Bruce Hoffman
The decisions that will soon be made about America’s policy for Afghanistan will also determine our success in the war on terrorism. Both are inextricably intertwined. Yet, America has clearly reached a crossroads with respect to Afghanistan and its centrality to this struggle. Wearied by eight years of perplexing and inconclusive fighting in that country (in addition to six years in Iraq), bereaved by the rising death toll of our valiant service personnel, and hobbled by our own economic travail and budget deficit, the attraction to embrace a lighter footprint in Afghanistan and thus pursue what has been termed a counterterrorism, as opposed to a counterinsurgency, strategy is compelling.
Two arguments in particular are made in favor of this option. The first, which I addressed in a previous article for TNI Online, is that since al-Qaeda does not require geographical safe haven to plan and plot terrorist attacks, the danger of Afghanistan again becoming a sanctuary for terrorist planning and operations is exaggerated. The second, which is the subject of this piece, holds that the increased troop levels requested by General Stanley McChrystal are unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive when unmanned aerial drone attacks coupled with light, rapidly inserted special operations, are sufficient to contain any threat from al-Qaeda.
Which approach—counterterrorism or counterinsurgency—can best protect the United States from future terrorist attack and assure to the greatest extent possible the safety and security of the American people? The answer lies in understanding the continuing threat from al-Qaeda along with the realization that terrorists cannot be defeated, and the threat they pose contained, by a decapitation strategy alone.
The success of U.S. unmanned drone attacks in killing at least thirteen senior al-Qaeda operatives over the past fifteen months has raised expectations that this tactic—coupled with rapidly deployable special operations forces—are sufficient to deal with any continuing threat from al-Qaeda and thus forestall the need for additional U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan. It is worth recalling that for the past century similarly extravagant claims about the efficacy of airpower—not least in obviating the need for large numbers of ground forces—have often been made. And, just as frequently these claims have proven more complicated by on-the-ground realities, if not, unfounded. This is not to argue that the drone program has not been effective in making the lives of al-Qaeda’s leaders far more difficult by forcing them to pay ever more attention to their own security and survival. Rather, it is to note that decapitation on its own has rarely proven successful in defeating a terrorist organization.
At the end of the day, the unmanned Predator and Reaper attacks can hold al-Qaeda at bay and disrupt some of its operations, but they can neither eliminate al-Qaeda entirely nor completely neutralize the threat that it poses. In fact, counterterrorism efforts relying on decapitation efforts historically have not been very effective. David Galula, the French army officer who is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern counterinsurgency doctrine, wrote nearly fifty years ago about the fallacy of decapitation as a solution to terrorist and insurgent challenges in the context of France’s war in Algeria between 1954 and 1962. Israel has similarly pioneered the use of targeted killings for more three decades—yet Palestinian terrorism continues. In the case of Hamas, Israel eliminated its chief bomb maker in 1996; suicide terrorist attacks thereafter escalated both in frequency and intensity. More recently, in 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas’s leader and founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and then just weeks later killed the movement’s political head, Abd Azziz Rantisi. Their assassinations would arguably be equivalent to the back-to-back killing of both bin Laden and al Zawahiri. Yet, even despite the loss of Hamas’s spiritual and political leaders, the threat to Israel hardly diminished—and eventually prompted the Israel Defense Force’s massive ground force invasion of Gaza in December 2008 known as “Operation Cast Lead.” In the context of America’s war on terrorism, a U.S. air strike in 2006 killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). As important and significant a blow as this was, al Zarqawi’s death did not end AQI attacks and, indeed, following Zarqawi’s killing, violence attributed to the group actually increased.
Second, the continued success of the drone program is dependent on al-Qaeda continuing to present accessible targets—rather than adapting and adjusting to obviate this particular tactic. Throughout its twenty-one year history, however, al-Qaeda has shown itself to be a learning organization, capable of adapting and adjusting to even the most formidable governmental countermeasures directed against it in order to continue its struggle. Having survived the concerted onslaught directed against it in Afghanistan eight years ago by an unprecedented international coalition that was mobilized against terrorism as a result of the 9/11 attacks, it is likely that al-Qaeda will attempt to devise means to counter the drone attacks that could reduce their effectiveness.
