GWYNNE DYER
Eagle-eyed Columnist analyses global issues
BY May 1928 the basic principles of guerilla warfare...had already been evolved; that is, the sixteen-character formula: The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. Mao Tse-tung, 1936.
Not many of the Taliban guerillas in Afghanistan have read Mao on guerilla warfare, but then, they knew how to do it anyway. The current crop of officers in the Western armies that are fighting them do not seem to have read their Mao either, which is a more serious omission. The generation before them certainly did.
Mao Tse-tung did not invent guerilla warfare, but he did write the book on it. The sixteen-character formula sums it up: never stand and fight, just stay in business and wear the enemy down. The ability to run away is the essence of the guerilla, as Mao put it and that is why the much-ballyhooed battle for Marjah and Nad Ali, two small towns in Afghanistans Helmand province, is irrelevant to the outcome of the war.
Breathless reports of the battle by embedded journalists have filled the American and European media for the past two weeks, as if winning it might make a difference. The truth is that some of the local Taliban fighters have been left to sell their lives as dearly as possible, while most have been pulled back or sent home to await recall. The enemy advances; we retreat.
Mao did not invent guerilla warfare; he was merely a very successful practitioner who tried to codify the rules. Afghans do not really need instruction in it, since that has been the hill-tribes style of warfare since time immemorial. The only new element in the equation, since the 1940s, is that these wars have almost all ended in victory for the guerillas.
The Jewish war against British occupation in Palestine in the 1940s; the war against the French in Algeria in the 1950s; the Vietnam war in the 1960s; the Rhodesian war in the 1970s; the victory of the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet army in the 1980s: in these and several dozen other wars, Western armies with all their massive firepower eventually lost to the lightly armed nationalists.
By contrast, the number of times when they won can be counted on the fingers of one badly mutilated hand. By the 1970s, Western armies had figured out why they always lost, and began to avoid such struggles but now, they seem to have forgotten again.
The guerillas always won, in that era, because the Western armies were fighting to retain direct control of Third-World countries or impose some puppet regime on them, at a time when the people of those countries had already awakened to nationalism. All the guerillas had to do was observe the sixteen-character formula and stay in business.
They could accept a loss ratio of dozens or hundreds dead for each foreign soldier killed, because they had an endless supply of local 18-year-olds eager to join the fight. Whereas the Western armies could not take many casualties or go on fighting for many years, because popular support at home was always fragile.
In the end, the Western army could always quit and go home without suffering any especially terrible consequences. The locals did not have that option, since they were already home, so they always had more staying power. Eventually, pressure at home forced the foreigners to give up and leave and the Talibans leaders know that. They watched the Russians leave only 30 years ago.
The current generation of Western officers are in denial, as if the past half-century didnot happen. They parrot some of the slogans of the era of guerilla wars, like the need to win the hearts and minds of the population, but it is just empty words. The phrase dates from the Vietnam War, but the tactic did not work there and it is not working in Afghanistan.
The plan, in this offensive in Helmand province, is to capture the towns (clear and hold), and then saturate the area with Afghan troops and police and win the locals hearts and minds by providing better security and public services. It might work if all the people involved on both sides were bland, interchangeable characters from The Sims, but they are not.
The people of Helmand province are Pashtuns, and the Taliban are almost exclusively a Pashtun organisation. The people that the Western armies are fighting are local men: few Taliban fighters die more than a days walk from home. Whereas almost none of the Afghan troops and police who are supposed to win local minds and hearts are Pashtuns.
They are mostly Tajiks from the north who speak Dari, not Pashto. (Very few Pashtuns join the Kabul regimes army and police.) Even if these particular Afghan police are better trained and less prone to steal money, do drugs, and rape young men at checkpoints than their colleagues elsewhere, they are unwelcome outsiders in Helmand.
This is just another post-imperial guerilla war, and it will almost certainly end in the same way as all the others. Thirty years ago, any Western military officer could have told you that, but large organisations often forget their history.
