Afghanistan RFI

[Entropy]

Possibly slightly off topic... but the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah is often cited as evidence that centralized Government can work in Afghanistan. I've long wondered how centralized that Government really was, in terms of practical day to day control over local affairs. If anyone knows of any good material describing the actual (as opposed to structural/theoretical) relationship between central and local governments in the Zahir Shah period, I'd be interested in looking. Of course I realize that the period in question was extended and saw considerable evolution and change, but it remains an interesting question, even if there's no short simple answer.

There was no control over local affairs. Briefly, here's what Louis Dupree wrote 40 years ago in "Afghanistan":

The recent history of Afghanistan reveals the story of a piece of real estate trying to become a nation-state, its external patterns uncontrollably linked with those of the two great imperialist powers in the region [Russia and Britian]. More important than the drawing of boundaries was Afghanistan's internal integration, hampered by a plethora of independent and semi-independent ethnic and linguistic units.

Therefore, Afghanistan discovered that the most important elements in the creation of a national consciousness are the attitudes of the people, for a nation-state must evolve as a state of mind as well as a geographic entity. The essence of the modern nation-state involves a reciprocal set of recognizable, definable, functioning rights and obligations between the government and the governed. All twentieth-century nations, including Afghanistan and the United States, still strive, in varying ways, to achieve this ideal, although in Afghanistan, as in most of the developing world, many social, political, and economic rights and obligations occur within kinship-oriented, not government-oriented, institutions.

BTW, the book is in print again, so if you want a copy, you can get it for about a third of what I paid....

Also, this may be of interest for a number of reasons, not least of which it contains more relevant quotes from Dupree.

I've been thumbing through "Afghanistan" again recently and the sense I get from this 4-decade old seminal work is that Afghanistan, on a fundamental level, hasn't changed all that much. Bob's World is right about the Constitution and the over-centralization of power it promotes is probably the most serious obstacle to any kind of central governance.

[Dayuhan]

There was no control over local affairs.

That's pretty much what I expected.

Bob's World is right about the Constitution and the over-centralization of power it promotes is probably the most serious obstacle to any kind of central governance.

Sounds right to me as well, though I'd suggest that it's not only an obstacle to central governance but to any kind of functional governance... which need not be and probably should not be central.

We made our bed and now we get to lie in it; I've no idea how we're going to work our way out of this one.

[Schmedlap]

Afghanistan got new Constitutions in 1923, 1931, 1964, 1977, 1980, 1987, 1990, a proposed one in 1992, and then the recent one in 2004. I'd say that Afghanistan is about due for a new Constitution. Given how crappy the current one is and given how often new ones are promulgated, one would think it is somewhat doable.

On that note, I think the COIN-mania has gone a bit too far, but there is an article in a 2008 issue of the Harvard Law Review titled "Counterinsurgency and Constitutional Design" (121 Harv. L. Rev. 1622 for those of you with access). It cites many of the sources of emulation and saints of the COIN faith - Kilcullen, Galula, 3-24, Petraeus, Nagl, Sepp, Barno - and even cites McCulloch v. Maryland to keep it legal.

[Steve the Planner]

Tracking back a few centuries, my understanding of the ancient empires in which Afghanistan's territory was actually a part, I think of them in terms of I'll pretend to be in your empire if you don't bother me, and I get something out of it---maybe that's the local leaders getting payments, or more lucrative trade routes (same as today), or I get access to markets/goods I need.

If anybody wants to pretend they are a part of their empire, there is always something that has to be worked out.

I just finished reading the new Exum Report for CNAS---somehow it always comes back to---its not military, it is political, so the US really needs to ramp up the billions, send tons of civilians, and transform the country. Alway military think tank guys with no clue what they are actually talking about, and no domestic, economic will/support for it.

I did, however, appreciate the marked shift from "lets do CERP," to the realization that our money is creating a lot of the instability and obstacles we face. Why not just all sit down and pass crack pipes amongst each other while playing russian roulette. Whether you win or lose, you lose.

Given the real resources and commitments, what is the best strategy to accomplish realistic US goals? The practical demands, resources and time needed to "create" a new Afghanistan are different orders of magnitude than the $53 billion used to stabilize/minimally reconstruct Iraq. They are two completely different problems.

Forget the clear hold bribe that worked in Iraq, and the billions in payola washing through Kabul, and get them focused on taking control of their country with their resources. (No it will not have a school building in every community, and health clinics will be far between, but it is theirs and sustainable.

