Nation-Building Elevated [Archive]

SWJED

12-14-2005, 11:12 AM

American Forces Press Service - Directive Boosts Priority of Stability Operations (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2005/20051213_3652.html) (reposted in full per DoD guidelines).

Stability operations are now a major priority for the Defense Department, on par with combat operations, and will receive more planning and funding, two DoD officials said here today.

The officials were explaining DoD Directive 3000.05, which was signed Nov. 28. The directive provides guidance on stability operations and assigns responsibility for planning, training and preparing to conduct and support stability operations.

The origins of the directive come from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Jeffrey Nadaner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. Before Sept. 11, many people within DoD thought of stability operations as optional, Nadaner said, but after the terrorist attacks, they were seen as a necessity.

The ability of the United States and its partners to conduct stability operations can prevent failed and failing states from becoming havens for terrorists and criminals, and can ensure the U.S. is safe at home and successful in its military missions, he said.

Stability operations are defined operations other than combat operations that involve violence or the threat of violence and can come in various sizes and forms, Nadaner said. Examples of stability operations are rebuilding institutions such as security forces, correctional facilities and judicial systems; reviving or building the private sector, including encouraging citizen-driven economic activity and building necessary infrastructure; and developing representative governmental institutions, according to the directive.

The directive lays out important policies, Nadaner said. Among those are that stability operations are a core military mission and shall be given priority comparable to combat missions, and that although stability operations are best performed by indigenous, foreign or U.S. civilian professionals, U.S. military forces will be prepared to perform all tasks required to maintain order when civilians cannot do so, he explained.

One of the key requirements in all stability operations is the need for indigenous security forces to be established quickly, Nadaner said. This is a lesson learned from the war in Iraq that will be incorporated into future operations, he said.

The directive includes a requirement that the stability operations portions of war plans are fully completed by the U.S. military, Nadaner said. The secretary of defense will receive periodic reports about these plans so his level of information about stability operations is equal with that of combat operations, he added.

Another important aspect of the directive is that it encourages different government agencies to participate in stability operations, Nadaner said. "The directive has a flavor throughout that's very inter-agency, because we recognize that stability operations are inherently and intensely inter-agency," he said.

DoD wants to help other government agencies develop their own capabilities for stability operations, Nadaner said. One plan is to develop civilian-military teams, much like the provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan, to be ready to deploy to stability operations, he said.

The State Department and DoD already work together and even share money when it comes to stability operations, Nadaner said. State Department officials participate in DoD exercises, and DoD is seeking authority from Congress to transfer $200 million to the State Department to prepare for a potential stability crisis, he said.

To implement the requirements of this directive will require a series of efforts within DoD and other government agencies, Nadaner said. Some of the initiatives are going to be difficult, he said, so all the changes won't be visible right away, but DoD is at a good starting point.

"We're looking to see the changes done right, and we think we have a good framework to do so," he said.

This directive should be considered initial guidance and will evolve over time, said Air Force Col. J. Scott Norwood, deputy director for international negotiations and multilateral affairs, strategic plans and policy directorate, the Joint Staff.

Norwood's office will oversee the implementation of the initiatives, he said, which will involve a range of activities. DoD will have to reassess its doctrine, training structure and processes, educational programs and war plans, he said. Also, officials will need to incorporate lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, he noted.

Norwood warned against interpreting the directive to mean stability operations are the goal in themselves, Norwood said. The United States works hard to develop weak states and prevent failed states, he pointed out, so stability operations are not necessary. But measures need to be in place if that doesn't work, he said.

"We recognize those strategies may not work, and when we have to conduct stability operations, we don't want it to be a pick-up game; we want varsity capabilities from the onset," he said.

SWJED

12-16-2005, 09:41 AM

16 Dec. Christian Science Monitor - New Military Goals: 'Win the Peace' (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1216/p01s02-usmi.html).

With little fanfare during the past few weeks, the Pentagon has rolled out one of the most significant changes to military doctrine since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The policy directive recently signed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares that the job of planning and training to win the peace after a war is now virtually as important to the military as the conflict itself.

The document marks a sea change from the ideals of the past, when the military was loath to take on any responsibility beyond waging and winning wars. Indeed, it suggests that the Pentagon increasingly sees Iraq and Afghanistan as templates for wars of the future, with success hinging not only on military superiority, but also on the ability to reconstruct failed states...

Jedburgh

09-09-2008, 08:58 PM

RAND, 8 Sep 08: After the War: Nation-Building from FDR to George W. Bush (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG716.pdf)

Beginning with the post–World War II occupations of Germany and Japan, the United States has undertaken eight significant nationbuilding operations over the past 60 years. The planning for postwar nation-building in Germany and Japan began under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was carried out under President Harry S. Truman.

Subsequent operations during the post–Cold War era were initiated and conducted by President George H. W. Bush and President William J. Clinton, respectively. The United States has subsequently taken the lead in post–September 11, 2001, nation-building under President George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq. In each of the eight cases presented here, presidential decisionmaking and administrative structure have, at times, worked in favor of the nation-building goals of the U.S. government and military and those of its coalition partners and allies. In other cases, these elements have hindered the achievement of these goals or have had negative effects on nation-building outcomes.

This monograph assesses the ways in which the management styles and structures of the administrations in power prior to and during nation-building operations affect the goals and outcomes of such operations. It also evaluates the nature of the society being reformed and of the conflict being terminated. The findings presented here should be of interest to policymakers and others interested in the history of U.S. nation-building, lessons learned from these operations, and the outcomes of U.S. involvement in rebuilding various types of societies......
Complete 190-page monograph at the link.

Jedburgh

10-01-2008, 08:48 PM

SSI, 1 Oct 08: Stability Operations and State Building: Continuities and Contingencies (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB879.pdf)

....This volume contains the full range of intellectual theorizing, historical examinations, and practical engagement challenges which were so richly presented by the attendees of the colloquium held as a result of the Strategic Studies Institute’s collaboration with Austin Peay State University. In addition, the appendices contain not only the final principles, policies, and procedures determined by the plenary, but also the full list of nominated principles with which the attendees worked. The Strategic Studies Institute and Austin Peay State University are pleased to offer this important compilation of knowledge on the most immediate challenge facing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan today.....
Complete 280-page paper at the link.

Surferbeetle

01-17-2010, 04:38 AM

Nation Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-building) defined by Wikipedia

Traditionally there has been some confusion between the use of the term nation-building and that of state-building (the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in North America). Both have fairly narrow and different definitions in political science, the former referring to national identity, the latter to the institutions of the state.

Nation-building refers to the process of constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. This process aims at the unification of the people or peoples within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth.

State Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-building#Definition) defined by Wikipeda

There are two main theoretical approaches to definitions of state-building. Firstly state-building is seen by some theorists as an activity undertaken by external actors (foreign countries) attempting to build, or re-build, the institutions of a weaker, post-conflict or failing state. This is a view of state-building as the activity of one country in relation to another, usually following some form of intervention (such as a UN peacekeeping operation).

Approach #2

This work has tended to draw heavily on political science. It has produced definitions that view state-building as an indigenous, national process driven by state-society relations. This view believes that countries cannot do state-building outside their own borders, they can only influence, support or hinder such processes.

Rand's The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG557/) By: James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, Beth Cole DeGrasse

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and a range of other states and nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly involved in nation-building operations. Nation-building involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms, with the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors. This guidebook is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. The chapters describe how each of these components should be organized and employed, how much of each is likely to be needed, and the likely cost. The lessons are drawn principally from 16 U.S.- and UN-led nation-building operations since World War II and from a forthcoming study on European-led missions. In short, this guidebook presents a comprehensive history of best practices in nation-building and serves as an indispensable reference for the preplanning of future interventions and for contingency planning on the ground.

Sweat Equity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_equity) defined by Wikipedia

Sweat equity is a term used to describe the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort. It can be contrasted with financial equity which is the money contributed towards the project. It is used to refer to a form of compensation by businesses to their owners or employees. The term is sometimes used in partnership agreements where one or more of the partners contributes no financial capital. In the case of a business startup, employees might, upon incorporation, receive stock or stock options in return for working for below-market salaries (or in some cases no salary at all).

In a successful model used by Habitat for Humanity, families who would otherwise be unable to purchase their own home (because their income level does not allow them to save for a down payment or qualify for an interest-bearing mortgage offered by a financial institution) contribute up to 500 hours of sweat equity to the construction of their own home, the homes of other Habitat for Humanity partner families or by volunteering to assist the organization in other ways. Once moved into their new home, the family makes monthly, interest-free mortgage payments into a revolving "Fund for Humanity" which provides capital to build homes for other partner families.

SWC thread From Maneuver Warfare To Maneuver Welfare (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=9514)

Dayuhan

01-19-2010, 01:44 AM

This reminds me of how much I dislike the term "nation-building", and why.

You can't build a nation, any more than you can build a tree. These are not things that are built, these are things that grow. It's a semantic distinction, but semantic distinctions do influence perception, discourse, and eventually policy. The idea that a nation can be built is what leads us to the absurdity of nominally rational adults talking about "installing" a democracy, as if it were a light bulb or spare tire, and we have a warehouse full of neatly stacked crates labeled "democracy, functioning, one" just waiting to be screwed into place.

Treating nations and states as growing entities that need to be cultivated rather than engineering challenges awaiting the correct blueprint is not going to solve the problems, but it might provide a more effective foundation for developing solutions.

We have to accept that the growth of nations is an inherently disorderly process and that conflict is usually going to be part of it. Our own nation undertook one of history's great genocides and fought one of history's great civil wars before defining itself as a nation. Western Europeans see themselves at the pinnacle of human civilization, but the warring tribes of western Europe went through many centuries of gory and destructive conflict before they could even figure out where one nation ended and others began. When we look with horror on the wars and abuses of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East we would do well to reflect that all they are doing is settling their business in exactly the same way we once settled ours. Colonial powers may have suspended the process by imposing order at the expense of stability, but when they left the process continued.

None of this means we have to simply sit back and accept whatever happens. It means we have to accept that we can only manage situations to the greatest extent possible (which may at times be a very minimal extent), not control them. We have to accept that the needed process of growth may not always be compatible with our perceived self-interest. We have to accept that borders left behind by retreating colonists do not necessarily constitute "nations", and that at a certain point people may have to work out for themselves what "nations" actually make sense, and that this process will involve a certain amount of disorder. We have to accept that creating or recognizing a government does not necessarily endow it with the capacity to govern.

We cannot build nations, or states. We may be able to help cultivate them, if we recognize that an organic growth process is involved and start working with it instead of trying to control it to achieve our own immediate goals.

Ken White

01-19-2010, 02:22 AM

Truly excellent post, Dayuhan.

Surferbeetle

01-19-2010, 06:51 AM

Steve,

As Ken has noted your preceding post is indeed an excellent one and there is much wisdom in it, however, let's examine it further :wry: (And Ken, to echo one of your earlier posts today…what you think is of interest... metrics! That should do it ;) )

This reminds me of how much I dislike the term "nation-building", and why.

The term sets up a number of expectations on all sides of the process and does not fully help, as much as we might like, to bridge the gap between the on the ground realities we find and the desired outcomes-oftentimes developed in places far away. Nonetheless, I do not yet have a better term (the term nation cultivation will not survive the testosterone laden DoD marketplace of terms and acronyms); perhaps we can find something better if we get a chance to read works from all of the development authors/theorists/contributors mentioned by M.A. Lagrange in his posts - or if he chimes in and helps out ;)

Walt Whitman Rostow - Rostovian Take-off Model
Immanuel Wallerstein-The Modern World System
Samir Amin-Theory of Centre and Periphery
Giovanni Arrighi-World Systems
Hans Singer-Raul Prebisch-Dependency Theory
Alexander Gerschenkron-Backwardness Model

You can't build a nation, any more than you can build a tree. These are not things that are built, these are things that grow. It's a semantic distinction, but semantic distinctions do influence perception, discourse, and eventually policy.

There are many truths here, and I like the tree analogy because it helps one to think about the types of consistent conditions, which are needed for growth, as well as why one must pair realistic time-spans/schedules with achievable results. The disconnect between wishing for/planning for/advertising a cash crop before an orchard can physically produce it is something that does not require a grounding in nation building, state building, or development work to understand.

The idea that a nation can be built is what leads us to the absurdity of nominally rational adults talking about "installing" a democracy, as if it were a light bulb or spare tire, and we have a warehouse full of neatly stacked crates labeled "democracy, functioning, one" just waiting to be screwed into place.

Following our tree analogy, there are some places that will most certainly require additional water and soil additives in order to grow a ‘democracy tree’ and even with additional long-term care there are some environments that may not be able to support that particular type of tree. IMHO economics, in particular some form of capitalism, help to set the conditions for sustainable growth and are a more realistic place to focus efforts upon before planting a 'democracy tree'.

Treating nations and states as growing entities that need to be cultivated rather than engineering challenges awaiting the correct blueprint is not going to solve the problems, but it might provide a more effective foundation for developing solutions.

A too literal application of the engineering method/attitude is certainly something to be guarded against. One could argue that favoring an interdisciplinary approach, perhaps having/seeking a grounding in biology, business, and engineering, or engaging in kayaking or surfing are potential pathways to develop/increase/reinforce one’s awareness of the need to seek balance in all things. :wry:

We have to accept that the growth of nations is an inherently disorderly process and that conflict is usually going to be part of it. Our own nation undertook one of history's great genocides and fought one of history's great civil wars before defining itself as a nation. Western Europeans see themselves at the pinnacle of human civilization, but the warring tribes of western Europe went through many centuries of gory and destructive conflict before they could even figure out where one nation ended and others began. When we look with horror on the wars and abuses of Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East we would do well to reflect that all they are doing is settling their business in exactly the same way we once settled ours. Colonial powers may have suspended the process by imposing order at the expense of stability, but when they left the process continued.

Having spent some time studying Germanic and Roman history & culture I would tend to agree with many of your points. As an observational aside, have you been following the current political machinations with respect to the IHEC decision (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=91191#post91191) in Iraq? I wonder how these events are/will impact the Sunni component of the military and militias; Dr. Charles Tripp’s (http://www.amazon.com/History-Iraq-Charles-Tripp/dp/052152900X) descriptions of the influence the military had upon the political landscape in Iraq during July 1958 and February 1963 make for interesting reading and comparison.

None of this means we have to simply sit back and accept whatever happens. It means we have to accept that we can only manage situations to the greatest extent possible (which may at times be a very minimal extent), not control them.

A successful balanced approach might indeed include an engineering approach/methodology and business approach/methodology component in the response. (apparently I am outta my allotment of wry smiles, nonetheless one has been placed here due to the one dimensional commo method we use)

We cannot build nations, or states. We may be able to help cultivate them, if we recognize that an organic growth process is involved and start working with it instead of trying to control it to achieve our own immediate goals.

Although I agree with your much of your concept, it will need a stronger term or acronym in order to both survive and generate interest in the testosterone laden DoD marketplace of ideas. The myriad aspects of the commonly heard phrase ‘carnivore vs. herbivore thinking’ both make me smile and think about how to find needed balance.

Omnivore thinking?

Dayuhan

01-19-2010, 12:41 PM

The term sets up a number of expectations on all sides of the process and does not fully help, as much as we might like, to bridge the gap between the on the ground realities we find and the desired outcomes-oftentimes developed in places far away. Nonetheless, I do not yet have a better term (the term nation cultivation will not survive the testosterone laden DoD marketplace of terms and acronyms)

This is true, and is one more reason why expecting DoD to effectively promote the development of states, nations, or economies makes about as much sense as expecting development professionals to fight a war.

perhaps we can find something better if we get a chance to read works from all of the development authors/theorists/contributors mentioned by M.A. Lagrange in his posts - or if he chimes in and helps out ;)

Perhaps indeed, though it's a fair haul from development theory to effective practice.

I like the tree analogy because it helps one to think about the types of consistent conditions, which are needed for growth, as well as why one must pair realistic time-spans/schedules with achievable results. The disconnect between wishing for/planning for/advertising a cash crop before an orchard can physically produce it is something that does not require a grounding in nation building, state building, or development work to understand.

I like the analogy because most of us understand viscerally and intellectually, that you have to have a sapling before you have a tree. We're too often inclined to think of building national institutions before we have a nation, or building democracy before we have a government, or of trying to put a fully functioning government in place all at once instead of trying to plant a seed and give irt space to grow.

IMHO economics, in particular some form of capitalism, help to set the conditions for sustainable growth and are a more realistic place to focus efforts upon before planting a 'democracy tree'.

The economic side is certainly important, but very difficult to bring beyond a rudimentary level without some basic framework of at least local governance. Even on the most minimal level it's hard to justify investing capital or sweat when it's only going to make you a target for people who want a piece of whatever you've got.

One could argue that favoring an interdisciplinary approach, perhaps having/seeking a grounding in biology, business, and engineering, or engaging in kayaking or surfing are potential pathways to develop/increase/reinforce one’s awareness of the need to seek balance in all things.

Kayaking and surfing are not a bad place to start: you learn the importance of balance and you learn to work with the prevailing forces of nature instead of trying to control them... aside from being just cooler than everybody else.

To me we need to choose our battles better and choose our entry points better. There are environments and times when all the art and science, craft and resources we can apply are not going to achieve the desired goal... sometimes the only available response to a request for directions is on the order of "Caint git thar from here, best go back where y'all started from and try agin".

Although I agree with your much of your concept, it will need a stronger term or acronym in order to both survive and generate interest in the testosterone laden DoD marketplace of ideas. The myriad aspects of the commonly heard phrase ‘carnivore vs. herbivore thinking’ both make me smile and think about how to find needed balance.

Omnivore thinking?

On a large scale, yes, omnivore thinking. Also it pays to send your carnivores when there's hunting to be done, to send in your herbivores when there's crops to be nuruered, and to remember which is which. Above all, whether it's meat or veg, don't bite off what you can't chew, because if you do you can choke on it. Of course now that's exactly the position we're in: we took way too big a bite, we can't chew it, we can't swallow it, and we can't spit it out. I wish I had something to suggest beyond pointing out that we might have thought twice before biting it off in the first place, but I'm afraid I don't.

M-A Lagrange

01-19-2010, 01:35 PM

I fully agree with Dayuhan, building a Nation is a myth. But building a State apparatus is possible. This does not mean it would be a success according to Western standards.
This being said, let’s look at the roots of the tree before commenting how the tree grows:

Let’s drop the Fukuyama and other Marxist theories on what are State and their capitalistic predatory ambitions.
We need here first to agree on what we are talking about: State apparatus.
What is a State, what are the basements and what are the role of administrations into it.

First, I will take the Clausewitz trinity of our beloved brother Wilf:
People, Leadership and Armed Force

A group of people, with a leader and the capacity to be organised to use violence to defend their land: a Cite (in Greek in the text).
Here lay the roots of a country, a state, a nation….
On this, I would recommend Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke… To end up with Rousseau.

Now, this leads us to what are the various kind of civil societies (knowing the fact that by this term we include military dictatorship, kingdoms… All kinds of societies which are not lead by civilians).

1) the societies without State (Stateless societies, Non State societies):
The most well known example are the Nuer from Sudan. Cf: E. E. Evans-Pritchard

In those kinds of societies, social hierarchy is low, power is not centralized and not structured through a centralized administration or proto administration. Authority is hold by family chiefs or elders or religious leaders.
Moral and religion are used as law or legal referent to sanction deviances, non respects of Tabou…
Such societies are centered on survival of the group.
Actual good example is Somalia. It is also the type of organization to which de regulated, and dismantled societies tend to go back in failed states during civil wars or more generally when the State (as an administration) is absent.
Such societies are seen by Hobbes as the Human Nature: the war of all against all. It’s the western imaginary “savage society”. (by the way, to me it’s much closer to Locke than Hobbes).
What in western politic has long been assimilated to anarchy (See Anarchy ) but is not, especially in traditional societies (See all theanthropoly in Africa, Oceania, South America…).

2) the societies with State:

The societies with Sate, at least the modern ones are based on Max Weber definition of the State.
Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:
1. charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2. traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism), and
3. legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[56]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[57] He also notes that the instability of charismatic authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure.[58] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

So State building is building legal domination according to Weber classification.
This is the base of JMM99 three areas schema you can access here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=7610).
The actual model of this are the USA, all European countries, Asian, South American countries… All modern states. But there is sometimes a difference between those Nations. The “orthodox” Rule of Law State build Nation being USA. Mainy European countries are based on a social contract that is declined into rule of law… (slice difference but makes all the difference in fact).

This is entirely based on western societies, by the way. And this is what State Building is willing to achieve. But may be this should be called Administration Building. But this is also where the bias is.
Several challenges are to be faced. The following list is not exhaustive, far from it.

