Civilian Surge Getting Surgier

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From Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent: http://washingtonindependent.com/69842/more-civilians-heading-to-afghanistan-but-to-support-which-ministries


12/7/09

More Civilians Heading to Afghanistan . . .

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy wasn’t the only Obama administration official who addressed the American Enterprise Institute this morning. She was joined by Paul Jones, Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke’s deputy at the State Department, and Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the head of the Joint Staff’s Pakistan-Afghanistan coordination cell. They provided new details about the political, diplomatic, and economic development aspects of the new Afghanistan strategy that the new extended troop surge has largely obscured.

Jones’ big news: as arduous as it’s been for the U.S. government’s civilian agencies to implement the so-called “civilian surge,” that surge is getting surgier. In the coming weeks, the Obama administration will ask Congress to provide additional funding for more civilian advisers and experts to deploy to Afghanistan, “beyond” the roughly 1,000 civilians expected to be in-country by next month. New consulates will open around the country, Jones said, including in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat. Since the majority of U.S. forces in Afghanistan will focus on the south and the east, those new consulates suggest additional diplomatic activity in the north and the west will be the lion’s share of U.S. efforts at maintaining stability (in the west) or rolling back creeping insurgent advances with non-U.S.-NATO forces (in the north).

But the overall effort is one that focuses on deliverable governance and economic development below the national level, particularly in the southern and eastern insurgent-plagued Pashtun areas. “That does not mean we ignore Kabul,” Jones emphasized. Instead, the United States will focus on “supporting those ministries” that will provide “direct impact” to Afghan civilians and “broadening their support and engagement at the provincial and district levels.” In other words, the Obama administration’s effort is geared toward making those ministries a relevant and positive force in Afghan daily life. The Karzai government’s contribution to this, Jones said, will be “fleshed out in the coming weeks” at international conferences in London and Kabul.

Nicholson, the Joint Staff’s top man focusing on Afghanistan and a veteran of the war himself, elaborated on which ministries that effort will target: the security ministries of Defense and Interior, as well as the Agriculture ministry and the ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. And it means supporting the National Solidarity Program, an Afghan-led development effort that funds and support projects designed at the local level. The goal, Nicholson said, was to broaden and deepen the ministerial presence out in the provinces and districts, as right now that presence can be as thin as “one individual, who may or may not be able to connect effectively with the people.” One metric Nicholson suggested the administration will be looking at to measure success will be the expansion of wheat production in areas that right now are growing poppy, which helps fund the insurgency.

Much as this might seem like American beneficence, Jones emphasized that it was necessary to “reverse the momentum” of the insurgency in a sustainable way. As the administration has described since March, one of its assumptions is that non-ideological Taliban fighters motivated by local grievances or lack of economic opportunity can be essentially taken off the battlefield by these sorts of development efforts. That’s one of the reasons why Flournoy said she thinks that al-Qaeda’s allies in Afghanistan could “lose foot soldiers in droves” as the result of the revised administration strategy.


read more: http://washingtonindependent.com/69842/more-civilians-heading-to-afghanistan-but-to-support-which-ministries

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1. more from Spencer on the Afghan development push from State

By: Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/12/07/whatever-it-is-in-afghanistan-its-not-nation-building/


Monday December 7, 2009 12:48 pm

Lest it be said that I’m picking on Tom Friedman, there’s a general sense out there that the administration’s Afghanistan strategy refashions the country in a western image. My friend Lindsay Beyerstein asked last week, “Isn’t it kind of crazy to think that the U.S. can transform the nation of Afghanistan into something we like better?” The answer depends on what you mean by “something we like better.” An under-explored aspect of the refined strategy really does seem to be a shift away from nation-building and toward more fulsome development work.

I’m reminded of this when reflecting on Undersecretary Flournoy’s talk this morning at AEI. She and her colleagues described restricting U.S. support to key ministries focused on security and (mostly agricultural) development; immediate-impact short-term development projects like irrigation; efforts out in the provinces and districts to expand the relevance of those ministries to local communities; and backing away from set targets for how large the Afghan Army and police need to be. Paul Jones, deputy to Richard Holbrooke, talked about moving in more USAID personnel and reducing reliance on U.S. contractors, even giving the selected Afghan ministries “direct assistance if they increase transparency and accountability,” in part out of a recognition that foreign money can drive corruption.

No mention, in other words, of the structure of the Afghan government; no normative judgments about the structure of the Afghan economy; nothing at all about culture or religion. It’s sure not like the U.S. is backing away from Hamid Karzai. But I think we can fairly infer that the strategy aims at mitigating Karzai’s deleterious effects and enhancing both capacity and, crucially, constituency among Afghans for better governance. It isn’t “necessary, nor is it feasible,” Flournoy said, to make Afghanistan a western-modeled nation state. Indeed, I would say if that was the aim of this strategy, it would be incoherent. This looks more like meeting Afghan society where it is, not where we’d like it to be.

None of this is to say that the strategy doesn’t have its share of flaws. But I don’t think it’s fair anymore to view this as a nation-building strategy.


read: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/12/07/whatever-it-is-in-afghanistan-its-not-nation-building/

[babydollhead]

2. a client of mine went on a troop picker-upper visit

in August. She said, "If our troops weren't over there fighting for our freedom, I couldn't be doing what I'm doing and you wouldn't be an artist"

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3. that may well have been true during the world wars

. . . but without a threat to the U.S. of their magnitude, there's plenty of room to argue in favor of the value of other types of public service in preserving and maintaining 'freedoms'. In times like these, our diplomatic offices should take precedence. It's those non-military efforts in pursuit of peace and cooperation which help prevent wars and dissuade support abroad for tyrants and megalomaniacs who would act against our nation, our allies, or our interests.

[babydollhead]

4. you took the words right out of my mouth