Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond by Abdulkader H. Sinno

Author:Abdulkader H. Sinno [Sinno, Abdulkader H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, History, General
ISBN: 9780801459306
Google: G2h5DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 2686729
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2008-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Manipulation of Knowledge and Information

The PDPA’s ability to manipulate knowledge and information suffered from the intense factionalism that plagued its ranks. Its Soviet sponsors suffered from their own severe shortcomings in this area. On the other hand, the local specialization of the mujahideen; occasional training of their commanders in centralized Pakistani, Hizb, or Massoud training facilities; and regular regional meetings of commanders in the later part of the conflict allowed the efficient manipulation of knowledge and information for local resistance activities. And this was all the mujahideen needed so long as their main goal was to exhaust and outlast the Soviets.

The Soviet military was not particularly effective in capitalizing on its centralized structure to preserve knowledge, process it, and distribute it to where it could reduce the learning curve and improve the troops’ efficiency, as McMichael (1991, 121) tells us:

On the whole, there does not appear to have been a systematic comprehensive, command-wide effort to use training circulars, briefings, SOPs [standard operating procedures], operational notes, or manuals to keep the LCSFA [Soviet forces or Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan] continuously informed about new tactical developments. It was up to individual units, more or less, to update their own procedures based on their own experiences. There are few indications of lateral flow of this kind of information between similar units. Many tactical lessons probably had to be re-learned over and over again, especially in view of the frequent change-over in personnel.

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