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1. Priorities and Perspective: Are we Reasonably Allocating our Resources in the Af-Pak Region

   Published: December 19th, 2011
   Author: Mary Kaszynski

   Mary Kaszynski
   Afghanistan Study Group Blogger

   
   

   If you had to choose which country is the most strategically important – Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran – you might have a hard time deciding.

   On the one hand we have Pakistan: Population 175 million, the sixth largest in the world. An unstable civilian government facing off with a powerful military. A haven for insurgents – not to mention Osama bin Laden – who attack US troops across the border in Afghanistan. The extent to which Pakistani officials are complicit is unclear, although former JCS Chair Adm. Mike Mullen called the ISI “the virtual arm” of the Haqqani network. Comments like these from both countries, combined with incidents like the NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, have US-Pakistan relations at an all-time low. Finally, there’s the little matter of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, which numbers some 100 weapons.

   On the other hand we have Iran, a smaller country, but arguably more unstable and potentially threatening. Jon Huntsman called Iran’s nuclear ambitions “the transcendent issue of this decade from a foreign policy standpoint.” Hyperbole? Perhaps. But there’s no question that preventing Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is important.

   That leaves Afghanistan. When Newt Gingrich called Afghanistan “the least important of the three countries,” no one remarked –  because everyone is thinking the same thing. The US has already achieved its primary strategic objectives in Afghanistan; it is no longer our fight.

   This leaves us with something of a puzzle. Afghanistan represents little in terms of srategic importance – and yet 90,000 US troops are still stationed there. We have spent over one trillion dollars on the wars, and will spend $100 billion next year. War spending is a main driver of the current financial crisis.

   As one wasteful war winds down, it’s worth thinking about what our national security interests really are. Building our economy – that is vital to our national security. So is preventing Iran from building a bomb as well as preventing the dangerous situation with Pakistan from spiralling out of control. Compared to goals like these, nation-building in Afghanistan seems trivial.

   Look at it another way. An American official told New York Times’ Bill Keller: “If you stand back and say, by the year 2020, you’ve got two countries [Afghanistan and Pakistan]— 30 million people in this country, 200 million people with nuclear weapons in this country, American troops in neither. Which matters? It’s not Afghanistan.”
   In thirty years, will we look back and be glad that we spent $100 billion on Afghanistan in 2012? Or will we regret such vast expenditure in Afghanistan that was not commensurate with regional priorities?

   
   

   Tags: Afghanistan government, defense spending, economy, Iran, Pakistan, strategy

2. The Iraq Withdrawal: Implications for Afghanistan

   Published: October 31st, 2011
   

   Mary Kaszynski
   Afghanistan Study Group Blogger

   
   
   The announcement that the US will withdraw virtually all troops from Iraq, as mandated by the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), has been met with praise, criticism, and speculation.  Mostly about the behind-the-scenes negotiations. Setting aside the political questions – who’s “to blame” for the withdrawal, – let’s take a look at what the facts of the Iraq case may mean for the future of US policy in Afghanistan.
   The Good: The SOFA timeline was never set in stone. Just a few weeks ago we heard of negotiations to keep 3,000 to 5,000 troops in Iraq. Then there was the withdrawal announcement, and the story seemed to be that Iraq simply hadn’t asked us to stay. Later,  we learned that immunity for US troops was the sticking point in negotiations.

   Clearly domestic politics was a factor for both countries. Ultimately, however, when all the politics played out, the Status of Forces Agreement held up. And that’s a good thing for Afghanistan.
   2014, the administration’s planned deadline for withdrawing from Afghanistan, is still several years away, and a lot can happen in the meantime. But sticking to the Iraq drawdown timeline is a step towards strategic and fiscal discipline.

   The Bad: All of the troops are leaving Iraq (with the exception of about 150 to guard the embassy) but some 5,000 security contractors will remain. Add to that approximately 4,000 contractors who will assist diplomats, as well as a still-to-be-determined number of military trainers. It’s clear that the US will be maintaining a significant presence there for some time.