Third, the most successful counterterrorism campaigns historically have depended on the presence of combat forces to obtain critical tactical intelligence through daily interaction with the indigenous civilian population. The relentless piecing together of ground-level intelligence from civilian populations was at the heart of the success achieved by David Galula and his men in Algeria some fifty years ago. It was also how the British military weakened the IRA in Northern Ireland from 1985 onwards—following sixteen years of inadequate intelligence and immense frustration. Training British infantry units to acquire this street-level and village-level intelligence was one of the main aims of the NITAT (Northern Ireland Training and Assistance Teams) program that prepared troops for service in the province.
Finally, although reliance on drones, augmented by special operations forces, is undeniably appealing, it perpetuates the misconception that al-Qaeda and its local militant jihadi allies can be defeated by military means (decapitation) alone. Instead, success will require a dual strategy of continuing to systematically destroy and weaken enemy capabilities by killing and capturing al-Qaeda commanders and operatives—the counterterrorism strategy advocated for Afghanistan—but embedded within the broader counterinsurgency strategy for the country, advocated by General McChrystal, that aims to effect long-term, environmental changes in Afghanistan through a population-centric approach alongside effective information operations to counter al-Qaeda’s and its local allies’ propaganda campaign.
The war on terrorism has frequently been termed a “war of ideas.” Yet, while the United States has been tactically successful in killing or capturing key al-Qaeda leaders, their key lieutenants and many of their foot-soldiers, we have been less successful in strategically countering al-Qaeda’s ability to ally with local terrorist movements, dampen down its ideological appeal and continued ability to radicalize sympathizers both in existing terrorist organizations and among new recruits, as well its continued capacity to energize supporters and thereby sustain its struggle.
Indeed, al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in Pakistan accounts for the movement’s vitality today and the threat that it presents to the stability and security of both that country and Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda of 2009, it should be noted, is a mere shadow of its pre-9/11 self. It does not have the freedom of movement, massive personnel numbers, robust network of training camps and operational bases, functioning international infrastructure, and considerable largesse that it possessed nine years ago when it was located in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Its key operatives and senior commanders are relentlessly hunted. But, as the previous section argued, al-Qaeda has nonetheless been able to reconstitute its global terrorist reach. It has also shown itself to have a deep bench of well-trained, experienced, and battle-hardened veterans from which to draw from and continue to replenish its ranks despite the inroads made by the U.S. Predator strikes. Accordingly, the threat that even a weakened, diminished al-Qaeda still poses cannot be discounted.
The dangerously rising tide of insurgent activity in Afghanistan is a case in point. U.S. military officers believe that “foreign influence” has been behind this dramatic upsurge in insurgent operations is “huge.”[1] Arabs, Turks, Chinese, Uzbeks, and Chechens comprise an international jihadi contingent based in Pakistan that, though not large, nonetheless is actively fomenting, assisting and participating in cross-border attacks. Al Qaeda’s role in particular is seen as pivotal. It acts primarily as a “force multiplier”: providing training and advice and otherwise strengthening existing capacity among indigenous insurgent groups. The standard basic insurgent training package of riflery and field craft, for instance, is augmented by al-Qaeda instruction in advanced ambush techniques and the use and emplacement of increasingly sophisticated improvised explosive devices. Al Qaeda additionally provides overall strategic guidance and assists in the coordination of operations between the Taliban and other insurgents. It imparts useful noncombat skills as well: teaching local jihadis how to plan and execute psychological and information operations and generally improve and strengthen operational expertise and organizational resiliency. U.S. commanders have specifically cited al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in FATA as the reason for the escalation of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. “The insurgency here,” I was told on a visit to Afghanistan last year, “is fed by arms, expertise and guidance from al-Qaeda” personnel based in Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency in FATA and the Malakand area of the NWFP.[2]
U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan believe that al-Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan counterparts have three core objectives for the region:
• Defeat the United States military in Afghanistan and destroy the forces of democracy both in Afghanistan and Pakistan;
• Defend the FATA from Pakistani governmental interference and external intervention; and,
• Destabilize and negate all governmental authority in “Pashtunistan”—-the Pashtun tribal belt spanning Pakistan and Afghanistan.[3]
Although al-Qaeda and its local jihadi partners have yet to achieve the first objective, they can derive some satisfaction from having made progress with respect to the other two. It is now a matter of urgency for the United States to prevent al-Qaeda and its allies from attaining all three. It is not only Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s futures that are at stake, but America’s security and indeed the ultimate success of the war on terrorism.
