What's Your Pineapple Express? (ft. Jason Howk)

This week on the ‘What’s Your Pineapple Express?’ series, Scott had the honor of sitting down and speaking with an incredible leader – Jason Howk. Jason leads a non-profit organization called Global Friends of Afghanistan and has continued doing amazing work while keeping Afghanistan at the forefront. Join us this week as Jason shares his many years of experience in Afghanistan, gives us insight into some very important information, and shares what we need to learn from the abandonment of Afghanistan. Some of the things he reveals about what happened with this abandonment and more importantly, what’s happening right under our noses in this growing safe haven will blow you away.

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Select Afghanistan experiences and published works 

Summary

Jason Criss Howk spent 23 years in the U.S. Army as an Infantry and Sapper Paratrooper, and also as a South Asia Foreign Area Officer (Soldier-Diplomat).  His work in Afghanistan began in 2002 and has continued until the present day as he leads the Global Friends of Afghanistan educational non-profit organization that monitors and leads discussions on Afghan issues. Jason has worked on Afghanistan portfolios at the tactical, operational, strategic, national policy and international policy levels. He has taken part in a variety of missions to include military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, and humanitarian efforts. During his Afghanistan work Jason worked daily with dozens of generals, ambassadors, and political appointees with Afghan portfolios. Due to his assignments and knowledge of the topic, Jason is one of the few Americans that has been privy to the discussions of all 4 presidential administrations as they planned their Afghanistan policy.

Jason studied both Arabic and Dari at the Defense Language Institute, is a professor at the USAF Special Operations School, and is a Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies. He holds a Master’s Degree in South Asia and Middle East Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, is a CGSC graduate, and was a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2010-2015. Jason is an award-winning author who has written 4 books in English and has published over 225 works since 2008 in over 40 outlets. As a professor, lecturer, and columnist he focuses on Afghanistan, Islam, terrorism, and various National Security topics. For his work on Afghanistan Major Howk earned the Legion of Merit award for his years of exceptionally meritorious service as a Soldier-Statesman, and two Bronze Star Medals. He also earned the Afghanistan Governmental Success medal from the President of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Experiences

Sep 2002-Sep 2003       

• Sep-Nov 2003: Operations officer Coalition Task Force 82. Engineer Operations Officer on MG Vines General Staff at Bagram Airfield. Focus on engineer support to daily counter-terrorism operations across the country. His key effort was the completion of the FOB Salerno Airfield and Heliport in Khost province. Tactical and Operational level experiences in various Eastern Provinces.
• Nov 2002-Sep 2003: Aide De Camp to MG Karl Eikenberry as he took over as Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan at the U.S. Embassy Kabul and also as the U.S. Security Coordinator. They worked daily with Afghan cabinet members across all parts of the government for the first year of the interim government and got to know all of them intimately. MG Eikenberry was tasked with implementing the international Security Sector Reform program in Afghanistan, and as Chief OMC-A creating the Afghan National Army and MOD from scratch. Their typical daily interactions included the leaders of UNAMA, NATO-Nation Embassies, ISAF, the 3-star US Forces Commander, CENTCOM, OSD, the Joint Staff, the Intelligence Community, regional ambassadors, the Special Forces leaders training the ANA, and the US Ambassador. For the majority of the year Jason was the sole note-taker in over 4,000 hours of meetings and the drafter of reports to State, OSD, and CENTCOM.

2004-July 2007

• During an assignment in TRADOC Jason began to create and teach courses in the Army and at civilian institutions about Afghan and Islamic culture. He helped the Engineer School develop their Cultural, Counter-insurgency, and Counter-IED training for 2LTs deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq. During company command the Army selected Jason for the highly competitive Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program after completing a fellowship in Oman where he studied their insurgencies and how they rebuilt their nation after those conflicts. He continued to study Afghanistan and stayed in touch with his former boss LTG Karl Eikenberry who was the Combined Forces commander in Afghanistan.

2007-2009 FAO Training

• In FAO training he obtained a Master’s Degree in South Asia and Middle East Security Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2008. At NPS Jason focused on Afghanistan and the Oman counter-insurgency campaigns. He published a thesis on Oman’s COIN and CT lessons which was distributed to his former bosses LTG Eikenberry, LTG McChrystal, and GEN Petraeus. He also wrote a directed study on the creation of the Afghan Military and the US Security Sector Reform efforts that was published as a monograph by the US Army War College in 2009 with a foreword by GEN McChrystal. That study was completed after many interviews with LTG Karl Eikenberry who was then assigned to NATO, just prior to his selection as Ambassador to Afghanistan.
• From 2008-2009 Jason attended Arabic language training at DLI until the day LTG McChrystal was nominated by President Obama to command ISAF. He was immediately ordered to the Pentagon to prepare LTG McChrystal for senate confirmation and to assist him when he took command in Kabul.

