Small Wars Journal

Going Outside the Wire: Liaising With Special Operation Forces to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 8:54am
Going Outside the Wire: Liaising With Special Operation Forces to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan

by Daniel Miller

Download the Full Article: Going Outside the Wire: Liaising With Special Operation Forces to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan

We cannot enter into alliances with neighboring princes until we are acquainted with their designs. We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country -- its mountains and forests, its pit falls and precipices, its marshes and swamps. We shall be unable to turn natural advantages to account unless we make use of local guides.

-Sun Tzu, 490 BC

Introducing a paper on agricultural development with a quote from the ancient Chinese war strategist, Sun Tzu, may seem like a novel way to begin, but designing effective rural development programs in the mountains of Afghanistan, where an active Taliban and al-Qa'ida insurgency is still taking place, requires innovative, "out-of-the-box" solutions. Counterinsurgency work must involve not only military operations, but integrated civilian efforts. The civilian efforts include programs sponsored by the host nation, international development/relief and non-governmental organizations, and donor nations.

Since early December 2001, the international development community has supported the reconstruction of Afghanistan and a number of new approaches to working in conflict and post-conflict environments, including with the military, have been developed. One noteworthy example is the use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to support reconstruction and capacity building.

The model for PRTs developed from the early success of U.S. Army Civil Affairs (CA) teams, working with U.S. Army Special Operations Forces (SOF), which includes special forces, Rangers, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations soldiers, to conduct limited "hearts and minds" reconstruction projects and to work with local Afghan security forces to provide security in an area. Expanding on this experience, in November 2002, the concept of Joint Regional Teams was proposed to assist in stabilizing Afghanistan and to facilitate reconstruction. In January 2003, the name was changed to Provincial Reconstruction Teams PRTs).

Established as a means to extend the reach and enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Afghan central government into the provinces, the first PRT was established in Gardez, Paktia Province, in February 2003. The primary mission of PRTs is to create stability in an area so that physical, political, economic and social development can take place. Provincial Reconstruction Teams may engage in reconstruction to achieve that goal (just as they may engage in combat operations) but PRTs are neither a combat force nor a development organization. As of the writing of this article, there are 25 PRTs operating in Afghanistan. Provincial Reconstruction Teams are civil-military teams, composed of from 70-100 personnel (Non-US PRTs are actually much larger because they don't have the maneuver elements nearby like the US model. Those can get as large as 500). Each agency involved in a PRT brings different assets to the team. The military provides basic "life support" such as housing, food, medical, communications, transportation and security to ensure all agencies can operate effectively. They also bring skills such as planning, logistics, reporting, intelligence collection and psychological operations. In the case of the US military, they have money to fund small reconstruction projects to win over the population.

The civilian diplomats are crucial to ensuring those in military commands have accurate and timely situational awareness. They can raise key issues to the decision makers often bypassing bureaucracies of partner agencies. The development specialists, and in many places, agricultural experts are critical to overseeing often millions of dollars in reconstruction projects. The development officers are also responsible for ensuring any projects funded by the military component of the PRT are developmentally sound and will do no harm to the community in the long term. The PRTs were designed and organized to adapt to the needs and conditions of the area where they operated and no two PRTs are identical in their number of personnel or stability strategies.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams have played an important role in the stabilization and development of Afghanistan and provide a valuable model for integrating civilian and military capabilities to assist in both improving security and extending the reach of the central government. While encouraging, there is still considerable territory in Afghanistan beyond the reach of the PRTs where development assistance is urgently needed.

The eastern border region of Afghanistan is one example. Here, where counterinsurgency operations are still on-going against al Qaida and Taliban insurgents, U.S. Special Forces (SF) teams, a number of them with civil affairs (CA) elements attached to them, are active. The civil affairs teams attached to these SF teams often focus on hard structures that will be a constant visual reminder of the government such as building schools; constructing health clinics, and implementing other small-scale activities to encourage support for the Afghan government. To date, the development community has done little to integrate their efforts with these SF/CA teams.

In late 2005, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), embarking on an innovative effort to coordinate development assistance with U.S. special operation forces (SOF) teams, placed a development specialist with SOF in Afghanistan. This individual arranged for me to work with a SF/CA team in Paktika province. This paper discusses some of the insights from that experience and highlights approaches that could be taken to better integrate military and civilian operations and to promote agriculture development in Afghanistan in areas where PRTs are not operating. This was a radical shift from the traditional hard-structure type of winning hearts and minds activities SOF was used to.

Download the Full Article: Going Outside the Wire: Liaising With Special Operation Forces to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan

Daniel Miller is an agriculture officer with USAID. He has worked in Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines. He worked in Afghanistan from 2004-2006, spending time in numerous Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and with Special Operations Civil Affairs Teams. He is currently based in the Philippines where he works with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force -- Philippines in the southern island of Mindanao.

Disclaimer: The information and views presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or the positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. government.

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Comments

While commendable, the paper is a statement of the obvious. Further, the ability for the population to maintain these agricultural gains without INGO or foreign money is limited to none. GiROA has no money to do this.

It also reads as if the local people are actually managing these issues on their without the need for foreign help:

"The Barmal District has considerable agriculture development potential. There are extensive orchards of apple and apricot trees, and where irrigation is sufficient, good crops of wheat are grown (most irrigation is with tubewells owned by individual farmers). After winter wheat is harvested, corn is planted in areas where irrigation is available. There is also dryland wheat production."

Agriculture can be an economic multiplier but it requires the coordination of water, roads, transport, markets etc.

If the farmers are growing crops or fruit from their trees to sell then surely they can pay for local people to prune the trees. Far too much taxpayer funds has been used to pay local people to do things that traditionally the village has always done.

