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On to the next big thing

As I am going to be impolite further on, I’ll say first that I enjoyed yesterday’s CSIS conference on rethinking civilian stabilization and reconstruction.  It opened with IRD President Arthur Keys offering a shopping list of good things, among which:

• civilian/military cooperation
• quick impact
• the need to be flexible, nimble and adaptable
• monitoring and evaluation of impact
• local engagement
• capacity building
• protection of vulnerable populations

Citing David Petraeus, he made the very good point that not preparing for stabilization and reconstruction won’t make the need go away.

Bob Lamb was a bit more edgy:  the need won’t go away, but our civilian institutions are weak, despite the fact that they are the primary means by which the US government reacts to international contingencies.  We know development needs to be led by locals because donors don’t know the terrain.  Why don’t we do it?  Then he asked the question he would repeat, without getting a satisfactory answer, throughout the day:  why have our institutions not adopted the lessons learned?  There is something about the political economy of our own institutions that prevents it, he suggested.  There are also new directions we should be pursuing:  women as peacemakers, geospatial data made widely available, and private sector action that supports stabilization efforts.  The American people should not lose faith, but the “S&R” community needs to do things that will justify continued support.

In David Ignatius’ view, the withdrawals of our expeditionary armies from Iraq and Afghanistan create a power vacuum.  We need new, civilian ways to project power.  This is one of the most important challenges of our time.  AID merely contracts out, USIP is not properly an instrument of national power, CSO (the Conflict and Stabilization Ops part of the State Department) is too small, the CIA is going back to its proper intelligence role and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are having trouble operating in non-permissive environments.  The military has been used to fill the gap, but that won’t work in Egypt or Syria, which is a country on the verge of breakup.

Responding to David, Jim Dobbins underlined that all 20 international interventions since 1989 show positive outcomes:  16 have had peaceful outcomes (and all are showing progress in that direction) and all show economic growth, movement towards democracy, and sharp improvements in human development.  This is especially the case where the entry of foreign troops has been consensual and the country in question of modest size.  Ethnic diversity and poverty do not reduce the success rate.  The keys to success lie in gaining the cooperation of neighbors and in coopting local elites.  It is important to keep things in perspective:  we’ve had a good deal of success.

On Afghanistan, Jim asks how the US can shape the political transition there.  The international community will focus quite properly on whether the 2014 elections are free and fair.  But the Afghans will focus on the outcome.  What is needed is a new leader who, like Karzai, manages to create a patronage network and cobble together a cross-ethnic coalition that puts forward a multi-ethnic slate of candidates.

Whatever justifiable concerns there might be about corruption in such a patronage network, it is important to remember the progress Afghanistan has made on health, education and telecommunications.  On indices of democracy and corruption, Afghanistan ranks more or less in the same league with neighboring countries.  It takes time for formal institutions to work against against family, tribal and ethnic relationships.

As for our own institutions, Dobbins underlines that their inadequacy has been most apparent when US military forces are losing, which is when they call for civilian help.  Security is vital, so adequate stabilization forces are the first requirement.  AID, he suggested, should be AIR(reconstruction and)D.  State should direct an enhanced civilian capacity.  Where the United States has engaged in reconstruction, it is generally appreciated, but we clearly still have a problem in Egypt, Pakistan and in much of the rest of the Muslim world.

I skipped the mid-day sessions on Colombia, Liberia and South Sudan, so I can’t tell you what happened at those.  But I was back in the room for Rob Jenkins, who leads AID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which is certainly one of the stars in the US government’s firmament.  Rob thought a lot had been accomplished in recent decades:  a discipline has been created, even if we don’t really know what to call it.  Stabilization is too low a bar and reconstruction is not really adequate.  What we need now is a more data-driven process, though he was quick to admit that we can only make a contribution to preventing bad things from happening, not prove that we did.

That said, respect for local needs, engagement to encourage ownership, and local governance are clearly important.  Transitions are generational (20-40 years), but Congress limits OTI’s engagement to three.  The US government is more together than in the past.  AID has people at all the combatant commands.  Prevention is getting priority.

In response to Lamb’s constant question (why are the lessons learned not institutionalized?), Rob thought the fault lay with insufficient funding for contingencies and risk aversion.  Experimentation, speed and agility are important, but everyone is worried about their next audit.  Some lessons are overlearned.

CSO assistant secretary Rick Barton wrapped up this fine day with four points:

• We need a new optic: we are no longer doing post-conflict reconstruction as in Iraq and Afghanistan but rather supporting popular revolts in terribly violent conditions requiring greater speed and capacity than we’ve got.  Military intervention is not where it’s at. It’s a golden moment for civilians.
• We also need organizational reform:  policy and implementation need to be closer together, enabling earlier results.  There needs to be a center of gravity for decisionmaking, not in the National Security Council, that takes responsibility and ensures coherence.
• Our analytical lens needs to be broader:  we need to be talking with broader swathes of society, including silent majorities.  Intelligence is too often driven by those with big budgets rather than the real needs.
• We need to expand local ownership, which is our only chance for success.  To get out of interventions we need to pay attention to local priorities.

The big thing, Rick averred, is to appreciate the enormity of the challenges.

I do, and this event affirmed my view that no one from inside the system can answer Bob Lamb’s good question:  why don’t we institutionalize the lessons?  I’m afraid that the answer is the institutions we have are not learning machines.  They weren’t established as such, and they have not developed in that direction.  No one in them is rewarded for applying lessons learned.  Unlike the military, where lessons learned get recycled to field commanders at times within 24 hours, State Department and USAID make sure the process is so slow no one will be paying attention by the time the lessons learned are formulated.  On to the next big thing.