Tag: Afghanistan
Take off the training wheels!
The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), one of Kabul’s leading thinktanks, thinks Afghanistan has problems implementing high-level policy prescriptions:
While donor influence on the making of policy has generally been high, formal policies have proven to be very limited in the shaping subsequent action, and are often quickly discarded or replaced. Thus, much policymaking at the national level is best understood as a means of representation and of negotiating donor-government relationships.
AREU had already expressed doubts about the latest reconciliation efforts.
None of this surprises, but it is an important reminder: national plans are nice, but donors need to leave the Afghans to make more of their own decisions. No one ever learned to ride a bike with the training wheels still on!
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Fewer troops, more politics
The Center for American Progress weighs in with another report that advocates reducing military efforts in Afghanistan. This one should go on that shelf I suggested you clear: it makes a good, strong argument for an improved political and diplomatic strategy.
While trying to avoid criticism of the Administration, the report is forceful and clear in faulting current efforts for failing to define a clear political end-state for Afghanistan and for giving Afghanistan a higher priority than it deserves in the hierarchy of threats to U.S. national security.
The report fails however to ask or answer explicitly that vital question: “is Karzai worth it?” But it gives a clear enough implicit answer: no, not unless he cleans up a good deal, and even then there is a compelling need to decentralize, thus reducing his control, enlarging the political pie and enabling more local power brokers access to a slice. Failing that, CAP would have us withdraw both troops and money more quickly than currently planned.
Where the report fails to convince is in arguing that troop drawdown and increased political and diplomatic effort are compatible. When did we ever manage that trick in the past? It gives ample examples of problems the troop presence creates, but do we really think thinning out in Helmand and Kandahar before making more progress is going to improve the situation there?
The report is big on leverage, conditionality and benchmarks: give the Afghans things we want them to do, and cut funding (or the troops) if they don’t do them. There may well be too much money in Afghanistan (we are spending several times the country’s GDP), but conditionality and benchmarks have rarely worked well elsewhere (certainly not in Iraq). It is not clear why they would work much better in Afghanistan.
So yes to more politics and diplomacy, but so long as we are willing to ignore the question “is Karzai worth it?” we’ll likely do better not drawing down the troops too fast.
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Brilliant policy vs. real world resistance
Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, SAIS colleague Kurt Volker welcomes the results of the NATO Summit but wonders whether the real world will permit serious implementation.
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Petraeus determined, Pentagon reports some progress
With David Petraeus in Paris vaunting the necessity of success in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has just issued a nuanced account of where things stood on September 30.
The Pentagon:
“Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas. The deliberate application of our strategy is beginning to have cumulative effects and security is slowly beginning to expand. Although significant challenges exist, some signs of progress are evident.”
General Petraeus:
Or, for those without enough French to challenge my translation: “It is vital that Afghanistan never again become a sanctuary for extremists,” he said in a lecture at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, “the only way of achieving this objective is to help the Afghans to ensure their own security.”
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Fool me once…
Embarrassing as it is to be snookered even once, it would be much worse if it happens again. Maybe the demand for cash should have aroused more suspicion even the first time around. Would a genuine Taliban representative really require payment?
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Weekend reading and touring
More than 10 years managing programs at USIP have left me well behind in the bookreading category. This week’s efforts will be focused on finishing Joseph Stiglitz’ and Linda Bilmes’ The Three Trillion Dollar War, now two years old but still edifying, and Michael Mandelbaum’s more recent and even more edifying The Frugal Superpower, which examines the constraints fiscal stringency will put on American foreign policy. Both are well-written, easy reads, on which I’ll comment more fully once I’ve finished them.
I’m also planning a visit today to President Lincoln’s Cottage, where he spent many nights during the Civil War. Adjacent to a Union cemetery, the cottage is today largely unfurnished. But the National Park Service tour somehow manages to evoke the environment in which Lincoln deliberated on slavery and war. There is nothing like your own civil war for beginning to understand other people’s civil wars.
I’ll be on the road tomorrow but hope to be up and running again bright and early Monday. Have a fine weekend!
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