Afghanistan

  The failure to prepare for Afghanistan’s next war, a Pushtun insurgency supported from sanctuaries in Pakistan, limited investment by aid donors—Afghanistan itself was generating minimal internal revenue—in Kabul’s security and law enforcement capabilities.517 Few foreigners, their attention fixed on Kabul and warlords, focused on southern Afghanistan before the insurgency opened, and did not perceive the mixture of ineffective rule by local nominally pro-Kabul Pushtuns and the ability of the insurgents to fill the power vacuum this created as potentially explosive. The US and coalition military presence in the south, before ISAF arrived, was limited to a few battalions and some special operations forces. In 2001–04, the US approach to Afghan security depended on eliminating foreign support for a renewed insurgency (especially from Pakistan) and the Musharraf government following up on its commitments as a major ally in the “Global War on Terror.” Instead there was the continuation of the policies ISI had backed for decades, with their continued reliance that they could control terrorists and insurgents on their territory and use them in Afghanistan for their own ends.

  In 2005–06, the realization slowly came over US and Afghans alike that the lack of a unified command with a coherent strategy had created an unsustainable situation. 2006 was a pivotal year for Afghanistan’s insurgency. Only then was the situation in southern Afghanistan—a well-resourced insurgency with sanctuaries in Pakistan—taken seriously. The migration of terrorist tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to the Afghan insurgents was shown by the rise of suicide bombings from 21 in 2005 to 118 in 2006. All suicide attacks increased from 27 to 139, IEDs from 783 to 1677, and armed attacks from 1,300 to 4,542. In August 2006, NATO took over operations in southern Afghanistan. The war expanded in size and scope: an estimated 8–9,000 insurgents in the field, 1,250 Afghans killed in the three months of summer 2006. While signs of instability emerged outside the south and east, those areas remained the focus of the insurgency.

  In 2007, more troops were deployed, leading to less dependency on airstrikes, thus mitigating collateral damage. However, there was still a 27 percent rise in insurgent-initiated violence, mostly in the hotbed south. In the south, the Canadians and Netherlands forces bore the brunt of these attacks, demonstrating a sophisticated insurgent strategy aimed at fracturing the alliance. The increase in the number of insurgent actions was some 30 percent higher in the first quarter of 2008 than the comparable period in 2007. Cross-border attacks increased from 20 a month in March 2007 to 53 in April 2008. By 2008, it was increasingly apparent that in addition to the areas in the south and east where the insurgents had established control or at least had an internal presence, more areas in central and eastern provinces including Wardak, Laghman, and Logar saw increased levels of violence, making the limited headway gained by troop increases starting in 2007 unable to turn around a deteriorating security situation in 2008. In May 2008, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte described the continued influx from Pakistan as “unacceptable,” the strongest public language directed at that country since 2001.

  The US military, though it had the bulk of its attention focused on Iraq during this period, again proved to be an institution that can learn and evolve. It shifted to aiming to do what ADM Eric Olson, SOCOM combatant commander, described as “change what is currently a habitat conducive to terrorism.”518 The evolution in US COIN doctrine reversed the 2001–04 failure to engage with grassroots Afghanistan and has been described as emphasizing “the protection of the population and recognized that the only way to secure people is to live among them.”519

  This led to the operational approach described as “shape, clear, hold and build,” implemented starting in 2008.520 It attempted to apply lessons from Iraq and set out in a new US counter-insurgency military field manual.521 It starts with shaping an area through information operations and non-military action that run concurrently through the entire campaign, followed by military action to clear the insurgents from the area and separate them from the population that is the objective of this approach; holding is provided by creating a capability for governance and building through enabling reconstruction and development. The new operational approach demonstrated an increased awareness that counter-insurgency was primarily a non-military process and required increased coordination with political and developmental efforts.522 The “shape, clear, hold and build” operational approach was demonstrated first by US and Polish troops moving into Wardak and Logar provinces in autumn 2008.

  Making this new approach possible is an increased emphasis on “shaping” an area before coalition forces go in. In addition to the psychological operations and information warfare that will both precede troop presence and run concurrently with it, this “shaping” will aim to identify what the local population wants and see that what follows the coalition forces—the restoration of Afghan government authority—is effective, meets local needs, and does not leave a power vacuum for the insurgents to refill after only a few months. Yet the weakness of the Afghan government has meant that, even when coalition forces succeed in clearing the insurgents from an area, it is difficult for them to establish rule of law, provide governance and economic development to the locals, and help them realize their aspirations. “You can make a difference by making them safe but how can you have better governance?” asked BG Blanchette.523 This is where the final element of this new operational approach—“build”—will really come into play, the building of an effective civil society as well as providing physical reconstruction.

