In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

officers shifted to Iraq, it did so with younger agents, who lacked the knowledge and influence of the veterans. “I think we could have done a lot more on the Afghan side if we had more experienced folks,” Grenier told me.⁶⁰

The pattern continued at the very highest levels of military personnel and hardware. Covert Special Mission Units, such as Delta Force and Navy SEAL Team Six, shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq. Sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, but most were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and other terrorist leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. U.S. forces in Afghanistan never had sufficient intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, such as Predators and Rivet Joints. Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft are extensively modified C-135s that support battlefield commanders with real time on- scene intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination capabilities. The ratio of key ISR assets divided between Iraq and Afghanistan was typically 4:1 or 5:2. That is, for every four Predators that were shipped to Iraq, one went to Afghanistan. Or for every five Predators shipped to Iraq, two went to Afghanistan. Special Operations Forces were also reallocated from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Iraq. And the U.S. military focus on Iraq meant that Afghanistan had to use National Guard forces, rather than active-duty soldiers, to train Afghan National Army soldiers. These were not the “A team” of trainers. Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry repeatedly requested active- duty trainers to work with Afghan security forces, but he was told there simply were none available.⁶¹

U.S. financial support was also low. “Iraq definitely affected funding levels for Afghanistan in two respects,” explained Dov Zakheim. “The first was that we had only so much money and attention. We couldn’t keep going back to the same well. The second was probably unhappiness among some allies at the war in Iraq. It likely spilled over into other areas, including an unwillingness to help in Afghanistan in 2003 and beyond.”⁶² Sarah Chayes, who ran a nongovernmental organization in Kandahar Province, contended that a significant reason “why the great [American] machine that was supposed to deploy on all fronts churning out reconstruction for Afghanistan failed to gear up” was “the war in Iraq.”⁶³

Low levels of money, energy, and troops made it nearly impossible to secure Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban regime and almost certainly increased the probability of an insurgency. Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, concluded: “The main factor in preventing a stronger international commitment was the United States’ diversion of its effort and interest from 2002 onwards to Iraq. Within three months of the overthrow of the Taliban regime, the United States was pulling out from Afghanistan.”⁶⁴ By 2003, the U.S. government had become convinced that Iraq, not Afghanistan, was the central hub in the war on terrorism. In a phone conversation in August 2003 with L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Condoleezza Rice said: “Colin [Powell] and I are convinced that Iraq has become the decisive theater in the war on terrorism and that if we win in Iraq, Islamic terrorism can be defeated.”⁶⁵

Examination of internal U.S. government memos supports this argument. In a 2003 letter to Bremer, Jeb Mason, associate director of the White House’s Office of Strategic Initiatives, requested the adoption of “talking points” on progress in the “war on terror.” He wrote: “Iraq is now the central front in the War on Terror. As Vice President Cheney said on Sunday: “If we’re successful in Iraq…so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”⁶⁶ Afghanistan and Pakistan had been relegated to secondary fronts. The United States lacked the military, financial, and political resources and attention to secure Afghanistan because they were diverted to Iraq. The result was too few soldiers, too little assistance, and too little awareness of what was happening.

Warlords

The light-footprint approach had another unforeseen repercussion. With too few international forces and too few competent indigenous forces, local militia commanders, or warlords, filled the vacuum. Some were aided by the U.S. military.⁶⁷ Since it was not politically feasible to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the U.S. military decided that the need to fight al Qa’ida was urgent enough that the United States simply couldn’t wait to develop Afghan government forces. Lieutenant General John R. Vines, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 180 in Afghanistan, acknowledged that “militia are part of the existing reality.”⁶⁸

Local-warlord militia forces “led every mounted patrol and most major operations,” partly because, according to one U.S. military assessment, “they knew the ground better and could more easily spot something that was out of place or suspicious.”⁶⁹ Such forces were often used for the outer perimeter of cordon-and-search operations. In several operations, such as the Battle of Deh Chopan, militia forces were critical in providing intelligence and the bulk of the maneuver force.⁷⁰

In the east, the United States gave money, arms, and other equipment to Pacha Khan Zadran, whose forces were based in Paktia Province. In the west, U.S. forces provided assistance to Ismail Khan, allowing him to establish significant political and fiscal autonomy in Herat Province. He controlled military and civil administration there, supported by large amounts of customs revenues from trade with Iran, Turkmenistan, and other Afghan provinces.⁷¹ In the south, U.S. forces provided money and arms to Gul Agha Shirzai and others to help target al Qa’ida operatives.⁷²

The U.S. assistance to warlords weakened the central government. President Karzai made a halfhearted attempt to reduce the power of warlords who also served as provincial governors by reassigning them away from their geographic power base. But Karzai’s tendency was to move warlords, not to remove them. Consequently, their networks continued to influence provincial-and district- level administration.⁷³ Public-opinion polls showed that the warlords’ increasing power alarmed many Afghans. One poll conducted for the U.S. military concluded: “A high percentage of respondents identified local commanders as bringers of insecurity to their district.”⁷⁴ According to the Afghanistan National Security Council’s National Threat Assessment: “Non-statutory armed forces and their commanders pose a direct threat to the national security of Afghanistan. They are the principal obstacle to the expansion of the rule of law into the provinces and thus the achievement of the social and economic goals that the people of Afghanistan expect their Government, supported by the International Community, to deliver.”⁷⁵ An Afghan provincial governor reinforced this conclusion, observing that “keeping warlords in power is weakening the government. The more the government pays them off, the stronger they will become and the weaker the government will be.”⁷⁶

This brings up an important dilemma. In past counterinsurgencies, the local country has usually needed to take the lead over the long run for successful operations. A large foreign presence—especially foreign military forces—has often undermined local power and legitimacy. But what if there is no competent government force in the early stages of an insurgency? In the Afghan case, there were no Afghan Army forces and no trained police. While there are no ideal options in these situations, the most effective strategy may be to: (a) work with legitimate indigenous forces (especially police); (b) effectively train and mentor them as quickly as possible; and (c) backfill with sufficient numbers of U.S. and other international forces to accomplish key security tasks such as patrolling streets and villages, monitoring borders, and protecting critical infrastructure. Higher per-capita levels of U.S. and Coalition military and police might have been useful in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban’s overthrow. Preparations for the war in Iraq made this impossible.

Learning the Right Lessons?

The light-footprint plan was based on the assumption that a heavy footprint would lead to a Soviet-or British-style quagmire. A key lesson from the past was that a large foreign army would elicit large-scale popular resistance. U.S. officials also believed that small numbers of ground troops and airpower, working with Afghan forces, would be sufficient to establish security. “The history of British and Soviet military failures in Afghanistan,” said Douglas Feith, “argued against a large U.S. invasion force.”⁷⁷

But this was a misreading of the Soviet experience. The key lesson was not the number of Soviet forces deployed but rather how they were used. One of the most comprehensive studies of Soviet combat tactics in Afghanistan, Lester Grau’s book The Bear Went Over the Mountain, concludes: “The Soviet Army that marched into Afghanistan was trained to fight within the context of a theater war against a modern enemy who would obligingly occupy defensive positions stretching across the northern European plain.” The Soviets used artillery, tanks, and ground forces to destroy Afghan positions, and “Soviet tactics and equipment were designed solely to operate within the context of this massive strategic operation.”⁷⁸

The Soviets used conventional tactics to fight an unconventional war. They terrorized the population rather