Building a Taliban-Proof Bridge: The Value of Understanding Stakeholder Needs to Create Lasting Change
- Adam Witthauer
- Sep 29
- 11 min read
Updated: Oct 15
I had the privilege of serving in 2/34th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan. We were the tip of the spear in implementation of the then new COIN counterinsurgency strategy, which was further symbolized by being the first brigade-sized element in all of the US Army to be issued the new OCP “multi-cam” uniforms, which later served as a template for the current field uniform that replaced the ACU. The COIN strategy focused on the population as the center of mass, and relied heavily on “strategic corporals and lieutenants.”
My Role as a Civil-Military Officer
As a Field Artillery lieutenant attached to the Squadron Staff of 1-113th Cavalry, I was assigned as the Squadron S9, the Civil-Military Officer. This position was not organic to any Cavalry Squadron at that time, but was a role that was critical to COIN and the most tangible portion of the “non-lethal targeting” function. The bar was set high and my squadron commander and operations officer both made it very clear that this was an area where we were going to deliver, and we were going to do it quickly and effectively.
One challenge associated with this job is that like so many of my peers, I had to perform the role of a Civil Affairs officer without the benefit of training. There simply weren’t enough Civil Affairs officers to conduct COIN on this scale, but there were quite a few Field Artillery officers, so we just had to figure it out. I studied all the Civil Affairs doctrine I could, and also regularly checked in and shared the SOP I was developing with our two Civil Affairs soldiers at Brigade headquarters. Beyond that, I had to learn as much as I could about the Afghan population.
Understanding the Situation
Our battlespace included all of Parwan Province. Located just north of Kabul, Parwan province was a very interesting and strategic location. Bagram District was a major population center, largely in a lush valley fed by canals less than an hour from Kabul. This contained Bagram Air Base, home to over 35,000 troops while we were there. To the northwest of Bagram was Charikar, the provincial capital and largest city in Parwan Province. One of our Forward Operating Bases was located near here at a site called “red hill.” It gained this name for having its approaching hillside littered with the husks of Soviet tanks that were destroyed during their invasion in 1979-1989.
North of here were Jabal-us-Saraj and Salang districts which were generally peaceful and included the famous Salang tunnel. Beyond here was Panjshir Province, the last stronghold of the Northern Alliance. West of Charikar were the mountain districts: Shinwari, Ghorband, Surkhi Parsa and Shekh Ali. West of these districts were Bamyan province, which was the home to the Hazarrah, named after the thousand who settled the area during Genghis Khan’s conquest. The mountain districts were remote and difficult traverse. There was one usable road that went up the valley, and much of the valley floor was above the maximum flight altitude of a Blackhawk helicopter. The surrounding peaks reached 26,000 feet.
To the southeast of Bagram was Kohe Safi district. This district was also mountainous and difficult to navigate and its location made it a tactical artery from Bagram to major Taliban strongholds to the east near the Pakistan border. It is no surprise that this area saw the most enemy activity, and our difficulty in maneuvering and providing logistical support to this area is exactly why the Taliban valued it.
The Complex Role of the Taliban
The role of the Taliban in Afghanistan is far too complex to describe without turning this into a book, but if I were to summarize their influence in a handful of sentences it would be this: when the Soviets left in 1989, they burned all the orchards, destroyed all the canals and planted 3 land mines for every Afghan. After a decade of Soviet invasion there was no "old government" to fall back on, and several ethnic groups competed for control.
After several years of civil war, the Taliban, with outside assistance, were aligned with the largest ethnic plurality. They had a campaign that, while brutal, did bring something every Afghan desired: a semblance of stability. It was a brutal stability to be sure, but it was a little less brutal than continued civil war. It was just barely attractive enough, to just enough people, to get them to back off just enough for the Taliban to gain control.
This is all to say that the Taliban has never been exactly popular, but they were begrudgingly permitted to take control as a slightly lesser evil than the previous situation. Even while we were there a decade after the US first made their presence (and now over 3 decades since the first Soviet invasion), much of the Taliban's support would be considered AstroTurf instead of grassroots. The Taliban got incredible amounts of money from opium trade, and they bought support from an absolutely desperate populace who were willing to put aside their own intense moral objections to planting IEDs if it meant keeping their family from starving or worse. These moral objections became even weaker in light of the US's own failures such as the Abu Ghraib atrocities. These events were not only disgusting in their own right, but were also heavily exploited by the Taliban's own effective psyops campaigns.
