Fire, Film, Tweet: The Taliban’s New Way of War by Mujib Mashal, New York Times
Taliban fighters posed for the camera, their shawls and bandannas covering their identities but not their jubilation, as they captured the main roundabout in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz early this month in what could have been called “operation hoist the flag and pull out a smartphone.”
The shaky cellphone video directly contradicted Afghan and American military spokesmen, who were promising that Kunduz was safe from falling for a second time within a year. During the invasion, insurgents live-tweeted their victory and flooded social media with videos, often shot by fighters narrating their movements in close to real time. In the video from the roundabout, one of the many fighters in the background is heard saying into a phone: “I will call you back. The flag is going up. I have to film it.”
It was not an isolated incident. When the Afghan government said the insurgents were far from the southern provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, the Taliban quickly put out a video showing a fighter driving around the city’s outskirts in a seized government Humvee, steering wheel in one hand and microphone in the other.
The video, shown below, is aimed at displaying the ease with which Taliban fighters are moving near the city. But it is also rubbing salt on the wound: The Taliban are making constant use of the American equipment they have captured from the Afghan forces, including the Humvee the fighter is driving.
Increasingly, the Taliban — who, when they controlled the government, banned television and jailed people for photography — rely on their front-line fighters not only to gain territory and strike at the Afghan security forces, but also to record the moment and share it.
It appears that they are drawing inspiration from the Islamic State’s propaganda-first strategy. In the past, the Taliban released elaborate videos of suicide bombings long after the fact, their material falling far short of the Islamic State’s slick production values. Recently, though, they have been aiming for close-to-real-time updates and have greatly improved on quality. A few days ago, the insurgents released footage filmed by drone-mounted cameras of a suicide car bomb targeting the Nawa district center in Helmand Province.
In a country where social media use is becoming more and more vital, the Taliban are making sure to flood the information channels with their message. And with the government already on the defensive both on the battlefield and in the fight over perceptions, the insurgents are also going out of their way to deny the government access to those channels.
In places like Helmand Province, as soon as the fighting intensifies, the Taliban force the cellphone network providers to shut down their signal towers. Government officials struggle to get their message out, with local officials and press officers often out of reach.
“We don’t touch their towers, but we tell them to stop the signals of certain towers close to the battlefield,” the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. He said they had appointed media officers in the front lines because “we want to fill the vacuum ourselves.”
Physically, too, they have limited the reach and movement of the Afghan government over the past year. The insurgents have often cut off the main highways, and sometimes struck government convoys on them, starting firefights with Afghan forces like the one this video shows near the main highway in Baghlan Province. By sharing videos of such acts, the Taliban clearly want to project the vulnerability of the Afghan forces’s supply chain…
Comments
I would disagree with COL Maxwell's specific comment below and offer an alternative suggestion:
BEGIN COL MAXWELL QUOTE: A propaganda first strategy with social media is Dau Tranh on steroids. This is why we need to study revolution, resistance, and insurgency. There are three types of powers in the world - revisionists who want to disrupt the international system and hijack it for their own ends, revolutionaries who want to destroy the system and establish their own system, and status quo powers who want to respect and protect sovereignty and the international nation state system. END COLONEL MAXWELL QUOTE
Herein, let me suggest that -- in the New/Reverse Cold War of today much as in the Old Cold War of yesterday -- there are, essentially, but two types of powers that we need to be concerned with:
a. The "world revolutionary"/"expansionist" great power, who is set upon (a) gaining greater power, influence and control throughout the world by (b) transforming the outlying states, societies and civilizations therein more along these great powers' own very unusual and unique -- and thus often alien and profane -- political, economic, social and value lines. (This model fits the Soviets/the communists in the Old Cold War of yesterday and, I suggest, fits the U.S./the West in the New/Reverse Cold War of today.) And
b. The "resisting unwanted transformation" states, societies and civilizations that make up the entire Rest of the World -- and the various individuals and groups contained therein -- who (a) do not wish to be so "transformed" as the "world revolutionary"/"expansionist" great nations desire, who (b) are driven by Thucydides’ “honor, interest, and fear” to resist such unwanted organizational, culture and/or “identity” changes as the "world revolutionary"/"expansionist" great nations seek to bring about and who, thus, (c) will use various means/methods/approaches/motivation techniques (terrorism/religion/nationalism/ ethnicity/prior glorious age?) to prevent such unwanted transformations from occurring/from being realized.