For this, I will use first a Kilcullen article published in SWJ (New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflicts http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/06/new-paradigms-for-21st-century/).
Similarly, we traditionally conduct state-based diplomacy through engagement with elites of other societies: governments, intelligentsia, and business leaders, among others. The theory is that problems can be resolved when elites agree, cooler heads prevail, and governments negotiate and then enforce agreements. Notions of sovereignty, the nation-state, treaty regimes, and international institutions all build on this paradigm.

What he points out is the fact that to build a new partner, we need to have an Elite to discuss with. We need to replace an Elite by another. So State building is not just administration building but it’s also elite capacity building.
The problematic often face is then that you have a competition on legitimacy, at field level, between Non State Elites and formal State Elites. Especially when State building aim is to build a “Nation” ex nihilo.

Secondly, I will use the very recent work of Atlani-Duault on former USSR countries and culture. Basically, her work is based on the idea that to counter USSR authoritarian regime, West has been developing the concept of civil society and culture. The main idea is that during Cold war culture has been used to build civil society and a new Elite that would fight the communists. Now days, this has become an habit in State Building to look for civil society and create, even sometimes ex nihilo, a civilian Elite that would challenge the military/political power in failed States. The UN came even with the concept of non educated intellectuals….

The bias it creates is that we are looking to create spontaneous generation of Elites. In many Stabilization or State building manuals this has became: empowering local authorities. Hopefully, several of those manual are pointing the limits of the exercise.

So State building is creating a body we can talk with because it looks like us.
Nation Building is creating an Administration body that can think by herself. That does take time, especially as we do not always this to happen.

What Sufferedbeetle is referring to in previous post is the end or the aim of the administration and more precisely Governance. We tend too much to mix Governance and State building.
The role of democracy in modern State Building is central as several attempts of non democratic States have been made in the past, with various results.
The 70th werethe golden years of enlightened dictatorships. This had a very good result in Asia in the 80th. Unfortunately, as the democratic transition was too quick, brutal or simply too late, this is the roots causes of the radicalisation of religious opposition in many of those countries.
I Africa, this was a complete disaster since the beginning.

Nowadays, we try to dress it with the apparence of democracy in conducting elections giving choice to the people only to a panel of Elites coming from the civil society we (the West) have created or supported. We will see the result in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan… The previous results in DRC are not so much encouraging, I would say.
Then comes the problematic of integrating armed groups into a civilian structure… South America has been an interesting laboratory on this. The main tool being amnesty laws and elections…. With various results once again.
And finally how to fund a State admnistration or how countries do fund they develpment.

As JMM pointed out, for practical reasons, we tend to prefer to have a week dictatorship that would resist to insurgencies than a strong democracy that is too difficult to build, too time costly and weak against armed opposition.

But this just means that Nation Building needs to be rethought not that Nation Building has to be thrown away. (by the way, I have probably 8 to 12 hours difference with you guys. So do not expect me to be too much at the page immediatly :)) )

M-A Lagrange

01-19-2010, 01:43 PM

Beelzebubalicious

01-19-2010, 01:51 PM

To me, the biggest factor in all of this is time. You can't really make a tree grow faster than it naturally does and I think the same goes for nations. We're always trying to engineer things to be faster, but it doesn't really work b/c it is against the nature of the thing.

Ukraine just had another election and the same old characters are there. Having Hilary as a pen pal didn't help Yulia. Nothing much will change. Over time, these people will move on (shuffle on quickly please) and a new generation will take control and they will be a bit more evolved than the last (we hope) and so on....eventually, there will be a critical mass of political evolution and things will change. But it takes time to dig out from the soviet legacy.

M-A Lagrange

01-19-2010, 03:35 PM

Now let’s look at the economical theories of development and how they link up with politic development.

First of all Nation Building has for aim not to bring development but to build the mechanisms that fund a State and its administration.

Secondly because I am lazy, I will just take the two main theories of economical development:
- Rostow and linear development (Capitalist theory)
- Samir Hamin and centre and periphery (Socialist theory)

Rostow theory is based on a Western centred historical approach of development.

You start with the prehistoric period to end up in a 7/11 like mall. The basic idea is being that with several stages of economical development (and technological development) comes political development.
1) Stone Age: No technology, no economy: no State
2) Antiquity: basic technology, basic trade economy self centred: the concept of Cite (in Greek in the text).
3) Middle age: limited technology, proto capitalist economy: kingdoms
4) Renaissance: birth of modern technology, birth of capitalism: kingdoms with centred administration.
5) Modern times: limited modern technology, take off period: birth of democracy
6) Contemporaneous times: full modern technology, full capitalist economy: democracy.
(It’s a resume)
The main idea of Rostow is that economy and governance are linked. His approach and assumption is that if a country becomes rich then it will become a democracy.
Rostow basically putted on paper the general gut feeling of what is development in West.
Unfortunately, China has proven he was partially wrong: having a capitalist economy does not imply that you get a democracy. China has even proven the inverse: a strong capitalist economy can lead to a strong dictatorial regime.

But were Rostow is right is on take off period. You need a healthy economy to support a strong State apparatus. That’s the move Chinese made in the early 80 when they started to drop communist economy for capitalist economy. (And what led USSR to its end). Unfortunately, State apparatus and State economy nature are not linked.

Samir Amin theory is the critic of Rostow and is middle East centred (He wanted it third world centred but took Egypt as model…).
It is also an historical based theory of development.
1) Self centred development: you exploit your own resources to build your economy.
2) Predatory development: you exploit neighbours resources to build you economy. Actual example is Rwanda development strategy.
3) Mercantile: you impose to your neighbours to trade with you to develop your economy. Basic example is the colonisation.
4) Centre and periphery: you have economical centres which are in advance and which pull up peripheral areas. Capitalism.

To make it simple: it’s the base of the drop oil theory.
The good thing in Samir Amin is that he completely separates political evolution from economical development.
Personally, I have a tendency to prefer Samir Amin to Rostow. In fact, Rwanda and Uganda are applying Samir Amin theory and it works well.
But the 4 dragons of Asia did apply Rostow (Germany and Japan also in some extends) and it worked out also. But in fact, the 4 Dragons had a mix between Samir Amin and Rostow.
Politically, economic wealth did lead to democracy. But economically, those countries had to 2 policies:
- auto centred heavy industry development (pure Rostow: initiate take off through internal employment and sector 1 development)
- center and periphery industry development for export: they developed economical niches to generate strong external trade to attract hard currencies. (A little like Colbert)

On that, I would recommend Arghiri Emmanuel, David Ricardo and the economic theory of underdevelopment. (basically to know what to not do! Like Haliburton in Iraq...)

Now, let’s look at what we are talking about: Nation Building.

Nation Building is aimed to build a State apparatus in order to create an interlocutor for Weberian modern Nations (China included).
The economical component of it is aimed to:
- fund the State apparatus
- stabilize a country by establishing a strong economy that will reduce the use of violence to survive by ordinary people.

Funding the State apparatus is simple (?): you impose taxes. That requires a strong administration that can collect transparently taxes and a strong legal base to legitimate taxations.
Already we do have a problem:
- Strong administration means qualified and dedicated people.
- Strong legal base means that the State does not act predatorily but on legal base.
In most of failed States and post conflicts context, you are missing both.

Secondly you need to have something to tax! In most failed states, you have a predominance of the informal economy. So there is no legally formal body to tax. And then you have a majority of the population living with such low revenues that you just cannot tax them.

So you need to have development programs to build an economy that will support the State apparatus that you are building.

But as the economy is weak, the State remains weak and then it is an open door to corruption, black economy and so on… Also, the new Elite you have promoted are making much more money in a failed State than in a fully installed modern State ran by Rule of Law (Cf Iraq and Afghanistan). So they do not work hard to establish a formal State. As the State is weak and corrupted, it looses its legitimacy in the eyes of everyday people. So you promote insurgencies which weaken the State… And so on and so on.

Fortunately, there is a solution. (to be found if you listen to me)
The actual model of development used is Canada and the natural resources based development to build a strong Democratic State.
Just 2 critics (not really elaborated):
- Natural resources centred development is basically neo colonialism with a new clown costume. Samir Amin theory.
- Canada as a model is just believing that because you have a democratic model all other countries following that model will be democratic. Rostow theory.

Result: nothing new since 1970!
It’s time for a change!
By the way, Fukuyama is a nice guy who use complex words to reinvent the wheel and explain with capitalist vocabulary what the Marxist economical theorist of development have already said.

Surferbeetle

01-19-2010, 10:35 PM

M.A.,

Greatly appreciate your tour de force posts on nation and state building; your explanations are very instructive and have shed some light on things for me.

In support of the digital SWC library I ran down some Google Books links for some of the authors you cite. One doesn’t need to cart around a desktop/laptop/netbook to read these or take notes anymore…an iTouch will get it done…. I used to use a library card and a typewriter back in the day…just amazing....well it looks like my reading list has grown :wry:

Aristotle - Politics (http://books.google.com/books?id=4bOxTifTDdwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=aristotle+politics&lr=&cd=11#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan (http://books.google.com/books?id=2oc6AAAAMAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=thomas+hobbes,+leviathan&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

John Locke - Two Treatises of Government (http://books.google.com/books?id=K1UBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+locke,+two+treatises&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Jean Jacques Rousseau – The Social Contract (http://books.google.com/books?id=exNPAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jean+Jacques+Rousseau+%E2%80%93+The+Social+Cont ract&lr=&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Walt Whitman Rostow - Politics and the stages of growth (http://books.google.com/books?id=bAc5AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Walt+Whitman+Rostow&lr=&cd=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Samir Amin – Google Books appears to be light on complete digtal copies of his works (http://books.google.com/books?lr=&cd=4&q=Samir+Amin&btnG=Search+Books)

My 0.5 cent formal philosophical education for what its worth, included:

Voltaire – Candide (http://books.google.com/books?id=ueI7hpvhkbEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=voltaire&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Niccolò Machiavelli –The Prince (http://books.google.com/books?id=VIAgG12gh_EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=machiavelli&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

Hermann Hesse – Siddhartha (http://books.google.com/books?id=FYPMIOqPsRUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=siddhartha&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

During OIF1 in Iraq it was my observation that the dying limbs of the Iraqi state tree were triaged and kept viable with external IV’s and tech support. As a result of necessity a local shadow economy grew, flourished, and appeared to come to dominate much of the state’s economic system. Mass privatization via shock therapy methods combined with the simultaneous disintegration and attempted reformation of the political system (formal institutions and informal network structures) resulted in a Hobbesonian environment which made me question what I know about Locke’s thesis regarding the orderliness of man’s nature. Rostow’s construct (more familiar to me as engineering/business approaches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model)), although reminiscent of the underpants gnome's business model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_%28South_Park%29) in some respects, was in my opinion the way to go for the public works and utilities area in which I worked. My unit, lead by an amazing general, was able to provide security while using a balanced approach and as a result our oil spot/province experienced some level of stability during our time there….overall it was an invaluable on-the-job-training (OJT) experience.

M-A Lagrange

01-20-2010, 01:18 AM

Steve,

Thanks and sorry for the bad English and spelling… (Have a ####ty computer at work. Luckily, I also suffer from insomnia and a recent computer at "home").

Now let's make the last move: the link between State building and war: COIN.

There again, I'll come back to CvC. What is the aim of war? To impose a political dictate to an opponent disagreeing with you (Sorry Wilf, I do not have the book with me).
How do you achieve it? By imposing either a policy to an enemy or by imposing a government favorable to your views.
This drives us back to the article at the beginning of the threat: "winning peace".

Basically the new paradigm of war is that for modern armies, the technological, the firepower, manpower and training difference is so huge that the conventional confrontation phase (Shock) is no more a problem. Cf Iraq, Afghanistan…
What are the new strategic phases are the "hold" phase and the "build" phase.
Hold should be the imposition of a monopole of violence by a new actor creating the condition to build a Weberian State. That's basically what nobody is good at. Especially when you face two main oppositions:
- First, one or several bodies not willing to let you be the new owner of the monopoly of violence. Cf Iraq and the "insurgency" led by Sadam Husen in a first time then the civil war that followed when there were no traces of the former State apparatus. All the Shia/Sunny conflict in Iraq is based on that competition between the US and each communities/cite (in Greek in the text) to have the monopoly of violence on a limited piece of land. In addition to that, you had the Al Quada threat which was willing to challenge the US on its capacity to be the external owner of the monopole of violence. (It's a resume).
- Secondly a context/cultural opposition (mainly Afghanistan) based on the opposition of Stateless societies to State society. Basically the tribes/warlords/druglords being opposed to any kind of centralized State.
In some extend Radical religious ideology can be more or less assimilated to Stateless actors (that's what they what to make us believe). But as JMM demonstrated in fact, the Caliphate or what ever else form of Religious Government is a Sate based society.
This is where State and Nation building enter in the game.

The confrontation is no more based on military legitimacy but on people legitimacy. War among the people is not only a war taking place among the people as a theatre of operation but the battle for the domination of the people as define in CvC trinity.
Some simplistic minds take it as reversing CvC: the use of force to establish/legitimate leadership on people.
The problem is unfortunately more complex as the CvC trinity is not dissociable, works in both senses (there is always a looser) and is the root of the cite.
So you have to challenge the previous cite by a new cite model.
This is where my personal obsession for Foucault comes from. (The critic of elections as a technical tool to build democracy like Weberian State).

State Building/Nation Building and COIN:
COIN, as the Surge, is based on State building: build a State apparatus that will have the characteristics we want (Elite, copycat administration, rule of law as primary policy…)
Population centric COIN is based on COIN + the new end of Modern State: the responsibility to protect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11701.doc.htm, http://www.operationspaix.net/IMG/pdf/Responding-to-the-SG_s-Report-on-R2P-June-16-Final.pdf...).

The main challenge of Nation building is to build this responsibility to protect while State building is to build the State Apparatus that will allow to develop/impose (pick up the one you like) an economy that will support it.

PS: you also made me touch the very limits of my underground culture. I love South Park but was much unaware of the underpants gnomes business model. Too much time in field I believe and not enough in front of TV. :D

M-A

jmm99

01-20-2010, 03:05 AM

with much to think about.

What I glean is that the discourse hinges on the concepts of the "nation-state", the "nation" and the "state". The Wiki Nation state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) (no "bible") tosses out some concepts and issues.

I suppose that the questions revolve about the whether and how of building, assisting, supporting: (1) a nation-state; (2) a nation; or (3) a state. Like most high-flying questions, the amount of theories and perceived "best practices" abound - often conflict, but are interesting.

Still, all of that flies far above (but the results will surely affect) the village I'm currently thinking about. That is a place with a guy, his kid and wife with their two donkeys; and the former spearchuckers clustered with their cattle at the watering point (AKs and RPGs may or may not be left hidden in the underbrush). Then we have the village: umbrella huts surrounded by a prickly brush barrier - juxtaposed to adjacent steel structures of indifferent repair. So, my village is certainly a collage - and, perhaps, a mallage.

I do, however, have some doubt as to whether the theory and practice of the Westphalian nation-state will enter into that village's Narrative and become one of its Motivating Causes (borrowing from another thread, which is closely linked to this one).

The nation-state - the 500m target; the village - the 25m target. I'm still plinking, but enjoying the discussion.

Regards

Mike

Dayuhan

01-20-2010, 03:52 AM

To me, the biggest factor in all of this is time. You can't really make a tree grow faster than it naturally does and I think the same goes for nations. We're always trying to engineer things to be faster, but it doesn't really work b/c it is against the nature of the thing.

Very true. I was just saying this on another thread, but it fits as well here... one of the problems in the current American interventions is that American leaders are more concerned with legitimizing their actions to their own populaces and the international audience than they are with looking for a realistic solution to the problem. Of course the American people want to hear that we are going to be out of there in a few years and leave a nice functioning American-style democracy behind. It just ain't gonna happen... continuing the tree analogy, it's like announcing that you're gonna plant an acorn today and have a big ol' oak tree by Christmas.

Steve the Planner

01-20-2010, 03:59 AM

Well....

Probably just icing on Dahayun's cake, but I come out of two edu-theories of nations and national structure/wealth.

Without dispute, a nation that soaks itself dry, which produces nothing, adds nothing to a civic path, is, if not failed, failing. Plenty of examples of nations lost in their own issues, and going nowhere.

The goal in US nation-building is, in most cases, to supplant indigenous leadership, and initiate a substantive (and secular) change in a place that, already by self-selection, is a problem child, if not a basket case.

But our military and foreign policy objectives are not grounded in basic history of the emergence and vitality of successful places/regions or nations, and the routine transformative local or regional drivers, or unique comparative resource, locational or economic advantages that differentiate a failing area from a prospering one.

In Iraq, as I met many of the senior technocrats, they were proud of their role in twice rebuilding their country after major wars, even against the restraints of embargos, and arbitrary dictatorial government. Might not be paradise to us, but they were proud of what they had done, and on many levels, antagonistic to US civ/mil efforts that kept them from their duties/pride in rebuilding their country themselves. VP Mahdi was in Washington yesterday, and unambiguous about their self-determination, and getting the US forces out---to fly, they need us to get out of the way.

As MG Caslan (MND-North) said last month on his public post-tour debrief, he was skeptical of turning things over to Iraqis, but Gen Odierno impressed on him how important it was for the Iraqis, and the zeal they had for self-rule and independence (even with risks of instability).

Smoke and mirrors aside, Iraq has substantial resource, locational and cultural elements that, if they don't tear it apart, will drive it forward---with or without us.

But Afghanistan is a different problem all together. Current Afghans are born into economic, geographic, logistical and resource limitations, despite that it may have been prosperous once. But our strategy does not succeed by helping them to tread water----they have to grow, change, reinvent themselves in remarkable ways to meet our objectives---and it is not happening.

I don't believe that it is not happening because of them, but because of US. We are back to the same old top-down, project and program thing that drove so much of the criminality and corruption---no effective focus, synchronization of actions,or measuarble and sustainable goals.

Our operational focus is not to transform Afghanistan, but to deliver projects and programs already sold somewhere else. Right now,our deliverable is "boots on the ground", and dollars deployed, but we have no realistic transformative strategy or plan that can create 1+1>2 dynamics. Right now, we are still struggling to make 1+1=1, and that isn't going to achieve what we need.

In economic geography, we learn that resources, linkages, transporation and trade patterns, nodality, populations, all create and shape the economic bones of a place, and the collection and connection of those places creates the hierarchy that is a nation, and the reason to bound and defend it as a nation distinct from the "other" places.

Similarly, but from a different perspective, is Jane Jacobs, whose epic tome, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, derives from the shopkeeper, sidewalk interactions, and local associations,interactions and businesses that builds the framework for a city (not to exclude modern suburban distributed city forms), and the city drives the region, which adds up to the wealth and connectivity of nation.

Last April, I had the opportunity to talk with John Adams, em. prof of econ geography at UMinn about US military/foreign policy strategies for building nations in the top-down, just add water approach. It simply defies history, reality and functional evidence. You have to first find and develop some unique economic value, or hope for one, in a place to set that place in motion, and the rest of the places have to raise to a level that regional interactions can become transformative drivers (1+1>2).

If we want to see Afghanistan become something other than what it is, we need to get smart and focused, and become very Afghan-oriented. Maybe, but who will drive and deliver that?

Long ago, I learned that knowledge is transferable, but wisdom is not.

But, this business of implementing unstructured and unfocused projects and programs, for the last decade in Afghanistan and Iraq has shown that 1+1<2 if poorly conceived, unsynchronized to any viable local attributes.

The more I watch the logistic dog collar pulling back on our limits in Afghanistan, the more sure I am that, unlike Iraq,

Dayuhan

01-20-2010, 04:26 AM

I fully agree with Dayuhan, building a Nation is a myth. But building a State apparatus is possible.

Under some circumstances, I agree. I'm not convinced that those circumstances are universally present.

A group of people, with a leader and the capacity to be organised to use violence to defend their land: a Cite (in Greek in the text).
Here lay the roots of a country, a state, a nation….

Ok, stop right there and ask about these roots. Is the capacity to organize present, or is it obstructed by internal conflict? When we talk about "their land", who are "they". Already we are assuming a perception of unity, a consensus that the people of whatever territory we're discussing perceive themselves themselves as a discrete entity. This condition is in many cases simply not present.

Now, this leads us to what are the various kind of civil societies (knowing the fact that by this term we include military dictatorship, kingdoms… All kinds of societies which are not lead by civilians).

