The duplicitous British

In our previous piece, we looked at the influence of Afghan history on the current conflict. We concluded that there were three elements which were relevant.

Firstly, the war is a continuation of the tribal rivalry between the two major tribal groups, the Ghilzai and the Durrani/Barakzai, which effectively started in 1709 when the first Ghilzai dynasty was founded. Secondly, the movement of the capital from Kandahar to Kabul in 1775 positions that city as the seat of the oppressor (certainly to the Ghilzai). Thirdly, give the historic support for the Durrani, against the Ghilzai tribes, British and by association all coalition operations are seen as partisan players.

Our previous romp though the history of Afghanistan, however, only took us to 1863, with the death of Dost Moḥammad, a Durrani leader who, with the help of the British, had extended the rule of Kabul to much of the territory currently occupied by the modern Afghan state.

On the death of Dost Moḥammad, there was no clear successor, leading again to a familiar period of strife, from which emerged his son, Ser Ali. With the considerable support of the British – again highlighting the powerful role of this colonial power in the region - he fought his stepbrothers to regain the throne in 1868, to become Amir (King) of Afghanistan.

This, though, was a period during which the so-called "Great Game" was being played out between Britain and Russia, with the latter extending its territories into central Asia, its eventual ambition to extend southwards through Afghanistan, into Baluchistan and thence to the Arabian Sea on the Makran coast, giving the Russian empire a much-coveted warm water port.

This "Great Game" aspect forms the fourth layer, as it still heavily influences the modern Afghan view of the outside world, the friction arising from the determination of the great powers to treat Afghanistan as a pawn, seeking to control its external (i.e., foreign) policies, combined with a failure to respect its territorial integrity.

This period, however, cannot be understood without reference to British politics which – then as now – dominated the approach to this region. The crucial event here was the emergence in 1859 of the Liberal Party, the premiership of Lord Palmerston in 1865 and of Gladstone who led the government intermittently from 1868 until his death in 1894.

Heavily influenced by the philosophy of laissez faire, strengthened by the 1857 Indian uprising, Gladstone took the view that Afghanistan should be treated as a buffer state, with minimal British interference and support, other than the supply of money and arms. This was the start of what became known as the "Frontier Policy".

Yet this was the time of considerable Russian activism on the northern borders of Afghanistan so that, by the time Sher Ali had established control in Kabul in 1868, he found the British – still nominally bound by the 1855 Treaty of Peshawar – unwilling to assist him against the Russians.

Unsurprisingly, over the next ten years, relations between the Afghan ruler and Britain deteriorated steadily, with Russian encroachment proceeding apace. Diplomatic attempts in 1872 brought an agreement from Russia, brokered by the British government, to respect the northern boundaries of Afghanistan, which – without any commitment from the British to enforce it – the Russian proceeded to ignore.

Two years later in 1874, however, the Liberal government in London had been deposed by the Tories under Benjamin Disraeli, who adopted foreign policy that was determinedly aggressive, in terms of the Raj being described as the interventionalist "Forward Policy".

Whether Sher Ali was fully – or at all – aware of this fundamental shift in British policy does not seem to be recorded. But, with the Russians knocking at his northern gate, he accredited a Moslem agent of the Czar in Kabul in 1875, and in July 1878 General Stoletov arrived without advance notice to negotiate a Russo-Afghan treaty.

Driven by his interventionalist master in London, the British Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton ordered a diplomatic mission to travel to Kabul on 14th August with an ultimatum, requiring the Afghans to install a British mission in Kabul.

When the mission, under General Sir Neville Chamberlain, was turned back at the frontier and Sher Ali concluded a treaty with Russia, this triggered the Second Anglo-Afghan War. On 21 November 1878, the British dispatched three different columns totalling 30,000 men through the Bolan, Paywar and Khyber passes, into Afghanistan.

Only the second column met with some resistance. Jalalabad and Kandahar were occupied without fighting. With his capital threatened, Ser Ali fled, leaving his son Moḥammad Yaqub as regent. The Amir went to Bactria where he hoped to receive aid from the Russians, but they had been diplomatically isolated in Europe since the Berlin Congress (1878) and offered nothing.

A broken man, Ser Ali died a shortly afterwards, on 21 February 1879. The new Amir Yaqub, with his country occupied by the British, was forced to sign what was regarded as the "humiliating" Treaty of Gandamak on 26 May 1879. In exchange for a guarantee of territorial integrity and an annual subsidy for the Amir, Afghanistan lost control of its foreign policy and ceded the strategic districts in what is known as the Northwest frontier area. The treaty also required that an English resident be accredited in Kabul.

However, the first holder of this post, Sir Louis Cavagnari, was assassinated by mutinous Afghan soldiers forty-seven days after his arrival, on 3 September 1879. Yaqub was suspected of complicity in the massacre of Cavagnari and his staff, was forced by the British to abdicate.

The British considered a number of possible political settlements, including partitioning Afghanistan between multiple rulers or placing Yaqub's brother Ayub Khan on the throne. Instead, they decided to install his cousin Abdur Rahman Khan (pictured) as Amir, despite the fact that the Russians supported him, reasoning that he would be stronger ruler.

Ayub Khan, who had been serving as governor of Herat, rose in revolt with an army of 25,000 men and defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Maywand in July 1880. He then besieged Kandahar. General Roberts then led the main British force from Kabul and decisively defeated Ayub Khan in September at the Battle of Kandahar, bringing his rebellion to an end.

All that was left was for the British to require Abdur Rahman to confirm the Treaty of Gandamak, leaving the British in possession of the territories ceded by Yaqub and in control of Afghanistan's foreign policy. Abandoning the provocative policy of maintaining a British resident in Kabul, but having achieved all their other objectives, the British withdrew from Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan, apart from Kandahar, where a garrison was kept until April 1881, when it was occupied by Abdur Raḥman's troops.

Meanwhile, in April 1880 back in Britain, there had been a viciously-fought general election, resulting in a route for Disraeli's Tories, in which his "expensive" and "immoral" foreign policy had been roundly attacked. Gladstone again swept into power, resulting in another change in policy. For Afghanistan, the "Frontier Policy" once again prevailed, the country resuming its role as a buffer-state between British India and Russian Turkestan.

The hands-off policy allowed Abdur Rahman free rein in his own territory. A grandson of Dost Mohammad Khan, he was another Durrani Pashtun, from the Barakzai tribe. For him, the Ghilzai were unfinished business. Faced with a rebellion of the tribes, he responded with ferocity and, by the end of 1887 had crushed the uprising.

He then set about a massive resettlement programme, dispersing their tribes into non-Pashtun areas, mixing them with other ethnic group and diluting their power and influence. He exiled over 10,000 Ghilzai families to areas north of the Hindu Kush, forcing them into areas with predominantly non-Pashtun populations, crushing more than 40 revolts in the process. He also restricted the movement of the nomadic tribes, requiring them to seek government permission before they could relocate.

By the time he died in October 1901, the "Iron Amir" was the undisputed ruler of Afghanistan, having beaten off all rivals broken down the power of local chiefs, and tamed Ghilzai. But, as a despot, stained by a reputation for unnecessary cruelty, he also left behind him a legacy of hatred.

For all that, he had been enthusiastically supported by the British, who lavished generous subsidies on him and kept him well-supplied with weapons. In return, in 1893, he agreed to the partition of the Pashtun tribal areas along the Durand line, attracting the eternal enmity of the hill tribes.

In a culture where, as we have remarked before, literacy rates are low, the tradition of oral history exerts a powerful effect. To many of the Ghilzai tribes, these events are as of yesterday. They remember a cruel, despotic leader, imposed on them by the British by the force of arms, who proceeded to crush their tribes and engage in what amounted to ethnic cleansing, then splitting their tribal heartlands and handing a huge area to the British.

Where folk memories are long, and history is a fresh as the day the narrative is delivered, the duplicitous British are as much the enemy as the Durrani they supported. And we aim to win the "hearts and minds" of these people?

COMMENT THREAD

Cowboys and Indians

With due respect to Lt-Col Gus Fair DSO, the CO of the Light Dragoons battle group, this officer has lost the plot.

That is one of the comments to his piece in The Daily Telegraph, where the Lt-Col tells us that our soldiers' sacrifice in Afghanistan "will be worth it". The progress he has seen "proves that we can win the war and help create a better society." And the commentator is not wrong.

