Steven Pressfield Blog | A Video Series and Blog from Author and Historian Steven Pressfield

Sisyphus, Sean Naylor and C-SPAN

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 30, 2009

First, many thanks to all correspondents and contributors for the tremendous and very thoughtful response to the previous post, “A Tale of Two Captains.” More to come in a couple of days about Capt. Harrison’s work, including an update dispatch from him in Konar.

But first, here’s a strikingly apt flashback to 2006—when Army Times journalist (and author of the excellent Not A Good Day To Die) Sean Naylor and I did an interview together for C-SPAN’s “BookTV.” The topic was “The War in Afghanistan.”

We thought the piece was pretty timely then. I just watched it two days ago. Not only has very little changed in AfPak since that air-date in ‘06, but very little has changed since 327 B.C.

I was citing Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Afghan kingdoms 2300 years ago. I made the point that that ancient superpower army had its hands full against a cunning and resourceful hit-and-run foe who employed the tactics of insurgency, rallied and regrouped within mountainous and cross-border sanctuaries and recruited reinforcements from tribal populations in the north and east. In the interview, Sean Naylor said this of our troops:

They are fighting a counter-insurgent, counter-terrorist campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and allies of al-Qaeda that are hiding out in the mountains, regrouping in Pakistan, coming back across the very porous Afghan/Pakistan border and gathering strength in the Pashtun tribe lands in Eastern Afghanistan.

In a piece that appeared in Small Wars Journal , titled “Sisyphus and Counterinsurgency” Major Niel Smith wrote:

In Greek legend, Sisyphus was a king condemned by the gods to roll a huge rock up a hill only to have it roll down again for eternity. Students of counterinsurgency often feel like Sisyphus, as the United States Army continually resists institutionalizing counterinsurgency across the force, only to have to re-learn the lessons at a heavy price later before preparing to discard them again.

Watching the C-SPAN interview three years later, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room–in this case, the huge rock being rolled up the hill over and over again.

June 12, 2009, Lara Jakes of the Associated Press reported:

Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit “the highest level” since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban. . . . “Some of this will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must. . . . But there is no question the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years in particular and there are difficult times ahead,” he said.

Three years after the C-SPAN interview, we are back down at the bottom of the hill, with the same rock ready for pushing.

Despite all this, I’m encouraged. I think we have outstanding commanders in place, whose thinking is bold and innovative and who are adapting fast to a situation that has bedeviled Western military men for more than two millennia.

Which brings me back to Major Jim Gant and Capt. Michael Harrison from our previous post. Can their successes be replicated on a wider scale? Is working with tribalism instead of against it part of the answer?

And can we do a little better this time, rolling that rock up the hill?

Posted in Afghanistan, Editorial, Related Article, Related Video | 1 Comment

Gifts of Honor: A Tale of Two Captains

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 25, 2009

Mangwel and the Konar River Valley

June 22nd, the Washington Post ran an excellent article by Greg Jaffe, titled “A Personal Touch in Taliban Fight.” The piece is about a young Army captain, Michael Harrison, and his up-close-and-personal work as a company commander in the remote tribal villages of the Konar River valley in Afghanistan.

Flashback to 2003, same valley, same U.S. Army—different captain. This is the story of then-captain Jim Gant of Las Cruces, NM, and how he and Capt. Harrison are linked by a gift of honor, a 12-gauge shotgun.

A tribal chief

Mangwel is a village in Konar province, close to the border with Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Terrain is mountainous, no paved roads; Taliban fighters use the valley regularly as an infiltration route to and from Pakistan. The chief in Mangwel is Malik Noorafzhal. He’s 86 now; he fought the Soviets in the 80s; he’s been defending his tribe’s turf all his life.

In 2003, Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 316–twelve men, led by Capt. Gant–had Mangwel as part of its area of responsibility. The ODA helped the chief in some tribal warfare, fighting alongside him. The chief said he would return the favor to augment the ODA’s mission; he mentioned that he could deliver 8 men with guns, then upped it to 80. On 23 April 2003, Capt. Gant had a meeting with him and other tribal leaders. The following is from the captain’s OPSUM [Operation Summary], written immediately afterward:

The head local we have named “Sitting Bull.” He is an old, old warrior. He didn’t speak much. I didn’t speak much either. I mainly listened. I looked him in the eye often. After the meeting was adjourned, he asked to speak with me privately. So my terp [interpreter] and I went out back with him. He took my hand in his. “I want you to know, Commander Jim, that you have my loyalty. If you need men with guns you come see me.” He promised 800. From 8 to 80 to 800!

