Abstract

Given the history of tribal peoples in the modern nation state of Afghanistan, regional tribal diasporas and the dynamic nature of their world-views, regional political analysis is complex to say the least.  This complexity and the necessity to justify Coalition involvement in the Afghan conflict has led to an oversimplification in description of the present situation.  This oversimplification has had significant effects on Coalition policy and strategy regarding engagement of combatants in Afghanistan.  In this document we put forth a more robust definition of actors in the conflict and argue that the present situation in Afghanistan is not an insurgency, though it may at one time have resembled one.  Instead, our belief is that the present situation in Afghanistan is a part of a persistent cycle of violence that has been present in this region for hundreds if not thousands of years.  This cycle which defines the relational nature of the region and the nation state of Afghanistan is what we are referring to as a Chaotic Cannibalistic State. We are defining it as a political state, as well as a state of being that exists in constant flux and chaos, resembling an egoistic anarchy; a state of violence, oppression and power-mongering that feeds on itself and its citizenry until a foreign body is introduced, at which point the internal actors, once feeding on each other, coalesce and feed on the foreigner.

Authors:

COL Kevin Meredith, Team Leader, HTAT AF-18

Sergio Villarreal, Social Scientist, HTAT AF-18

Mitchel Wilkinson, PhD, Social Scientist, HTAT AF-18

The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and not those of HTS, TRADOC, the U.S. ARMY, or the U.S. Marine Corps.

This paper is primarily based on field experience and research conducted prior to the author’s involvement with HTS.

The Authors would like to convey special thanks and credit for editing and collaboration to the AF18 Human Terrain Analysis Team Research Managers: Sheraz Ali, Elizabeth Berry and MSG David Babin. We would also like to convey our thanks to Major General Richard Mills, Commanding General, 1 MEF FWD RCSW for support and encouragement.

Given the history of tribal peoples in the modern nation state of Afghanistan, regional tribal diasporas and the dynamic nature of their world-views, regional political analysis is complex to say the least.  This complexity and the necessity to justify Coalition involvement in the Afghan conflict has led to an oversimplification in description of the present situation.  This oversimplification has had significant effects on Coalition policy and strategy regarding engagement of combatants in Afghanistan.  Among these oversimplifications is the tendency to place a single moniker on The Enemy, calling them Taliban; another is labeling the situation Insurgency. In this document we put forth a more robust definition of actors in the conflict and argue that the present situation in Afghanistan is not an insurgency, though it may at one time have resembled one.  Instead, our belief is that the present situation in Afghanistan is a part of a persistent cycle of violence that has been present in this region for hundreds if not thousands of years.  This cycle which defines the relational nature of the region and the nation state of Afghanistan is what we are referring to as a Chaotic Cannibalistic State. We are defining it as a political state, as well as a state of being that exists in constant flux and chaos, resembling an egoistic anarchy; a state of violence, oppression and power-mongering that feeds on itself and its citizenry until a foreign body is introduced, at which point the internal actors, once feeding on each other, coalesce and feed on the foreigner.  In this document we will discuss conceptual actors of instability and enemies in Afghanistan, how our presence may be a coalescing force and therefore adding to this instability, how both of these factors fit into the cycle of conflict and violence in Afghanistan and how this theory may serve as a foundation for a political exit strategy from the war.

The concept of enemy drives public opinion and support for war.  Identifying a conceptual enemy for a nation to ideologically rally against requires the development of an image that the general public will recognize; an image that will provide a simple binary equation for war.  The enemy must be bad – we must be good.  The enemy must be wrong – we must be right. The enemy must be evil – we must be righteous. The enemy must be The Enemy; a singular group with a singular name and a singular leader.  In the case of the world theater, we have made our enemy Al Qaeda; in Afghanistan, this enemy is the Taliban. Mullah Omar, the ubiquitous leader of the Taliban has captured the imagination of the public and the press and has become infamous and powerful.  When the greatest military superpower in the world identifies, recognizes and accepts a leader and his followers as an Enemy, we empower them.  When that enemy survives ten years of conflict, we have encouraged them and other groups to stand with impunity against democracy.