What if we took over and really ran things badly? Would that help to promote indigenous efforts to run themselves better? Why does everything have to end, not in teacups, but in mega-NGO contracts, and projects?

COIN is not a strategy, it is a tactic or technique to be applied when and where it can work, and our resources can be aligned to a successful outcome. If COIN is the only answer to Afghanistan (which it is not), then let's find a real strategy that macthexs the problem.

[Schmedlap]

I just finished reading the new Exum Report for CNAS---somehow it always comes back to---its not military, it is political, so the US really needs to ramp up the billions, send tons of civilians, and transform the country. Alway military think tank guys with no clue what they are actually talking about, and no domestic, economic will/support for it.

I just read that today, too, and agree with your assessment.

COIN is not a strategy, it is a tactic or technique to be applied when and where it can work, and our resources can be aligned to a successful outcome. If COIN is the only answer to Afghanistan (which it is not), then let's find a real strategy that macthexs the problem.

You know, his blog quoted a passage from some article (about his "report") that stated...

"'Good counterinsurgency tactics and operations cannot, in and of themselves, win a campaign,' according to the report being released Thursday."

When I read that, I first thought, "holy crap, they're waking up." Nope. Reading on, Exum drops this whopper...

Last fall, I sat down with LTG (Ret.) David Barno and asked him what he thought was missing from our research on Afghanistan. He said that while we had done a good job talking about counterinsurgency at the tactical and operational levels, we had not tackled counterinsurgency at the strategic and political levels.

W.T.F.? Oh yeah, the strategic and political things. Did we forget about that? I mean, did Colonel Gentile not nail this problem a few months ago when he pointed out that our COIN fetish is a bunch of tactics that are driving strategy? This is the smoking gun.

[Steve the Planner]

PS

The real clock ticking in Afghanistan is the national election cycle. This problem will be well on the way to success before then, or it will be remarkably transformed by a relentless domestic problem---budgets.

For those of you who remember domestic budget cycles (adopted in June for FY2011, 12), there is serious emerging crisis, patched over last year by stimulus grants.

When the locals start screaming for help, and there is no more borrowing capacity without inflation, a new hand will be dealt. We will begin to see the domestic state and local budget cards in June of this year, and June of next.Then we have to watch how the deck is shuffled, dealt and played.

Going in to Afghanistan was a serious endeavor. Suppressing OBL/ Taliban was real. Creating a new Afghanistan (or improving our relationship with Karzai, etc., as Exum suggests) is the smoke coming out of a hash pipe.

[Steve the Planner]

Schmedlap:

We cross-posted that last one.

Really. They need a better quality of advisers. If it is not a military problem, find somebody who is not military to answer it.

My fingers are crossed that in then next review, the White House will ask the same unanswered questions from last year, and start to realize how very wide the chasm is between problem, tools, and solution paths (currently being employed) and, with a relentless eye on the election clock, finally say: Let's get real, here.

What are we trying to achieve and how can we really achieve it.

[Bob's World]

I haven't seen the Harvard piece; but I will lend my vote that the greatest COIN tool in the US is not the military nor the state department, but is our Constitution. But most of us really don't appreciate that fact, and even fewer still appreciate why this position is likely true.

In 1976, my 8th grade civics teacher (who as a member of the 82nd Airborne made the jump on Normandy) taught as about how the Judiciary, Legislative and Executive Brranchs are designed to complement, counter, and balance each other. But it has only been in recent years that I really have come to appreciate "the fourth Branch" (hmmm, there is a book, or at least an article in that) of the populace. Today many 8th grade civics teachers probably think Desert Storm was "The Big One."

It was the Bill of Rights that really empowered The Fourth Branch. Amendments one and two ensured we could preserve access to the truth and the ability to think and believe what we individually want to think and believe, not what the government wants us to collectively think and believe; and that the governement would never forget that the people are both informed and armed, and not for the other three branches to get together and impose their will upon us.

The rest of the Bill primarily identified some specific and recent abuses of such power and prohibited them specifically as they were known to drive a populace to insurgency; closing with a couple of catch-alls to keep crafty lawyers in check from circumventing the intent of the bill.

The Fourth Branch will express itself. A good constitution will determine the frequency and legality of that expression. Keep it between the lines, so to speak.

A bad constituion forces The Fourth Branch to act out illegally; most often, violently, to voice their rights to good governance.