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Gifts of Honor: A Tale of Two Captains

By Steven Pressfield | Published: January 18, 2010

Mangwel and the Konar River Valley

[Friends, with apologies, a stomach virus has laid the blog low. Here's a re-run of a post that has been a reader favorite. We'll be back on Wednesday!]

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.

Also posted in Afghanistan, Editorial, On Tribalism | Tagged Afghanistan, Captain Michael Harrison, Greg Jaffe, Maj. Jim Gant, Tribalism, tribes, Washington Post | 15 Comments

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?

Also posted in Afghanistan, Editorial, On Tribalism, Related Video | Tagged Afghanistan, Associated Press, C-SPAN, Captain Michael Harrison, Lara Jakes, Maj. Jim Gant, Major Niel Smith, Not A Good Day To Die, Petraeus, Sean Naylor, Sisyphus, Small Wars Journal | 4 Comments

From somebody REALLY smart

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 10, 2009

The following is an Op-ed piece by David Ronfeldt, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. I’m a big fan of his work and will be citing more of it here in the future. Mr. Ronfeldt has given permission to reprint this article in its entirety. Thanks, David!

21st Century Tribes

By David Ronfeldt

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is fighting virulent tribalism as much as Islamic fundamentalism. Salafi and Wahhabi teachings calling for jihad against infidels, fatwas from clerics justifying the murder of noncombatants and ultimatums from Sunni insurgents who behead captives all are expressions of extreme tribalism more than Islam.

Professor Lawrence Keeley at Oxford University has shown that classic tribal warfare mostly amounts to raids and skirmishes but can evolve into total warfare in which entire peoples are massacred without mercy. According to journalist/novelist Amin Maalouf, this happens “because the ‘tribal’ concept of identity still prevalent” in the world facilitates the escalation.

Many religions, from ancient totemism onward, have their deepest roots in tribal societies. The major monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — arose during tense tribal times in the Middle East. Each religion’s oldest texts contain passages that, true to traditional tribal ethics, advocate reciprocal altruism toward fellow kin — and allow for terrible retribution against tribes deemed guilty of insult or injury.

The ways religion gets layered onto tribalism, and vice versa, deeply condition a people’s thinking and behavior. A tribe may regard a deity as the ultimate ancestor of its identity. Its religion also may instruct tribal members how to uphold their society and treat one another. It does not determine how they may behave toward outsiders, but religion often supplies the justification.

Tribal life can foster a vibrant sense of social solidarity. It fills a people with pride and self-respect. It motivates families to protect, welcome and care for each other and to abide by strict rituals that affirm their connections as tribal members and to their ancestors, land and deity. This kinship creates trust and loyalty in which one knows (and must uphold) one’s rights, duties and obligations.

Many people around the world prefer the tribal way of life, most notably in the Middle East and South Asia. Even modern societies that lack well-defined tribes and clans still have tribe-like sensibilities at their core that are variously expressed in nationalism, cultural festivities, civic interest groups, sports and fan clubs.

But tribalism can make for a mean-spirited partiality. Tribes and clans are terribly sensitive to boundaries and barriers, about who is a tribal member and who isn’t. As such, a tribe can be a realm of virtue in which reciprocal altruism rules kin relations. But this virtuous behavior, in tribal logic, does not have to extend to outsiders — they can be treated differently, especially if they are “different.”

In general, the more a religion calls for kinship among all peoples, the more it may lead to ecumenical caring (as Islam often does). Further, tribes open to more than one faith may be less susceptible to sectarian appeals. For example, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s tribe contains both Sunnis and Shiites.

But the more a religion’s adherents demonize others, revel in codes of revenge for alleged wrongs and crave territorial and spiritual conquests, all the while claiming to act on behalf of their deity, the more their religious orientation is utterly tribal and prone to rationalizing violence of the darkest kind.

