Gurkhas vs. Taliban

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 8:14 PM Share

I didn't realize the Gurkhas were fighting in Afghanistan. This is like the World Series of mountain warriors. It also is a replay of the last British small war in the region, the fighting in Waziristan in the 1930s. John Masters wrote a wonderful memoir of commanding a Gurkha unit there in his classic Bugles and a Tiger. In a subsequent volume, The Road Past Mandalay, about fighting in World War II, he recalls at one point being surrounded by a Japanese unit in Burma, and his Gurkha sergeant major turning to him and saying, "Boy, am I glad these guys aren't Pashtuns!"

Meanwhile, the Taliban has begun conducting patrols inside the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, according to the Washington Times. This is an essential step in taking control of a city -- protecting allies and intimidating adversaries. Personal memory: When I was a teenager, I'd take a bus from Kabul down to Peshawar to buy books, because it had the nearest English-language bookstore.

EXPLORE:CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN

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RPM

11:16 PM ET

March 26, 2009

Churchill tread those same valleys...

as part of the Malakand Field Force under Sir Bindon Blood in the fall of 1897. He saw heavy fighting with both cavalry and Sikh units in the Mamund Valley, just northwest of Peshawar.

And just what started this little Victorian-era bloodbath? The "Mad Mullah" of Swat had encouraged local Pathan tribesmen to rise up against the British occupation of the NW Frontier. "Those who do not remember the past...," oh, never mind.

But this gives me an idea - After seeing the Marine Corps' "new" Growler vehicle, maybe we can interest DoD in the Martini Henry in .577 caliber. We'll just add laser sights!

FNORD

8:25 PM ET

March 27, 2009

Prince Harry served with

Prince Harry served with gurkha bodyguards. I wonder how they feel about the Maoist victory.

JONATHANR

9:20 PM ET

March 28, 2009

John Masters: Recommended Reading for Afghanistan-Pakistan Surge

So glad to see your thoughts on John Masters' Bugles and a Tiger. In my view, one of the more compelling take-aways from Bugles and a Tiger is the degree to which the book captures the same travails of counterinsurgency that our warfighters face today along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Consider the following points that Masters makes as he begins the Frontier campaign in Waziristan in 1937. At the time, Masters was a young soldier, fresh out of Sandhurst and trained in "normal" ways of war:

"We were usually denied a soldier's greatest weapon--aggression, the first shot. Again the government remembered its objective, the re-establishment of tranquility, and reminded us that there would be no tranquility among these proud and fierce people, however quickly we forced them into surrender, if we fought our campaign on unnecessarily ruthless lines. In "normal" warfare armies bomb cities and destroy the enemy food supply without compunction, but we had to be careful not to harm women and children if we could help it, and we could not shoot on suspicion, only on certainty..."

"...In the warming up days of a Frontier campaign the rules and regulations governing our actions were irksome in the extreme. The trouble area was delimited and called the "proscribed area." Outside the proscribed area we might not take any action at all until shot at. Inside we might not fire at any band of less than ten men unless they were (a) armed and (b) off a path. These were dangerous conditions in a country where arms can be concealed close to flowing clothes, and where paths are tracks invisible from a hundred yards..."

Perhaps Masters' writing could be recommended reading for our civilians and soldiers heading into Afghanistan and Pakistan under this new and needed surge--not only because of the lessons that Masters offers but also because of the artfulness and humor of his writing. His descriptions of the hardy Gurkhas and the wizened Pashtun mountain men makes for compelling reading. In his reflections on life under arms, and of British life in India, he is both moving and laugh-out-loud funny. Thank you for bringing him up here.