The Implications of Cultural Entrenchment for Counterinsurgency Operations

Abstract

This article examines the role of culture in an insurgency and critically analyses the way that counterinsurgency operations address culture. Essentially, the article argues that Western counterinsurgency warfare generally assumes that the culture of a nation beset by an insurgency will adapt to population-centric approaches made by the counterinsurgent force. This assumption is the result of a fundamental mismatch between the theoretical/ideological underpinnings of counterinsurgency theory and a functional understanding of culture as an adaptive product of human psychology and neurobiology.

Shifts in the conceptual understanding of evolutionary psychology and neurobiology have set new paradigms for understanding precisely what comprises ‘culture’ and where it exists in a physical (as opposed to existential) sense. Paradoxically, the implication is that culture has an inertial tendency to resist external pressures for change, a phenomenon that is referred to in this article as ‘cultural entrenchment’. Military counterinsurgency doctrine fails to account for cultural entrenchment, leading to misconceptions about the viability of current Western counterinsurgency practices in non-Western cultural settings, in particular, the expectation of measurable successes over politically expedient time frames.

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Introduction

Counterinsurgency operations are among the most difficult and taxing endeavours that a modern conventional military force can undertake, particularly where that military is intervening in an internal conflict in a distant nation. Such campaigns often degenerate into a protracted low-level conflict that gradually saps the expeditionary counterinsurgent force of its support from the local population (in whose name it fights) and of political and public support on the domestic front. Ultimately, a favourable (to the counterinsurgent) resolution to such conflicts often requires deft political manoeuvre rather than military power.

One common truism is that a force cannot ‘kill its way to victory’ in an insurgency. An equally poignant observation is that the insurgents ‘own the time’, while the counterinsurgent is hostage to that inevitable countdown to the end of the campaign. The insurgent need not ‘win’; he must simply avoid losing until the counterinsurgent’s mandate expires.

Historically, Western powers have a poor record of success in resolving another nation’s insurgency. Those resolutions that have been deemed ‘successful’ are, in fact, more often sub-optimal outcomes in which the criteria for ‘success’ are heavily qualified for political ends.

My attempts to understand this have led me to examine the much-neglected role of culture (or its misinterpretation or under-representation) in counterinsurgency theory. Among the contributing factors to the West’s lack of success in counterinsurgency is the subconscious assumption that certain cultural values possessed by the quintessential Westerner could be transplanted into the society afflicted by the insurgency, and that the path to a better future would become self-evident if those aspects of the local culture unfavourable to this process could be re-engineered and supplanted by Western cultural values.

Simply put, counterinsurgency theory is infused with a subconscious Western cultural bias that assumes an almost ‘IKEA-style’ assembly of democratic institutions as a logical consequence when population-centric lines of operation aimed at ‘social engineering’ outcomes are successfully prosecuted. The flaw lies in the ‘minds’ premise of the old ‘hearts and minds’ argument in which it is presumed that the mind will enlighten and follow the heart to a better post-conflict social organisation once the heart has been won through population-centric counterinsurgency strategies. Yet, in reality, any given society’s ‘heart’ is more likely to be influenced by its culture which has proven more difficult to coopt than counterinsurgency theory allows.

... counterinsurgency theory is infused with a subconscious Western cultural bias ...

To be fair, few counterinsurgency practitioners hold such naive views about the predictability or inevitability of ‘contested nation-building’, particularly after protracted operations such as the ten-year counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. However, there is a conspicuous absence of underpinning theory to explain the significance of cultural influence on the ‘heart’ of a given society. This article explores the significance of culture and presents an argument for the concept of cultural entrenchment—the ability of a culture to resist external influences acting as an agent of dramatic change. Subsequent discussion focuses on the implications of this phenomenon for counterinsurgent warfare. The final section highlights some of the deficiencies in the theoretical/ideological framework of Western counterinsurgency strategy in the context of Afghanistan.

Part 1 - Culture

Much has been made of the need to understand and appreciate local culture when seeking to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the population during counterinsurgency operations. Kilcullen coined the term ‘conflict ethnography’ to describe the interpretation of the physical, human, informational and ideological settings in which such conflicts take place.¹ Underlying any study of ethnography is an understanding of the concept of culture per se.

The first part of this article explores the concept of culture from anthropological, psychological, neurological and evolutionary perspectives so as to establish a theoretical foundation for the concept of cultural entrenchment. While this section ostensibly departs from the military context, it is essential that the concept of cultural entrenchment is not simply asserted, but proven. Furthermore, this comprises a valuable foundational knowledge base for the budding ‘conflict ethnographer’.

I contend that culture is not simply an abstract conceptualisation of human social behaviour and belief, but rather, enjoys an actual physical existence. The medium in which culture ‘exists’ is the collective neurological structures within the brains of the constituents of a culture-group. Despite the distributed nature of this physical medium, adopting a non-existential understanding of culture allows the ethnographer to draw on the scientific principles underpinning cultural neuroscience to characterise and define some properties of culture as an observable phenomenon.

Defining Culture

Defining the concept of culture in a strict sense can be problematic as it crosses a variety of fields including anthropology, sociology, linguistics, psychology, archaeology, evolutionary biology and ecology. A broad review of the definitions of culture yields a number of common points. Culture consists of group behaviour patterns or shared systems of belief and is distributed throughout the population. It is acquired by the individual from external influences, is socially transmitted between agents, and exerts a shaping pressure on individuals as they develop. Culture distinguishes in-groups and out-groups and is intrinsically linked to language. It is related to codes of meaning or shared understandings of symbology. Finally, and most importantly, the concept of culture is dualistic; that is, it can be understood in both individual and collective contexts.²

