The Long War

by David Loyn

  67  McChrystal; MYSOT; p77.

  68  Farrell, Theo; Unwinnable—Britain’s War in Afghanistan, 2001–2014; Bodley Head; London; 2017; p99.

  69  Lamb, Christina; Farewell Kabul—From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World; William Collins; 2015; pp130–153.

  70  McChrystal; MYSOT; p77.

  71  Giustozzi Anthony; cited in Corruption in Conflict—Lessons from the U.S. Conflict in Afghanistan; Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR); 2016; p18.

  72  Corruption in Conflict; SIGAR; p18.

  73  Human Rights Watch report; 2002; p7; https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/afghan3/herat1002.pdf.

  74  Interview with the author for BBC News, 2014.

  75  Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission report.

  76  New York Times; June 19, 2002; http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/19/world/commander-sees-at-least-another-year-in-afghanistan.html.

  77  Farrell; p100.

  78  Ibid.; p98.

  79  McChrystal; p77.

  80  A Different Kind of War; p193.

  81  Ibid.; p194.

  82  Ibid.; p226.

  83  Stockton, Nicholas; Strategic Coordination in Afghanistan; Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, August 2002; p1.

  CHAPTER 2: THE FOG OF AID

    1  Witnessed by the author.

    2  Author interview for BBC program; https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b037s8mk; August 4, 2013.

    3  Ibid.

    4  Dobbins, James, F.; Preparing for Nation Building; Survival; 2006; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396330600905486.

    5  The Clinton administration had good intentions, with a presidential order, PDD 56, in 1997, designed to deliver better civil-military coordination in future conflicts. But it was never fully implemented.

    6  Kitfield, James; “Pox Americana?”; National Journal; April 6, 2002, p. 986.

    7  https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2006/issue2/english/art2.html.

    8  Washington Post; February 10, 2003; https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/10/role-reversal-and-alliance-realities/eb4531b4–43aa-493d-b28e-c4a375c6b4df/.

    9  A Different Kind of War; p231.

  10  Dobbins; p139.

  11  Franks; Kindle loc; p311.

  12  Nathan, Laurie; Local Ownership of Security Sector Reform—A Guide for Donors; January 2007; https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/Assets/Documents/PDFs/csrc-background-papers/Local-Ownership-of-Security-Sector-Reform-2007.pdf.

  13  Rubin, Barney, Hamidzada, Humayun, and Stoddard, Abby; Afghanistan 2005 and Beyond: Prospects for Improved Stability; Clingendael; 2005; https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep05388.11.

  14  Author interview with Karimi.

  15  Nancy was an inveterate smoker. When she died in Kabul in her nineties, still working, a packet of cigarettes was found behind the radiator in her office.

  16  All Karimi quotes author interview.

  17  Author interview with Vendrell.

  18  Author interview with Vendrell.

  19  Bush, George W.; Decision Points; Virgin Books, 2010; p194.

  20  Author interview with Barmak.

  21  Author interview with Hanif Atmar.

  22  Lamb; p140.

  23  CNN.com; Jan 21 2002; https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/01/20/afghan.donors/.

  24  Author interview with Afghan government adviser.

  25  U.S. Assistance to Afghanistan 1950–1979; 1988; DEVRES Inc. http://catalog.acku.edu.af/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=15855.

  26  Author interview with William Byrd, USIP.

  27  Lamb; p140.

  28  Loyn, David; In Afghanistan; St. Martin’s Press; 2009; p210.

  29  Quarterly Report; Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction; July 30 2014; https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2014–07–30qr.pdf.

  30  Paris Declaration; 2005; https://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/34428351.pdf.

  31  Interview with the author for the BBC, 2004.

  32  Ghani, Ashraf; Lockhart, Clare, and Carnahan, Michael; Closing the Sovereignty Gap: An Approach to State-Building; Working Paper 253; ODI; London; September 2005.

  33  Author interview with Guggenheim.

  34  Government Accountability Office; Afghanistan Reconstruction; GAO 05 742; July 2005; p37.

  35  GAO; p37.

  36  I am grateful to Astri Surkhe for this image.

  37  Lamb; p143.

  38  Byrd, William A.; Economic Management in Afghanistan; Afghanistan Analysts Network; August 2015.

  39  A Different Kind of War; p244.

  40  Koontz, Christopher N., editor; Enduring Voices—Oral Histories of the U.S. Army Experience in Afghanistan; Center of Military History, U.S. Army; 2008; p25.

