FEBRUARY 12, 2015
Jim Gourley asked us to, in 500 words or less, explain “why did we fail to render our enemies — those people who actively participated in open hostility against our forces — powerless?” Our problem was we quickly lost sight of the purpose of war: to force your enemy to submit to your will. When the mission to Afghanistan began, we sought to punish the Taliban and defeat Al Qaeda. Along the way, the unwavering belief that a political, economic, and social system like ours prevented terrorism drove us to seek the transformation of Afghanistan in the image of those things, despite their incompatibility to that place.
Paraphrasing Clausewitz, war is politics by other means. We should never construe this to mean we can interchangeably, and freely, alternate between violence and discourse. Violence unresolved poisons discourse; discourse without the potential for violence is unlikely to yield resolution. In Afghanistan, the narrow, warring mission to punish the Taliban and defeat Al Qaeda transmogrified to a broad attempt to remake it into a nation we deemed compatible with the international order we sought to lead. In the wake of 9/11, the United States military swept into Afghanistan, quickly toppling the Taliban regime and then casting Al Qaeda into such disarray it no longer posed a threat with global reach. With our initial goal in Afghanistan mostly realized, but certainly not resolved, we set about to transform the country into one that was politically similar to our own, friendly to our interests, and a constructive participant in the international community.
What began as a punitive expedition became instead an enterprise to remodel Afghanistan into something safe to us, but entirely foreign to Afghans.
What began as a punitive expedition became instead an enterprise to remodel Afghanistan into something safe to us, but entirely foreign to Afghans. The weakness in our plan was a failure to accept, or inability to see, that our goal was at odds with Afghanistan itself. Three key factors doomed us from the start: a history of tolerated totalitarian government with little reach beyond the capital, pervasive xenophobia making brutal neighbors more appealing than relatively benevolent foreigners, and a widely held and deeply conservative social value set that we felt compelled to change. Moreover, while we pursued the ambitious goal to remake Afghanistan, we believed successful transformation of Afghanistan into a country modeled on our liberalist ideals would resolve the grievances festering from decades of violence.
In a milieu where violence was the vernacular of power and politics, the conversion of the political system required violence to defeat violence, and bolster discourse. The error of our way was twofold: we failed to grasp that to truly transform Afghanistan we had to be a willing and complete partner to the violence, and that the goals were reflections of our cultural history. To achieve our ends, we would have had to defeat the Taliban in such a way that they could not rejoin the discourse, and our transformation had to be compatible with Afghan cultural history, not ours. We failed because we did not understand Afghanistan.
Andrew Rohrer did two tours to Iraq as a PL and troop commander and one tour to Afghanistan as a strat planner in RC-S (82nd OEF 11-12), and he is currently assigned to the ARSTAF. He began his career as a cavalry officer, and now is an Army strategist. This article represents his own views and are not necessarily those of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
We failed to deny the enemy the most important factor in any insurgency: human terrain. This was due to a combination of failing to minimize the risks of supporting Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and also failing to offer a viable alternative to shadow governance by the Taliban, local warlords, and competing tribal leaders.
Serving as a platoon leader in Afghanistan in 2010, I often encountered situations where the Taliban and other insurgent groups could come and go as they please, where we were unable to respond to every security threat. On one instance, I remember talking with local village elders after a series of Taliban night letters had been going around. The village elders spoke with me about how armed insurgents would come into the village at night and threaten the lives of the inhabitants. Our only solution we could offer the village leaders was that we would increase our night patrols and that they could call the local Afghan National Army company commander when they needed assistance.
Incidents like this appeared to be common across the valley where we lived, and I have no doubt that they are common across the country. No matter how many patrols we did, the elders and I both knew that we could not be everywhere at once. Despite the presence of Combat Outposts across the country and local security forces manning checkpoints at arms-length intervals, the Taliban are still able to effectively and regularly threaten the lives of people in most parts of the country.
When the risk of Taliban or insurgent sponsored violence is balanced with the inability of the local government to offer an acceptable alternative to the status quo, it is simply not in the people’s best interest to take responsibility for their own security.
As the reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction continue to show, local and national security forces were rife with instances of fraud, waste, and abuse. Security forces are frequently accused of corruption, bribery, and are often just as harsh on the population as insurgent leaders.
Additionally, when compared to tribal and even Taliban judicial systems, the GIRoA system is painfully inefficient. Especially in places like Kandahar, Taliban justice is quick, inexpensive, and most importantly, it makes sense to the average Afghan. Based in Shariah, decisions are easily justified and rationalized to a population whose education is based on Quranic principles.
The Taliban also has the advantage of tribal affiliation with a large population of Afghans. As the Afghan government has been heavily influenced by minority groups in Afghanistan, the message of the Taliban representing Pashtuns has not been lost on large portions of the population.
The Taliban have been able to wield both the carrot and the stick in the minds of many Afghans. While life under Taliban control is certainly not an attractive proposition, neither is life under a system that many just cannot understand. The Taliban have not won over the population but they also have not lost it; and when you are in it for the long haul, a stalemate is as good as a win.
CPT Drew Shepler is an active duty U.S. Army Psychological Operations Officer. He deployed twice to Afghanistan. The statements reflected in this article are completely his own and do not reflect those of his unit, the Army, or the United States Department of Defense.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/12/why-did-we-fail-in-the-afghan-war-because-we-didnt-understand-the-place/
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