Afghanistan’s “Vietnam-style Downward Spiral”

Holed up in their immense bases, the American army cannot win the war by continuing to wage it from a distance. Its culture, based on the strength of its firepower, opposes that of the Afghan soldiers who are feudal and mystical. Those are the findings submitted by Michel Goya, director of the Institute of Strategic Research.

Back from Kabul, Michel Goya, director of studies of new conflicts, delivers his “impressions” in the first publication of the newly-created Institute of Strategic Defense Research (IRSEM). The study is rich in lessons on the cultural chasm between the American army and the Afghans. And, by extension, on the fate of the war.

Flat screens and products “made in the USA”

This officer, a historian by training, was invited by Operation Epidote (which trains Afghan officers) to hold conferences for the benefit of the Afghan equivalent of the Inter-army Defense College (CID) and the Center for Advanced Military Studies (CHEM). He describes the way in which many Americans live through the war, protected in their bases, veritable “oases of prosperity” with overabundant flat screen televisions and products made in the USA. There, Afghans are nowhere to be found, “except to clean up,” he writes.

Worse, their mode of operating at a distance conflicts with the feudal and mystical Afghan warrior culture. Methods of warfare in Afghanistan are different than those used during the Vietnam War. The Americans compensate for the “tactical mediocrity” of their infantry with their crushing firepower, especially their aerial firepower. The result: “Those who oppose the Americans are transformed into heroes; aerial assaults turn their victims into martyrs, and the martyrs’ loved ones into revenge-seekers.” That’s precisely the “Vietnam-style downward spiral” that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, wants to block because it is “incontestably a losing strategy in the long run,” Goya underscores. The American general must lead combat against the culture of his own army.

What is novel is that Goya is interested by Afghan officers’ thoughts. Their vision of events is stunning. As long as it is at the service of corrupt politics, the military can only ever be just as corrupt, they opine. Regarding the Western contingents, they view them as “corps of foreigners” who barricade themselves in their bases and move back and forth ceaselessly. In short, this attempt to transplant one system onto another is failing.

The Afghan generals are notably “stunned” by the discrepancy between NATO’s expenses and the paltry provisions of their military. For example, an average mission of a hunter-destroyer, without firing, costs almost as much as what is needed for an Afghan battalion. According to Goya, it would probably suffice to double this sum to diminish the desertion rates in the ranks of the Afghan army (12 percent among non-commissioned officers and 34 percent among commissioned officers) and to attract mercenaries to the right side. That would cost $200 to $300 million per year, whereas the Americans spend almost one billion per week! “But it’s true,” he writes, “that nobody really asks the opinions of the Afghan officers.”

The Afghans, in return, have a good image of the French. On the ground, the situation contains many contrasts. The Surobi district, where ten French soldiers were killed last August, seems to be in the process of “pacification.” Not so in Kapisa, northeast of Kabul, where the situation remains difficult because it serves as a strategic zone for insurgents coming from Pakistan. “Conscious that controlling the entire zone with its limited means is impossible, the Third Naval Infantry Regiment (RIMa) limits itself to indirect and patient actions, concentrating on constructing roads and rebuffing rebels that would oppose this,” notes Goya. The soldiers have the feeling that in France, their action is perceived as “a low-profile and low-cost operation,” a “sort of scaled-down war of Indochina.”

No fatalism, nevertheless. “We must be aware that this war will be long and difficult, but if it is winnable, it will only be because the Taliban are largely detested,” underscores Goya. He argues that the solution will not be an increase in manpower, but rather that the coalition adapts itself better to the Afghan situation. He makes three propositions emanating from the French and Afghan officers: integrate local soldiers under contract into the French battalions in the style of the “yellow” units of the Indochina War; create a small permanent corps of “officers of Afghan affairs,” whose knowledge of the language will facilitate the units’ actions; and train young Afghans, who will act as a sort of “adaptable military service” at the command of the French.

Propositions coming from the ground are not lacking. It remains to be seen if they are realizable, given restricted means.