2009-2010 

• As ADC to LTG McChrystal, Jason helped prepare him for his assignment and attended all meetings with Legislative and Executive branch leaders in Washington. Within hours of the Senate confirmation, they flew to Brussels to meet with NATO leaders and then onwards to Kabul Afghanistan. In Kabul Jason helped GEN McChrystal form trusting relationships with the same Afghan leaders Jason worked closely with when they first formed the government in 2002.
• For the next 2 months Jason traveled with GEN McChrystal to over half the provinces to listen to NATO and Afghan forces, and Afghan leaders to better understand the war.  Jason assisted COMISAF during the strategic review of the U.S. and NATO Afghanistan policy, often quietly liaising between GEN McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry, his new and old bosses.
• After the strategic review was sent to CENTCOM Jason was selected to initiate and design the NATO interagency team focused on reintegration — i.e., how former insurgents could rejoin society. GEN McChrystal loaned Jason to support the incoming Reintegration Advisor who had worked on a similar mission in Iraq and would carry out sensitive diplomatic missions.
• As the Military Assistant and Political Advisor to retired British Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb. They worked with the Afghan government as they developed their peace and reintegration policy with foreign governments, diplomats, and international organizations. This also helped launch the US/NATO peace process and made Jason one of the insiders on Afghan peace talks for over a decade.

2010-2014

• After a year in Dari (Afghan Farsi) language training at DLI, and graduation from the Army Command and General Staff College, Jason was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Afghanistan and Pakistan Task Force. In that role, he led two of the highest-level interagency teams of Afghanistan and Pakistan experts in providing products and briefings for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and OSD leadership, and the White House.  Also in that role, his teams helped prepare four different Generals to assume senior commands in Afghanistan. One of his team’s key efforts was monitoring and helping U.S. leaders prepare for diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban.

2015-2021

• After retiring in 2015, Jason continued his focus on Afghanistan and Islam as a professor at numerous institutes and continued to advise the U.S. and Afghan governments, and international bodies.
• From 2016 to 2017, he served as an advisor on the Presidential Transition Team’s National Security cell focused on the Afghan peace process and foreign relations with Islamic nations. He contributed ideas to both the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Strategy for Counterterrorism.
• From 2017 onwards he served as an advisor on conflict resolution to the U.S. government, NATO member states, parts of the U.N., the Afghan President’s NSC staff, and the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces leadership.
• Jason was invited to give presentations at the 2019 and 2020 Central and South Asia Military Intelligence conferences at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). His topics included the future of the ANDSF, and the Unconventional Warfare efforts of Pakistan against Afghan and NATO forces.
• Jason led a USIP project team to assess post-conflict security in Afghanistan that culminated in a an invitation from the Afghan President and UN Chief in Kabul to give a presentation to over 70 nations at the 2020 U.N. Donor Conference on Afghanistan in Geneva.
• A second USIP project allowed his team to remain involved in the peace process until August 2021 as part of a U.S. Institute of Peace project authorized to conduct Track-2 diplomacy while talking to the Afghan government, various parts of Afghan society, and Taliban supporters.
• From 2019-2021 during both USIP projects his team took part in the USIP-led discussions that contributed to the congressionally-mandated Afghanistan Study Group Report. “A Pathway for Peace in Afghanistan” was published in February 2021.

August 2021 Onwards

• After the collapse of the Afghan republic while Jason was virtually assisting the evacuation of at-risk Afghans from Kabul, he and his colleagues formed the Global Friends of Afghanistan non-profit (GFA) to speak and write about Afghanistan and ensure the topic of Afghanistan was not removed from the daily news, and to help Afghans raise their voices to the outside world. On 1 September 2022 GFA held their inaugural annual conference with Georgetown University to discuss the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans, and the humanitarian crisis and security collapse in Afghanistan.

Writing Experience

Summary

Jason has written 5 books, was on the editing team of the FAO Association International Affairs Journal, and was the senior editor for A Voice for Two Nations blog. He has published over 225 articles, essays, and news reports in over 40 outlets. He is a mentor to writers and a member of the Military Writers Guild, where he edits and co-authors with new writers. Most recently he has begun publishing U.S. veterans and Afghan book authors at Tamarisk Press a niche publishing assistance non-profit.

