TITLE Afghan worker surveys dam project in Badghis Province that will employ local residents and provide stable water source Courtesy of U.S. Army War Comes to Bala Morghab A Tragedy of Policy and Action in Three Acts BY JOHN BESSLER I need not here touch upon the well-known and far-reaching results of the holding of Duffer’s Drift . and the ensuing victory gained by our side. It is now, of course, public knowledge that this was the turning point in the war, though we, the humble instruments, did not know what vital results hung upon our action. —Lieutenant Backsight Forethought1 s challenging as conventional war is, how much more so is the ongoing operation in Afghanistan? The need for concurrent stability operations, including counterinsurgency Aand capacity-building, adds layer upon layer of complexity to warfighting. As if the terrain Colonel John Bessler, USA, serves at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Headquarters, G3/5/7. His previous assignment was Deputy Director at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. PRISM 3, no. 1 FROM THE FIELD | 121 BESSLER and insurgents are not difficult enough, the poli- mountainous and comparatively temperate; win- cies that generate missions are often question- ters are characterized by heavy snows, averaging 2 able and poorly grounded in the realities on the meters annually, with much rain and fog. Badghis ground. What might seem a grand idea in the has the highest concentration of Pashto speakers Presidential Palace and to Kabul-based planners in the Northwest, transplanted there in the last can rapidly bog down in the realities of coali- century by the last Afghan king. The provincial tion warfare and the day-to-day friction associ- capital of Qala-I-Naw was noted in 2008 for its ated with surviving and building capacity in a fairly reliable electricity, some 2 kilometers of small province at the end of the policy and sup- asphalt road, teacher’s academy, hospital, and air- ply chain. And so, if the reader seeks a glimpse port. There was less violence in Badghis in com- of what the majority of military operations might parison to many other provinces, but it was far look like in the next 20 years, this view from from a quiet place. Badghis Province proves a worthy example. This Badghis is one of the poorest and most rural small operation, recounted here as a three-act of provinces in Afghanistan, and prior to 2006, play, may prove to have been one of the potential few Westerners ventured there. From Kabul, it turning points in the war. The story of Badghis was viewed as a quiet and agrarian sector. After reacquaints the military professional of all the the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan’s tribulations and friction of coalition warfare at provisional government installed provincial gov- the tactical and operational levels, gap between ernors around the country. Badghis had the mis- policy and operations, contradictions of winning fortune of becoming the home of Governor Gul hearts and minds, and challenges of day-to-day Mohammad Arefi. Unfortunately for Badghis’s survival at an outpost of foreign policy. However, inhabitants, Arefi, and to a greater extent his if Badghis is a story of friction and chance, it is successor Mohammad Ashraf Naseri, served as also a story of military ingenuity and persever- an aloof and condescending landlord, perceived ance, as well as the Afghan people’s struggle for as attempting to leverage the coalition and the human security. No doubt there are dozens of United States for any and all perks he could gar- places like it in Afghanistan, and, as that expe- ner. Naseri was indicted on corruption charges at rienced by Lieutenant Backsight Forethought in least twice while in office. Both men were widely The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, one from which we viewed as self-serving, disconnected from the can learn. province, and even more so from the outlying dis- tricts. In particular, Naseri spent far more time in Setting the Stage Kabul “on business” than he did in his province. This story takes place in Badghis Province’s As far as it can be ascertained, in 2 years he never Bala Morghab district in 2008–2009. Badghis is once traveled to Bala Morghab district. located in the farthest northwestern region of Poor provincial governance aside, Bala Afghanistan, and is about as far as one can get Morghab’s connections to the provincial and from the day-to-day news coverage of the Western national apparatus have been tenuous for at least press. It is 3 hard days’ drive from Kandahar and one hundred years. The Pashtun majority in Bala 4 from Kabul. The province consists of seven Morghab is a recent phenomenon. They live districts, one of which is Bala Morghab, which on land that, prior to their transplanting by the abuts Turkmenistan. Most of the province is last Afghan king, belonged to local Tajiks and 