   An enduring presence in Iraq and Afghanistan translates into enduring costs. In addition to personnel costs in both countries, the US commitment to maintaining Iraqi and Afghani security forces may be substantial. And as the base defense budget starts to feel the squeeze of budget cuts, non-war spending is making its way into the war budget. All of these factors will combine to keep war costs high, even as the drawdowns progress.

   The Ugly: Critics equate the US withdrawal from Iraq to a victory for Iran. This is a twisted version of an ugly truth. The US invasion, and subsequent operations, undoubtedly pushed Iraq into the Shiite/Iran camp. This was undoubtedly a mistake. But it’s a past mistake that cannot be corrected with troops, whether we leave ten or ten thousand.

   The fact of the matter is that threats to US national security interests still exist, and will continue to do so, regardless of the number of US boots on the ground. Recognizing this fact, scaling back our ambitions for the region, and investing in the right tools to achieve limited goals is crucial if we are to achieve any kind of success.

   
   

   Tags: Afghanistan government, defense spending, diplomacy, drawdown

3. ASG Weekly Reader: The Drawdown Begins

   Published: July 21st, 2011
   

   The drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has begun. Over the past week the first group of American soldiers have departed and they will not be replaced by a fresh unit.  Although, the House may not have gotten the memo, as last week they voted to increase the military budget by $17 billion for a grand total of $649 billion dollars. The Department of Defense continues to be immune from budget cuts as the rest of the country tries to figure out how to do more with less. There is some good news coming out of Afghanistan, however, amid the escalating violence on the boarders and high profile political assassinations in the interior; the snow leopards appear to be flourishing.

   FROM ASG

   U.S. Adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time”
   Afghanistan Study Group by Edward Kenney
   Sometimes what seems like good policy at first can turn out to be a bad idea with the benefit of hindsight.  The support for Mujahidin leaders such as Hekmatyar and Haqqani seemed like a great idea in the 1980s when they were fighting the Soviets.  Now that these figures make up key parts of the Afghan insurgency…not so much.

   ARTICLES

   7-8-11
   House boosts military budget in time of austerity
   msnbc.com by Donna Cassata
   On a 336-87 vote Friday, the Republican-controlled House overwhelmingly backed a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Defense Department budget by $17 billion. The strong bipartisan embrace of the measure came as White House and congressional negotiators face an Aug. 2 deadline on agreeing to trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and raising the borrowing limit so the U.S. does not default on debt payments.

   7-9-11
   Porous and Violent, Afghan-Tajik Border Is a Worry for the U.S.
   New York Times by Michael Schwirtz
   Such kidnappings, along with murders, armed clashes and other violence, have become persistent features of life along Tajikistan’s extensive border with Afghanistan. A largely unprotected expanse of severe peaks and dusty plains, the border is practically all that separates the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and beyond from the chaos of one of the world’s most war-ravaged countries. Securing it and the smaller borders with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has taken on greater urgency as American forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan.

   7-11-11
   Pakistan’s rocket fire into Afghanistan alarms locals, US forces
   The Christian Science Monitor
   While Afghan and US officials are in talks with Pakistan to end the strikes on militants, US soldiers experiencing the direct effects of the artillery fire are caught in an uncomfortable middle ground. Commanders say the longer it takes to find a solution, the greater the risk of fueling the insurgency and alienating locals from the Afghan government.

   7-12-11
   Who Killed Ahmed Wali Karzai?
   Foreign Policy by Matthiew Aikins
   The manner of Ahmed Wali’s death is all the more striking considering that the last major figure to be assassinated in Kandahar, Police Chief Khan Mohammed Mujahed, was killed by own his bodyguard-turned-suicide-bomber in April. In May, one of the most important anti-Taliban commanders in northern Afghanistan, Gen. Daud Daud, was assassinated by a bomb planted in the Takhar’s governor’s office; and last October, Engineer Omar, governor of Kunduz, was blown up by a bomb planted in the floor of the mosque where he habitually prayed.

