OEF: a lingering Afghan small war for the West (catch all)

[Azor]

By Javid Ahmad for the Modern War Institute at WestPoint: https://mwi.usma.edu/wp-content/uplo...ke-Enemies.pdf

Executive Summary

Insider attacks—attacks by insurgents posing as Afghan police or military personnel against local or international forces—have become an important threat to the American and NATO personnel in Afghanistan. “We’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we are not willing to be murdered for it,” as Gen. John R. Allen, then commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, put it in 2012. Since 2007, insider attacks have resulted in the death of at least 157 NATO personnel and 557 members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). The attacks have affected the public narrative of
the Afghan war in the United States and partner countries and have sown a degree of distrust between NATO troops and ANDSF as they struggle to fight a common enemy. Despite the last sixteen years of engagement in Afghanistan, the United States and its NATO partners still fumble when trying to communicate with Afghans.

This report makes two claims:

• First, it argues that insider attacks are an outcome of cultural friction. Often attacks are the product of a perceived insult, a cultural gaffe, or a small misstep that in the minds of certain Afghan forces take on much greater significance.

• Second, the report claims that increasingly after 2011, insider attacks became the preferred warfighting tactic of the Taliban, an organization that understood well how to apply limited resources for maximum effect. In fact, despite a reputation for cultural myopia, the Taliban’s use of insider attacks reveals that the group understood US military and political culture and domestic sensitivities far better than some imagined. Using ANDSF personnel to attack American and NATO personnel was in effect a “cultural weapon” that targeted two weakness in the US civil-military apparatus: a deep aversion to casualties and the need to believe in benevolent narratives about why Americans fight.

This report explains the scope of the insider threat and its underlying causes, conceptualizes the cultural context of the insider attacks, and examines their impact on the Afghan mission strategy and its implications for future US engagement in Afghanistan.

Moderator adds: the main thread on this theme has been closed, it is:Green on Blue: causes and responses (merged thread)