War and State-Building in Afghanistan

Historical and Modern Perspectives

Scott Gates, Kaushik Roy

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781474286350
• eBook ISBN: 9781472572196
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The Mughals, British and Soviets all failed to subjugate Afghanistan, failures which offer valuable lessons for today. Taking a long historical perspective from 1520 to 2012, this volume examines the Mughal, British, Soviet and NATO efforts in Afghanistan, drawing on new archives and a synthesis of previous counter-insurgency experiences. Special emphasis is given to ecology, terrain and logistics to explain sub-conventional operations and state-building in Afghanistan. War and State-Building in Modern Afghanistan provides an overall synthesis of British, Russian, American and NATO military activities in Afghanistan, which directly links past experiences to the current challenges. These timely essays are particularly relevant to contemporary debates about NATO's role in Afghanistan; do the war and state-building policies currently employed by NATO forces undercut or enhance a political solution? The essays in this volume introduce new historical perspectives on this debate, and will prove illuminating reading for students and scholars interested in military history, the history of warfare, international relations and comparative politics.

1

Continuity and Change in Asymmetric Warfare in Afghanistan: From the Mughals to the Americans

Scott Gates, Kaushik Roy, Marianne Dahl and Håvard Mokleiv Nygård

Introduction

From 1520 to 2014 the Mughal, British, Soviet and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, i.e. NATO) armies have engaged in asymmetric conflict in Afghanistan. Despite superior strength, none of them succeeded.1 Like former rebel groups opposing previous foreign invasions in Afghanistan, the Taliban is both willing and able to continue fighting. In this chapter, we argue that this is due to physical geography and strategic and tactical adaptation, which have favoured the continued survival and fighting of the weaker side. These factors have remained constant, or at least remained relatively stable, over the centuries in Afghanistan. The reasons why ISAF has not succeeded in defeating the Taliban are similar to those why the Soviets, British and Mughals never succeeded.2 One important factor that has varied over time, however, is the intensity of differential time preferences.

Afghanistan offers a unique ‘laboratory’ in which to analyse asymmetric conflict. In this chapter, we draw on and extend arguments developed by Andrew Mack3 and Ivan Arreguín-Toft4 on how the weak win wars, and combine them with Christopher Butler and Scott Gates’ theory of strategic adaptation, featuring the concepts of the ability to hurt and to hide.5 Despite considerable technological change, the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan has exhibited a remarkable level of continuity from the Mughal (sixteenth century) to the recent era. The implication is that some aspects of insurgency–counterinsurgency dynamics tend to be relatively static compared with other theatres of war. Nevertheless, the strategic nature of armed conflict is defined by change, adaptation and learning. Indeed, the characteristics of asymmetric war in Afghanistan are characterized by both continuity and change. Pacification policies adopted by intervening forces tend to be repeated over the course of Afghanistan’s history.

The main question we seek to answer is, given that one is a much weaker power, why continue fighting? We offer two explanations. First, the weaker party derives some form of benefit from fighting that exceeds the costs. This relates to the ability to hide and hurt, which in turn relates to the unchanging nature of geography. The second reason is that in the long run, the weaker party believes that the stronger will leave the fight. You need not defeat the stronger; one just needs to last longer. This is the essence of differential time preferences. The first reason has remained constant over the centuries; the second has intensified over time.

The ability to hurt vs. the ability to hide

There are different perspectives from which to analyse asymmetric warfare, depending on the nature of the question asked: those interested in how the weak win wars focus on material and technical gaps; those interested in insurgency–counterinsurgency dynamics focus on the tactics used in asymmetric conflict (i.e. guerrilla tactics, insurgency, terrorism, etc.). The fact is that the two aspects of asymmetric war fit hand in glove: the tactics used in asymmetric war stem from the material imbalance between forces.

Adaptation and innovation are the hallmarks of warfare. Weapons, logistics, transport and other forms of military technology have changed considerably over the course of history. For every innovation comes the diffusion of new technology, nullifying the advantage held by the first adaptor. Military history abounds with examples of technological innovation providing an advantage to one belligerent over another – for example, the Ottoman defeat of the Safavids with the use of gunpowder in 1514 at the Battle of Chaldiran.6 Another example is the defeat of the Polish armies by the German panzers, which played such a prominent role in the Blitzkrieg described by Liddell Hart and Taylor.7

