BOOK REVIEW Spoiling for a fight The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen
Reviewed by Philip Smucker
David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla is proof that the United
States government's view of the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates has
evolved considerably in the past seven years. The book is a must-read. It
provides excellent fodder for the debate about Western strategy and tactics
moving forward.
An Australian army officer, with an anthropologist's view of America's "enemy",
Kilcullen, chief counter-terrorism strategist for the US State Department, does
not hesitate to critique the hasty US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He says the US
actions played into
the strategic interests of its main foe, al-Qaeda, and its close affiliates.
Along with the works of Michael Scheuer, the US Central Intelligence Agency's
brutally-honest former Bin Laden station chief, Kilcullen's insightful work is
a welcome respite from the abundant and often vain dismissals of the US
opponent in this long war.
Kilcullen's basic hypothesis works equally well for Iraq and Afghanistan. He
tries to explain how "insurgents, jihadis, terrorists" and all those
testosterone-charged, anti-American fighters keep popping up from behind rocks,
walking into mess halls uninvited and blowing up US national treasure chests
with the press of a button on a suicide vest. He insists, on the one hand, that
people fight "not because they hate the West and seek our overthrow, but
because we have invaded their space to deal with a small extremist element that
has manipulated and exploited local grievances to gain power".
The "accidental guerrilla" fights because "we are in his space, not because he
wishes to invade ours. He fights to principally be left alone." Well, maybe.
Warning: This book may be too academic for the broader public. Nevertheless, if
you can bear with the author, who first studied insurgencies in Indonesia, you
will edify yourself. He points out that Afghanistan and Pakistan are both good
places to observe the "accidental guerrilla", those wretched and unwanted
"societal antibodies emerging in response to Western intervention".
Deep into the text, we learn that Afghanistan's guerrillas are not only
protecting their backyards, but they also love to fight. "The Afghan insurgents
I have encountered do love the fight," Kilcullen insists. "They like to win,
and are certainly not averse to killing, but what they really love, is the
fight, jang [battle] for its own sake."
Touche: Most American warriors I've met in this theater also have an unbending
love for the fight. If they are not outside the wire attempting to draw enemy
fire or distributing humanitarian aid in a Taliban stronghold, they are back on
the base polishing their skills on the latest rough-and-tumble video war game.
(These games have become nearly as realistic as the one outside the wire.)
Indeed, the "warrior ethic" is still alive and well in both the United States
and Afghanistan, all of which makes for an increasingly lethal mix.
It is sometimes necessary to read between Kilcullen's lines. He states that the
"Taliban movement's phenomenal resurgence (and success) from its nadir of early
2002 ... seems due as much to inattention and inadequate resourcing on our part
as to talent on theirs." He estimates the strength of the Taliban - at any one
time inside Afghanistan - at 32,000 to 40,000, which is an alarming figure if
you consider that most guerrillas are front-line players and that their
"reserve" in Pakistan probably holds about five or six times that figure.
Even more worrisome, however, is the force multiplier provided by having
al-Qaeda central also ensconced in Pakistan. Kilcullen credits the Taliban with
a brilliant propaganda strategy, but does not adequately point out that it is
run by al-Qaeda's embedded media advisors. The former chief of Afghanistan's
Office of Strategic Communications, Lutfullah Mashal, points out that Dr Ayman
al Zawahiri and Abu Yahya (aka abu Yahoo) al-Libi, who escaped from Bagram
prison on the US watch, play a key role in the Taliban's savvy media tactics.
Kilcullen credits the Taliban with an acute ability to "synchronize physical
activity in support of a unified information strategy".
While the US military - often ham-handedly as it appears to many Afghans - uses
its own information operations as a mere afterthought to its military
maneuvers, Kilcullen points out that, "Takfiri [al-Qaeda] terrorists use
physical operations (bombings, insurgent activity, beheadings) as supporting
material for an integrated armed propaganda campaign." In other words, he
continues, "The information side of al-Qaeda's operations is primary; the
physical is merely the tool to achieve a propaganda result." (Yes, there is
also an element of brutal intimidation, but artfully done of course.)