Culture consists of group behaviour patterns or shared systems of belief and is distributed throughout the population.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, many of the more metaphysical interpretations of culture that had emerged within the traditional social sciences began to yield to new integrated theories of culture that were based on evolutionary and psychological frameworks for understanding human behaviour. Such integrated models recognise a neurological basis for the human mind, and further, that the mechanisms of the human mind are a product of evolutionary processes that were specialised to solve adaptive problems (such as mate selection, language acquisition, social cooperation, etc). Within this framework, culture emerges as a collective output of those individual mental processes within the context of specific environmental influences, but also including ‘information that is provided both intentionally and unintentionally by other human beings’.³

Most importantly, this integrated model of culture directly links a neurological framework for understanding human behaviour in the individual, with selective pressures (in an evolutionary sense) for understanding human behaviour in a collective cultural setting. This compels the definition of culture in two ways. Individually, culture refers to ‘any kind of information that is acquired from members of one’s [own] species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s behavior’.⁴ I refer to this as an individual’s ‘cultural agency’. Collectively, culture refers to ‘groups of people who exist within a shared context, where they are exposed to similar institutions, engage in similar practices, and communicate with each other on a regular basis’.⁵ This is what I term a ‘culture-group’.

The first definition emphasises culture as information that is acquired from the environment (the human social environment), while the second abstracts the concept of culture into a taxonomic system that allows an individual to be classified within collective groupings (which require further definition themselves). Thus a person can belong to a culture in a collective sense as well as own a culture as an individual agent.

Enculturation

Humans engage in cultural learning; enculturation is the process through which an individual acquires his/her cultural agency. People acquire this cultural information from other members of the group through social transmission. As a species, humans are unique in the level of fidelity that is achieved in transmitting cultural information from one individual to the next. The conservation of cultural information is such that it tends to accumulate in a population over time.⁶

Of course, this begs the question of where this cultural information originates. Early observers noted that humans exist in a world that is overlaid with cultural meaning. People do not just inhabit their physical worlds; they also exist in cultural worlds that have been constructed on a foundation of the cultural information that has accumulated over time.⁷ This information is acquired from others directly (by being taught) or indirectly (through observation) and is subsequently passed on to newer generations via the same mechanisms. In short, culture is built up over time and changes slightly with each passing generation.

This cultural information is neither so fluid as to be inconsistent, nor so rigid as to be static over long periods of time. A person born into a particular cultural world is continually learning, influencing and being influenced by the shared ideas that constitute that world. As a result of the total immersion in a cultural existence, the characteristics that people acquire through the enculturation process become more pronounced and ingrained with age.⁸

 A person born into a particular cultural world is continually learning, influencing and being influenced ...

It is the high level of conservation or fidelity in the social transmission of culture between agents that allows collectivistic conceptualisations of culture. It is highly improbable that any one member of a particular culture-group will be exposed to or acquire all the informational elements of that culture-group, and it is even less likely that all members of that group will acquire all information elements of the proposed culture-group. But a sufficient number of members will acquire enough of the most important elements with sufficient fidelity to loosely define a collective culture-group based on the core of those cultural elements, thus allowing a collectivistic label for that culture.

Cultural Neuroscience

‘Since culture has a psychological dimension, one can also meaningfully talk of culture having a neurological dimension.’⁹ A case for understanding culture as rooted in neurological process allows access to some of the principles or ‘rules’ applicable to neuroscience and their use to quantify some observable aspects relevant to the phenomenon of group culture in the collective social context. First, however, a case must be made for the linkage between neurology and enculturation:

Humans are cognitive agents ... they process incoming information depending on the knowledge they already have and the computing machinery they are endowed with, selectively retain some of that information in their memory, and selectively express some of that information to other agents.¹⁰

In essence, this describes how culture, as a system of shared meanings and understandings, derives from ‘the product of current events in the public world interacting with mental structures [in the individual], which [were] the product of such interactions with the public world’ prior to that.¹¹ Or, as Duque puts it: 

The conceptual structures that inform people’s acts have a physiological manifestation, a neural instantiation. Interpreting symbolic acts in the light of what neuroscience has unveiled about the cognitive function of the healthy brain should ultimately aid us in uncovering the neural expression of those structures. The reverse is also true: a better understanding of neural mechanisms has an important role in the interpretation of cultural meanings and practices.¹²

Thus, the culture of the individual (which is stored as neurological content within that individual) is a product of the collective cultural output of the culture-group which, in turn, is generated by the expression of the neurological cultural content of all of the individuals who comprise the culture-group unit.

Neurological Links To Enculturation During Development

There is evidence to suggest that neurological variation between culture-groups due to distinctly local processes of enculturation begins very early in life. For example, research has revealed that American and Japanese mothers chat to their babies in different ways. American mothers attempt to elicit ‘happy vocals’ from their babies more often than Japanese mothers, who are more likely to soothe a baby’s ‘unhappy vocals’.¹³ This indicates that ‘even the cultural experiences of prelinguistic children differ in a variety of ways across cultures’.¹⁴

... neurological variation between culture-groups due to distinctly local processes of enculturation begins very early in life.

Such cultural experiences undoubtedly leave their mark during the neurological development of the baby’s brain, and these findings imply that culture-based neurological variation between culture-groups begins to occur almost immediately after a child is born, and potentially even before.

Neuroplasticity

Neurons are the cells of the nervous system that carry signals to the remaining parts of the body—organs, muscles, glands, other neurons, etc—to coordinate the processes of life in an organism. The brain, which is predominately comprised of neurons (100 billion or thereabouts), is essentially a central processing unit.

Research into neurology points to the fact that ‘When neurons fire at the same time repeatedly, chemical changes occur so that they tend to connect more strongly.’¹⁵ This neural connection pathway is strengthened and expanded each time it is used, increasing the likelihood that the same pathway will be used again. So, to a point, the process becomes self-reinforcing when exposed to the same stimulus time and again. Thus the brain is ‘malleable’ and able to dynamically adapt to new experiences and circumstances. This property is called neuroplasticity. With more exposure to a particular stimulus, the neurological processes related to that stimulus are ‘burned in’ so that the neurological responses become more autonomic. It is neuroplasticity that enables people to react to changes in the environment and to adapt to these in new ways.

