UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The course of co-option: Co-option of local power-holders as a tool for obtaining control over the population in counterinsurgency campaigns in weblike societies. With case studies on Dutch experiences during the Aceh War (1873-c. 1912) and the Uruzgan campaign (2006-2010) Kitzen, M.W.M. Publication date 2016 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kitzen, M. W. M. (2016). The course of co-option: Co-option of local power-holders as a tool for obtaining control over the population in counterinsurgency campaigns in weblike societies. With case studies on Dutch experiences during the Aceh War (1873-c. 1912) and the Uruzgan campaign (2006-2010). 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UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:06 Oct 2021 Part III The Uruzgan campaign Proefschrift_Kitzen.indb 327 13-10-2016 9:40:34 Chapter 8 Proefschrift_Kitzen.indb 328 13-10-2016 9:40:34 Chapter 8: Afghanistan, Uruzgan, and the War from 2001 until 2006 8.1 Introduction In this part we will study the use of co-option in the reality of contemporary counterinsurgency warfare. As argued in Chapter Three (section 3.5) today’s campaigns can best be described as neo-classical counterinsurgency adapted to the specifics of the current operational The Course of Co-option environment. Domestic pressure demands intervening foreign counterinsurgents to establish, consolidate, and transfer control to a preferably democratic host-nation government, (re-)constructed by the counterinsurgents themselves, and all this within a limited time frame and with limited resources only. The situation on the ground, however, thwarts the implementation of this concept as target societies in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan are characterized by a complicated weblike structure and a weak or even absent connection to a modern central state government capable of controlling such a society as a whole. Consequently contemporary counterinsurgency with its limited time and resources aims at establishing control at the grassroots level in the various locales of the target society 329 and transferring this control to a host-nation government capable of providing basic security and services to the population in those locales, while wider state-building efforts are delivered Chapter 8 through long-term stability and reconstruction. Today’s counterinsurgents, therefore, seek to establish and consolidate control over the population at the local level and transfer this control to a local administration - representing the host-nation’s government- capable of maintaining security and addressing the people’s basic needs. This all has triggered the re- invention of co-option of local power-holders for obtaining control over the populace and establishing a durable connection with the local administration. The next chapters provide an analysis of the four-year (2006-2010) Dutch mission in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province in order to obtain an insight in the application of co-option in the daily reality of contemporary counterinsurgency campaigns. The Dutch Uruzgan campaign is exemplary for today’s counterinsurgency warfare as it was shaped by domestic pressure to focus on stabilization and reconstruction of this war torn province -as part of a modern Afghan state governed from Kabul- with limited resources and within a limited time frame, while the soldiers on the ground were confronted with an insurgency rooted in a complicated weblike society only weakly connected to the tottering structures of the new Afghan state.1 Consequently the Netherlands’ Task Force Uruzgan (TFU) adopted neo- classical counterinsurgency ideas as its Leitmotif and gradually incorporated recent field 1 See, among others, Martijn Kitzen, Sebastiaan Rietjens, Frans Osinga, ‘Soft Power the Hard Way’, Ton de Munnik, Martijn Kitzen, ‘Planning dilemmas in coalition operations’, 150-158, Mirjam Grandia Mantas, ‘The 3D approach and counterinsurgency, a mix of defence, diplomacy, and development, The case of Uruzgan’ (Thesis, Leiden University, 2009), 51-53, Mirjam Grandia Mantas, ‘Deadly embrace? The Decision Paths to Uruzgan and Helmand’ (Doctoral Dissertation, Leiden University, 2015), 146-148, Leendert Johan Hazelbag, ‘Politieke besluitvorming van de missie in Uruzgan: een reconstructie’, Research Paper no. 90 (Breda: Netherlands Defence Academy, 2009), 34-35, 40, George Dimitriu, Beatrice de Graaf, ‘The Dutch COIN approach: three years in Uruzgan, 2006-2009’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 21:3 (2010), 431-432. Proefschrift_Kitzen.indb 329 13-10-2016 9:40:34 innovations such as for instance Key Leader Engagement (KLE, see 3.5.4), measures to mitigate the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat, and counter-network methods for disrupting or destroying the local Taliban. Of course we will focus on the implementation and execution of KLE as this concept embodies co-option in modern campaigns. For a thorough analysis of co-option in the TFU campaign we will distinguish between the initial phase of the campaign in which the Dutch accepted and developed neo-classical counterinsurgency ideas on population centric warfare as the underpinning of their operational framework and the advanced phase in which the campaign gained momentum as an adapted neo- classical counterinsurgency campaign. The June 2007 battle for Chora district is considered the campaign’s hinge point as this provided ‘a real adaptive moment’ after which enhanced neo-classical counterinsurgency became solidly anchored in both TFU’s overall campaign plan and day-to-day operations.2 Therefore, we will first discuss co-option during the TFU campaign from its onset until the battle of Chora and its aftermath (2006-2007, Chapter The Course of Co-option Nine), and subsequently scrutinize the more advanced phase of the campaign (2008- 2010, Chapter Ten). We will conclude this case study with a discussion of the findings on co-option during the Dutch Uruzgan campaign in the light of the analytical framework 330 for understanding co-option as a tool for controlling the population in weblike societies (Chapter Eleven). Thus this part will add to our understanding of co-option in the reality of contemporary counterinsurgency warfare through a thorough analysis of co-option during the four-year Uruzgan campaign. Before immersing in the daily reality of practicing co-option at the grassroots level Chapter 8 in Uruzgan province we have to address the background of the Dutch campaign as it was embedded in the larger Afghan campaign. This brings us to another feature of contemporary counterinsurgency campaigns; their multinational dimension. Although the United States’ (US) armed forces have borne the brunt of the burden in both the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns, modern counterinsurgency is typically carried out by multinational coalitions.3 Especially the campaign in Afghanistan, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has commanded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2003 -as opposed to Iraq, where the United States commanded the multinational coalition-, has demonstrated the extent this international cooperation can possibly take in modern counterinsurgency warfare.4 The ramification of this multilateral character of contemporary counterinsurgency 2 Frans Osinga, James A. Russell, ‘Conclusion: Military Adaptation and the War in Afghanistan’, 293-294. See also Martijn Kitzen, ‘Close Encounters of the Tribal Kind’, 722. 3 See for instance Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Paul B. Rich, ‘Insurgency and counterinsurgency, some conclusions’, 365-366, Andrew Mumford, ‘Sir Robert Thompson’s Lessons for Iraq: Bringing the ‘Basic Principles of Counter-Insurgency’ into the 21st Century’, Defence Studies 10:1-2 (March-June 2010), 178-179, Sean Kay and Sahar Khan, ‘NATO and Counter-insurgency: Strategic Liability or Tactical Asset?’, Contemporary Security Policy 28:1 (April 2007), 177-178, David H. Petraeus, ‘Reflections on the Counter- Insurgency Era’, RUSI Journal 158:4 (August/September 2013), 86-87. 4 Sten Rynning, ‘ISAF and NATO: Campaign Innovation and Organizational Adaptation’, Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, ed. Farrell, T., Osinga, F., Russell, J.A. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 83, Jens Ringsmose, Peter Dahl Thruelsen, ‘NATO’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Afghanistan: Are Classical Doctrines Suitable for Alliances?’, UNISCI Discussion Papers 22 (2010), David Auerswald, Stephen Saideman, NATO in Afghanistan, Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 1-22, Christopher Coker, ‘Between Iraq and a Hard Place, Multinational Co-operation, Afghanistan and Strategic Culture’, RUSI