1) the societies without State (Stateless societies, Non State societies):
The most well known example are the Nuer from Sudan. Cf: E. E. Evans-Pritchard

In those kinds of societies, social hierarchy is low, power is not centralized and not structured through a centralized administration or proto administration. Authority is hold by family chiefs or elders or religious leaders.
Moral and religion are used as law or legal referent to sanction deviances, non respects of Tabou…
Such societies are centered on survival of the group.
Actual good example is Somalia. It is also the type of organization to which de regulated, and dismantled societies tend to go back in failed states during civil wars or more generally when the State (as an administration) is absent.
Such societies are seen by Hobbes as the Human Nature: the war of all against all. It’s the western imaginary “savage society”. (by the way, to me it’s much closer to Locke than Hobbes).
What in western politic has long been assimilated to anarchy (See Anarchy ) but is not, especially in traditional societies (See all theanthropoly in Africa, Oceania, South America…).

2) the societies with State:

The societies with Sate, at least the modern ones are based on Max Weber definition of the State.
Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:
1. charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2. traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism), and
3. legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[56]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[57] He also notes that the instability of charismatic authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure.[58] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

Look at it from the other direction. What if the state we want to build contains multiple societies? What if these multiple societies are traditional rivals? What if they distrust each other, or loathe each other? These conditions are going to have a very real impact on the capacity to build a state, a nation, or an economy.

This is the key obstacle to... ok, call it what you will, nation building, state building, development, whatever in much of the post-colonial world. We're left with abstract lines drawn on maps by retreating colonists. We're inclined to assume that the people who live within these lines constitute a nation and possess the perception of unity that is required before building or growth can begin.

If we're talking about growing a nation, that perception of "us" is the seed, if we're talking about building a nation that's the raw material. Without it there are going to be pretty serious problems. Before we talk about a nation we have to ask whether the people in the territory in question see themselves as a nation. Is there an "us" there? Do the people who live within this arbitrary set of lines on a map see themselves as a discrete entity? Do they want to be a single nation? If the answer to those questions is "no", it's going to be pretty difficult to build a functional nation there.

Ultimately this question has to be sorted out by the people in question, and unfortunately human beings have generally gone through a fair bit of violence before coming up with an answer.

But this just means that Nation Building needs to be rethought not that Nation Building has to be thrown away. (by the way, I have probably 8 to 12 hours difference with you guys. So do not expect me to be too much at the page immediatly :)) )

I also wouldn't suggest throwing the whole concept away, but I would certainly suggest that we need to ask in any given case whether the prerequisites for statehood exist before trying to apply our theories.

I'm also in a minority time zone; it all sorts out, not necessarily in any coherent fashion!

Surferbeetle

01-20-2010, 06:41 AM

From the 20 Jan 2010 Wired, Could a ‘Virtual Surge’ Fix Afghanistan? (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/) By Nathan Hodge

Afghanistan, like Haiti, is a country in need of a major reboot. Yet despite billions in reconstruction dollars — and an influx of civilian development experts — it remains at the bottom of every development and transparency index.

But according to Ashraf Ghani, the country’s former finance minister and a onetime presidential contender, Afghanistan doesn’t need an army of consultants and contractors. It needs you, and your laptop.

Ghani is promoting the idea of a “virtual surge” as a development alternative in Afghanistan. The idea is simple: In order to help Afghanistan, you don’t need to be in Afghanistan. You can use distance learning and social networking tools to provide the information and expertise the country needs, and save money, time and lives in the process.

“The United States is a society where voluntary activity is ingrained in the culture — and where online community has become very, very real community,” Ghani said. “My idea is to harness the power of online community as the other side of America.”

Call it an alternative — or perhaps an adjunct to — the current troop surge. “The sense of sacrifice by the American soldiers is extremely well appreciated,” Ghani said. “But they don’t have counterpart civilians. There are very few really qualified civilians who can come and take the conditions of hardship. But that doesn’t mean that they cannot contribute.”

William F. Owen

01-20-2010, 06:45 AM

There again, I'll come back to CvC. What is the aim of war? To impose a political dictate to an opponent disagreeing with you (Sorry Wilf, I do not have the book with me). Well at least you're trying!

How do you achieve it? By imposing either a policy to an enemy or by imposing a government favorable to your views.
This drives us back to the article at the beginning of the threat: "winning peace".
Allow me: Ideally you do it by "destroying his armed force" - that is kill/capture them, until they give up. Works and proven to do so. - but you may have to settle for something less as the setting forth of policy can also change the policy.
If you are not using violence, you are using diplomacy.

M-A Lagrange

01-20-2010, 03:25 PM

Allow me: Ideally you do it by "destroying his armed force" - that is kill/capture them, until they give up. Works and proven to do so. - but you may have to settle for something less as the setting forth of policy can also change the policy.
If you are not using violence, you are using diplomacy.

Wilf, we are talking about the hold/build phase. They already have given up military, at least most of them.

Dayuhan,

Look at it from the other direction. What if the state we want to build contains multiple societies? What if these multiple societies are traditional rivals? What if they distrust each other, or loathe each other? These conditions are going to have a very real impact on the capacity to build a state, a nation, or an economy.

This answers to your first comment. The trick and what is fooling us is that we look at countries as a homogenous body while in many failed state, it's a patchwork of small entities more or less federated by a central inefficient State.
The cite can be restricted to the very core Aristotle definition: the agora. A land: a village, a leadership: the elders, an army: the men of the village (in CvC trinity).

Mike,

Still, all of that flies far above (but the results will surely affect) the village I'm currently thinking about. That is a place with a guy, his kid and wife with their two donkeys; and the former spearchuckers clustered with their cattle at the watering point (AKs and RPGs may or may not be left hidden in the underbrush). Then we have the village: umbrella huts surrounded by a prickly brush barrier - juxtaposed to adjacent steel structures of indifferent repair. So, my village is certainly a collage - and, perhaps, a mallage.

I think you are targeting the right level. But it appears that we want to first fixe the 500 m target before going to the 25 m target. Funding also come into the question. It's much cheaper to fix the State apparatus before fixing the problematic of all the small villages.
Afghanistan is a very good example of this. The assembly was created to bring together all the potential Elite that could enter our definition of it and ease the establishment of a centralized State. But we did not look at the lower level: do those people represent more than a village or a fragile structure based on violence domination a combination of Stateless entities and Charismatic/traditional domination.
Afghanistan like many others failed States is like an onion. You have several layers of complex societal organization and we come to impose another one, just because it is the one we are familiar with.

I can see "technical" problems also. It's difficult to build both State administration and Nation at village level. But not impossible, just more expensive.

Steve,

In Iraq, as I met many of the senior technocrats, they were proud of their role in twice rebuilding their country after major wars, even against the restraints of embargos, and arbitrary dictatorial government. Might not be paradise to us, but they were proud of what they had done, and on many levels, antagonistic to US civ/mil efforts that kept them from their duties/pride in rebuilding their country themselves. VP Mahdi was in Washington yesterday, and unambiguous about their self-determination, and getting the US forces out---to fly, they need us to get out of the way.

As MG Caslan (MND-North) said last month on his public post-tour debrief, he was skeptical of turning things over to Iraqis, but Gen Odierno impressed on him how important it was for the Iraqis, and the zeal they had for self-rule and independence (even with risks of instability).

Smoke and mirrors aside, Iraq has substantial resource, locational and cultural elements that, if they don't tear it apart, will drive it forward---with or without us.

But Afghanistan is a different problem all together. Current Afghans are born into economic, geographic, logistical and resource limitations, despite that it may have been prosperous once. But our strategy does not succeed by helping them to tread water----they have to grow, change, reinvent themselves in remarkable ways to meet our objectives---and it is not happening.

You describe exactly what I am talking about.
Empirically, I see two main kind of State building contexts or a context of State building (Iraq) and one context of Nation Building (Afghanistan), to make it simple.

As Steve clearly explains, Iraq was a "developed State" with all the characteristics of a Weberian State before the war. I did live in Iraq in 1978 and it was an average Middle East country with high potential (and yes I was a little boy at that time, so what? :D).

Pre war Afgahnistan is a Stateless country with an attempt of Weberian State. (Cannot say it worked out nor any of us did support it. We were much too busy defeating USSR at that time).
In such context, the remark of Dayuhan takes all its sense. What is the cite? Basically the village Mike is thinking of.
In my perception, we should approach such contexts as a sea of sand and rocks with island and look at it with a Carl Schmitt approach. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt) Each village is a land with its specific and limited imperium and le land between each village an open space: a sea with a constellation of islands to be conquered. (Land and Sea. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1997). Original publication: 1954.)
Taliban or any insurgents are pirates, just like in Grotius and the right of gents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Grotius): a group of armed people without land and looking to take treasure but not an imperium.

M-A

Steve the Planner

01-20-2010, 03:48 PM

MA Lagrange:

Very good analogy.

As a relative youngster, Uncle Sam decided that I would enjoy wandering the Countryside in Germany, in and around Hof (the interior German Border). As I walked through the forest between the little castles, I would come across these interesting little buildings in the forest with steep onion domed roofs, and slathered with religious themes of safe-guarding travelers from bandits.

That's how western europe, and especially german areas functioned for centuries. Constant inter-town and mini-state squabbling and wars. Travelers between faced the deadly risk of a night in the forest with the bandits that lived between. The steep roofs prevented them from waiting above to pounce on the travelers when the came out.

It is the history of the world. The fact that some places are still in that mode should not be surprising, and must be understood.

Tom Ricks, for example, is always going on about Iraq's "unravelling." I enjoy his work, but Iraq's history (dating back fro millenia) is of strong city-states and the regions they control, and not of our high school text book version of "democracy." Even during the Salah ad Din and Ottoman days, major cities like Mosul ran themselves---much more complex governance structure than appears to the outsider.

So what if Iraq decided, when all was said and done, to basically return to a city/region structure, loosely bound by national trappings and exigencies? Would that be an unraveling, or just a further refinement on a long-standing historical pattern and practice.

Today's Wash Post explained how the Afghan Reconstruction effort is grinding against the reality of illiteracy, lack of phones, mobility, etc... to extend government.

If all of our "advancement" is predicated on literacy, and only the school kids will have it, we run the risk of creating a little-kid technocratic dictatorship that local customs, practices and leaders will chew up and spit out for breakfast in the same manner as Afghan reactions to communism and secularism in the 1970s.

Where's that headed?

Steve

jmm99

01-20-2010, 05:30 PM

In many cases (your case), we are looking at islands in the sand or boats on the sea. The question is how to link the islands or boats and draw them closer - an example that worked, the Iroquois Confederation (originally five, very warring tribes) - Wilf calls that "diplomacy" and I'm fine with that; but that begs the question of who does the "diplomacy".

As to this:

from MA

I think you are targeting the right level. But it appears that we want to first fixe the 500 m target before going to the 25 m target. Funding also come into the question. It's much cheaper to fix the State apparatus before fixing the problematic of all the small villages.

Afghanistan is a very good example of this. The assembly was created to bring together all the potential Elite that could enter our definition of it and ease the establishment of a centralized State. But we did not look at the lower level: do those people represent more than a village or a fragile structure based on violence domination a combination of Stateless entities and Charismatic/traditional domination.

Afghanistan like many others failed States is like an onion. You have several layers of complex societal organization and we come to impose another one, just because it is the one we are familiar with.

I can see "technical" problems also. It's difficult to build both State administration and Nation at village level. But not impossible, just more expensive.

Were that Astan and other problem "states" like an onion - at least that is a compact entity with defined layers.

I agree that what you say seems to be what is usually done (shoot the 500m target), which is the "quick and cheap" fix approach. If you are the practitioner tasked with doing that by your "boss" (US, UN or Coalition), you have to do your best with what you have to work with.

Generally, you get what you pay for. So, the 500m target may be great (low decimal MOA groupings :)), but the 500m shooter may find that all the other targets from 25m up are occupied by other shooters.

So, this is not a knock on the practitioners, but on the bosses.

Regards

Mike

Steve the Planner

01-20-2010, 06:26 PM

Mike:

Generally, when yopu go into a store to pruchase a good, you get what you pay for.

When you go into a country to nation-build, quite often you end up with a $53 Billion Fiasco, the term usually applied to the Iraq Reconstruction effort.

The numbers, to date, programmed for Afghanistan are $60 billion, an amount which, of well spent, should have long ago begun to demonstrate substantial change---but has not.

Afghans argue that ll the money gets absorbed by overhead and contractors, and only a fraction ever reaches the ground in Afghanistan. A convincing argument, by all accounts.

Now, if you want to change Afghanistan---even if by linking islands--- you really have to create a plan to link Afghan islands, and not foreign NGO contract islands. Otherwise, you can expect nothing.

Poor Sec. Vilsack went to Nawa the other day, beaming about the $20 million ag program that, as he found out, is simply US specialists giving animal vaccinations, and no Afghan gov agencies engaged.

That, at least, is better than most aid (that never reaches the ground), but follows the giving out fish mode with little possibility of progress---other than to expect the US specialists to come again next year with more shots.

Why, one might ask, can't an Afghan HS grad be trained to go around giving shots? Obviously, there are a lot more considerations to answering that question than many would like to know about (mobility, safety, cultural/tribal/language compatibility, and on...). But, for our dream state to be reached, the goal must be to get an Afghan to deliver the shots, on a sustainable basis, or the effort is merely a fish.

Where is the capacity-building component of this? (Notwithstanding the huge risks, commitments, and hardships endured by the brave US ag person giving the shots that his boss (Vilsack) sent him there to administer.

Steve

jmm99

01-20-2010, 07:30 PM

and have been saying it in 400+ posts. Leviathans are created and used in an attempt to solve problems that could be solved by minnows. However, it is easier to create one Leviathan than mobilize thousands of minnows.

In civil affairs, the problems (past and present) certainly can be indentified. The solutions are another thing entirely - there are barriers (rice bowls, venal politicians and a huge chattering class who depend on Leviathans); and there is no neat generalized cookbook that will work in every case.

I'm getting kinda busy here with a stack of minnow problems that can be solved by this minnow; but am still following this and other threads.

Regards

Mike

M-A Lagrange

01-20-2010, 08:06 PM

Generally, you get what you pay for. So, the 500m target may be great (low decimal MOA groupings ), but the 500m shooter may find that all the other targets from 25m up are occupied by other shooters.

So, this is not a knock on the practitioners, but on the bosses.
Mike,

I totally agree with you, it's a knock to the bosses. But can they hear us?
They are shooting my minus 2 000 000 km target… The one I can't see but who's harming me each time I try to shoot my 500m target. And I am quite close to the top already. But the top of the field layer, not the top of the decision layer.

So what if Iraq decided, when all was said and done, to basically return to a city/region structure, loosely bound by national trappings and exigencies? Would that be an unraveling, or just a further refinement on a long-standing historical pattern and practice.
Steve,

My comment would be only that it's not what we (the US, UN, coalition, the Martians…) want. What you're saying goes against his Majesty Rostow.:D
More seriously decentralization has been a not so successful experience in most of the developing countries. It may look appealing and has good points but it also implies that you have a large and strong reserve of educated people and a central State apparatus which is capable to overpower and regulate the decentralized entities.
South Africa, which is far from being a developing country, is crawling backward from decentralization. The main issue is mostly financial and tax related in the end.
With a country as Iraq, I can see were you come from and Kurdistan is already a de facto application of this "ultimate" decentralization. But you have to integrate the Westphalia consensus in the equation.
Basically, you do not dismantle a country after you conquered it. Kosovo is a good example of why nobody is really ready to break it: look at the mess.
So for world security reasons, in fact the people are not really free to choose what kind of State they want to have. That's also one of the reasons why we end up doing State Building based on the construction of Weberian model.

But yes, we should be able to conduct something which is less "plug and play" and more clients oriented.

What is interesting is that China is entering in the game now. This should push us to really rethink the cooking book. Cause the main principle of State building was to be a ready to use democracy state creation based on human rights and multi parties.
With China in the dance, that's another story which is starting. We may have to be quality oriented now. (Let's dream:cool:)

Surferbeetle

01-20-2010, 08:14 PM

M.A., Mike, Dayuhan, STP, Beelzebubalicious, Wilf, Ken, and anyone else who is interested...

Step 1. A SWC thread is created for an opensource multidisciplinary attempt in digital problem solving at a Afghan Village. (Perhaps taking cues from a website like the Engineers Without Borders - Research Projects (http://www.ewb-usa.org/ResearchProjects.php) Page )

Below is a list of research project ideas in Appropriate and Sustainable Technologies and Community Development. These ideas are only meant to give chapters a feel for some of the pressing needs in the realm of international development. EWB-USA does not have staff to provide support on these projects, and can not respond to research project inquiries.

Step 2. Doctrine and ground rules are identified, established, and agreed to.

Step 3. Contact is established with a 'neutral' Afghan (Ashraf Ghani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashraf_Ghani_Ahmadzai) ? mentioned in an article (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91484&postcount=21) from today's edition of Wired )...tricky, but doable.

Step 4. Digital Civil Affairs/Development work is attempted...

jmm99

01-20-2010, 10:00 PM

why not - it at least could be a means to vent frustrations.

Dunno about an Astan village (simply current OpSec issues ?)

This:

Step 2. Doctrine and ground rules are identified, established, and agreed to.

IIRC, you once posted that you actually enjoyed staff work, though prefering team as more fun. So, go to it. :D

Regards :)

Mike

Steve the Planner

01-20-2010, 11:41 PM

Mike:

Same here---I am swamped with expert reports for a really confusing 10-year-old Class Action case (on remand for final determination of damages)---so I pop on here for a break from that morass. Afghanistan looks simple by comparison.

There are no easy answers to Afghanistan, but I know we are, at present, still cahsing an errant path. It needs to change fast, even though we know fast change isn't consistent with large institutions, or with vast deployments of little minnows (or cats to be herded)---just damned hard.

Steve's idea of the demo is great. We have the same thing for Planners. Maybe we can hot wire something together.

MA: My actual views on Iraq are quite a bit more complex than just a city-state. Some things, like managing water on a strong national basis, is key to assuring the the "Land Between Two Rivers" doesn't starve.

But reality is that there is really nothing inconsistent or ahistorical with Kurdistan as a separate region (or city-state); even Salah ad Din and the Ottomans left some places,like Basra and Mosul, to their own devices. But Iraqi need to, and will, try their own solutions (with many experiments in their historic toolkit to draw from). It's up to them to figure out and live their future. But oil will keep them all together.

My guess is that, like you said, sometimes, progress is going to go through violent times, too. (US Civil War?)

Surferbeetle

01-21-2010, 01:04 AM

All,

Dunno about an Astan village (simply current OpSec issues ?)

It's always wise to listen to lawyers :D

Some thoughts:

a) We could define a 'typical' Afghan village using agreed upon assumptions and work from there.

b) We could use opensource info on a village in Helmand Province frequently in the news which we all agree upon.

c) We could use opensource info on a Haitian village frequently in the news which we all agree upon.

IIRC, you once posted that you actually enjoyed staff work, though prefering team as more fun. So, go to it. :D

Some thoughts/disclaimers: take everything with a grain of salt, recognize that we all have clay feet, there is never enough time to fully accomplish what we would like to all do, and how pretty are prototypes?

Despite these disclaimers I believe it's possible to accomplish something of worth using this forum. I base this statement upon a few of my experiences

Today's brick and mortar MBA coursework consists of significant digital interaction with fellow students and teachers.

I led a group of ~100 folks over three weekends ~48 hours total and came up with a militarily acceptable assessment for approximately 10 different locations using only opensource materials.

On a daily basis I lead small groups of engineers and other multidisciplinary experts who work using one or two face to face meetings, ftp sites, vtc conferences, emails, and telephone calls to build multimillion dollar projects.

I would propose that due to everyone's myriad responsibilities this should be a joint effort, using a network/boundary-less/virtual structure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure#Network) with a very lax schedule, and limited deliverables...however I am just one team member...what does everyone else think and suggest?

The Military Decision Making Process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Decision_Making_Process) may be worth considering for planning purposes,

1. Receipt of Mission
2. Mission Analysis
3. Course of action (COA) Development
4. COA Analysis
5. COA Comparison
6. COA Approval
7. Orders Production

...however I am not wedded to it and am willing to surf any staff 'wave' suggested to include balanced scorecard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_scorecard#Improved_design_methods), work breakdown structures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_breakdown_structure), and J. Sachs' differential diagnosis (http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4645)...again I am just one team member...what does everyone else think and suggest?

For doctrine, FM 3-24 (digital (http://smallwarsjournal.com/reference/doctrine.php) and hardcover (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/05/-fm-324-the-new/)) is opensource, so is Jeffery Sach's book The End of Poverty (http://www.amazon.com/End-Poverty-Economic-Possibilities-Time/dp/1594200459), and Walt Whitman Rostow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman_Rostow) makes sense to this simple mind...however I am just one team member...what does everyone else think and suggest?

