After sixteen years of conflict, the United States public has begun to question the importance of the goals and the endgame in Afghanistan. The following aims to outline but one segment of the issue confronting senior military officials both in NATO and the US Military. Narrow-mindedness has gripped western governments, the western public, as well as insurgent-sympathetic populations within the Afghan state. This narrow-mindedness is a result of the existence of narratives that do not accurately portray the situation on the ground. These narratives, especially in the case of the counterinsurgent (in this case, the western governments), act to hamstring any counterinsurgency effort that may be attempted because the actor does not fully understand the human terrain and thus is at a severe disadvantage in attempts to cut off insurgents from sympathetic populations; cutting off the insurgents is always the goal in any counterinsurgency (COIN). The lack of education with regard to local politics and further proliferation of the previously referenced narratives continue to strengthen the counter-narrative proliferated by insurgents to insurgent-sympathetic populations. Thus, the root of the problem comes from narratives created — whether this creation is purposeful or otherwise — by western governments to explain the Afghan conflict in layman’s terms. To explain a nuanced conflict such as the Afghan Civil War in layman’s terms at the highest levels of government spells failure for any sort of COIN operation.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVE

Narratives in low intensity conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, have great importance for both state and non-state actors in the conflict, as well as populations within the area of operation. Most importantly, however, narrative drives recruitment for both an insurgency and the state forces. He who has the most compelling narrative to both back up his reasoning for action as well as one that allows him to properly understand both his adversary and the underlying situations confronted, will generally win.

However, it must be noted that a compelling narrative to support one’s reasoning for action does not mean a singular narrative to support this reasoning, rather — and especially in the case of the United States and other NATO governments in Afghanistan — a government conducting an overseas counterinsurgency should articulate three major narratives, with perhaps more should it be warranted. These are as follows: Narrative aimed at a Western/American media presence as well as the general population; another aimed at the locals in the area of operation; and a third circulated internally within the government. This final narrative is key. It separates extremely simplified explanations for a conflict (i.e. America v. the Terrorists, or the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan [GoIRA] v. the Taliban) from nuanced, intelligence-based analyses that paint a full picture of the situation on the ground and allows high levels of government to make wise, broad-based decisions for counterinsurgency operations.

Narrative for Western Audience

Currently, it seems that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has a single narrative, one that should be only espoused to the western media and general population in the West. It is clear that the ISAF believes — with some minor exceptions, of course — their conflict is the GoIRA v. the Taliban, and their object is to destroy the Taliban. The latter of these two is actually quite accurate, and should be the mission. This being said, the latter cannot be accomplished while the former constructs the basis for counterinsurgency operations within the upper levels of government. This is because in many cases, the ‘Taliban’ are merely elements of the population that have been slighted by the ISAF or GoIRA forces. Many elements referred to as ‘Taliban’ are often referred to as a “daakhelee Talib — a resistance fighter” by local forces, and often act as local militia combatting transgressions both from warlords and GoIRA forces. It must be noted that the ‘warlords’ and ‘GoIRA’ often overlap and are generally one and the same.

To form a better understanding of the overall political situation in Afghanistan, the ISAF — down to even a single rifleman — must have at the very least a basic understanding of the national political situation, as well as an above average understanding of the local political situation within their area of operation. In a counterinsurgency such as the conflict we face today in Afghanistan, the warfighter’s best and most available weapon is his brain. However, for such a (relatively) in-depth understanding to be effective, the ISAF must be willing to accept or learn about conflicting perspectives on the war, perspectives that will rain harsh criticism down on their handling of the conflict.

