Afghanistan: Sealing the deal in the "build" phase?

[Steve the Planner]

Schmedlap:

Sounds like you are back to square one: Why has Afghanistan traditionally been viewed as a graveyard of empires?

Because it defies the ability of empires to apply empirical solutions through traditional top-down, national and provincial level controls through an established system of governance consistent with empirical understandings.

Does that mean it is ungoverned and ungovernable? No.

It is just isn't what we are hoping for, and does not fit within our models.

I would argue, instead, that many of our ill-fitting definitions and solutions are actually the "harm" that helps to drive conflict.

There is a very interesting correlation to Iraq circa 1950's when the balance was shifting in its most pronounced ways from tribal/rural to urban/national, and the duality of governance in such places.

Not unlike Iraq in that period, Afghanistan presents (and has since doomed attempts at nation-forward efforts in the past) a dynamic split of regions and societies with pronounced regional, local, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and basic philosophical differences, many of which are underscored by cross-border affiliations, and embedded in a framework driven by external competition and conflicts (of which we are one of many substantial players).

How did Iraq deal with this period of dualities as it marched down the rocky and unstable road from traditional/rural to urban/national (a march which continues today)?

Answers included substantial political instability, changes of government and government structures, dual governance structures for (bedoiun, religious communities, and urban societies), a marked public opposition to outside interference while, in reality, outsiders were substantial drivers, allies, opponents. A very complex history, still playing out, but with bedoiun and other minorities as more of a historical artifact, and, after this election, tribal affiliations giving way to more potent religious/ethnic affiliations.

Is Afghanistan really on that same transitional road (as a nation), or are we just trying to make it so?

Absent some substantial reconceptualization and resource identification, Afghanistan's path, unlike Iraq's, does not guarantee a unity of geography or peoples, nor a "fixed arrow" toward national unity under the type of significant national structure that underpins many of ours and the many other international actors' implicit and very confusing efforts in this hot and pressure-filled stew pot.

The fact is that there are many ways, as evident by our human histories there and elsewhere by which peoples can come to accommodations that allow them (if some choose) to move forward without extreme disruption by others, and without posing untenable threats to others.

As evident in the recent NYT article on Kandahar, we have not figured out the ways, and, to my way of thinking, have yet to initiate credible deliberations about viable alternative ways:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/wo...7kandahar.html

In Iraq, we went into 2008 with a focus from Iraqis and the "Coalition" to bring conflict to an end, and move the Iraqi "march" back into Iraqi's hands.

In Afghanistan, instead, we entered 2010 with a maelstrom of competing international actors all going in different directions, while the actual Afghan circumstance and future remains un-agreed, uncertain, and undefined.

Look just to our own US confusing and contradictory efforts: CIA & SF are still trying to re-win 2001 based on tactics that are actually, to a great extent, in conflict with the 2010 realities; the military efforts are piecemeal, and have not demonstrated a consistent strategy, ability, or logistical basis to "hold" anything; on the civilian side, "Whole-of-government," a euphemism for bureaucratic "hot potatoes" where no actual person or agency is responsible or focused on the big picture; and, on the external level, so many of the parties are completely at cross-purposes.

A previous critique of US efforts to "Clear-Hold-Build" came from Joanne Nathanson:

I don't understand the concept; you clear, clear and re-clear without any administrative purpose or capability.

Nathanson's comments are still on-point, and we have not, to date, come up with an actual picture on which a solution can be built.

The answer is in the people (peoples) but it is a lot more complicated. The risk is that dividing into regions and factions, each with its own solutions and objectives, goers against our explicit efforts. What we keep seeing, however, is that workable solutions always end up being local, but there is no frame or support structure for them to attach to or build on.

Afghanistan is, in my opinion, clear evidence that the big knowledge gap about this places and these places (far beyond just Flynn's military info gap) between the current military and civilian efforts continues to limit any possible solutions that could be accepted and sustained in Afghanistan.

I'm just waiting, as with Iraq, for somebody to cut the Gordian Knot, and actually start on a process toward solutions, instead of just demands and efforts to force our solutions which don't work.

Even if Afghanistan remains a graveyard of empires, it doesn't mean that credible non-empirical objectives could not be accomplished, but we haven't started on that discussion yet.