EVENTS

Date:	Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Time:	9:00 AM -- 12:00 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

October 2005

Winning Afghanistan

As fighting continues unabated in Iraq, Afghanistan has emerged as a surprise success story in the global war on terror. Contrary to widespread predictions, democratic elections have twice been held peacefully, while the Karzai government has expanded its control beyond Kabul and curbed the influence of warlords. At the same time, countless threats still loom--from a resurgent Taliban insurgency to the booming trade in opium.

What accounts for the comparative success of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, and what lessons do these efforts offer for Iraq? What is the future of the U.S.-Afghan strategic relationship and the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda? What are the implications of the Bush administration’s plans to turn over greater control of Afghanistan to NATO next year and reduce U.S. troop levels? Are durable state institutions really being created in Kabul, or is the rule of the Karzai government more illusory than real? These and other questions were considered at an October 19 AEI panel discussion.

Panel I: Counterinsurgency and Military Strategy

Colonel David Lamm
National War College

In the fall of 2003, the United States began to transition in Afghanistan from a counterterrorism strategy to counterinsurgency strategy, which recognized that the center of gravity of the war was the Afghan people themselves. This strategy also put new emphasis on the development of indigenous security forces and the rule of law.

In building the Afghan National Army (ANA), there were several “red lines” that the U.S. and coalition forces kept in mind. First, it was extremely important never to move or deploy the ANA into a situation where they might lose. At the same time, the U.S. military also recognized that, in a nascent democracy, it would be inappropriate to expect the Afghan National Army to solve every problem; rule of law was the responsibility of the Afghan National Police (ANP), not the military. Consequently, there was a strong push for the Defense Department to support and train the local police.

The counterinsurgency strategy also emphasized the expansion of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) program from four PRTs in 2003 to nineteen PRTs by the end of 2004. A PRT is composed of eighty to one hundred interagency personnel from a number of countries, including Afghanistan. Ultimately, the purpose of this expansion was to empower coalition forces to take on the Taliban in the spring. In addition, PRTs worked with Afghan officials to carry out local projects.

From 2004 to the present, the Afghan people have provided coalition forces with most of their intelligence about the Taliban and other insurgent activity. Counterinsurgency is an intensely localized form of warfare, and consequently, it is important to spend money on the local level. A dollar well spent on the people of Afghanistan is worth more than ten bullets anywhere.

Colonel Christopher Langton
International Institute for Strategic Studies

The insurgent and terrorist attacks have demonstrated this year that the Taliban and its allies retain a capacity to move with relative freedom and to organize tactically sound operations. This, in turn, indicates that the Taliban infrastructure, training base, and logistic chain remains viable. It does not, however, indicate any particular failure on the counterinsurgency campaign, given the long-term nature of such operations.

Loyalty in Afghanistan is rooted in the interrelated questions of “Who can give me the most?” and “Who can hurt me the most?” The collective mind of the Afghan population is the territory that must be captured and held if the counterinsurgency campaign is to be successful. Naturally, some Afghans assume that the insurgency will outlast the international presence, prompting them to give pride of place in their loyalty to the Taliban. Ultimately, programs that achieve social and economic progress are more important than the military campaign in countering this perception.

Likewise, the ANP is arguably more important than the ANA, insofar as the former is the lead element in establishing of the rule of law. Nonetheless, the development of the ANA has been considerably more successful than the ANP for a variety of reasons: First, the ANA has been built under the close guidance of international military forces and is better paid than the ANP. Second, the ANA is more remote from society than the police and thus is farther removed from the corruptive pressures pervasive in Afghanistan. Finally, the ANA has a cohesive ethos and morale, which has not yet been replicated in the ANP, and it is a better integrated force than the ANP.

For the counterinsurgency campaign to deprive the Taliban of oxygen, more international forces are required. At the same time, however, NATO must grow in its capabilities if it is to assume this role. National caveats--the constitutional and legal restraints that countries place on their forces--are a dangerous and wholly inappropriate impediment for NATO in Afghanistan.

Robert Perito
U.S. Institute of Peace

Provincial Reconstruction Teams are small joint civil military organizations whose mission is to promote good governance, security, and reconstruction throughout Afghanistan. The pattern has been for U.S. forces to establish these entities and then to pass them off to either coalition allies or to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The multinational PRT program has been characterized by an emphasis on flexibility, the proliferation of national models, and an ad-hoc approach to security and development.

This approach has allowed for adaptation to local conditions, but it has also created inconsistencies. National caveats, for instance, enable individual countries to place restraints on their forces that restrict their ability to conduct certain kinds of operations and thus make it difficult to have a coherent strategy. While there is a PRT executive steering community, it does not have the authority to direct operations.

Among American PRTs, there is a lack of skilled civilian personnel, which has had a significant restraint on PRT effectiveness. A general problem in the American government is that civilian agencies have a very limited ability to deploy personnel to places like Afghanistan.

The stated mission of PRTs is to extend the authority of the central government in Kabul, improve security, and promote reconstruction. The first part of this mandate is typically interpreted to mean support for local governors and police chiefs. The problem with this approach is that, in many cases, the governors and police chiefs are “former” warlords or power brokers, and thus their interests actually diverge from those of the central government. In the case of security, PRTs are in fact mandated only to provide for their own protection. However, PRTs do provide a kind of psychological security presence, as well as providing local Afghan police with training and equipment. In the area of reconstruction, PRT activities can be divided in two categories: civil affairs--meaning short term, quick impact projects designed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people--and USAID-led longer term assistance projects.

