One Tribe at a Time - but which one first?

Sometimes I think we can win the war in Afghanistan:

A decorated war veteran and Pashto speaker with multiple tours in Afghanistan, Gant had been assigned by the Army to deploy to Iraq in November. But with senior military and civilian leaders -- including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command -- expressing support for Gant's views, he was ordered instead to return to Afghanistan later this year to work on tribal issues.

"Maj. Jim Gant's paper is very impressive -- so impressive, in fact, that I shared it widely," Petraeus said, while McChrystal distributed it to all commanders in Afghanistan. One senior military official went so far as to call Gant "Lawrence of Afghanistan."

The abrupt about-face surprised the blunt-spoken major. "I couldn't believe it," Gant said in a recent interview, recalling how his orders were canceled just days before he was set to deploy to Iraq. "How do I know they are serious? They contacted me. I am not a very nice guy. I lead men in combat. I am not a Harvard guy. You don't want me on your think tank."

Major Jim Gant is the author of One Tribe at a Time. The document is a chronicle of his experience in Afghanistan (as a US Army Special Forces team leader "embedded" with a tribe in the Af/Pak border region) and a description of one possible future there. Its first public appearance was on Steven Pressfield's blog last fall. (Pressfield now has a section of his site dedicated to Gant's work and follow-on discussion.)

Don't be afraid to read the whole thing. This is not the product of a Harvard-educated think tank wonk eager to establish his credibility as a brilliant thinker and invaluable participant in the "Afghan debate." It's the output of one man with no illusions about the difficulty of the task, from on the ground with the people of one valley to headquarters (from the lowest levels to the White House - and the people of the United States). It's brief, to the point, and accessible - and more Gates of Fire than doctoral thesis.

Maybe a Special Forces ODA can understand an Afghan tribe because we ourselves are a tribe. And the Afghans recognize this. As time went by and we fought in many ambushes and engagements throughout the river valley and around other villages, the tribe came to believe that we were on their side and that we had come to help. With this, they began to open up to us. Here's one example:

Our team was in Mangwel. Malik Noorafzhal asked us to stay the night as we had many topics to discuss. Was this safe? I quickly counted over sixty armed warriors providing security. There were sentries high in the mountains (on the Pakistani side) that we were not meant to see, and three layers of security near the Malik's compound. We set up a hasty defensive perimeter (HDP) with our vehicles and got settled. The Malik then approached me and said he wanted to take me somewhere very special.

I, of course, agreed. I grabbed three of my men, we got in several pick-up trucks with Malik Noorafzhal and his men, and began traveling up towards the beautiful mountain range behind Mangwel (with just weapons, no body armor) towards Pakistan. We drove up a valley and past an Afghan cemetery with many large flat rocks emplaced into the ground. We noticed many graves. Off in the distance, what appeared to be an old village had been destroyed.

The vehicles parked and we all got out. Malik Noorafzhal grabbed my hand and we walked hand in hand up a small valley into the mountains. We turned at a small bend and there was a beautiful waterfall. He told us to drink the water.

He then came next to me and said (through my interpreter), "Jim, the last time I saw a person with a face like yours (meaning white) the Russians killed 86 men, women and children of my village." He continued, "This is my old village. We fought the Russians. They never took my village. We are ready to fight again if we have to." He looked at me and finished with, "You have great warriors with you. We will fight together."

Gant isn't afraid to use terms like warrior and winning (which he defines in chapter one). And he doesn't shy away from big issues that (if resolved) will ultimately bring about that win.

The Pashtun tribes will fight any and all outsiders, and refuse to accept being ruled by a central government...

Current policy is to pour more time, money and resources into the ANA and ANP. We have been doing this for eight years now and what do we have? The ANA and ANP are symbols of the central government, which at present is not trusted by the tribes.

Yet we continue to stake the success of our mission on their development. We should continue to develop the will and capacity of the ANA and ANP, while simultaneously preparing the tribes to defend themselves.

This is not a my way or the highway solution - Major Gant is confident in proposing a theory developed in its own execution, but is no crusader convinced he's completely right or completely righteous.

The struggle in Afghanistan is against more than one foe; in addition to the Taliban we're confronted with a bureaucracy that's potentially the one enemy that can't be defeated. But I opened this discussion with sometimes I think we can win the war, and gave one of the best examples I've seen lately of why: it's less because of what Major Gant wrote (hardly new, it's how we defeated the Taliban in the first place) and more that others in that same bureaucracy encountered an unconventional idea that an unconventional man proposed in an unconventional forum, plucked him from the relentless tide that would have sent him elsewhere, and dropped him instead where he was needed most.

But "can win" isn't the same as "will." News from elsewhere:

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.

Their concerns have slowed the implementation of a key effort to provide security in places where there are relatively few NATO forces or Afghan police and Army units. U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year.

...before the initiative can be implemented on a broader scale, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry must approve the release of more money for it.

Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency. While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.

Ambassador Eikenberry's memos expressed "deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said."

...and wonder what's changed? The best answer I can offer is "nothing." He's obviously as determined as ever.

"We've got the watches, they've got the time," Gant reminds us.

In an insurgency, all the insurgents have to do is not lose. All they have to do is wear down the will of the counterinsurgent and in this case, the will of the American people and the American politicians.

If you're a member of one of those last two tribes, "yours" is the answer to "which one first?"

Here's One Tribe at a Time. Read the whole thing.