My Share of the Task

by General Stanley McChrystal

  One of the strongmen to emerge from that time was Nasim Akhundzada, a mullah from Musa Qalah. A devout, effective man, Nasim rose quickly in one of Helmand’s most prominent anti-Soviet insurgent groups. The fighting in Helmand, however, quickly got messy and the factions began fighting one another, not just the Soviets. They pursued criminal, tribal, and family feuds under the guise of jihad. In this grapple, Mullah Nasim showed himself tenacious. He reportedly executed his prisoners—Russians and Afghans alike—buried them, and then sat and ate his meals on the platform he built overtop the soil of their graves.

  The anti-Soviet war was good for Nasim’s family; his personal ascendance gave the Akhundzadas a prestige they previously lacked. Looking to transform his martial clout into a political and economic franchise, Nasim brought the province an innovation: The expansion of poppy. Though farmers had long grown the bulb-headed crop in the arid, northern tip of Helmand, he succeeded in integrating it down through the agricultural band of the snowmelt-fed Helmand River, where the vast majority of Helmandis live, and into the province’s south. He expanded his work under a fatwa he issued in 1981, justifying the seemingly unholy trade of opium by citing the poverty of the river valley farmers. As Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, Nasim contacted the U.S. embassy in Pakistan and offered to shut down the opium trade exchange for two million dollars. He was on his way to doing so when assassinated by a rival faction that stood to lose from the eradication. Nasim left behind the structures of a durable drug cartel, which became the Akhundzada family business.

  The withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989 only exacerbated the fray among insurgents-turned-barons and pettier gangs of criminals. Amid these clashes over land, money, and ideology, the population of Helmand suffered. Most of Helmand’s roadways became a checkerboard of roadblocks where militia commanders and local gangs shook down passersby.

  When the Taliban arrived in 1994, and dispensed with these warlords and their client gangs, the Akhundzadas put up only brief resistance. Instead, they retreated to Pakistan. It was there the family became close with another exiled Pashtun family—the Karzais.

  Across the border in Helmand, the Taliban program took hold with relative ease. Especially in the province’s sparser areas where a rural, conservative Islam was the norm, the simple religious dogmatism of the Taliban found a sympathetic audience. But the sharia was strict, and Helmandis lost their right to music, flying kites, and dogfighting. Worse, the Taliban showed themselves unqualified to bring about any substantive economic or infrastructural improvements. Thus began the dilemma of the Helmandis, which persisted in 2009, to be caught between the usurious militarism of warlords and the harsh, incompetent rule of the Taliban.

  With the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, it was the Taliban’s turn to flee across the border to Pakistan. When President Karzai returned to Afghanistan and sought a strong anti-Taliban force to install in Helmand, he turned to the clan with the roots and connections to subdue the province: the Akhundzadas. At the ready was Nasim’s nephew, Sher Mohammad, whom Karzai made the provincial governor in 2001. Worst among the old comrades, the Akhundzadas brought back into power was a man named Abdul Rahman Jan, who became the tyrannical provincial police chief. He ruled a small district called Marjah as his own drug-financed fiefdom, where he and his men stole boys from local families for their sexual pleasure.

  From a distance, their rule gave an appearance of stability; up close, the population chafed. While violence in Helmand only simmered after 2001, small groups of Taliban trickled back into the province and mustered networks of aggrieved locals. Abdul Rahman Jan became the frequent posterboy of insurgents’ propaganda, and a steady refrain in their stirring sermons.

  The situation in Helmand began changing rapidly toward the end of 2005. The British were preparing to deploy a brigade-size task force to the province as part of wider NATO effort to reclaim momentum from the Taliban across the country. Understandably seeking a better governmental partner than Akhundzada after authorities found him with nine metric tons of opium inside the governor’s office, the British pressured Karzai to replace him as governor. Such a move would be a family matter: Perhaps to prevent feuding, or to gain a foothold in the other’s sphere of influence, Sher Mohammad and President’s Karzai’s half brother Ahmed Wali Karzai had married two sisters. Karzai relented under British demands, however, and removed Akhundzada in December 2005 by promoting him to parliament, away in Kabul.

  Akhundzada’s ouster came just months before the Taliban’s deliberate 2006 offensive into Helmand, led in full force by Mullah Dadullah Lang in February. In spite of a greater Coalition presence—forces grew with the deployment of British troops in April 2006, and by late 2007 they numbered seven thousand soldiers—the Taliban made serious inroads. The insurgency was soon strong enough that British forces were challenged to move outside of the network of small bases they had established. Many were essentially besieged inside sandbagged outposts the Taliban had surrounded with a “reef” of mines and improvised booby traps that made simply leaving base time-consuming and treacherous. Intentions to establish an “Afghan development zone” around Lashkar Gah and Gereshk were frustrated. Among the last places taken by the insurgency, in August 2008, was Marjah. It was rumored that Abdul Rahman Jan, seeking to discredit the new governor and give cause to bring back his patron Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, had let his district fall to the Taliban.

