A hearts-and-minds approach is predicated on the proposition that we foreign, Western, culturally Christian, invaders can persuade a sizeable proportion of the Pashtun population to cut themselves off from their cultural roots; subject themselves to an equally foreign and incomprehensible form of government resting largely on the customs of the tribes of pre-Roman Germany; and abandon their cultural birthright of unrivalled hegemony over “Pashtunistan”. To do this we offer some new buildings, some cash and more reliable electricity—none of which have been important to them so far in their history.[8] Attendant on these “inducements” of course is the removal of their ability to generate cash by farming poppies and the destruction of cultural mores—the subjection of women and the application of traditional law for example—that define them as a cultural group.
[...]
The twin propositions that “there is no military solution” to insurgencies and that “hearts and minds” approaches are the only the way forward are based mostly on wishful thinking
How to win in Afghanistan - Highly recommended.
h/t Paul D.
An excellent article. Says it all. The conflict is between tribalism - where the law rests within a kin group, and the modern state, where the law rests with the state.
In Afghanistan, tribalism is resisting modernization into a state system. This is different from Iraq, which was already a state, albeit one governed and ruled by one tribe. But Afghanistan doesn't have that centralizing authority, even of one tribal domination, and so, is made up of many tribes, some collaborating with each other, some fighting against each other. And both ignoring the central Afghan government.
So, yes, the 'hearts and minds' strategy of building schools and markets won't, on its own, work. Not until the infrastructure of tribal kinship ceases to be The Rule of Law and the state Rule of Law is imposed. By military authority.
However, there is another facet to this dyad of tribe vs state. That is, population growth. I maintain that a tribal system has a threshold limit of economic and legal 'holding capacity'. When the population rises above a critical threshold, the economy must move out of sustenance and into broad scale trading. At the moment, this is being achieved by the poppy industry. Rather similar to the repressive hold that oil had in Iraq.
This has to be militarily attacked. Then, the state must move in to enable a replacement for this agriculturalism. But, another factor with an increasing population is that the tribal kinship legal authority falls apart. So, the suggestion by the author that the tribes need merely wait out the West's focus in Afghanistan won't work, as long as the population increases..beyond the carrying capacity of a tribal system.
And one other factor - is the global world. It is no longer possible to keep a tribal population isolated from the influence of the internet and the modern industrial world. You can't maintain a rising population in a sustenance agriculture, in a repressive legal system - when the images of the modern world are in their hands.
"We are seen by many putative enemies as effete, lacking a long-term view, suffocated by deluded notions of a universal humanity and unlikely to endure the moral impacts of a protracted war among the people."
Excellent piece, and though it echoes my own take, is much more eloquently stated than I could ever do it.
And that's why I've argued here against the idea of keeping our troops in Afghanistan for "100 years" as Michael Yon suggested.
We aren't going to win their "hearts and minds" and it's unlikely they will submit to exhaustion, so we can stay in this unimportant tribal backwater and sacrifice our best young people for, WHAT?
It is apparent to anyone paying attention that the only way Western civilization will win out if if every single fundamentalist Islamic in the area is killed, and we aren't about to do that.
Install a dictator who is Islamic, and just as ruthless as the Taliban and Al-Quaeda, arm him to the teeth, and get the hell OUT!
And take our F***ing bleeding heart MSM reporters with us. The less the genteel public of Canada/US know about the situation over there, the better equipped they'll be to handle it.
You can't bribe them, you can't reason with them, you can't convert them to a different religion or sociological mode, and they view us as invading aliens.
What the hell else are we going to do? Think of the contribution those great members of our forces could make elsewhere in the world, including Canada, if they weren't stuck in seventh century Shitholeville.
If we'd just nuked the place no later than 2PM EST on September 11, 2001, we'd have been fine. But nobody listens to me.
Defense of the Realm has a good article about counter insurgency from the war in Rhodesia.
http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/2009/03/situation-is-increasingly-perilous.html
For those who aren't familiar with Rhodesia, it was the name of country now called Zimbabwe.
This makes me mindful of the old phrase " When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow".
No, it isn't simply a military solution that is required, atric - because the tribal infrastructure supplies both economic and legal security - and that isn't going to be given up without the assurance from the state that BOTH functions operate, securely, within a state system.
So, militarily, the tribal forces have to be weakened to such an extent that they don't provide the kinship societal obligations and rules that they used to provide.
So, the tribal system has to be broken down. Since it is now maintained by, not simply military power, bullying, thuggery and the old patterns of belief, but economically by the poppy industry - the first system to be 'assisted' in collapsing has to be the poppy industry...and it has to be replaced with one that is not controlled by tribal powers. Not easy to do. My suggestion is introducing some kind of biological virus that attacks the plants.
Then, again, the increasing population will also threaten the viability of the poppy industry and it will have to turn to another economy. This has to be generated by the Afghan state.
I was reminded of a scene in the classic Western, "The Magnificent Seven".
The people of a long-suffering Mexican village hire The Magnificent Seven gunfighters to deal with the banditto gang that regularly attacks and plunders their village.
On the initial confrontation between the Bandittos and the Magnificent Seven, the Banditto Chieftain asks the Magnificent Seven how he's supposed to support his gang if he can't regularly raid the village and take most of their crops and livestock.
Steve McQueen replies in classic Western gunfighter-hero-speak, "That's your problem, friend. We deal in lead."
