Buried in the news last month was a story announcing the most significant tactical adaptation in the history of Afghan Security Forces. The international media company AFP broke the story with this article Under US pressure Afghan army starts closing checkpoints. The article was reprinted in various legacy media outlets, Stars and Stripes ran their own reporting that included a little more depth, and the subject disappeared from the news cycle without further examination or comment. This should not be as it is a fundamental change in how Afghan Security Forces are handling a resurgent Taliban.
For eighteen years western military advisors to the Afghans have repeatedly pointed out that dispersing manpower out in small, poorly built, militarily unimportant, easily overrun checkpoints is a pointless waste. The Afghans counter that small forts flying the Afghan flag demonstrates to the people that the government holds that area.
The photographs below are from one of the better organized checkpoints I ran across during a road trip with Ralph Ward a.k.a The Skipper. He was heading into Nuristan province to blow an ammo cache the ANA had uncovered, something he normally we not do which was why I was tagging along.
Approaching a checkpoint in Nuristan province. Can you tell its be there for awhile?Billboards in English in Nuristan….weird right?As far as ANA checkpoints go this one was not in bad shape. There were around a half dozen guys hanging out, none in uniform, no visible defensive works and no bullet holes despite this post being in (at the time) the most kinetic province in the country.The boys had a stash of motorbikes that I can promise you they did not arrive with and could never afford….another big problem with checkpoints
In 2016 the American military estimated that there were 8,400 Afghan police and army checkpoints in the country. Despite insisting that the Afghans start closing them the number of checkpoints grew in 2017. It is obvious these poorly manned, undefended, far flung, unsupported positions contribute to low morale, high rates of desertion and high casualties. In fact a week after this policy was announced Afghan Security Forces suffered 23 KIA’s in two attacks on checkpoints, one in Ghor and the other in Logar provinces.
If it is so obvious that these checkpoints are a bad idea why is it they proliferate? The motorbikes in the picture above are a hint and here is another:
Me best mate Shem and I looking over an ANP checkpoint on the Jalalabad -Kabul hwy
The checkpoint Shem and I are looking over had reported they were overrun the night prior and fired all the rounds on hand to drive off the Taliban. The building, on all four sides, is pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel holes, as the structure pre-dates the Soviet invasion. None of the battle damage on this building was new, and not one piece of brass could be found on the ground. The troops (all Hazara’s from Ghazni province) were obviously selling ammo and AK rounds, at the time, cost 65 cents each on the black market.
When soldiers “benefit” at their checkpoints they are expected to kick a percentage up. It’s similar to the mafia, or at least The Sopranos version of the mafia, and that is the main reason the Afghans have refused to take them down. Afghan police and army officers assigned a certain area have normally paid serious cash for the position and expect a return of their investment. The practice is so common it doesn’t require footnotes (but here’s a link anyway). I have been told that this is changing as younger officers in the Afghan Security Forces reach ranks of responsibility. I hope so, I’m a big of the Afghans.
Here is the 02 Unit setting up a snap checkpoint outside of Jalalabad. This is how you should run checkpoints
If the Afghan Security Forces are now willing to forgo revenue from their checkpoints to focus on offensive operations targeting the Taliban they have crossed the Rubicon in military professionalism. Time will tell, but this is the most positive development I’ve seen regarding Afghanistan in a long time. Inshallah it is a sign of a tide starting to turn.
Michelle Harven, from the new Stars and Stripes Force for Hire podcast interviewed me for this weeks edition. They compressed a lot of material into a tight half hour and although I got to mention both of my current gigs, the weekly column at The Freq and the weekly appearance with Jeff Kenny on All Marine Radio, only AMR made the final cut.
I got a good plug in for Mike “Mac” s’ McNamara’s Post Truamatic Winning program but got emotional doing so, which made for a memorable finish but I still get annoyed at myself when that happens.
Typical Thursday night at the Taj Tiki Bar
I cross-posted some of my latest Weekly Afghanistan Updates from The Freq so newcomers to the blog get a sense of how I write about a topic that has grown obscure for the average citizen. If you are a first time visiter I would invite you to, using the side bar, navigate back to October 2011 for the more iconic, well received posts.
Editors Note: This is cross-posted from The Freq media where I currently write a weekly Afghanistan Update.
Last month the commanding general of Task Force Southwest, Brig. Gen. Dale Alford, USMC, spent an hour talking with Macon All Marine Radio explaining his mission, his impression on the improved security in the Helmand province, and his take on the current peace talks. Dale has the unique distinction of serving in a combat zone at every rank from second lieutenant to brigadier general. If there is another Marine officer who can claim that distinction, I’ve never heard of him. It is rare to hear a task force commander, in a combat zone, spend an hour going over his assessment of the conflict with an interviewer who is a personal friend and also an experienced combat infantry officer. I’ve never heard of an interview like this, which is why I’m such a fan of the long form podcast interview model.
Since the arrival of TF Southwest, the Afghan Security Forces have expanded their control of the province from just Lashkar Gah (the provincial capitol) to 70% of the province — including most of the green zone and the Ring Road. Gen. Alford stressed that when the ANA 215 Corps goes on operations they are accompanied by drones that feed his control teams data in real time. Those teams (he has two) are co-located at the brigade level where they provide supporting fires and intelligence. That seems to be working and the small foot print combined with limited cost (in Washington dollars) would allow the United States to support similar task forces indefinitely.
General Dale Alford, USMC
TF Southwest is the Pentagon-preferred template for future American military operations and may prove an effective use of American military power in an areas of durable disorder. Deploying trainers who do not leave firm bases to fight with the men they train is an approach that some critics (me for one) question as a viable strategy. But it has the advantage of keeping American casualties low, and taking casualties at this stage of the Afghan War is our center of gravity. The American public will not tolerate significant loss of American life in combat operations in Afghanistan.