Accordingly, the first step on either side of the border is to clear territory held by militant groups. This is the “secure and serve the population” dictum that is the essential foundation of any effective counterinsurgency campaign and indeed was the guiding principle of General David H. Petraeus’s successful strategy in Iraq. In Afghanistan at present there are simply too few American and coalition military forces and inadequate Afghan security forces, to achieve this. Hence, while the U.S. military, other coalition forces and the Afghan army can clear and build, they generally cannot hold territory—the third and most-critical leg of the core counterinsurgency triumvirate. “Live among the people. You can’t commute to this fight,” was another of General Petraeus’s pivotal emphases. The issue though is not only one of an Iraq-style surge of more brigades, but also about the capacity and ability of non–Department of Defense U.S. government agencies to engage in a counterinsurgency mission. Our NATO allies will also have also to be persuaded of this priority. Given that public opinion in every NATO country with on-the-ground military commitments in Afghanistan with the exception of Britain favors withdrawal, this is admittedly a tall order. But our NATO allies must be made to understand that the existential threats facing Afghanistan and especially Pakistan by al-Qaeda and their regional jihadi allies also directly impact the security of Europe and the United States—as the al-Qaeda plots detailed above show. The provision of additional American military forces would also critically enhance and accelerate the training of Afghan security forces.
But this “top down” approach to building security must also be accompanied by “bottom up” approaches on both sides of the border. Because power in the Pashtun belt of tribal areas spanning both Afghanistan and Pakistan has historically been decentralized, any successful strategy must adopt a bottom up approach that involves working with local tribes, sub-tribes and clans. Those groups that have either been victimized or marginalized by the Taliban and foreign fighters need to be the focus of such efforts, which entail the provision of arms, training and logistical support. Because traditional tribal governance structures have sufficient legitimacy at the grassroots level, this bottom up approach is critical—not least since many groups may be especially amenable to such overtures given the revenge they might seek for the usurpation of their power that “Talibanization”—the accretion of Taliban power and control—has created.
Providing consistent, expanding security is thus the first critical step in counterinsurgency. The second and third steps are governance and development. This was encapsulated in General Petraeus’s operational guidance for Iraq to “Foster . . . legitimacy”; “Build relationships”; and, “Look for Sustainable Solutions.” Achieving this in Afghanistan, however, will require time and additional resources. The problem, as General McChrystal argues, is inadequate numbers of U.S. personnel to implement a holistic counterinsurgency strategy. Corruption, record levels of opium cultivation, and poor governance are significant problems. However, improvements in those critical domains arguably cannot be achieved without a stabilization of the declining security situation in the country that will only come from checking the Taliban’s expansion and increasing control of both territory and populace.
The third step involves promoting economic development. Though an essential prerequisite, security improvements by themselves are not sufficient to ensure long-term, sustained progress. Indeed, improved security will almost certainly prove inchoate without the provision of tangible economic benefits to local, disaffected communities. The tribal areas on both sides of the border have long been the least served by their respective countries’ governments in terms of health, roads, schools, electricity, water and other public services. This inequality has bred frustration, animosity and worse and needs to be addressed through improved security, systemic political reform and then concerted, well-resourced economic development in support of a coordinated counterinsurgency strategy.