Furthermore, as “outsiders, [the Coalition] does not sufficiently understand the conflict” in Afghanistan. As an example, “the British view of the conflict… was so far removed from the Helmandi understanding that the Helmandis considered them” to be in alliance with the Taliban, working “to destroy the province”. Additionally, these views are not just held by an uneducated rural class, but rather by even “Helmandi senators…, educated tribal leaders…, [as well as] senior members of the Afghan Police and army who are working with the British”. This should cause grave concern for the NATO mission. If the United Kingdom is believed to be in league with the Taliban by the local population, they are failing to connect with the people and describe why they are deployed to (in this case) Helmand Province. Moreover, the perceived British funding of the Taliban results in growing distrust for the Coalition forces from the local population and makes the British mission — and indeed, that of the ISAF as a whole — much more difficult. The spread of objectively false information is not a solely British phenomenon. The Americans, too, face similar issues, as there are narratives spread across Afghanistan that speak about how America continues its “sponsorship of [the Pakistani] ISI, which in turn support the Taliban”. This, obviously, creates major issues for the ability of the United States and NATO to fight the Taliban with any sort of success.

Narrative and Perceptions of Western Involvement

The perception of western involvement by locals is key in breaking down the Taliban. First and foremost, it must be noted that perception cannot be measured by an average westerner. When a man who perceives the Coalition as upsetting his livelihood and sets them as an “enemy” is asked by that “enemy” with a gun, “Do you like us?” the man will not tell them that he believes them to be the enemy, and the Taliban to be his saving grace. The man has seen too many men carted off by the ISAF and GoIRA to never return. Now, without understanding the context of his thought process, the average soldier would just cast him a liar. This is what must be done away with, as explained above.

To combat the above phenomenon, officers at the Company and Platoon level must work to cultivate positive working relationships with local communities, while additionally making use of their own language expert coming internally from the unit. This gives the unit the ability to utilize a three-prong approach. First, by building positive working relationships with locals, small units are therefore able to figure out the needs and issues in the surrounding communities, which eventually creates trust and allows for the creation of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) resources. Second, the small units can use a locally hired interpreter to act as a bridge to the local population, while also utilizing at least one other western Afghan language expert to fact check the interpreter. In the words of David Kilcullen, a premier COIN expert, “…specialized capabilities cannot substitute for personal understanding of local languages, cultural norms, and local grassroots politics.”

The described three-prong approach allows for two major effects. First, and more importantly for short-term gain, the approach allows for small units to immediately proliferate a narrative that can counter the narratives espoused by the Taliban or other insurgent forces. Secondly, by building relationships, the area of operation is going to become safer because if a local population feels supported by their local ISAF unit, they will be more inclined to trust and support the aforesaid unit.

The result of effective COIN tactics should trickle-up the chain of command (COC), but that very same COC must be competent enough to allow flexibility for their subordinates, so that these subordinates can effectively implement the above strategy. The flexibility the COC grants its subordinates will allow its subordinates to defeat the Taliban in their area of operation, therefore supporting the policy goals of ISAF and the GoIRA, making both bodies look good.

With regard to perception, the mainstream consensus is that “civilians… are simply guided by a logic of survival that denies them… [the ability to take] into consideration prior ethnic or ideological attachments”. However, there is a growing belief “that the effects of violence on civilian attitudes are conditional on combatant identity” (this theory will hereafter be referred to as “Asymmetric Consideration Theory”). This means that in the terms of the Afghan conflict, Pashtuns — and indeed, Afghans as a whole — are more likely to view harm against them by the Taliban in a somewhat more favorable light than harm levied against them by the Coalition. Furthermore, when 2700 Afghans in five Pashtun provinces fraught with violence were surveyed via an endorsement experiment, the subjects overall were more like to “strongly agree” with reforms carried out by the Taliban when also given the choice of such programs being carried out by the ISAF. The only reform that saw any inkling of greater support for ISAF endorsement was Prison Reform. This can be chalked up to the brutality of the Taliban regime nationwide between 1996–2001. This being said, however, it is key to note that across the board, the control question (which neither had endorsements for the Taliban or ISAF) had equal or higher levels of support than reforms carried out by the Taliban. A key missing data point within the survey, however, was the glaring lack of a GoIRA endorsement. Such an endorsement would allow for one to accurately determine the popular feeling for the national government — a key indicator in the realm of counterinsurgency.

What, then, does this mean for the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan? It certainly is not a very good sign for the success of the campaign, yet it does not spell disaster either. The results of the survey further validate the Asymmetric Consideration Theory, as the majority of the sampled villages were within Taliban-controlled districts in areas with significant “violent events”. The theory should then begin to be taken into account with regards to counterinsurgency. Key to this altering of counterinsurgency solutions, then, must be less emphasis on the narrative pushed — that the ISAF is here to be the saving grace of the local populations — and its replacement with narratives described below.

