilizing Pakistan? What is the impact on India? We’ve almost got this reversed. We’re all focused on Afghanistan, but the important players—India and Pakistan, and all the effort is focused on Afghanistan. . . . Is Afghanistan the right place? Would we be better spending a third as much money in Pakistan and working for Pakistani stability? And what’s the impact on India? Those are the bigger questions you have to answer.

This would be the never-ending-mashup if I tried to include everything from the past week, so I’ll leave you with just one more thing.

Among other things, this week marked the 40^th anniversary of Woodstock. The interviews and articles related to the anniversary vary, but overall, people seem to agree that we support our troops these days—Yellow ribbons, #militarymonday on Twitter, etc.

But I wonder if saying we support our troops really means we support our troops. How have we changed in the past 40 years? Some of us said we didn’t support the troops then, but we say we support our troops now? Is the change in just the wording? After Vietnam, veterans went untreated. Same story today. And within the services, there’s still a division over support of Reservists and National Guard members. Some have said they receive even less support.

Here’s a story of support in action that I really get. Michael Yon wrote it this week.

A gunshot ripped through the darkness and a young British soldier fell dying on FOB Jackson. I was just nearby talking on the satellite phone and saw the commotion. The soldier was taken to the medical tent and a helicopter lifted him to the excellent trauma center at Camp Bastion. That he made it to Camp Bastion alive dramatically improved his chances. But his life teetered and was in danger of slipping away. Making matters worse, the British medical system back in the United Kingdom did not possess the specialized gear needed to save his life. Americans had the right gear in Germany, and so the British soldier was put into the America system. 

 

British officers in his unit, 2 Rifles, wanted to track their man every step of the way, and to ensure that his family was informed and supported in this time of high stress. Yet having their soldier suddenly in the American system caused a temporary glitch in communications with folks in Germany. The British leadership in Sangin could have worked through the glitch within some hours, but that would have been hours wasted, and they wanted to know the status of their soldier now. So a British officer in Sangin – thinking creatively –asked if I knew any shortcuts to open communications. The right people were only an email away: Soldiers Angels. And so within about two minutes, these fingers typed an e-mail with this subject heading: CALLING ALL ANGELS. 

 

Soldiers’ Angels Shelle Michaels and MaryAnn Phillips moved into action. Day by day British officers mentioned how Soldiers Angels were proving to be incredibly helpful. The soldiers expressed deep and sincere appreciation. Yet again, the Angels arrived during a time of need.

There’s much more to this post, including information on Soldiers Angels, provided by Shelle Michaels. Please read it in full.

Now that’s support!

I was very interested last week to see what would happen, in terms of leadership succession among the Pakistani Taliban, after the reputed death of Baitullah Mahsud. According to scores of press reports as well as Pakistani and Taliban spokesmen, the immediate aftermath was a shootout involving two rival successors, Hakimullah Mahsud and Wali ur-Rehman, that resulted in the death of Hakimullah Mahsud. Within two days however, Hakimullah was phoning in, according to the Economic Times, declaring not only that he was still alive but that so was Baitullah–and that the world would be hearing from both very shortly.

This is pretty Wild West stuff. What struck me on a deeper level, however, was that both incidents–Baitullah’s death and the subsequent succession gunfight–illustrate timeless truths about tribes and the tribal mind-set.

Tribes band together to repel an invader

This is a reality that has been well-established since Alexander’s era, 2300 years ago, when the tribes of Afghanistan/Pakistan/Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan were called Pactyans (modern Pathans), Aparytae (Afridis), Satrayddae, Dadicae, not to mention the Scythian tribes north of the Amu Darya–the Dahae, Sacae and Massagetae. These tribes regularly warred against each other during normal times but came together to attempt to repel Alexander’s invading forces.

The key to such confederacies of expedience is of course a leader whose prestige transcends–like that of Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse–the natural rivalries and jealousies among individual tribes. Such a commander, from all we have read, was Baitullah Mahsud.

Mahsud was responsible, so reports say, for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto (though he himself denied this.) His armed followers numbered 20,000. He was a master in the tactical use of suicide bombers as part of coordinated assaults and offensives. Suicide bombings, he used to say, “are our atomic weapons. Although the infidels have atomic weapons, our atomic weapons are the finest in the world.” He was about 35. A tough act to follow.

The Los Angeles Times on August 8 quotes Masood Sharif Khattak, a former Pakistani intelligence official:

The real challenge for [any potential successor] would be to hold together the tribal groups that Baitullah Mahsud assembled. It’s not monolithic. There are serious personal and economic rivalries.