   7-13-11
   Kandahar: Afghanistan’s turbulent province
   BBC News
   It has often been said that whoever controls Kandahar controls Afghanistan. During the past five years, the province has seen heavy fighting between Nato and the Taliban – most of the 30,000 troops deployed by US President Barack Obama in his surge of 2009 have been stationed there.

   7-14-11
   Afghanistan’s civilians in the crosshairs
   Foreign Policy by Erica Gaston
   The United Nations semi-annual protection of civilians report released Thursday is a chilling rebuttal to illusions that Afghanistan is moving toward greater stability. With nearly 3,600 killed and injured – the highest civilian casualty rate since the war began – the statistics are a grim reality check to over-optimistic reports by international military and civilian leaders that their strategy is successfully disrupting insurgent activities.

   7-15-11
   Mullah Omar, headscarves and bizarre Afghan peace talks
   Reuters by Jonathon Burch
   Homa Sultani, a former rights activist and now an MP from Ghazni, a volatile province southwest of Kabul, said she had met the reclusive Omar some 150 km (90 miles) from the capital and that they had wept together after deliberating the country’s plight.

   First US troops leave Afghanistan as drawdown begins
   AFP by Claire Truscott
   The first American soldiers of about 10,000 due to leave Afghanistan this year have flown home, military officials said Friday, kicking off a gradual drawdown due to be completed in 2014. US President Barack Obama in June announced that 33,000 American troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer, leaving behind 65,000 and effectively ending a military surge ordered into the country late 2009.
   
   7-17-11
   Gunmen kill adviser to Afghan president in another strike at leader’s inner circle
   The Washington Post by AFP
   Gunmen strapped with explosives killed a close adviser to President Hamid Karzai and a member of parliament on Sunday in another insurgent strike against the Afghan leader’s inner circle.  Jan Mohammed Khan was an adviser to Karzai on tribal issues and was close to the president, a fellow Pashtun.

   OPINION

   7-12-11
   Ahmed Wali Karzai Assassinated
   The Atlantic by Steve Clemons
   Watching on a long flight the other day the classic 1966 Sergio Leone spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I couldn’t help but think that Afghanistan would make a great backdrop for a remake of the Clint Eastwood classic. I’m not sure whether Kandahar region ‘super governor’ Ahmed Wali Karzai would have been cast as “The Bad” or “The Ugly”, but the half brother of Afghanistan’s President — shot dead today by a family bodyguard — was no force of noble spirit.

   7-14-11
   The American Fantasy of Irreversible Victory
   The National interest by Paul Pillar
   Living in a peculiarly powerful and successful republic makes it easier to believe that the nation really can achieve absolute, irreversible victories. Sure, the United States has had failures, including some really big ones such as the Vietnam War. But even that costly failure, given the passage of time and of generations and the attitudinal balm of a splendid victory such as Operation Desert Storm—the reversal in 1991 of the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait—has not prevented restoration of hubristic optimism about what the United States can use its power to accomplish. One of the reactions to Desert Storm—specifically, the neoconservative reaction—featured once again the idea that accomplishment of a limited military aim is not enough and that the United States should go for the gold.

   7-17-11
   Fareed’s Take: Deal making needed in Afghanistan
   CNN by Fareed Zakaria
   This week Ahmed Wali Karzai was gunned down by one of his bodyguards – a close family associate. Ahmed was President Hamid Karzai’s half brother and ran the crucial southern provinces of Afghanistan for Karzai.  His death has properly been described as a huge setback for Karzai and for the international coalition that is trying to support the Karzai government in Kabul.