Taking all this into consideration, it was not difficult to find local leaders who were eager to partner in defiance of the Taliban. Dr. Abdul Waheed was one such leader. Given the ongoing threat of Taliban violence, particularly in an area they were largely free to operate, it took real boldness to stand up as a Kohe Safi's District Sub-Governor.
Infrastructure Challenges
The Kohe Safi district seat was in the town of Dandar. Like most of this region, the roads inhibited peoples' ability to trade goods and services, go to school or to mosque or visit their family and friends. There was one intermittent river crossing near the District Center that was particularly large and particularly dangerous during the wet season. The area did not receive much rain, but during warm months snow melt made the crossing impassable. Dr. Waheed showed us the site, and frankly there were a lot of challenges that were immediately present. The river crossing itself was at least 50 meters, meaning this would have to be somewhat long; long enough to be a real challenge if we were to build it to support our MRAP vehicles which weighed 30,000 lbs or more. Ideally, it would be large enough to support a "jingle truck," the large, often overloaded cargo trucks named for the ornaments attached to them to ward off Murphy's Law. On top of this there would likely be a fair bit of work required to the roads on their approaches to the bridge.
The river bed was dry the day we visited. I asked Dr. Waheed how often water was running and how often it was impassable. He noted that there were typically only a few weeks a year it was impassable, however crossing it was always treacherous whenever there was any water flow as it made the sharp, basketball-sized rocks in the river bed quite slippery. I told him that this looked like a real challenge, but I'd spend some time thinking about it and let him know what we could come up with.
Rethinking the Bridge Solution
The cost and complexity to do a conventional bridge was outside our team's capabilities, and also likely wouldn't be achievable during our rotation. It certainly wouldn't meet our commander's intent of delivering quickly; it was just too big for us to manage in every aspect of project management. Even with unlimited funds or time there was a huge risk in executing the project. The area was already far enough off the beaten path that it would be incredibly difficult to get the proper equipment and materials to the site, and any materials or equipment placed there would require a very burdensome level of security to ensure they weren't immediately pilfered. Most importantly, such a bridge would be an ideal target for the Taliban. Even worse, a blown up bridge would immediately become a roadblock, and the road approaches would make this roadblock very difficult to bypass with a conventional bridge. It would be worse than if we did nothing at all.
A conventional bridge just wouldn't do. I brainstormed this a bit more, focusing on the fact that the root cause of the issue wasn't that they didn't have a bridge, but rather that they didn't have a safe way to cross the riverbed. So what other ways are there to cross rivers? This reminded me of playing Oregon Trail in school, where you got the option of paying for a ferry, paying for a guide to help you float your wagon, or just trying to ford the river. A ferry just didn't seem feasible in any form, a guide didn't seem to make sense either, so that left us with fording, which was always the cheapest and riskiest option. What if we could make fording the river less risky?
That gave me an idea. Growing up in Iowa there were Class B roads, also referred to as Minimum Maintenance Roads in some other states. These roads didn't meet all standards for traffic safety, and as such came with a disclaimer that you traveled them at your own risk. On smaller creek crossings they would often have a low water crossing, which was essentially a bit of semi-improved road that went through the creek. This meant that you were still driving through the creek, but it wasn't bad once you put a little concrete down, and this was a solution that was very cheap and easy to install and required very little maintenance. What's more, by having the water run over the top, there were no culverts, no piers; really nothing you could do to blow it up. This was a Taliban-proof design.
Pitching the Idea
I needed a way to pitch this idea to Dr. Waheed. I figured a picture would be a good way to communicate the idea, and then I remembered that my favorite local state park (Ledges, near Boone Iowa) had several nice low water crossings and I was able to find some nice pictures online. I sent these to our platoon leader on the ground to discuss with Dr. Waheed.
The reception was not optimistic at first. During high water the road would still be impassable, and overall the idea was just not what they imagined. I admitted that while the road would still be impassable during the brief periods of high water they experienced, it would be a lot safer to cross during all other conditions, and it was also the only feasible solution we had. I also discussed how this was a design that was used in my favorite park, and that even though sometimes it was impassable, the design proved very resistant to flood damage, an important factor in areas where high water is commonly experienced. Most importantly, this was a design that the Taliban would be hard-pressed to destroy.
