Kemp’s work focuses on Eastern Afghanistan in the period 2004 to 2008, part of which occurred during my time as US ambassador to Afghanistan. It was a period generally marked by under-resourcing, particularly in civilian personnel, some of which resulted from the flow of resources to Iraq. Much of it however, derived from the hollowing out of American diplomacy during the previous twenty years, when administrations of both parties thought they could do with either less diplomacy or fewer people to carry it out. The frequent reference in the book to staffing gaps and responsibilities that exceeded any reasonable grasp were a direct result of the massive personnel shortages that the American Academy of Diplomacy documented in 2008.1 Our war efforts paid the price for this neglect. We should not repeat the experience.
The reader will find certain themes recur through the book. Progress early on was strong; but as the insurgency picked up speed, much of the progress was reversed. In examining this trend in Eastern Afghanistan, the area covered by Kemp, two facts are particularly important. One was that much of the impetus for the increase in fighting came from across the Pakistani border. The other was that American inputs did not keep pace with the change. In April 2007, in my last major report before leaving post, I noted that while we were not losing then, we could be in a year, and we had no margin for surprise.2 This book deals with parts of the field-level work that gave rise to that analysis.
Another recurring theme is that of the harmful results of our short-tour policies. Military and civilian personnel come for a year or so and depart. Knowledge is lost, plans are changed (often to the confusion of Afghans who remain), focus is shifted before efforts have put down solid roots, and the increasingly disgusted locals have to reeducate the foreigners every few months. Until we are prepared to keep senior personnel in place for considerably longer tours we will not succeed in building a learning organization to deal with complex local realities.
Lack of sufficient, trained Afghan bureaucratic personnel was a continual roadblock. That was simply a fact of life. It needed longterm training over many years to reverse the effects of twenty-five years of war and the near-total destruction of Afghanistan’s educational system. Some of that training is now happening; but those like Robert Kemp who worked in the early years simply had to live with the problem. No amount of concepts and coordinating structures could wholly make up for the absence of people––something to remember when evaluating the results of that period.
As the insurgency worsened, we increased our security––”force protection,” in the jargon. The result, as Kemp notes, was to reduce the mobility of our personnel and their interaction with Afghans, which in turn, reduced our local knowledge and ability to refine our actions. Clearly, the result was lost effectiveness. More recently, after the politicization of the losses in Benghazi, this trend has considerably worsened. We have not always been this risk-averse. We operated on quite different principles in Vietnam. If the current trend continues, so will the reductions in knowledge essential for intelligent policy.
A particularly interesting development in the later part of Robert Kemp’s time was the effort to shift the focus of aid and governance from a provincial to a district level, at least for districts deemed key to the war effort. Kemp’s description of that shift is a usefully detailed account of the enormous resources in time, people, and money that were required to move from concept to effective implementation. This is an important lesson for those who think success is just about getting the policy right.
In war, as my military colleagues used to remind me, “the enemy gets a vote.” That is particularly apparent in the many cyclical developments recorded here––areas where there was considerable progress that then slipped for various reasons. In some cases progress was restored. In others the task will now be up to the Afghan government. Kemp’s discussion of Nangarhar is telling. It was one of the brighter provinces for a time. Much of that progress has been lost; local power brokers are challenging the once powerful but now ailing governor, crime is on the upswing, as are opium poppy production and insurgency. Some of the problems stemmed from the lack of follow-through on aid promises. Many are purely local issues. All is not lost, but the swings remind one that in a counterinsurgency progress is rarely linear and needs constant reinforcement.
It is clear that some efforts failed during the period of this work. Others succeeded only in part. And some made a real difference. While judging the results is important, it is important also to understand how new, complicated, and difficult the times and circumstances were. Much had to be learned the hard way, by trial and error, when time precluded lengthy study and knowledge was slight. We should not lose either the knowledge gained of how to operate in such circumstances or our understanding of how difficult it was to acquire that knowledge. To both those ends this work makes a real contribution.
Ronald E. Neumann
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan 2005-2007
Preface
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.