Lt-Col Fair cites as his primary evidence the experience of the Light Dragoons, which have just finished deploying for the second time. On the previous occasion, in 2007, they were fighting for control of Garmsir, at the very edge of the Afghan government's sphere of influence. The main administrative centre was derelict, destroyed by months of fighting as they battled to assert control of the ground only a few hundred yards outside the front gate.

In April this year, they returned and the progress was "beyond all of our expectations". After the intervention of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (pictured), the area had been transformed. Some 15,000 "Afghans" now live in relative safety within an area protected by a joint coalition and Afghan team. Most importantly, it is led by an Afghan district governor "who exercised control in a fair, representative and transparent fashion."

What Lt-Col Fair does not say, though, is that Garmsir is inhabited largely by Durrani with rival Ghilzai tribes to the north and south. His district governor is a Durrani, serving a fraction of the 74,800 people in the district, the majority of whom are Ghilzai. The Lt-Col and his men have walked into a 300-year-old tribal war, weighing in on the side of the Durranis against their rivals who are fighting under the Taliban franchise.

What applies here, though, also applies to the wider Babaji area, an area of operations further north, the clearance of which was part of Operation Panther's Claw. But Fair and his troops share a "firm belief" that they will see similar if not more rapid progress in Babaji by the time the regiment next returns to Helmand.

With that, Fair believes the Taliban "is an increasingly self-serving organisation that has lost sight of its aim; it has no honour and is undermining both the reputation of Islam and the deeply honourable Pashtun traditions." In the eyes of the Afghans in Babaji, he writes, the Taliban has crossed from insurgency to running a predominantly terrorist campaign, targeting not only ISAF troops and Afghan security forces but also the Afghan population itself.

The locals, Fair goes on to say, "definitely do not want a Taliban solution if there is a viable alternative" and he thus believes "we are at or will soon approach a tipping point in the consent of a critical mass of the locals." Beyond this point, he further believes "consent will move irreversibly in our favour, provided we remain determined to exploit the opportunity it presents."

Here, one must admire the confidence and optimism, but also worry about it. Within this area, there are probably about thirty different tribal and ethnic groups, plus a smattering of settlers – mostly former itinerant workers.

Apart from the dominant indigenous Durrani tribal groups, there are – amongst others - pockets of Achekzai, some Kharoti, Chilzdai, Tajik, Wasir, Shaikhail, Mohammadzai, Uzbek, Turkmen, Waziri, Kakar, Karaish, Dartokhail, Viardaki, Hashikhail, Sulimankhail, Safi, Baluch, Alizai, Alikozai, Ilazarkhail, Numand, Alikhail, Omarkhail and Miyakhail.

That rather begs the question: who are the locals? Of whom does Fair refer when he talks about Afghans, and who amongst those are approaching the fabled "tipping point". And what of the rest?

Therein lies the problem. One gets the sense, almost of a "Cowboys and Indians" narrative, redefined as "Afghans and Talibans", with no hint that there is any understanding of the vast complexity of the tribal and ethnic mix, the rivalries, the shifting loyalties, the feuds, treachery and jealousies. The tribes, sub-tribes and clans are poorly mapped and, in contemporary literature, rarely mentioned. Yet they are the key to understanding the conflict.

Arguably, if – as definitely seems the case – Fair and his colleagues are favouring the Durrani, who will tend to be more supportive and approachable, then they will be creating enemies elsewhere, strengthening historical enmities and stacking up trouble for the future.

Yet, based on his experience in Garmsir and the progress achieved so far in Babaji, Fair is more "confident than ever" that this [the Afghan conflict] is a winnable campaign. One would like to believe this, but we are not getting any indications that the military is even close to understanding the conflict, much less winning it.

COMMENT THREAD

Fighting talk

As the Afghan conflict continues to exert its bloody effect, we have been exploring further the prospects of success of what is fashionably called a "counterinsurgency" campaign, in which the target is the people, the aim being to protect the people from the insurgents and to convince them to support the government.

Although we have already looked at some of the historical background to the conflict, it seems that its roots stem not from recent history but from events spanning the last 300 years.

From those events, one learns, the main antagonists – the Pashtuns - are not insurgents in the classic sense. They are a separatist movement, seeking to restore the boundaries of their ancient territory, the modern name for which is Pashtunistan, encompassing areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Our problem is that we have not fully understood that, traditionally, the very term Afghan is used to describe the Pashtun, who have a recognisable identity going back as far as 330 BC, if not before. The polyglot ethnic mix which encompasses the modern Afghanistan is a geographical construct rather than a nation.

Within that, though, is another separate and hugely important (and largely unrecognised) dynamic – the rivalry between the Pashtuns themselves, centred around the two main tribal groups, the Durranis and the Ghilzai. The modern history of Afghanistan is largely an account of the battle for power between two great dynasties, with the story effectively starting in 1709 and continuing to the present day.

For some time before 1709, most of what is now known as Afghanistan was occupied by the Persians and it was the chief of the Ghilzai Pashtuns - a man by the name of Mirwais Khan Hotak – with his followers, who rose against them in Kandahar City in 1709, to establish the Hotaki dynasty. This successful uprising established the basis of the modern Afghanistan and, briefly, controlled part of Persia itself.

The Hotaki Ghilzai dynasty, however, was replaced by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded a rival regime, the Durrani dynasty. This established a tension between the two groups which exists to this day.

What then followed is equally significant. At the time, the capital of a Pashtun-dominated Afghanistan was Kandahar. After the death of Ahmad Shah in 1773, he was succeeded by his son Timur Shar, a weak and inept ruler. Unable to govern effectively, and opposed by the fractious Ghilzai Pashtuns, in 1775, he moved his seat of government north to Kabul in an attempt to enlist the support of the Tajiks and other northern ethnic groups, better to control his own people.

This then sets the scene for another dynamic which resonates to this day. The traditional capital of Afghanistan is Kandahar, not Kabul. To the Ghilzai, in particular, rule from Kabul is forever associated with a Durrani ruler, using "foreigners" to impose his will.

And, in what is almost a repeat of history, we have Hamid Khazai, a Durrani president, ensconced in Kabul, supported by an Afghan Army composed mainly of Tajiks. To complete the historical parallel, the fighters in the Taleban "insurgency" are primarily Ghilzai tribesmen - led by Mullah Omah, a Hotaki Ghilzai.

Then, as now, Ahmad Shah failed to impose his will over the whole of Afghanistan and, by 1818, his successors controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding territory within a 100-mile radius. By 1836, the Kandahar region and the Ghilzai heartlands were virtually autonomous.

What then appeared to change the course of history, apparently setting Afghanistan on course to becoming a modern state, was the emergence of another strong man. This was Dost Mohammad Khan, yet another Durrani Pashtun who, after the deposition of the then current ruler, Mahmud Shah Durrani - who had taken the throne in 1809 – had been "awarded" first Ghazni and then Kabul in 1826. He went on to defeat his rival in a battle under the walls of Kandahar in 1834, making him the effective ruler of Afghanistan.

By then, the British had appeared on the scene, with their own colonial ambitions, anxious to thwart Russian ambitions and protect the borders of the English Raj. Initial overtures to Dost Mohammad soured, and when he moved to entertain a relationship with Russia, this triggered the First Anglo-Afghan War.

In 1838, British forces occupied Kabul to depose Dost Mohammad and make him prisoner. However, while the retreat from Kabul and the destruction of the expedition in 1842 is part of the current mythology, on which the legend is built that no Western army can ever subdue Afghanistan, this was by no means the end of the war.

Later in 1842, the British actually launched a punitive expedition. Entering Afghanistan by the Khyber pass, an "army of retribution" under General Pollock marched on Kabul, joined there by 6,000 men from Kandahar destroying the famous covered bazaar of Kabul on 9 October. Three days later, the English withdrew from Afghanistan.

It was that which actually put an end to the war, leaving the UK victorious and the dominant power in the region but one temporarily resolved not to interfere in the internal politics of Afghanistan.

Dost Moḥammad was released and received in triumph at Kabul. He re-established his authority but, in 1846 he renewed his policy of hostility to the British and assumed an expansionist policy encroaching on British Indian territory. Three years later, though, after a series of defeats, he abandoned this policy, returning to Afghanistan where he devoted his energies to extending his control over the whole of this land.

