Khastan Tawanestan! — “We Can, We Will!”
Khastan Tawanestan! — “We Can, We Will!”
Shaping the Battlefield in Afghanistan in Dari and Pashto — not English
by LT Sean “Shoe” Stevens
Download the Full Article: Khastan Tawanestan
How does a nation conduct a successful counterinsurgency (COIN) operation in a country in which it does not speak the local language? Can we facilitate the development of a transparent, corruption-free Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) without being able to communicate directly with its people? These are questions that I wrestled with time and time again during my deployment to Afghanistan. I witnessed first-hand a remarkable dearth in the ability of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) forces to communicate with Afghans. This lack of language abilities in both American military and civilian forces impedes our counterinsurgency campaign. As my tour in Afghanistan progressed, this realization motivated me to attempt—in some small way—to remedy this problem. As a result, I personally taught Dari to hundreds of military members and civilians, and created a six-lesson syllabus for future teachers to follow. While I experienced small successes as a result of my efforts, they were insufficient to overcome the dearth of language capability that threatens to undermine OEF.
Download the Full Article: Khastan Tawanestan
LT Sean “Shoe” Stevens is a Naval Aviator currently working on his Masters degree in Homeland Security and Defense at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.