One absolutely vital aspect of an effective counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan that General McChrystal singles out in his initial commander’s assessment is information operations (IO). Among the core principles of General Petraeus’s guidance for Iraq were to “Fight the information war relentlessly.” Equally critical is to “Be first with the truth.” General Petraeus explained that this entailed “Get[ting] accurate information of significant activities to the chain of command, to Iraqi leaders, and to the press as soon as is possible. Beat the insurgents, extremists, and criminals to the headlines, and pre-empt rumors.” Unfortunately, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the extent to which General Petraeus’s guidance has been followed, it has been by the Taliban movements in both countries and not by U.S., coalition or host-country governments. The Taliban’s accelerating accretion of power and influence on both sides of the border in fact is fueled not only by outright violence and intimidation but also by sophisticated information operations—that is, the packaging, production and dissemination of propaganda. “The [Pakistani] Taliban’s IO is really good,” a diplomat I met with in Islamabad last year marveled.[4] I heard identical encomiums across the border in Afghanistan only a few months before. “The [Afghan] Taliban’s IO campaign is as strong as ever,” one U.S. Army intelligence officer told me last March; while another lamented that the Afghan Taliban “is a hell of a lot better at IO than we are.”
Once dismissed as technophobic Luddites, the Taliban movements on either side of the border are displaying a newfound flair for twenty-first century communications. The Afghan Taliban, for instance, has created several Web sites and regularly uses al-Qaeda’s production company, Al-Sahab (“The Clouds”) Media, to make videos. These communications are vastly superior in quality and clarity of message to the Taliban’s previous efforts. Its use of the Internet has also dramatically increased: both to spread propaganda and recruit potential fighters. And the Afghan Taliban now publishes newspapers, such as Zamir, and magazines, such as Tora Bora and Sirak.
In this respect, the Taliban has learned well from the guidance and instruction that al-Qaeda’s practiced propagandists and those of its Kashmiri jihadi allies routinely provide. For instance, any American drone strike, no matter the target or the result, is immediately jumped on by Taliban publicists and decried in press releases and news conferences as an unprovoked, cowardly attack on civilians in which countless babies and children have died. Thus, the Taliban view is quickly and effectively propagated before the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) public affairs office can even react, much issue a press release or hold a news conference. “It’s fighting the io [information operations] piece that’s most important,” a U.S. Army colonel at a forward operating base (FOB) in Khowst Province, Afghanistan told me. “The use of the nonlethal stuff is what changes communities. Bullets don’t work to change [this] fight; i.o. does.” Yet, American, coalition and host-nation efforts in this respect lag far behind those of their enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At the foundation of the type of dynamic and adaptive strategy needed to defeat terrorists and insurgents alike is the ineluctable axiom that successfully countering these threats is not exclusively a military endeavor but also involves fundamental parallel political, social, economic, and ideological activities.[5] The predominantly tactical “kill or capture” approach and metric encapsulated by the drone program is too narrow and does not sufficiently address the complexities of these unique operational environments. The adversaries and the threats that the United States faces today in Afghanistan and Pakistan are much more elusive and complicated to be vanquished by mere decapitation. What is required to ensure success is a more integrated approach to a threat that is at once operationally durable, evolutionary and elusive in character.
An effective strategy will thus combine the tactical elements of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities alongside the equally critical, broader strategic imperative of breaking the cycle of terrorist and insurgent recruitment and replenishment that have respectively sustained al-Qaeda and fueled the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and upheaval in Pakistan. Enhanced, improved and better coordinated information operations will be a critical element of this approach. These also will entail the building of host-nation capabilities to a greater and more sustained extent than currently exists: all key elements in General McChrystal’s assessment. An effective strategy will be one designed to achieve the following five core objectives:
1. Separating the enemy from the populace that provides support and sustenance. This, in turn, entails three basic missions:
a. Denial of enemy sanctuary b. Elimination of enemy freedom of movement c. Denial of enemy resources and support;
2. Identification and neutralization of the enemy;
3. Creation of a secure environment—progressing from local to provincial to national;
4. Ongoing and effective neutralization of enemy propaganda and information operations through the planning and execution of a comprehensive and integrated information operations and holistic civil affairs campaign in harmony with the first three tasks; and,
5. Interagency efforts to build effective and responsible civil governance mechanisms that eliminate the appeal of terrorism and insurgency to the host-nation population.