Gen. Alford also discussed the poppy problem at length, suggesting that the opium crop could be replaced with soy beans — much as tobacco was replaced by government subsidized soy beans in the American south. Unfortunately, in the farmlands of Helmand Province (Kandahar too), by 1975 over-irrigation and poor drainage had led to waterlogging and salination, damaging much of the farm lands (unless you are growing poppy). Efforts to mitigatethat damage stopped with the Soviet Invasion back in the 1970’s and they would have to be completed before any serious thoughts of growing soy beans could be entertained.
A better replacement crop would be industrial hemp, something the Afghans know how to grow already. Industrial hemp has huge potential in the textile markets but the money is in converting the hemp into industrial fiber products. That takes infrastructure or a stable logistical link to factories in China and neither of those will be available in Afghanistan anytime soon.
What was not discussed on the podcast was the recent Taliban attack on Camp Shorabak (where TF Southwest is currently housed). Long form podcasters like Mac tend to avoid “gotcha” journalism which is a good thing. What is more interesting or useful; an hour long talk with a general officer commanding in combat or the ambush of a CG by a media shill trying to maximize clicks by generating controversy? When you listen to the podcast you are hearing a conversation between two experienced infantry officers who know each other well and are operating on a degree of trust. It’s an honest exchange of information without spin or hedging which makes it interesting.
What could the Gen. Alford say about the Taliban attack on Shorabak anyway (aside from the fact that it was pretty well organized)? The Taliban attacked the same base in 2012 when the Marines and Brits ran it and managed to destroy an entire squadron of Marine Harrier jump jets. The Taliban killed over a hundred ANA soldiers in an attack on an ANA firm base outside Mazar-i Sharif just last year. The Taliban has been infiltrating big bases for years and they will continue to do so because there are always gaps in a static defense or firm base perimeter, always. Even if you put your best troops in the static defense roll how many weeks or months of staring out into empty desert for 12 hours a day does it take to degrade alertness?
Soldiers are humans and humans are predictable, they establish routines, they get lazy and complacent, they make mistakes. In an eighteen-year-long war there are going to be setbacks because the enemy is competent and motivated, or he wouldn’t still be in the fight. Tactical setbacks do not prove or disprove that the Marines of TF Southwest are making a difference, only time will tell if these task forces were effective.
Gen. Alford listed a number of facts that support his contention that the Task Force is an effective way to buy time and develop the capacity of Afghan Security Forces while the peace process continues. He said, and virtually everyone involved with the Afghan process agrees, that these is no way to militarily “win” for the Afghan government. The exact same holds true for the Taliban. The TF Southwest model may prove to be effective which would an interesting development for future U.S. operations in durable pockets of disorder.
Also not discussed was the effort made last year to target the labs that process wet opium. In November of 2017, United States Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A… I’m going to start using this acronym more because it sounds cool) commenced a targeting campaign against drug labs to deny the Taliban the funds gained. In August of 2018, USFOR-A announcedthey had destroyed over 200 labs and denied the Taliban over 200 million in drug sales proceeds.
Screengrab from the Alcis article linked below
The problem with the USFOR-A claims were they did not withstand close scrutiny by journalist Richard Brittan of Alcis. Brittan identified 29 of the compounds hit in the Helmand province and, using satellite imagery databases, his team was able to see the history of those compounds over time. He sent field evaluators to survey the residents and found the results of the campaign were minimal because the costs of re-establishing the labs were minimal. His article can be found here, and is worth reading.
Another screen grab for the Alcis report showing how fast processing labs are re-built after being destroyed.
The drug lab campaign was quietly ended a year after it started because it didn’t offer any return on investment. A good reason Gen. Alford and Mac didn’t talk about it is that Task Force Southwest had nothing to do with the campaign, that’s DEA and spook work, and I bet you money Gen. Alford could have predicted the outcome of that program anyway — I know him; he’s sharp and has a lot of time in the Helmand province.
Opium production in Afghanistan has, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, increased dramatically in recent years. Reading the linked report is depressing, but it did answer the question of what happened in Nimroz province after we fixed the irrigation systems, check out the map below that I pulled from the linked article:
Charborjak district is now a major producer and there wasn’t a drop of water flowing into those lands before we fixed the irrigation system in 2010.
Despite being the number one elicit opium producer in the world, Afghan heroin has little to do with the current opioid crisis in America. Those drugs come from Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala. But regardless of origin, there is only one way to battle the opioid problem in America — just as there is only one way to deprive the Taliban of the millions they are making on the poppy — and that is to legalize drugs.
According to Johaan Hari, author of the recent bestseller Chasing the Scream, everything you know about addiction is wrong. When you read about the Swiss program of providing addicts their daily dose for free at government clinics, it is hard to believe that is an effective treatment option. When you read on about similar programs in Portugal or Vancouver, it is hard not to see the utility of the approach.
A comprehensive program based on the Swiss model could stop the opioid crisis dead in its tracks. If the United States did that, most of the the world would follow. In fact, most of the world was forced to opt into our war on drugs back in 50’s. That effort was lead by the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger — as virulent a racist who has ever served on the national stage.
Type Harry J. Anslinger quotes in Google and standby… you won’t believe your eyes. Here, I’ll give you a tame one: “The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.” The War on Drugs started because Anslinger (who was ignorant, but neither stupid or lazy) needed to grow a bureau created out of the old Revenue office after prohibition was repealed, just before his appointment. Regardless of its origins, there is no question that the war on drugs has been a dismal failure — and an incredibly expensive one, at that. Here is a historical note that renders the current opioid crisis narrative of the “chemical hook” model of addiction suspect. In 1971 35% of the servicemen in Vietnam had tried heroin and 20% were addicted. James Clear picks up the story in this article from Behavioral Psychology, How Vietnam War Veterans Broke Their Heroin Addictions:
“The discovery led to a flurry of activity in Washington, including the creation of the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention under President Nixon, to promote prevention and rehabilitation and to track addicted service members when they returned home.“
Lee Robins was one of the researchers from that special action office. In a finding that completely upended the accepted beliefs about addiction, Robins found that when soldiers who had been heroin users returned home, only 5 percent of them became re-addicted within a year, and just 12 percent relapsed within three years. In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight”.
