Conflict

Local conflict is a fixture of Pashtun culture and is not only a significant variable in predicting social adaptation, but has been exploited by external entities seeking to control these areas throughout recent history. As previously discussed, competition among community members with familial ties emerges from a variety of sources including a Pashtun’s sense of honor or a male’s desire to better position himself for

28 Borhan Younus, “Understanding the Afghan War, Part Two: Rise of Taliban and State Crisis,”

March 19, 2008, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1203758215509.

inheritance. Consequently, violent conflict emerges from this milieu, particularly in areas with weak community institutions. Traditional tribal and community institutions, such as the jirga and shura, have been weakened by years of war because mujahidin commanders, the communist government of the 1980s and early 1990s, strongmen, and the Taliban have targeted generations of effective community elites in an effort to implement their own institutions to influence the population.²⁹

In some Pashtun areas, the crippling of traditional conflict resolution apparatuses, such as jirgas, coupled with the GIROA’s inability to solve local disputes, has created a void that the Taliban has filled with its own institutions. For example, in some cases, the Taliban’s willingness to serve as a fair and efficient arbiter of local disputes makes it a community asset. Being responsive (reaching arbiters is easy as making a phone call), not requiring an oath of allegiance, or demanding payment from affected parties, practices based upon Islamic principles, all make the Taliban an efficient source of justice and increases its legitimacy in the face of the populace.³⁰ In essence, this represents an effort by the Taliban to provide a valued service that, with continued success, will generate trust within Pashtun communities. Therefore, local conflict is an important consideration for this study because, as the Taliban have demonstrated, the establishment of apparatuses that answer the population’s call to adjudicate their disputes is a means to gain influence.

From the perspective of this study, a key question emerges: can the expansion of information infrastructure increase social capital and serve to help Pashtun communities deal with conflict more effectively than the Taliban?

This idea is critical to this study for several reasons. First, successful information strategies in Pashtun areas cannot assume tribal collectivism and must either mend or exploit rifts within kinship networks to be successful. For example, during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the mujahedeen were able to gain access to and expand their influence within certain areas by allying with one or more parties involved in disputes

29 United States Army G2, My Cousin’s Enemy is My Friend: A Study of Pashtun Tribes in Afghanistan, 17.

30 Yochi Dreazen and Siobhan Gorman, “Taliban Regains Power, Influence in Afghanistan: Sets Up Courts, Local Governments in Southern Regions,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2008,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122713845685342447.html.

between members of the same kinship network. Such an approach not only enabled the mujahedeen to alter the balance of power within a community in a way that secured an operational advantage, but it also guaranteed recruits for the insurgency.³¹ Additionally, prior to Pakistani independence, Nawab rulers in Pashtun areas encouraged local strife by encouraging blood vengeance. Essentially, by levying fines against offended parties for not seeking revenge, Nawabs provided an economic incentive that fostered enough divisiveness within Pashtun communities that enabled better control of the population.³² Second, lacking a solid historical tradition of collective action, it is completely feasible for Pashtun tribes to respond to an external information strategy with any one of the Merton’s modes of behaviors (Figure 1.3), validating its usefulness as an analytical framework.

Before introducing the variables that govern this study, it is useful to summarize the major points emerging from the literature by incorporating them into an analytical model. A structured analysis of how the introduction of information infrastructure affects social adaptation in Pashtun communities is only possible with the construction of an analytical model because it effectively simplifies a complex process. To this end, the author has developed a social adaptation and influence model representative of a Pashtun community (Figure 1.2). As the model shows, the process by which the Taliban’s rural strategy manipulates the community’s information environment is conceptualized and implemented through the completion of Snow’s framing tasks, diagnosis, prognosis, and motivation. Next, the model shows that social adaptation in rural Pashtun communities is governed by four socio-cultural factors: economic utility, informational reach, patronage, and safety. Finally, the population will demonstrate one of four modes of social adaptation, as described by Merton: conformity, innovation, rebellion, or ritualism. It is important to note that this is a conceptual model. The next section describes how this

31 United States Army G2, My Cousin’s Enemy is My Friend: A Study of Pashtun Tribes in Afghanistan, 12.

32 Keiser, Friend by Day, Enemy by Night: Organized Vengeance in a Kohistani Community, 48.

model is operationalized and integrated into a structured analysis that evaluates the role that competing information activities have upon social adaptation in rural Pashtun communities.

Figure 1.2. Influence Operations Framework for Pashtun Community