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.

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.   •