The Anbar Awakening: Can It Be Exported to Afghanistan?

The success of the anti-Al Qaeda ‘Anbar Awakening’ in Iraq has prompted speculation that this success might be replicated in Afghanistan via the cultivation of an analogous counter-insurgent ‘Awakening’ among Afghanistan’s tribes. In this paper, I critically evaluate the prospects for the near-term emergence of an ‘Afghan Awakening’. I argue that the greater weakness of tribal structures in Afghanistan, the tighter linkages in the Afghan theatre between transnational jihadists and local insurgents, and the lack of convergent interests between Coalition forces and any significant section of the Afghan insurgency all distinguish the situation in Afghanistan from the environment that produced the ‘Anbar Awakening’. While community-based militias such as the newly established Afghan Public Protection Force may be able to assist in enhancing local population security in parts of Afghanistan, they are unlikely to play the strategically decisive role in the Afghan conflict that they did in defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq