In light of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Afghanistan is back in the news, and Afghanistan expertise is back in fashion. In this Long Read, Martin J. Bayly explores the imperial histories that sit behind these forms of expert knowledge, and what they might tell about contemporary foreign policy expertise

Bayly, Martin J.

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LSE Research Online

(Un)knowing	the	Country:	Empire	&	the	Genesis	of	theAfghanistan	Expertise	IndustryIn	light	of	the	fall	of	Kabul	to	the	Taliban,	Afghanistan	is	back	in	the	news,	and	Afghanistan	expertise	is	back	infashion.	In	this	Long	Read,	Martin	J.	Bayly	explores	the	imperial	histories	that	sit	behind	these	forms	of	expertknowledge,	and	what	they	might	tell	about	contemporary	foreign	policy	expertise.	August	was	a	busy	month	for	Afghanistan	experts.	As	the	foreign	policy	commentariat	in	London	and	Washingtongeared	up	for	the	twenty-year	anniversary	of	the	9/11	attacks,	and	all	that	followed,	the	Taliban	were	speedilymaking	their	way	out	of	their	rural	hinterlands	to	take	Afghanistan’s	major	cities.	One	by	one	they	fell.	Ascommissioning	editors	and	reporters	scrambled	to	make	copy	deadlines	and	fill	in	the	gaps	in	their	knowledge,	anarmy	of	Afghanistan	experts	re-emerged	to	speak	knowledgably	on	Afghanistan’s	‘tribal	structures’,	and	thecomplex	relationship	that	the	Taliban	has	with	ISIS	or	Al	Qaeda.We’ve	been	here	before.	The	past	twenty	years	has	seen	brisk	business	for	Afghanistan	expertise.	The	pacequickened	especially	in	2009	as	US	President	Barak	Obama’s	surge	brought	the	weight	of	the	American	militaryjuggernaut	behind	a	full-spectrum	counter-insurgency	(COIN)	campaign	in	Afghanistan.	In	Foreign	Policy	magazine,a	special	issue	adopted	the	front	cover	of	the	US	Marine	Corps’	highly	touted	‘COIN’	manual	Field	Manual	(FM)	3-24	with	contributions	from	the	‘COINdinistas’,	General	David	Petraeus	(later	rising	to	become	Director	of	the	CIA,albeit	briefly),	and	Lieutenant	Colonel	John	Nagl	among	them.	The	transference	of	a	foreign	policy	agenda	from	oneoperating	arena	to	another	was	rarely	more	apparent.	At	the	core	of	this	lay	what	the	Americans	called	the	‘HumanTerrain	System’.	HTS	was	an	unlikely	(though	by	no	means	unprecedented)	alliance	emerged	between	socialscientists,	anthropologists,	area	studies	experts,	and	military	units	keen	to	gather	‘cultural	awareness’	of	theiroperating	environment	and	fill	the	gaps	in	understanding	of	a	military	organization	never	designed	to	think	deeplyabout	who	it	was	engaging	with.In	some	ways,	the	absence	of	expertise	on	the	region	is	an	historical	puzzle.	Writing	in	the	1960s,	as	he	made	hisway	across	the	southern	provinces,	the	celebrated	British	historian	of	civilization,	and	former	Chatham	Housedirector,	Arnold	J.	Toynbee	reflected	that	Afghanistan	had	been	‘deluged	by	history	and	devastated	by	it’	(p.	131).For	Toynbee,	some	study	of	Afghanistan	–	what	he	termed	a	‘civilisational	roundabout’	–	was	‘indispensible’	(p.	11)to	the	student	of	world	affairs.If	this	was	the	case	then	the	message	failed	to	percolate	through	to	the	US	Department	of	State	and	Department	ofDefense,	or	the	UK	Foreign	&	Commonwealth	Office	(now	UK	Foreign,	Commonwealth,	&	Development	Office).	In2010,	Major	General	Michael	Flynn	(later	rising	to	prominence	in	the	Trump	Administration)	reported	that	becauseUS	military	intelligence	had	focused	its	collection	efforts	and	analytical	brainpower	on	insurgent	groups,	itsintelligence	apparatus	‘still	finds	itself	unable	to	answer	fundamental	questions	about	the	environment	in	which	weoperate	and	the	people	we	are	trying	to	protect	and	persuade’.	In	July	2010,	of	the	161	British	diplomats	inAfghanistan,	just	three	spoke	fluent	Dari	or	Pashto	—	the	two	major	languages	spoken	in	Afghanistan.	Academiafared	little	better.	