Out of the Mountains Read Online Free Page B

aid-and-contracting-driven pattern of violence that I and many others have observed elsewhere in Afghanistan, and that the Aegis team experienced in Iraq.
    Perhaps it had nothing to do with the Taliban and everything to do with perverse incentives created by rapid and uneven development in a tribal society whose economic, social, and agricultural systems have been wrecked by decades of war. No external aid is neutral: a sudden influx of foreign assistance creates a contracting bonanza, benefiting some at others’ expense, and in turn provoking conflict. Likewise, it creates spoils over which local power brokers fight for personal gain, to the detriment of the wider community, and can contribute to a sense of entitlement on the part of locals. Access to foreigners, who have lots of money and firepower but little time or inclination to gain an understanding of local dynamics, can give district power brokers incredibly lucrative opportunities for corruption. A tsunami of illicit cash washes over the society, provoking abuse, raising expectations but then disappointing them, and empowering local armed groups, who pose as clean and incorruptible, defenders of the disenfranchised, at least till they themselves gain access to sources of corruption. 14
    Then again, perhaps I was wrong—maybe the Taliban had already infiltrated the district by then, as they certainly did later, and for some reason the local fighters were just having trouble getting it together that day. Ambushes are complex enterprises, the most difficult task an infantry small unit can undertake, and they’re won or lost in the first few seconds, with the outcome often decided in the very first burst of fire. Seemingly trivial details—the placement of a key weapon, the angle of the sun, a gust of wind, split-second timing in the moment of the first shot—can have disproportionately large effects. Maybe the ambushers did have a roadside bomb in place but it failed to go off, or perhaps they lacked time to put a bomb in. Another few inches to the left, and the first RPG would have hit the leading MRAP and disabled it in the middle of the bridge, with perhaps a far different outcome for the firefight. The quick response from the patrol—who, in their first real action, showed great composure and professionalism, calmly suppressing the ambush without overreacting—may also have had a lot to do with it.
    Either way, it seems clear to me, as I’m sure it does to any reader, that “classical” counterinsurgency theory doesn’t explain what happened here. Nor does it explain incidents like the Helmand road contractor attack, the Aegis team’s Iraq experience, or the battle of Wanat. Counterinsurgency most certainly offers a partial explanation, and is demonstrably correct as far as it goes. But other factors were at work here, beyond solely the existence of “an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.” 15 Indeed, it’s impossible to determine what actually happened in any of these incidents on the basis of counterinsurgency theory alone.
    Not only is it possible that, in all these incidents, local elders were in the driver’s seat, not the insurgents, but it’s also clear that particular acts of violence may be easier to explain through constructs like relative deprivation in aid programming, perceived injustice among ethnic groups or business networks, local and tribal rivalries, perverse economic incentives, and traditional modes of warfare (none of which are specific to counterinsurgency theory, or even to theories of conflict at all) rather than through a counterinsurgency lens.
    That day in Dara-i Nur was just one of many days in the field when I’ve felt a sense of dissonance about our reliance on “pure” or binary theories