Indeed. Even if the Hakimullah Mahsud vs Wali ur-Rehman gunfight at the O.K. Corral turns out not to be literally true, it’s certainly credible enough that it might be true. Which brings us to a second characteristic of tribes.

Tribes switch sides

Gary Berntsen’s book Jawbreaker and Gary Schroen’s First In both treat as axiomatic the capacity to “turn” tribesmen, usually for nothing more exalted than a suitcase full of greenbacks. Berntsen and Schroen were fighting the Taliban in the weeks immediately following 9/11, when that force still controlled Afghanistan and called their government an emirate. That lofty appellation didn’t stop individual Taliban from crossing the lines at night to have a yarn with their neighbors of the Northern Alliance, nor did it prevent entire tribal contingents from going over to the Western invaders when the tide of conflict turned.

The notorious saying, which originated with the British during their wars beneath the Hindu Kush, is that “you can’t buy an Afghan, but you can rent him.” The condescension in that phrasing is misleading. The fundamental tactical reality of tribes throughout history is that their numbers are rarely large enough to dominate the region in which they live. Necessity compels them to seek accommodations with rivals. The result is not far from our own Five Families in New York: alliances keep shifting; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Is the Taliban a tribe? Not technically. But its fighters are tribesmen and tribal contingents, who share the tribal mind-set (hostility to all outsiders, extreme political and cultural conservatism, a code of honor as opposed to a system of laws, suppression of women) and who are harbored by and among tribal peoples. The Taliban, to my mind, are a super-tribe. Their methods and objectives are tribal (to drive out the invader by all means, fair or foul) but their aims are elevated to the next level (dominance of the entire region) by the adhesion of a passionate religious fundamentalism that is in essence the traditional tribal code squared and pumped up on steroids.

Is Baitullah’s death an opening for the West and the Pakistani government?

My guess is it won’t be easy to replace Baitullah Mahsud. I expect a serious power struggle. Tribes are not good at coming together. What’s working in the Taliban’s favor is the stepped-up pressure by the U.S. in Afghanistan and by the Pakistani military across the border. The first law–tribes band together to repel the invader–will still supersede the second. The time will not yet be ripe, I suspect, for the West to try to peel off contingents. But that day may come.

Can we imagine ourselves into that reputed succession council between Hakimullah Mahsud and Wali ur-Rehman? How much trash did one side have to talk before the other decided to let its AK-47’s finish the argument? Not even the Israelis and the Palestinians have that touchy a hair-trigger.

Baitullah Mahsud, I suspect, will be sorely missed.

I’d like to thank Captain Thomas Daly for writing this guest post. He lived the experiences that so many of us have read about.

Captain Daly joined the Marine Corps in 2004. During his

Lieutenant Thomas Daly outside COP Rage in Juwayba, Iraq. Photo courtesy of the author.

military career, he has held a multitude of billets ranging from Forward Observer to Intelligence Cell Leader. His unique perception of the battlefield has been shaped while operating with units of the United States Army, Navy SEALs, ANGLICO (Air, Naval Gunfire Liaison Company), Iraqi Army and Police Units, and anti-Al Qaeda guerrillas. In July of 2008, Captain Daly transitioned from the Marine Corps to the Inactive Ready Reserves. He currently works for ITT Industries as a project manager. He is also the author of the forthcoming book Rage Company (Wiley, Spring 2010).

On the night of January 26, 2007, I laid in a dark, muddy irrigation canal on the eastern outskirts of Anbar’s capital: Ramadi. Next to me was a former Saddam General, who was also a leader within the tribal movement that later would become known as the “Anbar Awakening.” Together, we watched a squad of Marines storm into a house that the general and his fellow tribesmen insisted was a legal court of the Islamic State of Iraq. Once the Marines gained entry, the tribesmen and I followed. As I approached the rectangular, one-level home and adjoining car port, the general muttered behind me, “Ali Siyagah’s car!” Siyagah, a mid-level al Qaeda cleric and former direct-action cell leader, was the target. His car was parked in the driveway.

I ran up the front stairs and through the main doorway. I was greeted

Lieutenants Thomas Daly (standing) and James Thomas with the leadership of the Juwayba tribal scouts after their first mission together. Photo courtesy of the author.

by the standard Iraqi living room—no furniture, just blankets strewn about, and a television in a far corner—and the calm and defiant faces of the eight military-aged males sitting on the floor. Within seconds, horror overcame the men, as the general and his men entered the room.