The Plasticity Paradox

The depiction of the brain as plastic or malleable might imply that the brain can adapt to any new experience or external stimuli and is in a state of constant change. However, the plasticity paradox argues that it is the very mechanism of plasticity that gives rise to the long-term stability of neural systems within the brain.

Even though a pattern of behaviour may be repeated time and again, ‘the neuronal connections responsible are slightly different each time because of what we have done in the intervening time’.¹⁶ The same behaviour, performed at a different time, will use a slightly different neural pathway, so that the brain is constantly being altered by every encounter or interaction.¹⁷

Even though a pattern of behaviour may be repeated time and again, ‘the neuronal connections responsible are slightly different each time ...

The constant variation reinforces and strengthens the connections that comprise a particular neurological circuit because the repetition of the action actually increases the overall number of individual neural connections. Thus, the collective neural pathways resulting from that action are more numerous and more efficient in response. Hence, while the system is plastic, it also tends to reinforce itself once an initial connection pathway is made, and consequently (and paradoxically) it becomes more difficult to ‘burn in’ a new pathway once a particular circuit is consolidated—difficult, but not impossible.

While it is possible for further neuroplastic change to occur, this process needs to overcome a physiological resistance to change that conserves the pre-existing neurologically adapted investment. The likely evolutionary reason for this tendency towards stability is that it provides the organism with the benefit of cognitive adaptability while conserving the effort invested in solving a problem once it has been solved effectively the first time. It is the neuro-physiological equivalent of the old adage ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t tamper with it’.

Neurological Cultural Imprints

Culture has an enormous pervasive influence on an individual both during early development and throughout his or her life. Humans ‘do not just inhabit physical worlds; they also exist within cultural worlds that are constructed on a foundation of cultural information that has accumulated over time’.¹⁸ ‘People are born into particular cultural worlds, and they are continually learning, and being influenced by, the shared ideas that constitute those worlds.’1⁹ The effect of this total immersion in culture is a cultural imprint on the individual’s neurological landscape.

This neurological cultural imprint is likely to be similar to the cultural imprints in the brains of other individuals born and raised in, or contemporaneously exposed to, that same culture-group. Those cultural traits that have already established themselves within the culture over time (and thus are imprinted in new members during enculturation) will benefit from enhanced selective fitness due to the accumulation of cultural information across generations and time and the high fidelity of cultural transmission overall.²⁰

It is important to note that when culture is imprinted in an individual, he or she will not bear exactly the same imprint as is found in another individual of the same culture. Rather, the first individual’s neurological cultural imprint is sufficiently similar in character to that of the other individual such that on average they share the same cultural traits at a holistic level. That is, the two individuals share more similarities in the expression of their cultural traits (by virtue of their individually unique neurological connections governing social behaviour) than they do differences. The holistic expression of the neuronal connections that formed during the enculturation process will yield similar social behavioural patterns and beliefs such that the collective expression of these imprints produces the phenomenon of the culture-group.

... when culture is imprinted in an individual, he or she will not bear exactly the same imprint as is found in another individual of the same culture.

Thus, the case is made that culture (as a collective, population-level phenomenon) is fundamentally tethered to the neurological processes of the individuals who constitute that culture-group. This means that culture at the group level will, to some extent, be subject to the principles that govern neurobiology at the individual level. The cultural information retained within the individual is subject to neurological constraints that will influence the way that group-level culture behaves. The challenge for this view of ‘culture as a physical (albeit neurological) entity’ is to determine the precise extent of this effect and how far one can apply the principles of neurology to the phenomenon of group-culture.

Cultural Entrenchment

It is my belief that some aspects of neuroplasticity can be applied to the collectivistic interpretation of culture to broadly define some properties of the group-culture concept. Reconsidering the plasticity paradox, once a neuronal connection is formed, it then becomes self-reinforcing and, subsequently, the connection is more likely to be used and further reinforced when the trigger stimulus next occurs. While it is possible for alterations to occur, they need to overcome an inertial tendency that conserves the pre-existing neurologically adapted investment.

The enculturation process during development results in neuro-physiological changes in the brain (the cultural imprint) that are fundamentally influenced by the collective cultural setting in which the individual finds him or herself. This cultural imprint is reinforced by constant exposure to that group-culture throughout life. The brute fact of an influencing effect due to immersion in culture is a constant, although the specifics of the cultural expression will be variable and depend on the particulars of a given cultural setting. The influence of the cultural imprint, whatever flavour the particular culture, will be pervasive and fundamentally integrated or embedded into all other cognitive and psychological processes developed in the individual during his or her life.

Therefore, the implication is that the unifying traits that define ‘culture’ in the group sense are ingrained within the individual constituents of that culture-group and, by virtue of the plasticity paradox, these group-level cultural traits will have an inertial tendency to resist external pressures for change (at both the collective and individual level). This is the phenomenon I refer to as ‘cultural entrenchment’.

Cultural entrenchment is the propensity for a group-culture to resist the pressures of cultural change from an influence acting externally to that culture-group. ‘Within any culture there is much variability, with many, if not all, cultural meanings being constantly negotiated and contested.’²¹ Thus, cultural entrenchment is primarily a response to radical or sudden external challenges to a culture. Changes within a culture-group, by contrast, are more measured, are negotiated by the members of that culture-group, and occur as a natural matter of course.

Cultural entrenchment is the mechanism that underlies the phenomenon of culture shock; but, while culture shock may be overcome on an individual basis, a population-wide adaptation will necessarily be a more difficult process, and the degree of difference between culture-groups will determine the degree of resistance due to cultural entrenchment. Thus, enforcing change to overcome cultural entrenchment within a brief period of time may be a traumatic process that could fracture a given culture-group, or trigger dramatic social upheaval. By contrast, a slower, less traumatic path to overcoming cultural entrenchment would require paced changes, possibly over a generational time frame.

... enforcing change to overcome cultural entrenchment within a brief period of time may be a traumatic process ...