SOLUTIONS

No war has ever been won by the power who does not know nor understand his enemy. Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that the United States neither knows nor understands its enemy. The Taliban and the Islamic State — Khorasan Province (ISIS-KP) continue to grow in number and by extension strength; without a quick and significant change the ISAF cannot hope to win in Afghanistan. As such, an entirely new strategy is needed to combat the insurgency.

First, the Coalition and GoIRA must embark on a psychological operations campaign similar to that of the Indonesian counterinsurgency campaigns in West Java during the 1950s and early 60s. During these campaigns, while the Indonesians did use an extremely brutal cordon and search COIN method, they also used extremely effective psychological tactics against the Islamic insurgency, which is described from an Afghan Conflict lens below. The operation should focus on both Afghans of a nationalist and Islamist political leaning. The nationalist narrative would be one of the Pakistani influence of the Taliban. This should become an official policy point of both NATO and the GoIRA. While it is likely to antagonize Pakistan, this is to be expected. There is extensive evidence of Pakistani interference in Afghanistan, including the presence of Pakistani Army officers in Kunduz, 2001. Such disregard for the Afghan state’s sovereignty should be unacceptable for NATO and the GoIRA, and forcing such an issue into the public space will help win over more educated groups within Afghanistan that make up the nationalist political factions.

Source: Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)’s Suicide Attack Database; Access at: http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/

Next, the “Better Muslim” narrative, for lack of a better term, should focus on the Taliban’s extensive use of suicide bombers. As suicide bombing by the Taliban began to become more prevalent in the Summer of 2005, many in the “Taliban’s senior brass [was] divided” on its use, “with many in the old guard, including Mullah Omar, pointing to Koranic prohibitions against suicide”. To further the notion that suicide bombing is a relatively new phenomenon, between 2005 and 2016, there were a reported 1,157 suicide bombings. For a more detailed comparison, between the Taliban’s 1996 founding and 2004 there were 5 suicide bombings; in 2007 alone, 83 bombings. This again shows that there was a drastic increase in suicide attacks by the Taliban. The fall in bombings to a ten-year low in 2016 is likely due to the well-documented Taliban success rather than a change in policy. Oftentimes, a decrease in violence is due to an increase in control by one side or the other. In this case, it is the Taliban with increased control. This is further supported by the fact there are significantly less attacks in the solidly pro-Taliban south (5 attacks in Helmand and Kandahar v. 29 elsewhere). Not surprisingly, 4 of these 5 attacks came around the Helmandi provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, where major fighting was concentrated due to the Taliban and Coalition contesting the city in the Fall of 2016.

Much like the West Javan insurgency fought by the Indonesians in the 1960s, a major aspect of the Taliban’s insurgency is the religious component. Thus, a psychological operation aimed at discrediting their Islamic credentials would be pivotal to changing the perception of both the Taliban and the GoIRA. However, it should be noted that such a psychological operations campaign would differ from that of the West Javan Insurgency in that the bulk of the effective military force (the ISAF) is not muslim. This will, unfortunately, mitigate the success seen and so therefore making the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) an effective fighting force should remain of utmost priority. Should the ANDSF (and by extension the GoIRA) look weak — or worse yet, beholden to their ISAF allies — such tactics will more than likely backfire on the GoIRA.

Moreover, there continues to be a notion amongst the Afghan people that in order for a leadership to be legitimate, it must “convince the Afghans that [it] will not be beholden to foreigners, even as [it] convinces these very same foreigners to fund his state and military”. In this way, the ISAF — and indeed, the GoIRA as well — find themselves on very shaky ground. To be able to reverse the notion that the ISAF is propping up the GoIRA (which it undoubtedly is), the ISAF must let the ANDSF take the lead on most, if not all, operations. However, at the same time, the ANDSF are not capable of taking on such operations at the time of writing. This results in a catch-22 for Coalition forces: they can let the ANDSF take on these previously referenced operations, but in doing so would be causing significant casualties for the already low-morale ANDSF. Likewise, if they simply had the ANDSF follow them around as they currently do, they run the risk of appearing to prop up the ANDSF.