   
   

   Tags: Newsletter

4. A Profile in Courage: Canada Draws Down in Afghanistan

   Published: June 20th, 2011
   Author: Will Keola Thomas

   Will Keola Thomas – Afghanistan Study Group

   A few weeks ago, outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned a gathering of NATO defense ministers that a “rush to the exits” in Afghanistan would put military gains there at risk.

   “We are making substantial military progress on the ground…these gains could be threatened if we do not proceed with the transition to Afghan security lead in a deliberate, organized, and coordinated manner.

   Even as the United States begins to draw down next month, I assured my fellow ministers that there will be no rush to exits on our part, and we expect the same from our allies.”

   Leave aside the broken-record, and patently false, claim of substantial military progress.

   Also, please disregard the assertion that there is anything deliberate, organized and coordinated about the game of “whack-a-mole” international forces are playing in their fight against the Taliban.

   Why is Sec. Gates questioning the commitment of countries that have stuck by a failed and counterproductive military strategy for almost ten years at enormous risk to citizens in uniform and their families back home?

   Many of the coalition members (…looking at you, Tonga) would be at a total loss if they were asked to define the vital strategic interest that had brought them to commit troops to a civil war in a landlocked Central Asian republic.

   And in the past, Sec. Gates has suggested that the leaders of any country considering such a mission should have their heads examined.

   Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took Gates’ advice and decided it was time for some reflection on the national interests and collective fears that were driving his country’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan. In doing so, Harper realized that there was little to be afraid of except another decade of bloodletting in pursuit of imagined enemies.

   This realization has led Canada towards a new approach in Afghanistan which the U.S. would do well to emulate.

   Prime Minister Harper marked the taming of the Canadian id on a recent trip to visit the troops in Kandahar:

   “This country does not represent a geostrategic risk to the world. It is no longer a source of global terrorism.”

   After nearly a decade of war, including five years spent in a bloody struggle for the volatile southern province of Kandahar, Canada is ending its combat role in Afghanistan. The commitment of the Canadian troops should be unquestioned. With 156 troops killed and 1,500 wounded, Canada has the highest per capita casualty rate of any coalition member. Moreover, the Canadians’ focus on training Afghan security forces and sustaining their commitment to development support, while not without problems and limitations, holds out the possibility of long term benefits to the security and well-being of Afghans that whack-a-mole night raids and air strikes clearly do not.

   Canada is setting an example for all coalition countries to follow: steadfast commitment to supporting the people of Afghanistan in their struggle for self-determination while at the same time refusing to let the imagined bogeyman of Afghan-born international terrorism force them into a stubborn allegiance to a counterproductive and failed military strategy.

   The Canadian example makes the question explicit: What is the United States afraid of?

   
   

   Tags: drawdown, progress

5. Two days with Felix Kuehn

   Published: May 18th, 2011
   Author: Edward Kenney

   Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group

   Felix Kuehn, a Kandahar-based researcher, came to Washington DC last week to discuss the state of the insurgency and the ties between al Qaeda and the Taliban.  You may recall that Kuehn co-authored with his colleague Alex Strick van Linschoten, a paper examining the history of the al Qaeda-Taliban connection in February.  (Here is ASG’s take).  It’s obviously very difficult to summarize in a few paragraphs the wealth of insights that Kuehn provides but here are some of the key points:

   The State of War

   On the security situation and the death of bin Laden
   Kuehn left Kandahar one day before the 40 hour siege last weekend, and expressed regret that he missed the beginning of what he expects will be a brutal summer season.  He dismissed DoD reports suggesting that the war is turning around.  In Kandahar, according to Kuehn, war wounded are up 60 % to 70 % in Jan and Feb from a year ago.

   He also believes that the death of bin Laden will have no effect on the insurgency and only a minimal impact on al Qaeda’s operational capabilities.  Bottom line, says Kuehn quoting an actual Taliban leader, is that the insurgents never fought for al Qaeda and so will be unaffected by his demise.

