How to build a State in a non State environment?

[TheCurmudgeon]

It's a little more complicated than tribal versus non-tribal.

...

More often than was comfortable, I heard US folks discussing Iraq's civil structure as Stalinist or post-Soviet. In fact, it was post-Ottoman, with elements of true Mesopotamian heritage, and mega-private sector contracts.

I think part of that is the military types understanding that the military model (and training) used by Saddam was soviet. Part of it is that civilians find the soviet model as the best example for a dictatorial state with a centralized economy.

More than once, when I investigated a "Budget Execution" problem for a US-inspired school project, there was a local technocrat sitting on it for sound reasons, and mostly because they understood that it was either a dumb or unnecessary project, one that would never survive, or one that they understandably saw as a "sheik" or "goodfella" project that made no public or organizational sense.

In June 2008, there was a big Iraqi budget conference where the ministries were going to develop and promulgate standards and procedures for capital project reviews for the 2009 budget. US folks were greatly worried about how this might interfere with their projects.

There were actually only about five US folks there, since it was an Iraqi conference. I listened to the bad US translations on my ear piece, but also was updated by my partner, a transportation engineer from California who also was fluent in Arabic. So, I got both sides.

When the conference turned to the standards, they whipped out the old standards book from 1968, that, to both of us, looked the same as every other project evaluation/EIS process we had used throughout our career. Identify the project and its justification. Identify costs, risks, uncertainties, and secondary impacts, compare alternatives to accomplish the same objectives.... All the required reports funnel to the Planning Ministry who creates a score card for the legislature (COR).

This is the DNA of their world---the 1968 standards book. Every technocrat in the room, whether from Basra or Mosul, immediately knew what it was, and started debating the fine points (as bureaucrats always do). The only ones who didn't know were the new officials, so the old-timers set up a system to bring them up to speed and get them copies of the old books.

It's absolutely true that we could have easily gotten a USAID contractor in No Va to create a project evaluation book for them, and try to force it out into their systems. But, why?

We try to "reinvent the wheel" way too often. Part of our mindset. That is a problem that WE have to overcome.

From experience, a lot of our reconstructor-wannabes have some very simplistic notions about how real governments actually work, especially at a local level. It is all nuance and procedure.

One common phrase from the consulting world: That's the best idea that nobody would ever propose. A lot of what we are doing is that, so it doesn't work out. No surprise.

Ken White can tell you a hundred reasons why what a young LT thinks is a good idea that sounds rational won't work. And he can tell you what will.

The problem we have on the civilian side is often because we don't know how things did/will work in a local application, and are often dealing with survivor populations who don't know either, or are trying to game us (in the normal human fashion). But how do we get THERE with that?

Had the US spent time studying these Iraqi natural systems in advance, we could have jump started the system that already existed instead of trying to invent new wheels and fit them onto their railroad cars.

The same in Afghanistan. Just a bunch of nice locals talking to some well-intended foreigners who have more money than wisdom.

Again, WE need to learn that there are other systems out there that work. Everything does not have to look like America.

Every problem isn't cause by the way things are in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Some problems do not even exist. We create them because of our expectations. They are not problems to the locals - they are problems because we say they are.