The theory of The Conservation of Enemies (Hartmann, 1982) (Keen, 1991) asserts that as a superpower, we should not accept just any enemy that comes along.  Wise selection of an enemy must be accomplished judiciously and that enemy must meet certain criteria.  We must select an enemy that is defeat-able and that will not bring the fight to our soil.  In the case of Afghanistan, it was easy to convince the general public that there was a group of terrorists led by Osama Bin Laden and a mysterious one-eyed mullah named Omar.  The public was traumatized by the attacks of September 11th and required a face to put on a leader and an Enemy to hold accountable.  When reminded that we once helped Afghanistan to defeat our old Enemy the Soviet Union, it only took a slight information spin to convince well intentioned but uninformed lawmakers that we should help these people again to defeat their own internal enemy; taking the fight to their soil, so it would never again reach our own.  The citizenry of the free-world bought into a strategy that included liberation of the oppressed in Afghanistan and the presentation of the sacred gift of democracy to a people that would surely greet us with open arms.  Unfortunately, the long-history of Afghanistan was ignored over preference for the short.  The short-history of Afghanistan led us to believe that we could install a Western style democracy that by popular support would take root and hold.  The ensuing insurgency should have been quickly suppressed.  Rather, the long-history revealed a Chaotic Cannibalistic State fraught with power brokers bent on localized control and corruption, a state not unexpected by the Afghan people.  U.S. policy makers have failed to heed lessons learned from our own successes and failings in diplomacy.  In the recent history of U.S. Latin American diplomacy, it proved to be much easier for the U.S. to deal with dictators than with functioning democracies.  Examples include Pinoche in Chile, Noriega in Panama and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico.  The latter was instrumental in pushing NAFTA onto Mexico, arguably sparking the Zapatista Movement in 1994.  Democracy, though ostensibly preferred by a hopeful Afghan public, has not garnered widespread public support and local power lies in the hands of strongmen, corrupt Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) officials and the Taliban; all actors of instability.

The internal actors of instability, backed and prodded by external actors of instability and funded by the international community interact in a historically choreographed dance of synchronized chaos.  The indigenous groups involved in the present Afghan conflict share a long history of animosity:  There are splits along ethnic, tribal and geographic lines; There are disputes over water, land and resources; There are differences over religious interpretations; all existing under an economy that consists primarily of illicit trade and international charity.  What we call collectively the Taliban are actually multiple groups of anti-GIRoA fighters that engage in destructive and lethal activities for multiple reasons, the greatest of which is personal gain.  These groups include actual Taliban fighters, traditional tribal leaders, drug-lords, smuggler-band leaders, and war-lords.  GIRoA is fraught with corrupt individuals that utilize power and authority to increase personal wealth and holdings.    Analysis of the historic relationships between all of these groups of people reveals that they have contentiously existed in shifting cycles of alliance, war and violence, punctuated by periods of compulsory peace throughout their long history.  The justly deserved alias for Afghanistan as The Graveyard of Empires (Jones, 2010) is not awarded for the fighting prowess of the Afghan people, but for the no-win scenario that is presented to any outside entity attempting to put in order that which is founded in and thrives upon disorder.  This is not to say that the small internal actors are disordered or unpredictable, or that the people do not appreciate peace.  On the contrary, groups within Afghanistan are hierarchical and operate under established guidelines and rules; the rules however are highly contextual in nature.  The cultural precedence for peace is prolifically evident in their literature and poetry; however, it is often couched within a context of being under the rule of benevolent dictatorship.  It is the cultural worldview that thrives on conflict and is dependent on strong local leadership as opposed to centralized power that drives the context of the present situation and illustrates the history of Afghanistan.  What is predictable about Pashtun behavior, for example, is the necessity for a strong leader and the inevitable greed and hunger for power that drives this leader into conflict with other leaders.  These leaders and groups create temporary alliances and engage in short-term conflicts with other leaders, only to ally with their enemy at a later date when a change in the situation makes it convenient to do so.  What appears to the outsider as chaos, is really a sort of equilibrium within a certain range of human tolerance.  Though this range is outside the tolerance of most cultures in the world, it is what Afghans have developed as their norm.  Our inability to grasp the constantly changing landscape of shifting relationships between these individuals and groups encourages us to take the simpler explanation of the binary equation discussed earlier.