The ski-mask-clad tribesmen with us spouted off the names of the men seated on the floor. Ali Siyagah was not present, but his personal driver, two bodyguards and an al Qaeda propagandist were in the group. To me, the group appeared to be normal civilians. The tribesmen quickly explained that the remaining four were exactly that—locals forced into the insurgents’ service. We separated the innocent in a different room while we detained the others, then we prepared to move to the next target. The alliance between Sunni nationalists and America was about to dismantle al Qaeda. In four months the kinetic fight that had plagued Ramadi for three years would be over.

The impact of the uprising of Sunni tribes against al Qaeda was the catalyst that ended insurgent violence not only within Ramadi, but also much of Iraq. However, this fact was not a coincidence. It was the end result of a series of actions and events, which can shed light on the actions required for America to succeed in Afghanistan.

May of 2006, the fully operational 1^st Brigade, 1^st Armored Division (1/1 AD), took over responsibility for the city of Ramadi. This is important because they replaced a collection of Pennsylvania National Guard units that were responsible for the southern and western sectors of the city. The Guardsmen had not exerted control over these sectors, in turn affording the insurgents safe havens to assault the adjacent units of the 1-506^th and 3^rd Battalion, 8^th Marines. The soldiers of 1/1 AD quickly reversed this by moving into the safe havens and establishing a string of Combat Outposts that put their tanks in the heart of Ramadi. Fighting throughout the summer was intense, and over a dozen Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1 tanks were catastrophically destroyed.

Lieutenant Thomas Daly minutes before the clearing of a VBIED factory in Qatana, downtown Ramadi. Photo courtesy of the author.

As the insurgents fought 1/1 AD, they also faced internal battles. December 30, 2005, a couple of months before 1/1 AD arrived, representatives of Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s and the nationalist 1920s Revolutionary Brigade’s, met at a downtown mosque in Ramadi. Zarqawi wanted all of the different insurgent groups to fall under his proposed Mujahadeen Shura Council, which he envisioned would govern the Islamic State of Iraq. Not everyone in 1920s agreed with Zarqawi’s heavy-handed tactics against Shia Iraqis.

Like a lot of events in Iraq at the time, the meeting ended in a firefight as some elements of 1920s held out. The conflict between the two opposing camps continued through the summer, around the time 1/1 AD arrived. The weaker hold outs turned to America for assistance. We obliged, helping them establish a couple of tribal police stations between the Marine garrison at Hurricane Point and the Government Center.

Al Qaeda quickly responded by focusing deadly attacks on the group, but they also made a critical mistake. They kidnapped and murdered the sheik of the tribe and hid his body, preventing a proper burial. The event became a major tool for the nationalists to exploit via propaganda. One sheik, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, even recorded television commercials blasting al Qaeda for their actions.

By Fall of 2006, the fight for Ramadi’s hearts and minds climaxed. Sheik Sattar declared an “Awakening” of Anbar’s tribes against al Qaeda in September. At the time, Sheik Sattar was not very powerful. The call to awaken went mostly on deaf ears.

October 18, the Mujahadeen Shura Council responded by declaring Ramadi the capital of the Islamic State of Iraq, and held a parade 800 meters from Anbar’s actual seat of government. Yet, the pressure began to pile on the extremists.

1/1 AD continued it’s offensive: new Combat Outposts were seized, an influx of 2,200 Marines from the 15^th Marine Expeditionary Unit flooded into Anbar; including my company, which arrived in Ramadi in early November. Sheik Sattar formed separate military and political organizations to first combat al Qaeda and also reach out to the other tribes of the Euphrates River Valley as well as the Iraqi Government.

The balance of power left al Qaeda’s hands in late November. Until then, Sheik Sattar only was capable of rallying the western side of Ramadi against the extremists, while American troops, myself included, contested the city’s center. Al Qaeda continued to control the urban east and rural areas beyond (Mila’ab, Sofia, Juwayba). However, this dynamic changed when an al Qaeda mortar team trying to use the usual farmland in northeastern Sofia to fire at Americans was turned back by a group of armed locals. The leader of this very small tribe (Shiek Jassim of the Albu Soda) was tired of our artillery counter-fire destroying his fields because of the mortar team. His tribesmen didn’t kill the insurgents, they simply said, “go away; use a different field.”

Again, al Qaeda made a serious mistake, completely disregarding the locals’ concerns. They launched an all-out assault against the Albu Soda tribe, forcing Jassim to call the United States for help. We responded in the midst of the attack, supplying Jassim with arms and ammunition that allowed him to repulse the enemy. Apache gunships followed up the action by destroying insurgent vehicles as they fled.

