When it comes to Afghanistan, and Western involvement in it, expressions like “we told you so” and “we’ve been through this before” seem a lot less trite and churlish today than they might have a few short years ago. Of course, a few short years ago, things were not quite what they are now, and while a short and sharp military operation in 2001-2002 to smash Al Qaeda‘s Ansars and their Taliban sponsors felt epic and righteous, the slow slog of the subsequent counterinsurgency mission holds much less appeal. For a time, it looked like everyone understood the generational investment in troops, resources, and political will needed to secure, hold, and democratize Afghanistan. That still holds, but the idea that a single generation might do the trick is held as little more than eyewash. With this, the interventionism of the post-Cold War era may have had its hopeful (or pragmatic, depending on where your partisan sympathies lie) bubble rudely popped.

Last Thursday evening, I was at the Frontline Club for close to two hours – well spent – listening to BBC reporter David Loyn, in conversation with historian, novelist, and broadcaster Saul David.  They were there to discuss Loyn’s new book, Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan (Hutchinson, 2008), and the lessons of history we should have had in pocket in 2001 but have had to relearn (or,  in Loyn’s case, excavate from the historical record).  Loyn has been around the block a few times, including an early journalism career that  had him covering the first free elections in Poland, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Romanian revolution, and stints as correspondent from Moscow and New Delhi, among other places. As the BBC’s man in South Asia, he covered events in Kashmir and Sri Lanka, and notably, the rise of the Taliban.

He’s been reporting on Afghanistan for the last fifteen years, a condition that’s gained him unique access and perspective (and earned him British government criticism for speaking directly to Taliban representatives in 2006, a special irony given the current Afghan, American, and British atmospherics about negotiating with these once and again foes). The roles of experts and witnesses, the commonalities and differences between the two and the contributions they can make to the public good, were discussed at CTlab during a recent symposium on Social Science in War: Defending Hamdan. Loyn’s profile, and his accomplishment in penning Butcher and Bolt, is therefore especially apropos, combining deep local knowledge, archival work, interviews with serving military officers, government officials, and non-state actors, and an observer’s keen eye for historical colour and contemporary detail.

Saul David cued Loyn with the basic- but still relevant – questions we all have about Afghanistan, and Loyn responded with fantastically engaging narrative vignettes from British military history. There was nary an “I told you so” to be heard, from either the discussants or the audience. Only an interest in hearing about what was once known, and how it might make a difference today. Frontline’s intimately spaced events room, with its exposed brickwork and iconic media images of past and present wars, amplified the sense of relevance, and as I looked around, I could see members of the audience, veteran journalists, soldiers, and other Afghanistan hands among them, who were simply captivated. If nothing else, this was good history, the kind that tells a tale worth listening to. While many are wondering how screwed we are in Afghanistan, we’d be remiss if we didn’t  take away from Loyn’s work lessons for our political masters (and ourselves, as we vote for them). As Saul David noted in his review of Butcher and Bolt in the Telegraph, “The US will have a new leader by 2009, as perhaps will Britain. He should read this superb book before he makes matters worse.”

Don’t take my word for it, or anyone else’s. Watch the video, read the book.

The Architecture Of Fear, a project of architect George Agnew, has something new up. After nearly five months of silence, Agnew has posted the full text description of an organized visit to Kabul published earlier this year. Fingers crossed that this means TAOF will be returning to some sort of active online status. Meanwhile, some tidbits…

On walls, the securitization of urban space in Kabul, and how architects feel about all of it, Agnew recounts his group’s link-up with Anne Feenstra, “a Dutch architect with a
busy practice in Kabul”  who “had immersed himself in the ways of the
city and the country at large”. Feenstra harbored an abiding concern for “the prevalence of ‘security’ and the way it had destroyed
Kabul’s public realm piece by piece.”  He
“takes it personally,” Agnew writes, “when organizations set up their walls with blatant
disregard for those around them, a practice taken very much for granted
– so much so that most of the embassies and missions have completely
ignored a decree straight from President Karzai to remove them.”

On thinking outside the box, improvisational skills and survival amidst chaos, Agnew notes Feenstra’s “impressive collection of security badges he
had accumulated during his time in Kabul.” One in particular: “out of frustration Anne and his office (AFIR) had created
their own security badges to combat useless and meaningless
checkpoints.” I sympathize. More: “The tag was an AFIR badge identifying himself as an
employee of AFIR and stating that he had clearance to enter any secured
area and had access to all information. ‘You wouldn’t believe how often
this works,’ he told us.”