Best,

Steve

P.S. For your consideration from today's WSJ NATO Eyes New Top Civilian Post in Kabul (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575014902133169516.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_sections_world) By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

KABUL—The North Atlantic Treaty Organization plans to create a new top civilian post in Kabul to flank its military chief in Afghanistan, and the British ambassador to Afghanistan is the leading contender, according to senior officials familiar with the matter.

The announcement could be made as soon as Jan. 28, the day of an international conference on Afghanistan to be held in London, the officials said.

The new appointee would head the civilian pillar of the U.S.-led coalition's work here, directing the flow of funds and aid to the provinces, and—if necessary—bypassing corrupt Afghan institutions. The official would play a prominent role in the effort to get insurgents to switch sides and to reintegrate them into society.

A British government official said the United Nations and European Union will also likely announce new special representatives to Afghanistan at or around the London conference. The British government wants the London meeting to result in a new strategy for reversing Taliban advances and for steering President Hamid Karzai's administration toward more efficient and competent governance.

Steve the Planner

01-21-2010, 01:20 AM

There is no military solution (Defeating the enemy vs. minimizing opposition, threats).

There is no civilian solution. We can not send enough civilians to accomplish the job (security, resource constraints, logistics, hiring, etc..).

There is a civil solution delivered by military, but, to accomplish it, the military needs to reconceptualize its approaches, build a different kind of information/engagement base, develop some new core skills & operational command center resources to define, manage and support a larger civil framework consistent with national/regional strategies, evolve (with training and support) a military capacity to deliver synchronized and focused civil support operations.

In urban studies, the original downtown-centric model log ago gave away to various distributed models as a result of communication/transportation resources that unlocked the walkability constraint. This is more regional than classical cities, and more sophisticated (yet distributed) in its connections and associations built to support dynamic and shifting opportunities/competitive advantages. Oil spot or city-based are confusing---more like MA's linking islands where and when you can.

My version of targeting places we can be successful with least effort and most underlying potential (rather than just accidental involvement in places of high conflict) would look at factors like whether there is a big batch of grads in the pipeline before expanding industry. If not, focus more on hand-skill and traditional activities (farming, roadwork, tertiary stuff). Try to find some pattern out of potential areas that can allow prioritization to underlying strategies of encirclement of bad areas.

Focus as much on creating some examples of "shining city" on the hill models to sell the idea and build interest from adajacent areas. Models may differ widely...

Can the US military become an effective civil stabilization force, including policy/strategy decision-making, engagement and synthesis with national and NGOs. Can somebody like Ashraf Ghani effectively advise the US military without undermining his (and its) credibility?

Perfect ain't around, but I think there are ways to re-tartget the military's actual strength in these types of countries---see, move, convene, logistics---to do a better and more effective job of what it is presently doing on an ad hoc, space-by-space basis.

Doesn't take much in some areas: like providing the knowledge, training and support base to make soldiers (after clear) more able to "manage" first and second level ag support strategies with centralized mentoring and support systems: Example: coordinate which farmers switch to wheat to avoid market massing and price collapses, but break the system down into deliverable components which post-clear forces can understand and manage as clear shifts to hold.

Schools can still be built at the local level, but with better integration with district/provincial systems for teachers, sustainability post-occupancy, streamlining and improved focus of education to economic drivers and regional needs, rather than generic K-12 models (more flexibility of training, more non-traditional applications, more vo and tech than academic).

Military serving more in the capacity of substitute local governments until the locals or national are ready to boot you out (reverse engineering of the Indian anti-British movements). Ghandi can't oppose US colonial control if we have no control, and he has nothing but chaos to organize in.

Do we really care whether those whodon;t wnat to be "governed by us" opt out (as long as they are not against us)? More effort at highly targeting Taliban---not to coopt but to disengage, have their own thing (with constraints).

A lot more Rory Stewart approaches, engagement, open-ended analysis, learning, and cooperative solutions.

Move rapidly away from large and expensive projects to lots more homespun, and locally appropriate efforts.

End state, military control is turned over to civil authority when it is read.

I remember Louis Black's comedy routine about electing a Dead President like Reagan. If we really want to scare our adversaries in the world, we should do somethign crazy....

Maybe we should stop saying we are not here to occupy. Does "we are here to dominate, control and occupy" scare up some folks who will be glad to do what is necessary and possible to actually take us out. Going forward sideways???

There's some dream stuff....

jmm99

01-21-2010, 02:47 AM

from this guy:

SB's link to WSJ
The new appointee would head the civilian pillar of the U.S.-led coalition's work here, directing the flow of funds and aid to the provinces, and—if necessary—bypassing corrupt Afghan institutions. The official would play a prominent role in the effort to get insurgents to switch sides and to reintegrate them into society.

since the villages are far beneath his scope - :(

Back to the experiment.

I posit that the thread (realizing that it could easily turn into a separate forum, just looking at all the potential subject matter areas) will focus on civil affairs, as to which STP has roughed out a start to a tasked mission:

from STP
There is a civil solution delivered by military, but, to accomplish it, the military needs to reconceptualize its approaches, build a different kind of information/engagement base, develop some new core skills & operational command center resources to define, manage and support a larger civil framework consistent with national/regional strategies, evolve (with training and support) a military capacity to deliver synchronized and focused civil support operations.

Now, if this could be stated in plain English (STP, you have been dealing too much with those high-priced lawyers) .... :D

-------------------------------
As to whether this or that:

from SB

a) We could define a 'typical' Afghan village using agreed upon assumptions and work from there.

b) We could use opensource info on a village in Helmand Province frequently in the news which we all agree upon.

c) We could use opensource info on a Haitian village frequently in the news which we all agree upon.

As to (a), I expect that we, the herd of cats, would take too long to agree on what a "typical" village is, whether in Astan or elsewhere. A real open-source village eliminates that barrier - and allows use of open-source maps, sats, records (if any exist), etc. Where in the world, I don't care - my cat is not in that mouse hunt - and I probably will be equally armchair-ignorant of whatever locality is selected. ;)

--------------------------
MDMP (FM 5-0) or MCPP (MCWP 5-1) probably would be OK and most familar for most here. And in checking the bullet points:

1. Receipt of Mission
2. Mission Analysis
3. Course of action (COA) Development
4. COA Analysis
5. COA Comparison
6. COA Approval
7. Orders Production

I concluded that I used all those with my 1pm (1300 on my watch) initial client conference - great minds run in the same channels, whether whales or minnows (my world); and MDMP is not necessarily "slow and burdensome at lower levels" per the Wiki. :)

---------------------
As to doctrine, we can go well beyond FM 3-24 in terms of "doctrine" - lots of good, bad and indifferent stuff in open-source manuals, monographs and articles. Of course, only the "best" is enshrined on my HD.

As to doctrine and some other points, and recognizing that we are a herd of cats (but with situational awareness of what the others are saying or trying to say), I'd suggest adopting a few of Evans Carlson's precepts:

1. As to doctrine: "don't obey, think"

2. As to "lead": "ability, knowledge and character"

3. As to everything: "work together" (gung ho).

PS - totally immaterial to the experiment: As to brothers Rostow, Walt and Gene, I'll leave them on the shelf (Vietnam Era prejudice).

Best to all; et Bonne Chance re: La Expérience

Mike

Steve the Planner

01-21-2010, 03:34 AM

DLA Piper, sorry.

I think, for the experiment, you flip the problem around to ask about an appropriate end state, then back fill into the solutions and needs, rather than the top-down (We have this program) strategy.

I've been tracking a very good link (from somebody around here, I forgot) on COIN implementation (Moore COIN Center Brief ppt) which is going in a very productive direction on that end state approach.

Civilian isn't going to work, so what has, will? It is more of a hybrid colonial administration strategy where the military framework becomes more intentionally and purposefully engaged in actually developing a civil framework, putting it in place (maybe even actually being it), and pulling things together. Not an accident, not a minimum necessity, but a real effort.

Is that different from today? Yes. How? Not exactly sure, but I know that at the top level intent and authority, and civilian/NGO cooperation (or at least, Mike, a non-compete clause).

First, you don't need just the bad guy info; you need the kinds of info that an econ dev'r would want. What did this place used to do? What, if any unique advantages exist here? What can we build on? What resources, market opportunities, soil types, etc..? Is anybody in the place who can engage on their own, with support, or is it a from-scratch effort?

Armed with background info, and authority, what could be done that isn't now?

I'm still very interested in what happens at Now Zad. What has become of it? What can be learned? Is it going to stick, or is it just another in a long chain of clear, clear, clear....

Concerned that our village-by-village scale is to small, vulnerable, unsustainable. In Iraq, many of the problems were beyond the village and province, like reopening interprovincial bridge/road systems. So what is the scale for viability? An island, or a string of, say, at least five related islands? What are the keys to understanding external dependencies and opportunities?

Or is it just as simple as---grow nuts (or apples, etc...) and we'll package them and ship them by air to india?

When I was in the Army, we had plenty of shortages---2 and 3 man tank crews don't work that well. So, as a tank commander, I said send me anybody; we'll work it out. Had a steady flow of young msfits, but we had fun, did a lttle tankin, and some even got with the program. Seems like almost every boy (not that girls don;t too, but we didn't have any) likes to do something on a tank, usually drive it.

On the same tack, I think most soldiers, without too much assistance, can become pretty good at econ dev't if they have some support and framework for it. Maybe, its digging stuff, building walls, helping with ag, or cleaning up something. But maybe helping connect next stage activities out of, say the Jalalabad Fab Lab (a high tech fabricating shop for students, etc...).

Where is it that they are, what is around, what are the gaps, background, experience, people you can work with, and conditions? Do we define a proto-type village to test strategies on, or take whatever comes and go from there?

Already online, we have engineers, planners, econ and CA types---and we already have a lawyer....

Steve

jmm99

01-21-2010, 04:41 AM

and even lower-priced biochemist, the initial end-state is a village that functions - in its own basic terms (so be prepared to translate the following) - in these areas:

1. Local Governance Functions

Public Administration
Public Education
Public Safety
International and Domestic Law
Public Health

2. Local Economics and Commerce Functions

Food and Agriculture
Economic Development
Civilian Supply

3. Local Public Facilities Functions

Public Transportation
Public Works and Utilities
Public Communications

4. Populace Special Functions

Emergency Services
Environmental Management
Cultural Relations
Civil Information
Dislocated Civilians

Basic doctrine (JP 3-57.1) subject to "adapt, improvise, etc."

From the initial end state, oil spot to the larger; for now, interprovincial bridge/road systems - a bridge initially too far.

I don't view this experiment as a vehicle to solve the problems in current operations; but as a pilot for what can be done by a networked system of folks who meet the "ability, knowledge and character" test.

If we find that interprovincial bridge/road systems are or are not an absolute necessity to our Adopt a Viilage, then we will have accomplished something.

Not only do we have some SMEs posting on SWC. Consider the expertise that they can pull from their contact lists.

Regards

Mike

William F. Owen

01-21-2010, 08:48 AM

M.A., Mike, Dayuhan, STP, Beelzebubalicious, Wilf, Ken, and anyone else who is interested...

OK, but...

a.) What's the policy?
b.) Why and how will we use violence or threat of violence to make it happen?
c.) Do we understand how the use of threaten use of violence in support of policy may change the policy?

M-A Lagrange

01-21-2010, 09:08 AM

Ok, I’m with you on this. Let’s try it. Sound fun!

Here are some inputs of my pure civilian approach:

Doctrine:
"don't obey, think"
Yes, yes and yes! (I’ve the same pb). I would add: “Do no Harm”. No need to go up to the roof with the R2P (responsibility to protect) but just the simple field oriented ICRC guideline: never endanger people.
What we do must be articulated/smart/brilliant/what ever lead by a brain and must be positive effect oriented.
Wilf, that does not mean that violence is banished. It just mean that non military operation should not put people in danger but may participate to create a safer environment.

2. As to "lead": "ability, knowledge and character"
Not sure I completely got your point.

3. As to everything: "work together" (gung ho).
Definitively but if we do not want to end up in a crazy trotskyist no one take decision stuff (Just try to work with Medecins Du Monde one day…) we need a board and some decision making process.

PS - totally immaterial to the experiment: As to brothers Rostow, Walt and Gene, I'll leave them on the shelf (Vietnam Era prejudice).

OK, let’s go for field manuals, most of them available on line (It’s a pick up list not the bible):
Joint Publication (JP) 3-57, Civil-Military Operations
Livelihoods & Conflict: A Toolkit for Intervention (USAID)
Land & Conflict: A Toolkit for Intervention (USAID)
Post-Conflict Reconstruction Essential Tasks (U.S. Department of State)
Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes
Guide to Rebuilding Public Sector Services in Stability Operations: A Role for the Military
Combating Serious Crimes in Post-Conflict Societies: A Handbook for Policymakers and Practitioners
Model Codes for Post-Conflict Justice
Stability Operations and State Building: Continuities and Contingencies.
Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability, and Relief Operations
Peacemaker’s Toolkit
Issue Brief: Perspectives on the Peacebuilding Commission’s Coordination Role
Peacebuilding: IPI Blue Paper no. 10
The State vs. the people (Part 1: see below for part 2)
The State vs. the people (Part 2)

Some more to come. DFID made a great job on that.

M-A Lagrange

01-21-2010, 10:13 AM

Let's add:
Jp3-076
Council on foreign relation; Independent Task Force; In the Wake of War: Improving U.S. Post Conflict Capabilities; July 2005
Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40, Security and Stabilisation: the military contribution; November 2009

My favorites being:
Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40, Security and Stabilisation: the military contribution; November 2009
Guide to Rebuilding Governance in Stability Operation: A Role for the Military? ; Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute; June 2009

That's all folks for the moment

jmm99

01-21-2010, 06:32 PM

from MA

2. As to "lead": "ability, knowledge and character"
Not sure I completely got your point.

3. As to everything: "work together" (gung ho).

Definitively but if we do not want to end up in a crazy trotskyist no one take decision stuff (Just try to work with Medecins Du Monde one day…) we need a board and some decision making process.

These points tie together. "Lead" references "leadership" and who takes the "lead". Unless you want to assign formal grades (I want a super-grade :D) and create a formal pecking order, the "lead" process has to revolve around the "ability, knowledge and character" of those contributing to the process. The corollary of that is that individual egos have to be put aside (honest, I'll try); and we all have to really listen and try to understand what others are saying (gung ho).

As to a board and some decision making process, I think that would develop as those interested keep with it, and areas of subject matter expertise will also develop. I'd also expect that many (hopefully) will feel called, but that fewer will end up feeling chosen. So, no surprise if there is a high attrition rate, which we see on a regular basis at SWC.

Would we then step off into total chaos ? I'll posit that we would not because most people here are not that chaotic. However, if we do, that itself would prove something - and there is always room for adjustments.

The model, as I see it, is more "stochastic" than "deterministic", as those terms are used by Steve's post here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=90878&postcount=80):

SWJ/SWC could be described as a digital community frequented by stakeholders in the nuts and bolts of America’s day-to-day efforts to make the world a better place. The demographics include experts and students of the myriad facets of security, economics, and governance from various lands. Pacing daily changes, ‘best of breed’ ideas, concepts, and Tactics Techniques and Procedures (TTP) are examined and debated in a non-hierarchal, open, Socratean manner. The community is an example of the results of democratization and globalization of information and knowledge, in that transactional costs associated with gathering and analyzing information are very low and flash mobs of stakeholders can form, as time and resources permit, for 24-hour analysis of interesting/vexing problems. The quality of output from the SWJ/SWC knowledge model varies (trending towards stochastic) as a factor of the educational, experiential, and motivational levels of the participants.

The USG could be described as a physical and digital community comprised, primarily, of paid stakeholders in the nuts and bolts of America’s day-to-day efforts to make the world a better place. It uses a more common, closed model of vertical and hierarchical integration (with high transaction costs) in which information gathering and analysis is, more often than not, primarily limited to in house personnel specialized in the myriad facets of security, economics, and governance (among many other topics). Standardized training, and educational experiences are part of an attempt to provide a regulated and dependable (trending towards deterministic) output from stakeholders.

Thus, an experiment not based on the USG norm.

-----------------------------
Wilf, your questions are harder - but are core:

OK, but...

a.) What's the policy?

b.) Why and how will we use violence or threat of violence to make it happen?

c.) Do we understand how the use of threaten use of violence in support of policy may change the policy?

I thought about some of what you say last nite. It didn't keep me awake all nite, but quiet allows thinking.

I posited, not the situation we have here at SWC, but some real world reality where there are two components:

1. A stochastic-oriented virtual network (maybe a board of directors, maybe not) that looks at problems and solutions, etc., and connects with ...

2. A real-live field force on the ground that implements the solutions with feedback to the virtual network, etc.

Any resemblence to a certain unfriendly organization is purely coincidental ;).

Now, in the real world, we would have violence (basic security involves either violence or the threat of violence). And, here, a virtual community does have constraints, if it is actually linked to a live field force. Those (at the least) are the various "Neutrality Acts", which would not look kindly on a private group delving into the violence arena in reality (Max Weber and all that).

So, I guess MA's "do no harm" has to be a basic precept if there is any real linkage to the field - as to which in post #29 (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=91613#post91613) Steve put a "?":

from SB
Contact is established with a 'neutral' Afghan (Ashraf Ghani ? mentioned in an article from today's edition of Wired )...tricky, but doable.

very tricky and lots of legal to consider.

However, if the site is totally virtual, then violence, solutions to violence and the implications of Wilf's last 2 questions would be fully open to discussion - as they are every day at SWC.

As to the question of "policy" (Politik), I'd posit that that would depend on the location of the adopted village - and would require us to take on the role of the "decision-makers". I expect that would be an interesting discussion.

Regards

Mike

M-A Lagrange

01-21-2010, 09:02 PM

These points tie together. "Lead" references "leadership" and who takes the "lead". Unless you want to assign formal grades (I want a super-grade ) and create a formal pecking order, the "lead" process has to revolve around the "ability, knowledge and character" of those contributing to the process. The corollary of that is that individual egos have to be put aside (honest, I'll try); and we all have to really listen and try to understand what others are saying (gung ho).

As to a board and some decision making process, I think that would develop as those interested keep with it, and areas of subject matter expertise will also develop. I'd also expect that many (hopefully) will feel called, but that fewer will end up feeling chosen. So, no surprise if there is a high attrition rate, which we see on a regular basis at SWC.

Let say, in a full virtual world: it's the field that will decide what is applicable or not. (Me too I want a super grade, below army marshal, marechal d'armee en francais dans le texte, I'm against:D)

If it goes real as describe below:

1. A stochastic-oriented virtual network (maybe a board of directors, maybe not) that looks at problems and solutions, etc., and connects with ...

2. A real-live field force on the ground that implements the solutions with feedback to the virtual network, etc.

Any resemblence to a certain unfriendly organization is purely coincidental .

This is what I was thinking about talking about decision making system. For me this is not limited to use of violence as I integrate non military action in the scope of security (with a big holistic "S"). And as I see security as a cross cutting issue in a context as Astan (cf; the Do No Harm approach).

Making it real?:

very tricky and lots of legal to consider.

Tricky but not impossible, if no challenge: no fun.
The best approach, according to me for a start, is something looking like NGO status. It's quite "simple", allows to access funds "easily" (Government, USAID, DFID... large range of donors) and provides a legal status less complexe than corporates and companies. (And is less taxed:cool:)

M-A

Surferbeetle

01-22-2010, 12:36 AM

OK, but...

a.) What's the policy?
b.) Why and how will we use violence or threat of violence to make it happen?
c.) Do we understand how the use of threaten use of violence in support of policy may change the policy?

Wilf,

We have discussed the inseparable trinity of security, governance, and economics across a number of threads here at SWC. The Venn diagram for these three individual components always intersects, although I would anticipate that there would be appreciable differences in the amounts of intersection when comparing models of Haiti with Afghanistan – shorthand – the spectrum of looting/civil unrest to combat.

What are your preferences as to the location to be examined in this experiment? Open source information concerning Haiti is certainly easier to find than for Afghanistan, there are more speakers/readers of French on this board than Pashto, and we would have a better chance of plugging into actual on the ground information about Haiti generated by CA/CAG and NGO’s than in Afghanistan.

Whatever location we develop a consensus on, as to doctrine I will appreciate your analysis via CvC and other references that you may suggest.