The key to success will be in harnessing the overwhelming kinetic force of the U.S. military as part of a comprehensive vision to effectively address the range of irregular and unconventional threats that continue to face us today.
Bruce Hoffman is a professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, and a contributing editor to The National Interest.
Two arguments in particular are made in favor of this option. The first, which I addressed in a previous article for TNI Online, is that since al-Qaeda does not require geographical safe haven to plan and plot terrorist attacks, the danger of Afghanistan again becoming a sanctuary for terrorist planning and operations is exaggerated. The second, which is the subject of this piece, holds that the increased troop levels requested by General Stanley McChrystal are unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive when unmanned aerial drone attacks coupled with light, rapidly inserted special operations, are sufficient to contain any threat from al-Qaeda.
Which approach—counterterrorism or counterinsurgency—can best protect the United States from future terrorist attack and assure to the greatest extent possible the safety and security of the American people? The answer lies in understanding the continuing threat from al-Qaeda along with the realization that terrorists cannot be defeated, and the threat they pose contained, by a decapitation strategy alone.
The success of U.S. unmanned drone attacks in killing at least thirteen senior al-Qaeda operatives over the past fifteen months has raised expectations that this tactic—coupled with rapidly deployable special operations forces—are sufficient to deal with any continuing threat from al-Qaeda and thus forestall the need for additional U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan. It is worth recalling that for the past century similarly extravagant claims about the efficacy of airpower—not least in obviating the need for large numbers of ground forces—have often been made. And, just as frequently these claims have proven more complicated by on-the-ground realities, if not, unfounded. This is not to argue that the drone program has not been effective in making the lives of al-Qaeda’s leaders far more difficult by forcing them to pay ever more attention to their own security and survival. Rather, it is to note that decapitation on its own has rarely proven successful in defeating a terrorist organization.
At the end of the day, the unmanned Predator and Reaper attacks can hold al-Qaeda at bay and disrupt some of its operations, but they can neither eliminate al-Qaeda entirely nor completely neutralize the threat that it poses. In fact, counterterrorism efforts relying on decapitation efforts historically have not been very effective. David Galula, the French army officer who is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern counterinsurgency doctrine, wrote nearly fifty years ago about the fallacy of decapitation as a solution to terrorist and insurgent challenges in the context of France’s war in Algeria between 1954 and 1962. Israel has similarly pioneered the use of targeted killings for more three decades—yet Palestinian terrorism continues. In the case of Hamas, Israel eliminated its chief bomb maker in 1996; suicide terrorist attacks thereafter escalated both in frequency and intensity. More recently, in 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas’s leader and founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and then just weeks later killed the movement’s political head, Abd Azziz Rantisi. Their assassinations would arguably be equivalent to the back-to-back killing of both bin Laden and al Zawahiri. Yet, even despite the loss of Hamas’s spiritual and political leaders, the threat to Israel hardly diminished—and eventually prompted the Israel Defense Force’s massive ground force invasion of Gaza in December 2008 known as “Operation Cast Lead.” In the context of America’s war on terrorism, a U.S. air strike in 2006 killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). As important and significant a blow as this was, al Zarqawi’s death did not end AQI attacks and, indeed, following Zarqawi’s killing, violence attributed to the group actually increased.
Second, the continued success of the drone program is dependent on al-Qaeda continuing to present accessible targets—rather than adapting and adjusting to obviate this particular tactic. Throughout its twenty-one year history, however, al-Qaeda has shown itself to be a learning organization, capable of adapting and adjusting to even the most formidable governmental countermeasures directed against it in order to continue its struggle. Having survived the concerted onslaught directed against it in Afghanistan eight years ago by an unprecedented international coalition that was mobilized against terrorism as a result of the 9/11 attacks, it is likely that al-Qaeda will attempt to devise means to counter the drone attacks that could reduce their effectiveness.