   Al Qaeda and the Taliban

   On the generational gap between Al Qaeda and the Taliban
   The first obvious difference between the two organizations, says Kuehn, is generational.  Al Qaeda leaders were graduating from madrasahs before the Taliban could even talk.  Al Qaeda’s roots are in the Muslim brotherhood.  Several foreign Islamic groups came to Afghanistan in the 1980s (after getting kicked out of Egypt and other Arab countries) and set up training camps.  Osama bin Laden was successful in uniting these groups under al Qaeda’s banner.

   In contrast to al Qaeda’s middle and upper-class Islamist roots, the Taliban leadership grew up in poor rural Afghanistan.  Most of the Taliban were members of the poorer, more warlike Ghilzai Pashto tribes.  Their parents typically did not have money for private education and so sent their children to madrasahs, which were free of tuition.

   On the religious divide between al Qaeda and the Taliban
   Al Qaeda and the Taliban also have fundamentally different religious ideologies.  Al Qaeda follow the strict Salafi movement from the Hanbali school, a very strict conservative interpretation of Islam.  The Taliban are mainly of the Deobandi Hanafi School which came out of India.  Kuehn points out that the Taliban often practice a form of Islamic Sufi mysticism, which al Qaeda fundamentally rejects.

   On political differences between al Qaeda and the Taliban
   The Taliban are not a global jihadist movement and have fundamentally different political aims, however both view the United States at present as an enemy.   The Taliban movement united against the lawlessness that pervaded Kandahar in the 1990s.  Fifty or sixty religious students took an oath at the White Mosque in Sangesar—an enormous risk according to Kuehn, but the movement soon gained popularity by bringing security and law and order to the country and was soon able to take over.  Even in this period al Qaeda was never close to the Taliban.  Mullah Omar believed strongly in the Umma—Islamic unity—for this reason he did not reject bin Laden, but neither did he choose bin Laden to lead foreign forces in 2001, a major blow to al Qaeda.

   U.S. Policy Going Forward

   On Kill Capture
   Kuehn’s discussion coincided nicely with the release of a report from Frontline documenting the limitations of the U.S. Kill-Capture campaign.  The news report chronicled several instances where the wrong person was targeted or even killed and the increasing radicalization of midlevel commanders.  One Taliban leader talked about following the U.S. troops back to the United States.  Kuehn is very worried about this increased radicalization among younger insurgents, who do not have the same perspectives as the older Talibs and act increasingly independent from the Talib leadership.  Last summer during the spike in violence, Kuehn describes reaching out to senior Talibs to ask whether he or van Linschoten were in any danger.  The Talib leader said the two Germans were not on any Taliban “hit list”, but he could not vouch for the new young insurgent leaders in Argandab.

   On Rapid Withdrawal
   Kuehn is most worried about the prospects of civil war in Afghanistan.  For this reason he did not advocate a rapid withdrawal of troops.  He did acknowledge that the surge forces in places like Marjah were costly and counterproductive.  The locals there just want to be left alone.  He seemed to advocate a managed withdrawal of international forces.

   On Reconciliation
   Kuehn supported reconciliation as outlined by Pickering and Brahimi, but he cautioned against some potential risks and obstacles:

   1. The lack of trust between Afghans and Americans has grown significantly.  A majority of Afghans in Kandahar believe that the U.S. was behind the Sarposa prison break.  Apparently, Afghans believe we want the violence to continue as an excuse to occupy the country.  This lack of trust that we will someday leave is the opposite of what one hears here in Washington, where “experts” claim the Afghans don’t trust us because we might leave.

   2.  The Northern Alliance opposes reconciliation and is, according to Kuehn, openly preparing for civil war.  There is some indication that members such as Sarwari, who was intel chief under Ahmad Shah Massoud are amenable to the notion of Talib governors in the South.   On the insurgent’s side, Kuehn believes they will not give up ties to al Qaeda for free, but their fear of Civil War may force them to compromise on this point.  If the U.S. and Afghan government can appeal to the insurgents’ pragmatism, an agreement might be possible.