The Taliban's fighters are no slouches either. They are "the most tactically
competent enemy we currently face in any theater", writes Kilcullen. With a
backstop in Pakistan and a favorable terrain that most insurgents can only
dream about, they are likely to be a part of the landscape - albeit often
well-camouflaged - for years to come.
The Australian analyst calls for a regional approach that controls borders and
undermines terrorist safe havens. He points to the US military's successful
road-building efforts in Kunar province. Yet he fails to adequately discuss the
current and raging debate about another equally important issue in Kunar, the
US military's ongoing stand-off with Afghan insurgents and al Qaeda elements in
Kunar's Korengal Valley, which does not sit astride the Durand Line, but is set
back inside the province.
An American decision to stand up numerous small outposts in the immense valley,
has - in the past two years - evolved into a knock-down, slug-it-out fight that
has become a massive drain on US air assets. The world's greatest military has
failed, thus far, to blast the insurgents out of their well-dug-in nests in the
Korengal. New fighters infiltrate daily just for a chance to prove their
fighting skills (away from the computer screen, as it were.)
At the same time, al-Qaeda and Taliban elements have taken the opportunity to
seize new strongholds across neighboring Nuristan (See Ambush deep in the valley of death, Asia Times Online, April 22) Afghanistan's eastern border, porous to the extreme,
is poorly protected north of Kunar province.
American commanders at Bagram Air Base outside of the capital Kabul have hinted
that US operations in the Korengal, not conducive to President Barack Obama's
new "smart power" approach to counter-insurgency, could soon be drawn down in
favor of a stronger blocking effort along the Durand Line. Eastern
Afghanistan's Task Force Duke commander, Colonel John Spiszer, a mild-mannered
Californian and an avid student of recent American wars, knows he faces a
confounding dilemma in the Korengal, as he explained to me on a recent evening
as a lieutenant occasionally stuck his head in with dramatic reports of a
firefight at close range in the so-called "valley of death".
"Well then, the question you have to ask yourself is, if you come out of the
Korengal ... how much of that enemy actually stays up there just because they
are from that area and how much of it comes out and creates problems that we
maybe don't want to have in other areas?" Spiszer asked rhetorically.
It may be that the imminent American surge in forces (at least 20,000 more
troops on the way) could provide some of the answer, but if the US military
goes in hard, particularly into the indomitable terrain of Nuristan, will it
just end up creating more "accidental guerrillas?" One wonders what the
Australian expert would advise on this point, just as US intelligence on
al-Qaeda movements in Nuristan is increasing. As Kilcullen notes, "Our
too-willing and heavy-handed interventions in the so-called 'war on terror' to
date have largely played into the hands of this al-Qaeda exhaustion strategy."
If the curious reader still does not understand al-Qaeda's plan for "victory"
by the end of this book (or article,) you will be forgiven. They don't have
one. "The insurgent wins by avoiding defeat, creating disorder, maintaining a
force-in-being that challenges the government's monopoly of authority, and
preventing the population from cooperating with the government," says
Kilcullen.
In other words, for al-Qaeda and its allies, there are plenty of reasons to
just keep doing what they are doing and wait for the United States to tire of
doing what it is doing.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by
by David Kilcullen. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN-10: 0195368347. Price
US$27.95, 384 pages.
Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and
the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The
Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004). He is currently writing My
Brother, My Enemy, a book about America and the battle of ideas in the Islamic
world.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
Kilcullen's basic hypothesis works equally well for Iraq and Afghanistan. He
tries to explain how "insurgents, jihadis, terrorists" and all those
testosterone-charged, anti-American fighters keep popping up from behind rocks,
walking into mess halls uninvited and blowing up US national treasure chests
with the press of a button on a suicide vest. He insists, on the one hand, that
people fight "not because they hate the West and seek our overthrow, but
because we have invaded their space to deal with a small extremist element that
has manipulated and exploited local grievances to gain power".