Bonding tribe-to-tribe

Capt. Gant made it a point to bond with Sitting Bull. This nickname that the ODA gave the chief captures the spirit of their affection and admiration. These tough Special Forces soldiers regarded the malik as a living figure of legend, a warrior who had fought and defeated many enemies, a leader to whom the highest respect was due. They loved to question him about his battles with the Russians and he loved to tell them his stories. The warriors, American and Afghan, would stay up deep into the night, drawing maps of ambushes and infiltrations. Capt. Gant had his own father, James Karl Gant, send Malik Noorafzhal a knife with “Sitting Bull” engraved on it—and a letter, man-to-man, father-to-father. Here is part of it:

My son says you are a great warrior. He respects you and considers you to be his friend. He tells me that your enemies are his enemies. He says he would give his life to protect you. Be my son’s father while he is in your country. Take this gift from us as a token of our friendship.

Through his interpreter, Captain Gant read the letter to the chief.

When I read [the letter] to Sitting Bull, he was outwardly moved by it and said, “Tell your father not a hair on your head will be harmed as long as you are with me, you are now my son.”

Sitting Bull, the shotgun and Capt. Gant, 2003

A gift of honor

Capt. Gant and the ODA wanted to give the chief their own gift of honor. They searched and found a beautiful 12-gauge shotgun. The photo on the right shows the moment they presented it. That’s Capt. Gant beside the chief. Up front is SFC Mark Read.

Flash forward to 2009, a few weeks ago. Marine Col. Bing West, author of The Strongest Tribe, about Marines in Iraq, is now in Afghanistan researching a book. He visits Mangwel and meets with Malik Noorafzhal. The first thing the chief does is to bring out, proudly, the gift shotgun and ask Col. West if he can get him some shells, as he is all out. The photo below tells everything. Bing West e-mailed it to now-Major Gant, who forwarded it to me. The young officer next to Sitting Bull is Capt. Michael Harrison—the company commander profiled by the Washington Post–who is now on his second tour in Konar. Here is part of an e-mail Capt. Harrison sent from there to Major Gant, 18 June 2009, a few days ago.

Over the past five months, he [Malik Noorafzhal] has helped us out tremendously. His son and son-in-law both work at our COP [Combat Outpost] as ASG [Afghan Security Guards.]

sitting-bull-with-shotgun-and-mike-harrison

Sitting Bull, the shotgun and Capt. Harrison, 2009

Tribesmen relate man-to-man

Men of the tribes never forget an insult or a kindness. Six years later, Capt. Gant and ODA 316’s heartfelt gift of honor is paying dividends for follow-on generations of American soldiers. And Capt. Harrison (though he and Maj. Gant have never met) is employing the same tribal language of man-to-man, person-to-person bonding. From Greg Jaffe’s article in the Washington Post:

Between his two tours, Harrison, whose boyish face and blond hair make him look like an especially earnest grad student, had kept in touch with his interpreter and several of the Afghan leaders from his old sector via e-mail. He sent them packages of T-shirts, jeans and toiletries. Soon after he arrived in Konar for the second tour, Harrison bought mosque speakers for the religious leaders in his area. Although his current sector is a three-hour drive from his old base, Afghans whom Harrison hasn’t seen since 2007 sometimes arrive at the gates of his new base. Many show the guards scraps of paper bearing Harrison’s signature, proof that they once knew him. “You cannot come to me, so I am here to visit with you, my good friend,” one man told Harrison.

All this is not to say that life is roses today in Konar province. Successes are unfortunately the exception, and tribal-savvy breakthroughs like those produced by Capt. Gant and Capt. Harrison are, so far at least, only the model for achievements to come.

Tribes and Alexander the Great

When Alexander fought in the Afghan kingdoms 2300 years ago, a gift of honor might be a horse or a Damascene sword. Alexander understood that such tokens, presented man-to-man, warrior-to-warrior, were the currency of tribal alliance. The celebrated tale of Alexander marrying the Afghan princess Roxane is usually told as a romance–the youthful king smitten by the ravishing damsel. There may be an element of truth to this, but Alexander was also a shrewd political animal whose army was then mired in a disastrous three-year counter-insurgency campaign with no end in sight. He married his way out of that quagmire, by taking to wife the daughter of his most powerful foe, the warlord Oxyartes, thus making his enemy into his father-in-law.

