The answer is no, there aren't any informed critiques out there. The Gants of the world and his supporters pretty much just ignore the empirical evidence.
One of the authors today briefed the COIN Center's monthly integration meeting on the paper. (I had read it a couple months ago when it came out.) He noted that they had actually tried like hell to find some anthropologist who disagreed with them, who believed that there was some sort of operationalize-able structure or coherence to tribal identity, and there was not a single one. The conclusions they reached are the universal consensus of the Afhganistan anthropological literature.
Just for the sake of argument, I would assert that a tribal approach could yield some short-term gains in pursuit of our objectives. I think Gant oversells the idea, but this might be more of a marketing tactic and partially a result of the tendency to become wedded to one's ideas.
Twitters' 140 characters are too short so:
Even if (for the sake of the argument) Gant's idea could actually work it would still be inadvisable because the endgame for the US/ISAF is to leave Afghanistan. The Afghan Govt would fight any attempt to create alternative power structures (fair do's). And once the US/ISAF had left then the local power structure would have to change too with (probably) inevitable and bloody results. In the meantime you get some utterly charming ethnic conflict.
That said I wouldn't be in the least surprised to see an endgame where the ANA is the biggest player in Afghanistan and large chunks of the provinces are self run with an (un)official deal where the Afghan Govt runs the country provided it doesn't try to enforce its writ too much outside Kabul and the heartlands.
Of course the usual caveats about Afghanistan apply, namely that its big and complex and insanely complicated and I'm an interested amateur and not Afghan expert. The proverbial grain of salt might be useful.
I do agree that Gant's approach is not a good long-term strategy. I do see some merit in using it in some instances, in the short-term, so long as it is followed up with plans to bring those tribes into the fold of a larger, sustainable, developing nation. I see it as a short-term expedient means of purging Taliban influence in instances where other methods fall short. But, yes, I do agree that there are lots of dangers in relying too heavily upon it and on relying on it for too long. Maybe those dangers outweigh the payoff.
Argle-bargle or foofaraw? What? Are you 80? (I'm kidding, of course. I had to go there - those are funny words!) The endstate as officially defined is - it seems to me - unsustainable as an "organic" entity once we leave. I see a lot of the "hey, let us use the tribes" suggestions as an attempt to find a solution that might actually be sustainable. BruceR at snapping turtle had the following to say (in part): "And it's true that Maj. Gant's writing is frequently lacking in both discretion and any kind of academic rigour, and certainly presumes too much in believing his approach in the eastern highlands could ever be replicated across all of Afghanistan, which is too complex a country for any "one size fits all" approach. There should also be serious concerns about how to keep any approach from undercutting parallel Afghan security force development efforts. He's clearly a rough-hewn fellow, one whose close association with sword-and-sandals fiction author Steven Pressfield has both helped and hurt. (And yes, the Washington Post piece on his being sent to Afghanistan is embarrassingly fawning.)
That said, I'd still have to agree wholeheartedly with the "smaller footprint" part of the argument he's making. Greater integration of Western forces with existing Afghan security structures, even the ad hoc, tribal kind, is a must. Getting out and living with the people is a must. We can't look down from on high and hope that's going to help. Given a choice between the continued kind of utter isolation we saw this year in incidents like the Kunduz tanker bombing and the Gant approach writ large, I'd still favour the latter. Insofar as he is an advocate for engagement qua engagement, he's in the right." Are Gant and Christian using tribe in the same sense? I know I tend to ask a lot of questions about definitions and terminology here, and at other places like Inkspots, but that is because as an outsider it seems at times as if people involved in the Afghanistan discussion are talking past one another! At some point, we will have to engage local groups and proxies. The Pakistans, Iranians, Chinese and even other Stans and Indians - in a sense - already are, and will continue to do so, I think. Then again, I don't have the knowledge base of Christian and the like, so....(://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2010_01_18.html#006626)
Well Christian would probably refute the idea that you can meaningfully use the label tribe in Afghanistan as representing anything except as the fever-dreams of folks who've read too much G.A. Henty.
This spam was shitcanned by the Schmedlap Spaminator! ™