Economics and Irregular Warfare

[Steve the Planner]

Steve:

Financial Times had the latest on the opening of the Northern Route, and hearty encouragement for the line through Afghanistan to India via Pakistan:
"From hell, through hell, to hell."

Strange but typical business arguments about united all stakeholders, and long-term benefits if Taliban will join up with Pashtun brethren to reap the benefits...

Seems out of place for a couple of reasons: First, corruption---How are all these long-term stakeholders supposed to perceive/receive a benefit in the current climate? Second, another reason to unite Taliban and Pashtuns for an inter-border "benefit" for Pashtunistan. No?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e09d8fa-f...44feab49a.html

Makes sense, but there are plenty of reasons why it hasn;t moved forward yet.

[Surferbeetle]

Steve,

Appreciate the article it's an interesting one.

Financial Times had the latest on the opening of the Northern Route, and hearty encouragement for the line through Afghanistan to India via Pakistan:
"From hell, through hell, to hell."

Strange but typical business arguments about united all stakeholders, and long-term benefits if Taliban will join up with Pashtun brethren to reap the benefits...

Here are some more Afghanistan energy centric jigsaw pieces:

Wikipedia on the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAP)

On 24 April 2008, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan signed a framework agreement to buy natural gas from Turkmenistan.[6]

The pipeline will be 1,420 millimetres (56 in) in diameter with a working pressure of 100 standard atmospheres (10,000 kPa).[7] The initial capacity will be 27 billion cubic meter (bcm) of natural gas per year of which 2 bcm will be provided to Afghanistan and 12.5 bcm to each Pakistan and India. Later the capacity will increase to 33 bcm.[8] Six compressor stations would be constructed along the pipeline.[7] The pipeline was expected to be operational by 2014.[9]

The cost of the pipeline is estimated cost at US$7.6 billion.[6] The project is to be financed by the Asian Development Bank.[10]

The Afghanistan Energy Profile from the EIA. The estimate for natural gas reserves is in the neighborhood of 1,750 billion cubic feet. (website acessed on 11 Jan '10) (1 cubic meter = 35.3146667 cubic foot)

The Afghanistan Country Study, Foreign Area Studies, The American University, Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins, Research completed, January 1986.

Chapter 3 covers the Economy and Mining info starts on page 192 (55 of the pdf).

Natural gas was the most important mineral resource and industrial product. The country was thought to possess 110 to 150 billion cubic meters of total reserves. With Soviet assistance, production began in 1967 at the Kwoja Gugerdak field, 15 kilometers east of Sbeberghan in Jowzjan Province. The field’s reserves were thought to be 67 billion cubic meters. The Soviets also completed in 1967 a IOO-kilometer gas pipeline, 820 millimeters in diameter, linking Keleft in the Soviet Union with Sheberghan. Other fields were discovered at Kwaja Bolan, Yatim Taq, and Jousik, with reserves of about 2.5 billion cubic meters. Gas production rose from I.68 billion cubic meters in 1968 to 2.8 billion in 1980. In 1982 a new field at Jarquduk, also in Jowzjan, started production, again with Soviet aid

For scale the EIA (website acessed on 11 Jan '10) Qatar Energy Profile estimate for natural gas reserves is in the neighborhood of 910,520 billion cubic feet and the Turkmenistan Energy Profile estimate for natural gas reserves is at 71,000 billion cubic feet. (1 cubic meter = 35.3146667 cubic foot)

Bloomberg tracks commodity futures here. As of 11 Jan '10 the NATURAL GAS FUTR (USD/MMBtu) 5.485 and 1 std.cu.feet of natural gas = 1000 BTU = 252 kilocalories per this website (Energy Policy & Planning Office, Ministry of Energy, Thailand) while Wikipedia notes that "1 standard cubic foot of natural gas yields ≈ 1030 BTU (between 1010 BTU and 1070 BTU, depending on quality, when burned)" and that 'MMBTU represent one million BTU'.

Seems out of place for a couple of reasons: First, corruption---How are all these long-term stakeholders supposed to perceive/receive a benefit in the current climate? Second, another reason to unite Taliban and Pashtuns for an inter-border "benefit" for Pashtunistan. No?

As you know from Iraq identifying and empowering moderates is very tricky business. Our DoS friends have their work cut out for them

Steve

[davidbfpo]

Steve,

IIRC the Afghan gas and oil fields were heavily reduced during the Soviet intervention, even to the point they had been exhausted. What is the current state of those fields? I have not looked any further.

[tequila]

AFP - Afghanistan sitting on a gold mine

USGS - Assessment of Undiscovered Petroleum Resources of Northern Afghanistan

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey–Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Industry Joint Oil and Gas Resource Assessment Team estimated mean volumes of undiscovered petroleum in northern Afghanistan; the resulting estimates are 1,596 million barrels of crude oil, 15,687 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 562 million barrels of natural gas liquids. Most of the undiscovered crude oil is in the Afghan-Tajik Basin, and most of the undiscovered natural gas is in the Amu Darya Basin.

Afghanistan has quite a bit of mineral wealth that, in the absence of conflict, could bring it a reasonable resource base for development. Of course that would require ending the insurgency so that investors would feel comfortable expending the billions required to get at it, and an Afghan government that could avoid the resource curse.

[S2MSSI]

All, sorry to budge in on this post and take it back some posts, but I saw some areas/questions that were not really addressed and I may be able to shed some different thinking.

Initially, the post addressing Economics was brought up to assess an area. Through the posts it came to Illicit Activities as perhaps another more viable approach to COIN and IW-related activities.

I'd like to draw you back to the systems-approach of understanding an ecosystem of the immediate and outskirts of an environment. Economics is certainly a part of this, and as many have posted--the local level is core. But going back to a dynamic systems approach where one looks at the associations and intersections of activity, you may see that in fact when it comes to hunting finance and value exchanges the core may be informal economies---not illicit. Also not economics but the micro and macro version of the formal and informal economic transactional structure and how value exchanges take place from social favors and obligations to commodity items (livestock, produce, clothes, land, ...) to actual monetary items through the banking system (again informal and formal where hawala meets 1st Bank of X).

Again, it comes back to the human terrain and social culture and history to know how life takes place on a daily basis and how sub-systems of an illicit activity blend into normal every day life because for locals it is part of every day and is not illicit in their eyes. A porter carrying raw opium across a border may not be conducting an illicit activity as much as in his eyes is doing his daily porter job within his tribal ties but today someone has asked him to carry an item involved in narcotics trade (whatever that may be to him) vs. a tv the day before. Note: rough example as many are fully aware of the legal aspects involved in drugs and the higher wage they can gain. But the point is, yes, economics and dark transactions all need to be assessed but not in a vacuum and instead as the whole environmental on-goings if one is to really spot obvious or subtle indicators and anomalies. Good example is Trade Based Money Laundering where one needs to know the baseline of goods and services in a country or local market before one can see if the overs/unders make sense.

Back to systems approach one can also see the Power players of an area to see where real power does indeed rest through catalyst areas of influence and centers of gravity. Profits can also be better understood because through full ecosystem mapping you can break almost all activity down to supply chain processes, which can be augmented, improved, or my favorites--destroyed and disrupted.

Anyway, my 2 cents in an effort to fill a couple holes.

[saveus]

Sorry I couldn't read all of the posts but I have a few questions from what I've read. What resources does Afghanistan have? Do you think US attacked Afghanistan for its resources just like Iraq ? Well we all know Iraq had oil but i didn't know about resources in Afghanistan!