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Burden sharing is good, but…

The State Department announced Friday that it was canceling $200 million in assistance for “stabilization” in parts of Syria the US and its allies control and welcomed a contribution from Saudi Arabia and other countries that would amount to $300 million. What could be wrong with that? It sounds like the Administration has succeeded in getting others to share the burden. That’s good.

The devil of course is in the details. First, the money seems to be limited, like the US money that was originally programmed, to “stabilization,” which in the current Administration’s lexicon means things like water, electricity, demining, and the like. Everything short of governance, which is shunned as the much-despised “nation building” the President doesn’t want to do. But there is no way of preventing ISIS, Al Qaeda, or some other extremist group from returning unless the territory is secured and governed.

The Defense Department is training the security forces. I’ve got serious doubts about that, since what is needed is not just counter-terrorism/insurgency, but rather policing, which has dramatically different requirements, including not only investigatory capabilities but also courts and prisons. But let’s assume the Pentagon has learned that and is somehow training a decent police force that will protect the population and not abuse it. If they arrest someone, where will he be tried? According to what procedures? And how will punishments be administered? If a civil case is brought, how will decisions be enforced?

There are other big issues: who will govern and how? Melissa Dalton of CSIS helpfully outlines the complexities of a serious stabilization effort, which would have to include security, greater citizen engagement, more inclusive governance, and a serious communications/outreach effort. There is not sign of any of these things in the Administration’s announcement. We can hope that mission creep will make them happen, but that is hardly a substitute for good planning.

The Kurds who constitute the heart of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US allies in eastern Syria, are said to be in negotiations with the Assad regime to combine their forces: is the US really prepared to encourage the Saudis to provide hundreds of millions in eastern Syria if the forces that control it are in turn controlled by Damascus? Wouldn’t that be a contradiction of the announced policy of no aid beyond humanitarian assistance for areas under Assad’s control?

In addition, burden-sharing is not a simple matter, as Melissa also emphasizes. How will the money flow? To whom? To be effective, burden-sharing will require leadership and coordination within a coherent and over-arching strategic framework, as well as oversight to ensure that the impacts are positive. We don’t want to be funding warlords or Kurds attacking inside Turkey. There is no sign of any of this in Friday’s announcement, which mentions only a common list of projects. That is nowhere near what will be required to ensure synergy, effectiveness, and consistency with US policy goals.

Friday’s announcement included Jim Jeffrey’s appointment as the Secretary of State’s Representative for Syria Engagement. That’s good news, as he is eminently qualified from his previous positions as Ambassador to Albania, Turkey, and Iraq. His role is said to be focused on the UN-hosted Geneva talks aimed at ending the war with an irreversible political process. But leverage there will depend on how things are going in the part of eastern Syria that the US and its allies now control. What role will he play in the shared stabilization effort? How will US military and civilian presence be translated into US negotiating leverage? Will Jim have the kind of all-of-government authority required to have a decisive impact on the negotiations?

Yes, burden-sharing is good. But it is also complicated and difficult.