Bing West Just Got Back From Afghanistan

And he provides some field notes to Small Wars Journal. It’s interesting stuff. I am alarmed by his use of the term “control” to describe the military’s interaction with the population, but maybe that’s just my effete liberal sensibilities and West is merely writing without euphemism, which is to be admired.

Something that my piece for The National gets at is the applicability of Iraq-style COIN for Afghanistan, and so I read West’s notes in that frame of mind. This, for instance, jumped out at me:

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker changed the course of the Iraq war by exploiting the change in Sunni attitudes. The Pashtun tribes, however, are deeply divided and lack the overall cohesiveness and leadership of the Iraqi Sunni tribal structure. Plus, it’s not their fight as long as the government exploits rather than offers them incentives.

Now, I often say that we should just view Afghanistan, and our approaches to Afghanistan, on their own terms. And I stand by that. But maybe I’m naive or maybe the framework is inescapable. If so, West provides some basis for believing that it’s just not appropriate. I don’t honestly know if this tells us much — “Afghanistan is not Iraq” is a heuristic of dubious utility — but if people are just stuck thinking that “what worked there can work here, with some tinkering,” then maybe it actually does.

Meanwhile, this really cries out for a follow-up:

The theory of counterinsurgency is that villagers, once given security and services, will inform on the insurgents. In reality, the Pashtun Taliban aren’t oppressing the villagers, and the coalition doesn’t have the troops to provide security in many areas.

I’d love to know more about what West means by this, as it conflicts with the standard reported view of the Taliban’s shadow government operating through night letters and other coercive means.