  The insurgents responded to the new operational approach not by fighting for the population but by mounting increased asymmetric offensive operations. In January through April 2009, compared with the year before, there was a 64 percent increase in insurgent attacks,524 an 80 percent increase in the IED attacks that caused sixty percent of coalition and Afghan government casualities,525 and a 90 percent increase in attacks on Afghan officials and district centers.526 These attacks, coupled by the increased exposure resulting from getting out among the population, has led to increased casualties, with coalition deaths up by 55 percent and ANSF deaths by 25 percent in April 2009 from the year before. Rather than try to stop coalition and Afghan actions, the insurgents have instead aimed at making their presence outside their fortified forward area bases (FoBs) and among the Afghan population too costly to sustain. While seeking to protect the population, this new operational approach put more coalition forces into harm’s way. At the same time, the coalition has withdrawn many smaller outposts in remote and border areas that appeared to be offering the insurgents targets rather than protecting Afghans. Part of the rationale is also to demonstrate to the Afghan people that military operations can help their security; in 2009 polling, the percentage of Afghans saying that US/NATO/ISAF forces had a strong local presence declined to 34 percent from 57 percent in 2006, while those saying that they provide effective security declined to 42 percent from 67 percent in 2009.527

  In 2009, the “shape, clear, hold and build” operational concept was applied to the Helmand River valley, where it was apparent that even when US and coalition forces were “living amongst them,” the insurgents could use the ties of kinship, tribe, or the threat of future, violent retribution to keep their hold on the population. Repeatedly when coalition forces have cleared insurgents from an area, there was no Afghan government capability able to backfill behind them. This made it difficult for coalition forces to start providing the locals with a better alternative to allegiance, or at least cooperation, with the insurgents. It was also apparent that there would be a long way to go before the Afghan National Security Forces had either the numbers or the training to take over the “hold” or the Afghan government could provide the “build.” Thus, the numbers of Afghan National Army (ANA) and ANP personnel, minimized in the early years of the coalition presence, needed to be increased and increased again to aid the in last two elements of this operational approach. The Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy review in March 2009 led to
a prolonged consideration of increased troops levels requested by US Army GEN Stanley McChrystal, which was approved in December 2009. “Shape, clear, hold and build” as an operational approach—not a strategy—provides a potentially effective way to use military and non-military assets to combat the insurgency. It does not answer the question of how best to achieve the desired end-state in Afghanistan.

  Special Operations and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

  Coalition special operation forces (SOF) were a success in 2001, but when the direction of the war shifted and was seen as demanding more conventional warfare, SOF assumed a secondary role, although, since then, they have still been heavily involved throughout Afghanistan. In addition to targeting insurgent commanders by direct action and using their reconnaissance missions to call in firepower, special operations forces have proved effective when they acted as “hammer” while larger forces were the “anvil” to defeat an insurgent presence. Using intelligence developed by the “anvil” presence in an area, the “hammer” provided maneuver, often driving insurgents out of secure areas and into the firepower of the “anvil.” This was effectively done with coalition special operations in Uruzgan before the Dutch moved in during 2005–06.528 Effective cooperation between the Dutch and SOF—especially the Australian SAS—has continued since then. For example, SOF targeted the local Taliban commander Baz Mohammed in 2007, which led to divisions within the insurgents as there were disputes over who would succeed him, making insurgent operations less effective for months thereafter.529 In 2009, increased US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) operations in Afghanistan were targeting insurgent leaders.530

  MG Mark Milley described coalition SOF as “critical to our overall effort of full-spectrum counter-insurgency operations. Special operations target leaders of the insurgency and target networks, whose cellular structure otherwise makes them hard to locate and defeat. Their use must complement conventional forces. Conventional force operations set the conditions for special operations. . . . Interdicting the enemy on the ratlines is fundamental to what we do.”531 He stated that the existence of a separate chain of command for SOF did not undercut their coordination: “Every special operation in Regional Command-East must be coordinated and approved. We do not command the forces, but RC-E owns the battlespace.” With SOCOM functioning as a supporting commander in Afghanistan, special operations must be coordinated with CENTCOM, and, through it, the regional commands in Afghanistan and their tactical units. CENTCOM also controls its own special operations forces, and these must be coordinated in a similar way.

  Special operations have been an important part of coalition intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts, gathering intelligence through contact with Afghans in areas away from conventional forces or with covert observation posts. MG Mark Milley described coalition ISR as having greatly improved since 2008. “ISR incorporates patrols, human intelligence, space-based platforms, UAVs, signals intelligence, and full-motion video. We see improvements every 90 days. The intelligence community is on a steep upwards slope of improvement.”

  Others, however, had a less optimistic view; one Afghan official said: “The coalition is good at seeing, less good at understanding.” Despite improved technology such as the use of UAVs, providing the close integration of intelligence and operational commands that is vital in counter-insurgency conflicts has often proven difficult to achieve by US and coalition forces. Counter-insurgency warfare puts the emphasis on providing operational intelligence to the small unit level, and this continued to be lacking in many cases. Battalions often do not have their own UAV capability. In April 2008, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, expressing a concern that the US services were not moving fast enough to provide needed ISR capabilities, formed an ISR task force to assess requirements and meet operational needs. CENTCOM formed its own ISR Task Force.