Johaan Hari musters a good argument about the utility of currently banned drugs and the folly of the War on Drugs. So did Michael Pollan in last year’s NYT bestseller How to Change Your Mind. A quote from this New York Times article about the book explains Pollan’s understanding of the neural physiology behind psychedelic experiences:
“Where Pollan truly shines is in his exploration of the mysticism and spirituality of psychedelic experiences. Many LSD or psilocybin trips — even good trips — begin with an ordeal that can feel scarily similar to dissolving, or even dying. What appears to be happening, in a neurological sense, is that the part of the brain that governs the ego and most values coherence — the default mode network, it’s called — drops away. An older, more primitive part of the brain emerges, one that’s analogous to a child’s mind, in which feelings of individuality are fuzzier and a capacity for awe and wonder is stronger.”
The statistics Pollan musters from legitimate medical studies in the 50’s and 60’s regarding the effectiveness of LSD in treating smoking or alcohol addiction were stunning. That is why there are medical trials being conducted today in many countries, including America, on using psychedelics (a.k.a. entheogens) to treat a variety of problems from end-of-life acceptance to alcoholism to PTSD. Our laws regarding drugs are going to change. The sooner they change towards rationally treating addicts with the drugs they need — while guiding towards establishing meaning and purpose in their lives — the better.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I have no experience with entheogens, although if offered I’d certainly try them. I can’t imagine that happening and it’s not on my bucket list, so I really don’t care. If they prove effective in treating PTSD, then I’m an advocate — but it is too early to make that claim. None of the science discussed in the books linked above is settled. But that’s the nature of science, it’s mostly never settled. Researches must keep an open mind and follow the evidence before any scientific question can be considered “settled”. Right now the evidence researchers are finding is encouraging.
What I know is there is no way to rid Afghanistan of the poppy, except by devaluing the crop. Just as there is no way to beat the Taliban as long as they have safe sanctuary in Pakistan. We are not in a position to effect the cross border problem nor the booming poppy economy. The continued commitment of units like Task Force Southwest may prove to be the only way to buy Afghanistan the time and space it needs to solidify into a viable state. But we will need a lot more time and a lot more money to do this, and I do not see how the United States will find enough of either for too much longer.
Featured image: HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan (May 8, 2009) – An Afghan National Police officer picks up a bag of opium. Afghan National Police officers, along with U.S. Special Operations Soldiers, discovered 600 pounds of opium May 7, 2009, during a cordon and search operation of a known Taliban safe house, collection center and trauma center in Babaji Village, in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Photo by Cpl. Sean K. Harp, U.S. Army.
“The area comprising the provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar and Laghman was so dangerous that the U.S.-led coalition assigned an acronym to it in the years after the invasion, referring to it as N2KL”.
This is not true, N2KL was named after the provinces assigned to R.C. East back around 2008, or so. When the Army started calling the area N2KL it was so safe that I’d have my kids’ vacation with me in Jalalabad over the summers.
Picking apart news stories written by young journos who don’t know much about the topic they were assigned is not the point. This story is only important in respect to the continued involvement of the United States in Afghanistan. If that involvement is based on the fear that ISIS-K will metastasize into an organization capable of planning and launching attacks against the West, we are on a fool’s errand. ISIS-K (hereafter referred to as Daesh-K, because that’s what the cool kids call them) in Afghanistan is not capable of sophisticated international operations targeting the Homeland. Daesh-K are not our friends, but they are also not our problem. They are Pakistan, Afghanistan and maybe Uzbekistan’s problem. A quick history of Daesh-K will help explain my contention, and it just so happens I wrote one in this post back in 2017.
The provincial capitols of RC East (N2KL) are identified on this map. Note the large parrots beak looking part of Pakistan that juts into Afghanistan below the Khyber Pass — that is called the Parrots Beak and that is how Taliban from the southeast got into the rear of Daesh-K back in 2014.
In 2010, Pakistani Taliban, mainly from Tehrik-e Taleban Pakistan (TTP), started to settle in Achin, Nazian, Kot, Deh Bala, Rodat and Ghanikhel districts of Nangarhar province. They invoked Melmastia (the hospitality requirement Pashtunwali places on all its tribesmen towards others, whether they are strangers or members of one’s own tribe) from the local communities saying it was their moral obligation to help their Pashtun brothers. They were moving to avoid the Pakistan army’s Operation Khyber I, which was targeting the TTP in the Northwest Frontier.
Fast forward to 2014; the muhajerin(refugees) from Pakistan have continued to trickle into Nangarhar province but when the Pakistani army launches operation Khyber II, the trickle turns into a flood. Mule trains full of weapons and ammo, some of them 50 animals long, arrive daily into the Mamand Valley, in Achin district, along with hundreds of militants. Suddenly, the muhajerin declare they are now ISIS and evict the Taliban from the districts they control, but leave the Afghan security forces alone. The locals are happy because trade is moving, Taliban and government road blocks are down and nobody is shooting at anybody. The government is happy too because Daesh-K is an enemy of the Pakistanis, making them an enemy of an enemy — which in Afghanistan is a good basis for a long friendship.