His work has been published in the following outlets: CNN, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, ClearanceJobs News, Military Times, The Cipher Brief, US Institute of Peace, The Global Observatory, Small Wars Journal, Divergent Options, From The Green Notebook, The Bridge, The Forge, The Foreign Service Journal, The FAOA Journal, Observer, Task&Purpose, Business Insider, Real Clear Defense and Politics, SOFX The Special Operations Forces Network, US Army War College, Naval Postgraduate School, O-Dark-Thirty, and in various Afghan newspapers like Reporterly, and Hasht e Subh. He also discusses Afghanistan, Terrorism, and Islam on CNN, Afghan International Persian, TRT World, and Voice of America, and appears on other news and radio outlets.

Select Publications

Books

• 2012, Lions in the Path of Stability and Security: Oman's Response to Pressing Issues in the Middle East. My 2008 NPS thesis was published in Oman in Arabic.
• 2017, The Quran: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation. Gold Medal Winner at the National Indie Excellence Awards
• 2021, Leaders Always Go a Little Further: ...Unless They Trip. Foreword by LtGen Sir Graeme Lamb.
• 2021, Ali’s American Dream: An Iraqi Refugee’s Story of Survival and Triumph. Foreword by SIV recipient Nasirullah Safi formerly of Afghanistan.
• 2022, U.S. War Options in Afghanistan: Choose Your Own Path. Foreword by Afghan Colonel A. Rahman Rahmani, a would-be terrorist who was deradicalized and later flew special operations combat missions against the Taliban-Haqqani network and aided evacuation of Afghans Pilots in 2021.

2020-2022, Lead Editor of the Foreign Area Officer Association book, Culture Shock: Leadership Lessons from the Military's Diplomatic Corps. Foreword by LTG (Ret) Charles Hooper.

Publishing advisor and book formatting for 4 books. 

• 2021: Brand Elverston’s Proclivity and Nasirullah Safi’s Get the Terp Up Here!
• 2022: Brand Elverston’s Instruments of Ignorance and Nasirullah Safi’s Indispensable: Tale of a Military Interpreter

Various Studies (contributor and author/co-author)

• 2009, US Strategy Review of US and NATO Afghanistan Policy, ISAF
• 2009, A Case Study in Security Sector Reform: Learning from Security Sector Reform/Building in Afghanistan (October 2002-September 2003), US Army War College press
• 2010 Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
• 2021, “No Going Backward”: Afghanistan’s Post–Peace Accord Security Sector, USIP
• 2022, Afghan Women: “I Don’t Feel Safe.” A Global Friends of Afghanistan survey report, GFA

Select recent articles and columns

• Aug 2022, Afghanistan Has Become a Terrorist Paradise, The National Interest
• Aug 2022, How Can We Help Afghanistan? Ask the Afghans, The National Interest
• Mar 2022, Information Operations: How is Ukraine Different Than Afghanistan? ClearanceJobs News
• Mar 2022, Lessons Learned from the Last 20 Years: 9 Flaws in the American Way of War, ClearanceJobs
• Dec 2021, U.S. Foreign Affairs Influence and the Afghanistan Fallout for the U.S., ClearanceJobs News
• Oct 2021, Why Afghan Peace Talks Got Derailed, ClearanceJobs News
• Sep 2021, ‘You Are Fighting in the Wrong Country.’ How We Failed Afghan Policy Miserably, The Pilot
• 19 Aug 2021, Taliban Takeover in Kabul: Pakistani Invasion Complete in Afghanistan, ClearanceJobs
• 9 Aug 2021, Where is the Taliban with the Doha Peace Process? ClearanceJobs News
• May 2021, Terrorists Kill Around 90 Afghan Students: The World Shrugs, ClearanceJobs News
• Apr 2021, Afghanistan Needs a Weaker President: Decentralizing power can be key to long-term peace, Foreign Policy, with Shabnam Nasimi
• Feb 2021, Taliban Keep Showing True Colors with Mockery of the Doha Peace Process, ClearanceJobs
• Jan 2021, Path to Peace in Afghanistan for the Biden Administration, ClearanceJobs News
• Dec 2020, Time to Make the Taliban Diplomatically Uncomfortable, ClearanceJobs News
• Feb 2019, America, don’t abandon Afghanistan…Again, CNN, with Abdul Rahman Rahmani