Dr. Waheed agreed to proceed and began discussing the idea with his people. The idea of a Taliban-proof bridge had a real appeal. I obtained bids from several local contractors, and we were on our way. Within a couple months the bridge was complete and we came out for final inspection.
Final Inspection
We were quite impressed with the structure, which consisted of beautiful stone masonry and a very nice reinforced concrete driving surface. There were substantial retaining walls to protect the approach, and the design was still low enough that an effective bypass route was available. This was mainly in place to allow traffic while the bridge was under construction, but it also sent a message that even if the Taliban did figure out how to blow it up, and alternate route was right there waiting.
There was a designated and relatively short area where water was directed to flow, meaning in low water conditions the "wet" portion was relatively short and close to the town side, and consideration to erosion had been given. Dr. Waheed was very proud of the bridge, and had a couple children bring over a sample of the rebar they used for reinforcement.
Reflecting on Accomplishments
This project was certainly my proudest accomplishment, but ultimately it was one of many that we did. In the 9 months we were there we accomplished nearly 65 projects in all, many similar in scope to this. This was on the order of 4 times as many as a typical unit in that time period, and they were all conducted to these same standards.
To accomplish this, I developed a process that included:
Assessments to inform requirements development, partnered with ground-level battlespace owners through shura (similar to city council meetings) with maliks (local leaders), District Sub Governors
Project selection and prioritization using the Task-Force's strategic working group
Creation of a Statement of Work, contractor selection, and execution of the contract as a US Government-certified Contracting Officer Representative
Periodic inspections and statusing to ensure projects were proceeding as expected and to keep leadership informed. These were most often conducted by battlespace-owning platoon leaders. Some of these sites took more than a day to get to, so this was the only feasible way to literally cover this much ground. This had the additional benefit of giving the platoon leaders their own ownership in the projects as well as another connection to their local partners. I clearly outlined the expectations agreed upon in the Statement of Work and what we were looking for, and they provided pictures.
Final inspection, follow-up shuras, payment
Commemoration to celebrate and publicize partnership
Impact
So what did we get out of this? We now know that after 20 years the US eventually withdrew, but our task force did achieve impressive results. Our improved partnership with local authorities greatly aided in intelligence collection. As a result, Task Force Redhorse set a record for the number of High Value Targets captured by any task-force-sized element in the history of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Our partnership saved lives as well. There was one instance where I was checking out a bridge in one of the western mountain districts, and in the middle of a meeting with the District Sub Governor we received a report that an IED had been planted on the main road through the valley; the only route we could take to get back to base. We requested EOD support, and they discovered a command wire detonated 107mm rocket projectile. They then performed a controlled detonation in place to dispose of it. Not all units were lucky enough to get this kind of warning.
So the big question is: Was it really Taliban-proof? The Dandar bridge is still there almost 15 years later.
The CERP program which served as the primary source of funding for our COIN projects saw a lot more scrutiny and funding cuts near the end of our tour. Criticism included lack of oversight, lack of sustainability (in that the Afghan government was not able to provide continued support or maintenance of what had been built), and promotion of local corruption. Many saw this funding as nothing but "shovel ready" make-work to try to get "kids off the streets." At the same time, the biggest question the maliks had for me was how long the US was planning on staying in Afghanistan. They knew we wouldn't be there forever, and they knew that we were really focused on what we could get out of our rotation.
I wanted to give something I knew would last longer than our rotation. I wanted a little more than a temporary distraction to buy the time of military-aged males, and with a lot of help, I can say with confidence I was able to deliver it. The fact that this structure is still standing absolutely boggles my mind, but looking back through the craftsmanship in these pictures I can see that it truly was constructed with even more heart than I put into it.
Create Your Own Lasting Change
At Big W Engineering Solutions, we believe in creating meaningful, lasting change by combining innovative thinking with practical solutions. Our approach is rooted in a deep understanding of complex challenges, honed through real-world experience in high-stakes environments. We don’t just build projects; we build trust, resilience, and impact that endures. Whether it’s designing infrastructure that stands the test of time or crafting strategies that empower communities, we are committed to delivering results that matter. Let us partner with you to turn your vision into reality and leave a legacy of progress. Together, we can engineer solutions that truly make a difference.
Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful, feel free to share it with your network or reach out with your own engineering challenges. I’m always up for a good problem-solving chat.
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