The attack on Jassim unified the small tribes of Sofia east to the Sijariah crossing, cutting off al Qaeda’s urban headquarters in the Mila’ab from its historic command and control network in Juwayba. At the end of January, the final push for control of Ramadi began. Coalition troops simultaneously attacked the Mila’ab and Juwayba. Days after the push into Juwayba, twenty-five Iraqi tribesmen offered assistance to the Marines. The first two paragraphs of this article describe part of the first mission we executed together. A month later, Juwayba would literally revolt against the extremists after the brutal murder of another innocent Iraqi.

So how does this apply to Afghanistan? How does Iraq’s tribal movement relate to Afghanistan? Is such an awakening even possible in Afghanistan?

The Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan are much more fractured and loosely aligned than the tribes in Iraq. Their territory traverses rugged, sometimes impassable terrain, unlike Iraq’s flat desert. Another difference? The Taliban is not al Qaeda. For almost a decade the Taliban provided for Afghanistan as a functioning government. It is a home-grown movement, led, in most part, by Afghans. The Taliban’s weaknesses and strengths are different than al Qaeda’s in Iraq. In fact, the Taliban’s knowledge of the local districts’ socio-political landscape makes it a more potent adversary. However, warfare is an art, not a science. There is always opportunity to change reality on the ground.

This begins with more combat boots, because step one is showing up. The awakening in Iraq spread in large part because it coincided with the “Surge.” As the support of Sunni tribes grew so did the reach of American troops. This combination of the coalition’s conventional tactics, supported by a Sunni nationalist guerrilla campaign, accomplished what the United States could not do by itself: defeat al Qaeda.

Step two is to truly understand the Taliban. As historic Taliban safe havens get a new combat outpost manned by Afghan and American troops, commanders on the ground must realize who they are facing. A concerted effort to encourage moderate Taliban commanders to our side has to take place. Not everyone in the Taliban agrees with suicide bombings, and as combat outposts move into villages, so will IEDs, mortar attacks, and devastating firefights. By living amongst the populace, local citizens will see the nature of the Taliban’s tactics. Some will probably experience them first hand. Such a burden will force the differences between Taliban leadership to come to a breaking point.

The goal in counter-insurgency is always to divide the insurgents’ voice. Their weakness lies in their inability to agree. Look at Afghanistan after the Soviets left; no one wielded control. The same is true of today’s Taliban. Who is it that leads them? Mullah Omar? Bin Laden? Or was it Baitullah Mehsud, who was reported killed in a Predator UAV strike last week? As we experienced in Iraq, different insurgents will give you different answers. Our goal must be to exploit this weakness and there is evidence it exists.

Take Baitullah Mehsud for example. A day after reports about his death started circulating, sources began stating that his two probable successors (Hakimullah and Wailur Rehman) were at each others throats over control of the Mehsud clan, and that one or possibly both were killed in an ensuing gun battle. Signs of internal struggles within the Taliban were apparent earlier this summer, when Baitullah Mehsud’s agents killed Qari Zainuddin, one of Mehsud’s chief rivals.

This is the sort of situation we need to exacerbate and it must be done at the local level: the company commander level. The biggest signal of America’s failure in this regard is the fact that a standard infantry company in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps continues to operate without a dedicated intelligence cell. This is unacceptable on a battlefield where an infantry company is often times responsible for an entire community. How can we claim that intelligence is truly driving operations?

We also must intensify our highly effective UAV Predator Drone attacks; especially in areas such as Baluchistan, where Taliban fighters can openly flee the Marines currently executing Operation Khanjari due to a non-existent Pakistani troop presence. In essence, the pressure cannot relent. As we experienced in Ramadi, the more we applied, the worse al Qaeda’s decisions became over time. This isn’t to say that al Qaeda wasn’t always so brutal, it’s just that we never followed step one.

Prior to the summer of 2006, after significant events in Ramadi took place, coalition troops would return to their large bases outside the city, allowing al Qaeda’s network of propagandists to shape events for the locals. By living across the street or two blocks over, we will mitigate their lies. When the Taliban take over a local’s house to fire at a combat outpost, the people will ask the Taliban why this happened. They will wonder why they are supporting a brutal militia instead of the Karzai government and foreigners who offer medical care, new schools, cash for damaged property and a future more than opium, a burqa or a beard. Like Iraq, the majority of Pashtun Afghans don’t want an extremist version of Islam to govern their lives.

If we hope to recreate the tribal movement of Iraq in Afghanistan, we cannot expect the extremist views of the Taliban to create a division we can support, such as the division between al Qaeda insurgents and nationalist insurgents in Ramadi. We must look for opportunities ourselves. And, this will only be accomplished if we truly begin to understand the enemy at the local level.

