One of the great things about CNAS is the quality of the interns. One of them
now is Kyle Flynn, who is studying at Georgetown and is helping with research
on my next book. He is a former Special Forces NCO who served two tours in
Afghanistan. He mentioned that he was struck by the comments Peter Bergen made
at a congressional hearing last week on Afghanistan. I asked him to share his
thoughts, and here they are:
On Oct. 7 Sen. John Kerry chaired a hearing of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the current threat posed by Al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond. Invited to participate in the discussion were
three highly-respected experts on terrorism and Al-Qaeda: Peter Bergen of the
New America Foundation; Dr. Mark Sageman of the Foreign Policy Research
Institute Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security; and
Robert Grenier, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan and former director of
the DCI Counterterrorist Center. Drawing from my own assumptions and
experiences with 3rd Special Forces Group in Khost province in
2005-2006 and Oruzgan province in 2007-2008, I found myself falling in line
behind Mr. Bergen's observations most often in regard to Afghanistan-in
particular on the close ties that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have formed since
9/11 and the problem of developing a centralized Afghan army to help combat the
insurgency. It is also my belief that generalizations made on Afghanistan often
lack utility because the conditions on the ground vary greatly from province to
province and even district to district. So even my own experiences in
Afghanistan may not actually depict reality on the ground in most places.
Below,
Mr. Bergen comments on the current relationship between Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban:
Al
Qaeda has influenced the Taliban ideologically and tactically to a very great
degree. The reason that we're having an epidemic of suicide attacks and
beheadings of hostages and IED attacks is because the Taliban sent people to
Iraq to learn from the insurgency and they copycatted the insurgency, and al
Qaeda and the Taliban today are far closer than they were before 9/11.
The
idea that if the Taliban were in power, they wouldn't bring back al-Qaeda is
absurd. The whole Taliban project has been about protecting al Qaeda, and if
international forces pull out of Afghanistan or we lowered our commitment, the
Taliban would eventually take control of part of the country and could even
take it over entirely, not because the Taliban is so strong, but because the
Afghan government and the Afghan military right now are so weak.
Al
Qaeda is a force multiplier. It's like having U.S. Special Forces. So even-you
know, General Jones, the national security adviser, said there were 100 members
of al Qaeda in Afghanistan right now. Those are the people who are helping with
IEDs. Those are the people helping with the training. Those are the people with
experience. So, while the number may be small and al Qaeda's always been a
small organization, just fixating on the numbers doesn't-isn't very helpful
because it's about their influence ideologically and tactically that's important."
What
interested me here was that Bergen spoke directly to the ongoing debate over
U.S. political aims and military strategy in the region. It is worth asking
therefore whether anyone is still debating seriously the idea that disparate
elements of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now more closely aligned than they
were eight years earlier? More often than not, we still attempt to categorize
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban separately in regard to our vital national interests
but not to strategic objectives on the ground. In theory, we are in the region
to deny a centralized Al-Qaeda a sanctuary from which to train and operate. In
reality, however, we are there executing a comprehensive counterinsurgency
strategy against a largely decentralized and disorganized Taliban movement
comprised of Afghan, Pakistani, and foreign nationals.
If only
Al-Qaeda poses a strategic threat to U.S. national interests but we must defeat
an element of the Taliban to defeat Al-Qaeda, then how can we logically
separate the two in terms of policy but not strategy? Although I believe strongly in the Accidental
Guerilla syndrome, I also believe that we sometimes forget that the Quetta
Shura Taliban, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, and the Haqqani networks are comprised
primarily of Afghan nationals. From my experience and to our own detriment, I
believe that we often overlook the local nature of this conflict. At what point
do we finally admit that we are fighting an enemy that will never align its
interest to those of Coalition forces and our host-nation allies? Clearly then,
to defeat the insurgency we have to eliminate the insurgents. The notion that we
can today somehow align ourselves with a moderate Taliban that tomorrow will
not realign itself with the same fanatics with whom it's been fighting all
these years is ridiculous.
On a
different note, Mr. Bergen also has some valid concerns on the effectiveness of
the Afghan national army:
And my
concern is that the Afghan army, in much of the country, is essentially a
foreign army. Doesn't mean that it has the active opposition of much of even
the Pashtun population, but it's not a Pashtun army. And if they come in, I
think most people will be content to do with them as they are essentially doing
with American forces now, and that is to sit on the fence and wait and see who
wins this thing. Unless we have their active cooperation, I just don't think that
we're going to get any real traction in this campaign. And so the concern that
I have is that we are placing much too much of the emphasis currently on the
buildup of an Afghan army."
My
experience in Deh Rawod supports Mr. Bergen's observations on many counts.
Foremost, it is no secret that for security to exist in Afghanistan, a
bottom-up approach which begins at the tribal and district level must be
adopted throughout the country. Therefore, transplanting an Afghan army
battalion comprised of Tajiks, Hazaras, or Turks to the Pashtun belt does not
make sound policy, at least not to me. During my second deployment, I witnessed
everything from good old-fashioned fisticuffs to full blown armed standoffs
between the "foreign" army and our local Afghan security forces. Which begs me
to ask why a Pashtun tribe would assist what they perceive as a foreign army
more than a localized insurgency comprised of members of their own tribe and
perhaps even family? The very idea of a developing a 200,000 strong Afghan army
which can operate freely and effectively throughout the heart of the insurgency
is a non-starter. While we should be focused on developing localized defense
forces to combat and defeat an internal insurgency, we are instead creating an
army better positioned to combat external threats. Again, we seem to have a
knack for confusing the bottom-up and top-down approaches to strategic success
in Afghanistan.
Some may
argue however that a non-Pashtun army will be more willing to engage a Pashtun
insurgency and more importantly not succumb so easily to Taliban infiltration.
While I agree to some extent with both assumptions, I would also argue that
only localized security forces have the ability to collect the intelligence
necessary to defeat this type of insurgency. Thus, the risk of Taliban
infiltration of localized security forces is unavoidable because without the
collection of localized intelligence, the war is all but lost. So if the local
population has no intention of assisting an Afghan army battalion comprised of
different ethnicities, then in my opinion the battalion's tactical value is
close to zero. I also agree with Mr. Bergen regarding the use of warlords and
other localized power structures which could help accomplish that which should
be our primary goal: that is, to defeat both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
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