The Pentagon's Afghan Reset

February 01, 2010

Nicholas Berry

The Afghan War has been fought under the civilian and uniformed leadership of ignoramuses. Supreme confidence in the military’s ability to wage war and in established military doctrine, along with a compliant State Department, produced a strategy guaranteed to fail. Only recently has a remedial strategic adjustment been made, and even now much of the failed strategy remains.

I am not referring to the failure to have sufficient U.S. forces to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar when they and a thousand of their fighters were surrounded at Tora Bora. The hiring of local Pashtun fighters to do the job only allowed bin Laden and Omar to hire the same fighters, which allowed them to walk away unharmed to the Pakistani border where they remain today. When it came to serving fellow Pashtuns and money-rich Mullah Omar versus less-generous foreign troops, the Pashtun fighters made the obvious choice.

Special Forces commanders on the ground at that time pleaded for additional American troops, but the Pentagon turned them down. Blame Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his uniformed advisors for that screw-up.

No, it was and to some extent still is the ignorance of Afghan society, culture, and history that has made the Afghan War such a resounding failure.

Afghanistan is a tribal society, with loyalty to and identification with one’s tribe paramount over loyalty to and identification with the state and its central government. These tribal bonds trump all others for the vast majority of Afghans. In fact, Afghanistan has never had a strong central government for this reason or even had the making of a strong urban culture. Afghan life is centered on rural life in the villages.

By working to create a strong, urban central government – with a modern army, police, and bureaucracy – the United States challenged and affronted Afghan culture and society. No wonder the reaction was negative and hostile, highlighting the fact that the country was under foreign, culturally-alien occupation. The experience of the British and Soviets repeated itself, two former attempts to create a modern, urban, strong central government in opposition to rural tribal authority. In addition, the breaking of cultural constraints of those co-opted to do the occupier’s bidding fed and still feeds corruption. The puppets were handed riches and power, which were used to abuse and offend the traditional population. No wonder President Hamid Karzai and his corrupt henchmen are reviled. No wonder the Taliban are on the rebound.

Then along came the best-selling book, “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book describes ways Mortenson has worked with tribal leaders in the rural areas to build schools and to foster non-violent communities. The Pentagon took notice. Last fall another powerful written work pushed U.S. military leaders to finally shift strategy to the tribes. Major Jim Gant’s 45-page paper, “One Tribe at a Time,” lays out a strategy for empowering Afghanistan’s ancient tribal system, one he developed in previous Afghan tours. Gant believes the central government should not be the counterinsurgency focus, with its corruption, cultural offensiveness, and its perception of being in bed with the American occupation. “We will be totally unable to protect the ‘civilians’ in the rural areas of Afghanistan,” Gant wrote, “until we partner with the tribes for the long haul.” Small, “tribal engagement teams” would go native, providing tribal leaders with money, arms, and ammunition enabling them to provide security in their areas by resisting the insurgents. Support for this strategy shift came from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Central Commander Gen. David Petraeus, and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McCrystal. Karzai’s fraudulent re-election further supported the new direction. After a long policy review, President Obama approved. Funds to Karzai will be limited and strictly monitored, with more assistance going to rural tribal leaders.

Still, there are “modernizers” who persist in strengthening the central government, mainly it appears, in the State Department. While providing urban security remains a top priority in the current troop surge, it need not rest on forces beholding to Karzai. Cash will go to ministers and leaders vetted on professional grounds.

With U.S. troops scheduled to begin departures by July 2011, time is short to put the new strategy in place. Gant wants tribal backing for the long haul. No abandonment. But that can be done by lowering the American military profile in cities where the hated occupation is most apparent and keeping the forces engaged with the tribes.

Nicholas Berry is Director of Foreign Policy Forum