To do so, in 1855, through the Treaty of Peshawar, he concluded an alliance with the British government, each proclaimed respect for each side's territorial integrity, and pledged both sides as friends of each other's friends and enemies of each other's enemies. By 1862, with the aid of the British – including generous subsidies - Dost Moḥammad had defeated a Persian army and had taken Kandahar, dying a year later shortly after capturing Herat. However, unity there was not. The Ghilzai refused to accept Durrani rule and control over the central mountain regions and the east was at best intermittent.

In historical context, this sets up another "folk" memory. Then, as now, we see the British, as a colonial power, supporting a Kabul-based Durrani ruler, attempting to exert control over unwilling Ghazi tribesmen.

This, of course, is by no means the end of the story – which has many more twists and turns, which we will explore in a later post. But, when we view the course of the current conflict, the historical parallels are absolute. Dealing with primitive and largely illiterate tribesmen, isolated from the rest of the world, their oral history is as fresh with each new telling as it ever was.

Whatever our grand aspirations, our intentions and our broader strategic objectives, the Ghilzai Pashtuns are reliving their own history. It should thus come as no surprise that when earnest young coalition officers solemnly tell tribal elders that they are from "the government" – i.e., Kabul – representing a Durrani president supported by Tajik soldiers, the "hearts and minds" message rather gets lost in translation.

It was Reagan, though, who is remembered for his famous quote: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." But the Ghilzai were there before him. And, to them, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" is not "terrifying". It's fighting talk.

COMMENT THREAD

Murder

When rumours of a major incident in Nad-e-Ali started circulating yesterday, from which we learned that five British soldiers had been killed, the limited details available indicated that this might have been an ambush by tribesmen disguised as Afghan police.

As such this would have been an alarming development, but nothing particularly new. Even back in April 2007, CNN was reporting incidents of US patrols being attacked by Taliban donning Afghan national police (ANP) uniforms.

There had then been multiple reports of Taliban fighters impersonating ANP (Afghanistan National Police) officers and establishing illegal check points to kidnap and terrorise local Afghan civilians.

More recently, there was the attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, where terrorists were disguised as police. And then the attack on the Pakistani Army headquarters in Rawalpindi was again led by terrorists in disguise, this time donning the uniforms of local soldiers.

As a ruse de guerre, therefore, this is a familiar tactic – although mounting attacks in the uniform of your enemy is specifically outlawed by the Geneva convention – not that such niceties would trouble these terrorist bands. Nevertheless, for troops so disguised to kill others is considered murder, and treated accordingly.

With details of this incident as yet still unclear, we now have confirmed the tragic death of five soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police. They all died of gunshot wounds after an attack by what is variously reported as a lone gunman in the uniform of an Afghan policeman, who – at the time of first reporting - may or may not have been the genuine article, or a terrorist in disguise. Another six British soldiers and two Afghan policemen were wounded.

The Press Association is reporting a prime ministerial statement, with Gordon Brown telling the Commons that the Taliban are claiming responsibility, but that is only to be expected, irrespective of the actual circumstances.

If this was a deliberate operation, then it has all the hallmarks of a Haqqani Network operation, although the group – based in South Waziristan - would have been out of its normal area of operations.

As information becomes clearer, Thomas Harding in The Daily Telegraph is reporting that police in Helmand said the attacker attended a police academy in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, and had been working as an officer in the Nad-e-Ali area for three years.

ITV News reports that tribal elders in Helmand have confirmed that the attacker was a member of the Taliban called Gulbuddin, who had worked in two areas under different police commanders. There are also suggestions that he had animosity towards his superiors after being repeatedly moved around the country as part of his duties.

Nevertheless, a Taliban spokesman is cited as saying: "We want to sow mistrust between the Afghan National Police and foreign forces," a very obvious tactic where the coalition exit plan is so reliant on being able to pass on security responsibilities to local forces.

This issue is heavily rehearsed in The Independent, which cites Captain Haji Laljan of the ANP. He says: "Yes, some of them go over to the other side and join the Taliban we are aware of this. We try to stop it, but it will happen."

Actually, again there is nothing new in this. Churchill in his book on the Malakand expedition in 1897, retailed complaints about the duplicity and treachery of locally impressed tribesmen. Snipers who assailed the British camps during the hours of darkness were often the irregulars who, during the day, fought for the Crown.

That, in fact, is the reality of Afghanistan. But now we have Maj-Gen Carter in theatre saying that the army would develop an "understanding" of Afghan troops through the training process.

"The first point I would make is that we have to trust the uniform of the Afghan police," he said. "The second point I would make is that we will get better at this ... we will train them, and we will make sure that they are capable of doing the job in the way that they need to do the job."

The trouble is that being "capable" does not buy loyalty. The coalition forces, whatever their good intentions, are increasingly seen as an army of occupation, more so with the charade of the presidential election. Carter can do all he likes, set up any systems he likes. But, if the army does develop an "understanding" of Afghan troops, it will learn that their loyalty can never be assured.

The deaths of five soldiers, with the injury of the others, is a testament to that fact, one of which our forefathers were well aware. Murder was done, but murder is a way of life in that country.

COMMENT THREAD

Seeing the light

Adam Holloway MP is possibly a disappointed man. Having produced an excellent CPS pamphlet on our adventure in Afghanistan, the response of the media has been to "cherry pick" one small section from it, where he discusses the shortage of helicopters.

As for the broader themes entertained in his pamphlet, sub-titled "Towards realism in Afghanistan", there has been only one taker, the Press Association. No other media organisation (so far) has bothered to review his work. This is a pity, as it makes a genuine contribution to the debate.

In his pamphlet, Holloway reminds us that, in Afghanistan, soldiers and tribesmen have been dying in large numbers. Unknown numbers of enemies have been recruited to al-Qaeda directly because of a flawed and overambitious strategy, which works against the grain of Afghan society. We have been told that this is in our vital national interest in order to stop Afghanistan once again becoming an ungoverned space from which another 9/11 could be launched.

But, he says, the truth is that the country has become less governable. What has been happening is making the launching of 9/11s from elsewhere more likely. In that, he has common cause with Matthew Hoh, with Holloway also taking the view that, "Attempts to impose central government on a country with hundreds of deeply divided and independent communities are over-ambitious and likely to fail."

Perhaps what marks out Holloway's contribution though is that, unlike many commentators, he looks at the broader geopolitical picture. He thus remarks that the Pakistan establishment's biggest fear in the region is that a pro-Indian government in Afghanistan could open a second front in any future war with India. Pakistanis, he says, see the country through the prism of Kashmir and conflict with India. The key to the problem is far away – on the line of control that divides Kashmir.

Holloway also notes that the establishment fears of undue Indian influence have "been fuelled by India's reopening of its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar and by the activities of the Indian Border Works organization in implementing infrastructure contracts in Afghan provinces close to the Pakistani border."

There is no mention made of the deals with Iran, but his thinking is very much in line with ours, in identifying India as one of the main problems in the region.

We would disagree though, with Holloway's assertion that "only the US could bring the sort of pressure needed on India, and long-term reassurance to Pakistan," to resolve the matter. Britain, as the ex-colonial power, has a significant role to play but probably the only answer is to call upon regional powers if there is be any hope of a settlement.

That aside, where Holloway does score is in his eight recommendations, the key being that rather than follow the McChrystal formula of reinforcing failure with yet more troops, he prefers reducing the military footprint, merely maintaining a framework on the ground and assets in the country to find, fix and strike anyone presenting an international threat.

Also crucial, we must understand the legitimate concerns at the heart of Pakistan's security establishment, but also need to be more discrete in our assistance to them. Clearly, although he does not specifically make the point, Holloway seems to understand that overt Western assistance is energising Pakistani domestic terrorism.

Then, writes Holloway, we must strike a political deal with as many of the "insurgents" that are prepared to come on board, and back up the deals with a "generous reintegration programme".

This is a little woolly, as the man earlier remarks that the Pashtun population and the Taliban are one and the same. But he talks about "multiple local fixes with local groups and tribes and sub-tribes," which seems to suggest that he is looking to re-introduce the colonial system of bribery, which is probably one of the answers. It would be far better to work with, not against, the grain of Afghan society, he says.

