Patronage and the war in Afghanistan

[Fuchs]

The idea that Afghanistan was on its way to democracy or republic
has faded away. It has become obvious that Karzai is focusing on maintaining
power for him and his corrupt clique, not much unlike Putin.
A democracy without democrats or republic without republicans.

A piece of paper with letters on it is only as powerful as much power the
people lend to it. Its powerful if people obey the letters, and just a piece of
cellulose if not. To call it "constitution" doesn't change this and never did,
nowhere.

So what they're having in Afghanistan and Russia as well as many other
countries is the system that's competing with democracies: No matter what
it's officially like, in reality it's a patronage-based system.
Students of history recall such systems from the ancient Roman Republic;
powerful patrician patriarchs were heading an extended familia including
many ordinary citizen, who gave followership (especially politically) in
exchange for protection. The patriarch was their lawyer, lobbyist and
sometimes also their bank.
It wasn't very different in Germanic tribes, where leaders formed group of
people following them and getting advantages (such as spoils of war) in return.

ISAF and other Westerners were working a lot along multiple fictions in
Afghanistan. One being the fiction of a republic. The people knew there was
none, and it was all about patronage. The people in power extracted wealth
(for the time being mostly from the naive foreigners and drugs) and this
wealth did to some degree trickle down in exchange for followership. The
way to government services was followership, not going to court or waiting
for government turning competent AND altruistic.

The foreigners were not meant to provide a patronage parallel to the
government, for they were supposed to support the government, to stabilise
it. This kept them from gaining followership they wanted; even if only
followership for their cause. They could buy some followership temporarily,
but they're astonishingly incompetent in followership politics. They can tell
you a lot about elections and parties which are mere tools of the patronage
systems, but have no clue about patronage.
Maybe ISAF lacked enough South Italians and Greeks.

(excerpt; the rest is of no use here)

[Madhu]

The following article could be entered into a variety of threads here based on the intense pro-and-con discussions regarding the merits of developmental aid within the context of stability operations:

Much US aid over the last decade was spent in the middle of war, the ultimate breakdown of the rule of law. Half of the increase in aid in the seven years following Bush's announcement went to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Another fifth went to other violent, corrupt or autocratic places where "nation-building" also had little chance of succeeding, such as Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.


The "failed states" mandate put USAid on an untenable defensive. It tried to keep the failures secret, which only called more attention to the inevitable leaks. Human Rights Watch documented that the Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi manipulated American aid to starve supporters of the democratic opposition. A 64-mile stretch of road from Gardez to Khost in Afghanistan was shoddily constructed and is still incomplete after three years of construction. As of May 2011, the project was expected to cost $176m, two and a half times the initial budget. As with most wartime aid, much money went to security – including to a local warlord linked to the insurgents – which did not prevent 108 roadside bombs that killed 19 workers. Another 2010 report found aid flying out of Kabul in suitcases. A 2009 audit of a USAid project in Iraq found that some of the money got diverted to anti-American insurgents.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-dev...d-from-defence

[Madhu]

The article also discusses success stories as defined by the author, the point being that systems with slightly better governance, or more purely humanitarian aid such as medical aid, is more likely to "take" and less likely to support patronage or misuse overtly.

If stability operations are going to be important in the future for all NATO countries then we should examine this stuff in a more intellectually rigorous fashion, IMO.

Difficult to do, I know, because metrics are always tough to guage when we are talking about any attempts at social engineering, or steering any human activity really.

[Dayuhan]

So Afghans govern like Afghans, and the political culture didn't change because we said it should. Who could possibly have expected that?

[Bill Moore]

Karzai’s Office Gets Bags Full Of C.I.A. Cash

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/wo...icks=true&_r=0

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

I guess if we can't figure anything else out, or simply lack the skill to do so, we throw more money at the problem and in the meantime we're furloughing our air traffic controllers? We spend millions on government oversight that doesn't work.

[jcustis]

We are five--maybe six-- years down the path of a decision that we should have turned away from.

The crazy thing about it is our failure in AFG will get mixed in with the surge, and the root cause of the poor decision-making won't be laid bare.

It was pretty clear when Bremer et al. screwed up Iraq, and although I know in my heart and my noggin how we got it wrong in the graveyard of empires, it will be very difficult to parse out the lessons for future conflicts.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, rates their fair share of the sh*t sandwhich, but as we draw towards 2014, it is going to be smeared all over the place.