As to your three questions, be the security SME and help us to find the right path… :D

As to doctrine and some other points, and recognizing that we are a herd of cats (but with situational awareness of what the others are saying or trying to say), I'd suggest adopting a few of Evans Carlson's precepts:

1. As to doctrine: "don't obey, think"

2. As to "lead": "ability, knowledge and character"

3. As to everything: "work together" (gung ho).

Mike,

Glad to see that you and I are on the same page. It seems that we all use a variety of approaches depending upon situation (METT-TC) and I too would like to try a decentralized network approach to working on this project without the traditional hierarchy. The marketplace/competition of ideas to identify the best way forward is a SWC technique that makes for interesting conversations if nothing else.

In urban studies, the original downtown-centric model log ago gave away to various distributed models as a result of communication/transportation resources that unlocked the walkability constraint. This is more regional than classical cities, and more sophisticated (yet distributed) in its connections and associations built to support dynamic and shifting opportunities/competitive advantages. Oil spot or city-based are confusing---more like MA's linking islands where and when you can.

My version of targeting places we can be successful with least effort and most underlying potential (rather than just accidental involvement in places of high conflict) would look at factors like whether there is a big batch of grads in the pipeline before expanding industry. If not, focus more on hand-skill and traditional activities (farming, roadwork, tertiary stuff). Try to find some pattern out of potential areas that can allow prioritization to underlying strategies of encirclement of bad areas.

Steve,

Will showcasing urban planning concepts for this experiment include gravity analysis, using KML language & Google Earth, and civilian GIS capabilities?

A semi-successful SWC Prototype/Proof of Concept built upon easily accessible data would be probably be at least an interesting footnote or paragraph in a book. Wherever we end up geographically focusing upon I suspect it will help in some way towards roughing out a TTP – CA CIM TTP are not where they need to be. This is an interesting website (http://www.drewconway.com/zia/). What are your thoughts about focusing upon water for the project? Agriculture, deforestation, stormwater runoff, water & wastewater treatment seem to have many intersections among planning, law, anthropology, development, engineering, and security…

Let say, in a full virtual world: it's the field that will decide what is applicable or not. (Me too I want a super grade, below army marshal, marechal d'armee en francais dans le texte, I'm against:D)

:D

This is what I was thinking about talking about decision making system. For me this is not limited to use of violence as I integrate non military action in the scope of security (with a big holistic "S"). And as I see security as a cross cutting issue in a context as Astan (cf; the Do No Harm approach).

The intersection between military and civilian efforts sometimes reminds me of the Edge Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_effect) in ecology…lots of things going on, many opportunities to make a difference. What are your thoughts about the balanced scorecard (http://www.learn.com/files/images/products/Balanced_Scorecard2.gif)?

Steve

Dayuhan

01-22-2010, 01:46 AM

Step 4. Digital Civil Affairs/Development work is attempted...

"Digital Civil Affairs/Development Work" is a concept unfamiliar to me... what exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What problem are we trying to solve? Is this a COIN scenario or a sort of virtual Peace Corps small-scale development effort?

Let me just toss out an example, as food for thought, of how a project intended to promote economic development and alleviate the impulse to insurgency can have the opposite effect.

Many years ago on Mindanao (the eastern side, not the Muslim area) a foreign aid agency funded a road, which was intended to traverse a quite remote area. The project was sold as a farm-to-market road, though it was generally understood that it would also make it easier for the military to gain access and deny the area to the NPA.

The farmers in the area opposed the road vigorously, sabotaging equipment, shooting at workers, causing all kinds of problems and eventually stalling the project. The foreigners involved couldn't understand it. One of them, almost in tears at the collapse of his project, moaned to me at length over how the farmers were such fools to fall for the commie propaganda, how the road would benefit them, etc etc... it took some doing to get it through his damn fool head that none of those farmers had legal title to the land they were tilling, that they'd been left alone because their land was remote and inaccessible, and that when that road was complete their land would become valuable, and when it became valuable men with guns would come and drive them off it so somebody with money and power could take over. This was the conclusion the farmers had reached, and they were absolutely right.

It pays to be very careful when proposing solutions to other people's problems.

A few things to remember...

Never assume a village to be homogenous, and never ask what "the people" want. They want different things. There are factions and there are rivalries, and all of them will want to get the inside track on working benefits out of the naive outsider who offers assistance. The articulate guy who speaks development jargon and tells us what we like to hear does not necessarily speak for the community.

Villages tend to be conservative places. Change can be perceived as a threat, especially if one faction is perceived to be working the situation to drive changes that benefit them. Aid that is delivered without full awareness of internal rivalries and issues can destabilize a situation and provoke conflict.

People generally don't insurge because the government isn't providing services. In most insurgency environments the idea of a government providing services would be considered absurd; many have never seen or known a functional government. People who insurge are more likely to do so because they are or believe themselves to be threatened.

I could say more, and probably will, but enough for now.

jmm99

01-22-2010, 02:58 AM

How many times in recent history have we had this:

from Dayuhan
Many years ago on Mindanao (the eastern side, not the Muslim area) a foreign aid agency funded a road, which was intended to traverse a quite remote area. The project was sold as a farm-to-market road, though it was generally understood that it would also make it easier for the military to gain access and deny the area to the NPA.

The farmers in the area opposed the road vigorously, sabotaging equipment, shooting at workers, causing all kinds of problems and eventually stalling the project. The foreigners involved couldn't understand it. One of them, almost in tears at the collapse of his project, moaned to me at length over how the farmers were such fools to fall for the commie propaganda, how the road would benefit them, etc etc... it took some doing to get it through his damn fool head that none of those farmers had legal title to the land they were tilling, that they'd been left alone because their land was remote and inaccessible, and that when that road was complete their land would become valuable, and when it became valuable men with guns would come and drive them off it so somebody with money and power could take over. This was the conclusion the farmers had reached, and they were absolutely right.

Serious question. Perhaps, some road examples could be found in Vietnam - many general examples exist where farmers with shaky or no legal title joined or at least supported the VM or VC out of fear of land possession loss.

What has been the reaction to improvement of Highway 1 in Astan ?

The military road tradition goes back to Rome where it certainly had an impact on the local populations - as in Rutherfurd's novel Sarum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarum_(novel)) for a more fun read than the more scholarly works on the same topic.

So, agreed as to this:

from Dayuhan

It pays to be very careful when proposing solutions to other people's problems.

A few things to remember...

Never assume a village to be homogenous, and never ask what "the people" want. They want different things. There are factions and there are rivalries, and all of them will want to get the inside track on working benefits out of the naive outsider who offers assistance. The articulate guy who speaks development jargon and tells us what we like to hear does not necessarily speak for the community.

Villages tend to be conservative places. Change can be perceived as a threat, especially if one faction is perceived to be working the situation to drive changes that benefit them. Aid that is delivered without full awareness of internal rivalries and issues can destabilize a situation and provoke conflict.

People generally don't insurge because the government isn't providing services. In most insurgency environments the idea of a government providing services would be considered absurd; many have never seen or known a functional government. People who insurge are more likely to do so because they are or believe themselves to be threatened.

In effect, are the "masses" "voting" for the insecurity they know and have adapted to; as opposed to what is thought by developers to bring more stability, whereas to the "masses" it represents greater insecurity ?

Regards

Mike

jmm99

01-22-2010, 03:24 AM

from MA
The best approach, according to me for a start, is something looking like NGO status. It's quite "simple", allows to access funds "easily" (Government, USAID, DFID... large range of donors) and provides a legal status less complexe than corporates and companies. (And is less taxed)

You are saying here something beyond a pilot project or a simulation - you are talking real life NGO status under domestic and international law. Doable (actual legal work is beyond my SME); avoids "Neutrality Acts".

So, we look to 3 levels: funds, coordination and field, don't we ? Indeed, at times, you are the son of a scorpion. :) And, I thought I was the only one descended from François Villon & La Grosse Margot. ;)

Regards

Mike

Bob's World

01-22-2010, 04:33 AM

It is a good idea to understand the culture and to consider potential higher order effects to even the most benign actions.

In one villiage in Afghanistan a well was put in. On I believe two separate occasions that well was saboutaged. Everyone assumed it was the Taliban sending a message.

In fact, it was the women of the village. Once the well was put in, their one good excuse to get out of the house to go and interact with other women away from the contol of men at a distant community well had been taken away. Women's centers have been a big hit for this very reason, as they provide a safe place where women can be with other women.

As Stephen Covey says: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

Steve the Planner

01-22-2010, 05:22 AM

Sorry. Had to crank out my requisite 80 pages plus exhibits. Done at last.

We have talked about this stuff through Global Planner's Network for the Afghan gov (a member). Digital advising. I can get the contacts if we have a focus.

If it is Afghanistan, I am very concerned that we do not over-generalized because there are so many different and different kinds of places, each with their own unique issues.

I was thinking about contacting a friend in Jalalabad, and somebody else might have contacts or be there at a place where there is a definable problem to solve. Something where somebody needs more help than the random clutter we carry around in our brains that could be put to a specific use. Afghanistan is digitized to the Nth, and available through univ links in open source format (imagery/shapefiles), but google earth ain't bad either for basics.

An option I thought of through GNP is to see if Afghan agencies/ministries have a particular need that we could link to. Just a thought.

If Haiti, planners have usually used a design link system with local govs/ngos on specific problems---planning or transportation issues in a town/region, etc... Other wise, they have been big community engagements like after Katrina along the Gulf Coast. There is usually a local gov sponsor who wants ideas, and can orchestrate feedback and effectively read and vet on the ground.

Do we just pick a random place first to try something? I suspect it will be a learning, building/mistakes driven thing anyway.

I keep looking at the places along the western edge of Helmand as a place that would be worth knowing about, but, rpoabably, the more dynamic, the harder to get feedback (even if help is more needed).

Maybe it is better to start in an urban or semi-urban/fringe place where (1) we can learn more about it in open source, (2) there are some folks to link to, and (3) there is some phased or focused problem that could be tackled first.

Unknown place is kind of a mixed bag because we don;t know whether the key problems/solutions are engineering? rule-of-law? Planning? social/ethnic? economic?

Some problems I would want to be the bull on while others are way out of my lane.

Close our eyes and through a dart at a spinning globe? Can a committee through a dart?

What about some obscure area in the wilds of Centcom/Africom that nobody is engaged in much but where a focus would be helpful?

Steve

Steve the Planner

01-22-2010, 05:36 AM

I'm signed up for a CSIS briefing on the London Conference on Monday afternoon. Two ambassadors will go over it.

State is coming out with a big report and recommendations on Afghan civ strategies on today or tomorrow. Big boost sought---zoom up 130% in civ deployments and activities, Sounds great as a metric, but that means, perhaps, 2 new folks per FOB, with most of their folks taking six months to become operational on a one year tour. A llloonnngggg way to go to extrapolate that into a sea change.

The London Conf is supposed to yield a new civ. NATO czar, and whole new thing (to replace the last few whole new things).

Might be a lot clearer picture on Monday/Tuesday/Friday re Afghanistan.

PS- I dropped my name into the hats for vol. NGO aid stuff for Haiti, but just trying to understand how to bring more warm bodies in that could help must be real difficult for them. Wish I could fly in with a big helo with living accommodations, a backhoe and jack hammers, and a little health clinic and food store in the trunk... But so do they.

Surferbeetle

01-22-2010, 05:58 AM

From the 22 Jan 2010 Bloomberg, U.S. to Keep Civilians in Afghanistan When Troops Go (Update1) (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayMBhwi9.6HA&pos=9), By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

President Barack Obama’s military surge in Afghanistan will be matched by a commitment to keep a large number of U.S. government employees there well after troops leave, according to a new State Department report.

“While our combat mission in Afghanistan is not open-ended, we will remain politically, diplomatically and economically engaged in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the long-term to protect our enduring interests in the region,” according to the report released yesterday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the office of Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The State Department’s 30-page “Afghanistan and Pakistan Stabilization Strategy” says the U.S. will focus on rebuilding Afghanistan’s agricultural capacity, countering extremist propaganda, improving governance and reintegrating militants into society. It comes after Obama in early December announced he would send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, with a target date to start a withdrawal in mid-2011.

Civilian Force

The report calls for a 20 percent to 30 percent boost in staffing beyond the 1,000 U.S. civilians now assigned to work in Afghan ministries and the U.S. mission. The U.S. civilian force includes diplomats, development and agriculture specialists, and agents for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Treasury and Homeland Security.

“Our civilian effort must be sustained beyond our combat mission so that Afghanistan does not become a failed state and safe haven for al-Qaeda,” according to the report.

Dayuhan

01-22-2010, 07:11 AM

Serious question. Perhaps, some road examples could be found in Vietnam - many general examples exist where farmers with shaky or no legal title joined or at least supported the VM or VC out of fear of land possession loss.

In my time I've had close prolonged exposure to 3 insurgency situations. All were driven by actual or threatened loss of land exacerbated by abusive behaviour by local elites supported by national military forces and absence of any option for peaceful redress. People might complain about not having a well or an irrigation system, but they don't start shooting. When thugs start coming around forcing people off their land and stomping or killing those who object, people fight.

In effect, are the "masses" "voting" for the insecurity they know and have adapted to; as opposed to what is thought by developers to bring more stability, whereas to the "masses" it represents greater insecurity ?

If people know it and have adapted to it, it's no longer insecurity.

There's often a rather pedantic assumption that "economic development" brings "stability" and that the combination brings "security". That assumption often does not take actual conditions into consideration.

Specifically, you have to look at competing agendas. Even in a small village you're likely to have competing elite factions. If you're looking at a village and seeing consensus and unanimity, with no internal conflict or dissent, you're not looking hard enough or you're looking at a different species.

If a dominant faction, often associated with formal government positions, is perceived as abusive by some part of the population, that provides a lever for the insurgent, and for competing factions. NGOs have their own agendas. If you choose to work with or through the local government, you may be perceived as aiding and supporting an abusive elite. Choose to work outside that elite, and you may be perceived as supporting a rival faction, which may cause problems with the local governing elite. Economic development efforts in environments where the rule of law is absent and the style of governance is feudal are likely to be manipulated for the benefit of a small minority, and cause proportional resentment among others.

Bring resources in, bring plans in, announce plans to change things... that will always destabilize. Of course every community has its own mechanisms to manage instability, but those mechanisms can be overwhelmed if the change is too large or too abrupt to manage, or if it is locally perceived as a change that will favor one faction over others or will otherwise upset an existing balance.

Let's not kid ourselves, we have an agenda too. If we go into an Afghan village looking to "help", we're not doing it because our hearts bleed for the poor Afghans, we're doing it because we want them to support us rather than the Taliban. We know it, they know it, and the Taliban know it, so why pretend otherwise?

I was thinking about contacting a friend in Jalalabad, and somebody else might have contacts or be there at a place where there is a definable problem to solve. Something where somebody needs more help than the random clutter we carry around in our brains that could be put to a specific use. Afghanistan is digitized to the Nth, and available through univ links in open source format (imagery/shapefiles), but google earth ain't bad either for basics.

If only there was a Google Earth for social geography, mapping all the overlapping patterns of alliance and rivalry, loyalty and resentment, etc...

If I look out my window I see a moderately remote mountain village populated by an indigenous tribe, which was a hotbed of insurgency not al that long ago. I've been here 11 of the last 15 years, and I'm still figuring out the local power/conflict dynamics.

I asked this before, but I have to ask again: what are we trying to accomplish with this project? Whether it's Afghanistan, Haiti, central Africa, Colombia... what's the goal?

It helps to know.

Surferbeetle

01-22-2010, 07:33 AM

If I look out my window I see a moderately remote mountain village populated by an indigenous tribe, which was a hotbed of insurgency not al that long ago. I've been here 11 of the last 15 years, and I'm still figuring out the local power/conflict dynamics.

I asked this before, but I have to ask again: what are we trying to accomplish with this project? Whether it's Afghanistan, Haiti, central Africa, Colombia... what's the goal?

It helps to know.

Dayuhan,

Your points regarding the need to appreciate the complexities of village/area dynamics are wise ones.

With respect to the goal of the project, I have suggested a concept here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91554&postcount=29), however, perhaps part of why it has been resonating is that the project is an attempt at articulating something that all of us here at SWC have been working on across many threads...a journey which involves gaining a better understanding of our environment, how to shape it, and how to do so for the betterment of all...just one man's thoughts...what do you see?

From the 22 Jan 2010 BBC Haiti port opening raises hopes (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8473906.stm)

An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which some have estimated has killed as many as 200,000 people.

At least 500,000 people are currently living outdoors in 447 improvised camps in Port-au-Prince, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

"Tents will not work in May when the long rainy season begins and later when hurricane season starts, but at this point there is not much choice," said IOM Chief of Mission Vincent Houver.

William F. Owen

01-22-2010, 07:43 AM

Wilf,
As to your three questions, be the security SME and help us to find the right path… :D

Well I am in no way qualified for the job but I'll assume the key requirement it to protect some sort of "activity." - normal life/life, (policy) so explicitly I'd plan for a Security Operation, but with resources to escalate to Combat Operations, within less than 24 hours. (support weapons/assetts - agreed ROE etc)

I'd also want a bit more info before deciding on what sort of posture troops would adopt, but less visible rather than more would seem to be default setting. Visibility and activity in general would scale up or down based on the levels of suppression and reassurance required.

M-A Lagrange

01-22-2010, 10:51 AM

Many years ago on Mindanao (the eastern side, not the Muslim area) a foreign aid agency funded a road, which was intended to traverse a quite remote area. The project was sold as a farm-to-market road, though it was generally understood that it would also make it easier for the military to gain access and deny the area to the NPA.

The farmers in the area opposed the road vigorously, sabotaging equipment, shooting at workers, causing all kinds of problems and eventually stalling the project. The foreigners involved couldn't understand it. One of them, almost in tears at the collapse of his project, moaned to me at length over how the farmers were such fools to fall for the commie propaganda, how the road would benefit them, etc etc... it took some doing to get it through his damn fool head that none of those farmers had legal title to the land they were tilling, that they'd been left alone because their land was remote and inaccessible, and that when that road was complete their land would become valuable, and when it became valuable men with guns would come and drive them off it so somebody with money and power could take over. This was the conclusion the farmers had reached, and they were absolutely right.
This is the perfect example for "do no harm" but basically the "what not to do"!
Do No Harm is just an approach that is based on the fact that the aim of humanitarian action is aimed to protect people.
Here we are talking about a Civil Affaires/Development-Humanitarian structure which via internet will provide advices to people on the ground.
In the example proposed by Dayuhan the Do No Harm doctrine tells you that you have to take in consideration the effect of the road on security before looking at the apparent economical benefits.
A good approach would have been to look at the consequences (legal, security…) and first propose to the farmer assistance to get legal ownership of their land (immediate access in exchange of the road can be done with "extremely good willing politicians"), then support their production and transformation technique for them to have a better product to sell… Then support transport (not road: trucks) for them to sell their products and once they were more rich (less poor if you want). And then propose to build a road that they would have support because it would be more economically beneficial than security threat.
Guts guess duration: at the best 2 years before getting the idea of a road in the farmer priorities pipe.
But that's a field driven approach.
For the security: basing a small group of 3 to 5 people with a radio, with open hours for the population to talk to relatives, would have been my first solution. (A pure COIN population centric solution if I may.)

Villages tend to be conservative places. Change can be perceived as a threat, especially if one faction is perceived to be working the situation to drive changes that benefit them. Aid that is delivered without full awareness of internal rivalries and issues can destabilize a situation and provoke conflict.

In development there is an analogy which is often use:
If people use a rope to climb a mountain: do not install an elevator even if it is cheaper, safer and easier. Just build a stair they can use and be secure by keeping their rope in hand.
Took me some years to figure out what it was about but it's damn right. Don't go too fast or too fancy. Just go with the people step by step.

In fact, it was the women of the village. Once the well was put in, their one good excuse to get out of the house to go and interact with other women away from the contol of men at a distant community well had been taken away. Women's centers have been a big hit for this very reason, as they provide a safe place where women can be with other women.

Basic rule: always listen to the women first, especially in countries as Afghanistan. The Pula (Nomadic Muslim/animist tribe in South Sahara) say: the beard always does what the locks are dictating at night…

But we are already discussing virtual problematic of virtual villages through a virtual network…
It's no more SWJ it's the Matrix in action. :D

So now, about a Le Expérience pilot project:

Several thoughts crossed my mind.