122 | FROM THE FIELD PRISM 3, no. 1 WAR COMES TO BALA MORGHAB Aimaqs. The Pashtuns have now been entrenched representatives from across the country. The for more than a century, but they retain a latent assembly’s purpose was to make government devel- fear that Tajik authorities will one day reclaim the opment interventions more visible and responsive Morghab River Valley and displace them. The val- to the needs and priorities of communities at dis- ley’s residents still view the Tajik-dominated pro- trict level.4 One of the focuses of this effort was vincial government with wariness and mistrust. the district of Bala Morghab. Representatives from The Tajiks’s assimilation into the Communist Bala Morghab’s 100,000 inhabitants and 133 vil- Party during the Soviet occupation further fuels lages identified poverty, poor economic conditions, this mistrust. Any action taken by the provincial and lack of opportunity and jobs as their main government is viewed along these schisms, and problems. The agriculture and livestock sectors obtaining Pashtun “buy-in” to any effort launched suffered from several concurrent years of drought, by the provincial government is always necessary.2 and what little transportation network existed was In the fall of 2006, Spain contributed a destroyed by the Soviet invasion in 1979. Lack of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to fuel and electricity accelerated ongoing deforesta- the provincial capital of Qala-I-Naw as part tion—even prized pistachio forests were cut down of the International Security Assistance Force to provide for heat and cooking. Finally, health (ISAF) expanded mission, with the aim of fostering development and reconstruction representatives from Bala Morghab’s throughout the seven districts.3 The Spanish, as 100,000 inhabitants and 133 villages every other member of the coalition, operated identified poverty, poor economic with national caveats that constrained certain actions and activities. Moreover, the Spanish conditions, and lack of opportunity and army’s small size dictated that it rotate the PRT jobs as their main problems on a 4-month basis. The Spanish government mandated that the PRT focus efforts within a care was lacking. Many villagers in remote areas 50-kilometer radius of the provincial capital. As had to travel several days to find medical support one can imagine, the impact and reach of the in one of the four inadequate basic health clinics. PRT was minimized, given the province’s great However, what was most telling in the assessment size (20,000 square kilometers) and number of was the lack of community concerns about secu- inhabitants (500,000). Qala-I-Naw (which has a rity. Insecurity, foreign fighters, and war were not largely Tajik population) reaped the benefits from among the complaints. These observations sup- Spanish presence with a new hospital, teacher’s port an earlier 2005 Badghis survey in which only school, and some asphalted roads. However, the 1 in 214 negative incidents reported in the entire PRT had little impact beyond the capital and less province was categorized as “insecurity.”5 inclination to venture out. The Spanish PRT had Up until 2008, there was little Western no presence whatsoever in the frontier districts concern with, or intrusion into, Bala Morghab such as Bala Morghab during 2007–2008. district, and even less connection between In 2007, the Afghanistan Ministry of Rural this “Pashtun pocket” and provincial and Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) national Afghan authorities. The Spanish PRT within the Ministry of Interior (MoI) convened remained committed to its development proj- a District Development Assembly consisting of ects in and around the relative safety of the PRISM 3, no. 1 FROM THE FIELD | 123 BESSLER provincial capital, and few Westerners—and and leadership. Based on this appraisal, an fewer Afghans—paid any attention to this quiet Afghan MoI team then recruits new Afghan backwater district. Compared with the more National Police (ANP) members from that violent South and East, ISAF’s Western Region district, sends them to a regional training cen- was quiet and, as a result, last in priority for just ter for 8 weeks, and then reinserts them after about everything, from supplies and replace- graduation. The relatively well-trained Afghan ments to medical evacuation helicopters and National Civil Order Police provides the secu- unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Such was the rity and civil control during the 2 months scene in 2008, when ISAF brought the war back that the local recruits are in school. Following to Badghis through the police reform program graduation, the trained ANP members return known as Focused District Development (FDD). home equipped with new uniforms, weapons, and police vehicles—and hopefully a sense of ACT I: A Troubling Start professional ethics and responsibility.