For his concluding remarks, Holloway tells us that we should focus on what we can actually achieve, not what we think would be rather nice to achieve. There is always, he says, going to be some level of insurgency in Afghanistan, but we need to manage it, not fuel it. We should not reinforce failure. Instead, we should have a long look at why we are failing.

He thus finishes with the sentiment that maintaining our partnership with the US is vital to the UK's national security. Protecting our population from terror attacks is our first duty: picking fights with tribesmen in southern Afghanistan is not. And that, of course, is what we are doing. On their turf, we cannot win. Holloway has formally added himself to the list of those who have seen the light.

COMMENT THREAD

The bigger picture

Developing almost into a ritual, we get a "media scoop" revealing one or other failures in equipment provision – in this case the shortage of helicopters - which is then followed by ministerial statements and the top brass, weighing in to defend the status quo.

The affair is batted about for a few days, there may or may not be Questions in the House and the occasional portentous leader and then the issue dies … until the next time.

So it is that we see today The Sunday Times revisit the Haddon-Cave Nimrod Review, one of several to offer verdicts on the report, with a leader entitled "The Defence Ministry needs a good cull".

The points it makes about the technical deficiencies of the Nimrod air-to-air refuelling are obviously sound but, reinforcing our suspicions about the treatment of the original 587-page report, it is evident that the author of the leader has not read it fully, if at all. Thus, the focus is on the one very specific aspect of "cost-cutting".

Here also, the points made are very obviously sound, the argument being made that: "It is possible to reduce costs in a large organisation and make it leaner and more effective, but the process must be implemented shrewdly." The paper then laments that "cost-cutting was in the hands of senior officers who would have been at home with a Stalinist five-year plan."

Thus we are told that orders were received and ruthlessly implemented. Promotions were awarded for objectives "achieved". Calamitous consequences, such as keeping in use a dangerous air refuelling system, were covered up. The defence industry connived at this fairy tale in exchange for buckets of cash. Warnings of disaster were ignored.

None of this can be disputed, but what the paper ignores is the bigger picture. The events described occurred within a system that had been progressively degraded, over decades rather than years, losing its ethos, its institutional memory and attracting a sclerotic burden of regulation that had long since ceased to perform any useful purpose, other than providing "handy protection against any against future criticism which might be made."

Given its superficial, one-dimensional analysis, however, it is inevitable that The Sunday Times should then offer a superficial, one-dimensional prescription for improving matters, its contribution to the debate being: "A cull of fools and knaves in the MoD is the clear place to start."

The fatuity of such a pronouncement is almost self-evident in that, if there is – as Haddon Cave identified – a massive system failure, simply replacing one set of personnel with another does nothing to address the underlying faults. Whether the existing place-holders were "fools and knaves" is moot. More likely, they were trapped by the inadequacies of the system in which any successors would find themselves equally mired.

In terms of media comment, The Financial Times does much better, noting how "Britain's armed forces have for years been dogged by stories of how troops operating in dangerous places are seriously under-resourced, lacking the equipment and training they need."

In terms of seeking improvements, this paper then makes the obvious but necessary point that the starting point should be the promised Strategic Defence Review. But, it says, the next government must do more than this. It must also reform how the MoD spends money. Safety, inter alia can only be guaranteed if money is not being frittered away elsewhere.

Thus does this newspaper come to the same conclusion that we have been urging on the defence establishment for years. For instance, on 8 November 2007, when former CDS Charles Guthrie was demanding more money for defence – to the applause of the political claque and the phalanx of media commentators - our tiny voice was asking: "How about value for money?"

What was being missed then, and has also been ignored by Haddon-Cave, is that the Nimrods about which so much has been written, had no business being in Afghanistan at all. This was a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, ill-equipped for land surveillance, and hugely expensive to operate. Flying out of Oman, at £30,000 per hour, a 12-hour sortie would cost £360,000 – three missions would gobble up over £1 million.

Yet, ill-equipped as it was, all the aircraft could offer was "full motion video" – using exactly the same surveillance equipment seen on light police helicopters in our own skies, radio-relay services and a limited command and control capability.

Those functions could have been provided far more cheaply by a variety of other assets, including UAVs and light aircraft, and it is germane to note that, since the Nimrods have been withdrawn, there have been no complaints about a lack of surveillance capability. The gap has been filled by other equipment. Why it was not there originally, and why the wholly inadequate Nimrod was pressed into service is part of another story.

Therein lies more of the bigger picture, which The Financial Times does not really address, although some of the issues might be considered in the SDR. However, experience tells us that it would be unwise to be optimistic.

This brings us full circle to the current hystèrie du jour, the shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan. For all the portentous ruminations of the media, none yet have focused on the fact that the shortfall could have been remedied, quickly and vastly more cheaply than the eventual half-hearted solution now in place, or that the Defence Chiefs conspired to prevent the cheaper solution being adopted.

The £186 million, effectively wasted on acquiring six Merlin helicopters – to say nothing of additional millions wasted on the extravagant operating costs of this machine – could have funded all the helicopters needed in theatre, with cash left over to fund many of the items which are currently subject to "penny-pinching".

The trouble is that, even in this day and age, MPs and their claque still take much of their information and opinion from the media. Thus, as long as the media fails to focus on issues like this, part of the bigger picture, we will not make much progress. We will continue to have massive problems with defence spending, and the media, with its superficial, one-dimensional analyses, will remain part of the problem.

COMMENT THREAD

"Over my dead body"

The Daily Mail is running a piece today which reveals that Lt-Col Thorneloe wrote a secret memo, a month before he was killed by an IED while riding in a Viking, complaining of the shortage of helicopters.

On June 5, reports the Mail, he had chillingly predicted the circumstances of his own death in his weekly report to the Ministry of Defence. Headed "'Battle Group Weekly Update", it reads: "I have tried to avoid griping about helicopters - we all know we don't have enough. We cannot not move people, so this month we have conducted a great deal of administrative movement by road. This increases the IED threat and our exposure to it."

This opens the way for the usual polemics about cost-cutting, etc., and one can confidently predict the howls of rage from the "usual culprits", politically motivated rather than inspired by any sentient thought.

But, buried in the piece – without the prominence that it should have (and completely omitted by The Daily Telegraph and The Times, which copy out some of the story) – is a comment from Tory MP Adam Holloway, a former Grenadier Guards officer, to whom the memo was leaked by an MoD official.

He has written a "devastating critique" of the handling of the war in a pamphlet shortly to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies, which we are told "reveals that despite clear evidence that a shortage of helicopters is killing British troops, defence chiefs are still refusing offers to supply more." Then we learn:

Only last month the Ministry of Defence turned down another offer of helicopters which could double Afghanistan flying hours for British troops fighting the Taliban. The Mail has independently confirmed that former RAF pilots offered to supply 25 helicopters within three months to back up the Chinook fleet which is stretched to breaking point.

We are also told that the deal would have cost the MoD just £7 million a month - a relative drop in the ocean - but the offer was rejected because the RAF did not want to share a role with private contractors.

Now, on 25 October 2007, almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a piece about providing contract helicopters in Afghanistan – flown by ex-RAF pilots - to make up for the dire shortage of RAF assets in theatre.

Writing from personal experience, as I had been directly involved in trying to get the MoD to accept this solution, I observed that the wholly negative reaction to some well-founded proposals was due to "the reluctance of the military to see civilian contractors encroach on 'their' war." I added: "Some of this is fuelled by a fear of the competition, with the civilians able to operate more flexibly, sometimes in conditions where military aircraft like the Lynx simply cannot fly." I went on:

And since they are vastly cheaper, they provide an unfavourable comparison, which might have the politicians asking why they are funding expensive military operations when they can get much more for their money by using contractors.

In effect, what we have, therefore, is the military crying "hands off, it's our war" – an exercise in protecting their own interests rather than going for what is needed.

The need for helicopters was then acute, in order to meet the growing threat from roadside bombs and I concluded: "This dog-in-the-manger attitude costs lives." It remained acute, and – as we now see – it cost more lives.

There was a solution, it could have saved lives, and I was writing about it in May 2007, when all the little Tory Boys were bleating about the military being "under-resourced". Not only was it a solution, it was a cheaper solution.

