sure, but mostly not at our convenience or timetable. Ten years in, how’s our project to encourage Afghan loyalty to Kabul going?

“insurgents don’t always win.”

I agree, but they usually lose when they are a despised ethnic minority lacking external support, whom the host population hates more than the occupier! Otherwise, insurgents have a better shot at posing as the true patriots defending local interests than occupiers do. This gives them the edge in the contest for cultural legitimacy.

Insurgents, I agree, ought to have a good handle on traditions, rules and identities – but we needn’t suppose that other indigenous groups have similar knowledge and influence. After all, insurgents don’t always win.

two reasons:

1) fluidity is not the same thing as control-ability. This fluid culture is still hard to control/reprogramme. If anything, the fact that the fixed primordial ‘tribe’ or ethnic/parochial community doesn’t really exist in straightforward ways suggests that there isn’t a single ‘essence’ or ‘cultural personality’ that we can predict, model and manipulate. that’s one point of the document I cited.

2) although people such as the Pashtuns have multiple identities and loyalties, that in itself does not predispose them to accept population-centric nationbuilding. most military occupations by foreigners still historically breed resistance and resentment except for atypical cases with certain conditions (again, Edelstein is the man on this). in fact, as I argued in that little book, insurgents wield traditions and rules and identities flexibly in order to win.

Interesting thoughts on identity in your post at the magisterial Offshore Balancer, btw. If multiple identities are available, and if culture is somehow dynamic and non-deterministic in the manner you suggest – why isn’t that a cause for optimism? Or at least a cause for shrewd calculation about to leverage different identities?

I don’t see how this article can be seen as anything other than a balanced analysis, especially in light of its striking similarity with the three points made by Mr. Payne.

1. Mr. Payne writes…

First, I’d back the insurgents to know something was coming, even without a subscription to the Journal.

The article quotes a coalition spokesman…

… both sides know it is an obvious target for the new troops, Gen. Nicholson said.

2. Mr. Payne writes…

Ideally you want to take control of the populous areas with minimal fighting, and you want the insurgent out in the sticks, where he can be hunted down more readily than among the population, and where there’s less chance of large-scale civilian casualties.

The article quotes a coalition spokesman…

If we went in there one night and all the insurgents were gone and we didn’t have to fire a shot, that would be a success,” a coalition spokesman, Col. Wayne Shanks, said before the announcement. “I don’t think there has been a mistake in letting people know we’re planning on coming in.

3. Mr. Payne writes…

The insurgent, meanwhile, must fight among the people, not just for safety, but to retain his relevance. Announcing that you’re coming gives him a tough choice.

The article quotes a coalition spokesman…

Gen. Nicholson said the drumbeat of public comments about the impending attack has already persuaded community leaders in Marjah to meet with Afghan government and coalition officials. “People of influence don’t want to be on the wrong side of this,” he said.

Now that I think about, has anyone ever seen Mr. Payne and a coalition spokesman in the same location?

The WSJ’s editorial staff is partisan. The rest of the journalists are pretty mainstream. The op-ed pages are an entirely different animal than the rest of the paper. The article is mostly supportive, particularly the second paragraph from O’Hanlon and the last five paragraphs of the article.

Picking the right war in the first place is just as important. I recommend David Edelstein’s article on this, ‘Occupational Hazards’, published a few years ago in International Security, particularly its conclusion:

Occupation success, then, is largely influenced by structural factors that occupying powers cannot easily manipulate. To the extent they can, great powers must therefore carefully choose places to occupy where the threat environment is conducive to occupation success. It is not merely coincidence that occupations have most often failed on the periphery of the international system where geostrategic importance is questionable, great powers are likely to be impatient, and nationalism is often in its emergent stages. This is not to suggest that the policy choices that occupying powers make are irrelevant. Occupying powers can increase
their chances of success both by pursuing a wartime strategy that creates an environment welcoming to occupation and by employing strategies, such as contingent withdrawal, that make their pledges to create an independent, indigenous government more credible.