My Share of the Task(194)
After talking with the soldiers and being struck by the details of the fighting, we moved by helicopter a few kilometers to the south to meet with a group of Afghan elders in a quiet, shaded spot alongside an irrigation ditch. The war seemed distant as we sat under a small tree. Tea was served, conversation was careful and nonconfrontational. The elders had only a vague appreciation for the position I held, and weren’t awed by four stars. After some thirty to forty minutes, one of the elders responded to our offer to build roads, schools, and bridges. He hesitated for a moment, as if pondering his answer.
“It is security that must come first,” he said, looking me in the eyes as the interpreter translated. “Security is the mother of all development.”
In the end, the villagers were hospitable but cautious. They would not commit themselves to any side until convinced it was safe to do so. Theirs was “brutally rational behavior,” I reminded my team. “Exactly what we’d do in their position.” Like most people caught in this kind of warfare, they were simple people who couldn’t afford the luxury of backing the side they hoped would win over the side they believed would. In Helmand, we had cleared parts of the province during each of the last four summers, only in many cases to leave without holding the terrain won. ISAF’s history of doing so left the people increasingly skeptical of our promises—and fearful of the violence they knew a fresh Western assault augured. The villagers knew from experience how easily the Taliban seeped back into the pockets we vacated. That summer, insurgents had been punishing “spies” and “collaborators” thought to be working with NATO or the Karzai government. A single Taliban night letter could undo weeks of grueling ISAF fighting.
As the Brits continued disrupting Taliban routes and havens north of Helmand’s capital, the Marines focused their efforts south of it. On July 2, four thousand Marines launched Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, into the Nawa and Garmsir districts. In the weeks and months that followed, in multiple locations along the river valley, operations continued with the Marines, Brits, Estonians, and other Coalition forces. Along with their Afghan partners, they did the slow, gritty work of rooting out insurgents, establishing security, then laboring to institute the first small shoots of Afghan government control. The face of counterinsurgency was typically the grimy mug of a young sergeant and his small squad or platoon walking patrols and leading beardless young warriors in protecting markets and clearing roads.
To some observers, a counterinsurgency “ink spot” strategy seemed ill-fitted for Helmand. It was a largely rural province with only 4 percent of Afghanistan’s population, and its capital city, Lashkar Gah, was home to just over one hundred thousand. But the Helmand River valley was a key geographic center for the south—a narrow lane where 85 percent of the province lived, and, importantly, where its agriculture was based and where commerce flowed. The Taliban used their significant, often contiguous strongholds along the Helmand River valley to string interior lines, moving supplies, men, and communication to and from Pakistan. Denying these lines would seriously hinder the insurgents’ operations.
The more relevant questions were: Why Helmand now? Why not focus initial efforts on the much larger, and strategically essential cities like Kabul and Kandahar? Or why not work to seal the border near Khost in order to contain the Haqqanis’ aggressive attacks?
Like most things in war, the answers are both simple and complex. On the simple side, it is because Helmand was where our forces already were. When I took command, ISAF was in the final stages of positioning troops and preparing for operations in the Helmand River valley. Construction of Marine bases, movement of mountains of necessary supplies, coordination of unit boundaries and operational plans, reconnaissance, and engagement with the population: all were far along. And unlike maneuver warfare where mobile forces dash across battlefields toward decisive objectives, counterinsurgency is methodical and chesslike, requiring deliberate spadework for each successive step. Redirecting to a different location and repeating these efforts there would have required months I judged we didn’t have.