Yet throughout the torrent of media and political coverage on helicopters, no one would look at this issue. After being rejected by the MoD, we told the newspapers were told about it, many times, and we approached Conservatives MPs, but they actively opposed the solution - and helped kill the deal. One senior Tory MP, who shall remain nameless, told me: "over my dead body". The shortage of helicopters was too convenient a stick with which to beat the government.

Well, over the dead bodies of many soldiers, our Tory MP got his way, and so did the RAF. Nobody listened ... and people died. And you can put money on it that very few of the claque who have been shrieking for "more helicopters" will pick up on this story, and ask why it is that the Defence Chiefs rejected a life-saving solution. Is it a surprise that we get a little angry on this blog?

COMMENT THREAD

Playing games

After three weeks of media exclusion, the Pakistani Army lifted a corner of the veil on Thursday, flying in a group of journalists to a barren hilltop in deepest South Waziristan, to explain how swimmingly well the campaign was going.

It was duly rewarded with favourable headlines, such as is in The Guardian, which carried title, "Pakistan hails progress in Waziristan", slightly marred by the addition: "But will it stop the suicide bombers?"

The answer to the question is, of course, "no" – not if the bombings are being carried out by the Punjab Taleban, which can rely on resources based in Punjab province, without having to call for assistance from South Waziristan.

More to the point, since "militant" groups in North Waziristan seem also implicated in attacks in Pakistan proper, the Pakistani Army's venture deep into the southern agency is likely to have little overall effect. Nor indeed is the ponderous progress of the Army calculated to achieve anything lasting.

Much has been made of the discovery of a stack of passports and photos said to belong to foreign militants, and in particular the German passport that appears to have belonged to Said Bahaji, a member of the Hamburg cell that orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Another passport belonged to Raquel Burgos Garcia, a Spaniard who had converted to Islam and later joined al-Qaeda as a low-level operative.

If genuine, says Time magazine, the passports would confirm what the US has been saying all along: "that Pakistan's wild borderlands have served as a sanctuary for global jihadis who may be plotting fresh attacks on the West."

This may well have been what Hillary Clinton had in mind on her visit to Pakistan, when she rounded on her hosts, telling them: "al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002," adding, "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."

In that precise context, for all its deliberately optimistic progress reports about its operations in South Waziristan, the number of "militants" claimed killed by the Pakistani Army is remarkably low – especially for a three-pronged advance which is supposedly aimed at entrapping the fighters.

Bearing in mind that the Army managed to recover only the passports of Said Bahaji and Raquel Burgos, and not the persons themselves – dead or alive – one can only imagine that the deliberate pace of the operation is affording al-Qaeda, and indeed any "militant" who chooses not stand and fight, plenty of opportunities to escape.

There is much to be said, therefore, for the supposition that the fighters are simply being allowed to disperse, one fortified by reports that jihadists have been seen shaving off their beards and melting into the civilian population.

Some, if not many, will of course seek sanctuary over the border in Afghanistan, where the Pakistani Army cannot follow. This would suggest that, to ensure the maximum effect, coalition forces should be in place to block the escapees, providing the anvil for the Pakistani "hammer".

Not a few eyebrows have been raised in the Asian press, therefore, with some distinctly critical comments over the US decision to withdraw its forces from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban.

Nuristan is strategically located in the Hindu Kush, and is now said to be under the effective control of the network belonging to Qari Ziaur Rahman, a Taliban commander with strong ties to Bin Laden. This makes Nuristan the first Afghan province to be controlled by a network inspired by al-Qaeda. It also opens the US to exactly the same criticism levelled at Clinton – that the US doesn't really want to get al-Qaeda either.

With so many nuances to the situation – with different agendas, hidden and declared – one can only wonder at the naivety of The Times in London, which offers a leader declaring: "Pakistan has taken a brave and correct stance in the battle in south Waziristan. It deserves the support and help of Western governments." Thus does the paper opine:

The Government and military forces in Pakistan merit support and gratitude for their actions, which are hugely advancing the security and peace not just of their own citizens but also those in Britain, in the United States and, indeed, anywhere — Bali, Mumbai — that lives by values other than those of apocalyptic Islamism.

By contrast, only recently, we had the New YorkTimes reporting: "Pressure From US Strains Relations With Pakistan," pointing out that which has been evident for some time, that the Obama administration has been putting pressure on Pakistan to take action, employing a combination of threats and bribes, the latter having a powerful effect on a cash-strapped country.

There are more than a few indications thus that the Pakistani government is going through the motions, doing enough to look credible but, in fact, achieving nothing of any lasting significance – more so in the absence of coordinated US military action on the other side of the border.

As to "hugely advancing the security and peace ... ", the only noticeable effect has been to brand the Pakistani government in the eyes of the extremists as a stooge of the Great Satan. This has made it a legitimate target for terrorist attacks, the results of which are creating rising instability in the country, a process which may get worse as new groups emerge to fight on this newly created front.

Heedless of this, however, The Times goes on to argue that Western governments "should extend strong diplomatic support to Pakistan's Government", but then complains of its "misguided" and "confrontational" stance with India which, for too long, they regarded as the principal battle.

What this neglects is that, whatever the historical overtones, Pakistan's stance is not illogical, and neither is India a passive, innocent party in the relationship. Some of its activities have been distinctly hostile to Pakistan and its pursuit of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan and Iran is, to say the least, provocative.

Any longer-term solution in this crisis-strewn region, therefore, is going to require the active participation of India, and central to the enmity between the two nations is the running sore of Kashmir, which seems no closer to resolution than it was in 1947, in which India is by no means playing a straight hand.

And, with both sides maintaining huge armed forces ranged in opposition to each other, not only does this impose huge financial burdens on the parties, it hampers economic development in the contested areas, and hinders regional cooperation on a wide range of matters, to the detriment of both.

When it comes to such hard issues, though, the "diplomatic support" goes AWOL. The otherwise forthright Mrs Clinton sidestepped the issue, merely observing: "It is clearly in Pakistan's and India's interest to resolve ... But it isn't for us to dictate a solution. That wouldn't last a minute."

As for the European Union, only yesterday it was telling us that it wanted to become "more capable, more coherent and more strategic as a global actor, including in its relations with strategic partners, in its neighbourhood and in conflict-affected areas."

This was the European Council in Brussels yet, when it came to is declaration on Afghanistan and Pakistan, all it could manage was weakly to tell the world that it: "shares the concern about the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan and supports the government of Pakistan in its efforts to establish control over all areas of the country."

If the EU is unutterably weak though, British foreign secretary David Miliband is not much better. His last substantive utterance on the issue was in January of this year on a visit to India, when he made the eminently sensible observation that: "Resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders."

Such was the hostile reaction of self-interested Indian politicians to this home truth though, that Miliband's intervention was widely branded as a "gaffe". He has maintained a monastic silence on the subject ever since.

Nevertheless, as this commentary makes clear, Kashmir occupies a pivotal role in the stabilisation of the region. Yet, while the pressure is on Pakistan to put its house in order, India is getting a free ride, despite being a major player and a vital part of any overall settlement.

One does not, therefore have to take sides in the dispute to observe that it is not only Pakistan which is playing games. If there is a sense of grievance at the way it is being treated by the West, this is not altogether unwarranted. A commitment by Pakistan is one thing, but a similar level of commitment is needed from the other parties – and there is no evidence that this is forthcoming.

If, instead, the West chooses to play games, we should not be surprised if Pakistan does the same.

COMMENT THREAD

Changing the battlefield

A serious topic of conversation in Indian political circles is the very real possibility of Pakistan breaking up, the tenor of the discussion being not "if" but "when".

If it happens, it is felt that a key element will have been the proliferation of Taleban groups beyond the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and into the Pakistani heartland. This issue is discussed in a recent edition of the Hindustan Times, where it was noted that the attack on Pakistan Army Headquarters on 10 October, as well as other recent suicide bombings in Lahore and Islamabad, involved two Punjabi "militants", Commander Iqbal and Gul Muhammad.

Crucially though, the attacks have been mounted by a new organisation, which goes under the name of Tehrik-e-Taliban Punjab. Until fairly recently, "Taliban" was a word associated with Pashtuns, with two groups commonly acknowledged, the "Afghan" and the "Pakistan" (TTP) wings, both operating out of the northwest frontier province.