That marriage was an act of honor. In tribalspeak it said to Oxyartes and the other warlords, “I honor you as an equal, you have fought me to a draw and won my respect; let us make war no longer but join our two peoples in a peace whose issue will be prosperity and happiness for all.”

A shotgun and a bride, a gift and an act of honor. Perhaps the Obama era’s young officers and men, incoming now to Afghanistan, can take a page from Alexander and Oxyartes, from captains Gant and Harrison, and from a chief called Sitting Bull.

Posted in Afghanistan, Editorial, Related Article | 3 Comments

Part Two: The Tribesman in All of Us

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 23, 2009

One of the acts that tribes frequently practice is ritual scarification. Tattoos, circumcision, mutilation of the flesh. The purpose is to draw a line between who’s a member of the tribe and who isn’t. This is Us … this is Not Us.

Non-hereditary tribes–criminal organizations, elite military units, certain religious or social orders–often have initiations. The candidate undergoes an ordeal. Sometimes he’s obligated to break the law or commit some act that severs him permanently from the larger society. The initiation says, “The line has been crossed, there’s no going back.” Again the purpose is to define who is One Of Us and who is Not One Of Us. With ritual scarification, the evidence is visible and permanent. The effect of initiations is permanent but invisible.

Throughout the ceremonial year, tribes reinforce the sense of This Is Us, This Is Not Us by various holidays, festivals and rites. Often they celebrate historical moments central to the group’s identity–the Exodus from Egypt, the Marine Corps Birthday, the birth of the Holy One.

Tribes often dress distinctively. Certain garments or undergarments again say, “This Is Us … This Is Not Us.” Tribes wear their hair differently from other tribes, adorn themselves differently, speak and act differently.

This stuff is important. It’s identity. It’s belonging. It goes to the core of our being. We need it.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell a religion from a tribe. Often the manifestations of the two are so interwoven, it’s almost impossible to separate them. Is the Mahdi Army religious or tribal? A Mormon mission? The IDF?

Israel is a particularly illuminating illustration. Who is a Jew and who’s not? Defined by whom? The citizenship board at Tel Aviv? The Gestapo? What criteria are religious and what are social/ethnic/political–in other words, tribal? We could ask the same of Sunnis or Shiites or of virtually any religion. The elements are so entangled, who can pull them apart?

My own vote goes with the soul versus the flesh. If it’s about the soul, it’s religion. If it’s the flesh, it’s tribal.

Any time you have a group that can, with minimum mental alteration, set down the prayer book and pick up a rifle … that group has ceased to operate as a religion and is now operating as a tribe.

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The Tribesman In All Of Us

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 20, 2009

I was in Frankfurt a couple of summers ago and there was a young man at the hotel named Kaitet Olla Kishau. He was a Masai from Kenya. Kaitet is a big, tall, good-looking guy; he speaks English and German; he’s married to a European lady; he’s a writer and filmmaker. He also goes home to Masai Land two or three times a year, or whenever his father gets word to him that he’s needed. Kaitet dons the robes, tends the cattle, lives the full-on Masai life. He says he feels sorry for his European friends, who don’t have the chance to replenish their souls by periodic immersion into the primal ways.

I have another friend, David McQuade, whose ex-brother-in-law, Bahi (”Warrior”), takes part each summer in the Sundance on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Remember Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse? It’s that sundance, with the piercing of the flesh of the chest, the rawhide thongs, the three or four days of non-stop dancing. Anyway, David and Bahi were out there a few summers ago. David wasn’t allowed to participate because he was white, but he was permitted to attend. So there they are–Bahi, pierced and dancing in 100-degree heat, surrounded by his tribal brothers–and David beside him. What is Bahi saying to David? Something about the ancient ways? The Great Spirit?

Bahi: “David, when you go back to my house, don’t forget the B-roll. I’ve got some cuts and trims I’ve got to work on later.”

Yes, Bahi is a professional soundman and film editor. Which seems to indicate that the most primeval tribal ways can and do coexist quite handily with modern and post-modern sensibilities. Who, after all, is more media-savvy than al-Qaeda and the Taliban?