Third, the most successful counterterrorism campaigns historically have depended on the presence of combat forces to obtain critical tactical intelligence through daily interaction with the indigenous civilian population. The relentless piecing together of ground-level intelligence from civilian populations was at the heart of the success achieved by David Galula and his men in Algeria some fifty years ago. It was also how the British military weakened the IRA in Northern Ireland from 1985 onwards—following sixteen years of inadequate intelligence and immense frustration. Training British infantry units to acquire this street-level and village-level intelligence was one of the main aims of the NITAT (Northern Ireland Training and Assistance Teams) program that prepared troops for service in the province.
Finally, although reliance on drones, augmented by special operations forces, is undeniably appealing, it perpetuates the misconception that al-Qaeda and its local militant jihadi allies can be defeated by military means (decapitation) alone. Instead, success will require a dual strategy of continuing to systematically destroy and weaken enemy capabilities by killing and capturing al-Qaeda commanders and operatives—the counterterrorism strategy advocated for Afghanistan—but embedded within the broader counterinsurgency strategy for the country, advocated by General McChrystal, that aims to effect long-term, environmental changes in Afghanistan through a population-centric approach alongside effective information operations to counter al-Qaeda’s and its local allies’ propaganda campaign.
The war on terrorism has frequently been termed a “war of ideas.” Yet, while the United States has been tactically successful in killing or capturing key al-Qaeda leaders, their key lieutenants and many of their foot-soldiers, we have been less successful in strategically countering al-Qaeda’s ability to ally with local terrorist movements, dampen down its ideological appeal and continued ability to radicalize sympathizers both in existing terrorist organizations and among new recruits, as well its continued capacity to energize supporters and thereby sustain its struggle.
Indeed, al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in Pakistan accounts for the movement’s vitality today and the threat that it presents to the stability and security of both that country and Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda of 2009, it should be noted, is a mere shadow of its pre-9/11 self. It does not have the freedom of movement, massive personnel numbers, robust network of training camps and operational bases, functioning international infrastructure, and considerable largesse that it possessed nine years ago when it was located in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Its key operatives and senior commanders are relentlessly hunted. But, as the previous section argued, al-Qaeda has nonetheless been able to reconstitute its global terrorist reach. It has also shown itself to have a deep bench of well-trained, experienced, and battle-hardened veterans from which to draw from and continue to replenish its ranks despite the inroads made by the U.S. Predator strikes. Accordingly, the threat that even a weakened, diminished al-Qaeda still poses cannot be discounted.
The dangerously rising tide of insurgent activity in Afghanistan is a case in point. U.S. military officers believe that “foreign influence” has been behind this dramatic upsurge in insurgent operations is “huge.”[1] Arabs, Turks, Chinese, Uzbeks, and Chechens comprise an international jihadi contingent based in Pakistan that, though not large, nonetheless is actively fomenting, assisting and participating in cross-border attacks. Al Qaeda’s role in particular is seen as pivotal. It acts primarily as a “force multiplier”: providing training and advice and otherwise strengthening existing capacity among indigenous insurgent groups. The standard basic insurgent training package of riflery and field craft, for instance, is augmented by al-Qaeda instruction in advanced ambush techniques and the use and emplacement of increasingly sophisticated improvised explosive devices. Al Qaeda additionally provides overall strategic guidance and assists in the coordination of operations between the Taliban and other insurgents. It imparts useful noncombat skills as well: teaching local jihadis how to plan and execute psychological and information operations and generally improve and strengthen operational expertise and organizational resiliency. U.S. commanders have specifically cited al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in FATA as the reason for the escalation of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. “The insurgency here,” I was told on a visit to Afghanistan last year, “is fed by arms, expertise and guidance from al-Qaeda” personnel based in Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency in FATA and the Malakand area of the NWFP.[2]
U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan believe that al-Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan counterparts have three core objectives for the region:
• Defeat the United States military in Afghanistan and destroy the forces of democracy both in Afghanistan and Pakistan;
• Defend the FATA from Pakistani governmental interference and external intervention; and,
• Destabilize and negate all governmental authority in “Pashtunistan”—-the Pashtun tribal belt spanning Pakistan and Afghanistan.[3]
Although al-Qaeda and its local jihadi partners have yet to achieve the first objective, they can derive some satisfaction from having made progress with respect to the other two. It is now a matter of urgency for the United States to prevent al-Qaeda and its allies from attaining all three. It is not only Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s futures that are at stake, but America’s security and indeed the ultimate success of the war on terrorism.