Our infantrymen at the tip of the spear cannot simply hunt for Taliban fighters, they must also develop an understanding of the enemy’s beliefs, personality and, more fundamentally, why they are fighting us. Once we begin to attain this knowledge and develop a relationship with the Afghan tribes, which lasts longer than one mission, we may very well find that the Pashtun tribes are not as committed to the Taliban as we think.

My dear friend Printer Bowler is a former army captain who served with psychological operations units in Viet Nam (1966-67). He was attached to the Third Marine Amphibious force, I Corps near the DMZ. He’s a perennial history student, now teaching, writing and pumping out radical troop-support propaganda from his home in Montana. It’s a pleasure to post this missive from God’s country:

Da Nang, 1967: Capt. Bowler offers a Camel to a buffalo

The bone yard is full of our delusions

What a concept! Respect your adversary, know who’s boss, see what you have in common and make a deal. Everybody does it on a daily basis—from personal relationships to corporate takeovers.  Everybody, that is, except the Pentagon and DOD. So ironic that it’s been left to Steven Pressfield, one our most respected historians and my favorite literary rock star, to remind our leadership of this perennially ignored reality. 

Since WWII, military strategists and clueless politicians have been addicted to high-tech shock-and-awe strategies, the delusion that remote-control warfare does the job. Of course, initially it can tenderize battlefields . . . but then what? “Mission accomplished!” someone announced from an aircraft carrier. Not even close. That was the beginning of the Iraqi/Afghan quagmire, not the end, which is still searching for itself in a distant fog.   

Success or failure, the buck stops at management

Troops, while you’re out there getting sniped at, roadside bombed and ambushed, our leaders have been glued to their video war games and computerized spread sheets. They still think they can blast their way into foreign neighborhoods and suddenly be top dog. Only recently have they looked up and noticed that drones and smart bombs alone often create far more “enemies” than they neutralize. Like it or not, almost every bomb dropped in Iraq and Afghanistan spawned a hundred new al-Qaeda and Taliban recruits, killed and alienated dozens/hundreds of formerly neutral civilians. Stupid plan, stupid results.

Until we wise up and join forces with their key (tribal) leaders, as Alexander and others discovered, we’ll keep losing lives, confidence, respect and Treasury bills. Experience, our poor ignored teacher, is getting very frustrated with us Americans!

Déjà-vu minus 40 years:  Didn’t hear you, say again?

I’m a Viet Nam vet and I still cringe at the disaster our British Redcoat toy soldier mentality made of that poor little country. Our strategy there was shock-and-awe by whatever name: B-52 carpet bombing, relentless tactical air strikes on suspected VC/Viet Minh positions (often hamlets full of innocent people). Plus, massive aerial applications of Agent Orange in a preposterous attempt to destroy every non-rice plant in the country so there’d be no place to hide. Seriously! This was Defense Sec’y McNamara’s number-cruncher game plan taken to an extreme level of absurdity. Meanwhile, our infantry units were grinding through one booby-trapped jungle nightmare after another, getting hammered and going nowhere.

The result?  With our brain-fart assistance, Ho Chi Minh and the black pajama people—with their little bags of rice, SAMS and AK-47s—brought the mightiest military power in the world to its knees.  Just like the Afghans did to the Russians less than two decades later. (It’s crazy, but think about this: What if we had made a deal with Ho Chi Minh’s tribe instead of those incorrigible French colonial losers and their South Vietnamese collaborators?) 

Time to wheel and deal our way out

Think also about this: what if we made a deal with the Taliban, like Reagan did in the ’80s? And how about a new deal with the Iranians, like we could have done countless times instead of overthrowing their democratically elected leader (Mossadegh, 1952) and mounting our oil-lackey Shah in his place.  All the radical Imams we’re fighting now came to life as rebels against the Shah and us, his sponsors.  They finally overthrew his regime and have been the big roosters ever since. Hating us ever since.  Face it—we, and our British predecessors, essentially gave birth to present-day radical Islam in Iran. We have done nothing to earn their trust or respect, and done much to terrorize and isolate them. Don’t want to believe it? Lose Fox News and read your history. It always has been and still is about oil. In Iran. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In America.

In the Islamic mind, the past lives in the present. Muslims remember the events of their entire history, good and bad, as if it all happened last week. It’s a tribal thing. We Americans seem to forget everything that happened before last week. We should know by now that even our super hi-tech military arsenal can’t save us from such an oblivious approach. We have to wake up and start making smart, mutually profitable deals with the main players—especially those we call “enemies.” Come back, Sun Tzu, we need you bad!  