The	School	of	Oriental	and	African	Studies	(SOAS)	in	London	was	the	only	British	universityteaching	Pashto	or	Dari	at	the	time,	with	no	degree	level	Pashto	available	anywhere	in	the	UK.	Afghanistan	studieswas,	according	to	Sir	Adam	Roberts,	then-President	of	the	British	Academy,	‘an	orphan	in	academia’.A	seductive	logic	lies	behind	these	facts,	and	the	signalling	of	the	ignorance	of	post-imperial	bureaucracy.	Inessence,	it	is	the	idea	that	if	only	knowledge	of	foreign	places	were	more	refined,	disastrous	foreign	policy	choiceswould	be	less	frequent.	Rory	Stewart,	(later	rising	to	compete	with	Boris	Johnson	to	become	the	next	British	PrimeMinister)	made	a	similar	observation	in	his	account	of	his	own	Afghanistan	travels,	tellingly	titled	The	Places	InBetween.	‘Colonial	administrations	may	have	been	racist	and	exploitative’,	he	wrote.	‘But	they	did	at	least	workseriously	at	the	business	of	understanding	the	people	they	were	governing.	…	Post	conflict	experts	have	got	theprestige	without	the	effort	or	stigma	of	imperialism.	Their	implicit	denial	of	the	differences	between	cultures	is	thenew	mass	brand	of	international	intervention’	(pp	271–72).Did	Rory	Stewart	have	a	point?	Well,	perhaps	not.South Asia @ LSE: (Un)knowing the Country: Empire & the Genesis of the Afghanistan Expertise Industry Page 1 of 3		Date originally posted: 2021-11-01Permalink: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2021/11/01/unknowing-the-country-empire-the-genesis-of-the-afghanistan-expertise-industry/Blog homepage: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/European	involvement	in	Afghan	affairs,	and	attempts	to	‘know	the	country’	stretch	back	to	at	least	the	beginning	ofthe	nineteenth	century.	In	1808,	the	East	India	Company	administrator	Mountstuart	Elphinstone	(later	rising	tobecome	Governor	of	Bombay),	was	the	first	British	envoy	to	visit	Afghanistan,	at	that	time	under	the	reign	of	ShahShuja	(r.	1803–10,	1839–42).	The	geostrategic	rationale	behind	the	mission	was	to	expand	Company	influence	inadvance	of	a	largely	overplayed	fear	of	growing	Napoleonic	influence	from	the	West.	But	Elphinstone’s	mission	alsosat	within	the	nineteenth-century	European	quest	for	‘scientific’	knowledge.	This	was	the	foundation	upon	whichacademic	Orientalism	was	built	–	a	discourse	that	Edward	Said	would	later	deconstruct	as	having	justifiedimperialism	in	advance,	through	representing	the	oriental	‘other’	as	preternaturally	backward,	superstitious,	andwithout	history.Yet	even	Elphinstone	was	reluctant	to	fully	immerse	himself	in	Afghan	culture	and	society,	preferring	instead	thepalatial	surroundings	of	Peshawar;	the	winter	capital	of	the	declining	Durrani	kingdom,	whilst	his	researchassistants	(normally	‘native	agents’)	fanned	out	across	the	country.	This	did	not	limit	the	impact	of	his	work.	Themulti-volume	An	Account	of	the	Kingdom	of	Caubul	became,	in	historian	Benjamin	Hopkins’	words,	a	‘hegemonictext’	of	Afghanistan	studies.	It	retains	that	influence	today.	Readily	available	in	the	expat	bookshops	of	Islamabad	itforms	part	of	a	wider	oeuvre	of	‘frontier’	literature	whose	reprint	dates	coincide	with	major	international	crises	in	theregion.Keen	consumers	of	Elphinstone’s	work	were	later	European	explorers,	among	them	Alexander	Burnes.	Lionised	bythe	likes	of	Rory	Stewart,	Burnes	was	drawn	to	the	region	by	the	growing	appetite	for	‘useful	knowledge’	on	thetrading	prospects	offered	by	the	Indus	river	region.	A	key	objective	of	the	Court	of	Directors,	and	their	statebackers,	the	British	Crown,	was	to	establish	the	Indus	as	a	trading	entrepot	in	order	to	draw	influence	away	fromthe	Russian-controlled	Central	Asian	trading	hubs	of	Nizhny	Novgorod	and	elsewhere.	Having	surveyed	the	river,Burnes	continued	on	to	Kabul	with	two	European	co-travellers.	Together	they	produced	a	catalogue	of	policyreports	on	the	commercial	potential	of	Kabul,	Kandahar,	and	Herat.	