Stabilization again

During the Stabilization Symposium on Tuesday, a panel consisting of Frances Brown (Fellow – Carnegie Institute), Ciara Knudsen (Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Secretary – Department of State), Katherine Donahue (Office of Transition Initiatives – USAID), and Colonel Joe Holland (Chief, Stability and Humanitarian Engagement Division, J-5 Global Policy & Partnerships – Department of Defense) discussed avenues for building peace and stability in post-conflict situations, using the Stabilization Assistance Review (SAR) as a blueprint.

According to Brown, three key obstacles make it complicated to transition from conflict to peace: defining success, measuring progress, and governmental organization. The SAR states that post-conflict stabilization is inherently political, allowing the US to better confront the first challenge. Specifically, it provides the US government with the flexibility to candidly judge whether the legitimate political actor on the ground wants peace and stability, making it possible for interventions to succeed. This mindset would have been crucial in Afghanistan, where large sums were poured into stabilization efforts that derailed because president Karzai’s government was not on board.

Brown argued that the SAR also allows the US to adopt more realistic measures for success in stabilization operations. In Afghanistan, cherry-picked stories were used to evaluate US peace building efforts, causing onlookers in Washington to mistakenly believe that the success of three, US-implemented district councils was indicative of the state of affairs in the country as a whole. Brown expressed confidence that the SAR’s emphasis on a coordinated, cross-government strategy for stabilization will make US implementers more accountable to each other, increasing the likelihood that future interventions will adopt more accurate measures of success.

Knudsen used her experience with the Defeat ISIS Campaign to critique the SAR’s inapplicability to situations where short-term, cosmetic interventions will not work because no legitimate on-site actors exist. ISIS has systematically destroyed entire communities’ physical and social infrastructure by reducing cities to rubble, planting IEDs, assassinating tribal leadership, and leaving sleeper cells behind in liberated areas.

These conditions breed a climate of fear and distrust in target communities, making it nearly impossible to find actors who enjoy the legitimacy to inspire the unity necessary to accomplish stabilization. Thus, stabilizing institutions in destroyed cities like Mosul and Raqqa will require meaningful, long-term engagement. Knudsen argued that the SAR does not recognize that most conflict situations call for more than quick, low-budget interventions to develop lasting peace.

Donahue struck a more positive tone than Knudsen, praising the SAR for being realistic and encouraging swift governmental interventions to stabilize conflict zones. The SAR’s declaration that stabilization is an iterative process falls directly in line with the philosophy OTI uses for its intervention strategy. According to Donahue, this will give the US government the flexibility to behave more like OTI, allowing it to mobilize quickly instead of getting bogged down in crafting grand strategies that often do not apply to the situation on the ground. Instead, the SAR strategy centers around learning on the go, recognizing that moving quickly and being correct at the 80% level is more productive than shooting for 100% effectiveness and failing because of inaction.

During his assignment to Kirkuk in the Iraq War, Holland was responsible for facilitating provincial reconstruction teams in the area. In what was indicative of the broader White House strategy at the time, military officers were under the impression that the Department of Defense was spearheading stabilization efforts in Iraq. Little interagency coordination occurred as a result. This military-centric approach led to planning gaps, causing stabilization attempts to end largely in failure. Iraqis remained employed for a snapshot in time, so communities slid back into conflict following US withdrawal. The SAR’s emphasis on  interagency coordination represents a building block for future stabilization success, opening the door for long-term, sustainable development by legitimate regional partners after US troops end the mission.

The Bottom Line: The SAR is promising, but it has limits and presents little more than a framework to guide future US stabilization efforts in conflict regions. While this general blueprint will give US actors on the ground considerable flexibility in crafting case-specific strategies, the SAR’s desire for quick, low-cost interventions ignores that most conflicts are multidimensional and can only be solved by long-term stabilization initiatives. Reluctance to commit significant time and resources to stabilization means that future US peace building efforts will likely fail, or that the US will avoid intervening in these situations altogether.