Reconciliation and COIN in Afghanistan

[Pol-Mil FSO]

Speaking from an insider perspective, the real problem with the Foreign Service is cultural. At the individual level, I would guess that somewhere between 50-75 percent of FSOs are hoping that Iraq and Afghanistan are temporary events that will go away so that State can return to the traditional diplomacy of dealing with nation states and Foreign Ministries. This attitude is reinforced at the organizational level by the fact that the Foreign Service is dominated by the regional bureaus, with the European Affairs Bureau (EUR) being the first among equals. The regional bureaus possess this power because they control assignments to the desirable and career-enhancing overseas postings at Embassies and Consulates.

State has enhanced the incentives for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan service so that there is now a broader range of officers serving in these countries than the early Iraq and Afghanistan mix of inexperienced junior officers and senior officers enticed by the promise of an Ambassadorship. However, I suspect that for many officers it is primarily a ticket punch to enhance promotion prospects and a first-time experience in dealing with pol-mil issues and working in a conflict environment.

State does have an office (S/CRS) that deals with reconstruction and stabilization and that possess probably the only real planning capability in the State Department. Because of bureaucratic turf issues, S/CRS has received only begrudging cooperation from the regional bureaus. S/CRS was blocked from involvement in Iraq, and was only able to get involved in Afghanistan due to an invitation from the military (to be specific - the 82nd Airborne ADC for Support) over the initial opposition of the Embassy in Kabul.

Although it pains me (a little) to admit it, State probably is not capable of taking on the reconstruction and stabilization role. A stand-alone expeditionary corps is the logical solution but as others have noted it will never happen because of interagency turf issues.

[Bob's World]

We don't need a State Department that:

1. Only works with "States"

2. Does CT

3. Does COIN

4. or does Stabilization and Reconstruction.

We need a Foreign Office that leads the designs and implements foreign policy.

The rest of that stuff largely falls under the same list of things that DoD is chasing as by products of having an outdated approach to foreign policy.

The following list is not an assessment of Afghan Populace Perspective currently of their Government, but in many regards it could be. Enough so, in fact to give one pause:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.


(The above, is of course, a direct lift from the U.S. Declaration of Independence)

[Steve the Planner]

Bob: Touche!

Pol-Mil: Right, its a deep cultural issue, and an open policy question as to whether Civ-Mil and R7S are, in fact, anything more than a temporary pick-up game, managed with limited resources on an ad hoc basis for the two assignments.

At one point, I had hopes for the SRCS, but, after reading their year end report, realized they had no possible staffing or funding beyond the ten or so 30 day SRCS "visits" and "planning" exercises. As a planner who has spent plenty of time monitoring Afghanistan, I know enough to know what I don't know. Even using "all my skills and powers," I could not expect to drop in for 30 days and accomplish anything productive, other than just legitimizing and regurgitating the info I picked up from ground folks. Then flying away with no relevant involvement in implementation, feedback/responses, or learning by doing.

We both know that there are some bright and capable folks in the FS, but (1) they need supplementation by other knowledge spheres; and (2) for them to reach beyond the present structure, activities, requires substantive changes in organization, resources, deployment, staffing and leadership/objectives. Not presently on the table.

My professional experience, on the other hand, is in a multi-expertise environment (planning, development) where all specialized parties are routinely engaged and deployed, across a background of defined expertises, to specialized tasks in a much more effective manner than present FS/AID.

Using better practices, in tune with 21st C. professional engagement techniques, and UN-style expert team deployments (not regular UN staffing), even the current FS/AID could accomplish much more than now, but that, too, isn't going to come from below.

[Dayuhan]

Speaking from an insider perspective, the real problem with the Foreign Service is cultural.... This attitude is reinforced at the organizational level by the fact that the Foreign Service is dominated by the regional bureaus, with the European Affairs Bureau (EUR) being the first among equals.

That's consistent with my observations... and I suspect that the eurocentric culture is going to cause us some problems down the line, not only in matters of stabilization and reconstruction. The rest of the world is becoming ever more significant, Europe is not the center of the universe, and we badly need to develop new peer-to-peer approaches to emerging nations that we once treated as subordinates, threats, or simply as irritations.

Although it pains me (a little) to admit it, State probably is not capable of taking on the reconstruction and stabilization role. A stand-alone expeditionary corps is the logical solution but as others have noted it will never happen because of interagency turf issues.

The ideal would be a multilateral agency, which could tap a wider range of expertise and avoid much of the baggage associated with direct American involvement... but of course that's even less likely to happen.

1. Only works with "States"

2. Does CT

3. Does COIN

4. or does Stabilization and Reconstruction.

We need a Foreign Office that leads the designs and implements foreign policy.

That's what State does. I think they could do it a lot better, but that will require new directions from above and a conscious attempt to change the culture within.

State is at least theoretically equipped and tasked to develop and implement foreign policy. The military and to a lesser extent CIA are equipped and tasked to manage CT and COIN. Nobody is equipped and tasked to manage stabilization and reconstruction, so these tasks are simply ignored, or handed off piecemeal to those who have neither the capacity nor the inclination to perform them.