In this regard, consider the following recent article by LTC Douglas Pryer -- and my comment thereto -- at the item linked immediately below and, specifically, the following dead-on quote, re: these such matters, from LTC Pryer:
BEGIN LTC PRYER QUOTE: Why do some subordinates seem to always resist significant change? Thucydides’ list – “honor, interest, and fear” – answers this question. One driver of resistance lies in deep-rooted organizational culture or “identity”: “Insurgents” may see themselves as protecting from assault a vital element of the organization's identity. Another driver may be the perceived impact that proposed change will have on existing power structures and pay. A third may be subordinates’ fears that change will lead to their being demoted, moved, or losing their job. As in an armed insurgency, resistance typically coalesces around some combination of all three drivers. END LTC PRYER QUOTE
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/how-coin-theory-explains-organizationa…
Bottom Line:
LTC Pryer's excellent article -- immediately above -- looks at (a) who it is that is actually attempting to bring about radical organizational change/alter the "status quo," for example: via "expansion" (risking everything in the process?) and (b) who it is that is actually resisting such dramatic/disruptive/ unwanted change (and why).
These, I suggest, are the -- but two -- "powers groups" that we should focus on. And this, I suggest, is the manner that we should view the conflicts between these two groups; yesterday and today.
(Such being a proper portrayal of the -- but two actually -- "power groups" involved in the Old Cold War of yesterday and, likewise, in the New/Reverse Cold War of today?)
Excerpt:
QUOTE It appears that they are drawing inspiration from the Islamic State’s propaganda-first strategy. In the past, the Taliban released elaborate videos of suicide bombings long after the fact, their material falling far short of the Islamic State’s slick production values. Recently, though, they have been aiming for close-to-real-time updates and have greatly improved on quality. A few days ago, the insurgents released footage filmed by drone-mounted cameras of a suicide car bomb targeting the Nawa district center in Helmand Province. END QUOTE
A propaganda first strategy with social media is Dau Tranh on steroids. This is why we need to study revolution, resistance, and insurgency. There are three types of powers in the world - revisionists who want to disrupt the international system and hijack it for their own ends, revolutionaries who want to destroy the system and establish their own system, and status quo powers who want to respect and protect sovereignty and the international nation state system.
- Dau Tranh--Vietnamese Model
- 2 Elements--political and armed
- Opponent loses unless he wins both
- Organization is goal of Vietnamese variant
- Victory to side with strongest and most resilient organization
- New definition of Absolute War
- No such thing as a non-combatant
- People are an instrument of war
- Time is a critical element to ensure victory
- Importance of Internat’l support for Revolution
Political Struggle:
Dan Van - Action among your people - total mobilization of propaganda, motivational & organizational measures to manipulate internal masses and fighting units
Binh Van - Action among enemy military - subversion, proselytizing, propaganda to encourage desertion, defection and lowered morale among enemy troops.
Dich Van - Action among enemy's people - total propaganda effort to sow discontent, defeatism, dissent, and disloyalty among enemy's population.
Military Struggle:
Phase 1: Organizations and Preparation - building cells, recruiting members, infiltrating organizations, creating front groups, spreading propaganda, stockpiling weapons.
Phase 2: Terrorism - Guerrilla Warfare - kidnappings, terrorist attacks, sabotage, guerrilla raids, ambushes, setting of parallel governments in insurgent areas.
Phase 3: Conventional Warfare - regular formations and maneuver to capture key geographical and political objectives.
Douglas Pike, in his seminal work on the Vietnam War details the Vietnamese strategy of Dau Tranh (the “Struggle”) emphasizing that the strategy was beyond a purely military strategy but one which mobilized the entire population – a political struggle with the three now famous action programs (or “vans”): action among the enemy; action among the people, and action among the military.[i] This was a comprehensive political-military strategy that had as a key element the psychological influence of its own people, its military, and that of the enemy. But the focus was not just on the enemy’s military force; it struck right at the heart of the enemy: the will of the enemy government leadership and its population.