COIN Book Club #10 : Three Cups of Tea

As Kip was once making an enthusiastic presentation to a general officer, an aide to the general said, toward the end of the presentation, "I like his [Kip's] enthusiasm."

The general quipped, "I have learned never to mistake enthusiasm with capability."

Greg Mortenson is one of those rare men whose brash enthusiasm is matched by tremendous capability. And if, as Dr. Dave Kilcullen would have it, counterinsurgency is armed social work, then Mr. Mortenson and his co-author David Olivier Relin have offered in Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time an abject lesson on gaining influence in the world's most difficult and dangerous places.

For the counterinsurgent to read the book is a reminder of the challenges not only of seeking to influence an alien culture but also the patience and tenacity required to succeed in fostering social change. For any reader, it is a wonderful tale of adventure and turning tragedy into triumph as Mortenson is inspired by the death of his sister and his failed attempt to climb K2 to bring schools to left-behind villages of the Himalayas and Hindu Kush.

Perhaps the most important lesson that Mortenson learns is the patience and relationship-building required to effect change, from which the book takes its title:

"That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life," Mortenson says. "We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their 'shock and awe' campaign would end the war in Iraq before it ever started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them."

Mortenson offers some abject lessons throughout on how we can win the war against takfiri extremists, with guns, yes (Mortenson, a former Army officer, shares with Sarah Chayes an appreciation for the mutually generative properties of security, development, and governance) , but also with a large focus on development and education in particular. Aid, conditioned importantly on the assistance of the locals in providing for themselves, goes a long way:

That's why, despite how much talking about her ordeal has taken from her, Fatima Batool brushes aside her shawl and sits up straight at her desk, to tell her visitors one thing more. "I've heard some people say Americans are bad," she says softly. "But we love Americans. They are the most kind people for us. They are the only ones who cared to help us."

Mortenson offers other valuable insights to our contemporary challenges in central Asia. Kilcullen tells us in his Twenty-Eight Articles to engage the women in our efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Reading Mortenson provides insight into that on-the-ground, oft-ignored suggestion by Kilcullen and another one of the principles of counterinsurgency outlined in Field Manual 3-24: counterinsurgents should prepare for a long-term commitment.

"Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities," Moretenson explains. "But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls."

From a counterinsurgent's perspective then, getting the girls into school becomes not just a matter of Western taste but also a matter of changing opinions and actions for the long-term, even if there may be resistance in the short-term. Of course, it helps to go about building local support among key leaders to gain such opportunities:

With due ceremony, Syed Abbas tilted back the lid of the box, withdrew a scroll of parchment wrapped in red ribbon, unfurled it, and revealed Mortenson's future. "Dear Compassionate of the Poor," he translated from the elegant Farsi calligraphy, "our Holy Koran tells us all children should receive education, including our daughters and sisters. Your noble work follows the highest principles of Islam, to tend to the poor and sick. In the Holy Koran there is no law to prohibit an infidel from providing assistance to our Muslim brothers and sisters. Therefore," the decree concluded, "we direct all clerics in Pakistan to not interfere with your noble intentions. You have our permission, blessings, and prayers."

That, dear readers, is decisive information operations.

Kip encourages all practitioners of COIN, particularly those on their way to Afghanistan or Pakistan to read Three Cups of Tea. For a book that never mentions counterinsurgency, it is a masterpiece on gaining influence to effect social change, the essence of winning the long war.

UPDATE: (thanks AM's mom for pointing out that this is about more than COIN. To read more about Mortenson's institute, click the link.)