It was, in retrospect, an age of soft-hat innocence. At the start of their deployment to Helmand last year, British soldiers acted like preening contestants in a military popularity contest.
Paratroopers spurned helmets in favour of berets, learned pidgin Pashto and armed themselves with friendly smiles. Soldiers on foot patrol in Lashkar Gah kicked footballs with children and sipped green tea with solemn-faced, turbaned elders. Their commanders promised greater sensitivity than the gum-chewing Americans who used to charge around the town at breakneck speed. In Kabul the thoughtful British general in charge of Nato, David Richards, vowed to stay close to the people. ”Your best solution is the population around you,” he said.
How much has changed. More than 30 British soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan in six months, 18 of them in some of the most intense combat since World War II; a controversial peace pact with pro-Taliban elders; a heroin trade soaring to record levels under British noses; and a stillborn £50-million development plan.
Talk of hearts and minds has been drowned out by demands for armour and bullets. A volley of suicide bombings has raised tensions, sometimes with tragic results. Last week British troops fired on a vehicle that failed to stop at a checkpost in Goreshk, killing two civilians.
The British department for international development has spent only £2-million of its £50-million three-year budget and the two department officials in Lashkar Gah rarely leave their base. The little work that has begun is in the hands of 28th Regiment Engineers and private firms as Helmand terrifies foreign aid workers.
Meanwhile, the military, frustrated by reticent aid agencies, is fumbling for a successful strategy. Having fought courageously through the summer British troops have had to abandon dangerous outposts such as Sangin and Musa Qala. Now they are concentrating on protecting a much smaller triangle of territory. Is it all going wrong? Helmand is one part of a bigger Nato strategy across southern Afghanistan that seems simple and sensible — use military force to clear the Taliban from defined areas, send in millions of pounds of development, and win the support of the ”swing voters” that make up about 70% of southerners. In practice, it has been bloody and complex.
The Taliban has proved a resilient and flexible enemy. In September Nato launched Operation Medusa, a drive into Panjwayi and Zheri, two Taliban-infested districts where dug-in insurgents threatened to attack Kandahar. Medusa was, in military terms, a roaring success. The enemy was routed and more than 1 000 insurgents were killed, giving what British and Nato commanders call ”psychological ascendancy” over the Taliban.
But they privately admit the situation remains on a knife edge. The Taliban has re-infiltrated Panjwayi, returning to older ”asymmetric” tactics copied from Iraq such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs. The insurgents no longer hold the terrain but have goaded the alliance into tragic blunders that cost public support.
On October 24 Nato forces attacked a Taliban position in Lakani, a hamlet in Panjwayi. During the battle a United States C-130 gunship strafed a group running through a field, thinking they were insurgents. In fact, they were shepherds and their families. ”Certainly it’s difficult to win people’s hearts and minds when you are shooting at them,” remarked a Nato official.
Tactics have been hampered by limited troop numbers.
”One of the lessons the British have learned is that the small outpost doesn’t work, in part because the ability to put in a rapid deployment force has not happened,” said Marvin Weinbaum, a former Afghanistan intelligence analyst at the US state department. ”The ink-blot approach makes more sense — you go into areas you can secure and spread from there.”
But Weinbaum said the dual strategy of a military presence and a development drive was the right one, and should have been implemented earlier.
”We just let this slip away over five years,” he said. ”If you go back three or four years, things we are doing now would have worked very well. We thought we had all the time in the world to bring in the kind of governance and reconstruction people are talking about now. We discover in the interim, people have lost faith in the central government and there has been a rise of prestige for the enemy.”
Nato is hamstrung by disagreements among its members. It relies heavily on air strikes because key allies, notably Germany, refuse to send troops to the south. The US Air Force has carried out 2 000 air strikes in Afghanistan since June, compared with 88 in Iraq. Commanders will redouble requests for more combat troops at the annual Nato summit later this month.
But debate is also stirring about the value of robust military tactics. Tom Koenigs, head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, said Nato cannot win the fight alone and must concentrate on building up the Afghan security forces. ”You can’t resolve this by killing Taliban. You have to win people over. And that is done with good governance, decent police, diplomacy with Pakistan, and development,” he said.
Nato and British commanders say Medusa has opened up a vital window for aid. Casualties from roadside bombs and suicide attacks have fallen from 245 in September to 29 for the first two weeks of November, said Brigadier Richard Nugee, and soldiers in Panjwayi have started an $8-million reconstruction drive. Some experts warn that the lull might be seasonal; winter warfare is unusual in Afghanistan.
History supports the view that troops and infrastructure have limited value in winning Afghan sympathies. During their 10-year occupation the Soviets deployed 10 000 soldiers and spent billons on major projects, yet were defeated. Tellingly, recent fighting between US and Taliban forces in Ghazni province was concentrated in Andar district, which had received the highest concentration of US aid. But the good news is that most Afghans still want outside help.
British commanders in Helmand already appreciate the importance of local politics. A deal with local elders in Musa Qala — whereby Taliban and British forces agreed to withdraw in favour of local militia — led US officers to grumble that they had capitulated to the enemy. But British officials argue they were extricating themselves from a fight between two drug barons — an explanation that highlights the many complexities of an enemy for which the term ”Taliban” is sometimes just a convenient catch-all.
But behind the arguments there is agreement that the mission is worth it. After two decades of bitter war, Afghans are also desperate for success. But time is running out to convince them that the pain they must endure in the meantime is worth it, too.
”The people here are fiercely independent but are swallowing their pride to bring their country forward,” Koenigs said. ”We have a limited window to act. Otherwise they will chase us out within three years.” — Â