New approach for Afghanistan

Working with certain Taliban members is unavoidable, says David Kilcullen, former assistant to US general Petraeus. It would be a good idea for the Netherlands to devote itself to civilian projects in Afghanistan after 2010.

Before David Kilcullen found himself in the highest military and political circles of the US, he was an anthropologist. For several years (1994-2000) he lived in Indonesia with the Islamic insurgents who later formed the terrorist group Jema’ah Islamiyah. He learned that you fight guerrillas and terrorists by understanding them. “I do not see it as a moral issue. It is not a battle against Evil, as former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld always said.”

Kilcullen’s approach has been gathering supporters in Washington over the past years. In 2007 at the request of general David Petreaus he taught US troops in Iraq how to work with insurgents. After that he became an adviser to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. And now he has ended up at Washington’s most influential think-tank for defence and foreign policy, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) – whose top people have almost all joined the Obama administration over the past weeks.

Kilcullen himself concentrates on Afghanistan. Obama announced on Tuesday that the US will send an additional 17,000 troops to the country. The new strategy still has to be established: it is being prepared by diplomat Richard Holbrooke and undersecretary of defence Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy was Kilcullen’s boss at CNAS just four weeks ago.

Direct questions

Afghanistan is an old specialism of Kilcullen’s. He visited the country not long ago. “As an anthropologist I never ask direct questions. I don’t say: who protects civic order? I ask: if your bike is stolen, who do you ask for help to get it back? In Afghanistan nearly everyone says: the Taliban; if people turn to police they are beaten up, but the Taliban helps them. So in reality the Taliban are the local police.”

That, he says, must be the starting point of the new strategy. “We have been chasing the Taliban for years, with the misconception that this is how we will beat them. But in practice the Taliban consists of three separate groups. There are the travelling insurgents, on whom we spend the most time. There are the local guerrilla fighters. And there are the underground people – those who intimidate people. While western troops have been chasing the travelling Taliban for the past years, this last group has succeeded in gaining control of the local population.’’

Nato, and the US troops under Petreaus in Iraq, would do better to provide security in small communities by working together with the local guerrilla fighters. The result is that the Taliban would then attack Nato, not vice versa. “If you open fire on the valley from the mountains, you are the enemy. If you fight back shoulder to shoulder with local fighters, then you are a partner. Even if you lose the fight, that isn’t a problem: you win the propaganda war. That is also how we do it in Iraq.’’

Cooperating with terrorists

Kilcullen recognises that in US public opinion there is anxiety about “cooperating with terrorists,” as it is called. “But one of the major turnarounds in Petreaus’ strategy in Iraq was that we stopped looking at insurgents from a strictly moral point of view. No Rumsfeld approach anymore. We said: just look at the political and economic interests of people. Of course there are exceptions. Al-Qaeda is so violent and vicious that we would never work with them. 2 to 3 percent of the Taliban are also like that. You have to want to kill those people – so that you can work together with the other 98 percent.”

Most of these 98 percent are tribal fighters who do want to cooperate with the government but fail to do so for fear of the violent 2 percent, he says. “That is why almost all the work involves reconciliation and development – political work. The small part remaining involves fighting the enemy. But that remaining part is essential. If you do not shoot back, you lose everything. But the deciding factor is ultimately the political work. You are only successful if you do that well.’’

Few people realise, he says, that the core of Petreaus’ tactics in Iraq was taken from Afghanistan. Until 2006 Kilcullen, seconded to the Pentagon by the Australian military, belonged to a small group that opposed the invasion of Iraq and the strategy. “So when the strategy failed entirely in 2006, they said to us: okay, if you guys are so smart, you take over.”

“By coincidence, in 2006 I was with a team in Afghanistan for secretaty Rice to talk with the Dutch general Ton van Loon and several British commanders. I studied parts of the country where the operation was going relatively well, to determine what works. I wrote a detailed report which was lying on Rice’s desk when the surge came up for discussion late 2006. After that Petreaus called on me. So even though the circumstances in Iraq were different, the tactics for the operation were partly taken from the working method in Afghanistan. And that also means therefore that some of those tactics can once again be applied in Afghanistan.’’

Appreciation for Dutch efforts

In 2006 he also saw that some Dutch commanders were not up to the task of fighting terrorism. “They explained that if they were nice to the Afghans, the Afghans would be nice to them – and would stop supporting the Taliban. That’s not how it works. Once the sun sets and the enemy puts a gun to your head, your loyalty changes. You must want to kill an enemy that uses intimidation and force.’’

This does not detract from the fact that there is appreciation in Washington for the Dutch efforts, says Kilcullen. “But there are concerns of course that the Dutch troops will pull out of Afghanistan [in 2010]. It seems to me that the Dutch population has to address how to continue the relationship with the people in Afghanistan. I think that the debate should not only be about troops, perhaps not at all. The Netherlands has so much to offer besides combat troops: administrators, police, teachers, engineers, agriculture experts. Teach the Afghans to grow tulips instead of heroin.”

“I could also see the Netherlands being given leadership only of the civilian programme in the provinces of Uruzgan and Day Kundi, while another country takes on the military task. Then the Netherlands can build on its relationship, and the knowledge that has been acquired will not be lost. The special forces also have a very good reputation. So extra Dutch marines could also make a big difference.”

A full withdrawal would not go down well, thinks Kilcullen. “Nato will not survive if the alliance fails in Afghanistan. And it is also important that we do not end up a two tier Nato: with the member states that send troops and those who do not. Afghanistan is a joint problem, that we have to address jointly. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously has also finish what they started.”