But the Taliban did not take this threat lightly, and started attacking ISIS in Nazim district. ISIS battled back hard, and took control of five districts by June of 2015. Then the Taliban went all in with their “elite forces from Loya Paktia and Loy Kandahar” who infiltrated the Mamand Valley (in Achin district), and on one night during Ramadan… (The always excellent Afghan Analyst Network picks up the story):
“In early July 2015, Taleban fighters sneaked into Mamand and, during the night of 2 July, talked to their sympathisers about staging a coordinated attack against the ISKP fighters. They managed to secure the help of various tribal elders. One morning during Ramadan, on 3 July 2015, local men (including those not usually sympathetic to the Taleban) and Taleban rose up together against ISKP, with calls by the Taleban via the mosque’s loud-speakers for all men of fighting age to come out and participate, or face seeing their homes burnt down. Taken by surprise, the ISKP fighters retreated from most of Mamand valley by the end of that day”.
Having routed the Daesh-K the non-local Taliban had to leave too, and it took exactly a week for the Daesh-K to return. After driving most of the locals out of the Mamand Valley, Daesh-K then became our problem. They have been a costly problem, turning Nangarhar into the most dangerous province for American servicemen in the country.
The threat from Daesh-K, as outlined in the AP story is as follows:
“Without an aggressive counterterrorism strategy, Afghanistan’s ISIS affiliate will be able to carry out a large-scale attack in the U.S. or Europe within the next year, the U.S. intelligence official said, adding that ISIS fighters captured in Afghanistan have been found to be in contact with fellow militants in other countries.
Authorities have also already made at least eight arrests in the United States linked to the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan.
Martin Azizi-Yarand, the 18-year-old Texan who plotted a 2018 attack on a suburban mall, said he was inspired by ISIS and was preparing to join the affiliate in Afghanistan. He was sentenced in April to 20 years in jail.
Rakhmat Akilov, the 39-year-old Uzbek who plowed his truck into pedestrians in Stockholm in 2017, also had links with the Afghanistan affiliate, the intelligence official said. “During interrogation he said ‘this is my commander in Afghanistan and he is telling me what to do,'” he said”.
If the Daesh-K, working diligently from their mountain keeps in Achin district, are causing people around the world to up and Jihad, then how about we cut their internet? The Taliban made cell phone companies turn off their towers at night because they knew ISAF could track them through cell phones so why can’t we do the same with the internet? It’s not like there is a booming local internet service provider economy in the area. How likely is it that the Daesh-K have their own satellite with secure uplinks? The question answers itself.
FRI on the Pakistan/Afghan (Torkham) border with the N2KL Human Terrain Team in 2009.
I don’t think Daesh-K in Nangarhar has anything to do with lone wolf Jihadis LARPingon the internet. But just in case they are, here is another modest proposal that will save serious bucks. Ask the Taliban (at the peace talks) to, as a sign of good faith, go into Nangarhar province and eliminated Daesh-K. In an unimpeachable demonstration of how reasonable we (the US) are, we could lend them some FACs’ and run some close air to support them; maybe even drop another MOAB (which is just a big fuel air explosive). MOAB’s are great for morale as long as you are on the side dropping them.
Using the threat of Daesh-K to justify continued involvement in Afghanistan is folly, because Daesh-K and the Taliban are not a threat to us. The threats to our interests in the region come from Pakistan, Iran, and China.
The linked article above has a good, detailed, explanation of that fact. Here is a sample:
“Pakistan’s duplicity has continued for over seventeen years. While accepting billions of American dollars in military and economic aid, Pakistan has been slowly bleeding the U.S. to death in Afghanistan through its support of the Taliban, Haqqani Network and other terrorist groups.12”
China represents a more significant threat, but one that is difficult to explain unless you are listening to reliable experts. Grant Newsham, a regular on All Marine Radio, does the best job I’ve found explaining China’s vampire-like expansion which targets all sectors of a competitors economy. China already dictates the terms on which Hollywood movies are developed and released. The stakes are explained well by Richard Fernandez in an excellent post titled They Are Coming Through the Wire.
“They [the Chinese] are betting they can put enough harm into the US economy that the 2020 elections go to somebody else. Regions, industries. If you look at the Foxconn factory in Wisconsin, the natural gas agreement in West Virginia, each one of these are means for putting hooks into the local politics into those regions or states then turning around and saying ‘the President is making it very hard to continue making investments’, many of which they never had any actual intention of making. Then they can say ‘it is the President’s fault that your economy is failing.”
Countering the growing influence of China in the region is a good reason to stay in Afghanistan. An independent Afghanistan would be a significant geostrategic win for the West. But is it probable? This I do not know… but what I do know is a way to give our continued presence in Afghanistan a purpose vis-a-vis the threat we are trying to counter.
Here is how you put our advisories on defense, reacting to our moves while fighting a frantic rear action battle for their own legitimacy.
The United States, in the name of free peoples everywhere, and in the context of what is right for peoples who have been wronged, now insists on a homeland for the Pashtun, Baloch and Kurdish peoples.
The current borders were artificially created by the West, specifically to keep these people separate and at each other’s throats. We’re America — and are all about freedom for oppressed peoples victimized by our nasty and brutish (not really in true historical context, but you know where I’m going…) colonial systems.
If we were to suddenly adopt such a radically smart approach to international diplomacy, what would our military in Afghanistan do? I have no idea. Letting the Taliban come over from the Paktia/Khost franchises (they can sneak in behind the Daesh from Pakistan) to battle Daesh-K would be a good start, after that you would have to see how things play out.
The United States is energy independent; we export food, we have two giant oceans separating us from most of the global madness. There is nothing in Central Asia we need or want, except for everyone to calm down and establish some semblance of a legitimate governing apparatus. Our interests are in preventing large disruptions to the global economy from Black Swan attacks, like the one we sustained on 9/11. Those giant hits to the global economy are not sustainable if they become frequent. But saying that Deash-K, or the many and manifest other Jihadi organizations with roots in Uzbekistan or Western China but now resident in Afghanistan, are capable of another 9/11 is to risk developing a “boy who cried wolf” reputation.
