A CIA COINdinista’s Misgivings on Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

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The best strategy for Afghanistan is a Tribe-Centric Unconventional Warfare/Foreign Internal Defense (TC UW/FID) approach executed by leveraging the social system that defines Afghan society.

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This course of action is most likely to advance the policy goals of:

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[snip]

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Ask a person in Afghanistan, “Who are you?” and they will tell you about their tribe, ethnicity or sect –but not nationality. Deployed to Afghanistan and Pakistan as an operator for a CIA CT codeword program, I remember asking a local about himself whether he considered himself “Afghan.” He laughed and said, “Afghanistan is a line on a map — drawn by the British. There are no Afghan people,” he continued, “except in Kabul but only because it pays so well.”

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One contributing factor toward this lack of understanding is how most cultural advisors to high-level US decision makers, as I learned from personal experience at Defense Department Forward Operating Bases, State Department Embassies and CIA Stations, come from a Kabul-centric background. After all, each proved educated and wealthy enough to leave Afghanistan, learn English, acquire a security clearance and secure lucrative western government employment.

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Nonetheless, a vast majority of people in Afghanistan do not view as legitimate any national authority from Kabul. Further, Afghanistan lacks the infrastructure of commerce, transport and communication that facilitate the development of national identity. Finally, people throughout Afghanistan do not view Hamid Karzai as a legitimate leader, and that sentiment has hardened in the aftermath of the massive fraud uncovered in connection with the recent election.

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Instead—and this is vital for policy makers to understand—the very tribal leaders we seek to influence in our efforts against the Taliban are actually threatened by our support of Karzai. Regardless of our intent, they perceive our actions as empowering his tribe and their tribal allies to dominate the other tribes via the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) and National Police (ANP) once the coalition eventually withdrawals its forces.

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This means counterinsurgency in Afghanistan would be counterproductive because our expanded effort to bolster Karzai’s ANA/ANP will make tribal leaders more likely to tacitly or explicitly ally with the Taliban and, in Pakistan, al-Qaeda. They would do so as a pragmatic response to our strategy as it alters dramatically, even if unintentionally, the regional tribal balance of power.

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For these vital differences, sending additional brigades to Afghanistan with the COIN-Iraq strategy as a roadmap is the policy equivalent of driving off a cliff, or perhaps more accurately, sending a fleet of new Humvees coasting into quicksand.

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For Afghanistan, a better solution is applying an tribe-centric unconventional warfare/foreign internal defense (TC UW/FID) strategy that withdraws significant numbers of conventional forces other than from Kabul to Bagram, maintains a Special Operations Forces footprint, uses interagency personnel more effectively (especially CIA and State) — and empowers all of the above with the resources they need to exert influence on a local level. If our mission in Iraq required local focus, Afghanistan must be hyper-local — again, due to the lack of common national identity, heritage, ethnicity, or even language. In fact, Pashto and Dari are just two of Afghanistan’s dozens of languages or dialects so distinct that people from nearby valleys cannot even communicate with one another.

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The execution of a TC UW/FID strategy involves refocusing Special Forces groups away from SOF-style door-kicking and back to their traditional mission of training and equipping indigenous forces. SF units should be engaging and equipping key tribal leaders, with CIA, State and other civilian departments such as Agriculture offering tailored incentives for cooperation, with coalition forces ready to assist if needed. Tribal leaders in Afghanistan will welcome a TC UW/FID approach because it respects their social hierarchy, preserves their prestige, and leverages their natural dislike for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In that light, TC UW/FID is the strategic path most likely to prevent the terrorist safe-havens that could incubate another 9/11.