1) First, we said that we are client oriented. So we need to know who our clients are. Civilian (NGO, development agencies…), military (CIMIC, ?...), host government (cf Steve article…), people (local CBO, local authorities…). Once we have figured out who our clients are (They can be NGO + CIMIC + Host Government/research centers), then we will know what kind of network we need: virtual, virtual + field relay…

2) But also we need to figure out what is our target area to build our product.
Many opportunities there: Afghanistan, Haiti… Haiti seems to be a more easy training experiment field than Astan and less deadly if me make mistakes. Also Steve point on French reading is to be taken in account (I'm talking in my name only). My Pashto is at a much lower level than my Klingon for example. (And my Klingon is limited.) But good sources in English are available on Astan. We need to make a choice or to develop a 2 sub products of a 1 main package (virtual community advice for Civil Affaires/Development work + COIN Advices).

3) Then comes the product:

"Digital Civil Affairs/Development Work" is a concept unfamiliar to me... what exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What problem are we trying to solve? Is this a COIN scenario or a sort of virtual Peace Corps small-scale development effort?

This will be clarified once we have figured out what are our clients and the area we want to experiment in. Please see point 2.

4) Finally the means: who when how… the practical/engineering part that needs to be solved out to have the machine working. This includes the doctrine applied, the area of competency…

In resume: define an objective; identify the target; locate it; select a team and baboum!

Mike,

So, we look to 3 levels: funds, coordination and field, don't we ? Indeed, at times, you are the son of a scorpion. And, I thought I was the only one descended from François Villon & La Grosse Margot.
If only I could… I'm dreaming of myself being a deadly breed of Richelieu and Talleyrand… But reality keeps dragging me back to the normal average man that I am.

Steve,

I'll be looking at the links you posted. Some thoughts to be developed late at night on this.

Dayuhan

01-22-2010, 11:51 AM

In the example proposed by Dayuhan the Do No Harm doctrine tells you that you have to take in consideration the effect of the road on security before looking at the apparent economical benefits.
A good approach would have been to look at the consequences (legal, security…) and first propose to the farmer assistance to get legal ownership of their land (immediate access in exchange of the road can be done with "extremely good willing politicians"), then support their production and transformation technique for them to have a better product to sell… Then support transport (not road: trucks) for them to sell their products and once they were more rich (less poor if you want). And then propose to build a road that they would have support because it would be more economically beneficial than security threat.
Guts guess duration: at the best 2 years before getting the idea of a road in the farmer priorities pipe.

I think that gut guess is wrong, and I don't think this program would work. There's an important point being missed. When I said that the farmers were resisting because they knew their land would be taken by people with power and money... who do you think those people were? They were the local political powers, of course, and individuals close to them. As soon as they knew the road project would be funded (and well before it was announced) they were already muscling in, acquiring legal rights to land and positioning themselves to profit from the road. The government would never have allowed those farmers to get legal title to the land in question because the people in charge wanted it for themselves.

When you see a miserable status quo enduring without change, the chances are that it's not enduring because people lack initiative, or lack the right machine, or lack infrastructure, or lack capital. People have natural initiative and they will make a way... it may be slower and less efficient than it would be with more resources, but they will make one. When nobody's making a way and the status quo is dragging on and on, there's a pretty good chance that the status quo is dragging on because somebody wants it to. There's a pretty good chance that the somebody in question has both legal power and armed force, and is willing to use that power to slap down initiatives that threaten his dominance or to derail any initiatives that do not promote his interests.

Sometimes the best way to promote development is not to look for ways to help people move forward, but to identify and help remove the obstacles that are holding them back. Of course that gets political, and can get very complicated... but it's tough to promote development apolitically in an environment where the primary obstacles to development are political.

Surferbeetle

01-22-2010, 05:19 PM

Sometimes the best way to promote development is not to look for ways to help people move forward, but to identify and help remove the obstacles that are holding them back. Of course that gets political, and can get very complicated... but it's tough to promote development apolitically in an environment where the primary obstacles to development are political.

Top down strategies are part of a solution, but limiting oneself to just one axis of attack or line of operation is similar to investing in just one stock. Good for you if you hit it out of the park, however empirical work on concepts such as efficient market theory, mean variance portfolio theory, capital asset pricing model, value at risk, etc. seem to suggest that there are greater benefits to be had via diversification when problem solving.

From FP, a 22 Jan 2010 post on Tom Rick's blog the Best Defense, Haiti watch (III): A role for retired Special Forces? (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/haiti_watch_iii_a_role_for_retired_special_forces)

By Robert Maguire

Best Defense Haiti correspondent

In 1994/95, following the US-led, UN-sponsored intervention that restored elected government to Haiti after three years of rapacious rule by the Haitian military and its allies, US Special Forces played a critical role throughout the Haitian countryside in restoring order and assisting local officials move forward with the always enormous task of providing services to citizens at the local and municipal levels. Much was written about this, but I recall it most clearly through a documentary produced by CNN called "Guardian Warriors." I recall from that documentary -- which I recorded on a VRC (it was that long ago) and is now stowed away somewhere on video tape -- that small Special Forces units around Haiti were playing a very positive role in this regard -- working with mayors; interfacing with local populations; providing technical and resource assistance. These men (I do not recall seeing any women) were portrayed as sensitive to local people and their culture and were finding ways to work within existing paradigms -- even broken ones. They were also very welcome by the local populations with which they worked.

Tom Rick's also provides a link (http://haiti.ushahidi.com/main) to an applied GIS website about Haiti.

Wilf,

The GIS website allows one to examine/focus upon security concerns...

jmm99

01-22-2010, 07:26 PM

in light of this:

from Dayuhan
When I said that the farmers were resisting because they knew their land would be taken by people with power and money... who do you think those people were? They were the local political powers, of course, and individuals close to them. As soon as they knew the road project would be funded (and well before it was announced) they were already muscling in, acquiring legal rights to land and positioning themselves to profit from the road. The government would never have allowed those farmers to get legal title to the land in question because the people in charge wanted it for themselves.

Blazing Saddles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazing_Saddles). Never thought of that as a treatise in revolutionarty warfare, but its script is written above. And who can beat the ending.

Keep going, folks - looks like it's heading somewhere. ;)

Mike

M-A Lagrange

01-22-2010, 08:58 PM

I think that gut guess is wrong, and I don't think this program would work. There's an important point being missed. When I said that the farmers were resisting because they knew their land would be taken by people with power and money... who do you think those people were? They were the local political powers, of course, and individuals close to them. As soon as they knew the road project would be funded (and well before it was announced) they were already muscling in, acquiring legal rights to land and positioning themselves to profit from the road. The government would never have allowed those farmers to get legal title to the land in question because the people in charge wanted it for themselves.

Dayuhan,

You're so right! Unfortunately this is one of the too often encountered problems with development projects.

Just prove us that back ground, context, creative solutions are the best. Only limit being: you cannot expect having non political policies in development.
And trying to change the political environment seems a little out of our range.

Tom Rick's also provides a link to an applied GIS website about Haiti.

Wilf,

The GIS website allows one to examine/focus upon security concerns...

So, we did figure out our location: seems we are going for Haiti, don't we?
The local politic may be as harsh as in the Pashto valleys. And the use of violence as necessary as in Astan.
Many reports of gangs killing people to get food and aid monopole and destroyed countries are wild wild West by definition.

Now, let's respond to the question to whom do we want to address it?
Are we trying to give a hand to US troops? To NGO? (who do not care about us by the way) To CIMIC?
My first feeling goes to CIMIC people. Most of those I now are good people who just would like to help, are seeking for advices but get bounced by NGO because they wear uniforms.
Here the advantage is that you no one will judge you on that.
They also are much more sensitive to security/development integrated projects.

Steve the Planner

01-22-2010, 09:00 PM

Dahayun:

"As soon as they knew the road project would be funded (and well before it was announced) they were already muscling in, acquiring legal rights to land and positioning themselves to profit from the road. The government would never have allowed those farmers to get legal title to the land in question because the people in charge wanted it for themselves."

I've done quite a few taking projects in the US for major roads, rail, and airports. Same thing in the US and anywhere. How did the guys on the "State Road Commissions" all get rich and powerful? Inside info oin where the highway was headed and land was going to be needed, and valuable (both for the road, and the subsequent uses adjacent to it.

In Blazing Saddles, they are trying to build the railroad, and get the land. The Governor says to his henchman: "All that stands between us and that valuable land are the rightful owners."

Same diff everywhere. A basic rule of the road for projects.

In Iraq, a lot of the technical types in 2008 were furiously opposed to provincial projects using national funds that were coming up through the US Sheik's Counsels and PRDCs/PRTs.

They knew that, too often, the schools or clinics being proposed were on some shiek's land (with rent or taking claims to follow), or were just poorly concieved, unstaffable, and un-necessary. From my review, many were like that, and their reason to delay/deny the projects were firmly grounded.

That's what always concerns me about projects.

Steve the Planner

01-22-2010, 09:10 PM

Lessons Learned

So many of these COIN, Civ/Mil Manuals use bullets, jargon, and slogans for civ/mil stuff, but contain little practical information about specific how tos that somebody could use in the field when facing the same identical development/project problems over-and-over again.

Just a simple, dumb handbook (like the new ag field guide) would be a huge leap in effectiveness. What to consider when assigned to a rural village? What to consider when faced with a road or school project?

Big, dumb stuff.

Is our more effective contribution to just collect up the big dumb stuff that so overwhelmingly and colorfully gets demonstrated on SWJ's pages?

M-A Lagrange

01-22-2010, 10:08 PM

They knew that, too often, the schools or clinics being proposed were on some shiek's land (with rent or taking claims to follow), or were just poorly concieved, unstaffable, and un-necessary. From my review, many were like that, and their reason to delay/deny the projects were firmly grounded.

That's what always concerns me about projects.
We all have the same concern. It's all the same everywhere. I have to manage peace projects and initiate reconsciliation conferences because some dummy minister is making sure his useless village gets all the projects.
The worst being the Un agencies heads who do not see where the problem is because they have to spend all the money they asked for without knowing how to spend it.

Just a simple, dumb handbook (like the new ag field guide) would be a huge leap in effectiveness. What to consider when assigned to a rural village? What to consider when faced with a road or school project?

Big, dumb stuff.

State Building for the dummy? We have here a best seller!

Steve the Planner

01-23-2010, 12:26 AM

MA-

Maybe not a big market, but definitely a book (or source) that has to be created.

Is that where we can contribute?

The SWJ Civil/Military for Dummies Handbook with lessons learned.

Steve

jmm99

01-23-2010, 01:02 AM

The "Small Wars Journal Empire" might not want its name in the title; but Lessons Learned could be one product. Or, something more concrete might develop.

Mike

Surferbeetle

01-23-2010, 04:08 AM

Restoring basic services is key. *Focusing for a moment exclusively upon water SMEs could assess the condition of existing pipe networks (via visual, dye, smoke, camera), pumping systems (booster stations, lift stations, well houses, river intakes, treament plants),*storage sites (tanks and facilities) and treament sites (package plants and dedicated treament plants) SCADA systems, and trucks (delivery tankers, vac trucks, and maintenance). *Target is to provide a clean 7 to 15 liters/person/day and treat the resultant wastewater. * **

Dayuhan

01-23-2010, 05:03 AM

Unfortunately this is one of the too often encountered problems with development projects.

Just prove us that back ground, context, creative solutions are the best. Only limit being: you cannot expect having non political policies in development.
And trying to change the political environment seems a little out of our range.

Sometimes you need to just look the local authorities in the eye and say "no, we will not fund that project". If the circumstances on the ground are not conducive to development tossing money into ill-conceived projects is not going to accomplish anything.

There's a difference between "humanitarian aid" and "development aid". Humanitarian aid is about keeping people alive in extreme conditions; it's what we're trying to do in Haiti and in parts of Africa. Often in these conditions it's simply not possible to bring development aid into play effectively. Development aid to me is something that has to be carefully applied and used in plces and times where there's an opportunity. Tossing it around loosely ends up with the old paradigm of "poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries", which is not what we want to do.

Steve, when I ask "what's the goal, I guess the core of the question is this: are we working toward recovery after a disaster? Are we trying to mitigate an existing insurgency situation or prevent a potential one? Or is it a pure development problem? It will make a huge difference in how we proceed...

Steve the Planner

01-23-2010, 05:09 AM

Surferbeetle

01-23-2010, 07:27 AM

Steve, when I ask "what's the goal, I guess the core of the question is this: are we working toward recovery after a disaster? Are we trying to mitigate an existing insurgency situation or prevent a potential one? Or is it a pure development problem? It will make a huge difference in how we proceed...

Hey Dayuhan,

Our geographic choice drives our problem and solution sets. Afghanistan, although a mosaic situationally, could be generalized as trending towards COIN TTP. Haiti, although presently needing aid TTP, may trend towards development as info operations continue. Haiti seems to be more accesible for our purposes.

Here are some more water centric tech support thoughts.

Infiltration flows may be an issue for both water and wastewater piping systems depending upon their current condition, baseline + earthquake damage. *Crosscontamination (fecal) and the introduction of anthropogenic sources (chemical etc.) are a concern for treated water that is being piped. *Wastewater quantities to be treated may increase due to infiltration. *An additional caveat to wastewater treatment quantities would be a combined sewer system. *In this instance both wastewater and stormwater are carried by the system and quantities to be treated are greater than those resulting from a system limited to just wastewater.

The appropriateness of a CMOC or CIMIC is not addressed in this note but I would like to come back to that in later post. In this note I have crossed from aid to development and assume that local inhabitants are in the lead of that effort, again, we are functioning in a tech support role.

Once the water systems have been triaged project management skills will be needed to rehabiltate things. *We have touched upon how Walt Whitman Rostow's linear evolutionary development model has echos in maturity models employed by business and engineering communities. *However, for us, things start to get a bit nonlinear for the next portions of solution development. *Using the water system assessment a work breakdown system, which describes tasks, roles, and responsibilities would be developed. *A cost estimate (often close hold) project schedule, statement of work (operations order), specifications, and design are developed in concert with a variety of professions to include maintenance personnel, planners, legal personnel, community members, NGO, IO, and military - aka the CIMIC - something in between the hood of a truck and a facility.

Surferbeetle

01-23-2010, 05:01 PM

Anybody have know why the iPod Touch includes asterisks when one copies from the notes function to SWC? The asterisks were not intended in this post (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91784&postcount=63) or that one (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=91800&postcount=66).

Steve the Planner

01-23-2010, 06:17 PM

Steve:

There are still plenty of little bugs for Macs.Even my Win/Mac w/Parellels gets some things that are fluky. Maybe a patch or update?

Re: Water

All well and good. but reducing contaminant issues for first responders to:

Is the Water in Your Area Safe and Clean Enough?

And a few simplified ideas of what to look for, and a pre-planned and supported protocol (Send samples to your next level for testing, or use this kit to get a green on the stick) would make it happen.

A three pager with illustrations, plain language and explicit simple steps would really create a Eureka moment, and allow the upstream alignment to consistent responses, and plannable, cost-saving, locally sustainable solutions.

Steve

jmm99

01-23-2010, 08:42 PM

In regard to the SWC "Experiment" in this thread, attached is a pdf file, with some introduction to terms and many questions, which would have to be addressed to reach longer-range targets. Basically, an edited cut and paste with only a few comments by me.

It might be helpful for internal use in setting directions.

Regards

Mike

M-A Lagrange

01-23-2010, 09:45 PM

There's a difference between "humanitarian aid" and "development aid". Humanitarian aid is about keeping people alive in extreme conditions; it's what we're trying to do in Haiti and in parts of Africa. Often in these conditions it's simply not possible to bring development aid into play effectively. Development aid to me is something that has to be carefully applied and used in plces and times where there's an opportunity. Tossing it around loosely ends up with the old paradigm of "poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries", which is not what we want to do.

Dayuhan

Concerning that matter, unfortunately: NO.:(

Too often humanitarian aid is turned into giving poor people money from rich countries to rich people in poor countries at war.
The man who supplied WFP in Goma for years made a good amount of money (with 6 zero). And the local authorities took their part too.
In Chad, the "prefet" received a water tank of 20 000L for his personal use as proof of good will and cooperation from a very well known NGO.
In Lebanon, NGO distributed aid to Palestinian camps which were not even affected by the war. Several important families with strong hands in politic received through their foundations huge bulk of medical aid which they sold instead of distributing it.
In Liberia, WFP food smuggling was organized by the police.

I am thousands of examples. I even bought a refugee cart at my name for 500 US$ once and was registered under my real name into by HCR...

What you point out is just what we have to be careful of.

Steve,

Concerning water:
Have a look on Merlin and Oxfam web sites.
Basically assume that water is NOT DRINKABLE! portable water blazzer (5000, 10 000 L) will do the trick. compte 20 L per person/day.
Chlorine (you know the swimming pool stuff) will do the trick to clean the water and keep it safe. But the water must be kept out of sun light.
Form comities among the population to protect the water points around the water blazzers and explain to the people how to use the tapes.
Train people to chlorinate the blazzer when water is delivered.
There is no water tank trucks? Put a water blazzer 5000 L on a truck 2/3 full maximum (so it wont damage the blazzer when moving). You also have semi hard water blazzers (the bottom is in hard plastic) they are great for such use.
Blazzer must be 1 m higher than distribution point at least. Also build a bed of sand for the blazzer so you do not break it when you refill it.
Put you water point at least 10 m far from the Blazzer.
I highly recommand to NOT USE ROOF to set up water blazzer (1 L water = 1 KG: 5000 L = 5000 KG).
Roofs and buildings are fragile for the momment in Haiti.
Avoid distributing the big 100, 500 L drums. People will fight to get one.
When you install a blazzer, distribute jerricanes to the community around. 1 jerrican of 20 L per family. (if some receive 2... What the ####)
Also what comes with water is hygiene and latrines. In NGO/UN speaking language this is called watsan. UNICEF organise a watsan cluster every day, week, 2 days...(?). People have to participate! This is the main point where info is exchanged! ALL NGO ARE PARTICIPATING: NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL... So should military acting in watsan! The same for shelter, food distribution, health... (I know, some UN agencies are better than others! But in the case of Haiti, I hope they will move their hass for once!)

All this is standard and in SPHERE.
For all possible activities, always have a look to the SPHERE standards from United Nations.
This is the basic international standards for emergency interventions. What the people have to receive at least to keep their dignity. (And Human dignity is cheap, believe me, even according SPHERE standards.)

When a guy says but who said the people have to have SPHERE standards water: just smach him! He is an idiot! :mad:

That's all for my practicle advices.

Mike,

Very usefull your pdf.

M-A

Dayuhan

01-24-2010, 12:23 AM

Along with a brief explanation of why that 7 to 15 is important, and its variabilities (temperature, etc...). And simple version of how to treat water, or detect water borne illnesses.

And some basics about wells, karsks, etc...

And about "water rights" and an overview of what of the farmework and implications of that concept are at a local level.

All the dumb stuff in one place,

Makes any soldier capable of being a fairly decent first level responder.

Why would we want soldiers building water systems? We've spent prodigious amounts of time and money training and equipping them to be soldiers, let them do what they are trained and equipped to do. There are plenty of people out there trained and equipped to do water work. If immediate supply is a problem there are fast solutions available, for example biosand filters; easily made or delivered, long-lasting, and effective. You don't need to understand water tables or water rights or the hydro cycle at that level; that comes later, when you're looking for a long-term solution... and that's not a job for soldiers.

Not trying to put down soldiers here, it's just not what they do. You don't ask a dentist to do brain surgery, or a neurosurgeon to do root canal.

Anyone building or maintaining a school system knows that you try to standardize all the parts, equipment and FFE (furniture, fixtures and equipment---desks, flourescent tubes & starters, chalk boards, etc...) in order to improve service and cut costs.

Same stuff is just basic to health clinics, etc..., better to have five that are identically equipped and easily resupplied, maintained, operated, than ten that are all different and won't be sustainable beyond a year or two.

To some extent... however, I'd prefer to see buildings, furniture, and anything else possible contracted to local labor, even at the expense of identicality. Large procurement contracts seem more efficient but they draw vultures faster than a decomposing elephant carcass on the Serengeti; opportunities for corruption are rarely passed up. Local contracting puts money into the community, and when people have a role in building something they tend to see it as theirs, rather than something an outsider took out of a box. They also know how to fix it when it breaks.

The single most important variable in making a school or a clinic work is competent, motivated staff.

Steve, re this:

Infiltration flows may be an issue for both water and wastewater piping systems depending upon their current condition, baseline + earthquake damage. *Crosscontamination (fecal) and the introduction of anthropogenic sources (chemical etc.) are a concern for treated water that is being piped. *Wastewater quantities to be treated may increase due to infiltration. *An additional caveat to wastewater treatment quantities would be a combined sewer system. *In this instance both wastewater and stormwater are carried by the system and quantities to be treated are greater than those resulting from a system limited to just wastewater.