This phenomenon explains the friction created when diametrically opposed cultures clash, particularly in circumstances of conflict, and especially in the modern globalised era of transnational terrorism which is functionally a conflict of religious and sociocultural ideologies. The implications of this phenomenon within the specific context of counterinsurgency warfare form the basis for the next section.

Part 2 - Insurgency

An insurgency is an armed uprising against a constituted government or political authority that holds power, by an opposing movement that seeks to create and exploit the circumstances of the conflict to usurp power. Such conflicts are politicomilitary struggles that are designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of the central power, while increasing the control of the insurgent group. The insurgent antagonists attempt to assert their political legitimacy through a process of coopting popular support away from the established government to undermine its authority while simultaneously building their own socio-political power-base. The ultimate aim is to reach a tipping point, a critical mass of popular political support or military supremacy that overwhelms the established authority so that it completely collapses and the insurgent movement can gain absolute control of the state (or contested geo-political area).²²

The US military’s counterinsurgency field manual recognises one key aspect of an insurgency: that such conflicts are protracted politico-military struggles.²³ This emphasises the point that insurgencies are generally lengthy conflicts which develop over long periods of time before the insurgent strategy either reaches maturity or is abjectly defeated. Insurgencies will only gain traction in specific socio-political climates where a division exists that has so polarised the level of popular support between the protagonists in the struggle that it precludes any negotiated resolution. Thus, an insurgency must be viewed in terms that go beyond that of the military tactics employed by the insurgents themselves (the warfighting aspect that most military commanders traditionally focus on) and encompass the social and political dimensions of the conflict.

Distinction Between Guerrilla Warfare And Insurgency

The terms ‘guerrilla warfare’ and ‘insurgency’ are sometimes used interchangeably. However, for the purpose of this article, it is important to distinguish between these terms, to emphasise the asymmetric nature of these conflicts and to acknowledge the criticality of support from the population to the longer term success of either the insurgent or counterinsurgent strategy.

Guerrilla warfare should be viewed predominantly as a military tactic. It is a mode of warfare in which small, irregular groups of combatants capitalise on the natural advantages of surprise and mobility to harass and exhaust a larger, conventional or regular force by conducting attacks such as ambushing, sabotage, assassination, bombings, etc. An insurgency is the socio-political context within which a guerrilla war takes place. The distinction is important because the use of guerrilla tactics is not reserved exclusively for an insurgency, nor does the context of an insurgency preclude the use of traditional conventional means of warfare between forces of equivalent military capability.

The distinction is important because the use of guerrilla tactics is not reserved exclusively for an insurgency ...

The Methodologies And Origins Of An Insurgency

From inception to culmination, an insurgency will move through several distinct phases. Throughout the conflict it is possible for the insurgent movement to transition backwards and forward through various modes of opposition. Organisationally, such transitions are relatively smooth and range from underground political dissidence or terrorism to guerrilla warfare, or to open conflict employing fixed military formations. Because of this hydra-like ability of the insurgency to redefine itself, the climate of insurgency can become entrenched in the afflicted society, and the conflict may endure for a very long period of time as exemplified by the prolonged ‘troubles’ of Northern Ireland.

Mao Zedong outlined three broad phases of the insurgent’s military strategy in his doctrine of protracted war. The first of these is the strategic defence, a period of latent insurgency during which the movement seeks to gain strength and support while degrading those same attributes in the enemy. This is followed by the strategic stalemate when the conflict reaches a state of operational equilibrium. Finally, the strategic counteroffensive sees the insurgent achieve superior strength and commence a conventional military operation to overthrow the existing regime in a final push.²⁴

Socio-politically, an insurgency follows similar steps. Initially there will be some reason to justify the resort to an armed struggle. One of the most historically persistent triggers for insurgency is the presence, or perceived malign influence, of an external power, either overtly exercising political power or through control of a puppet regime. This was the case in Indo-China during the Vietminh uprising against the French in the 1950s.

A resistance movement then nucleates, usually around a cadre of intellectual ideologues and, during this stage, the tactics of terrorism are typically employed to propagate ideology, galvanise the population and create broad tacit approval for armed resistance. Needless to say, the insurgents must be calculated in their use of terrorism to avoid losing the sympathy of the population, and the underlying grievance that they are seeking to exploit must be sufficiently robust to justify such measures. From this stage the transition must be made to armed resistance through overt militant action. This is the classic phase of guerrilla warfare usually associated with an insurgency.²⁵

During this phase, the insurgents make full use of the tactics of irregular warfare to harass and degrade the opposing military forces. The guerrillas leverage every advantage available: the ability to initiate engagements on the terms of their choosing; the ability to provoke and incite reprisals misdirected at the civilian population; and the ability to blend into that same population and abandon their status as combatants as it suits the tactical situation. As Taber notes, if the cause is popular, the guerrilla’s mere survival is itself a political victory.²⁶

In the final stages of a successful insurgency, the opposing forces begin to reach a stage of military parity and the conflict becomes more conventional in nature. The insurgent faction will seek to hold terrain and begin to manoeuvre in regular military formations to defeat the previously dominant opposition. This phase of the conflict is more akin to a civil war than a guerrilla campaign. Thus it is ironic, but unsurprising that, during this phase, the insurgent faction itself becomes vulnerable to the same weaknesses that crippled its opponents earlier in the campaign. However, the protraction of the conflict favours the insurgents, as they are not obliged to deliver any political outcomes, while the government is expected to continue to serve the people despite deteriorating conditions. Of course, the insurgents may be defeated militarily long before the campaign matures; however, provided they retain their popular support, they may revert to the tactics of guerrilla warfare.

This phase of the conflict is more akin to a civil war than a guerrilla campaign.

The Role Of The Population In Insurgency

The civilian population caught in the middle of the conflict is the most decisive factor in that conflict. The insurgency is fought to gain the support (or, at the very least, compliance) of the population. The support of the population is the insurgent movement’s centre of gravity as a permissive civilian operating environment is what enables the insurgents to leverage the relative strengths they possess against the counterinsurgent force.