Accordingly, the first step on either side of the border is to clear territory held by militant groups. This is the “secure and serve the population” dictum that is the essential foundation of any effective counterinsurgency campaign and indeed was the guiding principle of General David H. Petraeus’s successful strategy in Iraq. In Afghanistan at present there are simply too few American and coalition military forces and inadequate Afghan security forces, to achieve this. Hence, while the U.S. military, other coalition forces and the Afghan army can clear and build, they generally cannot hold territory—the third and most-critical leg of the core counterinsurgency triumvirate. “Live among the people. You can’t commute to this fight,” was another of General Petraeus’s pivotal emphases. The issue though is not only one of an Iraq-style surge of more brigades, but also about the capacity and ability of non–Department of Defense U.S. government agencies to engage in a counterinsurgency mission. Our NATO allies will also have also to be persuaded of this priority. Given that public opinion in every NATO country with on-the-ground military commitments in Afghanistan with the exception of Britain favors withdrawal, this is admittedly a tall order. But our NATO allies must be made to understand that the existential threats facing Afghanistan and especially Pakistan by al-Qaeda and their regional jihadi allies also directly impact the security of Europe and the United States—as the al-Qaeda plots detailed above show. The provision of additional American military forces would also critically enhance and accelerate the training of Afghan security forces.
But this “top down” approach to building security must also be accompanied by “bottom up” approaches on both sides of the border. Because power in the Pashtun belt of tribal areas spanning both Afghanistan and Pakistan has historically been decentralized, any successful strategy must adopt a bottom up approach that involves working with local tribes, sub-tribes and clans. Those groups that have either been victimized or marginalized by the Taliban and foreign fighters need to be the focus of such efforts, which entail the provision of arms, training and logistical support. Because traditional tribal governance structures have sufficient legitimacy at the grassroots level, this bottom up approach is critical—not least since many groups may be especially amenable to such overtures given the revenge they might seek for the usurpation of their power that “Talibanization”—the accretion of Taliban power and control—has created.
Providing consistent, expanding security is thus the first critical step in counterinsurgency. The second and third steps are governance and development. This was encapsulated in General Petraeus’s operational guidance for Iraq to “Foster . . . legitimacy”; “Build relationships”; and, “Look for Sustainable Solutions.” Achieving this in Afghanistan, however, will require time and additional resources. The problem, as General McChrystal argues, is inadequate numbers of U.S. personnel to implement a holistic counterinsurgency strategy. Corruption, record levels of opium cultivation, and poor governance are significant problems. However, improvements in those critical domains arguably cannot be achieved without a stabilization of the declining security situation in the country that will only come from checking the Taliban’s expansion and increasing control of both territory and populace.
The third step involves promoting economic development. Though an essential prerequisite, security improvements by themselves are not sufficient to ensure long-term, sustained progress. Indeed, improved security will almost certainly prove inchoate without the provision of tangible economic benefits to local, disaffected communities. The tribal areas on both sides of the border have long been the least served by their respective countries’ governments in terms of health, roads, schools, electricity, water and other public services. This inequality has bred frustration, animosity and worse and needs to be addressed through improved security, systemic political reform and then concerted, well-resourced economic development in support of a coordinated counterinsurgency strategy.