The appropriateness of a CMOC or CIMIC is not addressed in this note but I would like to come back to that in later post. In this note I have crossed from aid to development and assume that local inhabitants are in the lead of that effort, again, we are functioning in a tech support role.

Once the water systems have been triaged project management skills will be needed to rehabiltate things. *We have touched upon how Walt Whitman Rostow's linear evolutionary development model has echos in maturity models employed by business and engineering communities. *However, for us, things start to get a bit nonlinear for the next portions of solution development. *Using the water system assessment a work breakdown system, which describes tasks, roles, and responsibilities would be developed. *A cost estimate (often close hold) project schedule, statement of work (operations order), specifications, and design are developed in concert with a variety of professions to include maintenance personnel, planners, legal personnel, community members, NGO, IO, and military - aka the CIMIC - something in between the hood of a truck and a facility.

Are we still talking about a village? For a village setting this seems way over-engineered. You want it as simple as possible. If possible you want to be able to build everything with local labor and local skills: again, if they build it they know how to fix it. You don't need piped house-to-house water and sewage collection systems; small wells at strategic locations, or springbox systems with standpipes in key locations, do fine. The biosand filters are very useful and can be locally made. Water-seal toilets over septic tanks are quite adequate for village needs.

With enough money you can bring any village up to western standard, but then you have a few thousand more villages... a project has to be replicable to be anything more than a showcase and a windfall for the selected village.

When I went into the Peace Corps, back in the dim distant recesses of the last century, there was already an enormous base of literature on village-based water and sanitation systems; by now I'm sure it's increased a hundredfold. There are people out there who specialize in that field, so if you want the expertise, it's there. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Beelzebubalicious

01-24-2010, 01:05 AM

Is anyone here familiar with community-driven development, originally created by the world bank in Indonesia (now over 10 years, $1 billion spent and over 30,000 villages touched) and now implemented in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It's not national government building, but it is intended to strengthen local governance and reduce poverty. Good article on subject is:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Social/KDP-Crises.pdf

jmm99

01-24-2010, 05:52 PM

Hi Steve (in fact, hi to all the Steves :))

from Dayuhan
Why would we want soldiers building water systems?

We don't (at least I don't; except for their own use); but ...

"instability situations" (where the US takes enough interest in an insurgency to intervene via "stability operations") are "insecure" - bang, bangs. Our civilian capabilities in those situations are either limited in fact (STP has spent 400+ posts describing those limitations) or foreclosed by charter (Peace Corps).

So, the Army's civil affairs units (and lesser so the Marines' two units) end up being tasked because they have the bodies and funding. Join in DoS and USAID (a shadow of its former self) components, such as STP (a armor commander in a former life), and that pretty much sums up the deployable components to build water systems in "instability situations".

No doubt that the US has a very large civilian capability to build water systems - and all other aspects of local governance. My own Copper Country could be stripped out (of its local governance folks) and they would make a very large "civil affairs" unit. The reality is that won't happen (for many reasons); and those USAian capabilities are not easily transferred to a foreign environment.

So, we are left with deploying military units, such as our local combat engineering company which has had multiple deployments (e.g., here (http://yooperpage.blogspot.com/2006/01/107th-returns.html) and here (http://yooperpage.blogspot.com/2008/11/1421st-107th-deployed-to-afghanistan.html)). And, yes, we do recognize the effort - and that 40+ PHs were pinned, out of the 120 combat engineers who deployed (here (http://katelarsen.blogspot.com/2009/11/1431st.html)).

One purpose of this thread is to find a better way - and, if PHs can be avoided or lessened, so much the better.

Regards

Mike

Steve the Planner

01-24-2010, 10:26 PM

Dayuhan:

Like Mike, I think soldiers are just first responders, not builders or operators.

But the current set in Afghanistan, is, as I reckon it---5,000 civilian experts, based on a Carr Center figure, of which 1000 are US civs, set to "explode" to 1300. Most heavily hampered by movement security, resources, etc... so their ability to get out and about and o things in far-afield Afghan areas will always be very limited, even if security were no an overwhelming issue.

Fact is Afghanistan is remarkably logistically constrained. And the math of sending 1000 new civilians (plus terps and security) is fabuluous strain on the limited resource paths.

If thousands of new soldiers are coming soon (September accdg to Petreaus) they are going to be the major thrust and asset. If they don't move toward becoming effective first responders, then they must be there as guards to other first responders, doubling the logistical hurdle, and delaying responses.

My guess is that if there is a good reconstruction civ, he should be in Haiti very soon, so that military can move out, and back to primary AOs. In large part because, with limited training and support, they could easily do a more effective job of service expansion and aid delivery than a highly constrained civilian.

As for standardizing packages for schools, all over the US, school systems use uniform standards, but they are both locally built and with local design and materially. Establishing that, say a classroom, should be 500 square feet and generally a rectangle laid out for 20 or thirty students does nothing to affect local design, content, building materials or local labor and contracting opportunities.

On the other hand, recognizing that (1) about 30 percent of current afghan schools are tents of informal places for the 60% or so of eligible students currently enrolled (6 million), suggests that thousands of schools and classrooms may/will be built.

If there is a consolidated plan for desks, there is then a consolidated opportunity for local, regional and national desk manufacturing---rather than each NGO doing its own thing. And for specific amounts of books to be planned/made/delivered, and specific amounts of teachers to be trained/hired/housed by language/province/district/appropriateness.

From prior adventures, I believe a 20-30% efficiency and local content standard is a minimum goal. Mr. Ghani belives their is a 90% efficiency just by getting more national/local procurement focus. Given resource and logistical constraints unqique to Afghanistan, sending billions of dollars is not going to have POSITIVE effects so much as improving our efficiency of actual delivery (more planned and exploited local content, more dual use of military cross-trained for first responding).

First responding is, in most instances, no different than knowing when and how to call for a fire mission. You don't need to know how to fly or make artillery calculations.

But if soldiers are going to do COIN, and get to know and win relationships (if not hearts and minds), being able to coordinate basic services and assistance should be focused on the soldier in Afghanistan, and not the civilian (until way into the build phases).

I was once dispatched to assist an LTC assigned to Balad/DoS/PRT Satellite.
He was building relationships anyway he could with local folks. Bringing a higher ranking DoS grey-haired SME was not, we both agreed, the way to bolster his relationships or juice with the locals, and could, if not real careful, undermine it.

Translating the many missions and objectives in COIN in Afghanistan is no less easy. Better to have an empowered E-7 wiyth local juice and connections than a bunch of discordant civs/ngos undermining his shtick. No?

How do you really do this stuff effectively in the field?

As MA and Beelz both point out, standardizing and simplifying all this civilian aid/HA stuff is a well-trodden path for actual professionals in the field (UNDP, UNHCR, World Bank)---getting their basics and standards out there is the way to integrate and synchronize US civ and mil operations. Inventing new wheels takes up to much energy (and scarce logistics and head-space).

Steve

Dayuhan

01-26-2010, 04:11 AM

Steve,

Dayuhan:

Like Mike, I think soldiers are just first responders, not builders or operators.

But the current set in Afghanistan, is, as I reckon it---5,000 civilian experts, based on a Carr Center figure, of which 1000 are US civs, set to "explode" to 1300. Most heavily hampered by movement security, resources, etc... so their ability to get out and about and o things in far-afield Afghan areas will always be very limited, even if security were no an overwhelming issue...

Yes, I see the point. This is why I was asking earlier what the purpose of the exercise is, which of course revolves around where it takes place. M-A's talk of trucking water in seems aimed at relief efforts such as that going on in Haiti; if we discuss Afghanistan we are largely limited to assessing what a military force can accomplish. Seems to me that until we narrow down the problem and clarify what we seek to accomplish and where, the conversation becomes almost impossibly general.

The problem with training soldiers in delivering water systems is that not every village needs one. Some may need a bridge, or an irrigation system, or any number of other things. Obviously it's not practical to try and train soldiers in the entire spectrum of development services delivery. Possibly it would be best to people going into the field to have some basic training in diagnostics - which in most cases comes down to asking people and sorting self-serving requests from genuine needs - and providing some sort of centralized technical capacity that the people in the field can tap into for whatever expertise their area happens to need.

I'm not entirely convinced that it's a good idea to undertake development projects in an active combat zone. In most cases these are driven less by development priorities than by a sort of thinly concealed bribery: we'll build you something if you don't shoot at us, or if you'll stop supporting our enemies. I'm not averse to a bit of bribery in the right time and place; sometimes it works, and what works is useful. One must be careful in applying that particular tool, though, as it may not always accomplish what we seek to accomplish. In the southern Philippines, for example, American-driven projects have left the Muslim populace with a much improved opinion of Americans, but have had little or no impact on their perception that the Philippine government would prefer to see them all dead in a ditch and is likely to go straight back to neglecting and abusing them as soon as the Americans are gone. This is the perception that drives the insurgency, and it's a difficult perception for Americans to address, since it's true. It will remain true even if we build roads and wells, and everyone in the picture knows it.

In an area that's actively or passively supporting insurgency, simply building projects is not likely to have much impact on that support. The key here is to identify what motivates that support, particularly if there is some particular local grievance that might possibly be addressed. If the people of a village see that the provincial government or HN military apparatus is dominated by a rival group and is likely to stomp them at the earliest opportunity, building them a well is not going to bring them into the fold. If the people of a village believe that the Americans will soon be leaving, that the Afghan Government will tumble when they do, and that the Taliban will then stomp whoever helped the Americans, building a well won't change that equation. Not to say it's a bad thing: if the goal is simply to provide clean water, that's achievable. If the goal is to win support, that's a different story.

In an active conflict zone, people are likely to be less concerned with progress than with survival, especially if the see their survival threatened. The first thing that has to be addressed is the threat. Development is much more and issue when the security situation improvesd to the point where day to day survival at least is relatively certain.

Steve

(Sometimes it seems that everyone in this discussion is Steve; I'm irresistably reminded of that Monty Python skit where everybody is named Bruce...)

Ken White

01-26-2010, 05:01 AM

You have well encapsulated the major problems with the US approach (essentially "It's all about us...") in developing nations. I've seen it happen in half a dozen countries, every flaw you cited.

We need to stop trying to do this because we just flat do not do it well and usually do as much harm as good. Your point that development should not -- truly, cannot -- start until the security problem is resolved is spot on. I've watched us waste millions doing that stuff before the situation was resolved. Goos news is that we sometimes get to re-do it several times...

Military forces do military things -- development is not a military thing. You can use the military force to do that but it will do a mediocre job at best and too frequently, will just do a really poor job. I am familiar with all the arguments for 'why' the Armed Forces 'must' do this, to include the 'first responder bit. As I said, I've watched it many places -- and we have NEVER done it well, thus I believe most of those arguments to be fallacious and simply varied repetitions of 'that's the way we've always done it.' May be correct but that doesn't make it the best solution.

What is that old saw "If you're in a hole, stop digging..."

As Bob Killebrew said in his Blog post on the front page, "What we're doing now isn't working..." Too true. Yet we keep trying. I'm still wading through the over wordy and so far not terribly coherent offering from the great thinkers at CNAS (also on the the Front page) but I really get the impression that too many people think we should just keep doing things that do not work...:confused:

M-A Lagrange

01-26-2010, 09:53 AM

Hey Dayuhan, all the Steve, Mike and the others

You have well encapsulated the major problems with the US approach (essentially "It's all about us...") in developing nations. I've seen it happen in half a dozen countries, every flaw you cited.

Well I think we are not speaking about the same thing.
State Building as a tool in Stabilization process is part of a greater plan.
You have 2 main issues on this. Most of the people tend to see Stabilization as a continuum that goes as follow:
Emergency/humanitarian => recovery/reconstruction => post conflict/pre development => development.

State Building is integrated at all stages with various tasks. What I developed in my previous mail is clearly located in Emergency/Humanitarian while what Dayuhan is addressing is clearly located in Post conflict and/or development.

This is the basic sheme for stabilization following the Rostow approach: a continuity in development from disaster (Prehistoric stage) to development (Full capitalist economy with democratic regime).

But conflicts are not homogenous. They are composed of a mosaic of situations that can be labeled in all the categories. Rather than mosaic, I prefer the concept of islands as the limits are porous. So you end up with a various rabge of micro contexts which can be extremely different: emergency in one village and development in the next one.
This is close to the edge concept that Surferbeetle was talking about.
In humanitarian “science” this is called a contiguum. This theory has been developed by a French guy based on urban emergency actions in the Balkans. I, basically (with others) extend it up to the village level.

So if the country as a whole is following the steps of the continuum, it is divided in a unlimited number of islands with a contiguum of situations going from war to stabilized economy for each of those island. The conytinuum situation of the country as a whole is determined by the prevailing situation in the majority of island. If it is emergencies then the country is still at the war/emergency stage. If it is development then the country is at the development stage.
So the first thing is to identify which box the place you are working in fits. Then when you know in which box you are then you can start pretty much standard actions. In emergencies all is covered by SPHERE Standards and NGO practices. In development, it is mostly best practices from USAID and other development actions. In the middle, then we can come with what we, as the practitioners part of SWJ, think are the best practices, the do and do not do.
And from that we can look at what CIMIC can do and how it is integrated into COIN or Population centric COIN or even POPULACE centric COIN.

And to respond to Steve
Yes, I think that a Civil/Military for the dummy hand book is what we, at SWJ, can contribute with.

Dayuhan

01-26-2010, 11:49 AM

This is close to the edge concept that Surferbeetle was talking about.
In humanitarian “science” this is called a contiguum.

Humanitarian "science"? First time I've heard of such an animal, tell us more...

So the first thing is to identify which box the place you are working in fits. Then when you know in which box you are then you can start pretty much standard actions. In emergencies all is covered by SPHERE Standards and NGO practices. In development, it is mostly best practices from USAID and other development actions. In the middle, then we can come with what we, as the practitioners part of SWJ, think are the best practices, the do and do not do.

I have my doubts. I don't see any standard actions that are universally or even widely applicable even within these "boxes", and based on return on aid invested to date I've no particular trust in "best practices" coming out of the aid industry. Emergency relief situations, I agree we have a clue there, simply because the objectives are limited and clear. Moving to the development side, I don't think "best practice" has accomplished much.

All too often the principal constraints on development are not the technological or financial ones addressed by development aid, but direct resistance to and subversion of development efforts by a nexus of local and national elites and military forces that have a powerful vested interest in the status quo and see their interests and even their lives threatened by what we would call development. The people who have built their fortunes and their power on the status quo are not going to simply give up and walk away, and for development to progress these forces have to be challenged and defeated. Sometimes this requires insurgency, and this is why we need to stop seeing insurgency as something that must reflexively be countered.

Steve the Planner

01-26-2010, 01:29 PM

Be skeptical. Be very skeptical. Make each proposed effort justify itseld in the actual circumstance.

Reconstruction, in the real world, means fixing things that are broken, putting the shelves back up and the dishes back on them. In Iraq and WWII, physical infrastructure damage (accumulated from Iran/Iraq, embargos, us (but not just us)) was huge, complicated and expensive. Not so in most Afghan areas.

Development is making some thing happen that has not happened before. Especially when applied to Afghanistan, the burdens and challenges of any success must be incrementally built on a solid foundation, Doing so while security, corruption and lack of framework/context is almost spitting in the wind, and with very little reasonable expectation for bug strides.

Oneof my first bewilderments in Tikrit was arequest for scads of generators. So I asked, how many generators have been deleivered to that little village in the last five years. The answer: Who knows? That went out at the last Riptoa. All we know if that we are here now and these folks say they need generators, and you have funds for that.

The answer was: the village needed a generator, but had no mechanism to "own it," maintain it, keep it in fuel. So when the fuel went out or it broke down, somebody sold it for scrap, and they came back for another.

The solution to a sustainable generator was for some identifiable party to take responsibility for it, and the government to agree to maintain, supply it. Otherwise it was a waste of time.

Dayuhan only gave a piece of the Phillipine-style story. Load them with fancy amercian projects that cannot be sustained, or even afforded, by local government, and you make the local government look incomptent, by default. In large part these places have limited development, infrastructure and services because there is no system to male them valuable and sustainable. The trade-off will not always be the same if the choice is "give up your traditional ways and customs so that you can become prosperous enough to use/support new and expensive infrastructure." Some will just teach you what they told the Russians" Nyet!

The first big lesson of Appalachian Redevelopment---the Kennedy Plan to revive the Appalachians, involved building great new roads into the Appalachians to stimulate trade by linking them to city regions. It never occured to them that it was easier, and more successful, to follow the road to the city than to try to develop the Appalachians (a US version of the same constraints faced in Afghanistan). How many of these big projects create substantial unintended consequences---like shifting rural poor to urban poor.

Yesterday was a conference at CSIS, and a British and Norwegian Ambassador explained the upcoming London Summit. Security aside, an hour is assigned to SUBNATIONAL Governance.

In theory, the Afghan gov is expected to deliver it's proposal to the nations for creating and implementing subgov structures in Afghanistan. Although many at the national level are skeptical about creating subgov (and especiially effective subgov) is that it diverts their power.

Back up the truck a sec. There is no effective sub-national governance structure, and, if needed to be built, you can do the math as almost as big a separate effort as training police and soldiers---let alone the hundreds of offices, desks, cell phones, bicycles and bongo trucks needed for that. Now, we have an hour scheduled to hear how (if) the new Afghan government wants to pursue this objective, and whether int'l aid will accept/support their plan.

An ineffective national government, no effective sub-national governance structure, or credible plan for one, and, at the bottom of that pyramid, soldiers are supposed to build local governance to hand off to the national system that does not exist.

Two things are missing. If there was a subnational gov plan, us civ/mil could synchronize efforts to focus on support for implementation, but there is none, and there is no entity to either link or hand it over to.

A district with a $6 budget, no staff, and no cell phone is hardly going to be able to accept a hand-off of responsibility for an island of villages "redeveloped" by the US, and certainly cannot sustain or support any level of infrastructure/projects.

Same in Iraq. The US declared provincial governments, but did not provide the road maintenance shops, equipment and staffs to make them so. Without an independent tax base, either in Iraq or Afghanistan, all local governance is small and ineffective.

The US cry was about "Taxation without Representation." Afghanistan has no resources except those we give it, and those it chooses to distribute...

What's Schmedlap's rap: With a plan this compicated and full of wholes, success is assured?

Steve

Steve the Planner

01-26-2010, 01:35 PM

M-A Lagrange

01-26-2010, 03:14 PM

Dayuhan,

Humanitarian "science"? First time I've heard of such an animal, tell us more...

Apparently it’s a French delicatessen…:rolleyes: Well, actually in France you have 3 Universities teaching humanitarian actions and humanitarian Rights and Laws.
Plus one more university teaching logistic/administration… all the NGO administration stuff.
This came to the point they are developing humanitarian anthropology which is based on different bases that development anthropology.
Myself, in order to be much more bankable, I just passed a master in Crisis management: humanitarian and development actions at la Sorbonne, Paris.
But you have the Oxford Master program… There are some stuffs being developed on Humanitarian action as a “science” integrating civil security, emergency management, legal issues, rule of law…

“Science” is the only work that comes to my mind actually concerning this. There are already devastating bad effects: you see coming in the field young guys and girls thinking they know everything because they have been taught to do so and have a degree on it.
Sometimes, I’ll just like to sunk them in concrete, head first, just to remind them the hard way “we”, the stupid guys with long years spend in the field, we have learn our knowledge the hard way.
They do the same mistakes as us but now have a degree to back it up…
But the good thing is that some quite interesting theories as the continuum/contiguum have come out. Also some analyses of Culture as a tool to legitimize “civil society” disconnected from politic.

May be not a Science but certainly an Art :D

Steve,

An ineffective national government, no effective sub-national governance structure, or credible plan for one, and, at the bottom of that pyramid, soldiers are supposed to build local governance to hand off to the national system that does not exist.

Two things are missing. If there was a subnational gov plan, us civ/mil could synchronize efforts to focus on support for implementation, but there is none, and there is no entity to either link or hand it over to.

A district with a $6 budget, no staff, and no cell phone is hardly going to be able to accept a hand-off of responsibility for an island of villages "redeveloped" by the US, and certainly cannot sustain or support any level of infrastructure/projects.

We can give all the advices of the world to good guys trying to do their best to build local governance capacity (a local administration basically in a good governance cheap dress). But without plan and vision of where to go by the Afghan… We build a white elephant. No doubts on that.