In insurgencies of a revolutionary nature, the population is undeniably the ‘decisive terrain’ that constitutes the key objective central to winning the conflict:

The guerrilla is primarily a propagandist, an agitator, a disseminator of the revolutionary idea, who uses the struggle itself—the actual physical conflict—as an instrument of agitation. His primary goal is to raise the level of revolutionary anticipation, and then of popular participation, to the crisis point at which the revolution becomes general throughout the country and the people in their masses carry out the final task—the destruction of the existing order and (often but not always) of the army that defends it.²⁷

In contemporary circumstances, where a distinct political ideology might not necessarily underpin the conflict, the insurgents need only offer a marginally better alternative to an unsatisfactory government. Thereafter, intimidation and a demonstrated local presence are sufficient to ensure the support of the local population. This theory of competitive control holds that, during irregular conflicts, ‘the local armed actor that a given population perceives as most able to establish a normative system for resilient, full-spectrum control over violence, economic activity, and human security is most likely to prevail within that population’.²⁸

The Accidental Guerrilla Effect

This discussion of the theory of classical insurgency has, so far, largely assumed that the conflict is wholly an internal affair. However, the regional destabilisation that results from a conflict in one nation often invites the involvement of other nations whose interests are adversely affected by the unrest. The intervention of a foreign power significantly complicates the character of the insurgency itself, often in favour of the insurgents who can graft an element of nationalism to their ideology or grievance. This was evident during the Ethiopian intervention in southern Somalia in 2006 that led to the rise of Al Shabaab. Thus, in the context of an insurgency in which an external or foreign agency is assisting an unpopular government against the insurgent movement, an accidental guerrilla effect may result. This effect predominates in circumstances where the insurgents have infiltrated remote or ungoverned regions and created alliances with local traditional communities.²⁹

The intervention of a foreign power significantly complicates the character of the insurgency itself, often in favour of the insurgents ...

From these havens, the insurgents begin to spread their influence and export the conflict into new areas. This prompts an obligatory intervention by the counterinsurgent force to disrupt and deny the insurgent safe haven. However, this intervention provokes a backlash by local non-insurgent groups who eventually fuse with the insurgent movement in order to defend their community from external influences. This alignment with the insurgency is not due to ideological reasons, as it may ostensibly appear, but occurs as a defensive response to the presence of a hostile foreign force that is poorly equipped to distinguish or separate the insurgents from the local communities.³⁰

Eventually, the counterinsurgents find themselves fighting these so-called accidental guerrillas—the same people they originally intervened to protect. At the same time, the ideologically motivated insurgent provocateurs withdraw into an enabling and supporting capacity to fuel this new front in the wider conflict.³¹

Socio-Cultural Influences On Insurgency

The phenomenon of globalisation has seen the emergence of a pandemic superculture dominated by Western influences in general and flavoured by American postmodern cultural values in particular. This global culture is disseminated by the mass media and driven by global economics. For the most part, this pan-societal culture is a heterogeneous, multi-cultural entity which local culture-groups access partially or superficially to supplement their more deeply held local cultural values. This interaction is also a two-way street, with local cultures integrating some of their more unique aspects into the overall mix.

In most parts of the world, this globalised culture has been (and continues to be) assimilated at a pace that falls within the tolerance thresholds of locally established cultures. That is, it is able to overcome the effects of cultural entrenchment without invoking a negative (or violent) cultural backlash by gradually eroding older, less relevant cultural aspects in a way that does not fundamentally challenge the key local culture-group’s identity. Undeniably, there have been growth pains, although cultures that were already closely aligned with the West have suffered less than those more distant. However, the process as a whole has been generally characterised by adaptation and acceptance due to the other associated benefits of globalisation.

... cultures that were already closely aligned with the West have suffered less than those more distant.

In places where the local culture is dramatically different (on some scales of measure, the polar opposite) to the Western-dominated culture of globalisation however, the pace of change has been too fast for some traditional societies to accommodate. Put simply, the degree of difference has been too much to overcome. In such cases, the effects of cultural entrenchment are demonstrated in the form of a cultural backlash, particularly where liberal, modernised secular societies in the Western tradition have clashed with conservative, pre-industrial, isolationist religious societies with Middle Eastern traditions.

Kilcullen interprets the fourth wave of terrorism (the characteristic transnational takfiri terrorism of the post-11 September 2011 world) as a global insurgency that seeks not to oppose globalisation, but rather to coopt it to an opposing world view (terrorism is the tactic, whereas insurgency models the overarching strategy). ‘Counterglobalisers’ such as al-Qaeda are ‘paradoxically among the most globalised and networked groups on the planet’ and are highly adept at manipulating and exploiting the anti-globalisation sentiment of traditional societies.³² Unsurprisingly, the version of globalised culture that Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaeda strive to impose has more in common with these societies than with the Western-influenced pan-societal culture that currently dominates.

Part 3 - Discussion Of Cultural Influenes In The Afghan Insurgency

Having briefly reviewed the theory of insurgency and examined the contemporary social, political and cultural factors that influence such conflicts, it is now possible to appreciate the complex interaction of such variables in the battlespace of an ongoing insurgency. This section provides a deeper insight into the current conflict in Afghanistan by examining some of the socio-cultural facets of the Afghani people to show how the effects of cultural entrenchment predominantly favour the insurgent over the counterinsurgent.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is primarily mandated to reduce the capability and will of the insurgency in Afghanistan.³³ Although the current conflict is characterised by a multiplicity of factors interacting to destabilise the country and foster the ongoing violence, this section focuses primarily on the attributes and peculiarities of Pashtun culture as a decisive factor in the insurgency. Thus the following discussion treats the insurgency as predominately comprised of Pashtun Afghanis who form a coalition of insurgent groups which includes the Taliban but also encompasses other localised insurgent factions.³⁴

The Afghan Cultural Context

The Pashtuns are the dominant ethnic tribal group in southern Afghanistan, the epicentre of the insurgency. As a people, they are spread between the nations of Pakistan and Afghanistan, notionally separated by the Durand line.

