Discussion of Afghanistan policy is not being conducted with an adequate understanding of the insurgency there. Insurgents are considered akin to a crime syndicate that has expanded its influence through intimidation and violence, or to a religious cult that spreads through hortatory oration. These views are partly true but will not contribute to sound policy. The insurgents have expanded rapidly over the past few years because they offer compelling answers to unaddressed concerns.

Opposition to the Western presence

Foremost among these concerns, paradoxically enough to Westerners who see themselves as neutral mentors, is the extended presence of foreigners. Linguistic, cultural, geographic and tribal obstacles have prevented a unifying nationalism, but common experiences of foreign invasion and tribal warfare have left an abiding suspicion of foreigners. That outlook has led to common purpose in expelling intruders – the British or Russians or an adjacent tribe – but loss of unity and a return to localism soon followed.

Nonetheless, after decades of war and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, most Afghans welcomed help from Westerners. They were seen, if only quite warily, as agents of stability and growth. Eight years on, with little stability or growth, the welcome is disappearing. Traditional suspicions are falling on Western powers, and the insurgents are winning over district after district.

Western aid workers enter a region with the best of intentions, but are off-putting to elders and notables. Westerners carry an unmistakable confidence in their way of doing things. Youthful ones speak with elders as equals, or perhaps with a facade of deference. Projects are planned in accordance with engineering and agronomical principles, not local custom. The benefits of a project cannot be clearly known, but the estimates of workers and the expectations of locals will almost always diverge. Right and wrong here are not relevant; the impact on local sensibilities is.

The number of foreigners on a project today is much higher than in previous counter-insurgencies. When a French captain was seeking to win the support of Algerians in his area of control, he could have an irrigation ditch dug or a schoolroom built simply by calling in a small engineering detachment. Such projects today involve platoons of aid workers, embassy liaisons, consultants, security forces, public relations officials, reporters from many countries, and so on. The necessity of so many personnel is dubious; their impact on local opinion is not.

Development programs take a long time to begin, let alone come to completion – if they ever do. Bureaucratic plodding, inter-agency turf wars, banditry, corruption and warlords all take a toll on timeliness. Insurgent attacks on development projects, especially schools, are both well known and relevant here, but many insurgent groups permit projects to go on, if only to position themselves to take partial credit for them.

Large numbers of often haughty development workers and the delays in completing many projects leave the impression, eight years after their arrival, that Westerners have become another occupying force. Resentment builds, as do insurgent condemnations and entreaties, as do attachments of local men to insurgent bands.

Western militaries have also played an important, if not leading, role in developing antipathy toward foreigners. Some North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, owing to their prominent colonial pasts, have long if distant experience with counter-insurgency and civil operations.

They stress rapport with local people and limit the use of artillery and air strikes. Other militaries, especially that of the United States, were long trained for conventional warfare (against the Soviet Union and the Iraqi army) in which the use of such firepower was central. The US military diligently avoided counter-insurgency training, during and even after Vietnam, as such expertise might invite politicians to get involved in another lengthy and painful insurgency.

The use of artillery and air power against insurgents often inflicts heavy casualties on an insurgent band, but it also alienates much of the population and pushes them into supporting the insurgency. In recent years, insurgents have conducted engagements in a manner to incur civilian casualties at the hands of Western forces (a tactic skillfully used by the Vietcong). Word of the effects of Western firepower spreads rapidly. Afghans are increasingly hostile to the Western presence and become even more so with each incident. Many join the insurgency even though neither they nor family members have been victims; they join to avenge fellow Pashtuns and defend their homeland.

The recent US emphasis on counter-insurgency has included orders to reduce the use of artillery and air power. Whether this will be carried through and affect the insurgency remains to be seen. Another aspect of the counter-insurgency program stresses an extended military presence in the villages – a departure from past efforts that expelled insurgents, began development projects, then departed to chase down other insurgent bands. As much as the new emphasis might resonate with counter-insurgency doctrines, Western assurances of a protracted presence, this late in the war, will only underscore concerns that Westerners are another occupying power, and become a boon for the insurgency.

The prospect of better government

Insurgents present an alternative to the government of President Hamid Karzai. They build a shadow government as they move into a district, and win local support as comparatively honest administrators and judges. This was the case in previous insurgencies in Asia and North Africa and it is true of the one today in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s harsh suppression of anarchy in the early- to mid-1990s was important in their rise to power. In the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet departure in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet-backed government, former mujahideen leaders became bandits and warlords, replacing the rule of elders and notables who had been killed or had fled abroad. There was no government. The fledgling Taliban defended merchants transiting Kandahar province then extended their control throughout the province. They ended banditry and warlordism through armed force and the severe imposition of Islamic law – much to the relief of most locals.

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By Brian M Downing
November 20th, 2009