  Indeed, understanding has often been far behind collection capability, but efforts have been made to provide military leaders with more in-depth knowledge on the Afghan and human dimension of the situation, for example, by the US investment in deployed human terrain teams (HTTs) able to bring expertise about the local population and their customs and behavior to support forces in the field, who otherwise would lack specialist insights to assist their task of knowing and “understanding.”

  ISR is currently in the hands of the coalition. Coalition HUMINT, vital in other counter-insurgency situations, has been more limited, reflecting language and cultural barriers and their deployment in forward operating bases rather than right in the villages.532 Afghan defense minister Rahim Wardak greatly regrets the Afghan National Army’s (ANA’s) lack of an independent ISR capability.533 The Afghan National Police (ANP) still lacks an intelligence capability that can build on its contacts within the population and thus make this information available to their coalition allies where it is needed the most.534

  However, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the “Amaniyat,” the National Directorate of Security (NDS), is generally considered a success by coalition and Afghan observers alike. Its director, Amrullah Saleh, has a reputation for competence and rectitude and is considered (along with Atmar, the interior minister and Mohammed Asif Rahimi, the agriculture minister) to be one of the brightest and sharpest of a new generation of Afghan leaders. Pakistani observers have claimed that this organization is heavily influenced by India and that it has carried out political warfare and terrorism inside Pakistan, but this dissenting view should not undercut their importance.535 However, the Pakistani perceptions of the NDS as an adversary reportedly led to the assassination of the deputy director of the NDS, Dr. Abdullah Laghmani, in September 2009; he had reportedly been targeted by ISI for a decade, and his death has been a loss to security efforts in Afghanistan.536 The NDS is a large service, runs multiple networks of informers, and has had success infiltrating terrorist and insurgent groups as well as narcotics traffickers, making the continued coalition support and engagement with this Afghan agency important for any future successes.537

  Potential for a Broader Insurgency

  By 2008–09, insurgent groups in Afghanistan were made up of only a minority of one of Afghanistan’s ethnolinguistic groups, the Pushtuns. But tensions between the current government in Kabul, with its Pushtun leaders but significant non-Pushtun power, and Afghans of other ethnolinguistic groups have caused instability to spread beyond the Pushtun districts that have been the hotbed of the insurgency. The widespread dissatisfaction of non-Pushtuns with the Karzai government became too virulent to be ignored on 29 May 2006, when a road accident with a coalition convoy in Kabul led to large-scale rioting, started by Panjsheris, which soon spread to other groups as the government’s weakness and inability to deal with the situation made resentment toward foreigners a magnet for broader disaffection.538

  In the north of Afghanistan, the security threat is from Pushtun insurgents, mainly from the population that has lived in these majority Dari and Turkic-speaking provinces since King Abdur Rahman resettled them in the nineteenth century. These provinces also have suffered from the local culture of corruption and criminal activity, neither limited to Pushtuns. In 2008–10, it was apparent that weapons from the more secure northern and western areas of Afghanistan were ending up in the hands of the insurgents in the south and east. These weapons originated in areas where opium production has been cut back, which included almost all of the non-Pushtun areas of Afghanistan, and therefore illicit trading in other valued commodities had the opportunity to thrive. The weapons were sold to traders and resold to the insurgents, largely in Pakistan’s border bazaars such as Wana and Parachinar.

  By 2008–10, criminality in northern Afghanistan was increasing, although it was not as severe as in southern and eastern Afghanistan.539 Some criminals in otherwise secure areas have made common cause with those in authority with whom they share ethnolinguistic or other links, often by being former comrades in arms from previous conflicts. Criminals in the south and east are often e
ffectively protected by insurgents who prevent government action against them. Many of these criminals claim to be Afghan Taliban, but really it is the actual Afghan Taliban to whom they owe protection for the very ability to function. This practice has led the Afghan Taliban to create an “ombudsman” function to resolve complaints against them by grassroots Afghans.

  By 2008, the German forces stationed in the north reported a sizable increase in violence by other non-Pushtun ethnolinguistic groups, reflecting increased resentment toward the Kabul regime and its coalition allies. The security situation in the north deteriorated soon thereafter. The Afghan Taliban had made a deliberate effort to increase their activities in the north in response to pre-election counter-insurgent offensives by coalition forces in the south during 2008–09. Kunduz, a Pushtun city in a largely Tajik province, became the flashpoint for the increasing insurgency in the north.540 Kunduz has been the focus of the German military commitment for a number of years. The Germans’ restrictive national caveats and rules of engagement (RoE) have been seen as contributing to increased insurgent control, especially in the districts around Kunduz city and northward to the border with Tajikistan. Insurgency has also increased in Badghis province, where the Spanish coalition forces stationed there are similarly restricted by their national command authorities.541