There are legitimate threats in the central Asian area, and we should focus on them with effective tools designed for a long game. China is only a peer threat to our military if we are fighting in China, they cannot project combat power around the globe, only the United States can do that in any meaningful numbers.
Our mission in Afghanistan should now be to prevent China and Pakistan from benefitting from our failure. A military presence in Afghanistan helps, forcing our adversaries to react to our moves on the global stage would be better. And what could possibly be better than advocating for a homeland for peoples long oppressed and divided thanks to those devil Europeans and their damn maps?
The war in Afghanistan took a catastrophic turn for the worse when General Abdul Raziq was assassinated last Thursday (18th of October). He was killed after attending a regional security meeting with the commanding general for the NATO forces in Afghanistan General Scott Miller. The Kandahar provincial intelligence chief, Gen. Abdul Momin Hussain Khel was also killed. The governor of Kandahar, Zalmai Wesa, and Gen. Nabi Elham, a senior police commander responsible for several provinces were also hit as were two unidentified Americans. At this point it is a safe assumption that the wounded Americans were from Gen Miller’s PSD team. They’re high end contractors, not American military and so their names may never be reported as contractors are not normally included in DoD personnel reporting procedures.
Gen. Abdul Raziq in 2015. He had survived dozens of attempts on his life before the attack on Thursday. Photo by Bryan Denton for The New York Times
General Raziq was from the Pashtun Adozai Achakzai tribe in Spin Boldak which is a port of entry with Pakistan. The tribe has always opposed the Taliban and Raziq had lost several members of his immediate family to the Taliban over the years. He got his start as a border guard at age 17 and steadily advanced through the ranks the way all warlords rise to prominence in places like Afghanistan. He was ruthless, efficient, a natural leader with a knack for making money; he hated the Taliban and was relentless in driving them out of his area. That attracted the attention of the American Special Forces and the CIA who mentored him for years. By the time the Americans pulled out Raziq was a general officer who was responsible for the security of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. He locked Kandahar down, making it one of the safer cities in Afghanistan and he did it the old fashioned way; he didn’t take prisoners.
For this the foreign policy establishment condemned him. The most positive establishment spin is summed up well in a paragraph from a 2016 Foreign Policy article:
Considered by many as a “special case” due to his outsized and abnormal means of exerting influence and holding power, Raziq serves the interests of the state-building elite by crafting an image of strength and stability in southern Afghanistan, even if that comes at the expense of accountable governance, human rights, and long-term stability. Raziq road the coattails of a coterie of ruthless warlords empowered by western intelligence and security organizations like the CIA, U.S. Special Forces, and NATO military allies. He is a leading figure in the Achakzai tribe, a major power bloc along the southern border and strong auxiliary security component through formal and informal militias. Raziq grew up in Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar, and was mentored by strongmen such as Gul Agha Sherzai, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and Asadullah Khalid, who protected Raziq from prosecution when 16 Nurzai tribal members were murdered in 2006. Numerous stories link Raziq, or men working for him, to human rights violations, torture, and murder of prisoners. While such stories of abuse are disquieting, it seems even more alarming when Raziq openly boasts of such acts. In the summer of 2014, Raziq, along with other Afghan security officials, issued a take no prisoners directive: “My order to all my soldiers is not to leave any of them alive.”
There are very few military leaders who, if lost, cannot be replaced. Ahmad Shah Massoud was one and Raziq is the only other when it comes to modern Afghanistan. His loss is a crippling blow in a year that has not seen any positive news concerning the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). ANSF is taking casualties on the battlefield that are unsustainable. We have no idea what their true desertion rate is but can assume it’s not good in those formations that have taken a beating all summer long.
The most important election since 2001 in continuing despite sporadic attacks in polling sites. In Kabul a suicide bomber detonated inside a polling station in northern neighborhood of Khair Khana killing at least 10 people. The station is inside the upgraded Kabul Ring of Steel which is yet another failure on the part of the Kabul security forces who are being mentored by the Turkish army.
The established narrative is that the US and her allies are going to stay in Afghanistan and continue to train Afghan forces while helping them fight by providing enablers in the form of brigade level operational support, fixed wing close air support and ground to ground rockets. Over time the increasing proficiency of the ANSF’s combined with the casualties being inflicted on the Taliban will force them to realize they cannot win and thus come to the peace talk table.
Here’s a news flash for the credentialed elite who are leading our efforts in Afghanistan: the Taliban already know they cannot win. They don’t have to win, they just need to keep doing what they are doing and that is controlling the population where they can and pressing the government forces in the rest of the country. They don’t have to win to get what they want which is a degree of autonomy in the areas they control and the areas they control seem to be increasing.
Any hope that the Taliban is going to reach an agreement with the government on anything other then their own terms is fantasy which you can see by their behavior. In 2011 the Taliban opened an office in Qatar to conduct peace talks. The US asked that they not do is use the name of the old Taliban regime in Afghanistan which was the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The day the office opened they put up their sign identifying themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and that is what they are called to this day. Does that sound like a group who are looking for a way out of continued fighting? Of course not and they’re winning anyway so why even bother with negations?
There is a lot going on in Afghanistan and it is being driven by one simple fact: the burn rate for operating the ANSF and the central government is unsustainable. The aid dollars that run the country are going to dry up soon but our operational strategy for Afghanistan is playing the long game. If we can keep the Afghans in the fight long enough they should, according to historical statistics, prevail.
Eric Prince has been in Afghanistan seeking local support forces plan to introduce contractor trainers down to the battalion level along with contracted air crews and air frames for close air support. President Trump also inserted a powerful player into Kabul in the form of U.S. Special Advisor Zalmay Khaliizad who was the ambassador to Afghanistan when I arrived in Kabul back in 2005.