Very important people are MFA (missing from action)

Where are the children of Congresspeople and Pentagon/DOD people?  Fort Lauderdale? They need to be in uniform, camped out with our troops, getting up every day and facing the shrapnel and snipers right in the thick of it. Until the talking heads running this war have a personal stake in it, it will remain a CYA paper game in far away Washington. Until the microcosmic “Tale of Two Captains” becomes national policy, and not just isolated acts of resourcefulness and goodwill, our troops have to carry the DOD’s job on top of their own. Hey, who said world peace was going to be easy?

God bless all you troops, and keep a heads-up out there.   • 

Thank you for your Weekend Mashup suggestions.

A few of the blogs I’ve been introduced to this week include Global Guerrillas, Ink Spots, Sosh-P and Building Peace. When I saw T.X. Hammes mentioned in Building Peace’s July 13 post, I was sold. All four are great blogs. Suggest you visit if they are new to you.

Over at Small Wars Journal (SWJ), the announcement of an $8,000 Writing Competition was just posted:

“Winning entries and select others will be published in future special volumes of Small Wars Journal. For each of the two topics, a $3,000 Grand Prize and two $500 Honorable Mentions will be awarded. Hence $8,000 total purse.”

Check out the web site to learn more about the competition and the topics.

The SWJ editors note:

“We greatly respect the works and insights of the usual suspects from the many DoD-centric writing competitions and anticipate some great and hard-to-beat entries from them. We would really like to see some stiff competition from fresh new voices and experience sets not often heard. Please spread the good word about this competition to the far reaches of the empire of important participants in the vastly broad and complex field of small wars. This is a level playing field, and let’s get all the players on it.”

Another article from David Wood this week, titled “Happy Talk About War Doesn’t Fly With Troops on the Ground.” In it, he asks: 

“Should presidents and their administrations be relentless cheerleaders after they send young Americans into combat? Or should they risk losing public support by passing on the bad news from their commanders?”

Later in the article, David quotes Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson:

 “‘What we’ve said is . . . where we go, we stay; and where we stay, we hold; and where we hold, we build . . .’ Nicholson told reporters this week in a video teleconference from Afghanistan.

 

“‘I mean, I’m not going to sugarcoat it,’ the Marine commander added. ‘The fact of the matter is, we don’t have enough Afghan forces and I’d like more. Right now I’ve got 4,000 Marines in Helmand with about 600 . . . 650 Afghan forces. Imagine if I had 4,000 Marines with 4,000 Afghan forces!’”

I prefer the uncoated truth. You?

In his Washington Post article “A Fight for Ordinary Peace,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran also discusses Brig. Gen. Nicholson’s request for more troops:

“He has been promised more troops, but they will not start rolling in until next year. In the interim, he has asked his superiors for permission to arm young men and train them to serve as a local protection force. It is similar to the Sons of Iraq initiative the Marines created in Anbar that resulted in locals turning against foreign fighters in the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 

“But senior commanders have shown no sign of approving the request. They feel Helmand has too many overlapping tribal rivalries. Arming groups of young men could exacerbate tensions and lead some factions to turn to the Taliban for protection.”

Back to the tribes. How do we work with them and encourage them to work together?

Foreign Affairs Magazine ran Eliot Cohen’s “What to Read on Fighting Insurgencies.” While you are checking out Foreign Affairs, also read Andrew Krepinevich’s article “The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets.”

On the blog Ghosts of Alexander, the question was asked: 

“During the Soviet-Afghan War, some prominent Afghan families strategically placed one son in the mujahideen and one son in the communist government (and perhaps sent off one son to get a spiffy professional education). Basically, ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ applied to your children. It says a lot about self-interest versus ideology.

 

“Who wrote about this? It was a rather small mention in a long article or book. I’m in the US without my books or notes and I’m trying to go off of memory. And it’s not working.

 

“Can anybody help on this one? I’m leaning towards someone who’s been writing for a while like Rubin, Dorronsoro or Roy…”

If you know the answer, post to his blog—or post here. I’d like to know the answer, too.

In a post earlier this week, I pulled a quote from the book In the Graveyard of Empires. Newsweek ran a Q&A with the author, titled The War Is Still Wide Open. Check it out.

On a lighter note, Books for Soldiers is another site I was introduced to, and I was reminded of the great series at the Pritzker Military Library. Watch some of their webcasts—or visit the library the next time you are in Chicago. Thank you for the reminder @CFOXTROT. Was also reminded of Thomas P.M. Barnett’s blog.