Burnes	would	later	rise	to	become	a	prominentadvisor	to	the	Governor	General	in	India	(George	Eden,	1st	Earl	of	Auckland,	was	Governor	General	of	India	from1836–42)	on	the	Company’s	Afghanistan	policy	(subsequently	becoming	the	Company’s	representative	in	Kabul).Having	failed	to	secure	trading	terms	with	the	new	Afghan	Amir,	Dost	Muhammad	Khan	(r.	1826–63),	the	Britishinvaded	Afghanistan	on	the	pretext	of	a	Russian	threat.	But	what	sat	behind	this	justification	was	the	Elphinstonianidea	that	Afghanistan	was	a	‘tribal	republic’.	This	‘tribalisation’	of	Afghanistan	—	as	Hopkins	puts	it	—created	whatJames	C.	Scott	later	termed	a	‘state	simplification’.	Eliding	the	complexities	of	Afghan	political	history,	andencouraged	by	their	intermediaries	in	exile	including	the	deposed	Shah	Shuja,	the	British	settled	on	the	comfortingnarrative	that	Dost	Muhammad	Khan,	of	the	Barakzai	sub-tribe,	was	a	usurper	to	the	historical	continuity	of	theSaddozai	royal	lineage	—	the	tribe	to	which	Elphinstone’s	former	host	belonged.	The	policy	of	regime	change	theBritish	pursued	was	built	upon	this	logic.As	we	are	frequently	reminded,	the	invasion	of	1838	ended	in	bloody	failure	with	the	retreat	of	1842	and	thesubsequent	brutalising	of	the	Afghan	population	by	a	returning	‘Army	of	Retribution’	later	that	year.	The	tone	wasthereby	set	for	Anglo-Afghan	relations	in	the	ensuing	decades,	at	least	until	the	Second	Anglo-Afghan	War	of	1878.Since	2001,	the	story	of	the	First	Anglo-Afghan	war	has	been	retold	countless	times	through	a	catalogue	of	booksthat	resembles	almost	a	genre	in	itself.	We	might	term	it	Afghan	‘disaster-lit’.	Frequently	these	works	carry	theparaphernalia	of	imperial	nostalgia:	for	instance,	a	nod	to	Rudyard	Kipling	(who	himself	never	visited	Afghanistan),often	through	a	misattributed	mention	of	the	‘Great	Game’,	that	was	only	ever	marginal	to	the	novel	Kim.	Or	we	arereminded	that	Afghanistan	is	the	‘graveyard	of	empires’,	a	sobriquet	that	succeeds	in	being	both	historicallyinaccurate	and	Orientalist	(in	the	Saidian	sense)	at	the	same	time.	The	cornerstone	of	this	literature	is	the	notionthat	Afghanistan	is	beyond	help.South Asia @ LSE: (Un)knowing the Country: Empire & the Genesis of the Afghanistan Expertise Industry Page 2 of 3		Date originally posted: 2021-11-01Permalink: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2021/11/01/unknowing-the-country-empire-the-genesis-of-the-afghanistan-expertise-industry/Blog homepage: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/But	when	attention	is	turned	to	the	period	following	1842,	a	more	resonant	story	emerges.	In	light	of	theirignominious	defeat,	Afghanistan	became	subsumed	in	British	accounts	under	a	powerful	imaginative	geographythat	cast	the	country	as	perpetually	violent.	This	was	partly	a	function	of	the	information	system	through	whichknowledge	was	filtered	to	the	British	in	India.	An	improvised	system	of	frontier	officers	drawing	upon	mobile	groups:traders,	holy	men	and	deserters,	tended	to	elevate	instances	of	what	C.	A.	Bayly	termed	‘information	panics’,	oftenfeeding	the	narrative	that	Afghanistan	was	doomed	to	periodic	bouts	of	civil	war	and	state	collapse.	Implicit	in	thiswas	what	Nivi	Manchanda	has	recently	termed	the	‘politics	of	disavowal’,	one	which	absolved	regional	players,	andthe	British	in	particular,	of	any	role	in	this	process.	There	is	not	a	huge	leap	to	be	made	to	the	narrativessurrounding	Afghanistan	today.	Embedded	in	the	rhetorical	style	of	the	Afghanistan	expert	is	not	just	a	story	ofendless	repeating	cycles	of	invasion,	renewal	and	collapse,	but	a	deeper	Orientalism	that	justifies	therepresentation	of	Afghanistan	as	preternaturally	prone	to	internecine	‘tribal’	conflict.In	The	Places	in	Between,	Stewart	gives	voice	to	the	‘rush	to	the	intimate’	that	Derek	Gregory	spoke	about	in	hisdepiction	of	the	culturalist	persuasions	of	twenty-first	century	counterinsurgency.	