Recently, we noted the emergence of another Taliban group, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Balochistan (TTB), operating in southern Helmand against US troops, although it is believed also to be active in the Quetta district, in Pakistani territory. This now makes four, identifiable Taliban groups, two of which have non-Pashtun memberships.

What are now called "militant" groups are, of course, by no means new to Punjab, the environment having spawned the increasingly familiar alphabet soup of activists, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and the Harkatul Jihadul Islami (HUJI). These all have a history of involvement in Afghanistan, alongside the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), with the tacit support of elements of the ISI. Some of the groups, and especially LeT, had a history of activism in Kashmir.

What is different about the new grouping though is that it seems to have formalised links with the TTP, expending its energies on attacks inside the Pakistani heartland, either as solo operations, or providing logistic support and personnel for TTP-initiated attacks.

One of the core groups of the Punjabi Taliban is thought to be the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Says Rohan Gunaratne, author of Inside al Qaeda, many Jhangvi fighters have moved to the NWFP. "Jhangvi is now the eyes, ears and operational arm of al Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [based in Waziristan]," says Gunaratne. "It is hard to distinguish between the three."

The focus of the new activism is the Pakistan Army, which is seen to be "siding with the forces of the infidel" in its operations in the tribal areas, and has thus become a "legitimate" target.

Once again, we see the coalition intervention in Afghanistan, and the pressure on the Pakistan government to take action against the sanctuaries in the frontier area, having a perverse effect. More and more of the resources of its security forces are expended on internal security, rather than against activists operating in Afghanistan.

The main recruitment area for the Punjabi Taliban is said to be South Punjab, in what is known as the Seraiki belt, where rising poverty levels have helped turn the area into a fertile breeding ground for militant outfits. The call to arms is aided by a massive rise in the number of Punjab madrassas, from 1,320 in 1988 to 3,153 in 2000, a rise of almost 140 percent. Many are said to be Saudi funded.

A more detailed analysis suggests that the growing power of the Punjabi Taliban poses a serious threat, providing fresh recruits for the jihad from a population of approximately 27 million.

Once indoctrinated at the madrassas, students from Punjab are being taken to the terrorist training camps in the country's Pashtun tribal belt. Over five thousand youngsters have reportedly moved to South and North Waziristan. Once they completed their military training, these youngsters eventually proved themselves to be valuable partners for the TTP, providing valuable local knowledge of the important urban centres of Punjab, such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

However, despite the acquisition of the new name, it is believed that the Punjabi Taliban lacks any organisation or command structure and still operates as a loose network of elements comprising its former elements. The attraction of working under the Taliban franchise, apparently, is that it gives activists the freedom to work outside the control of the more established groups, some of which are reluctant to support attacks within Pakistan.

Further, as "free-lancers" they have been welcomed by Mullah Omar, leader of the Quetta Shura "Afghan" Taliban group, having previously rejected alliances for the jihad groups of which they were members. Based within the tribal areas, therefore, the "Punjabi" Taliban comprise an autonomous group, not answerable to their leaders in the Punjab.

There also seems to be a linkage between these recruits and the 313 Brigade led by Ilyas Kashmiri, which has moved from Kashmir to support the dissident Mahsuds in South Waziristan.

Thus, in effect, we have a four-way nexus of Pashtun activists from Afghanistan and Pakistan, reinforced by Punjabis and Kashmiri, all linked with al Qaeda, which – according to Small Wars Journal - is providing training and helping to co-ordinate attacks, both inside Paskistan and in Afghanistan.

With these developments, one [unnamed] Pakistani analyst warns that if the Taliban now spread their tentacles across Punjab, "this would change the battlefield completely." The prospect of a collapse of the Pakistani government might be that much closer. And, while Indian commentators are avidly discussing the possibility, none of them are prepared with any confidence to predict the results.

COMMENT THREAD

British resolve?

The Times leader is taking Obama to task for "dithering" over Afghanistan, contrasting his lack of action unfavourably with sentiments expressed by David Miliband, recently highlighted in a New York Times op-ed.

While Obama havers, torn between the Biden-inspired "counter-terrorism" approach and McChrystal's brave new world of "counter-insurgency", there is no such irresolution from the British foreign secretary. When asked if the mission needed substantially more troops, Miliband said, "What I think that you can see from the prime minister's strategy is that we believe in serious counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency is a counterterrorist strategy."

Fortified by these words, The Times is suggesting that the US president must show at least as much resolve as his British allies, although it cannot mean this literally. While the British commitment is to 500 extra troops, McChrystal is demanding another 40,000 – a slightly different proposition.

Miliband's "resolve", in fact, may be more a question of fools rushing in. Even more to the point, in the context of a solid phalanx of media pressure demanding more "boots on the ground", backed by ranks of politicised ex-generals, deploying another battlegroup was the easy option – a relatively cheap way of stilling the incessant clatter, taking a politically embarrassing issue off the front pages.

On the other hand, while the strategic focus has shifted to Pakistan, it is secretary Hillary Clinton who is in Islamabad, pledging an extra $243 million in aid, and seeking to stiffen the Pakistani government's resolve in the battle against the Taleban.

Yet, while a US secretary of state is trying to broker deals in a former British dominion, where the Raj once held sway, Miliband's latest contribution is to suggest that we walk away from formulating our own foreign policy, and throw in our lot with the European Union, his idea being "to take a lead in developing a strong European foreign policy".

Thus, while The New York Times applauds Miliband for being "candid", wishing for the same from Obama, the difference is between a powerless emissary, who can comment freely on issues for which he bears no responsibility, and an executive of a nation that exerts real power, and has to step up to the plate with real commitments to back any decisions made. Talk, as they say, is cheap – and you don't get much cheaper than Miliband's contribution.

Perversely, just as the British government had thought the issue "parked", we are seeing the glimmerings of a change in the political wind, this side of the pond. Veteran commentator on Pakistani and Afghan affairs, Christian Lamb, writes in The Spectator this week, declaring "more troops will just mean more targets". Then, in The Financial Times, even the great sage Max Hastings, is going "wobbly", questioning whether it is "sensible for the west to continue pushing military chips on to the table if each spin of the roulette wheel obstinately delivers a zero."

Gradually, it seems, wiser heads are drawing back from the strategic wisdom enunciated by the likes of The Sun, and beginning to think about the broader issues – perhaps starting a debate which has been notably absent in the UK.

Nowhere is this more welcome than in Pakistan itself, where the Daily Times is arguing for a "regional approach to Afghanistan", invoking a grouping almost unknown in the West, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This, says the paper, is "steadily becoming an important factor of emerging architecture of security, economy, culture, people-to-people contacts and cooperation in Asia".

A key player here is China, with which Pakistan has good relations, and which is exerting increasing influence in Afghanistan. But the paper also highlights the tension between Pakistan and India, pointing out that resolution of differences between these nations is an important part of the overall solution. The SCO, it believes, could be an important player in bringing the parties together.

Clearly, the EU is waking up to the potential of the SCO – or is being warned that it must take an interest - with a commentator last year noting that it offered "opportunities for positive cooperation". Previously, the Centre for European Reform made its pitch, noting multiple (and largely unsuccessful) EU initiatives in the area.

And therein lies the hidden cost of our membership of the European Union, and this government's determination to cede our policy-making responsibilities to Brussels. While we are a major player in Afghanistan – more so than any other European nation – news of contacts between David Miliband and this grouping on behalf of HMG is hard to find. On the wider diplomatic front, already we seem no longer to have a voice.

Thus, the initiative goes to, and stays with, the United States, our vassal status in the European Union robbing us of our voice and our initiative, leaving Mr Miliband to mouth inane platitudes to the New York Times, which the paper mistakes for "resolve".

Miliband's only "resolve" however, is to ensure that the once mighty Great Britain ends up with less power and influence than the independent state of Afghanistan, where we are singularly failing to make a mark.

COMMENT THREAD

Insufficient leadership

Predictably, the media are giving heavy coverage to the "Nimrod Review" into the wider issues surrounding the loss of Nimrod XV230 in Afghanistan on 2 September 2006, commissioned by former defence secretary Des Browne on 13 December 2007, and delivered yesterday by Charles Haddon-Cave QC.