The Pashtuns are a tribal people with a segmentary kinship structure that subdivides the tribes into sub-tribes, clans, sub-clans, village groups, extended families and individual family units. Within this nested social order an individual may have obligations on a number of levels to other members of the group so that ‘each group member must side with the closer against the more distant relative, and with locals against outsiders’; yet, between members, there also exists an agnatic (paternal) rivalry for position and prominence.³⁵

While the cohesion of tribalism in Afghanistan has eroded under the pressure of several decades of warfare, these underlying structures are still very strong, especially in terms of the individual’s concept of self-placement within society.³⁶ Furthermore, ‘social ideals about egalitarianism, mutual caring, sharing, reciprocity, collective responsibility, group solidarity, family, community, civility and democracy’ (in its tribal context) within Afghan culture are rooted in tribal principles.³⁷

The Pashtuns follow the honour code known as Pashtunwali, which is so deeply entrenched in their culture that it can even take precedence over their identification as Muslims. Although far more deeply nuanced than the simplification that follows, the central aspects of Pashtunwali are: Tora (courage), Badal (revenge), Melmastia (hospitality), Nanawati (honorable treatment of a defeated foe), Jirga (respect for the authority of the tribal assembly) and Tarboorwali (agnatic rivalry).³⁸

Another key feature of Pashtun culture is an emphasis on personal bonds between individuals and the importance of both the tribe and individual’s honour and public reputation in sealing these relationships.³⁹ These links, when established, assume an extraordinary importance in honouring personal commitments and loyalties and regulating social order in the tribal system.⁴⁰ The Pashtuns often value social affirmations of relationships over impersonal or material demonstrations of loyalty.⁴¹ However, such deep personal loyalties can cause contradictions and conflicts with their wider honour-bound obligations, meaning that ‘the Pashtun can go from brother to mortal enemy—in 60 seconds’ while his world view remains consistent with the code of Pashtunwali.⁴²

...  Pashtun can go from brother to mortal enemy—in 60 seconds’ while his world view remains consistent with the code of Pashtunwali.

Even in light of this rather brief treatment of the Pashtun culture, the current counterinsurgency strategy raises a number of pertinent questions: which of those principles of Pashtunwali are incompatible (or poorly matched) with the concepts, principles and practices of counterinsurgency? Which of these concepts, principles and practices of counterinsurgency are poorly matched with those same features of Pashtunwali? Which principles of counterinsurgency and Pashtun culture naturally complement one another? Of those that do not, which principles of counterinsurgency and Pashtun culture can most easily accommodate the other? What are the risks and benefits of accommodation (including likely second-order, third-order effects and unanticipated outcomes)?

Effects Of Cultural Entrenchment In Afghanistan

Svet’s assessment of ISAF information operations (IO) in Afghanistan highlights some culturally based de-synchronisations between the intended effects of the population-centric counterinsurgency campaign and the actual outcomes.⁴³ The failure of ISAF-developed IO messages to resonate with local audiences is primarily due to the existence of cultural barriers. For example, an IO theme such as ‘freedom’ engenders connotations of ‘freedom from interference by the central Afghan government’ (rather than ideas of personal liberty) to the local Pashtun tribesman.⁴⁴ While an example of cultural misinterpretation is ostensibly not a case for cultural entrenchment, this particular example actually highlights a deeper cultural paradigm worth exploring.

Entrenched Distrust Of The Central State

The tribal system in Afghanistan sits in balanced opposition to the powers of the government and the Islamic religion. That is, the power of any one of these institutions was historically counterbalanced by the power held by the others.⁴⁵ However, the institutions of the central state also (historically) primarily served the interests of the people who controlled them, rather than promoting the welfare of the general population. Thus, Afghan society is marked by an ingrained tribal ethos that distrusts and resists central government power structures.⁴⁶ This entrenched cultural factor conflicts with one of the fundamental objectives of counterinsurgency, that of building or enhancing the legitimacy of the central government in order to secure its approval by the population.

It is clear that a deeply entrenched cultural trait such as this complicates the pursuit of counterinsurgency objectives, even where those approaches are based on population-centric counterinsurgency initiatives. For the counterinsurgent, overcoming the population’s negative perceptions of the government is a significant challenge, and one that is likely to take a very long time and a large investment of effort to accomplish. Ongoing accusations of corruption, justified or otherwise, will only further reinforce the negative bias, while insurgent IO easily capitalises on the entrenched sentiment to piggyback its own messages, further distancing the government from the people.

In this scenario, the inertial drag hindering the counterinsurgent is threefold. To ensure lasting success, the counterinsurgent must overcome the insurgent’s IO message; address the underlying cause of the cultural bias (by capacity-building the government); then ultimately work to prevent such a bias from enculturating within the newer generations (through demonstrated and enduring outcomes that highlight the government’s worth).

Overcoming A Culture Entrenched With Conflict

The long years of conflict in Afghanistan have also heavily affected the cultural landscape of Pashtun society. As Kolenda observes, the traditional stratified Pashtun society has fragmented over the course of three decades of conflict, while the fabric of village and tribal life continues to unravel under the pressures of the ongoing insurgency, socio-economic upheavals, and conflicts within or between tribal groups.⁴⁷

The long years of conflict in Afghanistan have also heavily affected the cultural landscape of Pashtun society.

Historically, local tribal affairs were governed by leaders and key members of influence who, over the generations, were usually drawn from within the same cluster of powerful families. However:

After 30 years of conflict, an economy has developed in which money is exchanged for fighting. Violence has created the most viable path to social and economic mobility and political influence. Those who prove skilled and demonstrate leadership qualities can advance in the ranks, increase their local power, and grow wealthy. Many insurgent leaders are from traditionally poor families who would otherwise have remained outside the local governing structures. The rise of this violent, well-funded warrior middle class has attracted the poor while undermining traditional tribal aristocracy.⁴⁸

The attraction to violence as a way of life and the development of a fatalistic world view is an entrenched cultural trait that, on balance, favours the state of insurgency over peace. Thus, it ultimately favours the insurgent over the counterinsurgent. Young, poor, uneducated males primed in the cultural code of Pashtunwali and lacking exposure to a viable alternative vision of peaceful rural village life are culturally vulnerable to cooption and radicalisation by the Taliban and other extremist groups.

