Читать книгу Counterinsurgency In Eastern Afghanistan 2004-2008: A Civilian Perspective - Robert Kemp - Страница 4

After the attacks of September 2001, the United States found itself rapidly engaged in combat operations in several areas of Afghanistan, notably the plains and hills north of Kabul and the western areas around Kandahar. After quick victories there, the United States and its international allies expanded their presence, including into the eastern quarter of the country. Eastern Afghanistan was and is a remarkable place – a land of high mountains, Islam, complex tribes, nomads, poppy growing, tradition and honor, war and hospitality, multiple layers of history, rapid social change, and startling beauty. This book looks, in part, at what happened in the early years of a new century when the United States encountered eastern Afghanistan.

Focus of the Book

The purpose of this book is to provide a civilian perspective of the U.S. engagement in eastern Afghanistan during 2004–2008, particularly in terms of counterinsurgency (COIN) and its many facets. Afghan society was changing rapidly, and the insurgency was transforming itself, making this effort even more complex. A somewhat ad-hoc U.S. government organizational structure evolved into one where interagency responsibilities and coordination were better defined, while civilian-military relations became more organized and balanced, resources were increased, and new strategies and tactics were put in place. Different cultures and personalities played a role in policy and operations; personal relationships were key.

The Government of Afghanistan was slowly beginning to gain form and function at the national and local levels, and the Afghan Army and police forces began to assert themselves under the new government. International players, including Pakistan, India, and other neighbors became involved in ways that added to the situation’s complexity, often creating difficulties for counterinsurgents.

Sources and Methods of Research

Much of the book draws on the author’s experiences on the ground in Afghanistan. These included a posting from 2004 to 2005 as the political advisor for the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), headquartered in Khost Province along the border with Pakistan, and concurrently as the political officer at the Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). During a second posting from 2007 to 2008, the author was attached to the 173rd ABCT headquarters in Jalalabad, again bordering Pakistan and served as the lead officer for local government at the U.S. Embassy and as the deputy director of the PRT section. The author was assigned to the Interagency Provincial Affairs section within the U.S. embassy in the spring of 2010, working on a program to provide local governance and development immediately after combat operations. While in Washington, the author was the deputy director of the Pakistan desk and also did three short-term assignments in Pakistan. In Brussels, the author was a political-military officer assigned to the U.S. Mission at NATO from 2005 to 2007.

Sources include interviews––both publicly available and those conducted by the author––with other State Department and military officers who served in Afghanistan during this time and with their counterparts in Washington. Afghan sources were used, as well as open-source articles and publicly available U.S. government documents.

Book Format

The first four chapters introduce the area covered by RC–East, the actors involved, and their goals and strategies. Chapters five through seven look at the main “pillars” of counterinsurgency: security, governance, and development. Chapters eight through eleven look at two case studies, one a tool (PRTs) and the other geographic (Nangarhar Province), as well as two major factors: the nature of the Afghan-Pakistan border and the nature of Islam along this border. The last two chapters analyze what happened during this period and draw lessons learned.

Four annexes at the end of the book look in detail at specific programs, areas, and efforts to make complex organizations work.

Besides the two case studies mentioned above, others case studies look at efforts to strengthen local governance through the District Delivery Program (Annex I), operations in Khost province (Annex II), and maneuver battalion operations in Bermal, Paktika province, a UN program to bring stability to a difficult area, and elections (Annex III).

While many military aspects of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan have been thoroughly reported in both open-source articles and internal U.S. government documents, analysis of the civilian aspects is less comprehensive. This book is meant to fill part of this gap. At the same time, views of the Afghan government and civilians are largely underrepresented in the Western press, enough so that this book intends to break new ground in this area.

This study is one person’s perspective, informed by various participants, including the U.S. government, the Government of Afghanistan, the Government of Pakistan, the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the various insurgent groups, and the views of the different branches of the U.S. military. Most of the chapters draw on the author’s views of what happened and why and include lessons learned. It was written with military and civilian officers in mind––those who need to make policy succeed in the field––but in hopes that it will be of interest to other readers who have a general interest in what happened in Afghanistan during this time and why. It is also written to document hard-won knowledge that too often was lost when officers and units rotated out of Afghanistan.