Military-led Development Efforts

[Tom Odom]

True story from my last deployment...

A representative from the Mosul-based PRT pays a visit to our unit at its location SW of Tal Afar, and with a Cheshire Cat grin when describing his ideas and how he only needs some backing through the use of CERP money.

My boss could see right through the smokescreen, and politely asked him why he thought CERP money should be used against projects if he, from the PRT on high, could not source the funding stream to do it. Mr. Cat lost his smirk after that and went out on the next blackhawk available.

Look, CERP is part of the whole money as a weapon system paradigm, and frankly, it isn't as transparent and happy and cute as some would make it seem. It is about influence to support security aims, among other things. When doing things for the sake of security, and heaven forbid, capture/kill, it lends itself to exasperation on many front, though you know exactly what you want to to and who you intend to influence.

Pretty much matches my experiences in this arena, albeit writ on a larger stage

My favorite guidance on CERP was "think Chicago ward politics"


Best
Tom

[Steve the Planner]

Tom:

Right. CERP is for emergencies---I always think of it as the necessary emergency relief services we otherwise had no format for.

MBJ:

Most of it is grain of salt stuff. Somebody thought they were doing good, and wrote glowing reports afterwards---ask an Iraqi, and their views might have been very different, or, as custis's example---somebody's at a PRT's "big idea" for their weekly sitrep.

I was actually more intrigued by your reference to military going around africa, etc., doing non-military things. Bear in mind that our USACE does bridges, dams, hydropower, emergency relief.

A friend just "dodged a bullet" on a tumor, finally ruled non-malignant by the highest authority for cancer cells---Army Pathology Lab.

As a senior DoS advisor in N. Iraq, I came only with a DoS laptop---not a toughbook, no GIS, etc... just report-writing software.

The folks I worked with who were doing the heavy lifting were the mil folks with the D9 Earth Movers, mobility, and security. They made it happen, I advised.

Interestingly, when we were pushing the Mabe Johnson temporary bridges across the Tigris, the company's guy pointed out that Iraq, and arab counties in general were always his biggest customers---mostly through their military Corps of Engineers-equivalents.

Before 2003, Taji was the home of the Iraqi CoE, and they stockpiled all the bridges there. After a flood or an Iranian bombing, they could re-open a bridge in three days (or so I am told).

There is a lot that a military civil engineering, big project, and emergency relief-side almost universally does, and does well---all over the World.

But they are very different missions, approaches. My tank company always travelled with an M88 and mechanics. Their job was not the same as a tank crew's, but they were all interdependent. What's new?

Steve

[Bob's World]

Interesting to note that there are those in US AID that are not such a big fan of CERP and its impact on development efforts. Certainly it has disrupted unity of effort in development as an arm of policy.

I'll be attending an AID conference of the role of Development in COIN next week, and it should be interesting. I'm very familiar with how CERP is employed; and am also a fan of US AID, both as an organization and of the type of committed professionals they attract to their ranks. If anyone has any keen insights, concerns, opinions, etc please feel free to pass along for me to consider as I weigh in on this topic.

[davidbfpo]

Maybe worth trawling the website of the UK Institute of Development Studies, at Sussex University:http://www.ids.ac.uk/ Notably the Security & Conflict part.

[Global Scout]

USAID appears to be somewhat effective (for a USG organization) in nations that are not experiencing serious conflict, but I haven't seen much success (despite herculean efforts) in hostile areas like Afghanistan and Iraq. I think the failures in Iraq are due to internal corruption and corruption in the U.S. contracting process (primarily the last administration).

USAID simply lacks capacity to resusitate a corpse, borrowing a phrase from Dayuhan from another post.

There are several studies that indicate that our aid (not just USAID) prolongs problems and stiffles needed structural changes. Is aid really developmental or is it life support for a system/government/organization that needs to die?

I would like to see a list of USAID successes that actually mattered? Was it simply a temporary local job program, or did they do something that actually resulted in continued development?

The same caution I suggested for MBJ, carefully deleniate between development and aid.

[Ken White]

USAID appears to be somewhat effective (for a USG organization) in nations that are not experiencing serious conflict, but I haven't seen much success (despite herculean efforts) in hostile areas like Afghanistan and Iraq.

in Viet Nam, Laos and other places before Clinton and Albright destroyed the agency by rolling it into State. The Aid folks in Nam did not engage in combat but they had no qualms getting right in the middle of it to do their thing.

I saw them operate in half dozen nations and they really were competent. So was the USIA before the same crew fouled them up in one fell swoop in 1998...

[Global Scout]

Yep, and I think over time Madalene will go down as one of our worst Secretary's of State. That move was nothing more than an incompetent power play, and beyond that morale in State was rock bottom before Collin Powell stepped in. I think USAID still has great people, and they seem to be coming into their own again, but it will take to build the skilled capacity they need.