The piece by Michael Evans, in The Times is, for instance, headed: "Nimrod report is most devastating in living memory". It reports that the accident occurred because of years of complacency, safety reviews that were riddled with errors and a general lack of care towards the personnel who had to fly the aircraft in a dangerous environment.

What Evans does not say – and neither, it seems do many other journalists – is that the report is 587 pages long, packed with detail by a man who is an aviation specialist, a fact that is very apparent in the depth and breadth of the findings.

Given the necessary speed with which the media must work, and the fact that Haddon-Cave did not release his report until after the press conference, this means that none of the journalists who have filed their stories for the main news organisations – all of which were up in the early afternoon and evening – can have read the report.

Most will have read the executive summary and relied on the press releases. But even then, with such a detailed report, there is much scope for "cherry picking", a tendency which is very evident as difference newspapers chose their own slants for their stories. Thus we see The Daily Telegraph leader home in on the "culture of penny-pinching, introduced while Gordon Brown was at the Treasury, [that] had replaced an emphasis on safety."

The same line is taken by The Guardian, which tells is that: "RAF Nimrod crash report accuses MoD of sacrificing safety to cut costs", and even CNN leads with "Budget focus cited in '06 British air crash".

Other newspapers and media organisations choose their own "lines", their particular points of focus, and therein lies the inherent distortion which makes none of the accounts either reliable or informative. Effectively, by omission, they distort the report – and in so doing miss completely the thrust of what Haddon-Cave has to say.

One can understand, of course, why this might be, and Haddon-Cave does not make it easy, as the essential "framing" which provides the intellectual basis for the report is buried deep within the text, shrouded in its own jargon which requires considerable study for it to become clear.

"A large proportion of accidents," he writes (including this one) "require the timely concatenation of both active and latent failures to achieve a complete trajectory of accident opportunity." He then goes on to explain that "latent" errors are those whose adverse consequences may lie dormant within the system for a long time. "Active" errors are associated with "front line" operators of a complex system, such as pilots, whose effects are felt almost immediately.

The essence of this accident, we learn from the comprehensive analysis, was the concatenation of multiple "latent" failures, many of which were technical in nature, relating to design faults and such matters.

One cannot read the whole report, however, without coming away with the conclusion that, in the grander scheme of things, the design faults and such matters were of a lesser order, the main problem being a different category of "latent" failures. These were "flawed organisational processes", mainly within the RAF itself, afflicted with what Haddon-Cave calls "numerous pathogens hidden in the system".

Unfortunately, one has to plough through to page 473 to find these "pathogens" listed and, in the ensuing pages, they are explored in some detail, some 26 in number. And clearly, they are not listed in order of importance because only in the penultimate point does one happen upon the damning criticism that there is "insufficient leadership". Writes Haddon-Cave:

With rank comes responsibility. With responsibility comes the need to exercise judgment and to make decisions. Airworthiness judgments and decisions can often be difficult and worrying. They also can have serious consequences. Airworthiness penumbra can also be viewed as less glamorous and pressing than other matters.

For these reasons, there has been a discernable inclination by (admittedly busy) officers at all ranks to deflect, downgrade, avoid or slough off Airworthiness responsibility, judgments, and decisions either: (a) by means of wholesale delegations; and/or (b) by the outsourcing of airworthiness thinking to Industry; and/or (c) by the creation of further elaborate processes, procedures, or regulations to stand between them and the problem.

Indeed, one gets the impression that much of the process currently in place is designed not so much to improve safety, but to act as a bulwark against criticism in the event that things go wrong.

These essentially defensive avoidance mechanisms are perceived to have a number of short-term advantages: first, they get the problem off one's desk; second, they shift the heavy burden on to other shoulders; and third, they provide handy protection against any against future criticism which might be made.

As a fish rots from the head, an organisation fails from the top, and it is there that Haddon-Cave puts the finger of blame. It could have been flagged up much more strongly, although in the subtitle of his report, up on the front page is (in capitals): A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP, CULTURE, AND PRIORITIES.

Note well, the finding that the essential function of the system had become to "provide handy protection against any against future criticism which might be made," inculcating a "tick-box" culture that we have seen in action so many times before, in other circumstances.

In a discipline that is driven by regulation, Haddon-Cave's comments on that issue are priceless, as he declares that: "Regulations are too complex, prolix, and obscure". This, he writes, "makes them virtually impenetrable and, frankly, a closed book to the majority of the congregation governed by them."

Much of the language is obscure, difficult to read, and repetitive, while the sheer volume is "neither sensible nor realistic", running to over 60 lever-arch files. This has led to the gradual marginalisation, misunderstanding, and mistrust of much of Defence regulations. "It is unrealistic," Haddon-Cave concludes, "to expect those charged with compliance to assimilate, let alone implement, many of the regulations that now exist."

What we are looking at, once all 26 points are taken on board, is a massive system failure, a system so far degraded that it is frankly a surprise that there have been so few fatal accidents. But we have seen this before as well, where it is often the sheer dedication of line personnel that make the system work, in spite of and not because of the controls.

Crucially, in contrast with the media narrative of the Armed Forces constituting the last bastion of efficiency and precision, we get a glimpse into a system which bears many comparisons with the worst of any public-sector organisation.

In a week that has also seen a critical coroner's report on the Puma helicopter crash, with accusations that the RAF base was "badly run", there is now more than enough material available to question whether the current media narrative even begins to approximate the truth. It is rare for degradation of a system to be confined to one branch, and a more critical overview might well reveal defects which are far more widespread than Haddon-Cave's lengthy but limited report reveals.

We do ourselves no favours if we buy into the media myth, and ignore that which is now becoming all too evident, that the military shares some of the dysfunctional elements which are all too prevalent in the whole of our society.

COMMENT THREAD

End game

From "Snatch Land Rovers" to Grand Strategy, we have been on a five-year virtual journey, from the deserts of Iraq to the hills of Waziristan, following two "wars" which have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers, injured many more, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Broadly, we were supportive of the war in Iraq, and felt the counter-insurgency there "winnable". Having invaded the country and deposed its ruler and destroyed its government – rightly or wrongly – we had in any case a moral and legal obligation to restore law and order, and to re-establish the semblance of a working government.

We had and have no such moral – or legal – obligations in Afghanistan. We went there in 2001, after the 9/11 outrage, in support of the United States, an act of solidarity for an old and valuable ally which had been attacked by a vicious terrorist organisation which had gained sanctuary from a corrupt, barbaric, fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

We went in to help clear this nest of vipers and, largely, we succeeded. Our actions also brought down the government of Afghanistan, which would have toppled anyway. Had we left then, the country would doubtless have reverted to its barbaric, anarchic state, with small islands of something approaching urban civilisation, in appearance if not fact.

But, in a moment of collective hubris, we – the "international community" -thought we could impose on this wild, ungovernable land the semblance of our governmental system, which we laughingly call a democracy, even though – in this country and the rest of the European Union – we enjoy no such state ourselves.

Bribed by billions of dollars and the promise of many more, the peoples of Afghanistan went through the motions of an election, which resembled but was not a democratic process, and selected a corrupt tribal leader, from a choice of other corrupt tribal leaders and warlords. He then did what any self-respecting, corrupt tribal leader would do – milked the system to enrich himself, his tribe members, his allies, enemies and cronies.

Not even attempting governance or development, this allowed the country to revert to its usual state of anarchy and tribal warfare, compounded by a low-grade civil war which has been ongoing for so many decades that no one can rightly work out when it started, or even care enough to find out.

Faced with what we took to be the progressive collapse of the system we thought we had installed – but had not – in another moment, this one of supreme folly, our then prime minister, soon to be Emperor of Europe – decided to reinforce failure, by deploying a small, ill-equipped contingent of troops, charged with undertaking a task for which they were physically and temperamentally ill-prepared and which, in any case was impossible to achieve.

In so doing, we made a bad situation worse and, at every stage where we have sought further to reinforce failure, we have made it even worse. What was, when we intervened in 2006 a low-grade civil war, has now escalated into a high-level insurgency – of which we are the proximate cause. And now the generals want to break the most fundamental rule of warfare – yet again. They want to reinforce failure, and keep doing so until the cost and the casualties break us.

