Lessons Not Learned

[MikeF]

WORKED. Until Clinton and Maddie dismantled it.

So did USIA -- also dismantled.

The decision to move USIA into the State Department makes me want to start doing drugs-specifically LSD. Then, maybe I can understand that rationale.

v/r

Mike

[John T. Fishel]

was Jesse Helms' doing. He insisted on dismantling it. USAID is more complex. From a major organization with its own experts and professionals it gradually became a contracting organization providing funds to NGOs for projects. This began in the Reagan years and escalated to the present.

Cheers

JohnT

[reed11b]

was Jesse Helms' doing. He insisted on dismantling it. USAID is more complex. From a major organization with its own experts and professionals it gradually became a contracting organization providing funds to NGOs for projects. This began in the Reagan years and escalated to the present.

Cheers

JohnT

Ahhh, yet another "success" for privatization!
Reed

[Steve the Planner]

SWJ Blog's new article: Perspective on the Systems Perspective
How Army Special Forces Can Use Existing Systems within the Operational Environment
by Major Michael Longacre, Small Wars Journal

Major Longacre makes a great pitch for systems approaches to planning and basic infrastructure (road, electrical systems). Couldn't have said it better.

Civilian planners are trained in looking at systems, linkages, and connections. Leg bone's connected to the tail bone, etc...

Unfortunately, no one is focusing on this stuff, as evidenced by DoD, DoS, and US AID hiring postures. No planning advisers advertised for Afghanistan. Instead, planning is just a sub-heading within overall advisory positions.

In Iraq, State reconstruction strategy was focused on province-by-province, and the military was focused on battlespace-by-battlespace. There was no big picture. No planning.

Sounds like the same thing will happen in Afghanistan. Oh, well! So much for small changes that could create big improvements.

Steve

[reed11b]

In A-stan, province by province may not be a bad thing. The 'Stan lacks the history or infrastructure of a strong central government that Iraq had. Grass roots projects to bring up quality of life that the recipients can appreciate is more important then having big projects that make good press. However if the provincial governments chose and advise the projects then the graft will sink $$ in big a big way and possibly alienate more locals. Just my 2 cents.
Reed
P.S. Focus for us has to be military in nature regardless. If Karzai asks for funding for a national highway plan or something, I think we owe his country the support, but for planning on our national level, security first, security second and security third.

[Steve the Planner]

Reed:

Reconstruction: Fixing what's broken.

Development: Making something new. (with the caveat that the pioneer usually gets all the arrows).

Problem is that Congress is funding $7 billion for State/US AID plus a half a billion in CERP Funds with a goal of obtaining some substantial economic and societal transformations---something new and different---whatever that may be.

So, what is it? How is it going to work? How is it going to survive? How is the money going to get out of the capital and down to real people?

I've heard big ideas like turning opium into commercial flower production. OK, but where is the refrigerated storage, and just-in-time delivery service to European flower markets. Seeds, bulbs, fertilizer, high-volume irrigation, power, transportation systems.

And the dumb question, whether for flowers or any other regional or national transformative effort, needs to be asked: If it could be done profitably, why isn't somebody doing it already?

If the answer is "but for the instability", or the lack of a critical infrastructure component, that's one thing, but if we are talking about re-engineering a sustainable change in a challenging region with minimal resources and infrastructure, I sure hope somebody is looking at this systemically, or it is just a waste of time and US taxpayer money (and a lot of lives).

The big question I have, at a regional and provincial levels (and trickling down to local) is whether a viable strategy can be put together to make substantial changes that will transform the current situation?

What are the pieces? How do you connect them?

More than anything, the hundreds of empty, abandoned, unstaffed, unequipped, or never completed schools and health clinics in Iraq should have taught us that throwing things at a wall to see if it sticks is not really a plan, and isn't likely to work.

Steve

[reed11b]

Schools and health clinics fall under the "good press" column. Hence my focus on benefits the recipients can appreciate. In more rural areas of A-stan, that might be clean water or fixing irrigation. As far as plans to revitalize a national economy, most big plans have historically enriched a few and had little to negative impact on the majority of the population. A-stan may need a locally based economy for stability and build from there. World markets are not always the best option. I did read somewhere however that India used to be a major importer of Afghan agriculture, perhaps which could be a start point for outside currency?
Reed

[Steve the Planner]

I believe it was Paul Hughes (USIP) who suggested that it stay in State but with the caveat that State, in order to prepare to engage in the modern environment for which contingency ops may be more typical than not, will have to be completely restructured from top to bottom to do it.

As somebody just back from the 2007/2008 civilian surge in Iraq and with Afghanistan on the horizon, it seems like these kinds of ideas (rebuild State and or USAID), are possibly good ideas, but, by the time they could happen, would be ready to deal with a problem that may already be in the rear view mirror.

I just don't get comfort from the idea that the US public is going to let this type and tempo of activity/spending/risks continue for too long. So, where is the urgency to streamline some actions that could happen within a real-time schedule?

Steve

[Ken White]

an existential war and Iraq is not that. Be happy Iraq is getting greater realtive priority than did Viet Nam -- things could be worse...

Still it is annoying that a little bit off focused effort could be easily achieved and pay good dividends. Not likely to happen, Congress likes to play silly games about (1) party superiority and (2) reelection -- the needs of the nation come in a distant fourth after their State or District. .

The public -- the majority of it -- is not the problem; a few in the public, the media and Congress can be problematical but I suspect the new Prez has got at least two years free credit.

[jcustis]

Unless a review from the OMB hits the wire concerning waste, fraud, or abuse, the public has little knowledge of how reconstruction happens., and it would seem right now to not care.