[Dayuhan]

USAID simply lacks capacity to resusitate a corpse, borrowing a phrase from Dayuhan from another post.

Thanks for the credit... but in Afghanistan we didn't even start with a corpse. We tried to create a government from, essentially, nothing. I'm not at all surprised that it's bloody difficult; what surprises me is that anyone expected it to be anything but bloody difficult.

A lot of people from the military side approach the development issue without realizing that this is a challenge at least as difficult as COIN, likely more so. There's been decades of study, hundreds of billions spent, an extensive leterature, tons of controversy... and nobody, anywhere, has any clear answers or reliable recipes.

First, three kinds of aid, not to be confused: relief, reconstruction, development.

Relief is keeping people alive after natural or man made disasters. It's a logistic challenge first and foremost: water, food, toilets, blankets, tents, doctors, medicines. And, please, trucks. I've never met a relief aid manager who ever had enough trucks or fuel. Relief aid is very difficult, but we do it reasonably well, because the goals are clear, immediate, and defined.

Reconstruction is rebuilding what's broken. Again, we're good at this: build a bridge, fix a road, repair an irrigation system... stuff we know how to do.

Development is a totally different animal. After all these years, even in the development community there is no clear definition of what it is, let alone how to get there. At the end of the day what it is and how to get there are different in every environment. There have also been legions of well intentioned "development" projects that have made things worse: the potential for unintended adverse consequences is huge.

[rant]

My own opinion, after observing it for way too many years, is that there's a fundamental dissonance in our approach to development aid. We treat it as a problem of money and expertise, when in reality the primary obstacles to development are political. Fact of life: real development is almost always going to piss someone off, usually someone powerful. Primitive neo-feudal economies don't exist by accident, they exist because somebody finds them very profitable. Local power brokers in underdeveloped areas don't want rural entrepreneurship. They don't want livelihood opportunities, cottage industries, agricultural modernization. They may say they want these things, if it brings foreign money, but behind the scenes they will try to derail any effort that threatens them. They fight these things because to them real development is an existential threat: their power, prosperity, and ability to avoid being hung from a lamp-post depends on personal control of resources and economic opportunities.

The bottom line for me is that in places where the political conditions to support development exist, and where development is already happening, we can support and accelerate it. Pouring money into projects in places where these conditions do not exist may be an admirable salve for the Western conscience, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

[/rant]

To get back on topic, my advice to a military commander with a bit of money and a desire to start development would be... don't. Focus on relief and reconstruction, where goals are clear and accomplishments evident.

Trying to go into "development" is a good way to make temporary friends and permanent enemies.

If it's really, truly, needed, I'd say try to bring in another organization with development expertise, and try to keep their efforts distinct from your effort to provide security. That way when they #@%$ up, less of it flies in your direction. If the security situation is too bad for a development organization to be in the field, it's probably too bad for any meaningful development work as well.

[Global Scout]

First, three kinds of aid, not to be confused: relief, reconstruction, development.

This is helpful for me, and your points about the first two being somewhat clear cut and short term objective focused help me shape my thoughts on this topic, and your points on development merit more discussion.

We treat it as a problem of money and expertise, when in reality the primary obstacles to development are political. Fact of life: real development is almost always going to piss someone off, usually someone powerful.

Since we're all being politically correct (factual versus idealistic), I think development would be better partnered with something that looks more like like political operatons than COIN. Before any serious attempt at providing assistance for development, we promote (for example, through political advice to grass roots movements) a political revolution of sorts that sets the conditions for development efforts to work. I'm not necessarily talking about having an underground make bad politicians disappear, as that would go awry very quickly (a true pandora's box), but rather use tools like twitter to create movements to discredit and pressure the status quo leaders to change their behavior or risk undesirable consequences. Also find means to separate the bad politicians from their sources of power (money, security forces, etc.). Obviously rough thoughts, but if you look at what happened in Poland with the Solidarity movement that removed the old system (at least enough of it) to allow economic development to flurish, there may be opportunities in the world to do similiar activities (not so much in Afghanistan or Iraq).

[Rex Brynen]

First, three kinds of aid, not to be confused: relief, reconstruction, development.

Although—and I'm sure you recognize this—the dividing lines between these are far from clear, and in many cases don't exist at all.

The challenge with relief is to provide it in a way that addresses immediate humanitarian need without creating structural dependencies (reshaping human geographies through refugee camps, depressing local agricultural production through food aid, etc) or aggravates existing tensions (looting and taxing of relief supplies by combatants). Reconstruction almost always involves the sort of political and social challenges you discuss under the heading of development.

As for development, I absolutely agree. However, credit where credit is due—there are a lot of folks in the development community (although certainly not all) who recognize that politics permeates everything, and unless you have a very good sense of the stakeholder dynamics (and some genuine local buy-in) you're not going to go anywhere.