The ‘ecological’ interpretation of culture as a societal adaptation to the environment provides some understanding of how the influence of drawn-out conflict, mixed with local honour-bound warrior traditions, in the absence of the moderating influence of a strong, but non-violent judicial system, creates an entrenched cultural trait that predisposes young males to adopt the ways of violence as a means to advance in society, especially where no competing viable alternative offers the same potential for social mobility. The counterinsurgent must strive, therefore, to overcome the contributing societal factors that preclude a peaceful middle class from developing, as well as contend, in the longer term, with the entrenched bias towards the path of violence as an easy escape from a disadvantaged rural life.

Of course, the insurgents also actively exacerbate the socio-cultural upheavals that reinforce the entrenchment of violent tendencies.⁴⁹ ‘The collapse of social cohesion is the Taliban’s most powerful enabler.’⁵⁰ The Taliban has actively targeted and killed many Pashtun tribal elders in a bid to destroy what tenuous continuity still exists linking back to the time prior to the pre-eminence of the Mullah in Pashtun society. While eliminating or sidelining these tribal elders, the Taliban is simultaneously engaging a disenfranchised youth, adapting pre-existing cultural and religious concepts to cultivate and recruit new members, then indoctrinating and further enculturating those members with extremist themes in madrassas and training camps. What Western observers perceive as an insidious cycle of exploitation, the average largely ignorant Pashtun youth feels is an intuitively right path to follow due to the cumulative effects of social, religious and cultural pressures.

‘The collapse of social cohesion is the Taliban’s most powerful enabler.’

Implications For Counterinsurgency Strategies In Afghanistan

So far, this discussion has examined some of the effects of cultural entrenchment that favour the state of insurgency over peace and are thus specifically beneficial to the insurgent who flourishes in a state of protracted conflict. This section will analyse how some aspects of the current counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan necessarily require long-term cultural change and are thus inherently disadvantaged by entrenched local cultural characteristics.

Evidence points to the fact that educating and empowering women reduces the level of violence in a society.⁵¹ This is one laudable way to undermine the state of insurgency. Yet education for women fundamentally clashes with an entrenched religious dogma that has held sway over the culture for hundreds of years, and achieving this outcome requires more than just building schools and creating a permissive security environment for girls’ education to take place. Education for women needs to be culturally accepted as a societal norm before it reaches a critical point as an efficacious counterinsurgency strategy. Otherwise it is likely that the main effort and bulk of educational resources will be preferentially allocated to males, and it may well be many years before there is a surplus will or capacity to reach out to impoverished rural girls.

An honest, responsible, responsive and present government is vital in order to swing support away from the insurgency. Yet nepotism, what Westerners (and those who fail to benefit from it) consider an unpalatable and unacceptable corruption of the public responsibility of government, predominated as a centuries-old practice in the traditional, socially stratified tribal system where patronage relationships persisted as a natural order of affairs in circuits of power and among social elites.⁵² It is this same class of elites that the West now needs to govern Afghanistan. At the same time, even at the level of local governance, it is recognised that the contribution of foreign aid actually increases the level of endemic corruption and causes inter-tribal tension leading to a ‘profitable stalemate’ that, once again, benefits the insurgent.⁵³

An honest, responsible, responsive and present government is vital in order to swing support away from the insurgency.

One significant factor undermining security is the lack of economic opportunity for Afghani civilians. With much of the population impoverished, the Afghan government has no domestic revenue source and relies on external financial support, predominantly from the US. This situation is obviously unsustainable in the long term. Yet international investors are reluctant to invest in Afghanistan, partly due to the lack of security, but also partly because of Afghani culture itself, which is perceived as unwelcoming towards foreign economic advances.⁵⁴

Boetig argues that Afghanistan can ill afford to maintain the less wholesome aspects of its local culture, such as the repression of female rights and the tolerance of widespread child abuse, both physical and sexual. These aspects of Afghani culture are ‘inconsistent with core values [that are] deeply cherished by the developed world’.⁵⁵ He notes that ‘Afghanistan has neither the natural resources of an Iraq or a Saudi Arabia, nor the favourable culture of a Germany or Japan that allowed each of those countries to prosper after the Second World War’.⁵⁶ Thus, the current status quo is one in which any improvement to security is predicated on improvement in economic prosperity, which is in turn retarded by a local culture that does not appeal to foreign economic investment. To re-equilibrate this feedback system, Boetig sees Afghani culture as the locus that must give. Yet, even if he is right, cultural entrenchment stipulates that the necessary changes are unlikely to occur before the West withdraws its economic backing along with its security forces, leaving an Afghan government unable to fund its own security forces and provide basic services to its people.

These are but a few examples of counterinsurgency initiatives that are undermined by the flawed assumption that underlying cultural traits are sufficiently flexible to adapt to new paradigms in a politically expedient time frame.

Conclusion

The current ISAF counterinsurgency strategy relies heavily on its capacity to develop the local Afghan government and security forces so as to expedite a future withdrawal of international forces by governments under domestic political pressure to disengage from what is becoming an unpopular war.

This reality ignores the issue that the sort of Afghan government and security force that ISAF is morally bound to leave behind are unlikely to achieve the standards of competency required to do the job unassisted and the moral legitimacy required to gain the popular support essential to the long-term success of the strategy, in a time frame that is politically acceptable to the West.

This is fundamentally due to the effects of cultural entrenchment which ensure that the aspects of local culture that ISAF seeks to modify already favour the insurgency. Thus the criteria for successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan demand the achievement of a degree of reshaping of Afghan culture and society such that it will repudiate any future influence by the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Yet the West’s political impatience with the war in Afghanistan is a symptom of its underestimation of the time required to actually effect the socio-cultural changes necessary to meet the desired outcome.