Zalmay Khalilzad is popular with the Afghan people but I remember him mostly for the introduction of the SNTV election system which is why the elections going on today will be a gigantic mess. I wrote about this in 2011 saying: SNTV stands for single non-transferable vote and it is one way to ensure that opposition political parties cannot be formed or sustained. Afghanistan went to the SNTV system after some sort of back room deal was cut between Karzai and our ambassador at that time Zalimay Khalizad. Khalizad is an Afghan-American, fluent in the local languages who served here as Ambassador before being sent to Iraq to be the ambassador in 2005. He did not last long in Baghdad and is now heading his own consulting agency at a time when an Arabic/Pashto/Dari speaking US Ambassador would be of great use to the administration.
If you want to read some in depth, original reporting on the inherently flawed Afghan election system check out this outstanding piece by Mattieu Aikins.
Kahlizad is not sitting around Kabul waiting for something to do. One would assume he is working closely with the ambassador and General Miller but who knows? He’s a deal maker and problem solver who had been known to go his own way for reasons unknown which is what I think the SNTV incident clearly shows.
I also hear, although I’ve found no verification yet, that China is most interested in assisting the Afghan military with tons of equipment, aircraft, trainers and both combat and combat service support. The combat service support piece is, to be honest, about 10 times more important than contractors advising at the battalion level. And I think having contractors take on that role is a good idea, particularly in the cost effectiveness category.
The Chinese, like Mr. Prince, are also interested in mineral extraction which can only be accomplished with significant infrastructure development that can only be accomplished if people stop blowing things up and shooting at the ANSF.
Unlike Mr. Prince the Chinese are self funding, and there are more of them, but my understanding is there is significant pushback from both the US and India on the matter. Which may not, in the long run, matter because the donor money has already started to dry up and that trend will continue. If the Chinese really want to come into Afghanistan and invest in both security and natural resource development I don’t see a better option.
As long as Secretary Mattis and General Dunford remain in their respective positions both the Prince and Chinese plans are D.O.A. But both Kahlizad and President Trump are practical men who are not afraid of counter narrative options. The narrative is a product of elite thinking and the billions spent on credentialed elites, both in and outside the government, to think, has not produced in reasonable path forward. What the elites don’t think about is the fact that they have little idea what is happening in Afghanistan outside the wire of our embassy and military installations. If they could get their brains around that and mitigate it maybe reality and the narrative would come in closer alignment.
But that ain’t happening and I do not believe the elites narrative will survive much more contact with reality.
There are some interesting things happening in Afghanistan that could spell an end to our involvement there. What are the chances that our Department of State and Pentagon will capitalize on it? Zero.
My second podcast is up and as a reminder once I get a few more done I’ll be using a service to get these out as listening podcasts on iTunes and Goggle Play. Links from the material used for the show are below.
This is a Martha Raddatz interview with Dr Dave in which she tours OBL’s old house with the Taj “security team” that consisted of Baba Tim . I’m not only a one man security detail but also the driver as you can see if you look closely. The shit I would do without pay or bitching for my buddies ……Despite this interview and the NPR interview we were never able to raise funds.
As Afghanistan fades into the rear view mirror interests in the conflict wanes as does the desire to learn lesson’s that were paid for by the lives of both combatants and innocents. In an attempt to highlight some of the observations I’ve made over the years I’m venturing into the world of podcasting in an effort to determine if I can mimic the success of the masters. Dan Carlin, Daniele Bolelli, Darryl Cooper, Joe Rogan, Jocko Willink and Dave Rubin have excellent podcasts some focused on history some on current events and they are consistently interesting.
This first episode is on the Lone Survivor incident which was an easy one to do because virtually everything people remember about it is false. Once a put up a few more of these my. plan is to your an audio podcast service to get them on iTunes and Goggleplay to see if I can carve out a niche. Enjoy.
Editors Note: This post is worth investing some time to digest. The author, Jake Allen, has an excellent, thought provoking, response to my latest post on Afghanistan. Jake, a former Marine infantry officer and a good friend asks the hard questions on our current efforts in Afghanistan. A mini bio for Jake is located at the end of this post.
Last week’s post by Babatim posed as interesting question “Will Security Sector Assistance Work in Afghanistan?” His observations on the current inadequacies as well as his prescribed solutions was certainly thought-provoking.
Sure, who could argue the merits of and need for basic military leadership and esprit de corps borne of shared commitment and sacrifice at the small unit level. Aligning ANSF with regional tribal leaders (warlords) would most likely be a tactical improvement to the current arrangement which clearly isn’t getting results. And, replacing the NATO military train and assist teams with private contractors, who might be willing to engage in combat, could reduce overall costs, although that’s debatable if, as Babatim suggests, tactical air support and other expensive support would remain part of the package. In any case, on its face, it all seems logical.
However, Babatim’s observations and suggestion, true as they may be, only prompt a much more important set of questions. Like, what would we achieve by changing our tactics this way? A decentralized Afghanistan run by dozens of autonomous regional warlords sounds a lot like Afghanistan in the 1990s. After 15+ years, thousands of KIA/WIA and over $800 billion taxpayer dollars spent is “rebuilding” Afghanistan in the image of its former self now the goal? I’m reminded of Sun Tzu’s admonition that, “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, while tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” After 15 years I think it’s safe to say we are at best on the slow path.
If this were truly a binary choice between using military or private contractors, then I support the later for all the reasons Babatim outlined and for one major one he didn’t. Transitioning to private contractors would help preserve the military’s reputation as they departed the stage. Let’s face it, General after General have devised plans that simply have not achieved lasting results. In truth, I place more blame on our elected civilian leaders and the State Department, but I’ll leave that for another post. In any event, if the military could be seen to be following orders to withdraw while handing the baton to private contractors it would largely give them the top-cover they need to execute a tactical retreat with their dignity intact. If all that ends up costing somebody less money, then so much the better. But question remains, why does that somebody have to be U.S. taxpayers who haven’t even been born yet? Why should future generations of Americans be forced to pay for new tactics, even at a lower price, when no real strategy for Afghanistan exists?