   On Governance and Corruption
   Kuehn advocates a devolution of power from the Central Government to local regions.  Everything in Afghanistan happens on the local level, says Kuehn, and the U.S. correspondingly spends far too much time worrying about things like the Constitution, which have no bearing on anything that actually happens in Kandahar and elsewhere.

   He noted that the Taliban are far more tech literate than the Afghan government.  The Taliban have both a website and twitter feed in multiple languages, including English.  The reason for the Taliban’s tech advantage, according to Kuehn, is that most of the best qualified IT people are hired by NGOs, leaving the Government of Afghanistan with the dregs of the talent pool.  The proliferation of government contractors, NGOs and military dollars has also led to an increasingly unequal society in Kandahar which exacerbates the conflict.  Kuehn points out that there are over a thousand millionaires living in the impoverished province.

   Kuehn and van Linschoten have a book coming out this summer which covers their research into al Qaeda and the Taliban.  If his presentation is anything to go by, it will be very good.

   
   

   Tags: al Qaeda, Taliban

6. Budget deal will only save a fraction of promised $38B

   Published: April 27th, 2011
   

   Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group

   The supposedly “historic” 2011 budget deal, which barely avoided a federal shutdown, will only save a fraction of the promised $38 billion.  Once defense spending and funding for the wars are included in this calculation, federal spending will have actually increased this year.  That’s right, defense spending plus the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya will cause federal spending to go up in 2011.  Keep this in mind when assessing the 2012 budget proposals on defense.

   With the President’s speech last night, there are now three major debt plans on the table, one by Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, a less heralded proposal by the House Progressive Caucus, and of course the President’s second attempt at a 2012 budget presented on Wednesday.  The Ryan budget makes grading the three plans difficult.  Remember the super-smart math whiz that would mess up the grading bell curve; well Ryan’s plan is the opposite of that.  He relies on over-optimistic growth projections, “voodoo” economics that suggest cutting taxes raises revenue, and cuts from programs that overwhelmingly favor the middle class, the poor and the elderly while letting the wealthy off the hook.  As bad as this sounds, the worse part of Ryan’s budget is that he does absolutely nothing to reign in defense spending.

   Afghanistan Study Group member Gordon Adams explains:

   Last Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed a 2012 budget that caves to the Pentagon bureaucracy and spares the Department of Defense from fiscal discipline. Ryan’s spending plan mimics Defense Secretary Robert Gates’, which is more about the pretense of savings than actual prudence. It calls for $178 billion in reductions over the next five years, but most of these reductions are illusory and none of them lower the budget. Instead, they merely slow the growth that the department has said it would prefer.

   Congressman Ryan should be ashamed.

   The President’s plan is marginally better than the Ryan “joke” budget, but it is still pretty terrible.  He correctly blames the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on contributing significantly to the deficit and debt problem, and he promises to “conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities and our role in a changing world”. But like Ryan, the specifics of his plan are pretty weak.  He promises to save $400 billion from the trillion dollar defense budget.  Sounds like a lot of money, but as with Ryan a lot of all of these savings will come in the form of slowing the growth of the Pentagon’s budget to the rate of inflation.   As Gordon Adams suggests $400 billion is a really trivial sum:

   And, frankly, a $400 billion reduction from defense over ten years is also trivial.  The Department plans to spend more than $6 trillion over those years; $400 billion is less than 7% below that projection.  A good comptroller can find about $40 billion a year to save with his or her eyes closed. And it is less than half the defense reductions the President’s own deficit commission proposed last December.  And less than half the proposed defense reductions contained in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s debt commission (Rivlin-Domenici) proposal of November 2010.  Odd that the White House did not back up the views of its own commission.

   The only budget plan that takes defense spending seriously is the one proposed by the progressive caucus.  It’s the only budget which actually commits to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They also make real cuts in the defense budget of $1.7 trillion, over four times what the president is proposing.   As Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs put it, “The public says that we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce Pentagon spending.” The progressive budget does just that.  At least in terms of military spending and the war in Afghanistan, the progressive caucus has the right approach.