As responsibility for the bulk of PRTs shifts from U.S. forces to ISAF, as has already occurred in northern and western Afghanistan, a question arises about their civilian components. Namely, will representatives of U.S. civilian agencies be able to operate under foreign flags? Regardless, it is important to recognize that PRTs--whether U.S. or ISAF--should have as their long-term objective the transition from international to local Afghan ownership.

Joseph Collins
National War College

U.S. forces are winning in Afghanistan, but tremendous challenges are still ahead. The Taliban has been reinvigorated, and throughout the countryside, the rule of law is still relatively weak. The Afghan military and police are desperately in need of infrastructure, staff, bureaucracy, and training. Drug production is an enormous problem, and the progress toward countering it has been miniscule. (Still, this is a positive development, since six months ago there had been no progress at all.) In addition, poverty in Afghanistan is endemic and destabilizing. Infant and pregnancy-related mortality rates are probably among the highest in the world.

Afghanistan also offers several lessons for the U.S. government. Among these are: (1) the importance of preparing U.S. forces for combat at the low end of the spectrum; (2) the importance of language and cultural training; (3) the need for close interagency cooperation in counterinsurgency, with a greater commitment of resources from the State Department and USAID; (4) the importance of empowering indigenous forces; and (5) the importance of indigenous leadership.

One final lesson concerns the importance of patience in counterinsurgency. Americans are by nature not a particular patient people; they want to see results quickly. The U.S. government therefore needs to do a better job cultivating American public opinion.

Panel II: Politics, Democracy, and Institution Building

Barnett Rubin
New York University

U.S. forces are not losing in Afghanistan, but they also are not necessarily winning. The next five years could witness a host of prospective crises that could unravel Afghanistan’s already fragile stability.

The relative success of efforts in Afghanistan to date is due to the fact that it has been a multilateral project. The political process in Afghanistan took place under the sponsorship of the UN and was based on the 2001 Bonn Agreement, which had three benchmarks: the indirect election of a more representative government, the passage of a new constitution, and the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections. With the September elections, the Bonn Agreement has come to the end of its implementation schedule.
 
There is ongoing discussion about a post-Bonn Agreement, which is being called the Kabul Agenda and is likely to be formalized with a declaration in London in January. This declaration will set concrete benchmarks and timetables for not just the Afghan authorities, but for the entire international community. This is actually a more demanding task than the Bonn Agreement because it requires the launching of a process of development and state-building. The next steps that should take place can be grouped into three headings: economic development, governance, and security.
 
There are several obstacles to achieving these steps, including Afghanistan’s poverty, its weak or unsustainable government institutions, the absence of a functioning judiciary, and the unstable regional situation. In particular, Afghanistan cannot survive economically without regional cooperation because it is a landlocked, arid country that depends on trade with its neighbors for revenue.

Narcotics also pose a huge problem for Afghanistan. The biggest contradiction for the Kabul Agenda is that it must produce growth in the Afghan economy while destroying its single largest sector; it must reduce poverty while destroying the one thing that is preventing Afghans from falling into poverty; and it must produce security while attacking the power base of some of the most powerful people in the country.

Larry Sampler
Institute for Defense Analyses

The main focus of the international community in Afghanistan has been institution building. The intent is to create institutions that can provide security and stability within the country and its surroundings. Often neglected, however, in this state is sustainability, especially in terms of good governance and fiscal policy.

The first sin of the international community in Afghanistan was to think they knew what they were doing. The role of the international community should lie in mentoring the Afghan indigenous leadership and clearly identifying unacceptable behavior that should be curtailed.

The international community faces many obstacles in Afghanistan. Among these are the lack of attention to the development of a civil service, well-organized and well-funded criminal networks and the external demand for narcotics from Afghanistan, and discontinuity in institutional knowledge due to the constant turnover of personnel.

Rick Barton
Center for Strategic International Studies

One of the problems presented by post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan concerns the question of metrics: how is it possible to measure progress in a place where almost all of the data is unreliable?

Based on research conducted by CSIS, it is possible to draw some conclusions. First, real economic progress appears to have been made. In fact, the past three years have been the best that Afghanistan has enjoyed in decades. However, there is a huge need for longer-term assistance, while simultaneously, the likelihood of sustained funds is diminishing. There have also been large expenditures in some areas with small likelihood of success.

There are several discrete policies that could be adopted in Afghanistan and that would improve the success of reconstruction efforts. The Afghan National Army, for instance, could secure the country’s four major border crossings, which would simultaneously increase national revenues, address the poppy problem, and diminish the influence of warlords. Second, the international community could directly pay the salaries of people considered to be the anchor of Afghanistan, such as teachers and police. The international community could also improve its efforts to get aid to the mayors and governors at the province and district levels. Lastly, the international community needs to focus on securing water since it is a critical resource in Afghanistan. The livelihood of the average Afghan can be improved through the use of water in terms of hydro-potential, irrigation, and sanitation.

S. Frederick Starr
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies

The challenges posed by Afghan development cannot be met by NGOs. Rather, they must be accomplished by strengthening the Afghan state. U.S. and international policymakers have been slow to acknowledge this reality.

The foremost task in Afghanistan is state-building, which must begin at the district or village level. If this foundation is not stable, there can be no secure structure above it. However, the Afghan government has not received the support it deserves.

In the past few years the Afghan government has made an effort to improve these foundations at the local level. They have replaced many officials in key positions, such as governors, police chiefs, district heads, and mayors. The newly appointed officials are now receiving training from the government, which is a helpful step forward. Ultimately, the engine for economic development in Afghanistan is regional and continental trade. This is also necessary to create the income stream needed to fund local governance.

AEI intern Sapna Thakkar prepared this summary.