The	cascade	of	Persian	greetingsthat	often	accompany	encounters	on	Stewart’s	trip	could	be	lifted	straight	from	the	travel	accounts	of	Elphinstone,Burnes	or	any	number	of	other	explorers.	Yet	the	closing	sections	of	his	book	hint	that	his	cultural	awareness	wasperhaps	more	finely	tuned	to	his	own	community	of	Westerners	residing	in	Afghanistan	at	the	time,	than	it	was	tothe	highlanders	of	the	Hazarajat.Stewart’s	dismissal	of	the	aid	and	development	sector’s	intellectual	bankruptcy	highlights	a	more	historically	mobileevolution	in	the	genesis	of	expert	knowledge	on	Afghanistan.	It	is	a	development	captured	in	the	observation	madeby	Hamid	Dabashi,	a	disciple	of	Edward	Said,	that	the	knowledge	that	sustained	the	notion	of	the	‘East	as	a	career’,need	not	be	historically	static.	It	was	rooted	in	a	particular	moment	in	the	imperial	lifecycle,	and	to	be	contextualisedwithin	the	institutional	architecture	—	what	Said	called	the	‘corporate	body’	—	that	produced	it.	As	Dabashi	clarifiesin	Can	Non-Europeans	Think?	(2015):This	is	‘fast	knowledge’	produced	on	the	model	of	‘fast	food’,	with	plastic	cups,	plastic	knives,	plastic	forks,	badnutrition,	false	satisfaction.	The	US	invades	Afghanistan	and	these	think	tanks	produce	a	knowledge	conducive	tothat	project;	then	the	US	leads	another	invasion	of	Iraq	and	these	think	tanks	begin	producing	knowledge	aboutIraq,	with	little	or	no	connection	with	what	they	had	said	about	Afghanistan,	or	what	they	might	say	about	Iran.There	is	little	or	no	epistemic	consistency	among	the	three	—	for	these	forms	of	knowledge	are	produced	underduress	(with	tight	deadlines)	and	are	entirely	disposable.	You	throw	them	out	after	one	use.	(p.	18)As	we	pick	over	the	wreckage	of	the	international	community’s	precipitous	withdrawal	from	Afghanistan,	we	mightat	least	spend	some	time	thinking	and	reflecting	on	the	way	the	west	has	presumed	to	‘know’	the	people	and	thecountry,	and	how	this	knowing	has	come	about.	Imperial	resonances	resurface	once	more	as	the	discourse	of	aviolent	geography	re-emerges	in	an	attempt	—	partly	at	least,	surely	—	to	satisfy	a	narcissistic	urge	to	atone	forthese	failures	and	the	misery	they	have	heaped	upon	the	Afghan	people.	Distancing	ourselves	from	Afghanistan(and,	implicitly,	Afghans)	is	much	easier	when	it	is	cast	as	necessarily	violent,	never	mind	the	horrors	of	Americanprison	camps,	and	the	sheer	firepower	of	western	weaponry	that	has	been	left	behind.	With	such	echoes	of	imperialfailure	reverberating	it	is	tempting	to	recall	Marx’s	aphorism	that	history	repeats	itself	first	as	tragedy,	then	as	farce.It	is	fair	to	say	both	are	evident	in	recent	events.	But	as	Priya	Satia	has	observed	in	Spies	in	Arabia:	The	Great	Warand	the	Cultural	Foundations	of	Britain’s	Covert	Empire	in	the	Middle	East	(2008,	p.	337),	this	was	not	meant	to	betaken	literally.	Rather	—	for	Marx	—	history	progresses	as	a	dialectic,	and	the	conditions	of	possibility	that	allow	thisto	happen	are	as	much	epistemological	as	they	are	material.	They	relate	to	how	we	know,	and	how	we	fail	to	know.	Banner	image	©	Andre	Klimke,	‘Afghanistan,	Apache	Attack	Helicopter	in	Approach’,	September	2020,	Unsplash.The	views	expressed	here	are	those	of	the	author,	and	not	of	the	‘South	Asia	@	LSE’	blog,	the	LSE	South	AsiaCentre	or	the	London	School	of	Economics	&	Political	Science.South Asia @ LSE: (Un)knowing the Country: Empire & the Genesis of the Afghanistan Expertise Industry Page 3 of 3		Date originally posted: 2021-11-01Permalink: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2021/11/01/unknowing-the-country-empire-the-genesis-of-the-afghanistan-expertise-industry/Blog homepage: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/

(Un)knowing the country: empire & the genesis of the Afghanistan expertise industry

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(Un)knowing the country: empire & the genesis of the Afghanistan expertise industry

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