One absolutely vital aspect of an effective counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan that General McChrystal singles out in his initial commander’s assessment is information operations (IO). Among the core principles of General Petraeus’s guidance for Iraq were to “Fight the information war relentlessly.” Equally critical is to “Be first with the truth.” General Petraeus explained that this entailed “Get[ting] accurate information of significant activities to the chain of command, to Iraqi leaders, and to the press as soon as is possible. Beat the insurgents, extremists, and criminals to the headlines, and pre-empt rumors.” Unfortunately, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the extent to which General Petraeus’s guidance has been followed, it has been by the Taliban movements in both countries and not by U.S., coalition or host-country governments. The Taliban’s accelerating accretion of power and influence on both sides of the border in fact is fueled not only by outright violence and intimidation but also by sophisticated information operations—that is, the packaging, production and dissemination of propaganda. “The [Pakistani] Taliban’s IO is really good,” a diplomat I met with in Islamabad last year marveled.[4] I heard identical encomiums across the border in Afghanistan only a few months before. “The [Afghan] Taliban’s IO campaign is as strong as ever,” one U.S. Army intelligence officer told me last March; while another lamented that the Afghan Taliban “is a hell of a lot better at IO than we are.”
Once dismissed as technophobic Luddites, the Taliban movements on either side of the border are displaying a newfound flair for twenty-first century communications. The Afghan Taliban, for instance, has created several Web sites and regularly uses al-Qaeda’s production company, Al-Sahab (“The Clouds”) Media, to make videos. These communications are vastly superior in quality and clarity of message to the Taliban’s previous efforts. Its use of the Internet has also dramatically increased: both to spread propaganda and recruit potential fighters. And the Afghan Taliban now publishes newspapers, such as Zamir, and magazines, such as Tora Bora and Sirak.
In this respect, the Taliban has learned well from the guidance and instruction that al-Qaeda’s practiced propagandists and those of its Kashmiri jihadi allies routinely provide. For instance, any American drone strike, no matter the target or the result, is immediately jumped on by Taliban publicists and decried in press releases and news conferences as an unprovoked, cowardly attack on civilians in which countless babies and children have died. Thus, the Taliban view is quickly and effectively propagated before the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) public affairs office can even react, much issue a press release or hold a news conference. “It’s fighting the io [information operations] piece that’s most important,” a U.S. Army colonel at a forward operating base (FOB) in Khowst Province, Afghanistan told me. “The use of the nonlethal stuff is what changes communities. Bullets don’t work to change [this] fight; i.o. does.” Yet, American, coalition and host-nation efforts in this respect lag far behind those of their enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At the foundation of the type of dynamic and adaptive strategy needed to defeat terrorists and insurgents alike is the ineluctable axiom that successfully countering these threats is not exclusively a military endeavor but also involves fundamental parallel political, social, economic, and ideological activities.[5] The predominantly tactical “kill or capture” approach and metric encapsulated by the drone program is too narrow and does not sufficiently address the complexities of these unique operational environments. The adversaries and the threats that the United States faces today in Afghanistan and Pakistan are much more elusive and complicated to be vanquished by mere decapitation. What is required to ensure success is a more integrated approach to a threat that is at once operationally durable, evolutionary and elusive in character.
An effective strategy will thus combine the tactical elements of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities alongside the equally critical, broader strategic imperative of breaking the cycle of terrorist and insurgent recruitment and replenishment that have respectively sustained al-Qaeda and fueled the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and upheaval in Pakistan. Enhanced, improved and better coordinated information operations will be a critical element of this approach. These also will entail the building of host-nation capabilities to a greater and more sustained extent than currently exists: all key elements in General McChrystal’s assessment. An effective strategy will be one designed to achieve the following five core objectives:
1. Separating the enemy from the populace that provides support and sustenance. This, in turn, entails three basic missions:
a. Denial of enemy sanctuary b. Elimination of enemy freedom of movement c. Denial of enemy resources and support;
2. Identification and neutralization of the enemy;
3. Creation of a secure environment—progressing from local to provincial to national;
4. Ongoing and effective neutralization of enemy propaganda and information operations through the planning and execution of a comprehensive and integrated information operations and holistic civil affairs campaign in harmony with the first three tasks; and,
5. Interagency efforts to build effective and responsible civil governance mechanisms that eliminate the appeal of terrorism and insurgency to the host-nation population.
The key to success will be in harnessing the overwhelming kinetic force of the U.S. military as part of a comprehensive vision to effectively address the range of irregular and unconventional threats that continue to face us today.
Bruce Hoffman is a professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, and a contributing editor to The National Interest.
TNI
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