Or, looked at from the other end of the telescope, a very strong case could be made that the United States “went tribal” in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Our President declares the enemy “evil-doers” and states that “you’re either with us or against us.” That’s about as tribal as it gets.

The tribal mind, I believe, is the human race’s default setting. Why wouldn’t it be, after millions of years of evolution during which the only mode of social organization was the tribe? The citizen–a completely novel manifestation of homo sapiens–appeared, one might suspect, sometime around the rise of the polis, the city-state, in ancient Greece. Or maybe a related type showed up earlier, when trade became prominent and insular societies were first exposed to the wider world. But the citizen mind-set (intellectual curiosity, individual autonomy, self-regulation, inclusiveness, toleration for dissent) seems to be a higher faculty, layered over the tribal mind but not superseding it, much like the cerebral cortex nestles above the primal brain.

When extreme stress is applied, we all seem to revert to the tribal brain. It’s our “go-to” mode, our survival setting. More on this in the next few days.

Meanwhile many thanks to Brandon Friedman of VetVoice for posting our videos and linking to them. Brandon, in addition to being Vice Chairman for Vote Vets and the editor of its blog, Vet Voice, is the author of one of the best books to come out of the Afghanistan campaign, The War I Always Wanted, a slightly askew recounting of, among other things, his service as a platoon commander with the Rakkasans (101st Airborne) in Operation Anaconda, 2002, the airborne insertion into the Shahikot Valley that sought to finish off the last concentration of al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan at that time. Good stuff!

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Lawrence of Arabia on Tribes

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 18, 2009

Maj. Jim Gant, ODA 316, with Malik Noor, Mangwel, Konar Province

I like very much Gen. McChrystal’s idea for a new Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell (cited in Max Boot’s article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal). This entity would be an ongoing “corps of roughly 400 officers who will spend years working on Afghanistan,” even when they are not actually in-country.

That’s the kind of continuity T.E. Lawrence would have approved of–keeping officers and men on station long enough, not only to become intimately familiar with the leaders, customs and languages of the country, but to be known by these leaders and thus to be trusted and to achieve influence. Like the Mafia, tribesmen and tribal chiefs deal in-person, man-to-man. Here is Lawrence, from the Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917:

Their minds works just as ours do, but on different premises. There is nothing unreasonable, incomprehensible, or inscrutable in the Arab. Experience of them, and knowledge of their prejudices will enable you to foresee their attitude and possible course of action in nearly every case.

Lawrence of course was speaking specifically of Bedouin Arabs, but his advice, I believe, is worth taking seriously by any Western political or military official whose role is to assist, coordinate with and fight alongside tribal peoples anywhere. “In a tribal society like Afghanistan’s,” says Max Boot’s article, “the key to effectiveness is having personal relationships with tribal elders, which argues for keeping troops in place much longer than currently is the case.” Frequent rotations home, says Boot, will help ease the stress of such longer tours. It wouldn’t hurt, in my opinion, to layer on a whole new raft of bonuses and incentive pay as well. Our men fighting that fight will earn it. This will not be just deployment, it’ll be immersion. The last word from Lawrence:

The secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them. Keep always on your guard; never say an unnecessary thing; watch yourself and your companions all the time; hear all that passes, search out what is going on beneath the surface, read their characters, discover their tastes and their weaknesses and keep everything you find out to yourself. Bury yourself in Arab circles, have no interests and no ideas except the work in hand, so that your brain is saturated with one thing only, and you realize your part deeply enough to avoid the little slips that would counteract the painful work of weeks. Your success will be proportioned to the amount of mental effort you devote to it.

Posted in Afghanistan, Editorial | 1 Comment

This five-part series is about war in Afghanistan, ancient and modern. I'm not doing this for money or politics. I'm a Marine and I don't want young Marines and soldiers going into harm's way without the full arsenal of history and context.

What's my thesis? That the key to understanding Afghanistan today is not Islamism or jihadism. It's tribalism. The tribal mind-set (warrior pride, hostility to outsiders, codes of honor and resistance to change) permeates everything. Think of these videos as a mini-course in tribalism. I invite discussion. Tell me I'm crazy, tell me I'm wrong. If you agree, tell me too.