All religious hatred — whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or other — speaks the language of tribe and clan. And in true tribal fashion, that language is loaded with sensitivities about respect, honor and dignity. An insult or injury to any of these is sensed by all tribal members, and the only honorable recourse is full compensation or total revenge. This is an essential ethic of tribes and clans, no matter their religion.

These behaviors may worsen when tribal or clan elements are led by a sectarian chieftain who sees himself as a ruthless warlord or revolutionary. Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar of the Taliban, Muqtada Sadr, Abu Musab Zarqawi or Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev are examples of such leaders. If the people they target react in tribal ways — extreme nationalism is an example — fights over whose religion should win become inseparable from whose tribe should win.

Americans comfort themselves with the thought that no other nation will be able to match our power for decades. But from ancient times to the present, globally expanding great powers often encounter tribes or clans that fiercely resist them, sometimes with dire consequences, as happened to the Roman Empire. The more tribal or clannish the society, the more resistant it will be to change. Reform then has to come from the outside or from above, as in Meiji Japan.

The United States is not at war with Islam. Its struggle is largely with insurgents who behave in the manner of tribes and clans. Some are members of true tribes; others are patched together by radical clerics or jihadist recruiters operating among alienated migrants. U.S. forces are learning this the hard way — on the ground.

Policymakers and strategists in Washington, meanwhile, lag in catching on. The new Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication recognizes that “the United States is engaged in a generational and global struggle about ideas, not a war between the West and Islam.” But it barely mentions the role of tribalism in that struggle.

David Ronfeldt is a senior political scientist at the Rand Corp., a nonprofit research organization, and coauthor of “Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy.”

Also posted in Afghanistan, Editorial, Guest Blogger, On Tribalism | Tagged Afghanistan, David Ronfeldt, Rand, tribal mindet, Tribalism, tribes | 2 Comments

Sez Who? How This Thesis Came About

By Steven Pressfield | Published: June 9, 2009

Yesterday we talked about the idea that the real enemy in AfPak today is not militant Islam or jihadism or terrorism. It’s tribalism and the tribal mindset.

Now: how did this thesis evolve? What’s the source? Upon what authority do I put this idea forward?

It comes from my own research and study of history. For my book The Afghan Campaign, I immersed myself in Alexander the Great’s campaign in Afghansitan, 330-327 B.C. That campaign was remarkably similar to our own contemporary struggle, but with this extremely significant difference: Alexander was pre-Christian and his enemies were pre-Islamic. (300 years before the birth of Christ, 900 before the birth of Mohammed.)

That’s what made me first ask, Who are these guys? What characterizes this enemy (it can’t be Islam, since Islam wasn’t around in 330 B.C.) who seems to be the same today as he was 2300 years ago.

For another book, Last of the Amazons, I did extensive research on tribes. What makes them tick? How do they think? How are they different from you and me? That study convinced me even more strongly that tribalism was the key to this contemporary conflict.

I began writing op-ed pieces on this subject–one for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and another for ABC News Online. The feedback I got convinced me even further that this thesis had real value.

Finally, for a book I’m currently working on, I began studying modern Afghanistan. British involvement in the 19th Century, the Russian debacle in the 1980s … then our own engagement post 9/11, Operation Jawbreaker, Operation Anaconda, Roberts Ridge and so forth. I haven’t been on the ground in Afghanistan myself but I feel like I’ve lived there several lifetimes, just from being submerged in its study for so long. I also have numerous friends, authors, journalists and correspondents from the Marines, Special Forces, Army Airborne and others who have personally served, or are still serving, in Afghanistan. Their ideas and writings have broadened and reinforced this concept too.

I hope to share some of their thoughts as this series goes along and I most earnestly invite any and all fighting men and women to chip in their opinions, criticisms, whatever. Tell me I’m wrong. Let’s stir the pot!

Tomorrow I want to share a piece with you from David Ronfeldt, called 21st Century Tribes. David is a Senior Fellow at the Rand Corporation and the author of Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy. After that, I’ve got some very interesting videos to share.