The Foreign Service Journal, January 2011

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 fence because the level of trust required for that is simply not at- tainable. Overcoming such issues is imperative when local leaders and communities are literally risking their lives simply by talk- ing to us. The most obvious solution is to focus the efforts of the various coalition actors on strategically important locales and resident communities. This means craft- ing engagement strategies that allow us to improve our own unity of effort so we can partner more productively with local leaders. Microdiplomacy in Kapisa For the past nine years, the coalition’s efforts to en- gage the Afghan population have focused on undertaking governance and development programming. While much has been achieved, some of the most insurgent- plagued locales have been marginalized by a lack of pro- ductive interaction with the government and access to international development aid. In Kapisa, this led to an overemphasis on the more-secure western half of the province, at the expense of communities in the region where the insurgency has been most concentrated. As a result, the insurgents have largely been free to dominate local communities where there is little to no government control, notably in the southern district of Tagab. Against this background, since the autumn of 2009 coalition forces have pursued holistic attempts to engage strategically important leaders and communities. The goal has been to build solid relationships with specific in- dividuals and groups that can be entrenched, show posi- tive results and then be leveraged to spread stability further out. This need has become especially pressing because the insurgents have been able to consistently pressure local leaders and communities to disengage from the coalition and the government. The simple reality is that 30 years of war have left Kapisa, especially the Tagab district, socially fractured. Building stronger relationships must start from the bot- tom up, building the social coherence of communities and working to increase the stature of local leaders. As one village leader explains, “Strong people can help you, but if I am weak, then I can’t help you or the people.” In Kapisa the coalition has es- tablished a Positive Forces Net- work, a long-term strategy to draw together the assorted lines of effort — development, secu- rity and governance — and the various coalition actors. It then focuses their efforts on specific leaders and communities that are strategically significant both to the COIN campaign and broader efforts to strengthen the Afghan government. This involves coordinating the following objectives, consistently and for the long term, under the framework of an “engagement strategy” for a particular community: • Development projects • Key leader engagements with community councils and local leaders • Security initiatives • Interface with the government. The PFN has prioritized the district of Tagab, notably because of its detachment from the government and the endemic strength of the insurgency there. The insur- gents had been able to exploit the exceptionally fractured sociopolitical life in the district by consistently killing or chasing out alternatives to their own local leadership. This, in turn, meant that there was a pressing need for the coalition to engage local leaders while they were still present. As one leader asked last autumn, “Right now the Taliban are chasing out all the leaders. What are you going to do when there are no leaders left?” Building Local Ties Coalition forces initially dismissed the area’s Safi Pash- tun population as “pro-Taliban.” But a dedicated, con- sistent effort to engage local leaders and their home communities has shown strong results as the area has in- creasingly turned against the insurgents. At its simplest, this is because the coalition, the government and locals all share hopes for improved security and development. Given that, as one local leader explained, “We have a common problem and we have a common interest, so we should work together.” The initial focus of the Positive Forces Network has been on consistent engagement of the Safi Pashtun com- munity of northern Tagab (along the major road that runs C OVER S TORY Focusing the coalition’s efforts on communities that are supportive of the Afghan government sends a strong message about the benefits of cooperation.