.
Getting into Wazir Akbar Khan, the embassy sector of the city, was straightforward enough. Passage through it, on the other hand, was a lesson learned in architectures of control. Agnew describes the impact of concrete walls on human dynamics. “Although we had
easily passed through, walking around this empty street was quite
unsettling. Even as the only westerner I felt more comfortable walking
through a busy street market than there.”

I wonder how a local would feel. Part of  Agnew’s response, no doubt, had to be the newness of the situation, a reaction to the alienness of the environment. He goes on: “Standing in a canyon of
reinforced concrete walls while having every move presumably watched
really made me aware of my strategic disadvantage. During the entire
excursion I felt pressure to leave, immediately.” No doubt, this was the intended effect. Who designed it?

Second on our
trip was a block which was home to the Asia Foundation, an economic
trade group. Anne  pointed out the standard compound walls and the marks
on the sidewalk where larger concrete fortifications had been built. We
spoke to a security guard at an adjacent site and he explained that
prior to the Asia Foundation occupying that site it was home to
DynCorp, an American security company. During that time a car bomb had
been detonated next to it and done severe damage to the neighboring
area. DynCorp then left and the Asia Foundation arrived. As mentioned,
all NGOs and embassies had been instructed to dismantle their
fortifications by presidential order. The Asia Foundation obliged and
what we saw was the pared down version. We were told that since they
had done this the residents of the neighborhood felt much safer as by
creating the outward appearance that they were trying hard to improve
security, the compound still remained a target. This was a
typical example of a kind of ‘security machismo’ which was rife in
Kabul. I would guess that more than half the people we saw driving in
big, armored SUVs were doing more harm than good by calling unnecessary
attention to themselves. I felt perfectly safe for the duration of our
stay in our small, unassuming Toyota van. I’ll take stealth over
strength any day.

Indeed. I’ve read plenty analyses on the international political economy of war and peace. This makes for an interesting corollary (… is there a causal element?), consistent with my own experiences of life in Sarajevo, site of the longest wartime siege in modern history; consistent also with my memory of attenuated territorial dead zones in northwestern Bosnia, across which I walked endless kilometers, through abandoned, gutted villages… enforcing a skewed post-war peace in landscapes absent the human life that might break it.

How an international presence can carve up and reapportion space in ways and forms that suit its immediate, practical, but non-local needs. How the shear between endogenous and exogenous spaces can generate new hybrid forms and human behaviors.

Questions.

Or not. David Hambling, writing at Wired’s Danger Room about the latest in tactical laser weapons research, argues “A
rough calculation suggests that exposed skin would be blistered/burned
in under a twentieth of a second, so the beam could play over the
target at quite a high rate. It’s unclear whether clothing would have
much protective effect or whether it would simply ignite and cause
secondary burns.” More: “So instead of “zap-and-you’re-dead” in normal science fiction style,
with a hundred kilowatt laser, it’s more a matter of spraying the target
all over to ensure they’re done. The description of the ATL as a ‘long range blow torch‘ is probably quite accurate.”

Owww. Bad.

Mad scientists. They’re everywhere.

That’s enough brilliant analysis for today.

The new CTlab look is courtesy of Colin Murphy and Symbio Design, of Providence, Rhode Island. After doing some research on potential design firms, Colin leaped off the screen at us:  his portfolio includes the web work for James Der Derian’s brilliant Info-Tech-War-Peace project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. After some detailed email and phone discussion of what we’re trying to achieve, Colin’s team developed the branding and design elements that are now visible here, as well as plenty of additional material that we haven’t yet deployed. 

Thanks to Colin and his team for doing an excellent job.

FYI, Symbio Design has just renamed itself Providence Design.

That’s what I’ll be calling the piece I’m writing: an extended essay built around Antoine Bousquet’s The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity (Hurst & Co. Publishers, December 2008). I’ve mentioned it  and his research  on complexity in international relations in passing,  previously; I had the opportunity to review the manuscript earlier this year, and it’s simply excellent.

The essay will be a detailed review of The Scientific Way of Warfare, through which I’ll make a number of arguments and observations from my own research on battlespace regulatory regimes and sanctuary concepts and practices. I’m looking to develop this for magazine publication, though, rather than for a scholarly periodical, as a pre-publication lead-in to my own Hurst book, Sanctuary in Militant Thought and Practice.