Ultimately, the Bandittos have to be dealt with, in lead, by the Magnificent Seven, who prevail and free the villagers from the depradations of the now mostly dead Bandittos.
As I see it, essentially, the Afghan people are the villagers; the Taliban are the Bandittos and the Western Allies' Forces are the Magnificent Seven.
Kathy is right, just nuke the entire middle east and everything else will take care of itself.
Yeah, that's the way.
Just nuke anybody you disagree with.
Me Not Reading this piece, no matter how excellent it is, for this reason: there is no political WILL in the world to do what I'm guessing he is proposing.
I already know how dumb "hearts and minds" is.
And for this reason, though I think it's a most worthy cause, I think Canada should bail on Afghanistan. Obama has never been sincere about going after Pakistan. That was just another BIG LIE to help offset his hard-left anti-war view of Iraq. And he'll use the refusal of more troops as a handy excuse to give it the heave-ho, and he would be right.
I mean when you hear terms like "negotiating" with "moderate Taliban" you know the thing is a farce and that neither blood nor treasure should be squandered on it.
Nope, just everybody who wants to kill you.
Great analogy by Dave in Pa.
To me Hearts and Minds includes Security - it all goes together. You win them over when they know they are safe and maybe that's what the article is saying. You win hearts and minds by providing a safe and free environment and having respect for them and their cultures.
I'm not a big fan of nuking everybody in a region. Kinda wasteful.
I like walls. Build a wall, shoot anybody that comes over. We can do without the opium and carpets they make up in the Pashtun region, you ask me.
Maybe 20 years of no imports from civilization would settle them down a bit.
Judge, jury and executioner.
Damn the innocent ... just nuke.
What about ... execute heroin addicts.
If you get them all, the market for Afghan poppies will dry up.
Intellectually challenged posters such as "free" sure do provide some levity after such a weighty dissertation.
Enjoyed the article, thanks for the link Kate.
Alieneated:
Thanks for your observation, o wise one.
It is interesting, that Pashtun need so little, but fight for that. We need lots, but allow almost everything to be taken away without fight: freedom, jobs, food supply quality, guns, education, freedom...
And I am not repeating myself.
An anthropologist studying the Pashtun in the mid twentieth century concluded that loyalties among were always shifting, going to whoever was strongest. How to win, and build loyalty in Afghanistan? Beat the crap out of them!
I like the Phantoms' wall proposal.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
If you can't nuke em, beat the crap out of em.
How to win friends and influence people.
Don't have any friends? I'm shocked.
Thanks for making my point again, free.
set you free
"Yeah, that's the way.
Just nuke anybody you disagree with."
Actually a very successful modus....
Imperial Japan was an implacable enemy until they got nuked.....
Japan has not been a threat to global security since.
Really---how do you argue with success????.....unless you are a tolal idiot.
Alientated:
Try and keep the top of your head out of the thread topic.
I see no other point to your ad hominem attack.
Since the idea of Pashtunistan was brought up, albeit tongue in cheek, have our strategic think tanks looked at the possibility of granting the Pashtuns their own homeland? I say this, because what was the historic Pashtun homeland was cleaved by the Durand Line at the end of the 19th Century. Perhaps, and this is a big perhaps, the Taliban are using the idea of granting the Pashtuns back their historic lands to get them to ally themselves with the Taliban cause. This may not be so far-fetched an idea.
Anybody, in Afghanistan will tell you that the northern Afghans have always considered the South (where the Brits, American, Canadians and Dutch are fighting) bandit country and really do not consider it "tameable". So perhaps to gain currency with the Pashtuns, we should look at reopening negotiations about dismantling the Durand Line and perhaps ceding part of Afghanistan and Pakistan to them...I know the Pakistanis would never stand for it...but if we're supporting the Pashtuns...then it will be a Pakistani problem not an Afghan one...The result would be the main fighters for the Taliban cause (Pashtuns) will dry up fighting for their own homeland...and the Pakistanis will have to send non-Pashtuns to fight in Pashtunistan...instant death.
~~favill~~
Pashtunistan.
I like it.
Of course they don't have any friends, set you free.
They're conservatives. Remember?
Hate to be a contrarian; (actually I love it) but "hearts and minds" is not necessary. According to my book on Guerrilla Warfare (Franklin Mark Osanka) all it is necessary to do is to get the locals to be un-alligned with the Guerrillas. Bribery, threats, whatever works. Guerrillas must have at a minimum that the locals turn a blind eye to their activities (and they must be supplied from outside sources). Worked in South America against Che Guevara.
300 kilotons in 25 kiloton airburst increments as well as 60 megatons in 5 megaton underground bursts (takes care of the caves).
Now then, who really gives a shit about their hearts & minds?
Watch the whole 5 parts; you'll not get a more insightful view.
Basically, if I have followed corrrectly, he is saying: Do the military thing relentlessly persuing the Taliban" fighters until the goernmetnal bodies can be introduced. It's not a quiestion of winning the enemy over, rather killing the enemy to demonstrate to the populace that they can accept government aid.
Nope, just everybody who wants to kill you.
Posted by: Kathy Shaidle at April 6, 2009 1:37 PM
How about everybody who tries to kill you?
Pearl Harbour, and its aftermath, led to a very effective cleansing, that kept order for half a century.
Moraly Canada can't support a regime that accepts rape or peverted honor killing.
Which seem to go hand in hand along with child sex.
JMO