Let’s be clear, for Afghans, duping well-meaning but ignorant foreigners into funding their wars is the national pastime. The artistry and skill of separating foreigners from their money has been passed down from fathers to sons among regional tribal elders and modern-day politicians for millennia. Simply stated, this is what they do.
We should be asking, if these new proposed tactics, aligning ANSF with warlords and privatizing the train and assist missions are so necessary, beneficial and cost-effective why aren’t the warlords themselves willing to make the financial investment? After all, they will effectively be securing their own regional kingdom for future generations.
Or…maybe, just maybe, this is merely the next western tactic the Afghans are willing to go along with since old paleface is willing to pay for it. Sorry, but I’ve heard these shepherds crying wolf too many times before. I’m willing to wager that when the Taliban push these warlords too far they’ll find all the Muj they need without U.S. taxpayer money. As a matter of self-preservation, they’ll literally have the rest of their lives to solve the problem, or not.
Still, if it’s funding they so desperately need to pay the privateers’ invoices, why can’t the Qataris, Emiratis or Saudis pay for it? They have the money, whereas the U.S. doesn’t, and aren’t they equally committed to preventing the spread of Islamic extremism? No, both the Arabs and the Afghans know that only western powers fall for these scams.
If President Trump is the skilled negotiator he claims he should remind our Afghan counterparts and allies that the universe has a natural order. The fittest and most committed tend to survive. So, if it is the case that the Taliban simply have more “want to” when it comes to controling Afghanistan then there’s really nothing money can buy to square that circle. The Taliban’s moral will likely be 3 times greater than anything physical that can be purchased, and the results will be inevitable.
President Trump should tell our so-called Afghan friends that we are OK with that. Remind them that two previous presidential administrations have tried mightily for over 15 years to help the Afghan people and it hasn’t worked. We’re now ready to try something else. As the world’s greatest deal-maker the President should make it clear that the U.S. is open to negotiating with their vanquishers for a while to see if he can get a better deal with for the U.S. I mean, how much worse could that actually be? Probably not a whole lot worse and at least we could use the $45 billion earmarked for Afghanistan in 2018 alone to instead rebuild infrastructure in the U.S. The fact is, the U.S. doesn’t need Afghanistan nearly as much as they need us. We have all the leverage in any negotiation.
But as I said, our choices aren’t, or at least they shouldn’t be. There is a third way forward, and it’s one that has a chance of being successful. President Trump should form a team of advisors to develop an actual tangible goal and strategy to achieve it. The process goes like this:
First Level Questions: What is the end-game? What does “success” even look like? How do we measure incremental progress and ultimate success so that the American people, our Afghan counterparts and not least our enemies know that we’ve achieved our goal(s)? Maybe privateers are the correct means to the end. But WTF is the end? What is the Commander’s (in Chief) Intent and the Final Result Desired (FRD)? If we cannot do this then we shouldn’t stay in Afghanistan.
Next Level Questions: Is that FRD realistic and achievable? Do most of the Afghan people share in the vision? If not, then at best they are a passive terrain feature to navigate around and at worst they are an active force providing aid and comfort to the enemy. For the sake of argument let’s just assume that the FRD is overwhelmingly supported by the Afghans. What then is the estimated cost to the U.S. in terms of blood and treasure to achieve it? How many years, how many lives would we need to commit? How many billions of dollars of debt would we need to incur?
Level 3 Questions: Only after Levels 1 and 2 are complete can we finally ask ourselves: Is the cost to achieve that FRD worth it? What does the US get in return for our investment? If you think turning Afghanistan into a modern society would guarantee the security of our homeland you’re dead wrong. In the past 15 years, while we have been dicking-around chasing ghosts our enemy (Islamic terrorism) adapted and moved on. The enemy no longer requires remote “safe havens” in places like Helmand province to plan attacks on our homeland. And even if they have a few safe havens our current ability to detect and destroy them is light years ahead of where it was in 2001. So, ask yourself, what are we really getting in return for our investment?
But I doubt President Trump will form the committee or if he does they can’t or won’t clearly state a Final Result Desired. Not because the questions above are hard to answer, they aren’t. Rather the answers these questions produce cannot be sold to the American people which means new tactics are just the noise before eventual defeat.
Jake Allen is a co-founder and Managing Partner at the Mozayix International, a leading private security consultancy. He has more than 15 years experience providing private security services in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Turkey and Ukraine. Prior to his contracting career he served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Taliban has been busy reminding the United States and her allies in Afghanistan that the moral is to the physical as three is to one. They have done this by side stepping our Security Sector Assistance (SSA) efforts in the Helmand and Nangarhar provinces by hitting the Afghan state where it is weak. Launching two large attacks inside the ‘Ring of Steel’ of Kabul (attacking the Intercontinental Hotel and the checkpoint outside the old Ministry of the Interior) and hitting a western NGO (Save the Children) in Jalalabad, the capitol of Nangarhar province.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released a report last September revealing that 60% of the funds expended since 2002, some 70 Billion dollars, were spent on developing Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF). In this report he listed several reasons why our efforts have borne little fruit.
The U.S. government was ill-prepared to conduct SSA programs of the size and scope required in Afghanistan. The lack of commonly understood interagency terms, concepts, and models for SSA undermined communication and coordination, damaged trust, intensified frictions, and contributed to initial gross under-resourcing of the U.S. effort to develop the ANDSF.
Initial U.S. plans for Afghanistan focused solely on U.S. military operations and did not include the construction of an Afghan army, police, or supporting ministerial-level institutions.
Early U.S. partnerships with independent militias—intended to advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives—ultimately undermined the creation and role of the ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP).