Eagle-eyed Columnist analyses global issues
BY May 1928 the basic principles of guerilla warfare...had already been evolved; that is, the sixteen-character formula: The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. Mao Tse-tung, 1936.
Not many of the Taliban guerillas in Afghanistan have read Mao on guerilla warfare, but then, they knew how to do it anyway. The current crop of officers in the Western armies that are fighting them do not seem to have read their Mao either, which is a more serious omission. The generation before them certainly did.
Mao Tse-tung did not invent guerilla warfare, but he did write the book on it. The sixteen-character formula sums it up: never stand and fight, just stay in business and wear the enemy down. The ability to run away is the essence of the guerilla, as Mao put it and that is why the much-ballyhooed battle for Marjah and Nad Ali, two small towns in Afghanistans Helmand province, is irrelevant to the outcome of the war.
Breathless reports of the battle by embedded journalists have filled the American and European media for the past two weeks, as if winning it might make a difference. The truth is that some of the local Taliban fighters have been left to sell their lives as dearly as possible, while most have been pulled back or sent home to await recall. The enemy advances; we retreat.
Mao did not invent guerilla warfare; he was merely a very successful practitioner who tried to codify the rules. Afghans do not really need instruction in it, since that has been the hill-tribes style of warfare since time immemorial. The only new element in the equation, since the 1940s, is that these wars have almost all ended in victory for the guerillas.
The Jewish war against British occupation in Palestine in the 1940s; the war against the French in Algeria in the 1950s; the Vietnam war in the 1960s; the Rhodesian war in the 1970s; the victory of the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet army in the 1980s: in these and several dozen other wars, Western armies with all their massive firepower eventually lost to the lightly armed nationalists.
By contrast, the number of times when they won can be counted on the fingers of one badly mutilated hand. By the 1970s, Western armies had figured out why they always lost, and began to avoid such struggles but now, they seem to have forgotten again.
The guerillas always won, in that era, because the Western armies were fighting to retain direct control of Third-World countries or impose some puppet regime on them, at a time when the people of those countries had already awakened to nationalism. All the guerillas had to do was observe the sixteen-character formula and stay in business.
They could accept a loss ratio of dozens or hundreds dead for each foreign soldier killed, because they had an endless supply of local 18-year-olds eager to join the fight. Whereas the Western armies could not take many casualties or go on fighting for many years, because popular support at home was always fragile.
In the end, the Western army could always quit and go home without suffering any especially terrible consequences. The locals did not have that option, since they were already home, so they always had more staying power. Eventually, pressure at home forced the foreigners to give up and leave and the Talibans leaders know that. They watched the Russians leave only 30 years ago.
The current generation of Western officers are in denial, as if the past half-century didnot happen. They parrot some of the slogans of the era of guerilla wars, like the need to win the hearts and minds of the population, but it is just empty words. The phrase dates from the Vietnam War, but the tactic did not work there and it is not working in Afghanistan.
The plan, in this offensive in Helmand province, is to capture the towns (clear and hold), and then saturate the area with Afghan troops and police and win the locals hearts and minds by providing better security and public services. It might work if all the people involved on both sides were bland, interchangeable characters from The Sims, but they are not.
The people of Helmand province are Pashtuns, and the Taliban are almost exclusively a Pashtun organisation. The people that the Western armies are fighting are local men: few Taliban fighters die more than a days walk from home. Whereas almost none of the Afghan troops and police who are supposed to win local minds and hearts are Pashtuns.
They are mostly Tajiks from the north who speak Dari, not Pashto. (Very few Pashtuns join the Kabul regimes army and police.) Even if these particular Afghan police are better trained and less prone to steal money, do drugs, and rape young men at checkpoints than their colleagues elsewhere, they are unwelcome outsiders in Helmand.
This is just another post-imperial guerilla war, and it will almost certainly end in the same way as all the others. Thirty years ago, any Western military officer could have told you that, but large organisations often forget their history.