I quite agree with your assessment of local perceptions of the Karzai government, but what to do about that problem remains a problem. Of course we can dump him and bail, but that almsot certainly means the return of the Taliban and of AQ, which would sacrifice the objective of the entire operation.

This just underscores the difficulty of creating and installing governments in other countries. It's exceedingly difficult, and if the first go doesn't work you can't simply dissolve the government you've created and have another go. If it doesn't work as planned it's easy to end up strapped to a government that cannot stand, but which you cannot allow to fall. Bad place to be.

[Bob's World]

That's consistent with my observations... and I suspect that the eurocentric culture is going to cause us some problems down the line, not only in matters of stabilization and reconstruction. The rest of the world is becoming ever more significant, Europe is not the center of the universe, and we badly need to develop new peer-to-peer approaches to emerging nations that we once treated as subordinates, threats, or simply as irritations.



The ideal would be a multilateral agency, which could tap a wider range of expertise and avoid much of the baggage associated with direct American involvement... but of course that's even less likely to happen.



That's what State does. I think they could do it a lot better, but that will require new directions from above and a conscious attempt to change the culture within.

State is at least theoretically equipped and tasked to develop and implement foreign policy. The military and to a lesser extent CIA are equipped and tasked to manage CT and COIN. Nobody is equipped and tasked to manage stabilization and reconstruction, so these tasks are simply ignored, or handed off piecemeal to those who have neither the capacity nor the inclination to perform them.

I quite agree with your assessment of local perceptions of the Karzai government, but what to do about that problem remains a problem. Of course we can dump him and bail, but that almsot certainly means the return of the Taliban and of AQ, which would sacrifice the objective of the entire operation.

This just underscores the difficulty of creating and installing governments in other countries. It's exceedingly difficult, and if the first go doesn't work you can't simply dissolve the government you've created and have another go. If it doesn't work as planned it's easy to end up strapped to a government that cannot stand, but which you cannot allow to fall. Bad place to be.

COIN is an effort by a govenment to resolve an insurgency with a hard and fast condition of maintaining the current government in power. When we think we are doing COIN, we too fall into the trap of buying into the condition of maintaining the current government in power. The tactics of "Population-Centric COIN do nothing to alleviate our commitment to that dangerous condition.

FID, on the other hand, creates enough intellectual maneuver room to allow a clearer perspective. When one appreciates that true success in COIN comes from addressing the perceptions of failure on the governments part within critical at risk segments of the populace, the FID actor can be more pragmatic. At the end of the day, the goal of FID is to preserve your national interests in a particular region and ANY government that is willing to work with you on those interests AND is also able to maintain stability among its populace is fine for your ends. This is what my work on Populace-Centric Engagement / Policy is about. It recgonizes our ends are best met by focusing on the needs of the populace, and not the needs of any particular government that happens to be in office.

BLUF: If our current efforts in Afghanistan have somehow morphed to being tied to preserving a particular form of government, or even particular personnel in office, it has become dangerously flawed at a strategic level.

[Dayuhan]

COIN is an effort by a govenment to resolve an insurgency with a hard and fast condition of maintaining the current government in power. When we think we are doing COIN, we too fall into the trap of buying into the condition of maintaining the current government in power. The tactics of "Population-Centric COIN do nothing to alleviate our commitment to that dangerous condition.

FID, on the other hand, creates enough intellectual maneuver room to allow a clearer perspective. When one appreciates that true success in COIN comes from addressing the perceptions of failure on the governments part within critical at risk segments of the populace, the FID actor can be more pragmatic. At the end of the day, the goal of FID is to preserve your national interests in a particular region and ANY government that is willing to work with you on those interests AND is also able to maintain stability among its populace is fine for your ends. This is what my work on Populace-Centric Engagement / Policy is about. It recgonizes our ends are best met by focusing on the needs of the populace, and not the needs of any particular government that happens to be in office.

I appreciate the distinction and fundamentally agree. What the distinction overlooks in this case is that the government in question is our creation. We designed it, we built it, and we have publicly declared it legitimate. Those realities do bind us to that government to a much greater degree than would be present if we had stepped into a pre-existing conflict to assist a pre-existing government.

In theory, of course we could work with any government that is willing to work with us on our interests and is able to maintain stability among its populace. Realistically, our options are pretty limited. We cannot remove the Karzai government without completely de-legitimizing our involvement in the Afghan political process. If we cease to support the Karzai government and let it fall, it will almost certainly be replaced by a government that is totally unwilling to deal with us on anything.

Back in the Cold War days we'd have dealt with this sort of situation by letting it be known in certain circles that we would be willing to deal with an internal coup carried out by someone willing to work with us. That didn't work out so well for the most part. It will be interesting to see what we come up with this time round. The current policy seems to be to shape the Karzai government into something other than what it is. I'm not at all convinced that we can accomplish that. If we don't, there are a very limited number of options available, and none of them are very appealing.

[davidbfpo]

His viewpoint, afteryears of experience in country:

The "Peace Jirgah" called by President Karzai convened amidst accusations that the process has being rigged. But rather than dismissing it as another government failure, Carlo Ungaro says it should be seen as an instrument to help reconcile respected and valid Afghan traditions to the country’s aspirations to be part of the modern family of nations.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/carlo-u...ah-way-forward