I was fascinated by this report that the CIA has been winning friends and influencing people in Afghanistan by providing, in select cases, little blue Viagra pills to aging warlords who are struggling to keep up with (I almost wrote “stay on top of”) the Koranic maximum four wives:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.

What struck me, though, was the evidence that globalisation is not as much of a two-way street as I’d thought. These warlords are neither poor (can you afford four wives?) nor disconnected from the global pharmaceutical economy; indeed, many of them are involved in the production of much of the world’s heroin. India, the source of a great deal of “generic” Viagra (sildenafil citrate in a no-brand tablet), is just two borders away, one of them famously porous. So, why aren’t these many-wived warlords already popping Viagra like it was candy?

If the Washington Post is to be believed, it appears to be due to an information gap, possibly due to age and possibly due to a culture which makes discussing sexual matters tricky:

Two veteran officers familiar with such practices said Viagra was offered rarely, and only to older tribal officials for whom the drug would hold special appeal. While such sexual performance drugs are generally unavailable in the remote areas where the agency’s teams operated, they have been sold in some Kabul street markets since at least 2003 and were known by reputation elsewhere.

“You didn’t hand it out to younger guys, but it could be a silver bullet to make connections to the older ones,” said one retired operative familiar with the drug’s use in Afghanistan. Afghan tribal leaders often had four wives — the maximum number allowed by the Koran — and aging village patriarchs were easily sold on the utility of a pill that could “put them back in an authoritative position,” the official said.

…

Not everyone in Afghanistan’s hinterlands had heard of the drug, leading to some awkward encounters when Americans delicately attempted to explain its effects, taking care not to offend their hosts’ religious sensitivities.

Such was the case with the 60-year-old chieftain who received the four pills from a U.S. operative. According to the retired operative who was there, the man was a clan leader in southern Afghanistan who had been wary of Americans — neither supportive nor actively opposed. The man had extensive knowledge of the region and his village controlled key passages through the area. U.S. forces needed his cooperation and worked hard to win it, the retired operative said.

After a long conversation through an interpreter, the retired operator began to probe for ways to win the man’s loyalty. A discussion of the man’s family and many wives provided inspiration. Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted.

Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

“He came up to us beaming,” the official said. “He said, ‘You are a great man.’ ”

“And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area.”

It almost seems a travesty to call this “soft diplomacy.”