Cultural entrenchment implies that changes over short periods of time favour cultural adaptations that are less demanding to the existing order than large or radical upheavals. Yet what the West seeks to impose on Afghani culture in the pursuit of its current counterinsurgency strategy is, by centuries-old local standards, a radical change within a very brief period of time.

In order to defeat the Taliban insurgency and create a stable Afghan state that is politically viable and secure in the long term, the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan must accustom itself to the idea that cultural change, of necessity, takes a much longer time to accomplish than the current population-centric initiatives can hope to effect in politically expedient time frames. Western counterinsurgency strategists and foreign policy shapers must acknowledge the need to commit to these lines of operation for the long term in order to achieve enduring effects from this approach. To do otherwise is to set the stage for another heavily qualified and politicised ‘success’ for Western counterinsurgency strategy in which the lasting outcomes in Afghanistan might ultimately prove to be prematurely judged.

About the Author

Nathan Coultis was a member of the Australian Army Intelligence Corps from 2003 to 2010. He served on a number of operational deployments, including to the Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a number of specialist roles, including counterterrorism and counterinsurgency targeting operations. He has a Bachelor of Science from the University of the Sunshine Coast and is currently completing a Masters of Justice (Intelligence Studies) through the Queensland University of Technology.

Endnotes

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1     D Kilcullen, ‘Religion and Insurgency’, Small Wars Journal, 2007, <http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/05/religion-and-insurgency/&gt;.

2    J F D Duque, T Turner, E D Lewis and G Egan, ‘Neuroanthropology: a Humanistic Science for the Study of the Culture-Brain Nexus’, Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci, Vol. 5, No. 2–3, June 2010, pp. 138–47 <http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/2-3/138.abstract&gt;; C Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’ in The Interpretation of Cultures - Selected Essays, Basic Books, New York, 1973, pp. 4–5 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=52995835&gt;; F Heylighen and K Chielens, ‘Cultural Evolution and Memetics’ in Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2009, p. 2 <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Memetics-Springer.pdf&gt;; Richerson and Boyd quoted in K MacDonald, ‘Evolution, Psychology, and a Conflict Theory of Culture’, Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2009, p. 209 <http://www.epjournal.net/&gt;; C Strauss and N Quinn, ‘Preliminaries to a Theory of Culture Acquisition’ in Herbert L Pick, Paulus Van Den Broek and David C Knill (eds), Cognition: Conceptual and Methodological Issues, American Psychological Association, Washington, 1992, p. 267; M J Swartz, ‘Cultural Sharing and Cultural Theory: Some Findings of a Five-Society Study’, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 84, No. 2, June 1982, p. 316 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/676405&gt;; L Zeuner, ‘Theory of Culture – Margaret Archer versus Classical Sociology’, Cultural Dynamics, 2001, p. 92 <http://cdy.sagepub.com/content/13/1/92&gt;.

3     J Tooby and L Cosmides, ‘The Psychological Foundations of Culture’, in J Barkow, L Cosmides and J Tooby (eds), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 3–4 <http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/publist.htm&gt;.

4     Richerson and Boyd quoted in S Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’ in D T Gilbert, S Fiske and G Lindzey (eds), Handbook of Social Psychology (5th edn), Wiley, New York, 2010, p. 2 <http://heine.socialpsychology.org/&gt;.

5     Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’, p. 2.

6     Ibid., p. 3.

7     Luria quoted in Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’, p. 3.

8     Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’, pp. 6–7.

9     Duque et al, ‘Neuroanthropology’, p. 2.

10    Heylighen and Chielens, ‘Cultural Evolution’, p. 6.

11    Strauss and Quinn, ‘Preliminaries’, p. 6; Duque et al, ‘Neuroanthropology’, p. 2.

12    Duque et al, ‘Neuroanthropology’, p. 4.

13    Caudill and Weinstein in Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’, p. 6.

14    Heine, ‘Cultural psychology’, p. 6.

41    J A Person, ‘Getting Past the First Cup of Tea’, Small Wars Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2010, pp. 10–14 <http://smallwarsjournal.com/journal/iss/v6n1.pdf&gt;.

42    Gant, One Tribe at a Time, p. 24.

43    Oleg Svet, ‘A Campaign Assessment of the US-led Coalition’s Psychological and Information Operations Campaign in Afghanistan’, International Relations, 1 September 2010 <http://www.e-ir.info&gt;.

44    Ibid., p. 2.

45    Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla, p. 74.

46    Svet, ‘A Campaign Assessment of the US-led Coalition’s Psychological and Information Operations Campaign in Afghanistan’, pp. 3–4.

47    Kolenda, ‘Winning Afghanistan’, pp. 26–27.

48    Ibid., p. 27.

49    Abubakar Siddique, ‘Taliban violence creating social revolution among Pashtuns’, Eurasia Partner Post from RFE/RL, 25 July 2010, p. 1 <http://www.eurasianet.org/taxonomy/term&gt;.

50    Kolenda, ‘Winning Afghanistan’, p. 27.

51    Ibid., p. 31; A Skipper, ‘Because I am a girl: cities and cyberspace’, Life Matters (Radio Program), broadcast 22 September 2010, ABC Radio National <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2010/3017843.htm&gt;.

52    Amato, ‘Tribes, Pashtunwali and How They Impact Reconciliation and Reintegration Efforts in Afghanistan’, p. 14.

53    T Corn, ‘COIN in Absurdistan: Saving the COIN Baby from the Afghan Bathwater (and Vice-Versa)’, Small Wars Journal, 2010, p. 7 <http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/479-corn.pdf&gt;.

54    B Boetig, ‘The 800-Pound Gorilla: The Interrelationship of Culture, Economics, and Security in Afghanistan’, Small Wars Journal, 2009, p. 4 <http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/280-boetig.pdf&gt;.

55    Ibid., pp. 4–6.

56    Ibid., p. 4.