  41  Ibid.; p5.

  42  Ibid.; Robin Fontes; p456.

  43  Author interview with Karzai.

  44  Enduring Voices; p25.

  45  Farrell; p135.

  46  GAO; p51.

  47  Author interview with senior USAID official.

  48  Perito, Robert; The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan; United States Institute of Peace; October 2005; https://www.usip.org/publications/2005/10/us-experience-provincial-reconstruction-teams-afghanistan-lessons-identified.

  49  The principal nations were Canada in Kandahar, UK in Helmand, Netherlands and Australia in Uruzgan (to the north of Helmand), Turkey in Kabul, Norway in Meymaneh in the northwest, Italy in Herat in the west, and Germany in Mazar in the north. U.S. troops were already in the first PRT, at Ghazni in the east.

  50  Farrell; p139.

  51  Rynning; p6.

  52  Associated Press; February 10, 2003.

  53  Hillier, Rick; A Soldier First, Bullets, Bureaucrats, and the Politics of War; Harper Collins; 2010; Kindle loc 3559.

  54  Hillier; Kindle loc 3586.

  55  Ibid.; Kindle loc 3533

  56  Speech to the Conference of Defense Associations Institute; February 22, 2008; cited in Saideman, Stephen, and Auerswald, David; NATO at War; 2009.

  57  https://www.mccaffreyassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/AfghanAAR-072004.pdf; referenced by Boudreau, Brett; We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.

  58  Enduring Voices; p115.

  59  Interview with member of Ghani’s team.

  60  Kaplan, Fred; The Insurgents; Simon & Schuster; 2013; Kindle loc 5685.

  61  GAO; p57.

  62  British Special Operators retain their original regimental designation while serving in the Special Air Service (SAS) or Special Boat Squadron (SBS). Involvement in these services is never disclosed.

  63  Harnden, Toby; Sunday Telegraph; January 29, 2006; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509071/British-troops-will-be-targets-in-Afghanistan.html.

  64  U.S. Assistance to Afghanistan 1950–1979; 1988; DEVRES Inc. http://catalog.acku.edu.af/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=15855.

  65  Gall, S.; p85.

  CHAPTER 3: THE BIGGEST WARLORD

    1  Lamb; p147.

    2  Neumann’s father was ambassador to Afghanistan in 1967–1973. In a closet in the embassy, he found a pamphlet written by his mother with advice to diplomatic wives in Kabul.

    3  Author interview.

    4  Author interview with Karzai.

    5  Author interview with Karzai.

    6  The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps was a mobile NATO facility.

    7  Butler, Ed; Setting Ourselves Up for a Fall in Afghanistan; Royal United Services Institute Journal; February/March 2015.

    8  Butler; RUSI Journal
.

    9  Butler; RUSI Journal.

  10  Butler; RUSI Journal.

  11  Fergusson, James; Taliban—The Inside Story of the World’s Fiercest Guerrilla Fighters; Bantam Press; 2010; p135. His description of “an enemy we created” became the title of Alex Strick von Linschoten and Felix Kuehn’s book arguing that the Taliban and al-Qaeda did not have strong links in the late 1990s.

  12  Butler; RUSI Journal.

  13  Fergusson, James; A Million Bullets—The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan; Transworld; 2008.

  14  Lamb; p264.

  15  Richards, David; Taking Command; Headline; 2014; p185.

  16  Butler; RUSI Journal.

  17  Fairweather, Jack; The Good War—Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan; Jonathan Cape; 2014; p175.

  18  Fergusson, James; A Million Bullets; p156.

  19  Author interview with Toner.

  20  Forsberg, Carl, and Kagan, Kimberly; “Consolidating Private Security Companies”; Institute for the Study of War; May 28, 2010.

  21  Fairweather; p162.

  22  Ink spots had their origin in the French general Louis Lyautey’s tactics to secure Madagascar and Morocco early in the twentieth century.

  23  Lamb; p286.

  24  Author interview with Richards.

  25  Horn, Bernd; No Lack of Courage—Operation Medusa, Afghanistan; Dundurn Press, Toronto; 2010; p62.

  26  Ibid. p84.

  27  Author interview with Richards.

  28  In addition, fourteen crew members died on the first day of the battle, when a UK Royal Air Force Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft crashed; there was no indication of enemy action involved.

  29  Richards; Taking Command; p254.

  30  BBC interview.

  31  Richards; Taking Command; p238.

  32  Author interview with Neumann.

  33  The story has been optioned for a feature film.

  34  Author interview with Richards.

  35  Although the PAG did not outlast him, Richards liked to quote a 2009 RAND report saying that a mechanism such as a PAG should be a “sine qua non” of counterinsurgency operations in the future.

