Afghanistan: Get Serious or Get out

Unless there is a change in how it perceives the nature of warfare, the West will lose the war in Afghanistan, despite declaring victory, and spend the next 10 years in splendid isolation wondering what went wrong.

Patrick Bury is a former Captain in the British Army’s Royal Irish Regiment who has served in Afghanistan; he delivered his Masters dissertation on Military-Media Relations and a memoir of his experiences, ‘Callsign Hades’, is to be published in September by Simon and Schuster

The leaking of the contents of log reports two weeks ago from an American military headquarters in Afghanistan may have surprised the media and the populace, but it will not surprise any soldiers who have served there.

It appears that much of the media and many people are out of touch. That they still think that war should be clean, clear cut and concise. It is none of these.

Maybe the precedent of low casualty victories, like Iraq in 1991 and Kosovo in 1999, delivered by the technological Revolution in Military Affairs, has helped shape this false belief, maybe it is the failure of the media to convey the true horrors of war, but for leaked reports, detailing civilians getting killed by accident, special forces operatives on ‘kill or capture missions’, and Pakistani intelligence service collaboration with the Taliban to surprise anyone who knows anything about either war or Afghanistan, is ridiculous.

Of course, the media has an important watch-dog role in modern society and there is a definite need for the primacy of rule of law in military operations. Yet the way some of the media, and therefore the population in general, expect soldiers to win wars that are ostensibly fought in their name is unrealistic, and given the changing nature of war, becoming even more so.

The leaked logs show higher civilian casualties than previously reported. When our enemies fight us amongst the people, high rates of civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable. Indeed, as in the Taliban’s case, inducing the West to cause civilian casualties is an explicit tactical and strategic goal of insurgents. And it seems much of the West’s population and media are not aware of this manipulation.

Moreover, heavily armed young men, despite the best training and restraint, make mistakes sometimes. You would, if you were in Afghanistan and a car that you couldn’t make out was hurtling toward your checkpoint and ignoring your shouts and warning shots and driving right toward you, and what about that report of three vehicle borne suicide bombers in the bazaar just before you left base?

And unfortunately, war makes both states and men act in ways they may not like to act normally. Special operations provide an example. They operate in the grey area between Realpolitik and law, they execute foreign policy at the tactical level, with all the myriad moral complexities this entails. If you think ‘kill or capture missions’ are morally suspect you are right, if you think they are always unnecessary you are wrong.

War has changed, probably irreversibly. The prospect of defeat in Afghanistan for NATO and the U.S is now real. Wars amongst the people and Improvised Explosive Devices have negated Western militaries’ once all powerful control of the battlespace and turned soldiers into little more than heavily laden slow-moving targets.

Meanwhile a lightly armed, agile militia called the Taliban are using every trick they can to win. They use children proxy bombers, they use human shields, they lay ambushes for NATO soldiers returning Taliban dead to their mosques. They do not care for the Geneva Convention, nor human rights. And it pays off.

And they have time and a long term view of strategy.

The only time the West fights to win is in a war of necessity, such as in World War 2. Then the rules are bent and the gloves come off, for a period. This is usually acceptable, if unknown, to the population the state is acting to protect. This happens in a war of survival; survival of the fittest, the most adaptable.

A government should not go into a war if it is not a war of survival, if it is not prepared to fight to win. It owes that to those risking their lives on its behalf.

Unless there is a change in how it perceives the nature of warfare, the West will lose the war in Afghanistan, despite declaring victory, and spend the next 10 years in splendid isolation wondering what went wrong.

44 Responses to “Afghanistan: Get Serious or Get out”

  1. Andy Williams

    Ash there are some brutal truths that people are going to have to accept about Afghanistan. The Taliban will win unless we tiotally destroy them. If they win, al-Quada will be back in there like a shot and what happend in New York, London and Madrid will happen again, only more frequently and on a bigger scale and in more western cities.

    So Ash, what’s it to be. More terrorist atrocities in western cities, or victory in Afghanistan.

    Which do you want because they are the only choices on the table (unless you bizarrely believe that the drug-addled jokers known as the Afghan National Army can actually win for us).

  2. Patrick

    I understand your point Ash, but I am talking about accepting the inevitability of civilian and military casualties, hardening against capital driven media sensationlism and getting down to do a dirty job with enough boots on the ground, resources and willpower to actually do it properly. Of course, this should be conducted within the rule of law. And thats if we actually think it is worth it…
    To most Afghans we look weak, precisely because of our commitment to our Western ideals. I am not saying they actually make us weak,(they strengthen us in some ways, too) but I’m saying thats how we are percieved in many parts of the world.
    The French have a democratic society yet are tough on defence and security. Ask any Somali pirate. Meanwhile the Royal Navy is faced with a rules of engagement conundrum each time an armed skiff races by in pursuit of a tanker. The point I’m making here and in the article is that the world is an increasingly unstable place, and it does not pay to be percieved as weak.
    I would never suggest ditching the Geneva convention or commiting war crimes to gain the upper hand, I would suggest, if the fight is deemed worth it, fighting with every asset available and fighting hard. If its not worth, lets get out. The Taliban will be running half of the country by the end of the decade and fighting the other half..

  3. Ash

    Patrick – if you’re talking about acting strictly within the rule of law, I’m not sure we disagree. But I find it hard to square that with your comments in the article about bending rules in order to prevail, in a survival-of-the-fittest contest, against an enemy whose disregard for legal and ethical principles you describe as ‘paying off’.

    Andy – not quite sure what you’re asking me. It’s not utterly destroying the Taliban I’m objecting to, it’s the implication that we should do so by beating them at their own game – i.e. disregarding any and every moral and legal principle in the pursuit of victory. If the choice on offer is between Taliban/al-Qaeda style atrocities committed AGAINST the UK and Taliban/al-Qaeda style atrocities committed BY the UK, then I’ll take the former.

  4. Mr. Sensible

    This is an interesting debate.

    I think it is right that we have gone in to Afghanistan; Andy has highlighted what could happen if the Taliban come back.

    Yes, we want to win, but I think 1 of the best ways to win will be to try and take the Afghan people wit us. And so, whilst civilian casualties may be inevitable, they should be kept to a minimum.

  5. Patrick

    Andy, I’m talking operating within the rule of law, but not strictly all of the time, like most state and non- state actors around the world. I’m talking about realpolitik and the situation as it is, not as we would like it to be. I understand the argument that if we do not operate under our liberal ideals we erode our own society, but these liberal ideals are percieved as weak by many. If you hold on to your own ideals (which many have fought and died for)too tightly and do not adapt there is a risk that it will be detrimental to your position. I think that is especially the case given the strategic instability we are faced with…
    It is also somewhat naive to think that ignoring the rules does not pay off. The precise reason the Taliban are doing so well is they fight dirty and dont care about our ideals (Civilian casualties, Geneva convention etc)and the military are not alowed to fight at that level, mostly for good reason.
    I think the nature of war is changing, and because of that the West is losing its military power, which was based on armour, jets and overwhelming force. If you agree with these two observations, then, it follows, we need to reconsider how the West fights its wars vis a vis its enemies. It is perfectly fine, brave and commendable saying you would rather face AQ atrocities than be party to UK atrocities of the same nature, and I agree, but that does not get away from the crux of the argument. I believe, as a liberal, we are increasingly percieved as weak around the world because of our ideals. I thought that LFF, as a blogsite for likeminded individuals, would be a good place to see what other people thought….

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