But anyways, I still think that there are best practices coming from the field. It’s may not be plug and play projects but rather how to build a project, what to do for assessment, what to look at, what to not do…
Still, it’s best practices that will help to have a better use of the money, time, energy… And may be achive results in the end
Standards are not meant to be: 1 you build a school 2) you build a well 3) you build a road…
Standards can be: 1) you assess the local production and markets. 2) you dress the gender task division. 3) you conduct focus groups…
Standards can be approaches…

This, it self is a debate. But once you have decide what you want to support then you have a good list of stupid stuff to not do, just like the Appalachian example.

Rex Brynen

01-26-2010, 05:53 PM

I have my doubts. I don't see any standard actions that are universally or even widely applicable even within these "boxes", and based on return on aid invested to date I've no particular trust in "best practices" coming out of the aid industry. Emergency relief situations, I agree we have a clue there, simply because the objectives are limited and clear. Moving to the development side, I don't think "best practice" has accomplished much.

All too often the principal constraints on development are not the technological or financial ones addressed by development aid, but direct resistance to and subversion of development efforts by a nexus of local and national elites and military forces that have a powerful vested interest in the status quo and see their interests and even their lives threatened by what we would call development. The people who have built their fortunes and their power on the status quo are not going to simply give up and walk away, and for development to progress these forces have to be challenged and defeated. Sometimes this requires insurgency, and this is why we need to stop seeing insurgency as something that must reflexively be countered.

Absolutely agreed. Indeed, I've often that we should spend far less time on "best practices," with all of the potentially dangerous baggage of external omniscience that it sometimes carries with it, and spend a little more time trying to understand "worst practices"--that is, how well-intentioned efforts can go awry, and what can be done to to mitigate those risks (or, at the very least, what questions ought to have been asked).

M-A Lagrange

01-27-2010, 05:54 AM

Dear Dayuhan and Rex,

I see clearly your point on best practices. In some how, we do agree and words are probably what separates us.

Absolutely agreed. Indeed, I've often that we should spend far less time on "best practices," with all of the potentially dangerous baggage of external omniscience that it sometimes carries with it, and spend a little more time trying to understand "worst practices"--that is, how well-intentioned efforts can go awry, and what can be done to to mitigate those risks (or, at the very least, what questions ought to have been asked).

For me (And it's a personnal understanding) best practices includes DO and DON'T DO. And it's most of the time easier to find all the DON'T DO than even 1 I recommand you to process that way...

In some context, as emmergencies, you do have standards actions with basically: you do that way and no others for technical responses (Food distributiojns, water distributions, camp management...).
But I agree that it is limited for what I know best: immediat emmergencies responses. The "first box" if I can say so.

Even for recovery, (The very next box) you have "better" approach/practices and "practices to avoid" rather than a omniscient knowledge that you just drop on the people. Nothing is worst than a solution droped from the moon.
After, comes stages of "development" I have no clue of what could be a best practice or even a project. (I have no clue of what you do in rural development of a low developed country as Burkina Faso for example.)
If we go on a SWJ Experiment project that looks at providing a compilation of this community knowledge for State Building some steps can be just recommandations of what to not do with illustrated real cases.

The example of Dayuhan is basically a very good one, once you have clearly expose the context, of what to not do, how to not approach the problem...

But this example is may be something that is too far from the target we are looking at: advices for civil/military projects/actions.
We probably should be able to define the limits of such action and build the pre requirement of the advice: at that point you redraw and handover to the civilian development agencies, the local administration and step back until the local context falls back in a need for military action.

Dayuhan

01-28-2010, 03:50 AM

Be skeptical. Be very skeptical. Make each proposed effort justify itseld in the actual circumstance.

I'd agree with that... and I'd add that skepticism should be matched by the will to not act when circumstances don't justify action, especially when to act would simply mean throwing money at a problem that money will not solve and could exacerbate.

Development is making some thing happen that has not happened before. Especially when applied to Afghanistan, the burdens and challenges of any success must be incrementally built on a solid foundation, Doing so while security, corruption and lack of framework/context is almost spitting in the wind, and with very little reasonable expectation for bug strides.

This runs back to my initial comment about trying to build things that have to grow. All too often, in all too many places, we've assumed that if we build the concrete evidence of administrative and organizational capacity, the capacity will somehow be summoned into being. The result has been billions of dollars tossed down black holes, and all manner of expensively constructed artifacts rusting in peace in odd locations.

In theory, the Afghan gov is expected to deliver it's proposal to the nations for creating and implementing subgov structures in Afghanistan. Although many at the national level are skeptical about creating subgov (and especiially effective subgov) is that it diverts their power.

Back up the truck a sec. There is no effective sub-national governance structure, and, if needed to be built, you can do the math as almost as big a separate effort as training police and soldiers---let alone the hundreds of offices, desks, cell phones, bicycles and bongo trucks needed for that. Now, we have an hour scheduled to hear how (if) the new Afghan government wants to pursue this objective, and whether int'l aid will accept/support their plan.

Is there really no subgovernance structure at all, or simply none that falls into categories that we recognize? Are the villages without any form of governance? No councils of elders, no village headmen? No traditional system for resolving inter-village disputes? Instead of imposing a top-down structure of subgoverenance according to our model, why not start with what exists (I suspect there is something) and try to provide minimally invasive assistance aimed at letting it grow upwards... accepting of course that this will take a lot of time.

If there is an existing system of local administration, they may be comfortable with the idea of being rebuilt according to somebaody else's priorities. They are likely to be reluctant to see their power diluted by national government intrusion and they are likely to be very uncomfortable with the idea of being handed over to anybody.

Dayuhan

01-28-2010, 03:56 AM

But this example is may be something that is too far from the target we are looking at: advices for civil/military projects/actions.

I agree... and I think one piece of advice to start with would be to know what you are trying to accomplish. Is the project intended to promote development or is it intended to win loyalty or support? If the latter, for whom are we trying to win loyalty and support? For us? For the host nation Government?

It is difficult to propose a strategy until the immediate goal is clear.

Steve the Planner

01-28-2010, 05:47 AM

Dayuhan:

As I understand it, many areas of Afghanistan were, in effect, self-governing and stable enough, in their own way, but decades of conflict leveled or destabilized a lot of old structures and systems, including with refugee flows and cross-border movements.

In some places, who is in charge, and in charge of what, may be both stable and well-known and understood.

Problem 1: What we are looking for is something very different than what existed before---a nationally-focused interest and commitment to centralized governments that both create and provide demonstrably different levels of economic, social and political linkages and dependencies on more advanced economic dependencies that will create future levarage against barbarism and "old ways".

The advanced economic performance and dependencies are inextricably linked, too, to social advancement factors including higher levels of education and transformational women's rights changes, and acceptance of other religions, cultures and heritages that have criss-crossed Afghanistan (the Bamyan Buddhas, etc...).

So, it is far beyond simple "reconstruction," and the "development" aspects are tightly wound with essential cultural and societal advancement factors that are truly remarkable in their breathtaking audacity---all this now wrapped around the axle of the original anti-AQ mission.

All these things are laudable, but, if our success (and Karzai's continuation) is dependent on them, it is certainly a huge mountain to climb.

The alternative is pretty simlar to what we did in Northern Iraq with MG Hertling: If nobody else has a plan for civilian reconstruction/stability, and I need a plan to accomplish my mission, then I will make a plan, and executed it.

That's a far cry from accidentally stumbling into success one battle space at a time. Intentionality, forethought, some basic interoperability and consistency (or each recovered area will be dissimilar and incompatible with the next), and some guiding purpose....

Amazing task, though.

Dayuhan

01-28-2010, 06:22 AM

Problem 1: What we are looking for is something very different than what existed before---a nationally-focused interest and commitment to centralized governments that both create and provide demonstrably different levels of economic, social and political linkages and dependencies on more advanced economic dependencies that will create future levarage against barbarism and "old ways".

The advanced economic performance and dependencies are inextricably linked, too, to social advancement factors including higher levels of education and transformational women's rights changes, and acceptance of other religions, cultures and heritages that have criss-crossed Afghanistan (the Bamyan Buddhas, etc...).

Yikes. If that's problem 1, I don't even want to ask about problem 2.

The big problem I see with "problem 1" is the bold "we" in the citation above.

Somehow "we" went from wanting to see an Afghanistan that doesn't shelter people who attack us to wanting "a nationally-focused interest and commitment to centralized governments that both create and provide demonstrably different levels of economic, social and political linkages and dependencies on more advanced economic dependencies that will create future levarage against barbarism and "old ways". In the process (in my perhaps not entirely humble opinion at least) we went from climbing a mountain to rolling the rock of Sisyphus up a mountain. I can't imagine what would make anyone think that "we" are in a position to create, impose, dictate, inspire, incubate, or otherwise achieve such a thing in Afghanistan.

And at the end of the day, who are "we" to be telling the Afghans what they should become?

Steve the Planner

01-28-2010, 06:42 AM

Relax:

Step 1 is still security, and to hold it until Step 2 can get done.

Oh, did I mention that step 2 is usually considered a process of social and economic advancement that takes place over about 20-50 years.

Here, we have to compress it a little...

Actually, the Genral should give it a few more weeks, and if nobody can come up with a credible and implementable civilian sub-national plan and schedule, develop and implement one based on the pieces he does have...and get on with it. Government by... and for...

For that, the rule is simple. Be humble and ask the people what they need to function reasonably, wrap that into a viable governance and economic implementation program that has prospects for sustainable application (and maybe even future societal advancement), and move down the road to implementation (if the partners will agree).

Dayuhan

01-28-2010, 07:59 AM

For that, the rule is simple. Be humble and ask the people what they need to function reasonably, wrap that into a viable governance and economic implementation program that has prospects for sustainable application (and maybe even future societal advancement), and move down the road to implementation

If that's simple, I'd hate to see complex.

To start with, I suspect that the assumption of a centralized government is going to meet substantial opposition from local and regional powers, who are likely to be extremely suspicious of any central government they don't control.

Steve the Planner

01-28-2010, 04:35 PM

I think that is the point.

Without an effective subnational governance plan emenating from the center, each area will set it's own course, which we will then support instead.

At that point, you have, by default, bypassed the central government, and, therefore, undermined it.

You already see it going on now with Intl aid starting to bypass Kabul.

A recent story on Pashtuns agreeing to oppose Taliban in exchange for development aid was quite instructive. They are as equally opposed to Kabul, which steals their money.

One deal at a time might end immediate AQ threats, but it won't make a nation (except by complete accident). Are we out to end immediate AQ threats or to build a nation as a more permanent threat reduction step?

M-A Lagrange

01-28-2010, 07:16 PM

A recent story on Pashtuns agreeing to oppose Taliban in exchange for development aid was quite instructive. They are as equally opposed to Kabul, which steals their money.

Would not be surprised. In DRC we traded (with low effect) discipline and no civilian harassement against food for the FARDC who were not payed by the government.
As some say: peace has a price, just find it.

But it's an old concept. The may-may in DRC went up to the point to take hostages to get aid. Even government official who were on their side.
The result in the end is quite conter productive as Gov makes sure those places are margenalised after.

Steve the Planner

01-28-2010, 07:43 PM

" But it's an old concept. The may-may in DRC went up to the point to take hostages to get aid. Even government official who were on their side.
The result in the end is quite conter productive as Gov makes sure those places are margenalised after. "

The risk of creating local self-government without connection and explicit support of the central government is that there comes a time when the locals eoither are, or are not, supported by the national government---which, in the end, will control money, police, and troops.

Where do the locals end up in that game? What was the net effect of disconnected local capacity building?

Dayuhan

01-29-2010, 05:53 AM

The risk of creating local self-government without connection and explicit support of the central government is that there comes a time when the locals eoither are, or are not, supported by the national government---which, in the end, will control money, police, and troops.

What if the local people - who are, after all, supposed to be the raison d'etre of the government - are fundamentally suspicious of the idea of centralized Government? What if they see it as an entity that is at best going to be intrusive and may well be exploitive and abusive? In these circumstances, wouldn't an attempt to impose an unwanted strong central authority only serve to exacerbate insurgency?

Ken White

01-29-2010, 03:31 PM

Centralizing is invariably efficient. However, it is rarely as effective a a local or distributed effort...

All politics is local, quoth O'Neill. :wry:

Steve the Planner

01-29-2010, 04:29 PM

Dayuhan:

"What if the local people - who are, after all, supposed to be the raison d'etre of the government - are fundamentally suspicious of the idea of centralized Government? What if they see it as an entity that is at best going to be intrusive and may well be exploitive and abusive? In these circumstances, wouldn't an attempt to impose an unwanted strong central authority only serve to exacerbate insurgency?"

Isn't that the entire conflict? It is not just that Kabul hasn't extended itself down to the local levels, but that, in many instances, the locals are better off to reject it---and they do.

If Kabul has guns, drugs, corruption, and armies, other than that, what does it bring them? Improved services, more crops?

Even the taxes (a flat 10%) are better than the Taliban, and there is nothing under the table. Simple, brutal justice, no services, and no charges. versus?

It is unsurprising the the recently "flipped" Pashtuns did so not because of the central government but because of local conflicts with the local Taliban. They still do not embrace the federal government.

jmm99

01-29-2010, 06:54 PM

from Ken
Centralizing is invariably efficient. However, it is rarely as effective a a local or distributed effort...

All politics is local, quoth O'Neill.

I expect that how one looks at this depends upon one's personal political slant, as well as one's experience with governmental organizations. Since I am center-right non-statist, or center-right anti-statist (haven't figured out which one will sound better when I run for office :)), but definitely not a center-right pro-statist, the last two sentences sound pretty good to me.

I do have to question (to some extent) the first: "Centralizing is invariably efficient". As an example, I'll take our tax collection systems that have affected my little world over the last 50 years - local, state and federal.

Point 1 supports the local "distributed effort" concept (more than less). Point 2 deals with "centralization".

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1. Local (property taxes). The basic setup has not changed - each municipal corporation (cities, villages, townships) has had its own tax assessor, and the county and state have had their own tax equalization units. Michigan's concept of property taxes is that the taxable value of the property shall not exceed 50% of its fair market value (FMV). Obviously, every governmental unit wants its properties to be appraised (the valuation process) and assessed (formal entry of the valuation) at no less than 50% of FMV. Also obviously, the governmental units have not had funding to appraise each piece of property each year.

In the olden days, the assessors relied on their judgment in assessing (generally increasing the formal record valuation) by reference to e.g., improvements (building permits), transfers (deed prices) and drivebys. They would then engage in tugs of war with owners at the annual Boards of Review. The county tax equalization unit would then review the overall assessments of the municipalities for outliers and adjust the aggregate assessed value of each municipality by a factor. The state tax equalization unit would then do the same for each county, adjusting its aggregate assessed value by a factor. The resultant adjustment of the assessed valuations resulted in a State Equalized Valuation (SEV), which was the valuation on which the tax ($X per $1000 of SEV) was based. In theory, your SEV was 1/2 of your FMV (you could challenge that).

In newer times, the basic structure remained the same, but changes occured. Upgrading the qualifications for assessors resulting in certified assessors handling mulitiple municipalities (removing some partisan local politics from the mix). The advent of computers did not end paper records, but (in theory) allowed a better interchange of data between the local, county and state levels. Of course, it took the local assessors, the tax equalization units, the county register of deeds and county treasurer's office, 20 years to agree and implement computer systems that would talk with each other. At present, this "distributed effort" seems to be working.

On the substantive level, two changes in the 90s added some complexity to the picture. Michigan's "Proposal A" legislation added "taxable value" to the equation (in effect, the SEV for 1994). A property's "taxable value" cannot increase over a certain formula-set amount each year (say 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 %), unless there is a "transfer". The "assessed value" and SEV for each year are computed and adjusted as before. If there is a "transfer" (say in 2009), the "taxable value" increases to the SEV for 2010.

Another 90s change was the Land Division Act dealing with splitting of parcels. While more half-assed zoning and land access legislation, it also affects the tax assessing process. The burden to implement Proposal A and the Land Division Act was placed primarily on the local municipalities and the counties. The state legislature, as often it does, imposed that burden as an unfunded mandate.

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2. State and Federal.

Much could be said here, but I'll just look at centralization. Back in the olden days, we had a local state tax officer (responsible for assistance, auditing and collection of all state taxes in a small multi-county district). He went the way of the dinosaurs and his duties were shifted to a regional office for the UP (same responsibilities). While these officers had to be generalists (all state taxes), their population base was small enough to allow them to handle the full-spectrum. To the taxpayer, the services offered were far more personal. Now, a bunch of small offices looks bad on a org chart; and wouldn't concentration of all efforts in Lansing, distributed among offices in each subject matter area, be more efficient. Well perhaps, and even as effective - if those offices are adequately staffed !!!

Now, with Michigan's budget problems (which go far back before the current downturn: Dem admin started the problem, Rep admin added to it and present Dem admin holding the bag), reduction in force is the mantra (and probably the only answer). Here's an example of what happens. I had to clear up a problem with terminating a charitable foundation. It should have been easy cuz the lawyers and accountants originally involved had done everything right in setting it up, except for one report which was not submitted. The effect of that was that, to the State of Michigan, $1,000,000 in charitable funding had gone missing. The lawyer at the responsible unit advised that he and his auditor (the staff) had a backlog of over 250 foundations and trusts six months before and had reduced them to 150 - new ones ? In any event, all ended well (since we had a complete papertrail), but a simple report would have taken 1/10th the effort (which would have been quickly reviewed and approved without a papertrail requirement caused by the red flag). Not the fault of the state unit, who actually expedited my request (probably at the cost of not getting to other backlogged files).

Similarly, we used to have a local IRS officer (multi-county), whose functions were shifted to Detroit or Cincinnati (still dealing with known people you can call back). Now, you have an 800 number reaching a person located in ? - probably West Virginia (if Sen. Byrd managed to snag that one).

The example of centralization here is that the office had made a small tax payment (~$850), but we got a deficiency notice for the tax, penalty and interest. That I paid with a protest letter attaching cancelled check to IRS and demand for refund. That, of course, was like baying at the moon. After allowing a reasonable interval with no response, my paralegal got on the phone and called the 800 number.

Now it seems the IRS is organized to respond in very general areas of expertise, where most responders are supposed to be generalists in all aspects of specific facets in the very general area to which they are assigned. The first five phone calls were duds (as also the dozen phone calls chasing leads based on bad advice given). And yes, my paralegal knows to go up the chain to supervisors. The problem was that no one of the first five knew how to trace a check.

Finally, my paralegal got lucky and hit the jackpot - a knowledgable person. Basic problem was that the check was deposited to the wrong year and credited to the wrong account (and the credit fortunately had not been used or withdrawn). So, the IRS guy, who was a real pro on the IRS computer system, reversed the credit and put the funds in my account for the correct year. He also authorized a refund of my protested payment with interest from the IRS - which came about 3 weeks later as he promised. Got to talking with him about our experience. His view was that the system should drill down to his level, but it doesn't.

So, how does a country without much administration to begin with handle even the basic aspects of tax collection ? Unless the government is supported by foreign funding, it would probably find the easier path to be funding by natural resources (oil, narcotics, etc.).

Steve the Planner

01-30-2010, 01:17 AM

Mike:

"So, how does a country without much administration to begin with handle even the basic aspects of tax collection ? Unless the government is supported by foreign funding, it would probably find the easier path to be funding by natural resources (oil, narcotics, etc.)."

That's the point. First, is there a publicly acceptable means and structure for local tax collection? Not really.

What other internal fees exist? Usually transit fees (formal or informal shakedowns at checkpoints) What is the salary source for local payroll? (what ever you can shake down).

Either the money would have to come down from the center, or in from foreign aid. Neither is stable or predictable.

When it comes to creating a sub-national government, money is everything, and not just the lack of money but the successful targeting and distribution of money.

One estimate I saw was of 12,000 plus civil servants needed to be recruited, retained, put on permanent payroll, housed, office-ed and supplied. Democracy, and democratic governance is not, after all, the result of a vote. It's body and limbs are the staffing, offices, equipment and services, all of which require stable revenue sources.

So, what would that take????

Who is in charge of that? (Afghans? US DoD? NATO? UN?)

To me, the biggest breakthrough this week is the appointment of Staffan Di Mistura as UN SRSG. From Iraq, if he had a question about Iran, he would address it with Ahmedinajad. With Shias, he would see the Grand Ayatollah. He is "juice" and very effective.

Now, the question is will the UN Mission for Afghanistan allow him to live up to his personal capabilities, or are there structural impediments to the UN's "peace and stabilization" mission that need to be addressed. Most important: Can he wrangle all these civs and foreign aid into something productive?

If anyone is likely to broker a cessation of fighting, and obtain an anti-AQ commitment, he is the man. And it won't take him six months to become effective.

He knows how to work with others to create their own nation.

OK, Mr. District official---go forth and collect taxes....sure.