  While the Taliban had grown stronger, their strength throughout the province derived more from the poor character of existing governance than the appeal of their narrative. In the areas they took over, the Taliban eased the population back into their rule, allowing music and dogfighting again, and looking the other way when men went without turbans and a beard. Dadullah’s ranks swelled as he gained local recruits in the districts that fell under his sway. He and the insurgency were able to leverage a natural xenophobia and some religious extremism. But for many the motivation for supporting the insurgency was to resist the Kabul government, whose face in Helmand had been that of the Akhundzada clan. We believed that if we could address the underlying problems of predatory governance and corruption, we could help establish secure zones along the Helmand River valley.

  That summer, as we introduced new forces in a widened effort, we did so fully cognizant that ISAF’s track record in Helmand was unimpressive. Both conventional and special operations forces had successfully targeted the insurgents. But many operations had inflicted damage on homes and caused civilian casualties, unintentionally undermining our effort. We intended that future operations would be different by including a robust Afghan component, having enough manpower to maintain areas once they were secured, and offering a more effective program of creating governance free of warlords.

  The strategy was neither new nor guaranteed to work. It was a version of the “ink spot” approach French General Lyautey made famous in Madagascar and Morocco and one often adopted in counterinsurgency campaigns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The concept called for providing secure zones inside which the population could be protected, governed, and allowed to conduct economic activity free from insurgent pressure. The theory held that as people were free to live their lives, this would enhance the government’s legitimacy and strength. And as these domains of government control expanded—like inkblots seeping on a page—they would conjoin. The United States’ counterinsurgency doctrine, which outlined the steps of “clear, hold, and build,” was a manifestation of this approach. That summer, we added “sustain” as a fourth tenet. Success in counterinsurgency was less dependent upon the brilliance of the strategy—the concept is not that hard to understand—than it was on the execution. Counterinsurgency is easy to prescribe, difficult to perform.

  * * *

  In order to gain a sense of the early stages of the fight in Helmand Province, on June 25 I visited the British soldiers of the Black Watch who had been the first into Babaji. Standing in
a damaged compound they’d cleared and were now using as a temporary base, I met with these soldiers and their leaders. With wisps of smoke, the aftereffects of combat, floating through the air, they told how, in the scorching heat of the Afghan summer, they and their comrades had methodically cleared compounds of insurgents and countless IEDs buried beneath the dirt or built into the mud walls of homes and alleyways. Their dead and wounded, more than one hundred men, had been evacuated. But after only several days of fighting, even the unwounded gathered around me looked gaunt and weary, their matted hair blanched and skin yellowed from the film of sand clinging to it. And this was early in their current six-month tour in Afghanistan.

  After talking with the soldiers and being struck by the details of the fighting, we moved by helicopter a few kilometers to the south to meet with a group of Afghan elders in a quiet, shaded spot alongside an irrigation ditch. The war seemed distant as we sat under a small tree. Tea was served, conversation was careful and nonconfrontational. The elders had only a vague appreciation for the position I held, and weren’t awed by four stars. After some thirty to forty minutes, one of the elders responded to our offer to build roads, schools, and bridges. He hesitated for a moment, as if pondering his answer.

  “It is security that must come first,” he said, looking me in the eyes as the interpreter translated. “Security is the mother of all development.”

  In the end, the villagers were hospitable but cautious. They would not commit themselves to any side until convinced it was safe to do so. Theirs was “brutally rational behavior,” I reminded my team. “Exactly what we’d do in their position.” Like most people caught in this kind of warfare, they were simple people who couldn’t afford the luxury of backing the side they hoped would win over the side they believed would. In Helmand, we had cleared parts of the province during each of the last four summers, only in many cases to leave without holding the terrain won. ISAF’s history of doing so left the people increasingly skeptical of our promises—and fearful of the violence they knew a fresh Western assault augured. The villagers knew from experience how easily the Taliban seeped back into the pockets we vacated. That summer, insurgents had been punishing “spies” and “collaborators” thought to be working with NATO or the Karzai government. A single Taliban night letter could undo weeks of grueling ISAF fighting.

  As the Brits continued disrupting Taliban routes and havens north of Helmand’s capital, the Marines focused their efforts south of it. On July 2, four thousand Marines launched Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, into the Nawa and Garmsir districts. In the weeks and months that followed, in multiple locations along the river valley, operations continued with the Marines, Brits, Estonians, and other Coalition forces. Along with their Afghan partners, they did the slow, gritty work of rooting out insurgents, establishing security, then laboring to institute the first small shoots of Afghan government control. The face of counterinsurgency was typically the grimy mug of a young sergeant and his small squad or platoon walking patrols and leading beardless young warriors in protecting markets and clearing roads.

  To some observers, a counterinsurgency “ink spot” strategy seemed ill-fitted for Helmand. It was a largely rural province with only 4 percent of Afghanistan’s population, and its capital city, Lashkar Gah, was home to just over one hundred thousand. But the Helmand River valley was a key geographic center for the south—a narrow lane where 85 percent of the province lived, and, importantly, where its agriculture was based and where commerce flowed. The Taliban used their significant, often contiguous strongholds along the Helmand River valley to string interior lines, moving supplies, men, and communication to and from Pakistan. Denying these lines would seriously hinder the insurgents’ operations.