This could be one of those instances where if the local people are managing how they have always managed, with little interference from outsiders (foreigners or GiROA), then leave them to it, particularly if their actions have negiligible impact on the mission in Afghanistan.

Cheers

Jason

Will (not verified)

Sun, 05/29/2011 - 7:48pm

The work of the author is commendable, although perhaps he has become uncritically engrossed in the literature of COIN. There is an assumption that these schemes are winning hearts and minds, and that farmers are turning to the Afghan Government. There is little evidence of this in this article. More importantly, if these areas are so isolated, can they be that critical to the security of the Afghan state? Could these funds be better invested somewhere else? Could Afghans not be trained to administer such funds themselves, in a manner more in tune with current transition thinking? There is also little evidence of accountability in spending, a situation no doubt made worse when lone experts are given a rucksack full of cash to spend as they please, as this author would have it. However, other schemes such as the study tours which require no spending appear a good idea, offering a useful way of engaging with farmers, although perhaps not winning their hearts and minds.

Interesting article.

Has any consideration been given to including Afghan members (ANSF or government officials) on our PRTs, or assisting ANSF in creating their own PRTs?

The author identified the need to have people on PRTs that are familiar with reality as it is in this part of the world, cultural and agricultural. Integrating ANSF members into PRTs would address that part.

I'm also reminded of an article by Michael Yon about "Gobar Gas". As I recall, Mr Yon discovered this after talking with some Ghurkas he met during his travels. In Nepal, gobar gas is produced from animal waste matter and used as fuel by local villages. This might help address the deforestation issue in Afghanistan.

If we're not ready to integrate ANSF members into our PRTs, perhaps we ought to get Nepalese specialists, or qualified citizens from other Central Asian/ Himalayan countries to join our PRTs. They would bring with them familiarity & knowledge of the culture and language, as well as techniques that would likely prove more effective and acceptable to farmers in rural Afghanistan VS techniques brought by the infidel Americans from the heathen lands of New Mexico.

bumperplate

Sat, 05/28/2011 - 12:05am

I'm unable to view that report. I think it requires a log in.

bumperplate

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 3:56pm

I keep seeing articles and statements about using SOF. I believe Dr. Seth Jones just testified for congress, and if my memory is correct, one of the things he mentioned was a need for increased SOF presence. May be off there.

In any event, that seems to be a recurring theme. Are our conventional forces so inept that they can't accomplish any of these "critical" tasks? Does it not strike anyone else as an area where we are sorely lacking?

My experiences with CA in theater were not good. They accomplished absolutely nothing. Other elements of SOF were very useful, though.

Lastly, when do we reach a point when our SOF (especially SF) are over tasked? Is there a breaking point for retention and combat effectiveness for them?

There is another reason why SF should work with aid groups like this. They make for great hunting bait. Aid groups are now more than ever a target of the enemy. And aid groups could be the key to tearing apart these shadow governments and the hitmen they use and the intelligence apparatus they have set up.

If an aid group gives money to a local project, and the Taliban shadow government sees this, then they will do what they can to steal that money or influence those folks who received that money, to hand it over. Or worse yet, the Taliban will just target anyone that receives aid. In the words of the cartels, the Taliban practice their own form of 'plomo o plata' or silver or lead.

Instead, SF units should look at these aid groups and their interactions with the locals as prime opportunities for the hunting of booger eaters. The kill chain should go like this. A local working with an aid group tells them that he is getting the heat from a guy that is not from the village or from some neighbor. That aid group tells the SF team about it, and they investigate. The goal is to identify everyone within that shadow government, and kill or capture them. The aid groups and their interaction with the locals could be feedback gold for these SF teams.

Then of course there are the hitmen of the Taliban. The guys that plant the IEDs or shoot folks, and purposely kill those who work with aid groups. For this case, the locals must get involved and have incentive to do so. Perhaps a crime stoppers program locally, where folks call in tips would work? Pseudo operations or just plain undercover work would do well. Surveillance or private investigators could be hired locally and used to find these hitmen. Even a kid on the corner sees a lot. Put the net out, and work your beat.

Which brings up another point. Aid groups would do well to really establish their intel networks. The more inputs they can collect through the means of local spies or just setting up an apparatus to listen to what is actually being said out there, the better. Give the locals a safe way of communicating with you, and actually have a means of recording this stuff so you can identify patterns. You must identify the shadow government and all of it's secret little teams and hitmen.

Leverage is another angle. If an aid group knows of any families that were directly impacted by the Taliban in a negative way, then those are folks you can leverage for information. Hell, if anything, a former cop would make for an excellent assistant to an aid group, because they could help in these leverage schemes. There is always someone that hates the Taliban, and aid groups or SF teams should try to find these folks and use them to their advantage.

Finally, there is the census. An aid group and the local SF teams should have an accurate census of their AO. Every family should be on record, and identified. If not, it needs to be done. I would have to think that some kind of census has been done in all, if not parts of Afghanistan. An aid group could even pay to have this done. A good census can really help out the efforts of any counter shadow government operations, and especially if that census is easily accessed and cross checked for any kind of investigations.

Andrew (not verified)

Fri, 05/27/2011 - 12:29pm

This looks like a good way to continue a COIN-type campaign with only the resources of a CT approach, so may offer a potential model for the future in Afghanistan once the ISAF drawdown starts. Adding rural/ag development specialists to SF/CA teams looks like an idea whose time has come.

As the author says, "What is not yet widely embraced is the pivotal role SOF could play in providing a platform for better integrating the activities of civilian organizations for reconstruction in areas beyond the reach of PRTs, especially with respect to facilitating agricultural development."

Sadly, the article provides no real evidence that significant results did follow from his efforts in 2005-6. Presumably the idea didn't catch on then. If he could have shown some positive effects, that would immensely help the case.