Yet, technological innovation is only part of the story. Tactical innovation is also a central aspect of military history. Strategic adaptation of tactics can and often has mitigated the technological edge of more powerful armies. A group lacking the means or the ability to exploit a new technology will adapt strategically to stay in the fight. If they don’t, they will be defeated. This form of adaptation, the negation of technological advantage, is essential to sustaining an asymmetric war. Indeed, ‘the choice of tactics involves a trade-off between the rebels’ ability to hurt the government and the government’s ability to hurt the rebels’.8

If the parties in an asymmetric conflict were to meet in a conventional battle, the weaker party would be defeated – and, in most cases, cease to exist. In order to survive, the weaker party must adapt materially or strategically. In the short run, material adaptation is rarely an opportunity; instead, the weaker party will tend to adopt non-conventional tactics to put the conflict on a more even footing. This tends to involve prioritizing hiding – and it’s own survival – over the ability to hurt. As we demonstrate below, successful strategic adaptation hinges on the ability to hide while continuing to hurt. This depends to a large extent on the natural terrain.

A rebel group is defined by its members, their distribution throughout the country, and their density among the civilian population. All these aspects affect the rebel group’s ability to fight and survive. It is much harder to identify and capture a small, dispersed group, hiding either among civilians or in the natural terrain. However, a large and concentrated group located close to the government will be much better placed to hurt the government, and in the end, win the conflict.9 To win the conflict, the rebel group will in the long run have to adapt materially, and choose a tactic that benefits the ability to hurt over the ability to hide.

The weaker party, typically an insurgent group fighting an asymmetric war, will tend to adopt non-conventional tactics so as to put the conflict on a more even footing. Systematic analysis of all wars over time demonstrates that military tactics play a significant role in determining victory in battle.10 To overcome superior troop strength and technology, weaker parties turn to guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Both guerrilla warfare and terrorism involve tactics that significantly reduce the government’s ability to hurt the rebels. Indeed, guerrilla tactics constitute the quintessential form of asymmetric warfare. Guerrilla warfare is fought by small groups of combatants employing tactics involving mobility and surprise. Ambushes, raids and sabotage are used in an effort to cripple the state, particularly the state’s military capacity. Guerrilla tactics focus more directly on the infrastructure and agents of the state. Terrorism, in contrast, targets not the state itself, but non-combatants. The tactic is designed to instil fear and intimidation among the general public to further a political agenda. It affects change indirectly through the creation of a widespread sense of fear among the general populace. When the weaker side chooses tactics that benefit the ability to hide, the superiority of the stronger side becomes less prominent. The success of such a tactical adaptation hinges on whether external factors allow for it.

To understand the inherent logic tying tactics to asymmetric unequal access to resources with which to devote to the conflict and unequal military technology, we turn to the contest success functions (CSF) technology widely employed by economists to analyse conflict.11 The CSF model assumes that each belligerent has some initial endowment of resources, which are allocated to guns or butter (or into fighting or productive effort). The relative capabilities of different armed groups play a critical role in the contest success function. But more important, capability is not the only factor being modelled. Contest success functions explicitly account for the allocation of resources to guns and to non-fighting effort. Few wars, if any, are true t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• About the Series
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Notes on the Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Armies, Warfare and the State in Afghanistan from Pre-modern Times to the Present Era Scott Gates and Kaushik Roy
• 1 Continuity and Change in Asymmetric Warfare in Afghanistan: From the Mughals to the Americans Scott Gates, Kaushik Roy, Marianne Dahl and Håvard Mokleiv Nygård
• 2 Great Mughals, Warfare and COIN in Afghanistan, 1520–1707 Kaushik Roy
• 3 Counterinsurgency and Empire: The British Experience with Afghanistan and the North-west Frontier, 1838–1947 John Ferris
• 4 The Conflict of War and Politics in the Soviet Intervention into Afghanistan, 1979–89 Pavel K. Baev
• 5 Al-Qaeda versus Najibullah: Revisiting the Role of Foreign Fighters in the Battles of Jalalabad and Khost, 1989–92 Anne Stenersen
• 6 The Afghan National Army and COIN: Past, Present and Future Reconsidered Rob Johnson
• 7 Revising COIN: The Stakeholder-centric Approach Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, Karsten Friis and Harald Håvoll
• 8 The Country as a Whole: Imagined States and the Failure of COIN in Afghanistan Ivan Arreguín-Toft
• 9 Heart or Periphery? Afghanistan’s Complex Neighbourhood Relations Kristian Berg Harpviken
• Select Bibliography
• Glossary
• Index
• Copyright