   
   

   Tags: economy

7. Published: April 19th, 2011
   

   

   SAVE THE DATE

   Afghanistan War:
   Containing or Leveraging U.S. Power?

   Speakers and participants include:
   Ann Coulter, Grover Norquist, Matthew Hoh and others

   Streaming live at TheWashingtonNote.com and AfghanistanStudyGroup.org

   Wednesday, 20 April 2011
   9:00 am – 1:30 pm Conference

   
   

8. The New COIN Doctrine: More Aid and Development to the Corrupt

   Published: March 9th, 2011
   Author: Edward Kenney

   Edward Kenney
   Afghanistan Study Group Blogger

   Orbis Operations, a consulting firm which operates in Afghanistan, has just published an eye-opening report on development in Afghanistan.  The main conclusion of the report is that policymakers wrongly assume that development can “win the hearts and minds” without improvements in governance and security:

   [Development] is only effective in areas where security and governance are present.

   Few would argue this point, but the report’s author Dr Mark Moyar has an…unorthodox solution to this problem:

   “In provinces where the governor is well connected to the population and capable  of  marshaling broad public support, we most likely should continue allowing the Tweeds and Corleones to use development aid to strengthen their patronage networks.”

   To clarify, Dr Moyar is suggesting that the U.S. use aid and development resources to encourage corruption networks.  Apparently, this is the best way to encourage better governance.  Dr. Moyar concedes that this policy will “slow the development of a bureaucratic state” and may only be effective in ethnically homogenous districts with powerful governors, but he contends that patronage networks can provide stability at significantly less cost.

   And who is Dr Moyar’s model governor for this program? It’s Gul Agha Shirzai, Governor of Nangarhar—the same Shirzai whose heavy handed policies in Kandahar are partly responsible for creation of the Taliban, and who later forced many ex-Taliban back into the insurgency.  The same Shirzai who has been implicated in the drug trade and who corruptly controls a major pass into Pakistan.

   The scary thing is this:  Moyar may be right.  Counter-Insurgency’s best hope of success may be to encourage powerful warlords like Shirzai and feed their corruption.

   Maybe it’s time for a different approach.

   
   

   Tags: COIN, corruption

9. Afghanistan Surge One Year Later—The Data Doesn’t Lie

   Published: February 18th, 2011
   Author: Edward Kenney

   Edward Kenney
   Afghanistan Study Group Blogger

   Derrick Crowe, the Executive Director of Brave New World, wrote this week about the one-year anniversary of the Afghanistan surge that began with the offensive in Marjah. A quick survey of trends coming out of Afghanistan suggests that the new strategy is not looking so good.

   With virtually every metric continuing a downward spiral after a full year, it is disheartening that the Obama administration has thus far refused to have an honest review of the strategy.

   We put together a few charts of key measurements: fatalities, cost, and corruption to illustrate that it’s all going the wrong way. If last February marks the beginning of the “new strategy”, data for 2010 and 2011 represents post-surge.

   Fatalities

   U.S. and coalition casualties are up by almost 60%, as are civilian casualties (up 30% for the first ten months of 2010).

   

   Source:  icasualties.org

   Cost:

   The cost to U.S. tax payers is now $119 billion a year and growing, having increased more than fivefold in the last five years alone.

   

   Source: CRS:  The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and other War’s on Terror[1]

   Corruption

   “Government in a box” has been transformed into “corruption by the bucket-load,” exacerbated by a stolen election and a massive bank scandal that directly implicates several senior members of Karzai’s government.

   

   Source:  Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index

   [1] 2012 data comes from President’s Obama’s request to Congress.

   
   

   Tags: continuation, corruption, progress

10. Sign up for the Afghanistan Study Group Newsletter.

    Published: February 15th, 2011
    

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