This insight seems unuseful. I can see how that kind of "political officer" would be a great career path in an empire controlling foreign possessions. In our situation the closest thing you're going to get is Dick Holbrooke, no?

I was intrigued with the statement that, "The Indian Political Service was a popular destination for young Britons seeking excitement, and it could pick and choose from applicants, and in addition, "mastery of tribal dialects was a matter of pride."

After over 8-years, I wonder where we are on this critical expertise of proficiency in language and cultural awareness, which is a force multiplier in district/regional/battlefield awareness, and whether we have the luxury of picking and choosing whom we deem most qualified?

I ordered the book - not for me, but for someone else who is a 'dreamer of the day and a dangerous man, for he acts his dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.'

Maybe Captain Pottinger is such a man also? : o

The office of Political Officer only applied to the Raj's side of the Durand line. Hence the description of the travails in Waziristan, which is in the NWFP.

I'm not sure if there is any literature on this, but did the British have any political offiers appointed to the Afghan side of the border? If not, why not? If so, which provinces were they in and how successful were they?

Another factoid is that the position of "Political Officer" was inherited by Pakistan upon partition and survives to this day in the personage of the "Political Agent," who reports to the President as well as the Governor of NWFP.

One of the most famous "Political Agents" of Waziristan is renowned anthorpologist Akbar Ahmed, who is presently a professor at American University in DC.

I wonder if there's something in the British character that makes them more conducive to producing this type of officer. As an anthropology student in college (in the US), I remember thinking that the people most attuned to foreign ways of being and to exploring other countries on the ground also seemed to be the most anti-military in disposition, and that that would likely have disastrous consequences for US unconventional capabilities. There seems to be something in the cultural disposition of internationally-minded individuals in the US that precludes military involvement.
Looking at it from a more structural perspective, given that our commitments are always limited by definition, whereas the British's commitments were mostly always open-ended by definition, what officer faces strong incentives to invest the time and energy required to become a good "political officer"? As the post points out, these aren't glamorous jobs. I wonder if the answer lies in massively expanding the civil service and creating the type of structured, quasi-military training experience that generates disciplined officers, yet while training them mostly in political arts. This would generate an incentive structure for civil servants to become good political officers, while relieving the military of non-military responsibilities.

We might get a different perspective on civilian dispensers of colonial services, from the long-suffering frontier regulars under Sheridan and Crooke.

Adjutant Bourke reported that the anglo merchant mafia known as the Tucson Ring used to make up massacres where none occurred (or tribesmen were victims) to get the Army in the field and hiring supply contractors.

The thing that comes blaring thru Brit colonial accounts is that Pashtun/Duranni historical claims, future ambitions that extended across the Indus to Kashmir and Delhi, were taken seriously. 'Divide and weaken the pathans' was the strategy the Brits devised, and still bedrock doctrine with the Pakistani elites.

One of the advantages the Brits had in dealing with the wild Pathans was that they were not dealing with a time element nor were they draining the Exchequer in attempting to keep the Afghans subdued. The protection of the Northwest Frontier came under the jurisdiction of India and it was from Indian resources that these campaigns were funded. The British were certainly foreigners but they weren’t going anywhere in that they were firmly planted in India.

I think there's movement along these lines within the DoD, the recently-announced AFPAK Hands program being one such instance, though it seems the program's development is to be plagued by complications of the usual sort:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/world/06mullen.html?scp=1&sq=slow%20start%20to%20military%20corps%20in%20afghanistan&st=cse

In a round about way Human Terrain Systems is doing something like this. They may not be the central players, but they are the continuity between cycling units.