Thus must stop. And, in the most powerful message we have seen to date, a now former US Foreign Service officer, Matthew Hoh, explains why. As recounted in the British Independent newspaper, in the Washington Post and many more, Hoh's message is summarised. But you can read it in full here.

The document is Hoh's resignation letter, telling us that he has "... lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States presence in Afghanistan." To put it simply, he writes, "I fail to see the value or worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

Like the Soviets, he adds, "we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people." Hoh continues:

If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah's rein, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and support the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, their culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The US and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified ... I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taleban, but rather against the foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.

Towards the end of his four-page letter, Hoh cites a "very talented and intelligent commander" who briefs every visitor, staff delegation and officer with the words, "We are spending ourselves into oblivion".

Hoh adds that "We are mortgaging our nation's economy on a war which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realised not in years, after billions more spend, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory."

What applies to the United States applies, in spades, to the United Kingdom. This might be a "war" we can win, but it is not a war we can afford to win – much less to carry out a grand, decades-long experiment to see if there is a possibility that we might be able to win.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from Hoh's letter. We were coming to that conclusion anyway ... we have been veering to and fro, but there is no other answer. We need to get out, as soon as possible, causing as little damage as possible.

But, as we indicated in our earlier piece, there are huge geopolitical implications. But the problems are a matter of high politics, and they need to be solved at that level. They cannot be solved with more "boots on the ground", or "grunts with guns".

Soldiers cannot buy us time with their lives – no amount of lives could buy us the time we need. No longer should it be a question of when, but how we extract ourselves, with the minimum possible delay.

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An Indian elephant

The high-profile attack on its embassy in Kabul earlier this month (pictured) briefly brought to the attention of the Western media the Indian presence in the Afghan capital.

Yet, apart from when Indian assets are attacked, very little notice is taken of what is a major factor in the Afghan "insurgency". India stands accused of using the Afghan conflict to destabilise its old enemy, Pakistan, part of a wider regional effort that includes supporting the independence movement in Baluchistan, and even paying the Taleban to mount attacks on installations in Pakistan.

This issue came to a head yesterday when Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik directly accused India of creating unrest within Pakistan by funding the Taleban based along the Pak-Afghan border and by interfering in Baluchistan. He went further to say that Islamabad had "solid evidence", adding the information could be shared with Indian ministers or representatives at any forum of their choice.

The Indian media, predictably, dismissed these claims as "over-the-top posturing". They are seen as a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from claims that the Pakistani ISI is funding the Tehrik-e-Taliban, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups operating from its soil.

This is by no means the first time Islamabad has made such accusations, having been arguing the point since 2003. Even last July, Malik was telling his senate that Indian intelligence agencies were running "terrorist camps" in Afghanistan to train Baluchi youths to "create disturbances" in the south western province.

That there should be tension between India and Pakistan is hardly surprising. Between the countries, there have been three major conflicts since 1947 and there is still an armed confrontation across the so-called "line of control" in Kashmir, where only a cease-fire prevails and violations are frequently reported. The latest was last Sunday, when it was claimed that an Indian soldier had been wounded in "unprovoked firing that lasted for some 30 minutes."

Even as of today, India has advised its citizens against travel to Pakistan, citing security reasons, Normally, thousands of Indian pilgrims, mainly Sikhs, travel to Pakistan's Punjab province, home to some of the most revered Sikh sites including the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the 15th century founder of their faith.

The tension is exacerbated by Pakistani intelligence service support for an active insurgency by Moslem extremist groups within the Indian-held area of Kashmir, while the Indian intelligence service, known by the initials RAW, is also active in throughout Kashmir, with the alleged involvement of the Israeli spy agency Mossad. Israel has also become a major arms supplier to India, inflaming Moslem sensitivities.

A politically fragile Pakistan firmly believes that the Indian long-term objective is the dismantling of the Pakistani state, and it looks nervously across the border at the huge 1.4 million-strong Indian army, the third largest after China and the US, comprising 34 combat divisions - with seven of its thirteen Corps poised against Pakistan.

Relations were not improved by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with India, then a client state of the Soviet Union, supported the Soviet action, in contrast with Pakistan, which created and launched the Taleban in opposition to Soviet forces. After the Soviet withdrawal, India belatedly supported the Northern League in its bid to overthrow the Taleban, and has since been an open supporter of Karzai's government, pledging to spend $1.6bn in aid, making it the fifth largest bilateral donor.

The very closeness of that relationship worries Pakistan, which sees India's involvement as an attempt to encircle their country. Says analyst Ahmed Rashid, "India's reconstruction strategy was designed to win over every sector of Afghan society, to give India a high profile with Afghans, gain the maximum political advantage and, of course, undercut Pakistani influence."

A significant element of this strategy could be construed as "economic warfare", deliberately designed to undermine the Pakistani economy. Thus, when Pakistan announced plans to develop a new deep water port in Gwadar, on Baluchistan's Makran coastline – with significant Chinese investment – India teamed up with Iran on the other side of the border to expand the deep water facility at Chabahar. It is also investing in upgrading the Chabahar-Milak road to the border with Afghanistan (pictured), giving India direct access without having to pass through Pakistan.

Few consider it a coincidence that, while the development of Chabahar and its road links have forged ahead, not least of the problems with Pakistan's Gwadar development has been an upsurge in Baluchi "terrorism", with the Pakistani government convinced that this is both organised and funded by the Indians.

On the diplomatic front too, it has been noted that India has been a powerful player, joining and to an extent orchestrating the now US-led international pressure on Pakistan to undertake military operations in South Waziristan. This is forcing the Pakistani Army to confront its former (and continuing) Pushtan allies, thus incurring the wrath of Moslem fundamentalists, who see the government as a stooge for the US and India.

While it is said that the Indian aim is to sour relations between the tribes and the Pakistani Army, to an extent that the latter refuse to side with it in case of an Indo-Pak war, the ploy could backfire. Rather than simply exert this passive effect, it could energise and unite the tribes. If they then went on to strengthen links with fundamentalist terrorists in south Punjab and even the Moslem population in Karachi, the already weak Pakistani government could fold.

With that, Hakimullah Mehsud, the new leader of the Pakistani Taleban – in what may be a show of bravado, but maybe something more – is threatening a massive escalation. "We want an Islamic state, if we get that then we will go to the borders and fight the Indians," he says.

In a situation that has parallels with the 1947 Kashmiri war, we could see a "free-lance" tribal invasion of India, with the Pakistani Army sucked in to protect their "brothers" when they confront the all-powerful Indian Army, the conflict spiralling into an all-out war.

Even short of that, observers are noting that the increasing Indian involvement in Afghanistan, and its support for liberation movements on Pakistani territory, is "a hurdle in getting Pakistan to fight the Taleban."

Certainly, the suspicion is that the Pakistani Army, in its current operation in South Waziristan, is going through the motions. It has sent in about 28,000 troops to take on about 10,000 guerrillas, a relatively low ratio. According to Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier, probably only 11,000 are infantry. Instead of a ratio of one to one, he says, the ratio should be at least five to one.

One could suggest that the Army is "aiming to fail". In fact, with the US maintaining a close and amicable relationship with India, and Afghanistan likewise with India, the Pakistan government is more likely, through the ISI, to step up its covert support for the Taleban. In so doing, it will reason that the Taleban's efforts to destabilise the Karzai government, and undermine coalition forces, are a legitimate and necessary counter to growing Indian influence.

All of this tends to put the Afghan conflict in a new light – or, at least, give it a new perspective. As well as the obvious and much documented battle between the Taleban and the Afghan government, supported by coalition forces, there is another "proxy war" being fought out over the same territory, between India and Pakistan.

This, while policy-makers have been widely discussing their "AF-PAK" strategy, the real need is for an "Af-Indo-Pak" strategy. And this has wider implications for any eventual drawdown of coalition troops, and the Afghanisation of the "war". If reduced coalition presence – especially if it is premature – creates a power vacuum, that could be filled by India, provoking a violent reaction from Pakistan.

To that extent, it also adds another strategic dimension to the presence of coalition forces in Afghanistan. There is an elephant – an Indian elephant – not so much in the room, as wanting to come in. It would seem that we need to be there to keep it out (or under control), which then adds a further complication to an exit plan which is already deeply problematical.

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