who was present during the confusion. “The guy was in tears. He had been completely dishonored.” It was a strategic blunder, recalled another soldier. “After Mountain Sweep,” he noted, “for the first time since we got here, we’re getting rocks thrown at us on the road in Khowst.”4
This and other experiences had marred the 82nd Airborne’s reputation. But through the end of its rotation in early 2008, the 82nd Airborne had worked assiduously to change the general impression of the division, embracing the three core principles of counterinsurgency: clear, hold, and build. Colonel Schweitzer declared: “The Taliban and other groups tell locals: don’t send your kids to school, don’t take advantage of the medical care provided, and don’t support the government by helping with security. We say the opposite. Send your kids to school and we’ll build them, seek the available medical care, and the government will support you through the construction of roads, schools, dams, and infrastructure that will stimulate the economy.”5
Building on counterinsurgency lessons from the British, French, and American historical experiences, the 82nd Airborne increasingly focused its efforts on “soft power.” This translated into a greater focus on reconstruction and development projects and less emphasis on combat operations. At the core of this strategy was an assumption that local Afghans were the center of gravity, a basic tenet of counter-insurgency warfare. The French counterinsurgency expert Roger Trinquier summed this up lucidly: “The
Many Afghans had been frustrated by the lack of development over the previous several years, and unhappy with poor governance. To address these concerns, the 82nd Airborne worked with tribal leaders to identify local needs and to develop projects that helped address those needs. Thus, in Khowst Province, for example, Colonel Schweitzer and provincial governor Arsala Jamal teamed up to build infrastructure and hospitals. In Paktia Province and in Kunar, where Larry Legree was stationed, locals saw newly paved roads, electricity, and reliable water projects move toward swift completion. A sizable chunk of the money came from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), which enabled U.S. military commanders to dole out aid quickly. Another strategic component was hiring local Afghans to perform and evaluate the work.7
Against all odds, eastern Afghanistan appeared to rebound in 2008. In Khowst Province, the number of children in school quadrupled—from 38,000 in 2004 to more than 160,000 in 2008. Roughly 10 percent of Afghans in the east had access to basic health care in 2004, while more than 75 percent had access in 2008.8 And, perhaps one of the most revealing metrics of progress in a country where cell phones were a primary method of communication for those who could afford them, there suddenly seemed to be service throughout the region. It was a shock when my BlackBerry worked almost everywhere I visited in eastern Afghanistan, including in remote border outposts.
The 82nd Airborne Division’s efforts created a bit of defensiveness among some U.S. allies. In May 2008, the British government circulated a paper in response to “suggestions that U.S. successes in their counter-insurgency campaign in eastern Afghanistan should be migrated to the south,” where British forces were located. The paper asked whether there were any lessons that might be applied to British operations in Helmand Province. The British pointed out that U.S. forces had been present in eastern Afghanistan much longer than British forces had in Helmand; U.S. military tours of duty were longer than British tours; and the United States provided significantly more funding through its CERP and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) than Britain had in the south. Also, there were important differences between the east and the south in geography, population density, tribal structure, and types of jihadi groups. The result, British analysts concluded, was that “the east is easier terrain for counter-insurgency” and that “differences of geography, of resources, and of campaign timing suggest that many of the American approaches…are not transferable to Helmand.”9
Building on Success?
Despite an innovative strategy, inadequate resources once again thwarted U.S. efforts. “We’re like the Pacific theatre in World War II,” a U.S. civil-affairs officer in eastern Afghanistan complained. “We will get more resources after we defeat Berlin,” he said, alluding to the U.S. focus on Iraq.10
There were too few American and Coalition military forces, and there was too little American civilian expertise to ensure the permanence of this progress. By 2008, some 56,000 Coalition forces were stationed in Afghanistan, compared with more than three times that number in Iraq. American troop strength was even more disproportionate. U.S. military force levels in Iraq were frozen at 140,000 personnel, while just over 30,000 were deployed to Afghanistan. Thus, as during the earlier periods of the campaign, the U.S. military, other Coalition forces, and the Afghan National Army could clear territory but generally could not hold it. In June 2008, General David McKiernan became commander of ISAF; several months later, his staff completed the ISAF campaign plan, which was fairly blunt about the lack of forces to hold territory, noting that NATO had to resort to an “economy of force and special operations” effort to make up for the shortfalls and “to disrupt the insurgency and shape future operations.”11 Troops involved in reconstruction work could have been reallocated to combat operations, but there were still too few civilians in the field from the State Department and USAID. The rough living conditions and acute security concerns meant that the U.S. military had to shoulder most of the burden for governance and economic development activities, which in more normal circumstances would have fallen to officials in the Department of State, Commerce, Agriculture, or USAID.
U.S. and other NATO forces also had trouble “building” in some areas. In his book
Each PRT consisted of roughly 60 to 100 personnel. Soldiers, who made up the bulk of each team, were divided into civil-affairs units, Special Forces, force-protection units, and psychological operations personnel. In most cases, more than 90 percent of the personnel were soldiers because of the struggle to get civilian personnel.14 According to Larry Legree, “recruiting civilians was a tremendous challenge” in Kunar Province. “A number of U.S. agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, were simply not optimized to operate in an insurgency.”15 Legree was fortunate, however, since he managed to recruit a handful of competent civilians to assist in development and reconstruction. One was Alison Blosser, a sharp, young foreign service officer who spoke Pashto and was instrumental in dealing with Kunar’s governor, Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi.
Both U.S. and NATO Provincial Reconstruction Teams faced significant staffing hurdles. Short tours of duty— including some for as little as three months—made it difficult for PRT members to understand local politics and culture. There were also too few of the teams. Five years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, the United States and other NATO countries were able to put PRTs in virtually all major Afghan cities, but they had little operational reach into rural areas.16 Colonel John Agoglia, director of the Counterinsurgency Training Center on Afghanistan, bluntly acknowledged that “many Coalition forces do not actively and consistently patrol their areas of responsibility or, when they do patrol, they sally forth from Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) for a quick-order patrol that has very little enduring effect.”17
USAID faced serious challenges in adapting to the new environment. According to one official involved, USAID’s initial attitude was to treat Afghanistan as a post-conflict environment. It wasn’t. It was an insurgency. USAID did not prioritize reconstruction aid geographically and focus specifically on the south and east until 2006.18
NATO countries also faced deep challenges in linking military operations with reconstruction efforts. In a series of briefings in 2008 at NATO headquarters in Kabul, for example, key military officials from Regional Command South expressed growing frustration with the failure to meld reconstruction efforts with military operations. Despite oral commitments to focus on development and not combat operations, these officers reported: “By the time we get to executing plans, most of our operations are kinetic.” There was little comprehensive NATO activity on economic development in rural areas of the south, and no systematic coordination between the military and such civilian agencies as USAID, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the UK’s Department for International Development. “The biggest problem we have,” the briefers concluded, “is consolidating military gains with development.”19
Civilian Casualties