  36  Interview with member of Karzai staff.

  37  Richards, David; Wars in Peace; Royal United Services Institute Journal; 2014; xii.

  38  Richards; Taking Command; p200.

  39  Ibid.; p211.

  40  Author interview with Neumann.

  41  Richards; Taking Command; p254.

  CHAPTER 4: THE HEART OF THE BEAST

    1  Churchill, Winston S.; The Story of the Malakand Field Force; 1898.

    2  Allen, Charles; Soldier Sahibs; John Murray; 2000; p217.

    3  Kilcullen, David; The Accidental Guerrilla—Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One; Hurst; 2009; p93.

    4  Donahue, Pat, and Fenzel, Mike; Combating a Modern Insurgency; Military Review; 2008; https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/militaryreview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20080430_art007.pdf.

    5  Ostlund, William B.; Operating Enduring Freedom VIII; Military Review; July/August 2009; https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20090831_art004.pdf.

    6  Author interview. Eight years into the war, this was the first involvement by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which helps build peace and democracy.

    7  Malkasian, Carter, and Meyerle Gerald; Provincial Reconstruction Teams; Strategic Studies Institute; 2008.

    8  C-SPAN; May 20, 2007; https://www.c-span.org/video/?198551–1/reconstruction-jalalabad-afghanistan.

    9  C-SPAN; op. cit.

  10  Kilcullen; p108.

  11  Ibid.; p67.

  12  Restrepo movie.

  13  Junger, Sebastian; New York Times; April 20, 2010; https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/opinion/21junger.html.

  14  Land feud between two families in American Civil War; now subject of a TV miniseries.

  15  Wanat; Combat Action in Afghanistan; Combat Studies Institute Press; 2008.

  16  Author interview with Nuristani.

  17  Author interview with Neumann.

  18  West, Bing; The Wrong War—Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan; Random House; 2011; p22.

  19  West; p26.

  20  Author interview with Atmar.

  21  Martin, Mike; An Intimate War—An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict, 1978–2012; Hurst 2014.

  CHAPTER 5: RACK ’EM AND STACK ’EM

    1  SIGAR interview with McNeill; Afghanistan Papers; Washington Post; Dec 9 2019; https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/.

    2  Richards; Taking Command; p281.

    3  Afghanistan Papers.

    4  Lamb; p380.

    5  http://www.icosgroup.net/static/reports/Knife_Edge_Report.pdf.

    6  Afghanistan Papers.

    7  Wikileaks; Guardian; December 2 2010; https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-afghan-british-military.

    8  Waltz; p205.

    9  Chivers, C.J.; New York Times; April 8 2007; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/asia/18afghan.html.

  10  http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.asp?TranscriptID=3980.

  11  Afghanistan Papers.

  12  Gates, Robert; From the Shadows—The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War; Simon & Schuster; 1996; p139.

  13  Gates Robert; Duty; Virgin Digital; 2014; Kindle loc 3656.

  14  Ibid.; Kindle loc 3717.

  15  Ibid.; Kindle loc 3662.

  16  Waltz; p205.

  17  Gall, Carlotta; New York Times; May 13, 2007; https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/world/asia/13AFGHAN.html.

  18  It would not be until a McChrystal directive in 2009 that ISAF would stop putting out body counts.

  19  BBC News; July 30 207; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6921713stm.

  20  Pentagon briefing; February 6, 2008.

  21  Afghanistan Study Group; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235104691_Afghanistan_Study_Group_Report_Revitalizing_Our_Efforts_Rethinking_Our_Strategies.

  22  Afghanistan Papers.

  23  Baker, Peter; New York Times; October 14 2009; http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DD1E3CF937A25753C1A96F9C8B63.

  CHAPTER 6: COIN

    1  Mattis and West; p154.

    2  Speech to the World Economic Forum, Davos; January 23, 2008.

    3  Author interview with senior officers. In her opening submission to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on October 19, 2005, Rice had talked of the need to move toward “clear, hold, and build.” But it was clear that her concept was different from the counterinsurgency doctrine as it would emerge. She saw counterinsurgency then as “marrying our civilian reconstruction and development efforts with our military operations.” There was no sense that the military themselves needed a new mindset.

    4  Birtle, Andrew J.; U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Operations Doctrine 1860–1941; Center of Military History United States Army; 1997; p35.

    5  Small Wars Manual; FMFRP 12–15; 1940; p29. https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/FMFRP%2012–15%20%20Small%20Wars%20Manual.pdf

    6  Gates; Duty; Kindle loc 2563.

    7  e.g., Filkins, Dexter; review of Thomas Rick’s The Generals in The New Yorker; December 17, 2012.

    8  Gates; Duty; Kindle loc 2112.