  The more relevant questions were: Why Helmand now? Why not focus initial efforts on the much larger, and strategically essential cities like Kabul and Kandahar? Or why not work to seal the border near Khost in order to contain the Haqqanis’ aggressive attacks?

  Like most things in war, the answers are both simple and complex. On the simple side, it is because Helmand was where our forces already were. When I took command, ISAF was in the final stages of positioning troops and preparing for operations in the Helmand River valley. Construction of Marine bases, movement of mountains of necessary supplies, coordination of unit boundaries and operational plans, reconnaissance, and engagement with the population: all were far along. And unlike maneuver warfare where mobile forces dash across battlefields toward decisive objectives, counterinsurgency is methodical and chesslike, requiring deliberate spadework for each successive step. Redirecting to a different location and repeating these efforts there would have required months I judged we didn’t have.

  The complex side of the equation had multiple components. Time was significant. With two months until the August elections, operations that demonstrated even the first glimmers of progress in a contested area could be important. Confidence was a big consideration. President Karzai’s government naturally wanted to allow more Pashtuns to vote by securing Helmand. But I judged that wide voting in the upcoming election would enhance Afghan confidence, or at least increase their involvement, in the governance of their nation. This was a vital long-term objective. More broadly, Afghans had grown cynical of short-term fixes that quickly eroded, and I hoped to show that we could concentrate our forces and capabilities to secure an area, and make it stick. It wasn’t proof of principle; I knew the principle worked. It was an opportunity to demonstrate it to people and governments who were too tired for theory.

  Politics were a reality. The Marines had sought a contiguous area, Helmand, where they could operate with relative independence, and the Brits welcomed the opportunity to reduce the territory their overstretched forces needed to secure. I knew that both would be more vested in the success of the effort if it also supported their internal objectives. Going forward with the Helmand operations took advantage of these dynamics.

  I did have concerns that an initial main effort in Helmand delayed our ability to place more focus on securing the south’s key city, Kandahar. But while Kandahar’s security was a serious concern as the districts around the city were inflamed, it wasn’t besieged or in imminent danger of falling. Rather, we would be able to wage a deliberate campaign in a year’s time to better secure Kandahar.

  Some critics argued that our resources were misspent on Helmand. But such views typically underplayed Helmand’s importance, and just how bad the situation was there. With limited effort and facing little resistance, the Taliban had captured districts closely encircling Lashkar Gah, giving them a perch from which to seriously threaten the provincial capital, and make it untenable. I reasoned that clear success in a Taliban stronghold like Helmand could be a convincing first step in puncturing the perception of the Taliban’s strength. And more than anything else, this was a war of perception and confidence.

  Outside views of the Helmand operations were mixed. Media coverage ranged from descriptions of positive signs to proclamations of total failure. Reality was confusingly somewhere in the middle, and it would be months before we could judge either way. For me, the war’s inherent ambiguity created a delicate balancing act. A convincing portrait of success would have helped give Afghans greater confidence and built Coalition-nation support. But I sought to avoid advertising any perceived gains, as I was more concerned that I maintain my credibility and that of the command. This required that I understand the on-the-ground situation and the slow pace of successful counterinsurgency. I had to be honest enough to provide realistic appraisals.

  I instructed my team that they were allowed to speak freely with the media, but if they were to make a case for progress, they were to use numbers, not anecdotes. For every positive vignette they might come across, Afghanistan would surely offer up depressing scenes in equal measure.

  * * *

  The insurgencies waged in southern and eastern Afghanistan were primarily fo
ught and led by Afghans, who had Afghan aspirations. But to a troubling extent, they relied on sanctuaries in Pakistan to protect their leadership, recruits, staging areas, and supply lines. They kept their headquarters in Quetta and used infiltration routes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) directly across the disputed Durand Line.

  A couple of weeks after I arrived, on July 2, I took my first trip to Pakistan as commander of ISAF. Flying over the border, I was reminded of the historically rooted and obstinate political forces that influenced events on the ground of the war I commanded. The desolate, craggy ridges and pine valleys we flew over on our way to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, had at one time been coveted by Britain as strategic ground when it believed Afghanistan was indispensible to securing the crown jewel of the British Empire, India. Occasionally harassed by Afghan tribesmen but more seriously threatened by Russian and French designs, India was best protected by an Afghan buffer state kept friendly, weak, and quarantined from other foreign powers. After significant military expeditions into Afghanistan, which included disastrous defeat, heroism, treachery, and privation, Britain settled on a policy of limited engagement, instead trying to influence Afghan leaders through incentive “stipends” for friendly behavior and threats of punishing military retribution for misconduct. The approach wasn’t particularly elegant, and while it worked well enough for the British, it also stunted Afghanistan’s ability to mature as a state.