Over at Twitter . . . Was introduced to a number of fantastic photographers. There are two in particular that I’d like to point out. Please visit their sites and check out their work:

On Matt Brandon’s (@mattsahib) site The Digital Trekker, you can see his photography from around the world. Check out the picture of the young girl in “The Gujjars” section of the site. It reminds me of Steve Curry’s picture of the young girl from Afghanistan, which ran on the cover of National Geographic—but with less fear in the girl’s eyes this time.

David duChemin (@pixelatedimage) features his work on his site, Pixelated Images. Check out his work for World Vision in particular.

That’s it for this week.

Please continue sending your comments for next weeks Mashup.

Hat tips to “Wisner,” Gordon Daugherty, Andrew Lubin, “da kine,” “Kestrelrising,” Dom Santoleri, Morgan Atwood. I will continue checking out all of your suggestions. 

The “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” series launched just over a month ago.

The first episode and blog entry laid out my thesis—that what we’re up against in Afghanistan is tribalism and the tribal mind-set. The comments started arriving.

Tribes, the Tribal Mindset, and the Enemy

Fabius Maximus was among the first to comment. He quoted the following from my post:

“What struck me most powerfully is that that war [Alexander's Afghan campaign, 330-327 B.C.] is a dead ringer for the ones we’re fighting today. … the clash of East and West is at bottom not about religion. It’s about two different ways of being in the world. Those ways haven’t changed in 2300 years. They are polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.”

Fabius Maximus commented:

“Economist and businesspeople discuss the Competitive Advantage of Nations (as in Michael Porter’s 1990 book of that title). Social scientists and geopolitical experts discuss Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations theory. But Pressfield goes beyond these. In effect he calls for a long war. War between ‘polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable’—perhaps running until one side is exterminated or conquered.”

Stop.

Insert another blogging lesson learned:

I never called for a “war between ‘polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.’” In fact, as my posts have built upon the original series, I’ve called for finding common ground.

In Robert Kaplan’s article “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” (which ran after my op-ed by the same name), Kaplan wrote:

“We have inherited our Anglo-Saxon traditions of liberty and democracy just as other peoples, with different historical experiences and geographical circumstances, have inherited theirs. And these other peoples yearn for justice and dignity, which does not always overlap with Western democracy. Throughout the Arab world, old monarchial and authoritarian orders are now weakening. Keeping societies stable will depend largely on tribes, and the deals they are able to cut with one another. In the Middle East, an age of pathetic, fledgling democracies is also an age of tribes.”

Polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable? Yes. The tribes are not going to bend, and allow an overlay of Western democracy and culture. But can we find a way to work together? Yes. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well, when in the East . .  .  See my post “A Tale of Two Captains.”

Fabius Maximus then wrote:

“Using Alexander’s invasion of Afghanistan as a paradigm raises as many questions as it answers. What were Alexander’s reasons for invading Afghanistan? Nothing rational, little more than love of war, power, and loot. Do we have such aggressive motives? Or do we fight legally under the international laws we both promulgated and signed, which means acting only in defense? 

“Answering that requires a clear statement of the threat the tribes of Afghanistan pose to us. Victory is impossible without a clear understanding of the threat and our goals. How can the tribes be enemies without a strong understanding of this?”

 

Whether you are for or against being in Afghanistan, the reality is that our troops are in Afghanistan. And as long as they are there, they MUST work with the tribes. I wrote my initial post, which Fabius Maximus quoted, in absolutes—black or white, friend or enemy. Maybe that was too much. But I never said that enemies couldn’t become our friends.

More from Fabius Maximus:

“It is the missing link of the war, as I have not found anything like this from someone with actual area expertise (not just by COIN or geopolitical gurus).  The closest I have seen is Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid (a Pakistani journalist) in the 11 June 2009 issue of The New York Review of Books, many of whose assertions are contradicted by other experts on the subject.

 

“I believe that America’s greatest enemies are not Afghanistan’s tribes, or fundamentalist Islam. Pressfield’s explicit assumption that the Afghanistan tribes are our enemies show the core threat:  our own hubris and paranoia.  For more about this see

 

“America’s Most Dangerous Enemy

“America takes another step towards the ‘Long War’”

Are the tribes our greatest enemy? No. Is the tribal mindset an enemy? Yes. Let me rephrase this.

“Good” Tribalism and “Bad” Tribalism

I would define “bad” tribalism as that practiced by the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I know, I know . . . critics will say that both those groups are pan-Islamic, ideology-driven, supra-national, propelled more by Salafism and Deobandism than pure tribalism. I would not argue with that.