Unfortunately for the international mission in Afghanistan, the ANDSF will not succeed in such a role until they become, at the very least, a moderately motivated force. Like the Indonesian Army of the 1950s, the ANDSF is currently “factionalized and poorly coordinated”. In 2013, the Afghan National Army (ANA) suffered from a 20% desertion rate, and as recently as 2015 have been reported as losing up to 4,000 members a month to desertion and casualties. To stymie the outflow of members, the ANA high command needs to be a highly motivated cell that works to cut off corruption that results in “‘Soldiers with connections [working] in Kabul’” while sending the less fortunate to the combat zones. This results in a bleeding of experienced troops. ANA troops who “‘…came here to fight and die…’” and “‘…love killing Taliban’”, should be promoted quickly through the ranks to retain their services. With highly motivated and charismatic officers, the ANA could possibly be a much more capable fighting force within five to fifteen years. This, of course, requires a massive change in culture within the ANDSF that some would say is unrealistic. However, coupled with the psychological operations outlined above, it is possible that public sentiment with regards to the Taliban, especially in areas already slightly pro-GoIRA, could flip to solidly pro-GoIRA.

CONCLUSIONS

A counterinsurgency, and undoubtedly one in Afghanistan, is an extremely nuanced campaign. Thus, if theoretical plans and solutions outlined above are implemented, they may not work. If they do work, they will take time; indeed, years, possibly decades, will pass before the ISAF can even hope to see solid results from the initiatives outlined above. This war is not a war that can be fought by cutting the head off the snake. Rather, the Coalition and the GoIRA must work to change the very thinking and assumed beliefs of the local population.

Had the Coalition immediately sprung into action rebuilding the infrastructure of the Afghan state — to pre-1978 levels at the very least — in 2001, this war would have been much easier to fight. Now, sixteen years later, the United States finds itself rebuilding its troop strength in Afghanistan in order to try again. This time, these new troops will find themselves overburdened with the baggage of the hundreds of thousands of troops who came before them. They will need to change their strategies and thinking about war in order to adapt to their environment.

The Coalition will not win this war in one year, they will not win it in five, and they may not win it in ten. This is as much a counterinsurgency as it is a rebuilding of a nation from the ground up. The last forty years of war have torn down every government institution and every inkling of infrastructure. The Coalition needs to rebuild this, yes, but key to rebuilding this is figuring out what the people of Afghanistan want. Not the NGOs, not the government contractors, and not the GoIRA, but rather the sixty year-old man in Northern Helmand that has begged for a canal for fifteen years as the Coalition builds everything — save for that canal. Once the Coalition builds that canal, they actively helped that man more than the Taliban ever will. And that is counterinsurgency, and that is how the Coalition can expect to win in Afghanistan.

REFERENCES

Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST). 2016. Suicide Attack Database (October 12, 2016 Release). [Data File]. Retrieved from http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/

Felbab-Brown, Vanda. “Afghanistan in 2012 Limited Progress and Threatening Future.” Asian Survey 53, no. 1 (January/February 2013): 22–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/as.2013.53.1.22.

Gopal, Anand. No Good Men among the Living. New York City: Metropolitan Books, 2014.

Kilcullen, David. Counterinsurgency. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Lyall, Jason, Graeme Blair, and Kosuke Imai. “Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan.” The American Political Science Review 107, no. 4 (November 2013): 679–705. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43654029.

Martin, Mike. An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Smith, Josh. Josh Smith to Stars and Stripes newsgroup, “Tide of Desertions — Among Highest in Recent History — Strains Afghan Forces,” September 3, 2015. Accessed July 14, 2017. https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/tide-of-desertions-among-highest-in-recent-history-strains-afghan-forces-1.366071#.WWhihNPyvBI.

Tomsen, Peter. The Wars of Afghanistan. New York City, USA: Public Affairs, 2013.

Author’s Note: For in-depth source breakdown, please contact me at thehkmonitor@gmail.com