Critical ANDSF capabilities, including aviation, intelligence, force management, and special forces, were not included in early U.S., Afghan, and NATO force-design plans
Providing advanced Western weapons and management systems to a largely lliterate and uneducated force without appropriate training and institutional infrastructure created long-term dependencies, required increased U.S. scale support, and extended sustainability timelines.
To answer some of these shortfalls the US Army is developing Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) that will be tailored to the mission and free up brigade combat teams. This idea, based on sound theory, will not work in practice. It won’t work for the same reasons it’s not working now; limited dwell time in country, high turnover of key personnel and the unwillingness to partner with host nation military units in combat.
Mentoring host nation military units does not take special classes on cultural awareness (although these help) or dedicated personnel; it takes the commitment to go into battle. It also takes sharing the same misery your local soldiers experience while demonstrating the leadership, tenacity and discipline required to prevail in the counterinsurgency fight.
As I pointed out in this post we know how to do it. Our problem is that we are too big and too complex organizationally to reinforce the limited success in the SSA mission we have achieved on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Former Marine and current Undersecretary of Defense Owen West wrote a book on how his team, and the ones that preceded him, did it in Iraq. American Spartan was another great book about a superb SF officer named Jim Gant who also broke the code on how to mentor in Afghanistan although he was not in the SAA role when he did it.
The Gant experience is important when dealing specifically with Afghanistan. As noted in the SIGAR report the central weakness of our Afghan assistance mission has been the inability of the central government to eliminate corruption and develop the efficiency needed to equip and maintain a professional military force. Jim Gant went into the most kinetic province of Afghanistan (Kunar) and stabilized a good portion of it by training up and directly supporting tribal militias. He accepted the reality that the central government will never control or be accepted by the hill Pashtuns living in the Hindu Kush.
The government in Kabul was established by and is currently maintained by the might of the American military (and her allies). We are westerners, we are not Muslims, we are attempting to create a system that is not organic to the people or region. It will not work.
The original Taskforce Southwest, with BGen Roger Turner at the helm has turned over with a new task force headed up by BGen Ben Watson. Turners Marines, who stayed inside the wire while mentoring ANSF, helped drive the incident rate down in Helmand province. They accomplished their mission and have brought some time and space for the Afghan army and national police. The big T Taliban have responded by hitting the Afghan government where its weak and where it hurts; inside the Ring of Steel in downtown Kabul. This is classical insurgent tactics; where the government is strong they are weak; where the government is weak they attack.
We have spent 70 Billion and counting to stabilize a country that is so unstable that our own diplomats and military cannot drive 2 miles from the international airport in Kabul to our own embassy. And it’s straight shot, down one road.
The center of gravity for both the Taliban and the central government is the people of Afghanistan. The SIGAR report identified our early partnership with militias as having undermined the creation and role of the ANA and National Police. This may be true but it is also irrelevant. Ignoring the powerful regional warlords while trying to marginalize them has consistently failed.
The current hit film, 12 Strong, portrays two of them, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Nur. Dostum was given a place in the central government by Karzai (Deputy Minister of Defense) and is currently the First Vice President of Afghanistan. Both positions were designed to sideline him and he has spent years in Turkey to avoid prosecution for killing political rivals and the Dash-i-Leili massacre of 2000 Taliban in 2001. Atta Muhammad Nur has been the governor of Balkh province sine 2004. In 2014 the current president fired all 34 provincial governors but Nur has refused to leave office and remains there to this day.
Both Nur and Dostum can raise and field thousands of Mujahideen. They may not be the type of leaders we would like to deal with but we are already dealing with and supporting them in official capacities that limit them and that’s not helping us. I wrote here about Ismail Khan who controls the western city of Herat and why it would be a good idea to bring his Muj into the fight. There is also Abdul Karim Brahui, former governor of Nimroz province and one of the warlords who was effective against the Soviets and Taliban and has never been accused of human rights violations. That’s just four of the dozens of local leaders who could raise Muj forces.
Trying to explain how the USG works to Governor Brahui in 2011
If the Afghan central government is not going to work (and it isn’t) then the only way forward is to incorporate ANSF units with the forces of regional warlords. The warlords bring a sizable chunk of the population with them; it’s that simple. The people are the prize and the central government doesn’t represent the people, regional warlords do because in Afghanistan that’s the way it is.
The US military could have worked wonders embedding with these warlords like they did in 2001 but that window has closed. The only rational way forward is to incorporate Mujahideen into the fight against the Taliban by using contractors for liaison and access to American enablers (Tac Air, Drone feeds, Artillery etc..). These contractors need to be already known to and accepted by the warlords (that pool of men is larger than most would suspect).
I emphasize rational because rational people care about how expensive things are and the US Armed Forces are too damn expensive. Check this article out about the new SF Battle Buggies. Contractors don’t need million dollar battle buggies – they’ll use the same beat up Toyota Hi-Lux trucks the Muj are using. We’re a cheap date and yes this argument is self serving; limit the selection pool to guys who are known and accepted by warlords and I’m back in the game (inshallah).
These are nice and I’m all for giving the men serving the best protection we have but it’s damn expensive. Contractors don’t need them…we’ll take the big paycheck (and adventure) instead.
I know my assessment and recommendations will fall on deaf ears just as the SIGAR report from last September did. That’s too bad because we’re still spending a fortune on a failed strategy. We’re still losing servicemen too because the Army is sending advisors into combat with the Afghans in Nangarhar province while the Marines are not doing that in Helmand province. If we had a competent press corps that would the story they would be out to answer. But that’s not going to happen so ‘we the people’ have little idea what exactly is happening with the cash were expending and troops we are sending to Afghanistan.
That’s a shame too because we made promises to the Afghans that we are not keeping. The inability to keep your promises is bad for individuals (see Jordan Peterson’s excellent 12 Rules for Life for a detailed explanation why) and bad for countries too.