But if we probe beneath the surface, we recognize virulent tribalism at the heart of the belief systems of both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I would cite the following “bad” tribal characteristics: hostility to all outsiders; perpetual warfare; codes of silence; duplicity and bad faith in all negotiations with non-insiders; suppression of women; intolerance of dissent; a fierce, patriarchal code of warrior honor; a ready and even eager willingness to give up one’s life for the group; super-conservatism, politically and culturally; reverence for the past and, in fact, a desire to return to the past.

Defined in relation to its opposites, “bad” tribalism takes its stand against everything open, inclusive, modern, progressive, secular, individualistic, Western, female-empowering.

What about “good” tribalism? “Good” tribalism is the ancient, proud, communal system of family- and clan-based local governance that has been practiced in Afghanistan and many parts of Central Asia for millennia. Tribal jirgas resolve disputes and give a voice to all members; tribal militias protect the land and the people. “Good” tribalism wants to be left alone to live its own life. In a way it’s democracy in its purest and most natural “town hall” form. It has worked for thousands of years and it’s working today.

Proof that there is such a thing as “good” tribalism is that the Taliban has targeted it fiercely. Hundreds of tribal elders have been murdered or driven from their homes. Why? Because “bad” tribalism knows “good” tribalism is its enemy. The following is from Seth Jones’ In the Graveyard of Empires:

“The Taliban’s strategy was innovative and ruthlessly effective. Unlike the Soviets, they focused their initial efforts on bottom-up efforts in rural Afghanistan, especially the Pashtun south. They approached tribal leaders and militia commanders, as well as their rank-and-file supporters, and attempted to co-opt them with several messages. Taliban leaders claimed to provide moral and religious clarity, since they advocated a return to a purer form of Islam . . . and they tried to capitalize on their momentum by convincing locals that resistance was futile. They used their knowledge of tribal dynamics to appeal to Pashtuns and, when they didn’t succeed in co-opting locals, they often resorted to targeted assassinations to coerce the rest.”

Both “bad” and “good” tribalism are here to stay. We’re not going to change them any more than Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Brits or the Russians changed them.  What to do then? The answer, in my view, is to establish the minimum achievable goals that we can live with—i.e. per Secretary Gates, prevent militant and terrorist organizations from using Afghan real estate as a base from which to attack the United States—and then tap into the ”good” tribalism to work against the “bad” tribalism.

Islam is Not the Enemy

Zenpundit commented:

“What Pressfield gets horribly wrong is the discounting of the religious radicalism aspect as being superseded by atavistic, superempowered, Ur-tribalism. . . . The neo-fundamentalist Salafi and Deobandi Islamist radicals are . . . pan-Islamist militants who are deeply hostile to tribal customs and authorities they view as “jahiliyyah”, un-Islamic or even blasphemous apostasy. . . . Tribesmen and Islamist radicals are not natural allies unless we put them in that position.”

I must offer a mea culpa here. Because I agree completely with Zenpundit. Somehow my statements in the videos must have failed to express that.

Indeed Islamic radicals have targeted and continue to target on-the-ground tribal leaders. What I’m saying is they’re doing it less from an Islamic angle (no matter what their rhetoric states) and more from an even more radical tribalism—insular, xenophobic, past-worshipping, us-versus-them, outsider-loathing, atavistic tribalism. 

The Taliban and al Qaeda, in my view, express not tribalism-as-Islam but Islam-as-tribalism.

In Michael Yon’s article “Philippines: Some Notes, Thoughts, and Observations” Michael discusses “rido,” which is inter-clan, tribal violence. Michael spoke with Philippine Army Colonel Rey Ardo about “rido”:

“As with other Filipino officers, Islam is not [Col. Ardo’s] big concern. Islam is an overlay. The local culture is the plumbing.”

I agree with Mr. Yon. I am not discounting the role the Islamic extremism plays in Afghanistan and other regions in the world. Rather, I’m asserting that we need to address the tribal mindset first, rather than focusing on Islamic extremism first. The United States is trying to push out the Taliban, but much of this relies on the tribes.

Let me give the last word (until next time) to David Ronfeldt, who said this in his Los Angeles Times article titled “21st Century Tribes“:

The United States is not at war with Islam. Its struggle is largely with insurgents who behave in the manner of tribes and clans. Some are members of true tribes; others are patched together by radical clerics or jihadist recruiters operating among alienated migrants. U.S. forces are learning this the hard way—on the ground.